by Mia Kerick
I make a mental note to talk to her about how she avoided breakfast this morning. Not only did she miss the rare opportunity to see Rhonda and Edgar squirm, but she also lost out on at least five hundred much-needed calories from the far less than adequate chocolate croissants from America’s beloved Dunkin’ Donuts. America may run on Dunkin’, but the pastries don’t hold a candle to those we devoured regularly at street-side cafés in Le Gai Paris.
Despite the steady rainfall, Morning appears to be in no hurry to get to the car. I have her seat warmer set on high, all ready to toast her bony ass. And while she was in therapy, I stopped at a Starbucks café, the obsession of America’s slightly trendier crowd, to pick up a venti, how clever, salted caramel hot chocolate, topped with whipped cream, which is waiting patiently in the drink holder.
Yes, I am Brother of the Year. And for this honor, I ask for no jewel-studded medal, but only a smile from the girl who so casually just flipped me the bird, with a sly wink to soften the gesture’s blow. She gazes across the street at a skinny, brown-haired teenage boy who emerged from the building by her side. She smiles and flips him the bird too.
“Get in before you melt away, idiote!”
I don’t watch as she climbs in, though, because my attention is drawn back to the entrance of the building and to that young man—dark-haired and waiflike—who was far too close to my younger sister for my comfort. I glare as he jogs through the rainfall toward the bus station. My seat-warmed blood goes cold. “Why is there a man coming from the Hearts On Fire meeting, Morning?”
“Men get raped too, you know, genius. And it’s Heart Aflame—that’s the name of the organization. Take Back Our Power is the specific group.” I glance across the console at her. Her voice is cool and controlled, but I notice that she shivers as she basks in the heat from the car seat. “You got me hot cocoa? Ah, now I remember why I keep you around.”
As Morning lifts the cup of cocoa to her lips and allows herself a restrained sip, an image of her as a round-faced ten-year-old girl wearing a hot cocoa/whipped cream mustache flashes in my mind. “Times have changed,” I mutter beneath my breath.
“Not so much, mon frère nommé Seven.”
I always smile when Morning calls me “her brother named Seven” in French, as it’s something of an inside joke we share. God only knows what our parents were smoking or drinking or snorting or huffing when they named us Seven and Morning. I suppose they had their narcissistic reasons. I’ve never cared enough to ask what they were.
“Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to public high school we go!” For my sister’s entertainment, I set my sarcasm to a Disney melody, but Morning’s mind is already back on business.
“Our tardiness on the mornings I attend Take Back Our Power meetings has been permanently excused. Rhonda made a call to Mr. Little in the guidance office and arranged it,” she informs me patiently, though I already know this. “We’ll be fine as long as I check in with him.”
“You’re acting as if I’d worry over something as bourgeois as tardiness.”
“Oh, shut up, Seven, and get us to school.”
“You must have another appointment with Monsieur Petit.” I don’t like the man already. I plan to keep an eye on him.
Unfortunately, Morning has had enough of her brother who just so happens to be named after a digit. She places her venti salted caramel hot chocolate in the holder, shifts her body so as to best ignore me, and watches out the passenger side window for our arrival at Redcliff Hills High School, home of, ridiculous as this may sound, the Killer Bees. Who dreams up this crap?
I DON’T go straight to class. First off, I don’t give a shit if I’m late to Physics for the Curious, which actually is the class’s laughable name. More importantly, though, is this: I dropped the ball with Morning last year in Paris, and she’s paid a high price for my lax behavior. I’ve sworn on all things holy and unholy that I will not drop the ball again. Therefore, I’m required to lurk in the hallways when I’m supposed to be in class, sizing up our new environment so that I will be ready to protect her.
This is what I’m doing when I notice him—the very same dark-haired imp I saw running out of the Take Back Our Power meeting. I’m not comfortable with this—catching sight of the same boy two times in one day in such close proximity to my sister. I consider it my duty to study him, to memorize his face, to do what I should have done for Morning last year, at which I failed so miserably.
So I scrutinize each feature as if my plan is to sculpt his face out of clay, with no reference point but my memory. Despite the rage that scorches my eyelids with every goddamned blink, I like what I see.
Chapter Three: Renzy
I THINK I’m being stalked, which is weird, because I’ve always been the one traipsing invisibly behind others.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a creeper. At least I don’t think I am? Do you get to decide whether or not you’re a creeper, or is that something other people dictate for you?
Before I was able to phase in and out of shadows like the specter I am, a lot of people decided a lot of things about me. That I was a:
Weirdo.
Freak.
Loser.
Idiot.
Moron.
Retard.
Thank God they didn’t know I’m gay, right? It might have been Cocktard or Fagmunch or something too.
They’re just words. They don’t bother me.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, I don’t have much use for words.
My current stalker talks. Often, loudly, and at me.
That’s the part that makes me the most uncomfortable, I think—that he’s talking at me. Not a lot of people do that anymore, but ever since he saw me outside the classroom, he’s just… where I am.
“Is your hearing deficient?” he calls to me, darkly snide. He’s behind me, a few feet back, so he can’t see my smile. I can’t help it! Deficient?
Are you deaf, freakshow? That’s the sort of thing I’d have expected from a bully, not lofty, arrogant weirdness. I kind of like my stalker.
“You are the caliber of student I’d expect from a public school, but really,” he continues snottily, trying to bait me. Doesn’t he realize that I’m unbaitable? As long as I keep walking, he can say whatever he wants. It’s only if he—
Wham! He grabs my backpack and yanks. I go stumbling backward, tripping and slamming my shoulder into the lockers. The noise is loud and metallic, and it draws a lot of attention. It’s the noise of a fight, and expectant students crane their necks to get a look at us. So many eyes. I cringe involuntarily. Fuck. Please stop looking.
But the tall, lofty jerk doesn’t raise his fist to deck me, and even if he did, I wouldn’t fight back.
So no, these rubberneckers aren’t going to get a show from me today.
I wave at them. Move along folks, nothing to see here. It takes them a moment, but most of them finally turn from my frenzied hand motions and his scowl.
God—it smells like pizza in this hallway. And that cleaner that they use to soak up barf.
I cock an eyebrow at him. Everyone in the world understands a cocked eyebrow. Take a blind man’s hand and put it on your face while you lock and load that hairy bad boy and he’s going to get it.
What the hell? That’s what my eyebrow says.
“Is there… something… wrong… with… your… ability… to hear? Or do you… not speak… English?” he asks me, drawing out each word.
I can hear you just fine, Draco Malfoy.
Why do people always assume? You aren’t talking so you must not be able to hear? The world is just full of chatter, you know? Talk, talk, talk.
Everyone waits for their turn to talk and no one ever gets full. There is no satisfaction in speech. I bet I’m a thousand times more satisfied with my silence than he is with his speech.
“Listen,” he says slowly. “Morning is my sister. I don’t know what you’re doing in her rape survivor’s group—” For a moment he pauses, and
the daring flash of his eyes fades for just a second. What’s he thinking about?
Is he wondering if I belong there as one of the violated?
Unless he’s a fan of Chuck Palahniuk, he probably can’t understand going to group therapy when you don’t belong in some way. But I’m not faking, per se. I don’t sit with anyone, ever. Even though there’s one group where maybe I’d… fit.
Enough of that.
I hold up my hands to him, palms turned out.
See, Draco? No weapon and no intent to harm.
“Seven?” Morning seems to glide up through the crowd. Her hands have disappeared into her sweater. She’s like a shimmering ghost.
I drop three of my fingers so that I’m holding up seven. I raise an eyebrow and cock my head slightly. Seven what?
“It’s my name.” He runs his fingers through his ultrablond hair. “And what is your name?”
I don’t know how to finger spell in sign language. If anyone ever bothered to ask, I bet it would blow their mind, supernova style. I can make the sign for “I love you,” “thank you,” and I know a plethora of ways to say “fuck you.” But I don’t know ASL—I never had a reason to learn.
Besides, I don’t need it.
I speak in other ways.
I look at Morning for a moment and she tells her brother, “This is Renzy. I don’t know his last name.”
“All right, Renzy. Well, I’ll only tell you this once: you need to stay away from my sister.”
Seven doesn’t threaten with fists. He uses the ice-cold chill of a sharp tongue.
“He hasn’t done anything, Seven. He’s fine.” Morning’s lemon-silver hair sweeps into her face as she looks down.
She didn’t want me in group today, so I don’t know why she’s defending me. I’m glad, though. I like Morning in the same way I like the old man across the street, and the poodle lady who sometimes walks her herd in the park. People are interesting to me.
I motion at Morning to get her attention, then pinch my pointer finger and thumb together, leaving a tiny bit of space between them. She studies the space curiously for a moment as she puzzles out that I’m asking her about Mr. Little. I don’t think she gets it, so I point back toward the administration office and make the symbol again. Little. See? Clever.
I hope he didn’t make her talk.
He used to get right in my face and say shit like I know you’re in there, Renzy.
Of course I’m here, you jerk, but I don’t want to come out for you.
Morning smiles, but her eyes don’t.
“It was fine,” she promises. “Just a check-in.”
“How the hell do you know what he’s saying, chère sœur?” Seven asks.
Because she listens. Obviously. I smirk at Seven.
I hitch up my backpack, push myself off the lockers, and walk toward the courtyard exit, leaving the baffled Seven behind.
MAYBE SOMEONE “like me” is supposed to feel shitty about himself. Maybe I’m supposed to feel small and broken and weak. But I never really did. When I was small, I thought of it like a superpower. It vanquished my stutter and got the other kids to ignore me. It was like turning invisible and even had a name, so sayeth the GP I saw when I was seven.
Selective mutism.
Isn’t that amazing?
Selective mutism is such a misnomer, at least to me. That makes it sound like seven-year-old Renzy could talk, but he chose not to. I promise you this, I wasn’t hoarding my words back then. I couldn’t speak. When I would try, I would become so anxious and get so dizzy, my nose would bleed. I even passed out a couple of times.
Does that sound like a dragon hoarding his prized words? No. I couldn’t speak.
So here’s the big Q.
Can I speak now?
Am I physically able to vibrate those ol’ vocal cords? Could I force a few words out if I were alone in the attic?
I honestly don’t know, and right now, even thinking about talking makes my throat seize up. I rub my neck and the muscles there are tight.
I was okay until the thing with Seven at the lockers, then I started to feel closed in. The gazelle to Seven’s cheetah—socially claustrophobic. In that moment I felt more like the seven-year-old with selective mutism than the nineteen-year-old who doesn’t worry about these things. If it came down to vocal confrontation or taking a punch, I would gladly go home with the black eye.
It’s the questions.
It’s when I can’t get away from the questions.
Jesus, even thinking about it is making me crazy. I’ve got to get back to Heart Aflame. What’s going on tonight? Overeaters and a knitters’ prayer group, I think. That’ll do. No one will ask me anything. I can sit in the corner and design some tats. Everything will be fine.
THE FAMILY started dinner without me. They always do. Flora and Kendall are talking animatedly about this “bitch” they both hate, while Mom and Dad try not to look at each other. Jackie’s in his high chair, fisting spaghetti into his mouth.
Dad side-eyes me as I take a seat at the table.
“Did you hear what she said about Andrea?” Kendall asks, her pink-glossed lip curled up in a sneer.
“And they’re supposed to be besties,” Flora replies.
“She’s such trash.”
“Complete trash.”
“Do you know her, Renzy? She’s in your grade.”
For a moment I don’t realize my sister is talking to me. It’s pretty rare that she does.
I shrug at Kendall. I missed the introduction of the bitchy, trashy, bestie-hater. Besides, I don’t really know anyone at school. Well, except Morning and Seven? Sort of?
“Ooh, look at that smile!” Flora chimes in. “He does know her. Did you sleep with her, Renzy?”
“She’s such a slut.”
“Such a slut.”
“Swut!” Jackie cries triumphantly, and Mom slams her fork down on the table. Dad jumps a little but doesn’t look at her.
“Girls,” he says. “Could you tone down your gossip?”
“Sorry, Daddy,” they say in unison while exchanging a look.
I put a bit of spaghetti on my plate and grab a lukewarm breadstick off the platter. Dinner of champions. Hands together, quick bow of the head, and bam—prayer said.
In a softer voice, Flora asks, “Did you see the new girl?”
“Who?”
“The one with all that hair. She’s like stupid pretty. But she has the weirdest name.”
“Says Flora.”
“No, no, it’s Morning. I just can’t even.”
“Oh!” Kendall says excitedly. “Nah, I haven’t seen her yet. But Kayley said she has a new guy in her class. Superhot, stupid name: Seven? I bet they’re related.”
For a moment I want to chuck bread at both my sisters, and then I think what the hell? I mean, the transfer students are interesting, and I’d love to get to know Morning and see what’s behind those haunted eyes. Like, does she have a kind soul that matches her sweet face? Or is she as dagger-sharp and cruel as her brother?
But if my sisters want to snark about the siblings, it’s not like I’m their defenders.
Especially not Seven’s.
A sip of water forces the knot down in my throat. He’s pretty good-looking, though. I mean, I wouldn’t want to do anything with him, especially not with that attitude, but I can look.
It’s pretty much my thing.
I look and watch and listen.
And Seven Moreau-Maddox is good-looking in a European-model sort of way.
But do I know him enough to defend his honor with flying breadsticks?
I don’t know him at all.
Instead of going back to Heart Aflame, I decide to make it an early night with some Alt-J on the turntable and a joint. I sit at the attic window and exhale into the chilly night. Another successful day of silently saying everything.
I wonder if anyone heard me.
Chapter Four: Seven
LOOKS LIKE Morning has picked up a
stray… a stray with enticing, green eyes. Don’t get me wrong, the boy’s not my type. My type is older, more sophisticated—has experienced life beyond the limits of a pathetic small town like Redcliff Hills.
My damp palms slip on the leather-covered wheel, and I wonder why the image of that boy’s face has me perspiring. I need a person who can put me in my place and keep me there—for a few weeks, at least—until the thrill is gone.
It’s highly doubtful that Sir “Renzy” of Redcliff Hills High could keep me intellectually stimulated, not to mention sexually satisfied, for more than the five minutes it would take to… well, you know. In any case, I’m a huge fan of conversation, and that boy must be fucking tongue-tied, since he’s apparently not deaf. He actually has my sullen, far less than loquacious, sister speaking for him.
I fight not to roll my eyes because it’s such an unrefined gesture, championed by hordes of teenage girls and femme gays worldwide, of which I am neither. I fail miserably in my effort, as there are times when an eye roll is far superior to excessive verbiage.
“What are you rolling your baby blues for, M&M?” Morning speaks softly, and after a brief glance shifts her gaze out the passenger window. Although she uses one of the many endearments she created for me during our childhood in the complete absence of endearments from Rhonda and Edgar, I have somehow slipped from my sister’s good graces.
It seems as if far too much of my relationship with Morning has been occurring in the front seat of my Bimmer, as of late. It could be worse, I suppose. I could be chauffeuring her around this hillbilly town in a Hyundai Sonata.
“What have I done to deserve your wrath this morning, Morning?” We usually laugh at seven-sevens and morning-mornings, but not today. “We’ve only just woken up… and since you weren’t at the breakfast table, I couldn’t have pissed you off there.” I send a pointed look across the center console as I gently rebuke her for again missing her first meal of the day. But she still refuses to look at me, and so it is lost on her.