Beard With Me

by Penny Reid

  I’d been in this situation before, wanting—desperately—to end another person’s suffering, to take that burden on myself. Despite the harm I experienced in the process, taking my father’s beating in order to free my mother and our family, I’d ultimately rejoiced.

  But for a time after, I’d struggled with the idea of being helpless.

  Presently, I felt a different type of helpless. Fire in my lungs, my body ready for battle, for action, and my mind regulated to making lists. What needed to be done? Dressing the wound, dealing with the bloodied towel, bringing her something good and filling to eat, pain relievers, cold packs for her face and back, placing another towel on the bed just in case she bled at night.

  Oh yeah, and there was that hot chocolate to make, with four marshmallows.

  Scarlet showered. She dressed in my pajamas. As predicted, they were too big for her, but she didn’t seem to mind. I left a bundle of gauze on the counter for her in the bathroom, which she pressed to the spot to the best of her ability until I could redress her wound in my bedroom. She took the Tylenol I brought up without question, ate her food—all of it—and poked at the four marshmallows with her finger, dunking them under the surface of the hot chocolate at intervals.

  I left to use the bathroom at one point because I wasn’t quite calm. In the middle of her meal, as I did my best not to just stare at her while she ate in silence, I realized who’d cut her.

  It was her daddy.

  God.

  Just the thought. It made me lose my breath. I sat on my bed, not looking at her here, now, but imagining in my mind’s eye what had happened to her.

  Razor. They called him Razor for the same reason they called my father Romeo. You’re named after what you love, and what you’re best at.

  How had she borne it? Did they hold her down? I couldn’t imagine her doing anything other than fight. When my father had come after a twelve-year-old me—after I’d come after him with a bat—I fought until I blacked out. I reckoned Scarlet was probably the same.

  So I excused myself, went to the bathroom, changed, brushed my teeth, and made a vow that this would be the last time Razor Dennings ever used his daughter to earn his nickname.

  When I returned, the food was gone, as was the hot chocolate. And Scarlet—facing the room, likely because she couldn’t lie on her injured side—was under the covers. She stared at my comforter in that same unfocused way as before.

  I set my clothes in the hamper and crossed to my bed. When I sat on it, interrupting her line of sight, she blinked. Her attention moved to me, a slight smile on her face.

  “Thank you for the food and the hot chocolate.”

  I nodded. “Are you comfortable?”

  She nodded. “Will you be able to sleep with me in here?”

  I shrugged, not wanting to admit I always slept better when someone was in here. When our father would come in, looking to be mean, Jethro would wake up and talk him down, defuse the situation. He’d been our “Darrell Whisperer,” as Cletus put it.

  “Will you?” I asked, checking my alarm clock next to the bed. Tomorrow was a half day at school with an eleven o’clock dismissal.

  Our momma had made the executive decision that we should all take the day off in preparation for Thanksgiving. I had to go to first period due to that trig test, but then I’d take off as well. We had a lot of food to cook.

  “Will I what?” she asked.

  “Will you be able to sleep with me in here? Do you want me to sleep on the couch downstairs?”

  She quirked an eyebrow at that. “Wouldn’t that look strange?”

  Despite everything, and the restless rage prowling around in my rib cage, I felt my lips curve in a small smile. “Are you going to answer all my questions with questions?”

  She frowned thoughtfully. “Am I doing that?”

  I huffed a laugh, unable to help myself from responding with another question. “You can’t hear yourself?”

  Her smile crept into her eyes. “Does it bother you?”

  Now I laughed for real, the inflated pressure in my chest eased, just a little. “You think this could go on all night?”

  “Maybe?” she said softly, the side of her mouth tugging higher. Losing some of its focus, her gaze moved over my face.

  I didn’t move. Instinct had me sitting perfectly still. I let her look. Maybe because my eyes wanted to look at her too.

  Scarlet looked a lot like her momma in coloring, but her faintly pointed chin and high, sharp cheekbones were her father’s. One day, when she’d shed her adolescence, they’d probably be even more pronounced.

  Her eyes were big, her irises light blue. Looking at them now, they reminded me of stained glass in a church. Iridescent? Was that the right word? You know, when the sun shone brightly in the middle of the day and the colors seemed to glow. Hers had a glow, but they also seemed cloudy. Hazy. Sunken.

  Beneath her eyes were dark circles, adding to the sunken appearance. She had freckles—everywhere, I reckoned—dotting her pale skin, skin which looked yellowish at present, like she’d been sick and/or hungry for a long time.

  Her lips had always been big; my brother Jethro used to say, when we were kids, it was because she had such a big, bossy mouth; but presently, I wouldn’t call them exactly big. More like, they were full. Right now, her full lips were a light pink. Before, in the woods, they’d been purplish blue.

  The first time I saw her in the forest, when she’d sent me to the ground with a knee to the nuts, I’d noted that her body looked older than her fourteen years. Her face, with the exception of her eyes, did not.

  Randomly, I realized that Scarlet was exactly the same age my momma had been when she’d met my father. Darrell had been several years older—nineteen or twenty I thought, but I wasn’t sure how old he was for certain—and had wasted no time. My mother was pregnant with Jethro at fifteen and he was born when she turned sixteen.

  What kind of person does that? What nineteen-year-old seduces and marries a fourteen-year-old? Despicable.

  We, both Scarlet and I, were caught between childhood and adulthood. I knew I’d look exactly like my father when I was finished growing, unfortunately. But I hoped Scarlet didn’t look like her momma. Christine St. Claire wasn’t ugly—in fact, she was a very pretty lady, if memory served—but she looked tired. Wrung out. Haunted. I didn’t want that for Scarlet, I wanted better for her. She deserved better.

  “You know, I could help you with your face,” she said, apropos of nothing and making me realize I’d been staring at her for who knows how long.

  But then her words sunk in and I reared back. “You want to help me with my . . . face?”

  “No, sorry.” She chuckled, looking embarrassed. “Your beard. It’s—” She poked her finger out of the covers gathered at her neck, pointing to my face. “It’s not coming in even. It needs to be shaped. Trimmed. I can help with that.”

  I touched my jaw, and was about to question her about beard maintenance, when a thought occurred to me. Scarlet seemed to believe everything was a barter between us. I couldn’t be trusted to help without an ulterior motive.

  Of course, I’d reinforced this notion last Sunday when I’d told her the truth about my original intentions. Never mind that my intentions had changed the moment I spotted her dancing and singing in the woods to that Evanescence song. If I were honest with myself, my plan to teach her how to play guitar in order to gain her trust was a stupid one.

  I just wanted to hear her sing. That’s why I’d convinced myself to walk blindly into the woods on Sunday. I might’ve told myself I wanted her gone, I might’ve believed it at the time I stepped into the tree line, but it was simply never going to happen.

  That said, when she’d made all those nice assumptions about me, I couldn’t let her go on thinking charitable thoughts. My momma had bought the clothes, made the food, left it for her. Not me. And I didn’t take credit for another person’s ideas or hard work.

  But now, here, she was offering
me something and I was certain she was doing it just to be kind. Maybe I could use her offer as a way to break this cycle between us, earn her trust.

  So I asked, “What do you want in return?”

  She stared at me, and I was sure she was going to say, Nothing.

  And then I’d say, Okay. Thank you. I accept, because I trust you’re doing this ’cause you want to be nice and don’t expect anything in return.

  And then we’d start on a new path.

  But instead she said, “More guitar lessons.”

  Staring at her, I sighed. I grinned. I shook my head.

  Well, that plan failed spectacularly.

  Lying back in my bed, I covered myself, reached for the lamp on the side of my bed, and flicked it off. “Sure, Scarlet. Sounds like a fair trade. Good night.”

  Maybe all my plans where Scarlet was concerned were doomed to failure.

  Chapter Ten

  *Scarlet*

  “I have no brothers or sisters, so I get all my siblings’ love. But since I can't take what's already mine, I end up giving it all to my cat.”

  Jarod Kintz, This Book is Not for Sale

  “When do you turn seventeen?”

  “Excuse me?” I licked a bit of strawberry ice cream from my bottom lip.

  Like I’d told Ben the day before, I’d never had a milkshake for breakfast. But now that we were here, together at Daisy’s Nut House, having ice cream for breakfast, I was determined to do it as often as possible.

  Decadence.

  I’d just learned the word decadence on Monday. Ice cream for breakfast is pure decadence. I added it to my list of things I’d definitely do when I lived on my own in a real house, with walls and a roof and heat and a bed.

  Last night, despite the events of the day, I slept better than I’d ever slept. I’d closed my eyes thinking there was no way I’d be able to fall asleep with Billy Winston in the room with me, and then the next thing I knew, it was morning. I didn’t even have any dreams.

  Billy had still been asleep, tangled in his sheets when I left. He’d looked so much younger, like the sixteen-year-old he was. I caught myself staring at his face, considering it, and then thinking about it as I snuck out of the house after making the bed, quickly changing out of the loaned pajamas and into my dirty clothes.

  When I returned to the campsite, I changed into clean clothes to meet Ben and busied myself with cleaning up. I wasn’t going to waste time thinking about my father or what my back must’ve looked like last night. Nor was I going to obsess about anything that had happened between Billy and me—how he’d stayed and held me even when I screamed at him to leave, how warm and comforting his hands were, how gentle his eyes—no point in that. Best not to dwell.

  Shaking myself, I returned my focus to the present. Presently, Ben’s eyes had dropped to my mouth. “I mean, when’s your birthday?”

  My birthday? “Uh, my birthday is in May.”

  “May. . .” He nodded like he approved, as though May was a good month for birthdays or something. His mouth curved into another of his pointed grins, his eyes all sparkly. “What do you want for your birthday?”

  Feeling uncertain under the intensity of this strange but wonderful smile of his—a smile he’d been tossing at me ever since he’d picked me up an hour ago—I shrugged, feeling uncharacteristically shy. “I hadn’t thought about it.”

  I wasn’t a shy person. Yeah, I avoided people, but that was for their benefit as well as mine. But no one who knew me would ever call me shy. Yet right now? Faced with Ben’s cute face and attentions? I felt shy.

  “Well, think about it.” His voice dropped and I sensed his foot nudge mine under the table. “A girl only turns seventeen once.”

  The word seventeen broke the warm, fuzzy spell he’d been weaving. “I guess that’s true,” I said, confused. “But I’ll be fifteen, not seventeen.”

  Ben reared back, the sharp smile falling off his face. All the earlier sparkle extinguished from his eyes, and he blinked like I’d flicked something at him. “Pardon?” The question was strained.

  “I don’t turn seventeen for another two and a half years.”

  “You’re . . .” Now he was gaping at me. “You’re fourteen?”

  I nodded, taking another sip of my milkshake. The way he said fourteen, like it strangled him, had me worried. “Why?” Crap. Am I too young to be his friend? Is that it?

  I guess I could understand his perspective if this was the case. It would make me like him less, but I’d understand.

  He looked down at the table, shoving his fingers in his hair. “I thought—Scarlet, I thought you were sixteen.”

  “Oh, probably because I’m a sophomore?” I suggested weakly.

  “Yeah, and my momma said so when I asked her. And—” He closed his mouth with an audible click, his eyes darting down to my chest and then up just as fast. “Well, never mind.”

  Truly, he looked distressed and I got the impression he needed a minute. I glanced at the menu. My leg started bouncing under the table and hit his foot. He withdrew it. Awkward. I didn’t want him to feel awkward, but I couldn’t change my age. Believe me, if I could, I would have.

  Ben’s eyes were hazy, lost in thought and visibly distraught for a good minute. All the while I watched him, anxious I was about to lose one of my few friends. But then he blinked, giving his head a minor shake and bringing me back into focus. I relaxed just a very little when I saw his rueful smile.

  “You’re very mature for your age,” he said earnestly. “Sorry if—uh—I don’t know, I made you uncomfortable.”

  I shook my head quickly, frowning. “What? No. You didn’t make me uncomfortable. You’re great.” I was more confused than uncomfortable but decided not to say as much out loud.

  “Yeah, but—” he chuckled, it sounded self-deprecating, and made a face that was like a wince, but not quite “—I shouldn’t be flirting with a kid.”

  I sat up straight, my lips parting, my eyes rounded. “What? Flirting? What? Kid?”

  “Yeah. Flirting,” he said, very self-deprecatingly. And then he laughed. “I am so stupid.”

  Flirting? What the what?

  I’d known and accepted that—like all my crushes—my feelings for Ben McClure would forever be one-sided, and I was perfectly fine with that. He was five years older for starters. And for finishers, he was Big Ben McClure. I was the only child of Razor Dennings that he’d claimed. His recognition of me as his spawn meant I would forever be followed by a cloud in the shape of a tornado with horns.

  “You’re not stupid,” I said automatically, my mind racing. He was flirting? Was that flirting? How am I supposed to know the difference between someone normal being nice and flirting?

  At the compound, when folks flirted, it was more like, “Hey. Wanna fuck?” or maybe “You should suck my dick.”

  “And if it helps,” I added, “I had no idea you were flirting.” I couldn’t imagine You should suck my dick or anything of the like coming out of Ben’s mouth.

  My admission made him laugh harder. “That does not help, but thanks.”

  For some reason, I laughed too. But I was flustered-laughing, my heart doing all sorts of strange things. Of course, it didn’t help that—despite my excellent night’s sleep—my brain was foggy from all that crying.

  “I’m sorry.” I leaned forward, hoping . . . hoping. Good Lord, I couldn’t quite catch my breath. “Ben, do you—I mean, are you—”

  “Don’t say another word.” He rolled his eyes, another self-deprecating action. “It’s fine. It’s great, actually. Lesson learned.” Ben’s expression was very warm, but it definitely looked less pointed than the others he’d been deploying earlier. Maybe pointed expressions are flirting?

  “I hope we can still be friends,” he said, again earnestly. “And you don’t think I’m a creep.”

  “You are not a creep!” I leaned further forward. “And if you like me . . . like that—”

  “No.” He shook his head, laughi
ng some more. “I am not having this conversation with you. You’re amazing, but you’re fourteen. Call me when you’re eighteen, okay?”

  I twisted my lips to the side, disappointed but also—strangely—buoyed.

  He likes me?

  Yes. Big Ben McClure, sainted son of Green Valley, likes you.

  Well, hell hath frozen over.

  To celebrate, I took another sip of my milkshake.

  “Still friends?” He grinned, an adorable, boyish hint of pink had settled on his cheeks.

  I set my frosted glass to the side and nodded quickly. “Yes! I hope we’ll always be friends, Ben,” I said with my whole heart.

  “Me too, Scarlet. You’re a good person.” Now he also leaned forward, opening his hand palm up on the table between us.

  I placed my fingers in his. “And very mature, apparently.”

  That made him laugh again. I loved how easily he laughed, and he had such a nice laugh, so friendly. Squeezing my hand, he sighed again.

  HE LIKES ME!

  Why oh why couldn’t I have been born a few years earlier?

  “Let’s talk about something else,” he said, glancing at my fingers where they rested in his. “How’s school? You’re not eating lunch in the bathroom, are you?”

  I tried to give him a stern look but didn’t quite manage it. “No. I’m not eating in the bathroom. How’s school for you? How’s college?”

  His smile visibly fell and he withdrew his hand. “Oh, I don’t know. Honestly? I don’t think it’s for me.”

  “Really? Why not?” I picked up the remainder of my milkshake, cooling my hands on the frosty glass. I was trying my best to focus on his words. It was difficult when He likes me! He likes me! He likes me! kept running through my head.

  “I’ve never been a fan of school, did you know that?”

  I shook my head, partly because I didn’t know that about him, and partly because I needed to clear it so I could concentrate. He was so cute. But then a twinge of pain radiating outward from my lower back sobered me, chasing the silly nonsense away from my brain. It drove the air from my lungs, and I had to pause and focus for a second before I could breathe again.