by Nicole Thorn
Joyce snorted. “Looks like your shit outta luck, creep. Tell me, how do you like being rejected by the weirdos, too?”
“Why does it matter?” I asked her. “Do you have nothing better to entertain yourself with?”
She bristled. “Hey, asshat, maybe not try to piss me off? My boyfriend is on the football team, and he can beat the shit out of you, no matter what kind of magic you work.”
“I highly doubt that,” I said.
She opened her mouth but shut it when Manny slammed her notebooks down on the desk next to mine. Joyce rolled her eyes, turning her back on the pair of us, and Manny slid into her seat. I looked at her. “Mrs. Flannigan changed her mind?” I asked, hopefully.
With a smile, Manny nodded. “Yeah. She... changed her mind. Let’s get started, okay? I’ll quiz you first.” She took out her sheet of paper. “Loquacious?”
X
I got out of school after my fourth-period government class. While most other students were changing classes, I walked out the front of the school and down the steps. I turned in the direction of home, then stopped. My father had said he wouldn’t be there until late tonight.
The house would be quiet, which sounded nice but I didn’t want to return home. Not with the chill February air pressing down on me. It leaked into my skin with bite, and I thought that I would like to walk around some. Until I stopped feeling, then I could go home. I could lay on the living room floor, completely numb, staring at the ceiling. Where everything was still...
I turned in the other direction, making my way down the sidewalk. Shortly after I turned around, I saw Manny. I thought about calling to her but I didn’t think she’d want to hear me. She had been very nice the last few days but that didn’t mean she wanted to see me.
If I had been thinking, I would have stopped following her. It would scare her to turn around and spot me. She’d wonder what I was doing, and then I’d have to explain that I wasn’t really following her, and I just wanted the cold to make me stop feeling.
I didn’t do that, though. I trailed behind her, watching as she turned into a house. She didn’t look around as she jogged up the walkway. The house was larger than even mine, and had the ostentatiousness of one with a lot of money. There weren’t any cars in the driveway but that didn’t mean anything. My father parked in our driveway but that was only because the garage had been turned into a work area.
Manny disappeared onto the front porch, and I stopped walking. My legs swayed. The cold had done its job, and I could barely feel anything. My lips felt cold and unmoving. My fingers had lost all feeling. I stared down at them, noticing that they had grown kind of pale. I liked that. They looked like the fingers of a corpse.
“Damn it!” I heard Manny shout from the front of the house.
I picked my feet up, walking towards the sound. She stood by her front door, her hand wrapped around the door handle, shaking the thing.
“You okay?” I called.
She jumped and whipped around. Her eyes turned feral, and I wondered who she thought I was. I didn’t make a move to reassure her or apologize. Anyone could have seen her from the sidewalk, so she couldn’t have been that surprised when someone did. When she saw it was me, though, she pushed her hair out of her eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“I followed you,” I said. “I didn’t mean to, though. I just wanted to walk around, and you happened to be walking in front of me.”
“You followed me from school?”
I nodded. “Are you okay? You sounded upset.”
She looked behind her, and I could see the frustration in her eyes. “Yeah. Everything’s fine. I forgot my key, and no one’s home.” She crossed her arms over her chest and started making her way down to me. She stopped before we came within touching distance. I understood. She probably didn’t want me near her.
“Oh,” I said. “When will they be back?”
“I don’t know,” Manny admitted. “Maybe not for a while. Sometimes my parents stay out for a long time. I have no idea where my brother goes.” She toed the ground, flicking her eyes up to me.
“My father is not going to be home until tonight but you can come to my house, if you want,” I said. “So that you don’t have to stand out here, in the cold.”
She eyed me again, and frowned. “Aren’t you chilly?” she asked. “Do you want your sweater back?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Do you want to come stay at my house until your family returns? My father won’t mind. He doesn’t have any clients coming by until tomorrow, and then we’ll have to make ourselves scarce. He doesn’t like them seeing me. He says that I scare them.”
She frowned at that. “I’m sure that you don’t. You aren’t that scary.”
I shrugged. “They certainly seem to be scared of me.”
She came down a few more steps. I still couldn’t reach her but I almost could. “I don’t want your father to be annoyed with me,” she said. “Or you, for inviting me over. Does he have rules about that kind of thing?”
“I do not bring people over. Ever. He has never told me that I couldn’t, and I do not think he would.”
Manny didn’t say anything for several seconds. she rocked back and forth on her feet, turning to look at her house. It was too cold for her to stay out here. She would lose feeling in her body, and that would rapidly get worse as the hours wound on, if her family didn’t show up.
“Okay,” she said.
I nodded for her to follow me, and started walking down the street. She fell into step behind me, then began jogging to catch up. She shifted her gaze over so that she could look at my face. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. It was the last thing that we said on the entire walk to my house. It took us about twenty minutes to get there. By the time we arrived, my numbness had spread so that I couldn’t feel anything at all. It was nice, and I enjoyed having no pain.
My house was quiet when we walked in. Manny looked around the space curiously. Many of the people at school had made rumors about what probably went on in my house, and I wondered how many of them she had heard. I dropped my bag on the ground and took hers from her to place it with mine.
When that was taken care of, I wandered into the living room and laid down on the floor. My eyes went to the blank ceiling, where not even a fan hung, and the utter stillness.
Manny came over, staring down at me. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Being numb,” I said. “And staring at the ceiling. If I lay here for long enough, I can forget that the world exists.”
She frowned at me, then sat down on the floor by my side. She laid back, the top of her head resting against my arm. She stared up at the ceiling too. “Your arm is cold,” she informed me.
“I know,” I said.
“You should have kept your sweater.”
“I would not have used it anyway. I like this too much. I like being numb.” I closed my eyes, and felt the smallest smile perk up the corners of my lips. “To not have to feel anything is a privilege that most people do not understand. When you have to feel, you have to deal with those feelings. With that pain. This is better.”
Her eyes were on me. I turned my head to meet them. She had turned onto her side, having gotten bored with the ceiling, apparently. Her arm was tucked underneath her head, like a pillow. “I understand,” she said. “You can’t make mistakes when you’re numb. You don’t have to deal with those mistakes, and all the people that you’ve let down.”
“Yes,” I said.
The two of us stared at each other for a few minutes, and then she whispered, “I don’t like being numb all the time, though. How am I supposed to keep going when I don’t feel anything? What is life without pain?”
“Is there such as a thing as not having pain?” I asked. “Even now, the tips of my fingers hurt, and my legs are twitching... There is life in numbness but there is a calm that I like to have.”
She made a small humming sound, closing her
eyes. “Maybe we could just lay here for a little while?”
I turned my own eyes back to the ceiling. It was so empty, without anything to look at. Yeah. We could lay here for a little while. For long enough that I didn’t have to worry about everything that would come tomorrow or fret over what my father would say about Manny.
I worried that he would be angry with me, if I was being honest with myself. I loved my father, and he would never do anything to hurt Manny. I worried that he would be disappointed in me.
Manny shifted around, and I felt her press against me. My first instinct was to tense up but I deliberately worked my body into a more relaxed position. When I got settled, I glanced down at her. Her eyes had closed but I couldn’t tell if she slept. Her arm was still tucked underneath her head, with the other one touching my side. She was so close that I could almost act as a pillow for her. It was almost too close, and I felt guilty for thinking that. She had done no wrong.
Her stomach growled, and I blinked. “Manny?” I asked.
Her eyes opened.
“Are you hungry?” I looked at the clock on the opposite wall. It read a little after six. We had been lying for a lot longer than I meant. All the cold drained from my body but it had been nice to not have to think for so long. So many hours of quiet and comfort. “I should make you dinner.”
“You don’t have to go to the trouble,” she said. “I should probably go see if my parents are home, anyway.”
I shook my head. “No. Let me make you something to eat.” I rose to my feet, then helped her stand as well. Her fingers brushed against one patch of scar tissue on my palm, feeling along the damage. She didn’t ask what it was but curiosity filled her eyes. I turned my hand over so that she could see the damage.
“When did that happen?” she asked.
“Years ago,” I admitted. “A screw went through my hand.”
“How?” she asked.
“I drilled it in,” I told her.
“Why would you do that?” There was a mild curiosity in her voice but she didn’t sound horrified, like I thought she would be.
“So that I didn’t have to kill the dog,” I told her.
Confusion took over her expression. “I’m sorry, Becket. I didn’t follow that.”
“My father said that I could drill a screw into my hand, or that I could kill the dog. I didn’t want to kill the dog, so I did this. It took a long time, and I passed out twice. The drill wasn’t designed to go through flesh and bone. My hand was in a cast for several weeks afterward. Dad told me to lie about why it happened but I didn’t want to. Luckily, no one asked.”
I took my hand back and went into the kitchen. There weren’t many meals that I could make, not in comparison to my father anyway but I could make roasted chicken and macaroni. I started setting everything out, and after a while, Manny wandered in after me. “Can I help?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said. “You can chop the potatoes. They’re in that cupboard.” I pointed. Manny looked in the direction I was pointing, then went over and began sifting through the cupboard. She pulled out two potatoes and brought them over to the counter to start peeling them.
“May I ask you a question?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Where’s your mother? I’ve heard you talk about your father a lot but you’ve never said anything about your mother.”
I frowned as I put the chicken in the oven. I thought about how to answer as I poured the pasta into the water in preparation to make the cheese sauce. I wasn’t sure how to tell her, and that bothered me. I didn’t like speaking about my mother because it was probably my greatest failure in life.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she said, after she had finished peeling the potatoes. “I’d understand if you didn’t want to.”
“No... I do not mind. You are kind of my friend, right?” I asked, looking over at her. “I have never had a friend, so I have never had to explain it before. I’m trying to figure out how to do so.”
“Yeah. I’m your friend,” she said.
I set everything down, staring at all the food on the stove. Then I started talking without looking at her because I thought this would be the first time she looked at me with disgust. “She left when I was little. Three years old, to be exact. I remember that day very clearly. The two of us went out shopping. She bought me a ton of toys and clothing. The two of us went out to lunch. We were going for the last store when she got a phone call from my dad, and they spoke for a little while. She hung up, gave me a hug, and asked if I wanted ice cream. The two of us went to this little shop in town that closed years ago. She got me the biggest cone I could hold, sat me on a bench, and then she walked away. She told me she would be right back but I can still see her getting smaller and smaller as she disappeared. The guy who ran that ice cream shop called the police four hours after she left, and my father came to get me.”
I had been staring blankly at the wall as I spoke, so I didn’t immediately notice the water boiling. I stepped forward to stir it, and finally looked at Manny. “It’s just been my father and me ever since.”
She frowned heavily. “Oh.”
I combined the noodles and cheese sauce, sprinkled a crust on top of the macaroni, and popped it into the oven. Manny, who had forgotten about the potatoes, began slicing them. Her hand slipped, and the tip of the knife went right up her finger, slicing the skin open in a neat line.
She gasped, taking a step back, trying to hold her bleeding hand away from the potatoes. “I’m sorry,” she said, her chest pumping up and down. “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry, I’m so b—”
I took her hand, wrapping it gently in a towel. “Don’t worry,” I said. “These things happen. Come on.” I led her from the room, into my father’s study. She shook the entire time, and I worried that she had never had a cut so bad before. She might be going into shock or something.
I pulled one of my father’s cabinets opened, revealing a treasure trove of medical supplies and drugs. I pulled the necessary things out. When I turned to Manny, she had a surprised look on her face. “Why... why do you have all of that?” she asked, turning huge eyes onto me. The towel was starting to soak through with her blood, so I pulled her over to remove it.
As I started cleaning her wound, I said, “We need it. Sometimes my father needs to use the drugs on me, and sometimes I get hurt. It comes in handy, though. See?” I wiped down her injury, and started taping it up. It wasn’t deep enough for stitches, thankfully but it still might scar.
I finished, and looked up to find Manny staring at me.
Chapter Six
The Crack in the Bell
Manny
I pressed down on my wound, feeling it stinging me. I deserved it for messing up while I was cooking. Something so easy shouldn’t have gone wrong but I was an expert at fucking things up. At least Becket didn’t seem to care.
We finished eating, and went back to sitting on the floor. He stared off, and I sat there, my mind spinning with questions and pictures and things I didn’t want.
Becket didn’t deserve this life he had. One damn afternoon with him, and this was the information I had gathered. What would I learn with a full day? Two? What horrors were lurking in his past and future that only he and his father knew? Honestly, the possibilities terrified me.
He needed a protector, I decided. Someone that, if they couldn’t make the monsters go away, could at least ease some of the torture brought along with them. The problem being, I couldn’t say if I believed Becket knew something was wrong in his life. He knew people feared him for his magic, and he thought he was off. That didn’t mean he understood. I did. God, I did.
I needed to give him a break from numb. He deserved a moment or two of something pleasant.
I took off the sweater I was in and I folded it onto my lap before I took Becket by the shoulders. He only looked over his shoulder at me as I pulled him onto me, resting his head on the sweater. The fact that he let me do it seemed... telling. But
I didn’t say anything to him. Instead, I started running my fingers through his hair, trying to give him a little bit of something that I hoped felt nice.
Goddammit, what kind of world was this if someone so impossibly innocent lived in hell? I tried not to stare at the scar on his palm because it made me angry. My father was a cold man on the best of days but he wouldn’t have done something like that to me or my brother. This... this was some shade of evil I didn’t know existed.
The only thing that kept my hands from shaking was burying them in Becket’s hair. Helpless. I was left helpless on how to fix this. Was I just supposed to go home, knowing that he didn’t have anyone to turn to? Just an abusive father, and a broken mind. I felt responsible for Becket now that I knew what was going on. Walking away wasn’t an option because it would tear apart my insides.
“You look so sad,” he said to me. I looked down, noticing that he was watching me. I didn’t know for how long. “Did I do something?”
“No,” I said immediately. “You didn’t do anything at all.”
“Then why is your face like that?”
I would never claim to be a good person, so I lied to him. I didn’t want him to feel bad, though I knew if I said I was upset over his father, he wouldn’t understand why. “I was thinking about my family.”
Oh look, a can of worms that I opened up wide, just so that he wouldn’t think this was his fault. The choice to tell him was already made but I didn’t think him the kind to go running his mouth off about it. This would be safe. And with any luck, it would make him feel less alone... if he was aware of how alone he truly was.
“What of them?” he asked.
I chewed on the inside of my cheek, thinking about how to say it. It came out so damn casual. “My brother likes to hurt me sometimes.”
“What?”
I didn’t want to accidentally hurt him by tugging at his hair, and I didn’t trust myself not to get tense, so I moved my hands to his shoulders. I rubbed them, closing my eyes as I tried to find words.