The man who is my father told me what Sophie’s mom was when I was eleven, but I didn’t understand what that meant back then.
The reality of Sophie’s situation didn’t kick in until I was thirteen. The man who is my father had just beat the crap out of me with a two-by-four and I was trying not to cry in my room when I heard Sophie scream.
Looking out my window I saw a big, unfamiliar man standing in Sophie’s room, looking like King Kong, while her mom flittered about in front of him trying to shield Sophie.
I noticed Sophie’s window was open so I cracked mine to eavesdrop.
“I already paid you! Now, move and I’ll give you double for the girl.” King Kong’s voice was booming and full of spit.
“Back off! You got what you came for so leave!” Sophie’s mom’s voice was shaking.
“I’ll leave when I please! Now move!” King Kong took a step toward Sophie, who shrieked in response.
I was ready to jump out of my window and run over to Sophie’s. I didn’t know how I was going to protect her, but I was gonna try.
“Get out of my house or I’ll call Pete and have the boys maim you!” Sophie’s mom looked like an ant compared to the giant man.
Sophie was crying.
I was terrified.
King Kong said nasty things and lunged for Sophie, grabbing her by the hair. Sophie’s mom disappeared and returned with a gun, aimed and ready to shoot, so King Kong dropped Sophie and stormed out.
Sophie’s mom said sorry, or some other insufficient nonsense, and left the room too. I watched Sophie stay tucked into the corner of her bed, with three blankets over her head, and shake for hours.
That was the night I decided Sophie needed protecting. And if I couldn’t protect my mom, then I was going to protect the girl next door.
Sophie’s voice brings me back to the swing. “We will both have wonderful lives, Carter.”
I nod because she wants me to and because I want to believe her. I wish I had money or power or affluence, so I could make her dreams come true and take away all the bad things.
I don’t.
I can’t.
I squeeze her hand because I have nothing more to offer.
“Tomorrow morning, then?” she says, and my heart jumps. I’ve been going over to Sophie’s house every morning before school for a year. Knowing I get to see Sophie first thing in the morning is how I sleep at night.
“Of course,” I say, because I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
She knows it too.
She winks at me and we pull our hands apart.
It feels wrong, not touching her. Like a part of me just died or something. But I smile back and make my way off the porch.
“Carter?” she says, and I know what’s coming. My heart climbs to the top of my chest in anticipation.
“Sweet dreams.” She says casually, like she’s done since we were thirteen.
It’s impossible, it’s cliché, and people say things like that all the time. But those two words used to get me through some bloody nights.
I smile and shove my hands in my pockets, “You too.” I turn and cross the short distance back to my front door.
The door frame is uneven, making the warped wood of the door stick. I mindlessly yank on the door, releasing it from the splintered frame and evoking a groan from the hinges.
I glance back, across the muddy grass, crumbled rock, and cracked concrete that separate us, to watch Sophie enter her house quietly.
I will have sweet dreams.
Or, at least, I won’t have nightmares.
SOPHIE
I’m packing lunches and checking homework and making breakfast all at the same time. The TV’s on, the radio’s on, the frying pan’s sizzling, the coffee maker’s beeping, and the boys are yelling at each other about a baseball hat.
Total chaos.
This is my every morning.
We’re late, I’m stressed, and the eggs are burnt.
Carter walks in with something in his hand. He doesn’t have to knock or anything. He’s family to me and I like that he walks in.
I calm down immediately. “Morning.” I sound cheerful.
“Morning,” he smiles and makes his way to the boys. The baseball hat issue is solved almost immediately. I tell myself to thank Carter for settling that later.
He’s by my side then, teasing me about the eggs and asking me how he can help.
This is OUR every morning.
“Can you grab the kid’s lunches and pack them?”
I don’t look at Carter, I don’t need to. He’s good at this. At helping me. At being there.
I go pour him a cup of coffee. The Littles and I don’t drink coffee. But I make it every morning.
For Carter.
I hand him the cup of coffee.
“Thanks.” He says, but he looks at me longer than usual.
He loves coffee. It makes him happy or something. He no longer has a coffee maker at his house because his mom kept burning herself and breaking the pot and putting the coffee maker in ‘time out’.
So I make him coffee. Every morning. This makes me feel useful. And happy.
Carter sets down his mug and eyes the kitchen table. He kneels on the floor and starts to wedge the ‘something’ in his hands under the table legs. I stare with my mouth open as he finishes and stands back up. The table no longer wobbles.
He busies himself with the lunches as if nothing happened. I stare at the table for a moment, touched by his thoughtfulness.
“Thank you,” I say, and mean it from the bottom of my heart.
He shrugs, finishes the lunches and shoves his hands in his pockets.
I love his guts.
I really do.
“Carter, Carter!” Chloe cries with a big smile as she bounces into the kitchen. Carter is her favorite person in the whole wide world. She’s informed me that she’s going to marry him when she grows up.
Carter tugs on her pigtails (the ones I spent twenty minutes brushing into place) and kisses the top of her head.
“Morning, sunshine.” He always calls her sunshine. When she was in kindergarten, she told her teacher that her name was Sunshine.
I make sure everyone eats breakfast and is dressed before ushering everyone out the front door. Then we’re off. Everyone heads for school.
Chloe and Abram catch their bus. Michael jogs ahead of me so he’s not seen with me when we get to school. And Carter goes back to his house to wake up his mom and make sure she’s taken her medicine and whatnot.
Carter’s first class of the day starts later than mine.
I go to school all day. I don’t see Carter. It’s normal.
I’m at lunch, planning on being late for English again when Whitney Morris bombards my personal space and nearly gags me with the scent of her perfume.
“Sophie! I need your help.”
No she doesn’t.
“Have you talked to Carter?”
“No.” I lie, as I tuck my hair behind my ear.
Her face falls and I don’t feel bad for her.
Whitney sighs dramatically. “It’s been five weeks. Five weeks! Is Carter seeing someone else?”
Here’s the thing about Whitney: I don’t like her.
Whitney Morris is popular for all the wrong reasons, and happens to be mildly attractive, so people overlook the fact that she’s obnoxious.
Not me, though.
Sophomore year, Whitney sat behind me in History and literally talked about her pet mouse (that’s right, she has a pet mouse—named Minnie) everyday.
EVERYDAY.
Minnie sleeps on a silk pillow. Minnie eats only organic cheese. Minnie gets her nails done once a week.
By the end of sophomore year I was having nightmares about a mouse princess who made me give her pedicures and feed her cheese wedges.
Minnie, the mouse, haunted my dreams.
And completely ruined Disneyland for me.
So Whitney isn’t my favorite person.
But here she is now, sitting next to me at my lunch table, wanting to talk about her relationship with Carter.
And I’d rather sit through a seven-hour description of Minnie mouse’s bowel movements.
Whitney sighs again, “Come on, Sophie. Is there someone else?”
Whitney’s in love with Carter and thinks that because they messed around one time they’re meant to be together. Basically, she’s a tease who needs nonstop attention from guys. I don’t say this to be mean, I say this because there are no alternatives.
She knows nothing about Carter.
She’s never seen him scared, or watched him take a punch for his mom, or helped him empty all the bottles of alcohol from his house.
She knows nothing.
But she shared her mouth with him, and that makes me hate her.
I don’t care how shallow I sound.
I shrug. “How would I know?” People have no idea that Carter and I are close. We like it that way. It’s simple.
Usually.
Whitney rolls her perfect eyes. “Helloooo? You live next door to him! Have you seen anyone go over there?”
I think about it. The police, the paramedics, the social workers….
“Nope.”
“Agh!” Whitney’s insecure about this, which thrills me.
I don’t ever want to see a girl trot into Carter’s house like she belongs there. I’m pretty sure I would follow her in and punch her.
“What’s the big deal, anyway? Move on.” I try to focus on my food. It’s important I eat a lot now, otherwise I’ll be starving at dinner.
“Move on? You don’t just move on from Carter Jax. He’s amazing.”
For some reason, I’m feeling incredibly feisty. “Really? How so?” There’s nothing she can tell me that I don’t already know.
“Well, for starters, he’s an amazing kisser.”
Except, well, maybe that.
I might just punch her right now.
“And also, he’s got an incredible body.”
This I know. I’ve seen him walking around his house in only a pair of board shorts.
I’m annoyed that her first two examples of how ‘amazing’ Carter is involve his body.
“And he’s brave, you know?”
This, from Whitney, surprises me.
I know he’s brave. He’s the bravest person I’ve ever met.
I’ve seen him stand up to a monster of a father, and battle a hellish illness with his mother.
I’ve watched him confront bullies at school for Michael and kill spiders with his bare hands for me.
“I mean,” Whitney’s voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me, “He got in, like, this totally crazy car accident a few years ago and almost died. But he managed to walk himself to a phone and call 911 for help. That’s how he got that huge scar on his arm.”
Whitney’s nodding at me with big, sad eyes and I want to scream. She knows nothing.
I watched that scar get placed on his body.
It wasn’t from a car accident, it was from his father.
It happened the August before our junior year of high school. I was doing dishes in the kitchen when I saw Carter’s dad swing a baseball bat at his mom.
Carter had been working out that summer and had grown large and strong. He stepped in and grabbed—yes GRABBED—the baseball bat mid-swing. I immediately ran outside toward his house.
I didn’t know what I was going to do but I certainly wasn’t going to just wash dishes while Carter got bloodied up by his dad.
I reached his house, all the while looking in the kitchen window, and I saw his dad come at him with a butcher knife.
I remember feeling numb all over. I was suffocating and stopped running. I watched in frozen silence as Carter’s body was slashed open and blood flew around the kitchen.
I thought he was dead.
Then I would be dead, too.
But Carter stood up tall, grabbed his father (who was smaller in comparison at that point) and threw him against the wall. Carter punched him over and over again with his bloody hands.
Carter was screaming and crying, his fury raining down in the form of fists and kicks and sweat and blood.
I stood in their yard as Carter heaved his father’s pummeled body out onto the front porch. His dad was unconscious, but not dead.
When Carter saw me he immediately began apologizing and stuttering and trying to wipe off the blood that kept pouring out of him.
I did the only thing I could think of. I ran over to him, wrapped my arms around him and told him he was brave and right and wonderful. I think we both cried while his bloody arm stained my clothes and scared the crap out of me.
THAT’S how Carter got his scar. I drove Carter to the hospital that night.
I sat next to him while he got stitches.
I made him dinner for the next two weeks because his arm was useless and his mom had lost her mind.
I was there.
NOT WHITNEY.
Carter’s dad never came back after that night.
I look at Whitney and fake my response. “Wow, really? Yeah, that’s brave.” I bite my cheek so I don’t strangle her.
“Yeah, well, I really felt like we connected, you know? Like we totally clicked. So I don’t understand why he’s not calling me back, you know?”
They so did not totally click.
“Did he say he’d call you back?” I ask, looking innocent.
I know the answer. Because, after all, I know him.
“Well, no. He said he doesn’t ‘do’ relationships and that his life is too complicated for anything serious so I shouldn’t waste my time with him.”
He always warns them.
“Was that before or after you messed around with him?” Suck it, Whitney Morris.
She thinks about it, “Well…I guess he said that before….”
“Well, there’s your answer.” I snap. She doesn’t get my pity.
“Well, excuse me. I didn’t know dating Evan Walters made you Queen of Relationships.” She’s trying to be snotty. It’s not going to work.
I shrug and she gets up and leaves with a huff.
I used to date a guy named Evan Walters. Evan is the guy every girl at school wants to date. He’s hot, he’s wealthy, he’s a football player. He’s every girl’s dream.
Except mine.
Evan isn’t a bad guy. He’s actually pretty nice, and not too stuck up. And I really did like him quite a bit. So much so, that I felt like I had to pretend I had a perfect home life just to maintain our relationship.
Because Evan wouldn’t understand prostitution and drugs and poverty, so I could never trust him with the truth about my life.
So we broke up. I wasn’t sad afterwards. I probably should have been, but I wasn’t. Unfortunately, now I have this label slapped on my back that reads “Evan’s Ex-Girlfiend” and it’s extremely inconvenient.
Whatever.
I hate Whitney Morris and I wish Evan Walters would go to a different school.
I close my eyes and try to push Whitney and Evan away from my thoughts.
I’m graduating in two weeks. After that, nothing will matter.
Except me.
And the Littles.
And Carter.
CARTER
In my last class of the day, TJ is trying to convince me go to some kegger. I don’t drink, but TJ doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know anything really.
“I think that kid Evan is bringing the beer. You know him, right? I think he was messing around with your neighbor for a while.”
Well, TJ knows that.
I hate that TJ knows that.
I hate Evan Walters.
And I hate that I hate these things. It means I care—which I do. But I wish I didn’t care that much. It’s unhealthy.
When I first heard Sophie was with Evan, I didn’t sleep for three nights. Three freaking nights. That’s unhealthy.
But I couldn’t help myself. The idea of Sophie and
Evan together pricked at my mind until I was a crazed insomniac.
Sophie’s not just any girl.
So she shouldn’t be with just any guy.
She should be…I dunno…just not dating Evan Walters.
“—so hot. Have you ever seen her naked, man? Like from your window?”
I realize TJ’s talking to me again and I’m annoyed. “Who?”
TJ sneers at me, “Sophie Hartman, dude. Isn’t she a total hottie?”
I blink a few times. “Yeah, Sophie’s gorgeous. No, I’ve never seen her naked.” But now I’m thinking about it.
Stupid TJ.
“I hear her mom’s kinda easy. Maybe the girl is too.” TJ’s raising his eyebrows like a pig.
When Sophie and I were Freshmen, her mom would only disappear for a few days at a time. I know because I’d watch their house closely, waiting for her mom to come home so I could relax.
Although, even when she was home I never relaxed.
The first time her mom had been gone for a whole week, I remember taking the trash out one night and seeing Sophie at her kitchen table, crying.
I don’t know why I did it, but I walked over to her front door and let myself in. I knew if I knocked she would have just ignored me.
I walked into the kitchen to find her looking at me, not surprised to see me. I sat down at the table next to her.
“It’ll be okay, Sophie.” I didn’t have anything better to say.
After a while I put my arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. She tucked her wet face into my arm and said, “Thank you.”
That was the first time, in a long time, I felt important.
“Sophie’s not like that.” I say, absently.
“How would you know?” TJ looks at me closely.
I forget, momentarily, that Sophie and I aren’t supposed to know one another at school. “I don’t. I’m just guessing.” I shrug and stretch my neck, like Sophie’s not the best part of my every day.
“That’s not what Evan said.”
TJ’s an infant.
My blood is boiling and I’m trying to reason with myself. I’m not her boyfriend or anything. I’m not anyone who has any right to feel possessive about Sophie.
But I do.
I can’t stop myself. I don’t want to stop.
She’s tough and incredible and beautiful…and she’s a better person than anyone I know.