“I’m seventeen. Do you really think they would waste their time taking me away when I’m almost legal to be on my own anyway?” I kick back on my bed and put my feet up.
“Why don’t you repeat the part of that sentence where you say how old you are? You’re almost eighteen. Don’t you think you should stop wasting time and get your shit together? You graduate this year, man. You have your whole life ahead of you. Don’t fuck it up like Dad did.”
Aaaand...time to go. I hate it when he gets all self-righteous like this. “You seem to forget we can’t all be as good as you, Luke. And maybe you shouldn’t talk shit about someone who isn’t here to defend himself. He’s our dad.” I push off the bed and stand up. The guy raised us. He always made sure Luke and I had food to eat, no matter how he had to get it. I respect that. He did what had to be done.
Luke rolls his eyes. His hair is getting a little longer, the dark strands going into his narrow, blue eyes. “I would say it to his face, but he left us, Ry. Remember that. He doesn’t deserve your loyalty. He’s a liar and a thief. He’s a criminal, and not because he loved us so much he wanted to take care of us, but because he loved stealing more than he did us.”
I ball my hands into fists, wanting nothing more than to knock my brother out. It would serve him right. I get this little twitch in the right side of my forehead when I feel like I’m going to explode.
Luke forgets he’s the one who left first. The second he graduated high school he was out of here, and he didn’t look back once until Dad had to bail. Dad had no choice in leaving. Luke did. While he was off pretending he was better than the rest of us, Dad kept teaching me how to survive. He taught me how to get whatever I need so I’ll never have to work shitty jobs only to still be broke, the way Luke does. Dad taught me how to be a man.
“Shit, Ry.” Luke shakes his head. “You’re going to be just like him if you're not careful. He’s a loser. He’s nothing. Two strikes, bro. You have two strikes already. One more and you’re going to juvie for more than a couple days like last time. It’s not much longer until they’ll try you as an adult. You don’t get it, but—”
“I’d rather be like him than a sellout like you.” It’s not like Luke really gives a shit anyway. He cares that he can’t be at his rich-kid college, and that’s about it. “I’m out.”
Without another word, I walk from my room.
I don’t have a car, and the thought of stealing Luke’s just to piss him off lands in my brain. It would serve him right. But I know he’ll call the cops on me and then I’ll be screwed, so I call my best friend, Shane, as I walk from the house.
“We’re right up the road, man. Be right there,” he says before I hang up.
I walk down the street so I don’t have to wait at home. Luke is like an annoying cold sometimes, and I can’t get rid of him no matter what I do. What’s his problem anyway? We were lucky. Hell, most of my friends don’t have dads, but we did. Ours wanted to be around. He taught us the kind of lessons you don’t learn in school. The kind of stuff you need.
Yeah, a lot of it wasn’t on the up and up, but no one will ever be able to say I don’t know how to take care of myself.
I can pick a lock in under twenty-five seconds.
I can hotwire a car just as quickly.
In no time at all, I can come up with a story to get what I want. I can get out of detention when I feel like putting in the effort, or I can talk a waitress into a free meal by making her believe I lost my wallet.
In other words, things I can actually use. Not algebra, and shit that Luke thinks is so important.
Hoooonk!
I jump and then shake my head as Shane pulls his car up next to me. I lean into the open passenger window. It’s pretty much full, which I should have known it would be. Tanner and his boyfriend Cody are in the back. Tanner’s leaning against Cody, taking up two seats. Cody’s messing with Tanner’s Mohawk, and Tanner winks at me.
“Luke givin’ you shit?” Tan asks.
Totally not going there, so I ignore him and look at Drea in the passenger seat. She’s gorgeous. Everyone sees it and she knows it. She’s got smooth, light brown skin and big, round eyes. A couple months ago she got a Marilyn Monroe piercing, which I’m pretty sure was made just for her. She’s the kind of girl who doesn’t screw around. When I first met her, I didn’t pronounce her name right—it’s “Drey-uh”—and I thought she would knock me out. I like that about her. “I’m sitting with you.”
Shane has an old Cadillac with a bench seat in front. Drea smiles and scoots over as I open the door.
“What up, man?” Shane asks.
Getting in, I close the door behind me. “Nothin’.”
Drea’s long, dark hair is over her shoulder. It brushes my arm, she’s sitting so close to me. We’ve fucked around before. Probably will again. But we’ve always been cool like that. We get together when we want to have a good time, and that’s the end of it. People who don’t know her give her hell sometimes, but we take care of it for Drea. There’s nothing wrong with a girl who likes sex.
“Where were you guys going?” I ask as Shane pulls away. I finger the snakebite piercings in my bottom lip.
“Hoping to chill at your house, but obviously that’s a no-go.” Shane glances at me.
Automatically, I tense up. Fucking Luke. I’m still pissed at him.
Tanner leans forward. I feel his breath on my neck so I turn to see him looking at me. “You cool?”
Tanner’s good about that—not that I want him in my business right now—but he’s always the one who will make sure everyone is okay instead of just letting things slide.
“Yep. Luke’s being a douchebag is all.” You’d think living with your twenty-two year old brother would be cool. Not when it’s mine, though.
Tanner leans backward with Cody again. We drive around for a while before pulling over by this quiet stretch of ocean. We live in a crappy town outside of San Francisco—far enough from the city to feel like the middle of nowhere, but close enough that some of the rich people who work in the city live in the town next to us and drive downtown for work.
Shane pulls out his pipe. We hotbox the car before the five of us get out and head toward the water. Cody builds a fire in one of the fire pits. It’s dead down here. It’s only September but the evenings are already pretty cold.
We stay here as it gets dark, talking crap and hanging out. Luke thinks my friends are shit, just like he thinks I am, but I feel more at home with these guys than I do him.
It doesn’t take long until Drea starts kissing my neck. Shane looks over at us. “When’s the wedding?”
“Funny.”
Tanner and Cody are in their own world. Tan is on Cody’s lap whispering something in his ear. They’re always whispering stuff back and forth. I turn toward Drea and kiss her back, thinking she’s the perfect distraction I need tonight, and knowing all I am is a distraction for her, too.
CHAPTER THREE
~Virginia~
When I get home after driving around, I’m not surprised to see Mom sitting at our dining room table with Dad.
The table means they want to talk. It’s not that Dad and I don’t eat there together every night we’re home. We do. But every important conversation the three of us have also takes place there.
When we lived together and had family meetings, this is where we’d sit. The only difference was back then the table sat at Mom’s house in the city. It’s where we talked when Mom had problems and we needed to come up with a plan. It’s where we cried when they announced they were getting separated. And even though I know it’s important that we talk about today, I’m avoiding that stupid table at all costs. I can’t do this with Mom here. It’s easier when it’s just Dad.
“Lulu,” Dad says at the same time Mom mutters, “Virginia.”
“Virginia,” Dad corrects himself as Mom adds, “Lulu,” and then they both look at each other and laugh.
There’s a little voice inside my head that
tells me it’s funny, that I should laugh with them, but all I can think about is the fact that Mom called me Lulu. That means this is serious. There’s definitely no way I’m sitting at that table now.
“The showers weren’t working today after PE.” Truth. “I need to shower before I can do anything.” Lie.
Dad sighs. “Lulu,” he says again.
Turning, I face them while walking backward toward the stairs. “I’m serious! Don’t worry. I’m already working with the student council on what we can do to make sure the showers get fixed quickly.” And then, before they can try and force me to the table, I run upstairs.
I swear, I hardly get the door closed before it’s getting shoved open again. Mom. She pushes way more than Dad does. If she wasn’t here, he would have waited downstairs for me.
“Mom! This is my room. You can’t just come in.” The whininess in my voice is annoying, but I’m hoping it will do the trick.
I fall to my bed, and she keeps coming. She has a sad smile on her face that I hate to see there. I love it when she’s happy. I used to want to be just like her.
Mom pushes a lock of her honey-brown hair behind her ear and sits beside me. Before I know it, Dad is here with her.
“I am so sorry, Virginia.” Her arm raises and she does the same thing with my matching hair that she just did with her own. It makes tears spring to my eyes but I hold them back before they can slip free.
The urge to stick my fingers into my ears and start humming hits me. If I can’t hear what she has to say, then I can pretend it’s not true. I can pretend I have normal parents who get separated and hate each other, instead of a mom who isn’t always my mom.
“I’ve been…going through some things lately. I’m still seeing my psychiatrist, but…” Mom’s words trail off.
Thank you. Don’t say them. Go home and let me go sit in Dad’s office with him. We can talk statistics and rules because those things clear both our heads.
“Go on, Charity.” Dad grabs her hand, and suddenly anger teases me, burned edges on a piece of paper. Why does he want to hear this? Why is he making her tell me? How can he be so understanding when I can’t?
Mom takes a deep breath, her eyes flooded pools. “You know I worked really hard with my doctor for a long time.”
Crossing my arms, I speak. “Just say it, Mom.” The sooner she does, the sooner I can try to forget it.
“There’s a new personality. It doesn’t seem to be very bad, and unlike the others, she accepts who I am. She knows I’m your mom, and we have no doubt that we can integrate her as well.”
New personality, new personality, new personality. How many people can say their mom used to have more than one person living inside them? That besides being Charity the mom and the author, she also used to be Robin the rebellious teenage girl who wanted to be my friend, and Samantha the person who hated me?
When I was in the third grade, girls at my school were picking on me. They called me names and made me cry, and the only person I wanted was my mom. I ran into the house when I got off the school bus and wrapped my arms around her legs. I was surprised when she didn’t hold me back so I looked up at her through a blur.
“Mommy?” I’d said.
She rolled her eyes. “Ugh. It’s you again.”
That was when I knew I would never be able to depend on her. That was when I decided I wouldn’t depend on anyone.
It wasn’t her fault, I got that, but I was the one who felt my heart breaking apart. I was the only one who could fix it too. So I had. Just like I will now.
“Who is it?” I ask, not letting my emotions weigh me down.
Another sigh from Mom. “Her name is Amelia. She’s not like Samantha. She loves you. We came close to some…revelations in therapy. That’s when Amelia showed up. I’m going to do everything I can to fix this. We’ll do what we can to integrate so this won’t happen again.”
Amelia loves me so much she embarrassed me in front of half the school? No thank you. I don’t tell them how I feel, though. I listen while Mom talks about therapy. Dad’s there to support her, and her psychiatrist is hopeful. They go on and on, but their voices just get farther and farther away.
Why does it have to be this way? Why can’t she just be my mom?
I snap out of it when Mom says, “They’re blank. You’re not writing?” She fingers one of the journals beside my bed.
Mom is obviously big on writing since it’s what she does for a living, but she’s always pushing it on me as well. Writing your feelings is therapeutic and you’re so talented, Virginia. I don’t want to be talented. Sylvia Plath was talented, as was Virginia Woolf. Just like Mom is. Writing is the last thing I want to do.
It sets my insides aflame again. It makes no sense that she thinks I would want to be like her and Grandma. Why would I want to embrace that creative side she’s always saying is so important when I’ve seen what it’s done?
I don’t want to be like the writers Mom loves. I don’t want to abandon my daughter and then end my life like Grandma did. I don’t want to not be myself like the famous Charity Nichols.
“I have to go.” Standing, I grab my keys from the bedside table.
“Lulu.” Dad reaches for me but Mom grabs his arm.
“Let her go, Dave.”
He nods, and I leave. The whole time I’m driving, I fight back tears. I drive out of town, until I realize I’m in Henderson. It’s not the safest place but I don’t care.
The sound of the ocean flows through my lowered window. Water isn’t really my favorite thing but still I pull over. It’s so big out here, it’s easy to get lost. To pretend things aren’t going to fall apart again.
CHAPTER FOUR
~Ryder~
It’s not long after Drea and I stop making out that a few more people we know show up. They’re pretty cool, and they have beer with them, which everyone is stoked about.
Shane doesn’t drink. It’s not his thing, but I can tell by his jittery movements that he’s excited to have a few more people to chill with us. It’s not hard to tell when Shane is pumped about something because he can’t stop moving around. If we weren’t at the beach, he’d be riding his skateboard. He kicks ass on that thing.
Glancing over at Cody, I see him move the backpack he always has with him. It’s no doubt full of spray paint. He paints some pretty badass pictures in all sorts of places where he’s not supposed to. He must be ready to go find a place to paint.
Everyone talks and laughs and I try to join in. I’m as down for a good time as the next guy, but tonight, I’m just not feeling it.
He left us, Ry…
He doesn’t deserve your loyalty…
He’s a criminal, and not because he loved us so much he wanted to take care of us, but because he loved stealing more than he did us.
Screw Luke for putting shit like that in my head. Dad and me were like partners. Dad wanted me around.
Pushing to my feet, I dust sand the sand off. “I’m going for a walk.”
Drea looks up at me, her eyes searching for something. “Want me to go with you?”
“Nah, it’s cool.” I ruffle her hair and she laughs. She’s the only girl I could imagine doing something like that with—and she needs this, the closeness our group provides, because she sure as shit doesn’t get it at home. “Give these guys hell while I’m gone.” I nod toward all the bodies sitting around the fire and she turns her attention back to them.
I walk for what feels like forever, until I can’t see the glow of the fire in the distance or hear the laughter of my friends. There’s an old dock up ahead. It’s blocked off by poles, metal, and signs because it’s falling apart. It’s from when smaller boats used to come to this stretch of beach, but it hasn’t been used in forever.
Deciding this is as good a place as any, I sit on the sand, nothing but black ocean in front of me. Is Dad somewhere by the sea? He used to love it. Before Luke decided he was too good for us, Dad used to take us to the ocean all the time.
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Movement by the water catches my eyes. There’s a flash of white, a shirt I guess, as someone stands and looks toward the dock.
The person looks little, and I’m pretty sure it’s a girl. She doesn’t stay in the same spot for very long before she starts moving for the dock, using her phone for a flashlight.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I whisper to myself as I watch her.
She pauses for a second before she starts to climb through the open spaces on the cheap “wall” they put up. Then, she gets onto the old wood. Before I realize what I’m doing, I push to my feet.
She crawls under some extra ropes they have there for protection. “Hey!” I call out but she keeps going. It’s hard to tell from this far, but it looks like the water is licking at the platform of the dock each time another wave comes in.
This twitchy feeling lands in my chest. I’m not sure what it is, but then my feet automatically start moving forward; first slow, and then faster, toward her. “Hey! What are you doing?” I yell again. As soon as the words leave my lips, she looks my way then screams as her arms fly up.
I’m running now even though I can’t tell what’s going on. I see her sink lower and scream again right before another wave rolls in, this one splashing over her.
“Holy shit.” I’m not a real track-star kind of guy, but I can push my ass when I need to. Another wave comes up, slamming into her. The closer I get I can tell she’s trying to scramble up, but something’s stopping her.
Another wave hits as I skid to a stop in front of the dock. Like she did, I push my way through the barrier. I think her foot went through the wood, and she’s stuck. She looks older than I originally thought. Closer to my age, but she has a small frame.
I grab the dock and pull myself up.
“The wood is weak…” she warns. And I’m bigger than she is… I get what she’s saying. Her voice is shaky as hell.