by Jay McLean
I get out of the shower, make my way to the bedroom and open the only drawer that Natalie’s left untouched. I get dressed and sit on the edge of the bed, and that’s when I see it—a skateboard in the closet underneath a bunch of Natalie’s clothes. I get up and walk over to it, getting down on one knee so I can pull it out and look at it closer. And then all the air, along with any sense of hope I’ve had, leaves me.
I carry the skateboard to the kitchen. “What’s this?” I ask Natalie.
She looks up at me and smiles. “You weren’t supposed to see it! That Becca girl dropped it off a few days ago with a note that said she was working on it with Tommy as a Christmas present for you. It’s only half done so she gave it to me and said I could finish it with him if I wanted.” She shrugs and walks over to me, ruffling my hair. “She’s got a whole shoebox full of pictures of you and Tommy. Looks like someone has a borderline obsession with you. I’d be careful of that one.”
I look down at the board again.
“Are you going to eat?” she asks.
I lift my gaze. “Maybe later.”
There are cars parked in our street and I can hear a bunch of old ladies laughing from inside their house, but it doesn’t deter me. I raise my fist, hesitating only for a moment, before knocking on their door. I have no plan of what I’m going to say and absolutely no expectations of her reaction. The door opens and there she is, her hair down and her eyes wide and clear and emerald and perfect. God, she’s so perfect.
She inhales sharply and drops her gaze and only then do I get enough strength to look away from her face and down her body and the dress she’s wearing, modest but hot. Like always. Her chest heaves, matching my breaths—breaths that seem so loud in my head and before she has time to shut the door in my face, I tell her, “You look beautiful.” And I know it’s dumb to say that, but I don’t want her to ask what I’m doing and why I’m looking at her the way I am.
She looks down at her hands, now patting down her dress and then back at me, and her eyes…
Her.
Eyes.
God, I miss those eyes.
She points to the skateboard still in my hand.
I blink, pulling me out of my trance. “Natalie said that you came over and—”
She nods.
“You can finish it with Tommy. He’d like that.”
She shakes her head and pushes the door forward, her face half hidden behind it.
“Who is it, sweetheart?” Chaz calls out from behind her.
Becca opens the door wider and drops her gaze just as Chazarae stands next to her. Chaz doesn’t smile at me like she always does. She guides Becca out of the way, as if I’m here to hurt her in some way. And for the first time since shit went down with us, I wonder how much Chazarae knows and I wonder what she sees that I don’t. And worst of all, I wonder what she thinks about me. “Can I help you, Joshua?”
I clamp my mouth shut.
Chazarae sighs. “Okay. Well, we have guests,” she says, “and I don’t want to keep them waiting.” She points to Natalie’s car. “Maybe you shouldn’t keep yours waiting either.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I murmur, gripping the board tighter and turning away from her. She grasps my arm just as I’m about to step foot off the porch. I turn back around in time to see her closing the door behind her.
“I think it might be best if you don’t bother Becca anymore, Josh. Tommy’s always welcome here, but for now, while Becca is living in my house, I have to make her my priority, and I’m sorry. I really am. But Becca—she’s been through enough already, okay?”
I clear my throat, and let my shame and my self-loathing consume me. “Yes, ma’am.”
Instead of returning to my apartment, I go back to my truck and pull out my every day board, then I skate out of the driveway and through the darkness of the streets until the chill of the wind makes my face numb and my muscles ache and I know it’s late enough that Tommy will be down and hopefully Natalie will be asleep.
She isn’t, though.
She’s sitting on the couch, a beer in her hand, staring down at her phone.
“I’ve been calling you,” she says, before I’ve even closed the door.
I pull out my phone and see the thirteen missed calls from her.
“Where have you been?”
I hide my eye roll and walk to the fridge where I pull out a beer of my own. “Nowhere.”
“Did you see that Becca girl? Are you guys, like, sleeping together?”
I lean against the fridge, my eyes on her. “What are you still doing here, Natalie? Why haven’t you left yet?”
She sets her beer on the coffee table in front of her and gets up; her gaze lowered as she makes her way to the kitchen. “I told you,” she says, still looking down at the floor. “I wanted to get to know my son.”
“And you can’t do that from your house?”
“I didn’t know I was such a burden. You’ve never mentioned anything before.” She looks up at me now—her insecurities and her doubts showing. “I don’t want to leave but if you make me I can’t stop it. I like being here, Josh. I like being with Tommy and I like being with you.”
“You’re three years late, Nat.” I sigh. “I’m taking back my bed. And don’t ever breathe Becca’s name again.”
24
-Joshua-
Christmas morning looks like Toys R Us vomited in the living room. To say that Natalie went overboard would be an understatement. I have no idea where she plans to put all this stuff because it sure as shit won’t fit neatly in my tiny apartment. Hopefully she’ll find her own place soon and she can take all of her shit with her.
I’m too busy picking up wrapping paper from every surface possible so Natalie beats me to opening the door only seconds after the knock sounds. “Hi Becca,” Natalie says, and I drop everything in my hands and bolt for the door. She nods at Nat and then takes a step back when I come into view. Tommy yells Becca’s name and for some reason this makes her cringe. She hands Natalie a box and points to the name on it: Captain LoonySpoon.
“Who the hell is Captain LoonySpoon?” Nat asks. I push her out of the way and close the door between us. Becca’s already two steps down the stairs when I grab her arm. “Becca, wait!” She stops in her tracks and slowly faces me.
Inside, Tommy’s crying, screaming Becca’s name.
“You can give him your present yourself, Becca.” I try to settle my nerves. “You’re allowed to see him. I’m sorry if I made you feel like—”
She shakes her head, cutting me off. Then grimaces as Tommy’s cry for her gets louder. She looks from the door to me, and then points to her arm.
“His arm is fine. It’s healing well. I told him the cast gives him super powers.”
Her throat bobs with her swallow and she nods. She starts to turn away but the front door opens and Tommy’s in Natalie’s arms, crying Becca’s name again. “I can’t control him,” Natalie snaps. She places Tommy on the ground and Becca gasps as soon he starts down the stairs to get to her. She lifts her hand, her palm up and he stops instantly. Slowly, she looks between all three of us standing on the landing and I wonder what the hell she could possibly be thinking.
She probably thinks we’re some happy family.
We’re not.
She was.
Her and Tommy and I—we were.
She climbs the steps until she’s one down from him and bends down so they’re eye to eye. She runs her fingers across his cast, her eyes filling with tears. And then she reaches out, her arms around him, her hug so fierce and so full of love that my chest tightens, the pain so overwhelming it forces a sob out of me—because, fuck, how can everything feel so right and be so fucking wrong?
Tommy pulls back slightly, his eyes on hers and his hands on her cheeks, wiping her tears. She doesn’t flinch—not for him.
“You have a booboo?” he asks her and she nods.
“Where?”
She chokes back on her own sob, her eyes only for
him. Then she points to her chest.
Tommy frowns and kisses the spot on her chest she just pointed to. “Daddy say kisses make all booboos better,” he tells her.
I hold my breath.
She smiles sadly and taps her nose followed by her chest. He nods and throws his arms around her neck, squeezing tight. “I love you, too, Becca.”
★★★
It’s a hard emotion to explain—what it feels like to fake every single moment of your life. To breathe but to not exist. To smile but to not be happy. To nod and agree but to not really care. And some nights, I’d put Tommy down to sleep and listen to him speak and there’d be an ache in my chest and I didn’t know why. So as I sit on the edge my bed, beer in hand, and listen to the fireworks go off around me—the cheers as hundreds of people bring in the New Year—I can’t even find it in myself to look forward to the next day, let alone three hundred and sixty-five of them.
Natalie knocks on my door and lets herself in, because apparently this is her house now and she doesn’t need permission to do anything. She’s wearing one of my work shirts, which she uses to sleep in. Her legs, long and tanned and much more defined than when I’d been between them over three years ago, are bare as she makes her way over to me. She stops in front of me, her hands at her sides. “Happy New Year, Joshua.”
I rub my eyes and try to fight off the effects of alcohol. “Yeah. You too.”
She steps forward, between my legs, and I don’t stop her.
Because I don’t care.
But when her hand reaches out and cups my face, my eyes drift shut and my breath leaves me in a shudder. She lifts my chin with her finger and I keep my eyes closed because I don’t want to see her and I already know what she wants and a part of me wants it too. Not because I want her but because I want to feel something that isn’t nothing. Her hand takes mine and settles it on her leg and I don’t take it back. I don’t remove it. Then she whispers my name and my eyes snap open and she’s undoing the buttons of my shirt she’s wearing. And dammit, I miss this—not her—but I miss this touch, this intimacy, this need. Both my hands on her legs now, drift higher until I feel the fabric of her panties. I focus on her fingers as they undo the last button and she spreads the shirt open. My gaze moves from the top of her panties, to her stomach, where stretch marks streak down her skin. I trace a single one with my finger, from the bottom of her breasts to the side of her belly button. The marks are faded now, marks we’d created together, back when we thought we were in love and that love would get us through anything.
“I know they’re gross,” she says. “The guys I’m with are always turned off by it.”
“What?” I whisper.
“Yeah…” Her fingers trace where mine had just been, clueless to the fury she’d just unleashed inside me.
I push her away from me so quickly she stumbles into the wall behind her. “Get out!” I shout, getting up and pulling her suitcase out of the closet. I fill it with whatever clothes of hers I can scramble, all while she cries, trying to stop me as she buttons my shirt to hide her fucking shame. She grabs my arm as I carry her shit down the hallway. I shake her off; the rage, the anger, the fire within me uncontainable, and for the first time ever, I don’t hold back. I open the front door and throw her crap from the top of the stairs down onto the driveway.
“Josh, stop!”
I turn to her. “Get. Out!”
She cries harder and it just makes me sick. Like, deep in my gut, sick. I push past her and pick up anything and everything that belongs to her. All her shoes at the door, her stupid cookbooks, her stupid owls… so many fucking owls.
-Becca-
rage
reɪdʒ/
noun
violent uncontrollable anger.
At first I thought the screaming and yelling were that of a celebration. But the screaming got louder. Louder than the fireworks, and then the unmistakable sound of Tommy’s cry fills my ears. I push off the covers and race downstairs, meeting Grams in the hallway, our shocked faces matching each other’s. The second I open the door I know it’s bad.
Josh’s at the top of his stairs throwing clothes and books down onto the driveway, adding to the pile already there.
Josh yells.
Natalie screams.
Fireworks go off.
Josh yells louder.
Natalie cries harder.
But Tommy—he cries the hardest.
Josh swears as he pushes Natalie off of him, then goes back in the house, I guess finding more shit to throw. Natalie’s still crying, begging him to stop, and Tommy… he just stands at the top of the steps covering his ears and crying in the corner—away from his fighting parents. “Daddy, stop!”
“Get that little boy,” Grams says. My bare feet race up the stairs. I pick up Tommy and shield him from the destruction going on around him.
“Take him inside,” I tell Grams, handing him to her. And I march right back up there. I don’t know what I’m doing but I need to do something so I step in front of Josh and block him. His eyes are wide, filled with rage. He freezes, holding an owl figure in the air. “What are you doing, Becca?” he says through gritted teeth. I wrap my arms around his waist and push him into his house. He trips on his feet and lands on his ass. I raise my hand, telling him to stay there.
Then I close the door just as Natalie yells, “He’s lost it!”
I turn to her and in my mind, I punched her—twice; one on her perfect nose and one on her perfect pouty lips. But in reality, I raise my chin and stand toe to toe with her. “He’s allowed to lose it,” I yell over the fireworks, my voice breaking in and out. “And you need to leave. Now! Before I call the cops.”
She rolls her eyes. “For what? Domestic violence?”
“Trespassing.” I point a finger into her chest. “Fuck. Off.”
I wait at the top of the stairs, arms crossed, while she gathers her shit into a pile on top of her car. Josh’s front door opens and keys are thrown, I assume hers, but I don’t get a chance to ask because he’s running down the stairs toward her. I chase after him, trying to get him to stop. He stands in front of her while a single firework goes off for the last time. Now we’re surrounded by nothing but still, dead, air. “You’re fucking insane,” she says to him. He doesn’t respond, just storms past her and opens the toolbox in the tray of his truck. He pulls out a board, flips it in his hand and then raises it above his head…
I yell, or at least try, for him to stop and I rush toward him. With my arms around his waist I beg for him not to do what he does next. I beg and I cry until he pushes me off of him and I find myself on my knees, watching the boy I love destroy one of the few things he loves. Over and over, I watch him smash a skateboard into his truck, shattering it to pieces. And when one board can no longer take his assault, he pulls out another. And then another. And all I can do is watch him—watch the destruction caused by years of pain, of anger, and of neglect and I cry. I cry into my hands, my heart breaking, until I feel a presence next to me.
Grams kneels beside me, holds my hand, and we lower our heads.
And then we pray.
We pray until the sounds of splinting wood and shattered glass and metal finally stop and are replaced with Josh’s quiet sobs. I stand up and go to his apartment where I find his phone on his nightstand and I call Robby.
I need help.
He doesn’t answer.
So I call the only other person I can think to call.
25
-Joshua-
The only source of light comes from the moon and from the porch but still, I can see the cracks and the splotches of blood as they begin to pool in the lines of my hands, all caused by the layers of wood that splinted and punctured my skin. My breaths are loud—heavy—but unwilling to settle and I feel like that same kid three years ago standing in the alleyway between two buildings, kicking the shit out of brick wall because life fucking hates me. And then a light shone upon us and Chazarae showed up, saving us.
But no one can save me now.
I can’t even save myself.
And I sure as hell can’t save him.
A car pulls in and screeches to a stop. The headlights blind me as I stumble to stand. Doors open and close and the familiar outline of a body walks toward me. My eyes narrow at Becca. “You fucking called him?” I snap. And the rage is back because he’s the last fucking person I want to see right now.
“What the fuck is going on?” Hunter says, eying the broken boards and my damaged truck.
“Fuck off, Hunter. Go home,” I whisper, walking toward him. I push his chest and he pushes me back. Two years ago he was bigger, stronger. Now I’m sure I can take him. Because he’s confused, and I’m angry, and anger always wins.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he snaps, hiding his wife behind him. His confusion turns to fear and he should be afraid—he has no fucking idea who I am anymore.
He chose that.
Not me.
“You, Hunter!” I press a finger into his chest and stand toe to toe with him. “You’re what’s fucking wrong with me. You said we, Hunter. You said no matter what happens, always we! And the first chance you get, you fuck off with Chloe and you leave me and Tommy behind! There’s no fucking we, Hunter. It’s just me. It’s always been just me!” His eyes are wide as he takes in my words. But I don’t fucking care. I don’t care about anything.
I turn to Natalie, but I don’t look at her, because if I do I’m sure I’d puke. “Did you hear that, Nat? Three fucking years I’ve done everything alone because you’re a selfish coward and you can’t ever think about anyone but yourself. Do you remember what you said? You said, ‘Promise we’ll do it together.’ And I did. I fucking promised you and we had son!” I shout. “We had a fucking a son and it meant nothing to you! How the fuck do you live with yourself? How?” I wipe my eyes, my tears unstoppable. “And then you come here,” I say through a sob, my voice lowering. “You come here and you act like it doesn’t matter. Like your fucked up choices didn’t affect me or Tommy or time, and while you spent the past three years fucking any guy who wasn’t turned off by your stretch marks, the marks made by MY son… you know what I’ve been doing? I’ve been killing myself trying to raise OUR kid. Trying to do everything right so he doesn’t ever feel like he needed you in his life. But he did, Nat. He fucking needed you. So did I. And you just left!” Every single part of me breaks. Inside. Outside. All of it. I turn to Becca, her tears matching mine. “And you…”
