Burro Hills

by Julia Lynn Rubin

  43.

  I finally switched my phone back on.

  For the past few days, I’d been avoiding Connor for real. I’d kept my phone off, mostly to avoid the texts and calls, but also having to avoid the circle we kept going around and around in, the things he wanted from me that I couldn’t give him.

  No new messages. Nothing more from the creeps harassing me. And…nothing from Connor.

  I was kind of relieved. We wouldn’t have to fight about it again—about being out and proud for everyone at school—or whatever it was he wanted us to do.

  But it also made me kind of nauseous, like maybe this time he was done with me for real.

  The hands on the clock in English class slowed to a crawl. My teacher’s voice became a low, dull buzzing in my ears. All I could think about was Connor, how I’d fucked things up with him, how I wanted to apologize. But there was nothing more I could say. My heart ached. My head ached. And fucking Toby was watching me all class period. Whenever I met his gaze, he’d turn around again, act like he wasn’t looking. I thought I must’ve been hallucinating from paranoia.

  The bell rang, and to my surprise he stepped in front of me before I could leave the room. “Get lunch with me and Max?” he asked. His eyes were all friendly, his smile reassuring.

  Maybe I’d been imagining it all. Maybe it wasn’t Toby who’d been sending me all those messages. Maybe he’d just been fucking around.

  “Uh, maybe?” I said.

  His smile dropped a little. “You have other plans?”

  I could only shrug. I guess I didn’t.

  I searched Toby’s eyes for a sign of reassurance. A sign that things between us were alright. “Yeah. Sure, I guess.” Maybe he wanted to apologize to me in person about being such a dick for so long. Toby had never been good at conversation, about being direct with how he felt. I should at least give him a chance.

  “Cool. Max is picking up some sandwiches. We’re meeting at the usual spot. You know, the one we used to go to. You do remember that, right?”

  Of course I remembered. It was the spot by the big, fat palm trees in the courtyard. We used to eat there every day, two of us waiting while one of us made a fast-food run.

  I opened my mouth to answer him when my phone dinged.

  A new message.

  My face lit up immediately. I couldn’t help it. It was from Connor, asking where I’d been. He was annoyed, obviously, but this was a sign. A sign that he wasn’t completely done with me, that he still cared after all. I let out a breath of relief.

  But when I looked back up at Toby, he wasn’t smiling anymore. “Who is that?” he asked, trying to get a look at my screen. “Who texted you?”

  “Huh?”

  Ding. Another message: I miss you so much.

  I could’ve melted right into the floor. I texted back quickly: Meet me in the courtyard.

  “Who is that?” Toby moved again to look.

  Ding.

  Okay.

  Ding.

  I love you.

  “Cut it out, Toby!”

  And even though I’d pulled my phone away, I knew that this time, Toby had seen it—the very last message—because his face had lost all of its color.

  My throat was so dry. He knows for sure now. He knows.

  When he spoke, his voice was eerily calm, his eyes void of any emotion. “Just show me, Jack,” he said. “Show me what it says.” He moved to grab my phone from me, but I pulled away, accidentally bumping into a girl trying to leave. She yelped in pain and glared at me on her way out the door.

  “I’m so sorry!” I said. “Jesus, Toby, what the hell is your problem?”

  “I just want to see who texted you,” he said. Like it was no big deal. Like this was a perfectly reasonable thing for him to be asking me.

  “What? Why? It’s none of your business. What is up with you lately?”

  “Gentlemen,” Mrs. Flores said. “I’m going to have to ask you to stop blocking the doorway.”

  “Fine,” Toby said, in that creepy, calm voice. “Forget it, Jack. Let’s just go to lunch.”

  I followed him to our old spot in silence, my temples throbbing with pain. Toby glanced around for security guards, then lit a cigarette. I watched a cloud of smoke escape his lips and turn into a sneer. We didn’t speak for what felt like forever. My leg was jiggling again, my palms dripping with sweat. The laughing and chatting around us warped into a muffled, muted, white stream of noise. It was just us in this bubble now, and it was only a matter of time until it burst.

  “Yo, did you want bacon, Toby?” Max’s cheerful greeting popped a tiny hole in the bubble, letting in some breathable air. He tossed the paper bags at us and plopped down beside me.

  Toby just grunted and tore into his, barely bothering with the aluminum wrapping. I stared at mine until Max nudged me with his elbow.

  “You gonna eat that?” he asked me, his mouth full of food. I searched his eyes for some kind of intent, some knowing, but they were pure and clear.

  I shrugged and pushed it aside. “Not hungry,” I said. My stomach growled in quiet protest.

  “Already got his mouth full.” I heard it, I swear, a murmur audible only to me. Toby was wolfing down his sandwich, staring out across the courtyard as if I didn’t exist.

  I took a deep breath, trying to be calm, even as my chest tightened and searing chills ran through my body.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  Max said something, but I couldn’t hear him. I was focused only on Toby, who hadn’t even moved his head.

  “Speak up, Toby. What the fuck did you just say?” The anger was rising inside me, snapping my vocal chords into action.

  He swallowed and met my gaze. “You heard me.”

  “Say it again, you pussy.”

  “What are you guys talking about?” Max asked. He sounded scared.

  “Shut the fuck up, Max,” Toby spat, throwing a wrapper in his direction. He leaned closer to me, and I could smell the hot sauce on his breath. “I said, you deaf little shit, it’s no wonder you ain’t hungry, ’cause you already got a mouthful of dick.”

  My stomach corkscrewed. I tried to speak, but my mouth was shut with wire and tasted like metal.

  He smirked and pulled away from me, satisfied for now. The noise around us was beginning to come back into focus, everything inside me a dull haze. I stood up to leave.

  “Jack?” Max’s voice rose tentatively, dumbfounded no doubt.

  I turned my back on them and walked away, hearing Toby tell Max, “Don’t bother with him. Dude, it’s true. I know it’s true now, about both of them. I fucking saw something just now. And you ain’t gonna believe this shit, Max, what that little bitch has been texting him.”

  Connor. He was calling Connor a little bitch. Through the fog in my brain I pieced it together, and then I walked back to them, grabbed Toby’s shirt collar, and yanked his scrawny ass off the ground.

  A group of students were beginning to form around us, gravitating to the mounting tension that promised a fight.

  “Don’t you ever fucking talk about him,” I heard myself say. We were so close we could hear each other breathing.

  And then he said it slowly, the cruel word dipped in poison that rolled off his tongue like venom. “What are you gonna do, faggot?”

  Max stood behind him dumbly.

  Then I felt hands around my waist, familiar hands, pulling me aside and out of the way. I smelled cologne and cigarette smoke and a hint of coconut shampoo.

  Connor raised his fist and punched Toby dead in the nose.

  He hit the ground hard, blood pouring down his face. Someone screamed. Now the group of kids had circled around us, chanting shit about a fight, beat his ass, beat his ass! Max rushed to Toby’s side, asking him again and again if he was okay while Toby moaned pitifully.

  There was a flurry of hands, movement, yells of “Let’s go!” and “Move out of the way!” Security surrounded us, pulling Connor’s hands behind his back. One o
f the guards pushed my shoulder and moved me along through a stream of curious faces, rows of kids lined up to get a glimpse of the action, some of them laughing.

  We were herded back inside and into the administrative office, where I sat in a metal folding chair on the other side of the room from Connor, who had two guards on each side of him. I heard grave voices, something about the police being called.

  I felt words in my throat, things caught in my chest I wanted to say, but I couldn’t speak. I heard the buzz of walkie-talkies, saw the cops come in and talk to the guards, then put handcuffs around Connor’s wrists. “You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do may be used against you in a court of law…” His jaw was clenched tight, but he stared ahead, cooperating coolly, quietly defiant. His eyes caught mine for a moment before someone stepped in front of me, blocking him from my line of sight.

  An administrator gestured for me to get up. I craned my neck but I couldn’t see him as they led him out the door. “Come on, son,” the man said. He led me down the hall in the direction of the principal’s office.

  44.

  “I’m in the middle of a meeting,” Principal Oliver said gently. “Go wait outside, please.”

  To my surprise, Jess was at the door, peering in, her face flushed and sweaty. A secretary was clucking at her from behind.

  “I’m sorry, sir, she just barged on in.” The secretary had one manicured hand pressed against the door, trying to prevent Jess from opening it any further.

  But Jess was relentless. “Is Jack in there?” She craned her neck around and broke into a sad smile when she saw me. “Jack!”

  I wanted the ugly green carpet to swallow me up. I wanted to disappear forever. I looked down at my dirty sneakers.

  “Please, Miss Velez,” Principal Oliver said. “I can speak with you when I’m finished.”

  “He didn’t do anything wrong,” Jess said. “Toby called him a f—a name. A really terrible name. Everyone heard it. Connor was just defending him.”

  I thought about swimming out into the ocean so far that the current pulled me under. I thought about how long it would take to hitchhike to Santa Cruz.

  “Tell him, Jack! Tell him what he said to you! Isn’t there a policy against hate speech in this state? How can you let that go unpunished?”

  Principal Oliver sighed like one might when a toddler is causing a ruckus.

  “Come inside,” he said, motioning for her to sit. “I’ll give you five minutes to say your peace, and then I need to speak to Mr. Burns.” The secretary scoffed and left us there, the door shutting with a bang.

  Principal Oliver really was doing his best, all things considered. He was in his mid-forties, but he looked like he was pushing sixty—white whiskers, a deeply receding hairline. He probably didn’t sleep or get out much. I wondered if he ever went home at night and thought about just ending it all.

  He put his palms up, as if asking us what we wanted him to do. “As I was just explaining to Mr. Burns, assault is prohibited at this school, and that includes verbal and physical. There is no excuse for hitting someone in the face, and as a school we will not tolerate that behavior. This has been quite a problem this year, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, and we are cracking down on it.”

  “But—”

  “Jessica, please let me finish. As I said, there is no excuse for what happened today. A student of mine was injured, and this was not the first time Mr. Orellana has engaged in unacceptable behaviors on this campus. That being said, that discussion does not concern either of you. And neither of you are in trouble right now. I need to get a clear timeline of what happened. Is what Jessica said true, Jack? Did Toby provoke you?”

  I blinked at him. What did he want me to say? Did he really want me to repeat the word, to reveal why Connor had reacted the way he did?

  “I was a witness,” Jess said.

  Principal Oliver nodded. “Alright. But I’d like to hear from Jack now.”

  I shrugged.

  “Jack? Is there anything you’d like to say?” Principal Oliver pressed.

  Jess rose from her seat. “Jack! If you won’t tell him, I will!”

  I finally met her frantic eyes. “Sit down, Jess,” I said, and it came out meaner than I’d intended. “Just stay out of this.”

  “Please Jack,” she pleaded. “I might be mad at you, but you’re my best friend. I can help. I love you.”

  Part of me ached for her, even after all of this time apart. It was like a reflex. I wanted to reach out and hug her, and reassure her, and wipe the smudged eyeliner from her cheek and tell her that it was going to be fine. But I didn’t have it in me anymore. I was tired, so damn tired.

  So I turned to Principal Oliver and said: “I’m not comfortable discussing this right now. I’m sorry.” Without waiting for a reply, I swung my backpack over my shoulder, strode out of the room, and left her there.

  45.

  The living room was wrecked. The stench of beer was everywhere, infusing the room with its sickly, sour odor. Dad sat in his La-Z-Boy amid a smashed lamp, broken bottles, torn papers, and documents. The coffee table was overturned. The remains of the ceramic pig I had painted for Mom for her thirty-fourth birthday lay in ruins in a corner. I spotted a pink snout and a hoof.

  Mom wasn’t here. I knew that before I walked in. Her car had vanished from its customary spot next to the sycamore. And he just sat there, bloated and bleary-eyed in his stained white t-shirt and acid-washed jeans, head in his hands. Maybe he was expecting her to come home once she’d cooled off or expecting me to stay here and clean up the mess he’d made, once again.

  “Where’s Mom?” I demanded.

  Dad stared down at a beer stain on the carpet. “She’s gone.”

  “Where, Dad? I asked where!”

  “She’s staying at the Castle Motel for a while.”

  “Oh, that’s just fucking great!” I threw my backpack to the floor, knocking over another bottle. Fuck it. Fuck him. “Did you hit her, huh? Did you threaten to? You broke all this shit, didn’t you?” I kicked at the smashed ceramic pig snout. Gunther barked at me from across the room.

  “She broke it all, son,” Dad said quietly to the floor.

  “Oh bullshit, Dad!” I could feel it, all of the rage and frustration I’d been bottling up for weeks. It was spilling out of me now, leaking all over the carpet, joining the beer and the broken shards of glass. “You made her run away, didn’t you? She’s always been scared of you! You don’t think I remember all those times you got drunk and tore up the fucking house? You don’t think I remember the last time she left you, when she took me with her so you wouldn’t kill me?”

  He was staring at me now with wide, bloodshot eyes, shaking his head. “No, Jack. That’s not what happened.”

  “You’re such a liar! You don’t think I get it? She left behind everything for you! She left law school for you, to stay home and be your fucking maid!”

  “She left law school because she was sick, Jack,” he said. “Your mother is very sick.”

  “No, you’re sick! You’re a drunk.”

  “I know I’m a drunk.”

  “And you made her leave.”

  He inhaled a deep, ragged breath. “I didn’t make her leave. She chose to leave. And she wanted to take you with her again. Throw you and your things in her car in the middle of the night and drive away somewhere where I couldn’t find you, to punish me. Just like she did when you were four.”

  Now it was me shaking my head. “No, that can’t be true. She was afraid of you.”

  “I may be a drunk and I may get too angry, but I’m not the one who breaks things. She wanted to take you away from me, not just to punish me. To scare me. It worked the first time. I wouldn’t let it happen a second time. I promised myself that. I told her that she had a choice. Either get help, or get out of this house.”

  Gunther whined from his spot in corner, all curled up with his head down. My throat tightened. Pain sliced thr
ough my chest. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t be here another second.

  “Fuck this shit,” I said. I grabbed my backpack off the floor and headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?” he asked. He sounded so old, so tired and broken.

  “I don’t know, okay? But I can’t be here! Not with you. Not while you’re still lying to me.”

  “Jesus, Jack. At least take some money.” He stood and reached into his pocket, offering me a $50 bill. It gave me pause. We were broke. That was probably as much as he’d made in tips last night. I wanted to take it so bad, to accept it, but accepting felt like giving in.

  “I don’t want your money,” I mumbled.

  “You need something. What are you even going to do, Jack?”

  “I’ll figure it out.” I stood like that for a moment, watching him, as if daring him to stop me.

  He didn’t move.

  I turned and left him there, slamming the door, running as fast as I could from that awful fucking house that I hated loving. I didn’t stop until I was back at the alley behind my grandfather’s old building, where he’d died and left me here with all of the broken pieces. I slammed my fist against the cheap siding again and again and again, then crumpled to the ground and cried like I’d never cried before.

  46.

  I should’ve taken the fucking $50 bill.

  I didn’t have much money on me. Maybe enough for a night or two at a motel and a sandwich. Maybe I could stay with Mom.

  But the farther I got from my house and my dad, the more all of those things he’d said felt less and less like lies. There could be truth in it. Mom was unstable. I knew that. She had issues. But would she really kidnap me? Break everything in her own house, even things I’d made for her? She’d cried when I’d given her that stupid ceramic pig.