My breaths are coming deep and heavy now, the tears running down my cheeks freely. Sara has one hand on my shoulder, and Alex stands on my other side in what feels like support, but I’m pretty sure she’d gladly face-plant me right into the tiles if I flipped again.
“I think I need to go to the guidance office,” I say.
Hendricks nods. “One of you go with her.”
“I will,” Alex volunteers, and I swear there’s the tiniest bit of relief on Sara’s face when she does.
We’re halfway to Miss Reynolds’s office before I get my breath to stop hitching in my chest and it occurs to me to wipe my face. “Bathroom,” I say, ducking in because a cold sink and some running water sounds a hell of a lot more comforting than trying to decipher what kind of judgment Miss Reynolds’s eyebrows are delivering. Alex leans against the wall, eyeing me in the mirror while I splash my face.
A flush of embarrassment rises up my neck and into my cheeks, underscoring the hot tear tracks. “I’m sorry,” I say.
“Why?”
I watch the water sweeping away the salt on my face, the drops collecting on my chin as I lean my forehead against the mirror. “Because that’s not me,” I say, closing my eyes. “I don’t hit people. That’s not who I am.”
And Alex’s voice in the darkness. “Wrong. That’s exactly who you were in that specific moment. That was Claire at her most basic, unaltered by expectations.”
I open my eyes, the blue of my irises so much more intense now that I’ve been crying. “But you stopped me.”
“Venting your primal self in an emotional moment can be more than your socially constructed self can handle after the fact,” Alex says, her eyes gliding over me. “Look at you. Your hands are shaking. Your voice is weak. And your conscience is reasserting itself.”
I heave a sigh and pull back from the mirror, my forehead leaving a smear behind. “Yeah,” I admit. “It totally is.”
All I did was smack Branley’s hand a little, dent her makeup, and give her a lesson on what her new lipstick tastes like. And I feel like shit.
I turn to face Alex, resting my back against the sink. “Thanks for stopping me.”
“Of course,” she says, as if restraining people is part of her routine. Her eyebrows come together as she scrutinizes the wall above my shoulder.
“Is Marilee Nolan a bitch?” she asks.
“What?”
Alex nods at the wall behind me. “Right there, it says Marilee Nolan is a bitch. Is she?”
“No, I don’t know. Not really. I don’t think so,” I say. But whoever wrote that had a red Sharpie and a lot of conviction.
“We should erase it,” Alex says.
“That’s permanent marker.”
“Nothing is permanent.” Alex pumps the towel dispenser half a dozen times and I find myself playing janitor with her, our knuckles scraping against the cinderblock wall as we wet fistful after fistful of cheap towels.
“I stopped you because it’s easier to fantasize about violence than actually perform it,” she says a few minutes later. “Most people consider things they wouldn’t do in real life, and there’s enough visceral satisfaction in the thought to alleviate the emotion. In reality, hurting another person on purpose is not a simple task, and not everyone is up to it.”
I remember how I wanted to find the guy who threw out the sack of puppies and kick him bloody, how many times I’ve considered punching Branley in the face. But when I actually tried, it all went the wrong way, like a carefully scripted scene I imagined ahead of time falling apart because nobody else knew their lines. Of all the times I imagined smashing her nose until it bled and shredding her pouty lips on her perfect white teeth, I never factored in that look of complete incomprehension on her face when I did it. Now that I can’t unsee it, the absolute innocence in her eyes when I was bent on hurting her is its own revenge, and I feel gut punched even though Branley never raised a finger.
“It’s not restricted to violence,” Alex continues, still scrubbing at the wall. “People fantasize about sex with someone they can’t attain, or what they would do with the money if they won the lottery. It’s wish fulfillment, a break from reality.”
“A way to escape,” I say, thinking about my dad’s words the other day.
Alex nods. “Until it becomes your new prison, and you either live in the daydream or make it reality. And in your case, that would mean going against who you actually are, inside. A good person.”
I toss my last handful of paper towel, now stained pink, into the trash and get myself a fresh one from the dispenser. I wet it and press it against my still-hot face. She’s right. My new friend with a good vocabulary knows me better than I know myself.
“We should go to the office,” I say. “Talk to Miss Reynolds.”
Alex follows me into the hallway and we walk the rest of the way in our special kind of silence, the one that doesn’t need to be broken for us to be comfortable. I get into the guidance office just as Reynolds is hanging up her phone, probably getting a call from Hendricks saying I’m on my way. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t need her anymore.
Alex made the bathroom more productive than the guidance office, more honest than my father’s confessional. But I say the right words, tell the truth like I’m supposed to, and promise to apologize to Branley, who is reportedly being very mature about the entire thing.
When I’m done, I find Alex waiting for me in the hallway. She’s pressed against the wall underneath the sign for the girls’ bathroom that someone drew on—an erect penis with eyes glaring up her plastic skirt.
I didn’t expect Alex to be there. I am the preacher’s kid. My friends are on the debate team and Quiz Bowl. My friends are in marching band. My friends are in class right now because that’s where they’re supposed to be. Except Alex isn’t.
And I’m pretty damn sure that she’s my friend.
20. JACK
It’s definitely a girl-fight day. First Peekay went after Branley; now Alex and Branley are vying for space in my head. It’s a good thing I have a job where your mind can be elsewhere. In fact, it’s better that way.
Because I kill things for a living.
It’s raining. The holding pens smell like wet shit and anxiety. The living cows might not know what the coppery tinge to the air is, but they do know it’s nothing good. Another one comes down the chute toward me and I put my bolt gun right on its fuzzy forehead, the spot a kid would kiss if this were a stuffed animal being tucked in at night. I pull the trigger and it drops, fifteen hundred pounds of unconscious steaks and hamburger hitting the ground with a meaty thump.
I hook a chain around a back leg and this one is hoisted away from me, tongue lolling. Depending on which line it goes down it might see my dad in a few moments, pupils reflecting his face right before he slits its throat and the brightness fades. He did that job before the animal rights groups said they had to stun them first. He says the pigs would scream like women while they hung and you had to spin them to get their throat pointed at you right. He wore earplugs then.
Now he wears earbuds, says the screaming was almost better because you didn’t hear the skin tearing, the blood dripping onto the concrete. I know for a fact that his playlist is straight classical music. He just stands there all day, a huge guy with a blood-spattered beard wearing a rubber apron, holding a knife, pumping Bach into his ears so he can go somewhere else in his head. Nicest guy you’ll ever meet.
Dad got me this job when I turned eighteen, told me this was the best way to earn money for college and appreciate it at the same time. And I sure as hell do, because there’s another cow already coming down the chute, looking at me with big, confused eyes that won’t close, not even when I pull the trigger. I don’t know how my dad has done this for so many years, but I know why—so that I don’t have to. I love the shit out of him and have grown too old to say it, so when he pulled some strings to get me a shift after school that would overlap with his for one hour I said yes.
/>
Yes because even that little bit of money will help get me through college. Yes because when he asked he expected me to say no. Yes because I don’t think I’m better than him, not by a long shot. Yes because when he’s leaving he walks past me and claps me on the shoulder without speaking. Yes because my dad is a good guy, and I want to be one too.
So I shoot the next cow and try to let the impact noise jolt Alex and Branley out of my head, but they won’t go. They’re stuck there, revolving around each other while I try to sort out what’s what.
When Branley faced down Peekay I was right next to her because that’s where I’ve always been. In fifth grade it was me and Park across from Jimmy Owens when he knocked her into the gravel on the playground because she wouldn’t lift up her skirt and show him her panties. She’s got tiny white scars on her knees from that, places the gravel dug deep and turned her skin to ground meat. I look at them sometimes, and I can still hear her crying.
But I remember a time before that when she didn’t wear skirts, before she realized that she was cute as hell and it could go a long way. I remember hunting for crawdads with Branley wearing jeans rolled up to her skinny knees, mud smeared on her cheeks, sweat making her hair dark. I remember when Branley was my best friend and we didn’t understand why people smiled at us when we held hands. And now my hands have been everywhere on her, and she doesn’t dish out a smile unless she wants something.
“Goddammit,” I say to a new cow before I shoot her.
I don’t even know Alex, I remind myself. There’s no reason why I’m so fascinated by her, but I just am. I can’t get her out of my head. All my memories of Branley can’t compete against a few minutes of conversation with Alex, awkward and stilted, both of us weighing every word like we’re testing out a new language on each other. And we kind of are, I guess. We use the same consonant and vowel sounds but have never said them to each other before, and somehow that makes them all new again.
I’ve been with enough girls to know that one body is as good as another when the lights go out. Discovering women is far from a new thing to me, but the outline of Alex’s taut arm when she held back Peekay was like a damn aphrodisiac. I want to know about her. I want to know what she looks like with tousled hair. I want to know what the scar on her wrist is from. I understand now why my mom always asks me if I’m interested in any girls as opposed to if I like them.
I like Branley. I’ve always liked Branley.
I’m interested in Alex.
She’s buried in my head so deep I’m still thinking about her as I drive home, and when my headlights bounce off the same ditched car I saw yesterday, I hit the brakes. It’s pitch black but I see enough to know it’s her car, and that it hasn’t budged an inch. I take the curve slow, thumbs drumming on the steering wheel in thought.
Alex hadn’t offered me her number, and I was so focused on keeping a conversation going I didn’t think to ask. Driving to her house to tell her the car is still in the ditch seems pretty pointless, since I bet she already knows. What I’d also bet is she has no idea how to get it out and isn’t the type to ask for help. I call for Dad the second I walk in the back door, kicking off my blood-slicked boots to sit next to his in the mudroom.
“In here,” my mom calls from the living room.
They both look so comfortable I hate to ask. Mom’s curled up on the couch with a book. Dad’s hair is still wet from a shower and he’s got his recliner up, a football game on the TV.
“Hey, Dad, can I get a favor?”
“What’s that?” he asks, eyes flicking from the screen to me.
“Friend of mine went in the ditch, and her car’s still there.”
“Oh, her car,” my mom says, over the sound of Dad’s ancient recliner squealing in protest as he flips it down.
“How bad?” Dad asks.
“Barely in the ditch, right on the north side of the curve.”
“Are you interested in this girl, honey?” Mom asks, eyeing me over the pages of her book.
I take a deep breath instead of waving her off like I usually do. “Yes. I’m definitely interested.”
Mom raises her eyebrows at Dad. “I guess you better get going, then.”
It’s the work of one truck, one chain, five minutes, and then I’m in Alex’s car with Dad following me. I drive it to her place while trying to formulate the perfect thing to say when she answers the door.
Except her mom does.
She’s all poise and coolness, a drink in her hand and a question on her face when she looks at me. She’s like something out of a magazine with drawn-on eyebrows . . . one of them arching a little more severely than necessary as I continue to say nothing.
“Hi,” I finally manage. “Is, um . . . is Alex home?” She looks confused for a split second, and I wonder if I somehow drove to the wrong house in the dark.
“Mom?” Alex’s voice calls from somewhere inside. “Was that the door?”
“Yes,” her mom says cautiously, still eyeing me. “It’s for you.”
And then Alex is there, standing beside her in the doorway. They’re shoulder to shoulder and staring at me as I stand awkwardly on a welcome mat with very little wear and tear. I remember the shriek of the hinges when the front door was opened, sticking for a moment in the frame so that it had to be yanked. The long pause inside a dead house right after I rang the doorbell.
No one comes here.
Alex shakes off her bewilderment first. “Hello, Jack.”
Not hi, hey, what’s up. She says hello. And she says my name, to me, which is something people don’t usually do in conversation. It feels so intimate I nearly blush.
Her mom goes into motion, like a robot that just now went into start-up. “Yes, hello. Are you going to introduce us, Alex?”
“Mom, this is my friend Jack Fisher.” Alex says it automatically, as prompted. The word friend comes out awkwardly, one her tongue and lips haven’t practiced enough.
I’m thinking about her tongue and lips when I should be shaking the hand her mom is holding out, waiting patiently for me to divert my attention from Alex’s mouth. Her hand limp in mine, a greeting as warm as the wind biting my back.
“I got your car out of the ditch,” I say, eyes back on Alex so quickly it’s like she’s a magnet. Her glance goes over my shoulder to the driveway where my dad sits in the truck, lights dim, engine idling.
“I was going to call, but I don’t have your number,” I add, hoping the hint is enough.
Her mom has faded away, a pale figure receding back into the house.
“I don’t have a phone,” Alex says.
“Maybe you should get one.”
Her eyes are on mine, and it’s like there’s no such thing as casual flirting with this girl. Every word she speaks is intense as hell and thoroughly investigated before she lets it out of her mouth.
“Maybe I should,” she says.
And I kinda feel like I just won the world.
21. ALEX
You learn how to pretend when you live in this house.
We’re both so good at it now we don’t know how to do anything else. Pretend that I’m okay. Pretend the scotch bottle is as full as it was yesterday. Pretend that Anna’s permanently closed door might open again. Pretend that mine doesn’t exist. Pretend other families live like this.
It’s the only thing we do well together.
It wasn’t always this way. I remember my father. I remember marking the calendar, putting smiley-face stickers on the day when he would get home from his run. I remember Mom’s mood changing as we got closer to it, her face reflecting the sticker.
Dad would come home. The rumble of a semi in the night and the flash of lights trailing across my bedroom walls, slipping downstairs in my footed pajamas, unable to mask the swish-swish noise of them as I came down the stairs, Anna behind me. We never got in trouble, no matter how late it was. He’d scoop us up and hug us, toss us in the air so high Mom would squeal a bit. The house would smell like gas and
takeout and nobody cared.
Then things changed. Mom seemed to prefer the days in between the smiley faces on the calendar, her face stretching into a tight mask as we got closer to the next one, the muscles creating the best parody of it that they were able. We were bigger and harder to toss in the air, and Dad just kind of looked at us when we ran to him, unsure what to do with something not shaped like a steering wheel.
So we stopped running to him.
And then a sticker day came and he didn’t. It faded, the color creeping back from the edges until only the teeth were yellowed. Mom never took the calendar down. It hung on the refrigerator, a silent testament to his failure, a constant reminder whenever we wanted a drink.
It was her litany when Anna was still alive, her echoed refrain any time my sister pointed out tangles in my hair or toenails grown too long.
“At least I’m here,” she would say, stomping away from the argument so that her footfalls shook the house, asserting the simple fact of her presence.
Every day that passed brought my real face out from under the baby fat, the elongating cheekbones too much like his, the eyes reminding her of another pair that couldn’t bear to look at her anymore.
Dad’s things are still here; his clothes hang limply in his closet, his tools unused in the garage. The only thing of his not covered with dust is a punching bag, because I’ve kept it in perpetual motion since he left, the rage my small fists vented growing into an actual threat now that I’m older.
When I’m throwing punches is the only time I remember him clearly, all the hours I stood nearby, my own face crunched in fierceness like his, my feet mimicking his movements. I went out there alone only once, after Mom had tossed something I was reading into the garbage disposal after I ignored her instructions to clean my room. Pages had flown in the air, shredded words floated between us, and I wanted to cross the distance with my knuckles, wipe the smirk off my mother’s face.
But I knew better, and I ran to the garage to do all the things I wanted to do to her to the punching bag instead, screaming, punching, slapping, kicking, sweating, crying, heaving. I was red-faced and out of air when Dad found me resting on the tailgate of his truck, one sleeve of my shirt dried stiff from wiping tears. He sat next to me, his weight pushing the truck bed down, my little feet that much closer to the ground. He rested his hand on my head and sighed, and I saw that he was crying too.