“Mmmm. Dirty.” Gabriel saunters after us.
I lead them down to the basement. I hardly ever come down here – the only windows are skylights that point straight up through the garden. I don’t like them, they make me feel exposed. Plus, the place is decked out as Howard Malloy’s personal entertainment pad, all dark wood, sports memorabilia, big-screen TVs, wraparound bar, and a giant bed made with crimson sheets that makes my skin feel dirty just to look at it. But there is one room down here that I’ve used over the years.
“I want to show you this.” My chest clenches as I shove open the door.
Eli steps inside as I flick the lights on. His features crinkle in confusion as he takes in the space. “Claws, what is this?”
The room is decked out as a bowling alley, complete with two lanes, a rack of old gross bowling shoes, a ball return machine, an electronic scoreboard, and an array of snack machines and arcade games along one wall.
Only, I hadn’t bowled in here in years. Antony finds the game boring, and if you bowl against yourself, you end up going slowly crazy.
Instead, it’s my rage room.
It’s where I come when the only thing I need to do is burn the world.
Over the years I’ve dragged breakable objects from all over the house down to this room. Crates of crystal glasses from the bar, serving platters from the kitchen, weird statues and Howard Malloy’s collection of antique paperweights lay in glittering pieces across the floor. The entire room glitters from its coating of smashed glass and broken dreams. Sledgehammers and crowbars I took from the groundskeeper’s shed line the wall behind us.
“I know things are still fucked-up in that head of yours.” I pick up a stack of porcelain plates and hand them to him. “I know what that feels like. When I can’t contain the rage anymore, I come down here and let it out. Malloy had the walls soundproofed. You can scream, cry, kick things, smash things. Whatever you need to do.”
Eli stares at the crockery in his hands. “These are Bernardaud,” he whispers.
“So?”
“These are designer. My mom begged Dad to buy her a set of these.” Eli turns the plate over.
“You mean, your mom who’s marrying the mobster trying to blackmail our favorite teacher into prostituting herself?”
“To be fair,” Gabriel points out. “You’re marrying the mobster, too.”
I grab a plate from the top of the stack and heave it at the wall. It breaks into three pieces, the shards dropping into the garden of broken dreams. My arm flexes. The vise around my heart loosens a crack.
Eli looks at me like I’m mad.
Noah picks up a sledgehammer and gives it a test swing. “How come you never told me about this place?”
“You didn’t need an outlet for your rage, because you poured it into me,” I answer back. He nods. He understands. Noah and I, we’re the same. I haven’t needed this room since I met him, but we’re not here for me.
We’re here because Eli has never truly let go of his sense of responsibility, that he alone carries the burden for the sins of the world.
Eli tries to hand the plates back to me, but I whip my fingers away and they slip from his arms, shattering on the floor in a cascade of tiny white shards. The sound echoes in the vast room.
Eli leaps back, his hand on his heart. He looks to me, his eyes wide, as if asking if he’s in trouble for breaking the rules. I toss my hair and laugh as I hand him another stack of plates. These ones are plain white, edged in gold trim.
He tosses them at the wall, one by one.
CRASH. CRASH. CRASH.
Such a satisfying sound.
I hand him a sledgehammer. His eyes widen again, but this time he doesn’t ask permission. He swings it back over his shoulder and brings it down on an old chair. Wood splinters fly everywhere. Eli lets out a whoop, and pitches himself at the chair, hammering it until it’s nothing but a pile of sawdust. Noah drags over a large oriental cabinet, and the pair of them attack it.
Gabriel tugs his phone out of his pocket. I’m about to tell him not to record in here, but then I see him tap the speaker. A brutal death metal song shreds the air, and my fallen angel leaps into the fray, his long hair flying around his face as he jumps on the debris. He picks up an old computer and hurls it at the wall.
We pound and smash and pummel the room until the shards become a fine powder that covers our clothes and irritates our eyes. We’re coated in a snow-drift of our own destruction. My shoulders ache and the bullet wound in my chest dances with fire, but the pain mingles with a hungry ache low in my belly.
I pull my boys to me, kissing their cheeks, tasting the salty sweat sheening their skin. The ache blooms outward, tugging at my clit.
“The gym.” I want them now. I need themnow. Three flights of stairs to the bedrooms is too much.
