I go over to the cabinet and see we're out of clean bowls. I should've done dishes this morning but I didn't have time.
Jacob's standing against the counter, eating his cereal with a plastic spoon. All the regular spoons must be dirty.
"I'm going to need you to start helping out," I say, standing in front of him. "I let it go last year because of everything that happened but I can't keep doing everything myself. With school and football, I don't have time. I want you to take over cleaning dishes."
"Then I won't have time for homework."
"You have plenty of time. Dishes come before video games."
"So you're just going to takeeverythingaway?" He throws his cereal bowl in the sink, chipping the bowl as it slams into a pan. "Fuck it! I just won't eat!"
He storms off to the bedroom. I let him go, taking a long deep breath to fight back the anger I feel building. A year ago, I wouldn't have been able to control it. I would've blown up at Jacob, thrown something against the wall, then stormed out the back door, slamming it so hard I'd break off a hinge.
That was the old me. I don't do that anymore. I'm not a monster. I'm not him. I look like my dad but I'll never be him. I won't hurt someone, especially someone I love. It'll never happen.
If only I believed that.
Chapter Three
Brook
"How was school?" Mom asks as she comes in the apartment. She's using that fake cheery tone she thinks will somehow make our new life seem great and wonderful, even though it's not even close.
My mom's great at hiding her feelings. It's why I never even suspected she was having issues with my dad. When he walked out on us, I thought it was some kind of joke, although I don't know why that'd be funny.
"School sucked," I say from the couch.
"I'm sure it wasn't that bad," she says, setting her purse on the kitchen counter.
The kitchen is attached to the living room. The breakfast bar where we eat our meals is right behind the couch. We used to have a kitchen the size of this entire room and now this is all of our living space, along with two small bedrooms. When my older sister comes to visit, she'll have to sleep on the couch.
"Should we order something in for dinner?" Mom asks, opening the fridge. "Or we could go to the store. We could make something together. That'd be fun, wouldn't it?" she asks, faking her enthusiasm.
My mom doesn't cook. When I was growing up, she'd order takeout or get prepared meals from the store, or we'd go out. We usually went out. She liked trying new restaurants. It gave her something to talk about with her friends.
Until just recently, my mom spent her days shopping or at the country club. She got married a month after graduating college and has spent her life being a mom to my sister and me, and the perfect wife to my dad, a stuck-up lawyer who expected his wife to look pretty and smile. I hate to say it, but looking back, I'm pretty sure he saw her as a trophy wife, and when her looks started to fade, he traded her in for someone else. Someone younger. And he used his lawyer skills to convince a judge to leave my mom with almost nothing.
My dad's an ass, but I didn't know that until he left.
"Honey, did you hear me?" my mom asks, sitting beside me on the couch. She looks tired. She's not used to putting in nine hours at work. When my dad left, she had to get a job, and even though she has a degree from Northwestern, she had to get a job as an administrative assistant because she had no work experience.
"I'm not really hungry," I tell her. "I'll just have a snack later."
"You don't want dinner?" She feels my forehead. "Are you getting sick?"
"I'm fine. I'm just tired. It was a long day."
"Did anything happen?" she asks with concern. "You seem upset."
Upset?Of course I'm upset. I had to leave my old neighborhood, my friends, and the house I grew up in, to live in this tiny apartment in a bad neighborhood and spend my senior year at a new school with people I have nothing in common with and who already hate me. Or at least one person does. Dean. The Destroyer. The asshole who thinks he can tell me what to do.
"I'm not upset," I say, taking my laptop and getting up. "I'm going to my room. I need to study."
I hurry down the hall to my room and shut the door.
As soon as I sit on my bed, my mom knocks on my door.
"What do you need?" I say.
