by S. L. Naeole
Audrey reached out and shook Mom’s and Dad’s hands. I noticed that she was wearing a pair of white shorts and a black t-shirt that read “I Got Clawed At Black Cat Rock” on its front. She was smiling, her eyes now clear and her cheeks pink with happiness instead of red from hurt. I couldn’t help but smile because of that.
“And who’s that? A dinner guest?”
The jerk was speaking again, and he was glaring at me while he did it.
“Oh,” Mom said, noticing and smiling nervously. “This is our daughter, Fallon.”
“Your daughter? How the hell is this trog your daughter?”
“Liam!” Johann snapped.
“I told you she’s not a trog,” Audrey said smugly before rolling toward me. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I said, trying very hard to keep my teeth from gnashing.
“You’ve met already?” Audrey’s father asked, looking between the two of us, surprised.
“I told you, Dad, she’s the one who was harassing Aud,” Liam said, his voice angry, his eyes filled with contempt.
“She was not harassing me!”
“I wasn’t harassing her!”
Our synchronized protests at the accusation caused everyone moving around us to stop, their attention caught by the sudden outburst.
“I saw you. You made her cry,” Liam hissed, his finger somehow reaching across the wide space between us to jam into my shoulder. “And my sister doesn’t cry.”
Audrey pulled her brother’s arm down and like lightning, her fist flew out and she punched him in the gut, doubling him over. “You jerk! I told you it wasn’t her fault! What part of ‘not her fault’ do you not get?”
Johann pushed himself between his children and looked at them and then me, my parents standing silently behind me as they waited for an explanation. “What happened.”
Quickly, Audrey told her father what happened, thankfully leaving out the part where I admitted to being her lover. “I was already having a bad day so it was easy for those girls to get under my skin, and Fallon kept them from making things worse. She didn’t make me cry; she helped me.”
I could see it, see the anger and resentment in Liam’s eyes as his sister repeated it over and over again. I didn’t understand why he looked at me the way he did, why he felt so much hatred for me. I tried to look away but he snarled, and my pride refused to let him think that I would be that easily scared. I snarled back, although nowhere near as menacing or as angry as his.
“You helped my daughter. You didn’t even know her and you helped her,” Johann said, taking my shoulders into his hands and bringing me to his chest quickly. I heard my parents gasp before they both started coughing, as though something they expected to happen didn’t, and they wanted to mask their shock. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“It was nothing,” I mumbled into his shirt.
He pulled me away and looked at me almost fiercely. “It was everything. You don’t know what you’ve done. I can’t thank you enough for helping Audrey…and me.”
“You’re welcome,” I said softly before he let me go. I winked at Audrey, who grinned “So, where are you guys going?”
“We were heading to my mother-in-law’s for dinner. Hey, why don’t you come and say hello. I’m pretty sure that Ma would love to see you guys.”
Dad laughed. “We already did. We stopped by this morning after getting off the ferry. The old lady still cooks a mean sardine.”
“Eh. What’s so hard about cooking a fish? We used to do it all the time, remember?” Johann said cockily.
Mom butted in and wagged her finger at the two of them. “Yeah, but no one would ever pay to eat one of those matchsticks you guys called food.”
“Why’d you go and adopt someone like her?” Liam asked my parents suddenly, cutting into the laughter and silencing everyone. “The last thing we need is one of her kind messing up our lives again.”
“Liam!”
Liam stormed off, his father reaching out to grab him but only getting a fistful of shirt before his son wormed free. “Goddamn that boy.”
Mom wrapped a comforting arm around Johann. “He’s a teenager, Joe. They have attitudes. You used to have one, too, remember?”
Johann shook his head, his voice somber. “I never acted like that. I never treated the others like that. Ever since Lyssa died…he’s just not the same boy.”
I looked at Audrey and I could see the sadness in her face that was in her father’s voice. I didn’t dare ask what was going on. Losing a parent was something I just couldn’t remember. I didn’t know that feeling because my memory told me that Raymond and Evangeline Timmons were my parents. I didn’t know a life before them, and I felt no guilt in saying that I didn’t want to. But Audrey, and obviously her brother knew, and in spite of myself, I felt a little sorry for them.
“He’s a good kid, though. You can tell,” Dad spoke up. “He’s protective of his sister. That’s a good trait. You can be proud of that, Joe.”
“Yeah, well, when he stops acting like a punk, I’ll be sure to tell him how proud of him I am. So, dinner?”
“Sure. I could go for some sardines again. Vangie?”
Audrey excitedly bobbed her head up and down. “Yes! Maybe you guys could come back to the house after?”
Mom nodded and I groaned at the idea of more sardines as the adults headed away. Audrey began pushing her wheels and I followed, wondering how long I could go living on this island without food.
CHAPTER FOUR
LIAM
It bothered me how angry I was. I couldn’t believe that that drowned rat that looked so comfortable around Audrey and Dad now lived here and was one of us. What the hell were her parents thinking, adopting someone like that and bringing her here?
“I don’t understand why you care so much about this trog.” My girlfriend Brenda was lazily pulling her brown hair into a thick braid. “So she’s adopted. Big deal. It’s not like everyone on the rock is gonna start adopting trogs now, too.”
Brenda’s bed was old and it squeaked as I rolled over to look at her, her body covered in bite marks and scratches. She was naked except for her hair, her feet tucked under her crossed legs as she looked at me, bored already with my explanation. She’d said nothing when I showed up at her window needing to work off the worst of my anger.
The sex was rough and quick and it showed. Brenda’s green eyes were flat when it was over, and I felt a little prick to my pride that neither of us had gotten anything from it. “You’re not seriously going to let some trog get to you like that, are you? She’s nothing.”
“It’s not that simple. I don’t care what Audrey says. I know Fallon did something to her.”
“Fallon? Her name is Fallon? What the hell kind of name is that?” Brenda asked, her braiding finished.
“I don’t know, Brenda,” I snapped. “I didn’t exactly stop to ask for the meaning or her sign. Next time, I’ll ask what her birthstone is, too, would you like that?”
“Stop being such a dick already. What’s your problem? Why were you with your dad and sister anyway? I thought you and Jameson were going hunting.”
The subject hadn’t come up once with anyone, not even Dad when he saw me walking in the house two hours ago with the truck keys clenched in my hand. “It’s Jameson’s fault.”
Brenda stood up, snorting. “Everything is always someone else’s fault.” She grabbed a pair of shorts from the end of the bed and slipped them on. “What did he do this time, huh? Tell you he’s got a bigger wang?”
“Audrey asked him out,” I shouted, the same repulsed feeling I’d gotten when Jameson told me coming back to me, hard and fast.
“And? She’s had a crush on him since she was ten. You knew that already. Hell, everyone did.” Brenda slipped on my shirt and sat back down beside me. “So…did he say yes? Is that what’s got you all pissed off?”
That would have been the reason to be pissed off, wouldn’t it? That would have made sense. It would have been exact
ly what every other brother would get angry about. Dating a friend’s sister was a deal breaker, no matter where you were, no matter who you were. But Audrey wasn’t just anyone’s sister. She was my sister. And I wanted to see her happy, no matter how.
“He said no.”
Brenda laughed, her body shaking the bed with each damn guffaw. “That’s why you’re mad? Because he said no? Are you kidding me?”
“He broke her heart, Bren. He’s been flirting with her – we’ve both seen it – but when she finally felt brave enough to ask him out, he just flat out tells her no, like it was all a game or something.” I punched the bed, hearing Brenda shriek as the frame collapsed and the mattress slammed onto the floor.
“So he told her no. What’s the big deal? It’s not like things would have worked out anyway. You know the rules, so does Audrey. She and Jameson would’ve never worked. You know that.”
I thought I was angry. I thought I was furious before. But the way Brenda laughed when she said that, the way she smiled made my stomach turn. “You think because she’s in a wheelchair that she doesn’t deserve to be with anyone, don’t you?”
My accusation stung. Her eyes told me so. “Liam, it wouldn’t matter if she was in that chair or not. We all know what’s gonna happen when she turns sixteen. She’s gonna be told the same thing they told my sister, and your aunt, and half the women on this damn island: she can’t have kids. Even if she could walk, she can’t give anyone a future. She’s a walking headstone and you, and Jameson, and even Audrey knows it.”
“No, we don’t,” I said firmly. “No one knows whether or not Audrey will be able to have kids. She has as good a chance as you did to have kids. Her being in that chair’s got nothing to do with it.”
Her hands rubbed on my chest as she leaned in, her lips pink and pouty. “Baby, I know you want to believe that she’s going to be okay, but the sooner we accept the truth, the easier it’ll be. I love Audrey. You know I do. And Jameson loves her, too. It’s why he turned her down. He doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life growing to resent her because he can’t have what he wants. Or worse, cheat on her. Is that what you want? You want your sister and your best friend to be miserable together for the rest of their lives because one of them has a crush?”
“They don’t have to get married, Bren. She’s fifteen! The last thing she’s thinking about right now is forever. They could have just gone out with each other for a week or two and then they would have realized that it wouldn’t have worked out. He didn’t have to shut her down like that,” I argued, taking her hands and squeezing them.
“Maybe that’s the real reason why she was crying.”
This time it was my turn to sit up. “What?”
“Well, you said that she swore up and down that that trog person didn’t make her cry. What if what she said happened was the truth? What if Jameson turning her down made her so upset that what she said happened at your grans’ place was what really happened?”
I looked at her stupidly. “Are you seriously taking the trog’s side?”
“No, you idiot, I’m taking Audrey’s side. Why would she lie about something like that? To protect a trog? Really? You think she’d lie to her brother and her father just to save some trog she’s never met? Your sister’s sweet, but she’s not that sweet.”
“So…what you’re saying is that even the lion knows better than to eat the mouse that’s trying to save it?” I didn’t even realize what I had said until I looked at Brenda and saw the confusion on her face. It was so blatant; I didn’t know whether or not it was real.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Aesop’s fable, the Lion and the Mouse; come on, we all read it in school,” I reminded her.
“You know I don’t care about that stuff. Books and stories don’t really mean much in my mom’s salon.”
When it came to dreams, Brenda’s was probably the only one on the island that would come true. She’d always dreamed of taking over her mother’s salon, and since businesses were never bought here but rather inherited, she would be getting exactly what she wanted and it made her lazy.
But…that was Brenda. She knew her limitations. She’d never excelled in school – her grades were barely enough to move her on to the next grade – because she knew that her life was here on the island with the rest of us. That’s how it was here; we all knew what was in store for us. Brenda would take over the salon. I’d take over my dad’s boat. Jameson would take over his dad’s crate building shop.
And Audrey…I’d take care of her, too. Because, no matter how much I hated to admit it, Brenda was right. We had rules on the island, rules that had been set in place for centuries that kept it in our hands. The original deeds for property had been given out over a century ago with clauses that allowed the property to only be auctioned off when there was no family left to inherit.
What made this clause different, however, was the fact that not just any family member could inherit the property. Only someone who was related by blood could inherit; it was called a blood law and no one on the island dared to break it. Not even me.
Which is why Jameson not wanting to be with Audrey shouldn’t have made me so angry. He didn’t want to end up with someone who couldn’t give him kids; without them, everything he owned, everything his parents had worked for, his grandparents…it would all end up being sold at auction to the highest bidder, and in our world that was almost always a trog, a tourist who hopped islands like frogs, hopping from one to the other and infesting them. Our island was no different, but with our law we’d managed to keep most of them from buying up everything like they had everywhere else.
Every single time they’d been able to do it here, they’d destroyed the old buildings or homes and turned them into inns or private estates. The numbers were increasing over the years as more people died without any relatives, which put fear into our community that had never been there before. We were dying out.
And all at once, like being punched in the head, I realized why Audrey had been hurt. It was more than just being turned down. It was more than the possibility of never having kids. It was the fear of being alone.
I shoved Brenda off and grabbed my clothes, quickly pulling them on. “Goddamn it, now I wanna kill Jameson and every freaking trog on this damn island,” I shouted, not caring who heard me.
“Because of Audrey?”
“Yeah, because of Audrey. She never cries, Bren. You know that. She never, ever cries, but today she was. Today she was and for some stupid reason I thought it was because of that damn trog, Fallon. Part of me thinks that if it had been anyone else, any other trog, that I would have known sooner.”
Brenda followed me around her room as I gathered my wallet and keys. “Why?”
“Why what?”
She grabbed my arm. “Why would you have known sooner? How would you have known that it was because of Jameson if that Fallon chick hadn’t been there?”
It seemed so simple that I didn’t get how she didn’t know. “Because she’s different, Bren. She was raised by people like us. She knows about us, she has to. Do you know how dangerous that is? Bringing someone like that here? It’s no fable this time. It really is like letting a mouse loose to play with the cats.”
Brenda purred and licked my ear before whispering, “But Liam, I thought you liked playing with your food.”
CHAPTER FIVE
FALLON
Mom and Dad were too tired to head on over to Audrey’s house after dinner, so I made plans to meet up with her in the morning. We said goodbye and then Mom drove us home since Dad had had one too many beers with Audrey’s dad to even walk straight. He sat in the back this time, crunched up in the tiny space, and the whole way back to the house he kept singing classic rock songs that made me cringe.
“Don’t mind your dad,” Mom said loudly to me as we drove along in the dark. “After he wakes up tomorrow, he’ll never want to drink that much ever again.”
“I hope not,”
I shouted back, my fingers in my ears. I looked back at him, his mouth wide open as he belted out another off-key verse. “It’s a good thing Dad decided to become a mechanic and not a rock star, because we’d be broke as hell.”
“Watch your mouth, young lady. That off-key singing, drunk-as-a-barrel-of-gin man back there is still your father…no matter how many songs he butchers.”
I giggled. “Is he gonna remember anything about tonight?”
“Maybe. He hasn’t been this drunk since we were you’re ag…he hasn’t been this drunk in a while,” Mom quickly corrected herself. “Anyway, how about we start the unpacking later in the morning? That’ll give you time to head on over to Audrey’s house and hang out for a little while.”
The thought of seeing Audrey again made me smile. “She’s nice, right?”
“Yes. Very nice. She reminds me a lot of her mom…” Mom’s voice trailed off as she tried to control the same sadness that had affected her earlier in the morning. Knowing her, she’d changed the subject. “Her brother’s cute, isn’t he?”
I shuddered, thinking about him and his scar, and how it made his snarl look ten times more menacing. “Sure, if you like jerkbags.”
“He was just doing what any good big brother would do. If he had been your big brother, he would’ve done the same thing for you.”
“Yeah, right,” I huffed. “He’d have fallen all over himself to help take me down, you mean. I like Audrey, but her brother can suck it.”
“Well, you can’t have one without the other, you know. If you’re going to be Audrey’s friend, you’re going to have to learn to tolerate her brother.”
“Joy,” I muttered as we pulled up to the house. “I’m one for one and it’s only been one day here. Tomorrow’s gotta be better.”
***
At nine the next morning, I climbed onto my dirt bike and peeled out of the driveway of the little house we now called home. I’d woken up two hours earlier and began tackling the boxes in the trailer. It took me an hour to clear out enough room so that I could set up the ramp to wheel my bike out. It was my prized possession, my first complete rebuild.
