“I just…I gotta go, JC,” I say, shaking his hand from my arm and walking out the front door.
“Hey, wait! Sam!” JC is shouting, but I’m already gone. I take off through the front yard and jump the fence, my sneakers digging into the sandy ground between Ace’s house and mine. I run all the way down my driveway and into the garage.
I pull the cell phone out of my pocket and put it on Dad’s old workbench. I push the power button, and the screen lights up. A picture of Ace and Marnie together, kissing. I find Ace’s video folder and touch the first thumbnail picture, dated last week. Immediately, a video starts to play. Marnie in a black tank top and Broadmeadow sweatpants, smiling on the screen. Marnie’s giggle. Ace’s voice. Marnie, in just a bra now, laughing and being silly for the camera. Some jumpy video of the sheets and then Marnie, on top of Ace. Her shy smile. She mouths “love you” to the camera. Ace’s quiet laugh. The sick feeling washes from the top of my head all the way to my toes.
I pause the video with shaking fingers and shove the phone in my pocket. I can’t watch anymore. I need to tell someone. I need to show them…Marnie. What was Ace going to do with this video? She’s not safe with him.
“Mom!” I yell. “I need to talk to you,” I say, heading toward the light in the kitchen. She’ll know what to do. She’ll know how to handle this.
“Mom, I need your help. I don’t know what to—”
Mom and Grandpa are sitting at the kitchen table. Mom is crying into her hands, and Grandpa is rubbing her back.
“It may be time to go back, Jenny,” Grandpa is saying.
Mom squeezes her fists into her eyes. She’s nodding.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Grandpa says.
“Mom?” I say, coming into the kitchen. “What’s going on?”
Grandpa looks at me. “Your mom is having a rough night,” he says.
I sit down at the table. “Mom?”
“I think I need to go back to Morningside, Sam,” she says.
Morningside. Where Mom learned yoga and breathing techniques and coping strategies and twelve steps and all the things she now teaches to others. Morningside. Where Mom decided to quit her job as a real estate agent. Morningside. Where she was prescribed a cocktail of chemicals that was supposed to keep her from having to go back.
“But I thought you and Cathy—”
“She needs more than Cathy can give her right now, Sam,” Grandpa says, cutting me off.
“Mom?”
“I’m voluntarily going this time, Sam. I won’t be gone as long…It’ll be okay,” she says, a smile touching her lips.
“But you got better…You were better,” I say.
Mom wipes at her eyes with a tissue. “I’ll be better again,” she says.
The cell phone in my pocket buzzes. I don’t look at it.
15
MARCH
Two Months Before
The next day, Mom loaded a suitcase full of yoga pants and T-shirts into a duffel bag and we drove her three hours up the coast to Morningside. She seemed stronger when we dropped her off, and I wondered for a minute why she decided that she needed this again.
“Why does she want to go back?” I asked on our way home.
Grandpa shrugged. “It’s been getting worse for awhile, Sammy. It’s not something that just goes away and never comes back.”
“But Cathy, her therapist—”
Grandpa was shaking his head. “It’s more than just Cathy can handle. I know she has tried to be strong around you, kiddo, but she’s really been struggling. She knows herself, Sam. I trust her. We can be strong for her. Men stand on their own two feet.”
With that, he turned the vent on high and we didn’t talk again all the way home.
The house is so quiet without Mom around. You never really give any thought to how much one person does in your life until that person is suddenly missing. Grandpa and I existed on a steady diet of cereal and frozen pizza for the first few days that Mom was gone. We’ve gotten into a routine now, though, one that doesn’t rely so heavily on the microwave or foods with words like Krunch or Krispy on the box.
I keep Ace’s cell phone in my sock drawer. I don’t know what else to do with it. Sometimes I feel like I should have smashed it. I can’t bring myself to do it, though. I disabled the Find My Phone app before I shoved it in the drawer, and for the first few days, it rang all the time. Mostly calls from Ace’s home number. I’m sure he thought he lost it somewhere in the house. The calls stopped after awhile, and I’m sure he’s gotten a new phone with a new number.
I take the phone out at night and look through the pictures in Ace’s camera roll. Some are selfies of Ace and Marnie together. When I look at those, I put my thumb over Ace’s face and pretend it’s me standing next to Marnie. The most recent pictures are of Marnie in her cheer uniform. Some are closeups of her face; others are from farther away. Some are silly, like she knew Ace was taking her picture and she’d make a face. Others are more serious, her eyes clouded and her expression still. I like those better. I look at those a lot.
I touch the text icon and a list of Ace’s old text conversations pops up on the screen. I touch Marnie’s name and scroll back a bit.
Marnie: Can’t you just tell him?
Ace: No, he expects me to win everything. All the time.
Marnie: Well, that doesn’t seem realistic.
Ace: It’s not…but it would make me sound like a pussy if I said that.
Marnie: You’re not a pussy, baby
Ace: Ever since SAOTY, he’s been on my ass. I don’t know how I’m going to tell him I didn’t get into Texas…
Marnie: I’m sorry, babe
Ace: He’s going to kill me. Somehow it’ll be my fault because I let someone “beat me.” Ugh…it’s not going to be a good weekend. If you need me, I’ll be running laps and doing push-ups in the garage all weekend, I’m sure.
I delete the conversation and turn the phone off.
* * *
I bring JC home from school one afternoon, and Mrs. Cushman waves me in from the front porch.
“How’s my Sammy?” she asks, stretching her arm across my shoulders and squeezing.
“I’m okay, Mrs. Cushman,” I mumble.
“I’ve got some casseroles in the freezer for you and your grandpa. Come in and get them. I’ve even printed the defrosting and reheating directions right on the packages,” she says.
“Thank you, Mrs. C. Grandpa has a meeting tonight, but I’m sure we’ll use them later this week,” I say.
“Then you’d better come in and settle yourself right down. You’re staying for dinner tonight. I insist,” she says.
I look at the floor. “Thank you,” I say.
JC and I go upstairs to his room.
“So have you called Haley yet?” he asks as soon as he shuts his bedroom door.
I just sigh.
“Come on, Sam. You told her like a month ago that you were going to take her to the Winter Banquet. It’s next week! She’s bought a dress and everything. She’s really looking forward to it. It’s all she and Jeannie talk about,” he says, settling himself onto his bed with his calculus notebook open in his lap.
I sit backwards in his desk chair, my chin resting on the back. “I don’t even know if I want to go,” I say.
“What’s going on with you? You’re so out of it,” he says, screwing up his face.
“With me? What’s wrong with me? Oh gee, I don’t know, JC. Let me think…” I say sarcastically.
“Hey, chill. I’m just saying you ought to—”
“I’m sick of being told what I ‘ought’ to do, Dad. God, get off my back. I don’t really like Haley…She’s like a little freaking baby. And while we’re on the subject, I don’t know why you’re so into Jeannie,” I say.
“Hey! Who asked you? What’s your deal, Sam?” he asks, closing the notebook and sitting up at the edge of his bed.
“Just…whatever. Forget it,” I say, pulling a paperback from t
he stack on JC’s desk.
“Hey, I know you’re stressed about your mom and everything, but you’ve been acting weird for a while now,” he says.
“I said, forget it. I’m just in a bad mood.”
I have Ace’s cell phone. You wouldn’t believe what I saw. I want to show you, but I’m afraid of what you’ll think of me. What you’ll say. He’s going to hurt Marnie. Sometimes I hate him so much I feel like I could kill him. If it weren’t for the promised escape of college in a few months, I probably would kill him.
“No, really, Sam. I’ve seen you in a bad mood before. This is…It’s more than that. What’s going on with you?”
I could kill him. I swear to God I could kill him.
“Have you talked to Marnie recently? Like in the past couple of weeks? Does she seem okay to you?” I ask.
JC shrugs. “She seems normal. I had lunch with her and Jeannie the other day when you had to retake that chemistry test. Why do you ask?”
I think Ace is convincing her to do things. I can’t be sure. I don’t know if she wanted it or not. But she was there and she looked completely out of it and I’m worried and I love her and if he hurt her, I swear to God. I want her to be okay. Holy fucking shit, I just want her to be okay.
“I’m worried about her,” I say.
“I’m worried about you,” he says.
I look right in JC’s eyes. They dart back and forth over my face, and his eyebrows pull into the center of his forehead. He’s leaning forward onto his knees and chewing on the end of his tongue like he does when he’s nervous.
There’s this black pit inside me, and sometimes when everything is quiet, I feel like it’s going to open up and swallow me whole. Sometimes that scares me to death, and sometimes I think I could slip right down into that pit without a second thought. That I’d welcome it. The quiet. The peace. A place where I can’t be a disappointment to anyone.
“I have—” I start to say.
“Boys! Dinner!” I hear Mrs. Cushman call from downstairs.
“One minute, Mom!” JC calls.
He turns to me. “You have what?”
JC is putting his books and notebooks into his backpack. Straightening up his bed and moving toward the door. “You have what?” he repeats.
“Nothing,” I say. “It’s nothing.”
I open JC’s bedroom door, and we head down to dinner.
To my surprise, Mr. Cushman has cleared off the table and a big spaghetti dinner is spread out.
“No TV trays?” I ask Mrs. Cushman with a smile.
“Not for my number one boys!” she says, pulling my head into her warm shoulder and kissing it.
We serve ourselves heaping helpings of spaghetti and bread and salad, the clanging of spoons on plates the only noise. When we all have steaming plates in front of us, Mr. Cushman stands up at the head of the table and clinks his water glass with a fork.
“The mail was delivered earlier this afternoon,” he says with a big flourish, producing a small stack of envelopes and handing them over to JC.
“Seriously? All of them came today?” JC says, his eyes shining.
“The last of them did. I’ve been holding on to them,” he says sheepishly. “Open them up!”
My heart sinks a little bit. I look around the table. A linen tablecloth, drippy white candles in silver holders. Now I understand. College acceptance letters. Mr. and Mrs. Cushman want to make a big deal out of JC reading his letters tonight. That’s why there are no TV trays. We’re celebrating.
I think about my own mailbox. I may have a letter sitting in the box at the top of our driveway. Grandpa’s in a meeting. Mom is…not home. The house is probably dark and cold. There will be no spaghetti dinner when I get home. No warm smells coming from the kitchen. No special dessert with my name spelled out in chocolate icing. The black pit opens.
“I got into UMass!” JC announces, and Mr. and Mrs. Cushman produce noisemaker horns from their laps.
Toot, toot! They blow into the horns and clap.
JC laughs out loud and moves on to the next envelope.
I climb into the pit and close my eyes.
“Aww…wait-listed at Duke,” he says, scrunching up his nose.
Mr. Cushman blows a sad note on his horn. Waah, waaaaaah.
JC laughs again and pulls the next envelope from the stack.
A new feeling starts to grow. I look at JC’s face, and all I feel is searing-hot anger. I jump up from the table.
“I have to go,” I say, throwing my cloth napkin onto the chair and heading toward the front door.
“Hey, wait!” JC jumps up and runs after me. He catches me just as I have my hand on the front door.
“I can’t do this,” I say. “I can’t stay here and watch you.”
“But my mom made all that food,” JC says.
“I can’t do this, JC! I can’t fucking do this! You know what’s going to happen? I’m going to go home and open the mailbox by myself,” I say, my voice getting louder.
Mr. and Mrs. Cushman appear at the top of the stairs.
“No one is waiting for me at home. Because my mom is fucking crazy. Fucking crazy! And my grandpa can’t even talk to me about it because ‘Men stand on their own two feet.’ Do you know how fucked up that is? I can’t call Marnie anymore. She’s too busy getting fucked by Ace. And don’t even talk to me about stupid Haley, JC. Don’t even say it. You go ahead and have your little celebration. Then go and call your little baby girlfriend and the two of you can have a celebratory fuck,” I say, pulling the door open and slamming it behind me.
I get in my truck and peel out of JC’s driveway as fast as I can. As I race down the road, I see all three Cushmans in my rearview mirror, standing in the street and watching me drive away.
My whole body feels raw. I am breathing through gritted teeth and gripping the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles have turned white. I am slipping, slipping, slipping down into the black pit.
I pull into my driveway, the tires crunching in the sand. The streetlights have come on, and the moon is starting to creep up over the roofs to the east. Slamming my truck door, I go right to the mailbox. It is stuffed with bills and coupon books, but there is also one long, white envelope.
Oceanside College.
Against everyone’s advice, I didn’t apply anywhere else. Oceanside is it. Now that I’m staring at this envelope, I can’t believe how stupid I was.
What if it’s a no, Dad?
It’s not going to be a no. I want to hear his voice, but instead it’s a version of my own voice that pops into my head.
You’re going to be proud of me.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out and look at the screen. JC. I push Ignore and put it back in my pocket. “I’m having my own party, dickweed,” I say.
I sit down on the curb and stare at the Oceanside envelope. I can’t make myself open it.
“What the hell are you doing, Samantha?” Ace appears at the end of his driveway, shirtless and bathed in yellow streetlight. He’s holding a piece of paper in his hand.
I stand up from the curb and brush the sand from my pants.
I’m clawing my way out of that pit.
“What the fuck do you care?” I ask, spitting on the ground a few inches from Ace’s bare feet.
He cocks his head to the side and smiles with great big crocodile teeth. “I don’t, asshole.”
He walks slowly toward me and snatches the envelope from my hands. “Oceanside, huh? Let’s have a look-see, faggot,” he says, ripping it open.
I try to grab it from him. He just jerks his hand back and laughs. “Scholar-athlete, my ass,” he says.
“Look at that. You’re in,” he says, throwing my letter from Oceanside onto the ground.
I stand up as tall as I can and approach Ace. I get right up in his face, and he doesn’t back down. “I’ll finally be rid of you,” I say quietly. I’m not afraid. I’m not frozen. I reach the top of the pit, and I’m pulling myself onto soli
d ground and—
“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, dear Samantha,” he says. He puts the piece of paper from his hand right onto my chest. “Read it and weep, asshole. You’ll never be rid of me. I’ll always be right there. Right behind you. Right in your rearview mirror. Oh no, Samantha. You’ll never be rid of me,” he whispers right in my ear.
He lets his letter drop onto the ground and walks back toward his driveway.
“Fuck you!” I yell toward him.
I start to shake from my bones outward. Ace turns on his heel and slowly saunters back into the middle of the street. “What did you say to me?” he whispers when he finally reaches me.
“I said, fuck you.” Goose bumps pop up on my arms and I am sick to my stomach.
Ace leans toward me and puts his mouth right up next to my ear. “You might want to watch how you talk to me, QB2,” he whispers, his breath tickling the inside of my ear. “I’m not twelve years old anymore,” he says.
He turns on his heel and walks into his house. I sit down in the middle of the street, my breath ragged and my skin raw and burning. I pick up both letters from Oceanside.
Dear Dean Quinn Jr.,
We are pleased to offer you a scholarship for the coming school year. There was a staggering number of applicants this year, and you should be very proud that you have been selected…
Dear Samuel North,
We are pleased to offer you a scholarship for the coming school year. There was a staggering number of applicants this year, and you should be very proud that you have been selected…
It’s not going to stop. It’s never going to stop.
16
APRIL
One Month Before
JC and I haven’t spoken since I stormed out of his house a few weeks ago. I know I should apologize, but I don’t even know what I would be apologizing for. I catch him looking at me during lunch. I sit alone by the door to the courtyard. Sometimes I eat.
Mostly I don’t.
Marnie is walking into school just a few steps ahead of me. I could reach out and touch her back if I stretched far enough.
Until I Break Page 11
