A full, wet warmth gushed into my throat. I shut my eyes and choked, spraying the vomit back up into the air. It continued to chug down me, hot and half-solid. I had no choice but to swallow. I gagged, revolted, but managed to suck a breath through my nose. It was the only way. Another reluctant swallow, another quick ragged breath.
“That’s what happens when you don’t listen, sport,” Hank said, almost kindly. “I only wanted what was best for you. For your health.”
A sudden, earth-shattering noise; light streamed into the room. The garage door was opening.
Hank dropped the funnel and the bowl, vomit splattering across the floor as Mom’s Volvo pulled into the drive.
Things get a little blurry after that.
The last thing I remember is screaming—mine, calling out for my mom; hers as she ran into the garage and saw me tied up, my face slicked with tears and vomit; Hank’s as she lugged a dumbbell off his weight rack and swung. Then the satisfying crunch of his skull, like the first potato chip fresh from the bag.
Hank was fine.
Of course he was. That’s how these things always go, isn’t it? A few days in the hospital, a bandage on his head, and a furtive agreement that neither he nor Mom would press charges.
She filed for divorce the following week. Not long after that, she and I moved into a one-bedroom apartment near my school. If she’d fought harder, she told me later, we probably could have stayed in the house, but she thought it was more important to get me away from him as fast as possible.
Better late than never, I guess.
“If only I’d known,” she went on to say. “If I’d known what a monster he was, I never would have…”
What? Fallen in love with him? Married him? Forced me to live with him for six years? Left me alone with him? Hesitated to come straight home when I begged her?
What she “never would have” done, I don’t know. She tended not to finish that sentence.
She still doesn’t.
But at least it was over now. Although the apartment was cramped and money was tight, life there was easy, the cabinets fully stocked. When I got home from school, I had the place to myself for a good hour. I could do, and eat, whatever I wanted, as much as I wanted—as much as it took to dampen the feelings of shame and self-loathing I took away from that place like a chronic illness.
Mom continued to apologize, and I tried not to blame her too much. She was a good mom and had always tried to do what was best for me, even if she got it wrong more often than not.
That Christmas, she upgraded my Game Boy Advance to a Nintendo Wii and my oldPokémon SapphiretoPokémon Battle Revolution. I played through it, but it wasn’t quite the same as the RPGs. I tired of it, fighting battle after battle.
If you’re wondering what happened to Hank, your guess is as good as mine. All I know is he sold the house and moved to Irvine. Mom doesn’t talk about him, and I haven’t seen him since the final days of the divorce, when we returned to the house to grabthe last of our stuff. I still remember how he gawped at me when he saw me.
Years later, I still wonder what it was that disturbed him so much. I’d like to think it was my bravery in facing him: that after everything he’d put me through, I was stronger than he ever imagined.
Honestly, I hope I never find out.
CHAPTER 38
On a Thursday evening in early November, Emmett parked his Sentra behind a new-looking Lexus crossover that didn’t seem to fit the locale. The house was a tiny, 1950s Ocean Beach cottage that looked like it was owned by an elderly spinster with an illegal number of cats, but when you checked the Zillow, was somehow renting 750 square feet of unmodernized living space for $3,700 a month.
He ascended the front steps and knocked on the security door, the inner one open, the commentary of a basketball game audible inside. A sandy black wetsuit hung up, drying. Niño answered, shirtless in board shorts that sat low on his hips. His peroxide-blond hair was slicked back, still wet from surfing.
“How’s it hangin’, Em-Dog?” he said, clapping Emmett’s hand and pulling him in for a hug. His body moist, salty. “Dang, bro, you’re lookin’ good.”
“You too, man.” Emmett tried not to look at the tuft of dark hair peeking out above Niño’s waistband.
“Come in, make yourself at home.”
The house was a typical beach-bro bachelor pad: minimally decorated, slightly too dirty for company, the air redolent of pot and Sex Wax.
“You talked to your brother recently?” Niño said. “I’ve been trying to get him to come surfing, but man, those kids have himlocked down.”
“I haven’t,” Emmett said.
“You wanna beer?”
