Backlash

by Geneva Lee

  “And I can’t let another man lie to me, manipulate me, and treat me like I’m an idiot,” she seethes. “Not ever. Goodbye, Sterling.”

  “Adair—” I begin.

  “Goodbye.” There’s no room in her voice for further argument, so I do what she wants, hope it’s a sign of good faith to her, and leave.

  Adair thinks she wants answers, but that’s something she has never understood. Sometimes a lie is kinder than the truth. Sometimes ignorance is salvation.

  12

  Sterling

  The Past

  The earthy scent of coffee wakes me. I open one eye to find a mug being held in front of my face. It’s at this point I discover someone has started a jackhammer in my brain. I wince, closing my eyes again and flopping against the couch.

  “Leave it,” I groan to whatever saint has come to care for me in my final hours, because I have to be dying. “Actually, find me something harder to drink.”

  The trick, I’m learning, is to not stop drinking long enough for the hangover to catch up with you. Some people call it hair of the dog. I just think of it as survival skills.

  “That’s going to be a hard no,” Adair says sharply over the pounding in my head. “You’re drying out.”

  Oh fuck. I roll to the side and open my eyes just enough to peek at her. She’s in one of my t-shirts, and damn, it looks good on her. The frown she’s wearing is meant to display her disapproval. Instead, the downturn of her lips forms a tempting pout. I should have known I couldn’t avoid her forever. I was stupid to think I could resist Adair. She’s not a temptation. She’s an inevitability.

  “Did you…” I search the fuzz that is last night’s memories for her. “… stay the night?”

  “You mean, did I watch over your drunk ass so that you didn’t die in your sleep? Yeah, I did that.” She places the coffee mug on the table and walks over to the window. A second later, the blinds open, and I blink wildly.

  “Please, no,” I croak. “Less light or more booze. Your choice, Lucky.”

  She huffs dramatically, but twists them closed again. “I don’t think you should call me that anymore.”

  “It’s your name.”

  “It’s not,” she snaps. “It’s the kind of thing that a boyfriend calls his girlfriend.”

  Something swims back to me from last night. It involves that word—boyfriend—my fist and some guy. Sitting up, I realize that it’s not just my head pounding. I reach up to discover my eye is swollen. I don’t need a mirror to know I have a black eye.

  “I guess my streak is over,” I mutter.

  “What streak?” Adair crosses her arms and glares. It’s probably a move to look less interested, but I know she is. Why else would she still be here?

  “Fighting. It’s been…” I do some quick mental math. “… almost a year and a half since I kicked someone’s ass.”

  “Your streak is still intact. You mostly got your ass kicked,” she tells me.

  “That’s not how I remember it.” More is coming back to me. I definitely gave as good as I got. Not that I expect her to know the parameters of what successful ass-kicking entails. People in Valmont probably still settle arguments with a gentlemen’s duel.

  “Trust me,” she says. “I wasn’t impressed.”

  Ouch. That hurts. Maybe she does know the perimeters, because impressing the girl? That’s pretty much the point. At least, when it comes to fights over girls.

  “You told him to stop,” I say, recalling what triggered me.

  “I didn’t need you to punch him.”

  I throw my legs over the side of the couch. “I think that’s exactly what you needed.”

  “No,” she says. “The last thing I need is some drunk guy causing trouble and nearly getting arrested.”

  “Some drunk guy?” I repeat. “I hope you’re talking about…”

  “Jeremy,” she fills in the blank. “I’m not. He wasn’t drunk.”

  “What are you saying?” There’s a reason I’ve been avoiding her, because somehow, despite everything, we haven’t actually ended things. Sure, it was implied, and, yeah, I’d been the one to walk out on her.

  But seeing her now, in a t-shirt that’s two times too big for her, her creamy legs on display, and her attitude turned up to eleven, I’m not sure I’m ready to commit to that.

  “Look, I owed you one.” She grabs her jeans and starts to pull them on. “That’s all this is. I should get going.”

  “Don’t,” I blurt out. She’s so surprised that she drops her pants, which is better for so many reasons. Standing, a sharp pain pierces my skull, and I grab my forehead.

  Adair takes a step closer, remembers she hates me, and stops.

  Now that I’m on my feet, I realize that the floor is oddly clear. I look around my dorm room. The empty bottles are gone. There are no dirty clothes on the floor. My books are back on the coffee table.

  “Did you clean?” I ask in a confused voice.

  “I am capable of cleaning, and I wasn’t about to sit around in your personal garbage dump all night.” She blows a strand of hair out of her face. Probably so she can focus her murderous gaze more intensely on me. “What is wrong with you?”

  Where to begin? I have a choice to make. The best thing for both of us is to push her buttons until she walks out my door and never looks back. I don’t belong in her world. That’s clearer every second we spend together. I’m not even sure why she bothers if she’s just using me to get back at her father. In the long run, I’ll hurt her, and she’ll wreck me. Why not skip to the shitty part now?

  Except that I’m as selfish as she is. I don’t want to save her the pain. I don’t want to save myself the pain. I want her for as long as I can have her.

  “I told you I don’t drink.” I try a grin on her. Her face remains stony, but I think I see her eyes soften. “Can I have that coffee now?”

  She picks it up and passes it to me. “Ready to dry out?”

  “That’s probably a good idea,” I admit. “Look, you don’t have to stick around.”

  Please do, though, I add silently.

  “I have a little expertise in seeing someone through a hangover,” she says quietly.

  “Me, too.”

  “You should stop drinking. Please.” The pain in her voice hurts worse than my headache. We’ve danced around the topic of our fathers, but it’s clear to me that Adair knows an alcoholic when she sees one.

  “I know. I’m back on the wagon.” I place a hand over my heart. “Promise.”

  She shrugs.

  “You’ve heard that before, haven’t you?” I ask.

  “So many times I’ve lost track,” she says, “so, forgive me if I wait to believe it until I see it.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less. But I am done. You’ll see. I don’t want to be like my dad.” I wait, giving her a chance to decide how she wants to proceed. I’ve opened the book to my backstory. It’s up to her if she wants to read.

  “Your dad promised you to stop drinking, too?”

  Decision made. “No. He never bothered with us. Me and my sister,” I clarify. “He didn’t give a shit what two little kids thought. But my mom? Yeah, he promised her a lot. He’d get drunk, tear the place apart or worse, and then the next day, he’d promise to stop drinking. Sometimes, he went as far as to go to an AA meeting. But as soon as she forgave him, he started right back up.”

  “Or worse?”

  She wants the whole story. I can’t blame her. It’s just that I don’t particularly like to share it. I’ve had to a couple of times—for social workers and judges and lawyers. I take the mug of coffee and go back to the couch. “You sure you want to know?”

  Adair bites her lip, tugging on my t-shirt nervously, before finally nodding. She moves closer, staring at the couch for a second before carefully sitting at the other end. Tucking a leg under her, she arranges my shirt to make sure she’s covered.

  “The worst times were when he’d beat her.” I pause to take a
sip of coffee. I swallow it along with my pride. “Once I got old enough, I’d jump in and pick fights with him, so he’d take it out on me.”

  “He hit you?”

  “His abuse came in all shapes and sizes. The more he drank, the more physical it was,” I admit to her. “My kid sister was the only one he never touched, I made sure of that.”

  Her eyes close for a second. Is she pitying me? Imagining me as some poor kid being shoved around? That’s the last thing I want. But when she finally speaks, it’s to tell her own secrets. “My dad never gets physical. He just reminds us exactly how much or how little we’re worth to him, and of all the ways we disappoint. He was nicer to my mom. At least, when we were around. I guess it didn’t matter in the end.”

  “I’m sorry about your mom,” I say, and every bone in my body means it.

  “Why does the shitty parent always make it out alive?” she asks, then quickly covers her mouth like her own words horrify her.

  “Because men like our fathers are rats. They run from danger. They’ll do anything to survive.”

  “Sterling,” she says in a gentle voice, “why were you in foster care?”

  She’s skipping ahead, but I can’t blame her for not wanting to hear about the years of abuse. It’s not easy reading. “I ran away,” I tell her. “At first I was able to crash with friends, but their parents’ patience ran out pretty quickly. One even tried to get me to go home.”

  “Did they know why you left?”

  “Yeah, but they all had problems of their own, and having a kid around eating more food and taking up more room wasn’t helping anyone. Pretty soon, I just moved to the streets.”

  “You were homeless?” Her words are brittle, like she’s on the verge of tears.

  “Hey, it wasn’t so bad,” I say, trying to play it off. “I learned to fight—that came in useful last night.” I wink at her, but she doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t even smile. “There’s a lot of places to go in New York when you’re on the streets. It’s not so bad.”

  “Where did you go?” She scoots an inch closer to me on the couch.

  “During the day, school or the library.”

  “You still went to school?” she asks in surprise.

  “Not the runaway fantasy of most kids, right? But there was always a hot breakfast and lunch there. Food’s food.” I shrug.

  Her lip trembles and she bites down on it again.

  “I went back and checked on my sister a couple times a week. I couldn’t help it,” I say. “Dad was usually out at whatever bar he hadn’t been banned from yet. One night he stayed home instead. I didn’t know he was there until I climbed in the window and heard him raging. My sister she was in her room, crouched between the bed and the wall.”

  Suddenly, I’m back there.

  * * *

  Stale cigarette smoke lingers on the wallpaper. No one’s bothered to change Sutton’s sheets again, and her clothes are dirty. Usually, Mom is more on top of taking care of her, but judging from the shattering glass and cursing coming from the kitchen, she’s occupied with Dad. I kneel down next to Sutton and lift the chin she’s tucked against her knees. “Hey kid, you okay?”

  “Mom didn’t feed me dinner tonight,” she whispers.

  A cold chill races up my spine, but I force myself to smile at her. “I’ll get you dinner. Why don’t you find some clean pajamas?”

  She shakes her head, shrinking down again.

  “Come on, kid. I’m here. It will be okay. Let’s just find you some pajamas.”

  “Sterling…” Her eyes are as round as the moon outside and shining with tears. “I had an accident.”

  “It’s okay,” I say softly. “All the more reason to get cleaned up. I’ll stick around tonight, okay?”

  She bobs her head and timidly gets to her feet. I notice the smell then.

  It’s been a few days since I came to see her. I’d managed to snag a bed at a good shelter across town and hadn’t wanted to lose it. It looks like she hasn’t had a bath since then. Her hair hangs in stringy strands around her shoulders. There’s a slight rumble and I realize it’s her stomach.

  “What did you eat for breakfast?” I ask her.

  “I snuck out yesterday and got some cereal.” She bites her lip before carefully pulling a small box of cereal out from under her pillow. It’s the tiny, individual size they give out for school breakfast some days. I take it and see she’s eaten maybe half of it. My own stomach churns on the full meal I’d gotten at school this afternoon.

  “Is this all you’ve had?” I ask. “Did you eat at school?”

  “I haven’t gone to school.”

  Something begins to pound and I realize it’s my heart. “Sutton.” I take her by her thin shoulders. “This is important. When was the last time you went to school?”

  “A few days. I don’t know. Daddy says to stay in my room.”

  How could I have left her this long? Usually, our mom can be trusted to take care of her. And Dad? He never touches her. He just pretends she doesn’t exist. “And Mom hasn’t checked on you?”

  “She’s sleeping. Daddy says she’s sick,” Sutton says quietly.

  My heart is beating so fast it feels like it might burst through my chest. I force myself to stay calm. “Okay, let’s find those jammies and then I’ll get you some real food.”

  “Don’t!” Sutton squeaks. “Daddy is really, really mad. If he sees you…”

  “Hey, I can take care of myself, right?” I proved that too well. I’m as bad as he is—always looking out for myself. I should have been here for her.

  We find her a big t-shirt. Most of her clothes are dirty. From the looks of it, mom hasn’t done laundry for a while. She changes into it and some fresh underwear while I stare out the window. I know why Sutton doesn’t want me to go out there. She might not have experienced one of his rages herself, but she’d seen me bear the brunt of one.

  But I can’t ignore the sick, nervous feeling in my belly. Mom isn’t doing laundry. She’s not feeding Sutton. I can’t ignore that. I can’t stick around either. Dad will kill me. I’m absolutely positive. And Mom? It looks like she’s finally given up. How sick is she?

  I take the dirty sheets off Sutton’s bed, find a blanket, and tuck her in with a teddy bear. “I’m going to bring you dinner in bed.”

  “Dinner in bed?” She giggles. “There’s no such thing.”

  “There absolutely is,” I say. “You know those big hotels we see when we go to Central Park?”

  She nods, hanging off my every word.

  “When you stay at one of them, they’ll bring you anything you want in bed.”

  “Anything?” she repeats in awe. “Even ice cream?”

  “Oh yeah.” I nod.

  “Have you eaten ice cream in bed? Is that where you stay when you aren’t here?”

  I fluff the pillow behind her head and grin. “Yeah,” I lie. “Of course, I do, and someday, it will be me and you staying at one of those hotels and eating ice cream.”

  “Promise?”

  I hold up a pinky and she hooks hers through it. “Promise.” I stand up. “I’m going to go get you something to eat.”

  Sutton sinks down, pulling her covers up and clutching the shabby dollar store teddy bear I bought her last Christmas. “Be careful.”

  She shouldn’t have to warn me to be careful when it comes to our father. She shouldn’t live like this. I need to get her out of here. There’s a social worker who keeps showing up at the midtown shelter. Maybe she’d help me.

  I open the door a crack and peer out. Instantly, the scent of old garbage and something worse—something rotten—hits my nose, and I gag. Mom must really be sick to let it get this bad. I turn and hold up a finger to my mouth, reminding Sutton to be quiet. She pulls the covers over her head.

  Dad has passed out on the couch with a full bottle of beer, a cigarette hanging limply from his mouth, the smoke flickering with his snores. I should take it and put it out before he burns the place
down. I will, but after I make sure Sutton gets something to eat. If he wakes up, I’ll be in no condition to make sure she gets food.

  The fridge is mostly empty, except for half a carton of milk that expired last week. I open it and smell it. It’s not too sour and if she eats it with the cereal, she probably won’t notice. It’s a trick I’ve picked up over the years. You have to make do with what you’ve got.

  Flies are buzzing around the garbage can, which is probably home to whatever disgusting smell is radiating through the apartment. I carefully open the kitchen window to let some air in. It’s snowing outside, so I can’t risk letting too much cold air. I can’t assume the heating bill has been paid this time of year.

  I find a bowl and dig a spoon out of a drawer of mismatched silverware. A quick perusal of the cabinets yields nothing more to bring her. Tomorrow, I’ll get to school early and charm the lunch lady, Gladys, into giving me two breakfasts. I can make it back here and get Sutton fed and dressed and to school myself if Mom’s not up to doing it. They’ll feed her lunch, and that will buy me time to figure out what to do next. Dad usually works an afternoon shift at the plant. I can come back and check on Mom, force her to see that she has to take care of Sutton or see a doctor or whatever.

  Tiptoeing down the hall, I pause at her bedroom door. I can’t risk surprising her, because it might wake up Dad. I head back to Sutton instead. Between the cereal in her box and the milk, it’s close to a meal.

  “I’m going to get you breakfast in the morning,” I tell her, “so you can finish this now.”

  “Something hot?” she asks hopefully.

  “Definitely.” I give her the bowl. “And you’re going to school tomorrow.”

  “I miss school.” She takes a bite of cereal and screws up her nose. “This milk tastes funny.”

  “It’s special milk,” I tell her, making up something on the spot to account for its sourness. “It has special minerals in it, so you don’t get sick like Mom.”

  She buys the explanation and finishes it up, even forcing herself to drink the remaining milk in the bowl. When she’s done, she licks her lips. “Sterling, I’m still hungry.”