A slight panic starts to build as I consider how my situation may change now with everything going on.Will I have to move back home?I shake the imposing thought from my head. It’s just my normal summer break. I will deal with everything else soon enough.
I sigh to myself, pushing the button to lower the window. Dad is halfway up the walk when I stick my head out. “And why do I need to be here at three again?”
“Because Zeke is driving the Maverick back, and I need you to let him into the garage.”
Clasping my hands together in prayer, I push the upper half of my body out of the window. In mock desperation, I plead “Pretty please, Claire? My favorite daughter!”
“You’re my only daughter, Bear!” Dad calls as he pushes open the front door. “And I love ya!”
“Yeah yeah, love you too, Dad,” I mumble, pulling my body back inside.
In reality, I don’t have plans, just a tutoring session in the morning, but it’d be nice to at least beaskedto come by. Regardless, I guess I haveplans now — to open the garage door for our local mechanic. Sounds thrilling. And simple enough.
3
Jamison
16 Years Earlier
Ihear the front door open and then quickly slam shut. There’s yelling. Mommy cries out and something crashes to the floor. The lamp maybe? They’re home.
I open my bedroom door just enough to fit three fingers between it and the frame. I know if I do it any further, the hinges will squeak and they’ll hear me. I don’t want them to hear me. I wish I couldn’t hear them.
Mommy is on the couch, pushed so far into the corner that it looks like she's trying to melt into it. Her head is turned away from me and both of her hands are up, palms out, protecting herself. Sam, Mommy’s new friend, hovers over her. His fists are clenched and his hair hangs over one eye that’s squinting like he’s trying hard to concentrate. He throws a punch towards Mommy’s face. She shrieks and scrunches up as small as she can. I wince at the sounds — both of Mommy’s cries and the contact that Sam’s fist makes with the side of her head.
He tries to stand upright but stumbles back just a step. It’s then that Mommy drops her hands just enough to turn towards my door. She can see I’m watching, and I can see the trickle of red that falls down the side of her face. Should I help her? This is the part that I don’t understand. I want to run out, throw myself at him, and use my fist like Jackson taught me before he left. But Mommy always tells me not to cause trouble.
“You stay where you are, Jamison, you hear me? If there are ever any problems, you leave it to the grown-ups. You hide where you are and you don’t come out until I come and get you, understand?”
I tell Mommy I do, but I really don’t. I know I’m only eight, but why can’t I at least try to help?
I push the door open just another inch or two, even though I know that hinge is gonna squeak. Maybe he’ll stop if he knows I’m watching. The other ones didn’t, but maybe he’ll be different.
Sam’s head snaps to the door. He chuffs, looking at Mommy and then back to me. He takes a step toward the couch and holds Mommy’s chin with his first two fingers. He raises an eyebrow and smirks before looking at me.
“That’s a cute kid you got, you know?” He turns back to Mommy and she flashes a tiny smile, but I know her enough to understand she’s anything but happy.
He releases her chin and as quick as I blink, he slaps the back of his hand over Mommy’s tear-stained face.
“He’ll be next if I ever catch you lookin’ at another man like you did tonight,” he says before spitting in my direction. He sways back and forth, then points to Mommy so close he can probably feel her heavy breath. “And you, you good-for-nothing piece of shit — you can watch.”
I wake up to the sound of my alarm, covered in a damp sweat, no different than any other morning. I rarely sleep and when I do, this is how I’m rewarded. Nightmares from my past that still haunt me in the present.
I reach for my nightstand, past my short stack of books, and turn off the voice on the FM radio announcing that "Maple Grove is getting hit with an early heat wave and a sweltering ninety-four degrees by noon.” Awesome. I grab my cigarettes, still open from my bedtime smoke last night,and realize there are only two left. That should be enough to get me through until I stop on my way to work. Thirty-two minutes until my shift. I think I can manage.
I know cigarettes areso out. At least that’s what Sean keeps reminding me. He says I need to “get with this decade” and switch to a vape. Even refuses to ride anywhere with me unless we take his car because apparently, mine smells like an old strip club.
“And not like the cool classy ones either where you still have to leave your phone at the door,”he says, as if classy was a word usually used to describe these places.“You know what I mean?”
I don’t know what he means because I would never be caught in any strip club, let alone one ofthatvariety, but I get his point. It’s just that when you’ve been smoking half a pack a day for half of your life, it doesn’t matter what’s in and what’s “out.” I’m not doing it to be cool so much as to not tear someone’s head off every time they look at me wrong. I take one last drag before I force myself to get up and shower. I stride the whole four feet it takes to get to the bathroom, one perk of living in an actual closet, shed my boxer briefs, and take the most mediocre, lukewarm shower known to man.
My apartment, if you can call it that, is in the back of a pizza shop. Not on top. Not behind. Nope, literally in the back of a pizza shop. My best friend opened Enzo’s a few years back and had the extra storage closet turned into an “apartment” by adding a bed, a toilet, and a makeshift kitchenette — basically a glorified counter with a sink, microwave, and George Foreman grill. It’s small and constantly smells like oil from the fryer, but he offered it to me with no deposit needed. There’s a door right down the hall that leads to the back parking lot, so I don’t have to cut through the kitchen to come and go, and most importantly, it’s cheap. Like highway robbery cheap compared to the average rent of places around here. Plus, it was the perfect solution at the time.
I dry off and throw on the same faded jeans from yesterday and a semi-clean Monroe’s t-shirt. I lace up my boots with just enough time to fill a chipped travel mug with coffee before heading out the door. Thesecond I step outside I’m blasted with heat like the Devil’s ass. Tucking my coffee in the crook of my arm, I reach for my cigarettes and light my last one as I walk across the gravel lot behind Enzo’s. I open and shut the door to my old 1991 Chevy Shitbox and crank the key, giving it the time it needs to clammer to life.
As I wait, my mind drifts back to my dream from last night. I revisit my past while I sleep, more often than I don’t. It’s crazy how something that happened so long ago can still live in your memory in such vivid detail. In my conscious hours, I tuck that shit as far back as I can, fully aware that by doing that, I have greatly contributed to my fucked-up-ness. I’m sure I should see a therapist or three, but for what? So they can tell me that I didn’t deserve to watch my mother get beaten? That I was too young to handle the emotional and physical abuse I endured? Doesn’t take a shrink to tell me what I already know. That night when I was eight was one of a million just like it. It’s the reason I learned to fight. The reason I keep my walls high and my head low. The reason I don’t let anyone in.
The engine hums to life pulling me back to the present. I roll down the window and turn the radio dial to the first station that lands on music rather than traffic or weather. The rhythmic guitar and subtle percussion of the Red Hot Chili Peppers pour from the speakers as the lead singer describes never again wanting to feel like he did when he was sad and alone.
