by W Winters
“And what’d you tell him?” she asks me.
“That I like vodka,” I say softly, feeling my cheeks heat with a blush and she laughs again.
“Have you ever even had vodka?” she teases me.
“Shut up,” I tell her again. “It’s not like you’ve had it before.”
“Check it out,” Sam says in a singsong voice as she reaches into her tote bag. It’s all smooth black leather and I think she stole it from her mom’s closet.
“Holy shit,” I say under my breath and walk to the bed with my eyes focused on the bottle.
“It’s like a party present or something,” Sam says as I pick up the bottle of red blend wine. “Hostess favor,” she says, although it sounds like a question. “Is that what it’s called?” she asks me.
I set the heavy bottle back down in her bag. “I don’t know,” I tell her, still feeling uneasy.
“Hey, relax,” Sam says and then shifts on my bed. It creaks under her weight. “As far as your mom knows, we’re having a sleepover and tomorrow morning when she comes home, we’ll be right here.” She pats the bed and then grips my shoulders. “Tonight we’re going to go to Mike’s house,” she says and tilts her head and emphasizes my crush’s name. “And we’re going to be chill and cool and he’s going to get to know you better.”
“Maybe we can use the wine to play spin the bottle?” I ask her as the idea of sitting in Mike’s basement and playing makes me feel giddier than anything else has tonight.
Her smile widens and her eyes brighten. “Fucking fantastic idea,” she squeals. “This is why I love you,” she adds and then jumps off the bed.
“It’s not because we’ve been friends for forever?” I joke back with her.
“Best friends for life!” she answers and then twirls her long, dark brown hair around her finger. “Seriously, tonight is going to be amazing,” she says with so much excitement and happiness, it’s contagious.
“Can I ask you something?” I cut through the happiness … yet again.
“Anything,” Sam says instantly, looking right at me and giving me her full attention.
“Does it make me a whore if I want to have sex?” I ask her. “Like, even if I don’t really want to be with Mike, but I want to know what it’s like?”
“Pretty sure that’s normal, babe,” she says with a smile. “If not, I’m fucked.”
Chapter 3
Dean
* * *
My uncle’s truck rumbles to a stop in front of my stepfather’s house. It’s the corner lot on the street, a two-story colonial with blue shutters and a porch swing right out front.
It only took my dad dying for my mother to have the house of her dreams.
“I don’t see the point,” I tell my uncle as I stare at the front door and then the driveway. “Both their cars are here.” I turn to look at Uncle Rob as I speak. “If they don’t want me, what’s the point of me even going in there?” I ask him.
“You need to face the music, kid,” he says like that’s why I don’t want to go in there. My eyes narrow and I feel my forehead pinch.
“You don’t get it. It’s not just today or yesterday. It’s every day. Every single day I have to live in a house where I’m hated.”
“Knock it off, Dean,” my uncle says like what I’m saying has no weight to it.
It’s quiet for a long time, but my heart’s pounding and I can hear the blood rushing in my ears. I want to get it all out of me. Uncle Rob’s the only one who listens. He’s the only one who gives a shit.
“Ever since Dad died,” it hurts to say the words out loud, “she doesn’t want me anymore.”
“That’s not true-” he starts to say but I raise my voice and cut him off.
“It is true!” My eyes sting and I hate it. I hate everything. But I hate her the most.
“You’re just angry,” Uncle Rob says although he twists his hands on the leather steering wheel and looks out of the window like he’s judging my words. “Why can’t you just be like Jack’s kid?” he asks me. Jack is his one friend who has a kid my age. “Go out and have fun. Sneak a beer, kiss a girl. Why do you have to run your mouth and make a scene?”
“It’s easy for you to say,” I mumble under my breath. It’s quiet for a long time. I was going to go out with Jack’s kid to a party tonight. I was actually looking forward to meeting Mike and a few of the guys he knows. It’s been lonely since Dad died. I’m desperate enough to admit that and I finally said yeah, I’d go out. No fucking way that’s happening now.
“She didn’t even cry at his funeral.” My words come out hollow, just like how my chest feels. “She was already with him.” I look him in the eyes. “He slept over when Dad was in the hospital.”
Uncle Rob is my mother’s brother. I know he’d never say a bad word about her, but he can’t deny the truth. The minute my dad got sick, my mother started counting up how much she’d get from the insurance policy. Richard came next. Just like that, she moved on and didn’t look back. Leaving me behind and alone and that’s something I can’t forgive.
Uncle Rob looks uncomfortable as he runs his hand through his hair and sighs.
“Why can’t I just come live with you?” I ask him. I would give anything to get away from them. I would do anything. “You at least cared that Dad died.”
“It’s not that she didn’t care.” He doesn’t say anything after that. I wait for more. For some sort of explanation that would make any of this alright, but nothing comes.
“She was happy he was going to die. All they did was fight.” I admit the truth and although it hurts, there’s relief in saying it out loud. Even more so because Uncle Rob doesn’t deny it.
“Look, Dean, different people cope with things differently. It’s hard when someone’s dying and you have to handle everything.”
“It was so hard that she went on smiling,” I tell him. I don’t want pretty little lies. I’m tired of living this fake ass life my mother created. “Why can’t I just live with you?” I ask him again. He’s all I have. If not him, then I have no one.
“You just can’t,” he tells me and my blood chills. An uneasiness rocks through me. Hopelessness.
“Alright then,” I tell him and open the door to the truck, sick of arguing over pointless shit.
“It’s life, kid,” Uncle Rob calls after me.
“Life can go fuck itself,” I tell him as I get out of the truck, making it rock forward and then slam the shiny red door shut.
A sickness churns in my stomach with each step I take closer to the house.
Day in and day out. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be reminded every day of how easily someone else replaced Pops. That asshole my mother cheated on my dad with expects me to listen to him? No fucking way.
I push the door open and then slam it shut from pure adrenaline, but I regret it the second the slam reverberates through the house.
Do I regret what I said in school? Yeah, I do. I say stupid shit, I pick fights. Maybe I am angry. Maybe I’m filled with hate.
But when I get in here, it changes.
I’m just fucking sad. I’m sad that this is my life.
The kitchen is in the center of the house, and my mother’s right there on a barstool, a glass of wine in her hand and the half-empty bottle on the granite countertop.
“Mom,” I greet her and slip my bookbag off my shoulder, leaving it by the door. I grit my teeth when she looks up at me with daggers. She’s quick to change her expression. Like she wants to hide what she really feels about me. She doesn’t have to though. I know I ruined her chance at a perfect life with Richard. The accidental son who forced her to marry my father. If only I’d died with him. Then we’d all be happier.
“I can’t believe you,” my mother says with tears in her eyes. Or maybe they’re just glassy because she’s drunk. Her lips look even thinner with her mouth like that, set in a straight line.
I don’t say anything; I can hear Rick getting up from the recliner in the living
room.
“There you are,” he says as if I’m at fault for not being here on time.
“They wouldn’t let me leave till someone picked me up,” I tell him, looking him square in the eyes as he storms over to me. My blood spikes with adrenaline, with the need to run or at least hold up my arms in defense.
“Is that what you got to say?” he yells at me. Rick’s a former marine and he acts like it. Only angrier and usually drunk. That’s one thing he and my mom have in common. His face turns red as he screams at the top of his lungs.
The backhand comes quick, but I’m expecting it. The pain rips through my jaw, sending me backward as I hit the front door.
“You want to act like a little punk, I’ll treat you like one,” he spits at me. I can vaguely hear my mother yelling in between Richard’s threats and the ringing in my ears.
I expected the first, but as I stand up, I don’t expect the next blow.
Or the one after that.
I really should have. Richard doesn’t stop until I’m crying. It’s not like I’m big enough to fight him, so I don’t know why I try to hold back the tears. I should’ve just come in here looking how I feel. Defeated and hopeless. Maybe then it wouldn’t last so long.
Metal is all I can taste when I wake up. My lip’s bruised and swollen. My body’s stiff from sleeping in a weird position since it hurt my face to sleep on my side.
The side of my face still stings and I’m sure it looks like shit too.
I’m not going to school. Not looking like this. It would make Richard all too happy to know I had to go out with the proof that he knocks me around so easily seen.
Even better for him because those asshole teachers think I deserve it. Everyone does. I’m just the piece of shit kid from her first marriage who’s acting out and needs his ass beat.
That’s what the last principal told my mom. That I needed my ass beat.
Maybe I do.
I swallow thickly and sit up in bed to crack my neck.
There’s just a dresser and my bed in this room. I don’t have much since we moved. Most of my stuff I left behind. My eyes glance toward the closet, where I know I have two duffle bags.
No one wants me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t leave. I can go somewhere. I have a little bit of cash from working with Uncle Rob this summer. I can buy a cheap car and live in it.
I might be kicked out of school; I don’t know, and I don’t care. I can still get a job at Nick’s up the street, doing landscaping. He’d hire me. He knew my dad and I’ve met him a few times.
I force myself off the bed, quietly. The only question on my mind is whether or not I should even bother telling my mother goodbye. A sharp pain shoots up from my jaw to the back of my skull, radiating there when I bend down to the bottom drawer to pack up my jeans.
I don’t think she’d give a fuck either way. But maybe it’d be easier for her if I don’t tell her. Then she won’t have to pretend like she feels a certain way. She can just be happy with Rick and her new life.
I’m not a piece of shit like he calls me. I’m not a waste of life.
I close my eyes and refuse to cry. I’ll never cry because of what they think of me.
They can both go fuck themselves.
Chapter 4
Allison
My heart pounds in my chest. It’s all I can hear at first, but then the music overwhelms me as the door opens. It thumps and stirs the anxiety in my stomach with each beat.
I’m really doing it.
“I’m here for Mike,” I say abruptly and loudly the second the guy opens his mouth. He’s tall, so tall I have to crane my neck. But he’s a skinny guy with long hair, and pimples line his jaw. His face is red too. It takes me a moment to realize it’s from drinking.
“We brought booze,” Sam says, shoving the bottle into the guy’s chest and then keeps walking, brushing past his shoulder.
The guy just laughs, a half-drunken sound, holding the bottle out and pointing to the back room. He smells like skunk and whiskey. It’s what Sam’s mom’s boyfriend smells like.
I nervously follow Sam and avoid looking around the house too obviously. But I chance a peek here and there as I move inside and slip off my coat. Every time I look up, I see someone kissing or rubbing on someone else.
There’s a lot of laughter coming from the kitchen and I’m happy Sam’s leading me in that direction. Where there are people other than couples trying to hump in the dark corners of the living room.
I’m still looking around and taking in the place when Sam shrieks, “Mike!”
She yells over the music and makes a show of running over and hugging him. Her heel kicks up in the air and she pulls Mike closer, wrapping her arm around his neck and then pointing at me. “Look what I brought you,” she says in a singsong voice and I stand there tucking a stray blonde lock behind my ear. The nerves settle some though when he smiles and Sam lets go of him.
“Hey,” I say and it doesn’t quite come out loud enough over the music, but that doesn’t stop Mike from coming closer and practically yelling in my face, “I’m so glad you came.”
He leans in and all I smell is beer. Cheap beer that he probably spilled on his shirt hours ago.
“You want something to drink?” Mike asks me as he takes half a step forward, his sneaker stepping on my foot. I try to play it off, but he sees me wince and backs away.
“Oh shit,” he says with his forehead pinched. “You okay?” he asks and I wave him off.
It hurt like fuck, but with all the nerves running through me, I don’t care. “I’m fine,” I tell him, and again, I should have spoken louder.
“Yo, Mike,” the guy who answered the door yells out from across the countertop and beckons Mike over. It might be his older brother; I can sort of see a similarity with their noses, apart from them both being red.
“Here,” Sam says loudly, encroaching into the space between the two of us and I’m grateful for her. She pushes a red Solo cup in my hand and I take it with both of mine like it’ll save me.
“Be right back,” Mike says and I half think he slurred the last word, but the music’s so loud I could be wrong.
“We’ve got to catch up,” Sam says beneath her breath as she takes a drink and then scrunches her nose. “This tastes like piss,” she says.
“Isn’t it supposed to?” I ask her genuinely but she laughs like it’s a joke.
“Okay, so, let’s do a round, scope the place out and find a spot to get comfy.” She lays out the plan and I nod my head, eager to do whatever she thinks is best.
“What about Mike?” I ask her and she gives me this look. It’s a look that says I’m being stupid.
“Girl, he wants you. He’ll find you, you don’t have to worry about a thing.” She talks as she takes my hand and leads me away, through the crowded kitchen and back through the dark living room with the grinding and makeout sessions. We pass the speakers, sitting on the floor and it’s no wonder the bass is pounding through me. They’re gigantic.
We don’t stop though. Sam leads me straight through another room that’s mostly empty with the exception of a couple guys smoking, and then down the stairs to a basement. And I follow her willingly, gratefully. Sam knows what she’s doing. Or at least she looks like she does.
The door’s already cracked and the lights are on. The music fades and in its place, a horde of loud and drunk voices ricochet up the skinny staircase.
“Maybe I should tell Mike we’re down here?” I ask Sam as we take two spots on an empty sofa in the back corner of the large basement. The room itself isn’t finished. It’s just cinder blocks. But there’s a pool table and a dartboard, plus a bar with a ton of liquor bottles lining it. And right across from the sofa we’re sitting on is a ping-pong table with cups arranged on it.
“Babe, quit stressing,” Sam tells me, draining her cup and getting up to pull her dress down. She’s confident as she walks to the table and puts her cup in line with the rest. “He’s going to come lookin
g for you. Make him chase you,” she tells me and I nod my head although the doubt is still there.
“I’ve never given you bad advice, have I?” she asks me and I know she hasn’t, but she’s not exactly the person I’m looking to take relationship advice from. Sam says she doesn’t want a boyfriend. She just wants to kiss and that’s it. But I think she’s wrong. I think she lies to herself because of the shit her mom’s gone through.
With that being said, she always gets to kiss every boy she wants. So, maybe she is right.
It only takes two minutes of us whispering in hushed voices about which of the guys behind us Sam’s more into before the door to the basement opens.
I’d be jealous of the attention she’s getting if I didn’t have my sights set on Mike. I smile into my cup as he comes down the stairs, spotting me and smiling wider.
“This is my cousin,” Mike says at the same time that the guy behind him pats his shoulder and yells out, “We need more beer, I’ll be right back.” I don’t pay him any attention as I scoot to the right on the sofa, squishing Sam and making a spot for Mike.
He takes it and leans in close, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and making me blush. “So, what do you guys want to do?” he asks. His voice is still loud as hell, like he hasn’t realized the music is upstairs and down here it’s quieter.
Sam laughs and shrugs. “You wanna play spin the bottle?” she jokes.
“You want to?” Mike asks and looks around as if there’d be a bottle magically waiting on the coffee table. Guess we dropped the ball there.
“We brought a bottle to play with.” I have to roll my eyes before sheepishly admitting, “You know, or to drink or whatever.” I hide my embarrassment by taking another sip.
“Where is it?”
“I gave it to the guy who opened the door,” Sam cuts in with her hands up in an apology. “My bad,” she says with a giant grin on her face. “I freaked and just handed it over.” She laughs into her cup again and takes a large drink, emptying it and biting the rim.