Shelter

by Stephanie Fournet

  Instead of responding, I crossed her room, pushed the drapes aside, and unlocked the window. I expected Elise to just watch me go, but as soon as I got the window open, she ran up to me.

  “Will you be able to get into your house? Mama probably locked up.” A look of concern pulled her brows together. Concern was almost as bad as pity.

  “I’m smart enough to get into my house even with all the doors locked,” I bit out — but quietly. I still didn’t want Flora to hear.

  Elise looked away and flicked her hand up and down. “Fine. What do I care?”

  “Let’s keep it that way,” I wanted to say. Instead, I hooked my fingers under the latches of her window screen and popped them open. Then I pushed the bottom of the screen out until it pressed against the stupid barberry bushes. The stiff limbs of the bush rustled in protest when I shoved harder, so I stopped, afraid Flora would hear me.

  And as soon as I stepped past the protection of the screen, thorns dug into my pants, one snaking up beyond the cuff and swiping my shin. I bit back a curse at this and waded through a few more spiky assaults until I reached the pavement.

  Turning back to the window, I found Elise watching and snickering quietly. To my surprise, I could take her laughing at me easier than her pitying me. But she didn’t need to know that.

  “Go to sleep, little girl. It’s past your bedtime,” I said just loud enough for her to hear me.

  Her snicker turned into a snarl, and she shut the window and closed the drapes.

  I made my way around the side of the house and tried the door we’d used to sneak out, but, just as Elise had predicted, Flora had locked it. I knew the front door was locked. He had locked it before questioning me about where I’d been.

  As if I’d try to run away.

  I hadn’t tried to run from my father since I was six years old. What was the point? Back then, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to outrun him. Make it to the door… call for help… No. I might be able to outrun him now. He was forty-one years old, and his only exercise was golf. Because of swimming, running almost never left me winded. I might be able to leave him in the dust.

  Maybe he’d even have a heart attack.

  I let that fantasy go before it could start. Thinking like that only frustrated me.

  I didn’t even bother doubling back to the back door. Flora wouldn’t dream of leaving it unlocked. That left the fig tree. I crept to the front yard and stared up at Ava’s window. It was dark. I hadn’t seen her from the front hall when I’d come in. Other than Flora and Elise, the downstairs had been empty. Which meant that Ava was probably sound asleep by now.

  The fig tree, sprawling and springy, was not tall enough to reach Ava’s front window. It was, however, tall enough to reach the roofline of the garage, and that was just below her south-facing window. And even though the limbs swayed with my weight, the fig tree was easy climbing. I made it to the roof and hoisted myself up as quietly as I could.

  At her window ledge, I leaned in and gave the glass three short taps. And then I waited through silence. Tapping harder, I wrapped three more times. Finally, Ava’s bedside lamp lit, and soon her sleepy face appeared.

  Frowning at me, my sister unlocked and raised the sash. “Cole, what are you doing out here? If Dad finds out—”

  “Move out of the way,” I whispered before stepping through her window and arching my back to pull the rest of my body inside. As soon as I stood, Ava gasped.

  “What happened to your lip?”

  I debated lying. Ava could not give up the hope that one day our father would change. I had long ago abandoned those kinds of fantasies, but I couldn’t exactly blame her. Out of the three of us, me, her, and Mom, Ava was spared the worst of my father’s tempers.

  Because Mom and I made sure of it.

  And the last month had given her reason to hope. With the Cormiers living on our property, my father had been on his best behavior. I also wondered if the incident with my mother and the stairs hadn’t scared him a little. I knew it would never scare him straight, but the police had asked an awful a lot of questions that night.

  And maybe it had scared him in other ways. I had seen Mom, broken and gasping at the bottom of the stairs. I’d also seen my father’s face. He’d gone completely white. Bone white. As if he couldn’t believe what he’d done. Mom had been going into shock by the time the ambulance arrived, and I didn’t’ think anyone else noticed it, but I think he wasn’t too far behind her, shaking the way he had. I’d also noticed that when one of the paramedics offered him a blanket while they stabilized my mother, he’d accepted.

  But the back of his hand across my mouth tonight had proved his ability to get over it.

  I sighed and answered Ava’s question. “What do you think happened to it?”

  Her face fell. “No…” she moaned.

  I gritted my teeth because anything I could say would only upset her. Her gaze left my face, and I knew she was seeing her hopes turn to ash again. Then her eyes snapped back to mine.

  “Did he throw you out?” she asked, new terror claiming her face.

  “No,” I said quickly, not wanting her imagination to make anything worse for her. Life for my sister was bad enough already. “I was with Elise. She was helping me, and Flora locked the doors.”

  Ava fast blinked. “Elise? Cormier?”

  I frowned and gestured around us. “Do you know any other Elise around here?”

  Ava closed her eyes as her brows climbed. “No.” She shook her head. “But she’s just a little kid.”

  My mouth hitched to the side. “She’s just a year younger than you.”

  Ava frowned, her confusion making her stammer. “B-b-but how could she help? What does she know?”

  I pinned her with a hard look. “She knows how to get bloodstains out of a dress shirt.”

  Surprise lifted her brows again. Her eyes traveled to the wet spot on my shirt before meeting mine again. We stared at each other for a moment, and I watched her eyes fill.

  “Is she gonna to t-tell anyone?” Ava asked, her voice breaking.

  My shoulders fell. I wondered if Ava was more afraid of people knowing the truth about us than she was of living the truth about us.

  Hell, maybe I was too.

  “No, she’s not going to tell anyone.”

  A fat tear spilled down her cheek. She pulled in a breath through her nose. “How d-do you know?”

  I shrugged. “She said she wouldn’t, and she never said anything about Halloween.”

  Ava shuddered, and she turned away from me. “I told you I never wanted to talk about that,” she hissed.

  “I know. I’m sorry.” I exhaled and took two steps toward her. Ava was looking out her window, her eyes still shining. I put my hands on her shoulders and felt them shake with a quiet sob.

  My stomach twisted, just like it did every time Ava wept. “Stop crying.” My words fell somewhere between an order and a plea, and I heard her hold her breath and struggle to stop.

  I pressed my lips together, thinking about how I’d let myself cry after he had walked away. Why had I gone and done that? I hadn’t cried in more than three years.

  And Elise Cormier saw me.

  I dropped my hands from Ava’s shoulders and turned away.

  “I’m sorry.” She sniffed, probably thinking my disgust was directed at her. “I’d just hoped he’d stopped. It’s been a whole month.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I grumbled bitterly. “Seems like he’s back from vacation.”

  I crossed her room and grasped her doorknob, but a thought stopped me. Elise Cormier knew our secret. My guess was that Flora suspected it too, even if she didn’t know for sure. Their presence hadn’t been enough to stop our father completely, but I knew it helped. I turned back to my sister.

  “Ava.”

  Her eyes lifted to mine, and I made sure she was listening. “Yeah?”

  “The next time he gets mad, go to the Cormier’s. If Flora’s in the kitchen, go there. If not
, go to the guesthouse.”

  She blinked at me. “What about you?”

  “I’ll come with you if I can,” I hedged. The only way I’d do that was if Mom wasn’t home. If Ava, I, or the both of us were his targets. I wouldn’t leave my mother alone with him again.

  “But don’t wait for me.”

  Chapter 5

  COLE

  “Hey, Whitehurst, want a hit?”

  Wearing a shit-eating grin, Louis Castor offered me his apple bong. I looked with envy at the smoking fruit my best friend held. It had been a god-awful week. After placing fifth in the state last year, I’d lost the first wrestling match of the season Tuesday night. I shouldn’t have gone at all. If I’d bailed, at least I would have been home for Mom.

  But I hadn’t been. Now she was limping again.

  That was the night before the PSAT. A long night. So I’d probably blown those, too.

  I looked at Louis and his very tempting offering and sighed. “We’re in season. Coach randomly tests,” I said with a shrug. “I can’t afford to get kicked off the team.”

  Louis dropped down into a squat beside me, his bony limbs collapsing like an accordion. “Old King Cole was a very old soul, and a very old soul was he. He turned down his pipe, and he turned down his bowl, and he cursed out his fiddlers three.” Louis chanted the nursery rhyme he’d modified just for me.

  I gave him my best deadpan stare even though he’d tempted my grin.

  “You should at least appreciate the simple beauty of the apple bong,” he said, holding the improvised pipe like a trophy. Then he put his big lips around the hole he’d drilled into the side of the apple and took a long, solemn draw. Squinting his eyes and tucking his chin as he held it in, he pointed a finger at me.

  I rolled my eyes and took his cue. “Why, Louis? Why is it simply beautiful?” I asked.

  “Because,” he wheezed, holding onto his hit. His face broke into a smile as smoke puffed out of him, “it’s a Pipe-O-Snack. You smoke your doob, and when the munchies hit, you’re all set. Smoke your stack. Eat your snack.” He gazed lovingly at the browning apple. “I could write a song about my apple bong.”

  His laughter screeched across the night. Louis thought he was the funniest person around. And half the time, he was right. I gave him a grudging smile. “Ingenious.”

  He nodded, satisfied, but then he gave me the side-eye. “You sure you don’t want any?”

  I shook my head. “No thanks.”

  He pushed his shaggy bangs off his forehead. “Can I get you another beer?” Louis offered, nodding at the half-empty Abita I’d given up on.

  “Sure,” I said, shrugging.

  We were outside by the pool at Bree Baker’s house. Bree was Louis’s girlfriend, and her parents, ironically, actually were bakers. They owned Flour Power, a whole-grain bakery near the university. And since they opened shop at six in the morning, they were always asleep by nine. Which made the Bakers’ house an ideal place to hang if no one’s parents were out of town. If we could keep it quiet and only brought a handful of people.

  And I was fine with that. Crowds did nothing for me. Better still, Bree’s younger sister, Honey, was friends with Ava, so whenever Louis and I went to the Bakers’, I brought her along. My father was in Houston, and he was catching the eleven o’clock flight back to Lafayette, so as long as we were back home by midnight, we’d be okay.

  It was ten-thirty. I could have another beer.

  Louis returned and waved a cold one at me, but he stopped at the edge of the pool. “Come dip your tired feet into these waters, my brother, and we shall ruminate.”

  The higher Louis rose, the more he sounded like a philosophical evangelist. On purpose, thank God.

  I swallowed a chuckle, pushed myself up from the lounge chair I had claimed for the last hour, and toed off my shoes. After peeling off my socks and rolling up my jeans, I joined Louis, who already had his skinny legs dangling down into the water. This was no surprise since Louis was always barefoot unless we were at school, or he was working at Pack ‘N Paddle, or it was January.

  The water’s cold shocked me out of my silence. “Shit,” I muttered. “How can you stand that?”

  Louis gave me a lazy smile. “I feel no pain, Oh, Great Coleman of Whitehurst.”

  Yeah, Louis was feeling pretty good. Lucky bastard.

  I looked over my shoulder toward the house. “Where’d Bree go?”

  He nodded sagely. “I shared my apple of wisdom with my beloved, and in return, she is sharing the food of her people, the ever-coveted Chocolate Brioche.”

  At this, I raised a brow. I’d sampled the Bakers’ chocolate brioche before. It was incredible. I hoped she was planning to share some with me.

  “I hate to break it to you, Louis, but that stuff’s too good to be wasted on a couple of potheads,” I said, giving him a concerned frown. “Maybe I should eat it so it can be appreciated by someone of sound mind and body.”

  His side-eye returned. “Oh, Great Coleman of Whitehurst, you may be of sound body,” he said, gesturing to my arms and legs. “And I may be like a man born of storks and egrets, but my heart is pure.”

  I spluttered a laugh. “You? You think your heart is pure?” I lowered my voice so Bree and her friends couldn’t hear. “I doubt the Bakers would think that if they knew you smoked pot and banged their daughter in their back yard every weekend.”

  It was nearly impossible to offend Louis, so I knew my comment wouldn’t. As expected, he gave me a devil’s grin. “Loving the Beautiful Bree and revering the Almighty Herb only highlight the purity of my heart,” he announced with reckless volume, his voice taking on a bad British accent. “Those habits attest to a heart full of love and joy. You, on the other hand…” He turned his dazed, bloodshot eyes at me, and shook his head with pity.

  I held my face expressionless. My heart certainly wasn’t full of love and joy, whatever that meant.

  Louis splayed the fingers of his left hand and began ticking off each, losing his bad British accent. “You have no girlfriend, even though nearly every girl at our school and about six other schools wants you,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You won’t flame up with your best friend, and you spend your free time rolling around on the floor with other guys—”

  I narrowed my eyes at him with what I knew was my best menacing glare.

  “Which would make me happy for you if you were gay, but I know you’re not,” Louis hastened to add. “Out of all those girls in seven or so schools in town, I know you actually like about four of them, but you won’t do anything about it. And that means your loveless, joyless existence is a choice, so you, my friend, are not deserving of chocolate brioche.”

  We heard a tsk behind us and turned to see Bree approaching with a plate. “Louis, don’t be greedy,” she gently scolded, stepping in between us and motioning for us to make room. When we did, she dropped down, carefully balancing her plate of warm, chocolate-swirled rolls. She leaned into me. “Louis always gets greedy when he’s high. Here, Cole, you deserve a brioche.”

  I quickly wiped my hand on the leg of my jeans and took one off the plate. “Bree, have I told you lately that I love you?”

  She tilted her head back and laughed just as Louis scowled. “Hey—” He reached over and plucked a brioche off the plate before clutching it in both hands and tearing off a bite with his teeth.

  Ignoring him, I took my own bite of the warm, buttery, chocolate pastry. The Bakers used only the best ingredients in their recipes. Locally sourced organic butter and eggs, fair-trade dark chocolate, pink Himalayan salt…

  One palm-sized brioche cost seven dollars, but the few times I’d gone into the bakery with Louis to visit Bree, I’d never given a second thought to handing over whatever I had in my wallet for any of their chocolate creations.

  “Mmm,” I sighed, closing my eyes and letting myself fall into the bliss of brioche. I immediately regretted saying anything about Louis banging Bree in her back yard every weekend. Of course, it was
the truth, but Bree was always nice to me. I hung around with Louis almost all the time, and more often than not, I brought my little sister with me.

  Neither Louis nor Bree ever complained, and they’d been dating for six months now. They always acted as if Ava and I were supposed to be tagging along. And for that, I was grateful.

  They were my friends. The only two people I thought of as friends. I had teammates and classmates I might talk to at school, but they didn’t know me. Louis knew me. He’d known me since sixth grade when I’d beaten the crap out of him for no other reason than he’d asked me why I was dragging my backpack instead of wearing it on my shoulder.

  I had been dragging my backpack because my father had striped my back and shoulders with his belt the night before, and the weight of my book sack had brought tears to my eyes.

  And in that moment, Louis, the little, weak, helpless turd that he was, reminded me of me. So, I’d waited until we were on our way to P.E. and punched him in the stomach outside the gym. When he’d folded like a paper bag, I’d felt like absolute shit. I’d just taken off running. And when he’d shown up tardy for PE and gotten a detention, he hadn’t told on me.

  That had made me feel even worse. Because I also never told. Again, he’d reminded me of me. And if he was me in that situation, then who was I?

  That might have been the last time I would have even looked at Louis Castor if it hadn’t been for the basketball. Our class was in the middle of the basketball unit, and the coach was having us do free-throw drills. I’d been standing in line, waiting for my turn and feeling like shit, when someone tapped me on the arm.

  Without thinking, I’d turned, and Louis slammed his basketball right into my nose. I saw stars. I gushed blood.

  And I laughed.

  Even though half the class had seen it, the coach hadn’t. When he asked what happened, I’d just laughed, swung my arm around Louis’s shoulders, and said it was an accident.

  And we’d been friends ever since.

  Maybe it was the warmth of the pastry in my hand, its heavenly sweetness. Maybe the three beers I’d swallowed had lowered my defenses. Maybe it was the memory of how I’d found my best friend. Or maybe the week of failures had gotten the best of me…