Shatter (The Choosy Beggars Series Book 1)

by Charisse Moritz

  Since we’re related by blood, Terek is genetically programmed to call me out on my stupidity. “What was your first clue?”

  I roll my eyes. He’s not done.

  “You must be psychic. If you concentrate, can you tell me what color shirt I’m wearing?”

  “Ha, ha.”

  “Can you predict the winner of yesterday’s game?”

  “I can promise a junk punch in your future. How’s that?”

  Terek looks like he stole his clothes from a homeless wino. He needs a shave, haircut and nap. Whenever my mom calls, she asks about him, and I say he’s busy playing street hockey with the younger sibs or fixing something or being the big brother he used to be. I lie. I tell my mom he’s good when he’s anything but, and now wonder if he does the same for me.

  He walks up on me and his face changes. I’ve seen this Terek before but rarely directed at me. This Terek spends lots of time in the penalty box at hockey games, in detention at school and frightens away my hordes of eager suitors. Hordes might be an exaggeration.

  “So where is he?” my brother growls. His eyes bore into mine. “Is the scumsucker here?”

  I ask, “What?” even though I heard the question and know the answer. I’m buying time and refuse to acknowledge Taz as a scumsucker. Unfortunately, my cheeks heat up, which is ridiculous because I’ve done nothing wrong. Although, let’s just say I’m super duper relieved I don’t have a boy stashed in the basement at the moment.

  “You’re hiding something. You’re acting weirder than usual.” Terek points at me then stalks from living room to kitchen, tilting his head this way and that. “I hear you’ve been dragging street garbage home, so I’m here to take out the trash. Where is he?”

  “You mean Ingrid? Be nice. He’s listening.” The newest addition to our pet menagerie is currently sliding an itchy butt across the floor.

  “That dirtbag Taz. The deadman who’s been scamming on my sister.” My brother is blunt as a hammer, brutally honest and borderline rude. Sometimes he crosses that border. But he’s not a bully and always has good intentions, so I just need to stay calm and explain the whole Taz situation. Even though I don’t know what that situation is.

  “You’re listening to rumors and jumping to conclusions. Maybe you could open your mind one little inch.” I demonstrate with my thumb and index finger. “Taz is a good guy.”

  My big brother folds his arms across his chest, leans his hips against the counter and gets louder with every word. “Is. He. Here?”

  “No.”

  “Did he. Spend the. Night here?”

  “What does. That matter?” I don’t know why we’re talking in robot voices.

  “Holy hell, Tia.” He slides his hands up and down his face. He’s got a black eye and ragged knuckles. “The dude is a goddamn walking crime scene. What the fuck are you thinking? Might as well draw chalk lines around the bodies of the sibs.”

  “That isn’t fair. You don’t know him.”

  “If it quacks like a duck, shits like a duck, it doesn’t belong in our goddamn house.”

  “That doesn’t make sense and you owe at least a dollar to the swear jar.” I feel Theo move up next to me and fidget. I get it. We all love and worry about our big brother. We want him to come home and avoid giving him reasons to stay away. “It’s not like you and your friends are exactly choir boys, Ter.”

  “Compared to this dude, we’ve got halos. He was in juvie for chrissake. Why do you always scrape the bottom of the barrel? Why can’t you find a nice guy? How about somebody from the chess club? Who’s that tuba player dude with the bow ties?”

  “Adam Turner? He sews those bow ties himself.“

  “He has a skill set. Sounds perfect for you.”

  “Who are you, Yente from Fiddler on the Roof? You’re going to marry me off to the tailor? Adam Turner took his mom to prom last year.”

  “See, he’s single. I bet there’s a whole collection of potential dates playing Sporkel in their basements right now.”

  I roll my eyes, then start on my index finger and make a list for him. “Number one, I have a crazy, scary, overprotective brother who pulverizes any guy who even glances my way. Number two, I’m the fill-in mom for five younger siblings. And strike three, I won’t sleep with a dude for the sake of a merit badge in the slut scouts, so they aren’t exactly lining up at the door. And you know what? Chess is boring, Taz is a nice guy, and I like him. Can’t you give him a chance?”

  “How about this? From now on, you stay the hell away from all guys. Anything with a set of balls is off limits.”

  Because my dad is not around, his role will be played by his understudy, AKA my annoying brother. I bite my lip to keep from screaming at him.

  “He brought Mora home,” Theo blurts. “When she got wasted at the Yellow House, Taz brought her home.”

  “Jesus Theo, don’t be a goddamn idiot.” Terek steps forward, snatches the post-it note off Theo’s cheek and crumples it in his fist. “Taz practically lives at the Yellow House. He’s a friggin stoner, and if Mora was at the Yellow House, you can bet he’s the reason. And I gotta wonder, where the hell were you? You’re supposed to be looking out for your sisters.”

  We go silent. Snapping at Theo is like spitting on church steps, eating all the pepperoni off the pizza or watching any recent Adam Sandler movie. It’s just not done, and Theo now hunches and tucks his chin. Sam’s toenails click around the kitchen in a desperate SOS. I open my mouth but nothing happens.

  “Shit,” Terek mutters, bracing his feet wide and pulling at his hair. “Theo ... I didn’t mean that.”

  “Too late.” That would be Mora, the oil to Terek’s water, stomping into the kitchen in her jammies. We’re going to be late to school, and where’s my whistle? I need to play referee. “Apologies don’t take the stink out of the asshole. And you know what Ter, you busting in here and telling Tia what she can and can’t do is such bullshit.”

  “Mora,” I try, but she’s just getting revved up.

  “When she was sick, you know who was here to help out, babysit and make breakfast? Not you. And when the lawn mower shit the bed, who was out there fixing it and cutting the grass at three o’clock in the morning? Definitely not you. Cuz you’re NEVER here.”

  “Mora, don’t,” Theo tries. “It’s my fault.”

  “Stop,” she snaps and pings something off his forehead. He catches it and eats it. Where did Mora get Skittles? Now she turns on Terek, picking out the yellow candies and throwing them at him one at a time. “You’re never around. Not for Tully’s ballet lessons. Not for Theo’s first start at JV. Not when Ten and Hem finally landed heelflips on their boards. And definitely not when Taz beat the piss out of Philly for feeding me wine coolers and sticking his hand down my pants.”

  Oh boy.

  “Philly?” Terek growls, and he is on fire. “I’m gonna pound that sonofabitch.”

  “That’s not the point! You’re the shitheel. Not Philly. Not Taz. You!”

  My older brother looks as if she just stabbed him in the heart, with a rusty fork, about ten times, and I can feel him pulling further away. I’m so desperate to hang onto him, I’m tempted to wrap my arms around his ankles like I did when we were little, whenever he tried to play with anybody but me.

  “Look Ter,” I start gently, shifting to stand between him and Mora. “I get where you’re coming from. You’re worried. But you’re wrong about Taz. He’s just a guy who’s never been given a break. We’re just friends, and I really believe I can trust him.” I sound one hundred percent sure. I’m not. I am convinced he’s worth the risk, and there’s no way to explain that. “I promise to be careful.”

  Terek glances at Ingrid, who’s already eaten the Skittles off the floor and is now chewing on the Post-it note. I’ve bathed that ball of white fluff three times in less than twenty-four hours, and the dog still smells like old Chinese food. My brother shakes his head. “You can’t keep bringing home strays, Tia. This isn’t the friggin pound. A
nd if you let a rabid dog in the door, you can’t be surprised when it turns around and bites.”

  “Our dog has a better life than Taz.”

  “Sam is a really good dog.”

  “Booger has a better life than him.”

  “Now we’re stuck with a shitty cat.” Terek shrugs. “And let’s not forget Donnie.”

  Bringing up the rabbit is a low blow.

  “Whatever,” Terek mutters. “I’ve got just enough time to shower before my shift, and I won’t be home for dinner cuz I’m working doubles at both jobs.” He pulls wads of crumpled cash out of his various pockets, thrusts the bills at me and says, “I’m just the shitheel who’s never around.”

  CHAPTER 33

  TAZ:

  There’s no good place for me to be this morning, which is nothing new, but I’m extra antsy, extra dangerous to myself and others. If I miss another round of classes or work, V for Vivian has an excuse to get rid of me. If I catch sight of Prick or his Balls, the custodian will need a shovel to scrape them off the floor. Then I’ll need a pry bar and a miracle to ever get on the free side of a locked door again.

  So I skip my locker and head straight to homeroom, hoping to hide. I manage to avoid Tia but get turned around before I land in my seat. The teacher hands me a pink slip and tells me to report to the office. I count my steps to the principal’s wide open door, where I’m instructed to go right in. Being her priority isn’t good. The possibilities are as destructive as termites carving tunnels into my brain.

  I find V for Vivian sitting behind her desk, her back to me as she stares out a wide set of windows. The sun throws a sharp square of light over her. I ease my ass into the shadows of the familiar plastic chair and sit on my hands. They are trapped animals tugging, tugging, while my thoughts bite and scratch, scratch, scratch.

  She finally speaks without turning around. “You are not to invite people to the house or have visitors inside the garage. Under the circumstances, I see no reason to broadcast our relationship. Or dredge up the past. Our situation is both complicated and private.”

  This is about Tia looking for me last night. V for Vivian’s gonna bitch me out, send me on my way. No big deal. So why is my whole body prickling as if it fell asleep and is just now getting feeling back? I’m sitting on pins and needles here.

  “I left that part of my life behind,” she goes on.

  Her chair squeaks as it rotates. I think she turns to face me, but I see only the patch of floor between my feet. My tongue flattens against the roof of my mouth.

  “You think I had a choice? You think I was selfish, and maybe you’re right. I chose survival. Your father was killing me in big and little ways. With his fists. With his meanness. Every day, he took something more away from me, until there was barely anything left. If I’d have taken you with me, made off with the guitar prodigy, his great hope for the future, he’d never have let go. No matter where we ran, where we hid, it wouldn’t have mattered.”

  My mind starts screaming for my ears alone. I might not remember much about V for Vivian, but I’m carrying around a whole bunch of hours spent standing at the window, staring at an empty street, waiting for her to come back for me. Worried that if I blinked, took a piss, wasn’t good enough, I’d miss my chance. But all I got was Dear Old Dad and nothing and nobody to get in the way of practice. Practice, practice and more practice. Breathe, eat, shit, sleep guitar and I never was good enough for anybody.

  “I kept tabs on you,” she tells me. “You didn’t know that, did you? When your father was taken into custody, I thought I’d finally bring you home with me. Then I was told you were arrested. I heard about fight after fight at the detention center. When you were released, you caused so many problems you were rejected from every single foster family.”

  My heart is not so much beating as ramming head first into my breastplate. My right hand jerks free and scrapes at my thigh in a quick, steady rhythm that fails to soothe. I don’t know what stings worse, that she didn’t want me then, doesn’t want me now, or blames me for all the damage. It’s not fair, which shouldn’t piss me off after all this time because that’s how it’s always been. But it does.

  “I am protecting myself and my family. That’s the choice I’m making now, and unfortunately you’ve proven you can’t be a part of it.” The chair complains as she shifts forward. “Gibson, are you listening? I need you to hear this. You’ve been under my supervision for six weeks. After your counselling session today, Ms. Robbins is required to fill out an evaluation. According to her, you’ve remained uncooperative. You’re obviously making no effort to move forward and falling back into old habits. If you fail to meet the criteria for improvement, I’ll have no choice but to recommend you be removed. Albert can hardly argue with the findings of the school psychologist. He’ll agree that sending you away for more concentrated treatment is for the best.”

  Concentrated treatment is code for a locked box and medication. Hearing that peels my chin off my chest and I finally look at her. She sucks a sharp breath, acting all horrified, like she hasn’t seen my fucked up face a thousand times. Her fingers grip the edge of the desk and she presses backward, putting as much space between us as possible. I drop my head into my hands, wince as I touch my tender skin and remember the fresh set of scrapes and bruises. Thanks to Prick and the Balls, I’m proving her point.

  “You’re just like him,” she whispers. “Nothing but anger and violence. I can’t live like that. I can’t have you around Jamie.”

  No, no, no. She’s strapping me to a rocket, sending me straight to hell. There’s no coming back from this, nowhere to turn that doesn’t wreck me. I either give into the counsellor or get penned up again. I thought I had more time, and what the everloving hell is happening right now? Happening today. Fuuuuuuuuuck! I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

  V for Vivian then tells me she’s done with me. She says I can go now. She has to tell me three times before I even manage to stand up. I can’t make sense of anything and don’t want to leave her office. Leaving will set this in motion, and there’s gotta be some other way.

  I just need to think. Think, think, think.

  I shift foot to foot, hands trembling, searching for something familiar in my mother’s face, from when I was little. She’s made of stone. I’m nothing but a hundred and sixty pound bag of dust she can scatter to the wind, wash off her hands and forget.

  I finally manage one word but saying it almost kills me. “Please.”

  She looks away, makes a weird sound and cups her hand over her mouth. I think maybe? And for one second, my fingers still.

  When I don’t move, she finally walks to the door and holds it open with her face tilted away. I stumble out of her office and find my next class and the next. I sit and blink and maybe I breathe in and out, but I’m not me anymore. I am a wingless wasp. I do nothing but buzz and get nowhere. I wish someone would step on me and end it.

  I make it as far as my chair in English Lit. My fingers go ballistic and get so tangled in my shirt the neckline pulls tight across my throat. My legs vibrate so hard, the desk rattles and sets my teeth on edge. Big surprise. I’m not handling this well, and there could be casualties.

  Only Tia doesn’t get the memo. While the rest of the universe shrinks away from this escalating freak, she scoots her chair right up beside mine, so close she actually digs her sneaker into my foot. I spaz the fuck out and she grabs hold of my hand. I tug it free and trap it under my armpit.

  “So you’ll do it? Wear the dress?”

  Her lips move. There’s so much noise in my head, it takes me a second to realize she’s talking. Her palm now lands on my arm, and I yank it away.

  “For our English Lit presentation, the Beauty and the Beast theme? I have some leftover Halloween costumes we can use. I’ll do the whole beast thing, and I’m fairly sure the yellow ball gown will fit you. You’ll need to try it on, and we should start practicing the dance. The lift is gonna be tricky, but I think I can get you up in the
air if we’re really dedicated.”

  My eyes click to hers.

  “Welcome back to earth.” She holds up her hand, fingers spread in a weird way and says, “Live long and prosper.”

  I’m too messed up to even try and follow along.

  She smirks at me. “I’m just messing with you, making sure you’re listening to me. Are you Taz?” Her hand finds my knee. Might as well hook jumper cables to my balls, but she just tightens her grip, holding me in the chair. “After you fixed the mower, cut the grass, did my homework and took off without saying goodbye this morning, I realized we’ve never traded numbers. I couldn’t even text to say thank you.”

  I drop my head onto the desk, letting my skull thunk hard enough to hurt. I do it again.

  “Taz? Hey, what’re you doing? That’s not … not good and kind of rude. If you want your guitar back, I need your phone, so I can get in touch with you.”

  She’s holding my guitar hostage. My guitar. It’s all I’ve got. The only thing in the whole fucken universe that’s mine. I should have expected it. She’s just another person jerking me around, and I feel like one of those plastic things you shake to create a self-contained blizzard.

  I slap the phone on her desk and get rewarded with another smile. This one’s so bright I should slather on SPF 100 to protect myself. I bet she’s the leading cause of skin cancer.

  She taps at the screen, then looks from the phone to me and back with a little wrinkled above her nose. “You only have three contacts?” She says this as if she’s discovered I only have one nipple, then turns her attention back to the phone. “Now you have four.”

  I’ll need to delete her from my contacts. Or maybe it won’t matter. If I can’t get the counsellor on my side, I’ll be removed. Sent away until I’m eighteen or until they decide I’m able to play nice, which will be never.