by Mj Fields
A knock on the door has me looking up.
Mom peeks in, holding a fresh compress.
“Come on in. Just need to say goodnight to the girls.”
“Is Brisa okay?” she asks, pulling the blanket off my ankle, removing the now room temperature compress, and replacing it with the cold one.
I nod as I exit out of the app, lean over, and set my phone on the charging pad. “Yeah, seems so,” I blatantly lie to my mother for possibly the first time in my life.
“Okay, then.” She looks at me with concern as she pushes my hair out of my face, kisses my forehead, and whispers sadly, “I love you, Truth.”
She turns to walk out, and I feel guilt constrict my heart.
“Why do you ask?”
She turns around and cocks her head to the side, looking at my ankle then back up at me. “Your dad and I are just worried about you girls, is all.”
A few months ago, after the incident with my smashed cell phone, because Dad was angry when I got kicked out of Catholic school, and after the epic landing of the Steel toed kick to the overprotective and often times overbearing nuts of our fathers when Kiki revealed she was—gasp—pregnant, I overheard a rare chat between my parents. My mother, the sweetest, kindest being on the planet, and my father, who I’ve seen wage actual war with anything that could possibly harm her, disagreed over his overprotective ways.
Is waging war a slight exaggeration? Not on your life, or the life of any living creature anywhere on the planet.
A few years ago, I was woken from a dead sleep to smashing furniture and Dad swearing like an ex-Navy sailor, which he was, at an intruder.
Terrified, I hide under my bed as I was trained to do in such an occurrence by Sergeant Cyrus, listening to hell and furniture breaking loose just down the hallway. The breaking furniture is the lightbulb moment that this isn’t just a drill … And yes, we’ve had them.
“Cyrus, please don’t shoot him!” Mom cries.
“Fuck that, Birdie. The bastard deserves to die!”
“But my mom’s tea cups!”
What the fuck? I think.
My mother, the sweetest being on the planet, is more worried about tea cups than a life?
Peeking out from under my bed, light is revealed as Justice army-crawls over to me. “Let’s roll.”
“Cyrus, not there, either; the kids’ trophies!”
“Fuck, Birdie, what do you want me to do then?”
“He’s tiny; just catch him and let him go.”
“Fuck that! He’s gonna die.”
Army-crawling down the hall, Justice and I look at each other.
“We can help him,” Justice says as he jumps up and runs toward the living room. I nervously follow suit.
Dad is standing in his boxers, and Mom is in the middle of the dining room table, in her robe, knees to her chest.
When he sees me, he yells, “Get up there with your mother!”
He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I climb up, and Mom holds out her arms and hugs me tight.
“We didn’t mean to wake you, Truth. You okay?”
Talk about being confused. “Mom, where—”
“Justice, he’s under there.” Dad waves his handgun at the entertainment unit. “Kick the side, and when he comes out, I’m gonna kill the motherfucker!”
“Cyrus, do not shoot that gun in this house!” Mom yells as I scream, “Daddy, don’t kill a man!”
Dad looks back at me in confusion, and then he starts laughing, really laughing hard, too, which pisses me off.
I start crying, “It’s not funny! You can’t kill—”
“Little bird, it’s a damn rodent. A rat.” Dad laughs.
“Technically, a mouse.” Mom does her best not to laugh.
“The hell?” Justice groans then jacks the corner of the stand up, sending pictures sliding to the lower side.
Dad drops down and says, “Well, fuck.”
“What’s, well fuck?” I scream at him, still pissed and now worried about the poor mouse.
Standing, Dad holds the dead mouse by his tail. “He’s dead.”
“How did he die?” I yell at him in anger.
“Guessing natural causes, little bird,” he says, looking over the mouse dangling from his pinched fingers.
“Probably had a heart attack. We almost did.” Justice lowers the shelving unit then snaps, “Goodnight.”
He walks down the hall and slams his door.
At the time, it wasn’t funny, but thinking about it now, it totally was.
I smile as I look up at Mom.
She cocks her head to the other side, her eyes asking what I’m thinking.
“The mouse at the old house.”
She giggles, and I move my schoolwork out of the way so she can sit.
After she sits, she asks, “Do you miss it?”
“The mouse?” I shake my head.
She smiles. “The old house? Maybe even your old school?”
I shake my head again. “I mean, there are moments, but no, I like it here. Even though our old house was on the beach too, it really seems like we’re on vacation here most days.”
“The house is huge,” Mom sighs and looks around.
She’s right; our old house was small, much smaller than any of my cousins and frenemies.
I lean back on my pillows, and Mom lies on her side, head propped up on her hand.
“You know, the reason we never moved is because of me, right? We should have made a change a long time ago, or at least when Justice became taller than his room was wide.” She smiles. Mom has OCD, which we only learned about four or so years ago.
There are four main types of OCD and, through counseling, she found out that she has what they call Just Right OCD. She counts a lot, gets hung up on the number five, arranges things so they are in order and symmetrical. We learned that, when she was younger, she thought if the pictures weren’t arranged just right, something horrible would happen to someone she loved. We never noticed because Dad was so on the ball and overly protective that he thought of things, even before she did, that might trigger it and fixed the problem before it would even arise.
Dad told us, when she lost her parents in an accident, she needed to feel in control of something, so she chose “things.” Everything had to have its place, and although she never wigged out about a mess, she would be the first to clean it up and put things back where it belonged. Moving would have been the worst thing for her, or so Dad thought.
During one of the conversations before they decided we were moving, Mom told him that, since having us kids, she hadn’t needed it as much and that we deserved to experience life, even if it took her outside her comfort zone.
I’m not saying everything changed. Everything still has its place—books are alphabetized, and even if she and Justice don’t finish their nightly chess game in front of the windows overlooking the ocean, she needs to put the pieces back to starting position, if not in the case.
“I love it here, Truth, truly. I guess I never realized it until we got the house, but it’s like our family as a whole has moved on together, forward together, and by choice, not circumstance. But there are moments you seem to want to be anywhere else, and today was one of them. If maybe you’d be honest with me, I think you lost that excitement when you started this new school.”
“Or maybe it’s because I get questioned for every move I make, because I’m not Justice.”
She blinks a few times and looks down. Her hands knot together, and she begins wringing them.
“I’m just being honest, Mom.”
She nods and looks up. “I know, and I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you it’s going to get better, but you’re his baby girl, and it is who he is. But it’s not just him. I worry about you.”
“There’s no need to.”
She glances quickly at my ankle then back up at me, nods again, and stands up. Then she bends down and kisses my head. “I’m in your corner, Truth, so is your father, but I can
’t help thinking you’re hiding something.” She turns to leave me to my thoughts, deep in her own.
If I let them marinate in my lie, it’s bound to get worse.
“I landed on it wrong at the party when we were making TikToks,” I blurt out my second lie. “I knew you guys would be all over the top about it and, at seventeen, I should be able to go to parties without my brother, so I didn’t tell you. Brisa and Patrick didn’t know it hurt until after I fell in the bathroom, because it didn’t hurt that bad last night, so tell Dad not to get mad at them.”
She turns around, relief flooding her face. “I think it needs an x-ray. I’ll take you in tomorrow, so you’ll be late for school.”
“I can wait until after.”
She shakes her head. “I think you’ve waited long enough.”
“Okay. Can I sleep in since I’m going to be late, anyway?” I ask, crossing my finger in hopes of missing third period study hall that three of the four horsemen are also in.
“Sure.” She smiles genuinely then turns to leave.
“I love you, Mom.”
She looks over her shoulder. “I love you, too.”
I grab my phone and send a Snap to Kiki and Brisa, telling them my new “lie” and that I won’t be at school until I get an x-ray, and then I send one to Patrick.
After I set my phone on the charger, I get three texts, all from numbers not saved in my phone. Curiosity gets the best of me, and I open the first.
- Heard you had your phone out last night. Bad idea. Very bad indeed.
The next text reads:
- You were given an opportunity as a test, and you failed. Watch your back.
Again, no signature, but I know exactly who these scare tactics and threats are coming from.
The next text reads:
- You came after us. We’re coming after you.
I tap out a response.
- My list of haters has grown leaps and bounds since starting at Suckshore, but my list of fucks given hasn’t. Your inability to sign your name shows that you’re just a bunch of pussies hiding behind a screen. You don’t scare me, and that’s the … ~ TRUTH.
I copy and paste it in the first message then hit send, then the second, and then the third.
The phone blows up as I start to set it down, all different numbers from before. One by one, I open them.
- Conquest
- War
- Famine
- Conquest
- War
- Famine
- Conquest
- War
- Famine
- Conquest
- War
And the last:
- Keep your family out of this, and we will, too. Involve them, that’s on you.
Then more and more messages pop open, all different phone numbers.
- Conquest
- War
- Famine
- Conquest
- War
- Famine
- Conquest
- War
- Famine
- Conquest
- War
- Famine
They keep coming until I finally shut my phone off.
The words—conquest, war, and famine—refer to three of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The one they left out, the fourth—death.
When my door opens, I jump up and gasp.
“Jesus, Truth.” Justice laughs as he walks toward me. “You watching scary movie clips again?”
I nod.
“Sit down and get your leg up,” he says as he walks toward me, shaking his head.
I sit back and do just that. Justice then lifts my leg, props the pillow under it, and puts the cold compress back on my ankle.
I hear a sound and jerk my head toward the window.
Justice laughs and starts walking toward my door.
“Wait—tell me about your time with Bella and Tags.”
He looks back and laughs again. “You don’t wanna hear about it.”
“Yes, I do,” I say adamantly.
“Like hell you do. You’re scared. Let me grab my pillow and blanket, and I’ll be back.”
I don’t even deny the fact that I want him in my room, because I do, and that’s the truth.
Chapter Eight
Idiom
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
Truth
Let’s hope so.
I wake up listening to the all too familiar sound of my alarm, “Love Myself” by Hailee Steinfeld, and smile to myself, expecting Mom to come in and start dancing around my bed like she does every school day. So, when I hear her tiptoeing in and there’s no, “Ready to dance your way through the day, Tru?” I am confused.
As she turns off my alarm then tiptoes back out the door, I remember yesterday and the night before. I remember Justice sleeping next to me because, apparently, my one night of badassery was kicked in the tit by a text invasion by the horsemen.
I cover my head, close my eyes, and try to go back to sleep. I try, and I try, and I try, but it doesn’t happen, and I know why—I need to face shit head-on.
I scoot to the edge of my bed and pull the blanket off my head. I then grab my phone and turn it off airplane mode. There is only one message, a group message from the girls.
- Good luck today ~ Kiki
- Break a leg … but not really ~ Brisa
When I scroll through my old messages and see all of them except the two I received yesterday morning are gone, I sit straight up in bed. “No fucking way.”
Justice … shit. He must have seen and erased them, which would make perfect sense, but what makes no sense is that he didn’t wake me up freaking out.
I send him a quick text.
- Morning. We good?
- No. I’m fucking exhausted, and you’re sleeping in.
- Chat at lunch?
- Hitting the gym with Max and Amias. You got the girls and Patrick.
He’s not letting on one bit. Ugh!
- Chat after school?
-Everything good, T? You’re acting like a freak. Still hiding under the blanket?
- Fuck off.
- That’s better. See you soon.
I lie in bed for a while, wondering what Justice knows about last night. He didn’t mention a damn thing. He simply laid next to me and droned on and on about the special that Convicted Ink, Bella and Tags’ reality show, is doing starting in September and how awesome all the artists are. Some are from overseas, they came for a chance to compete in the twelve-hour challenge that starts at midnight and lasts until noon the next day. He also told me that they would have started earlier, but they specifically chose those hours so Bella, Tags, and Luna could come see me in the play.
I feel a bit guilty over that fact, because none of them know how serious I am about not applying to any colleges for dance anymore. I’ll tell him tonight. And maybe today, I’ll let my Mom know, too. I’m holding off on telling Dad because, as much as Mom loves dance and it was always her thing and her mother’s, Dad has been the one who pushed me the hardest to become the best I could be. And if I’m honest, it was always him who I looked at during final bows, his applause always my favorite.
If Patrick told Justice about Saturday night, which I assume he did, it was probably why he busted into my room last night. The fact that I was terrified by stupid high school bully tactics was probably why he decided to hold off on the TED Talk.
I’m not afraid now, though, and yes, I am well aware that it’s because it’s light out, but still …
So, basically, today, I’m going to go to school and face those assholes, and if one of them says shit about me or to me, or looks at me wrong, I’m going to go full Steel on them. And tonight, after dinner and when Justice is done playing chess with Mom, I’m sure I’ll get the talk.
I decide there is no way in hell I’m going to fall back to sleep, so I roll out of bed and cringe when I step on the floor. It’s probably a good thing I’m going to the doctor’s tod
ay. This hurts like a bitch. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll tell me I can’t dance for six months, and then I won’t disappoint anyone when I blow off the auditions for colleges.
After showering, I pull my light pink toothbrush out of the holder, brush my teeth, and then rinse the bristles of my brush. I put my toothbrush back into its hole then splash my face with water before rubbing my light pink face wash into my skin. Then I rinse and pat it dry with a hand towel covered in tiny ballet slippers before applying toner followed by moisturizer.
When the condensation lifts, I lean in and notice a new blemish forcing its way onto my skin right above my lip. I huff.
My skin has never been too acne-prone, so the occasional blemish really irks me. The last time I had one was after the solos for the recital were posted. Stress is seriously a hazard to my skin.
I open my bathroom drawer and reach in to pull out the bin containing everything I use every day and decide, fuck full face makeup today. I apply a tiny little bit of concealer on the new blemish then a tiny bit of lip tint, followed by a couple swipes of black mascara. Then I shove all the products back into their spots before grabbing the blow dryer and round brush.
While drying my hair, I look up in the mirror and nearly jump out of my skin when I see Mom standing behind me. The brush and dryer go flying.
When the brush hits the mirror and I see a crack, I start to cry.
Mom quickly turns off the dryer and pulls me into a hug. “Oh, Truth, it’s okay. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay, Mom. I broke the mirror. Do you know what that means?” I sniff.
She takes my face in her hands and turns me to look back at her. “It was my fault.”
“I broke it!”
“And it means nothing. Nothing at all.”
