Getting Played

by Mia Storm

  The waitress nods and takes Dad’s glass back to the bar. And he watches her like a hawk until she brings it back to the table.

  “Everything’s okay with the house?” she asks, and I know what she’s really asking is why all Dad’s free time is spent here at the bar instead of doing what he promised.

  “Fine,” Dad says.

  Becky watches him as he downs half his drink in one swallow and pity clouds her gaze as it slips to me. She leans her elbows on the table. “Bruce…” Her voice is barely audible over the music and chatter. “Have you looked at the information I left for you?”

  “Haven’t gotten a chance,” he says, staring into the depths of his drink.

  “There are meetings every Tuesday and Saturday at the hospital. I think you and Addie should go together.”

  I split a panicked glance between them. The last “meetings” Dad and I went to together were for Suicide Survivors Anonymous, which was a condition of my release. I’m not going back there. It’s too damn depressing—which, honestly, is counterproductive.

  Dad shoves his drink away and glares at it. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing, Becky. As usual.”

  “So you’re telling me you don’t spend every night sitting on that barstool?” she asks with a nod at the bar. “You know Maggie wouldn’t want this, Bruce.”

  Dad slams his palms on the table and stands. “You don’t know the first fucking thing about what my wife would want!”

  “I know it would break her heart to know how her death has torn you apart.” She glances at me. “Both of you.”

  I push up from my seat, because I’m not having this conversation. “Come on, Dad. Let’s get you home.”

  He lifts his glass and downs the last swallow of scotch, then trips as he turns for the door.

  I catch him, keeping him balanced over his feet. “You can stay and have your burger,” I say to a moist-eyed Becky. “I’ll take him home.”

  She nods. “I’ll have them wrap up dinner to go and bring it home in a bit.”

  I nod and follow Dad, but just as he reaches the door, it swings open. He pulls up short and I walk right into the back of him, nearly knocking him over. I grab him before he falls and when I look past him, I see why his feet stalled.

  “Marcus.” It slips out of my mouth before I realize I’ve said it.

  He’s standing at the door, and he starts to smile when he sees me, but then his eyes flick to Dad and the smile falls off his face at whatever look it is he’s getting from him.

  I see Dad full-on glaring. Becky comes up next to me, splitting a confused look between the three of us. “What’s going on?”

  “Um…” I say, but then Dad grabs my arm and pushes past Marcus.

  I glance back at him before the door shuts and he starts following behind us, but I give him a single shake of my head and he seems to get the message.

  Dad pats his pockets as I guide him across the street to his car. “The bitch at the bar has my keys,” he grumbles.

  I bring him around the passenger side of the car and lean him against it. “Wait right here,” I say. “I’ll get them.”

  He tips his head back and stares into the canopy of stars. “Do you think she’s up there?”

  I brace my hands against the trunk and close my eyes as a wave of anguish rocks my body. “No, Dad.”

  I don’t believe in heaven. Or God. Or any of it. It’s just something that people made up a really long time ago so they didn’t hurt so much when someone they loved died. But I need to hurt, because the pain is all I have to remind me what I took from everyone around me. Dad. Becky. No one came through what I did whole.

  He lowers his gaze and looks at me. “Sometimes I wonder what she would think if she were watching.”

  “Don’t,” I say, pushing off the car. “She’s not watching. She’s gone.” I turn and head back to the bar for the keys, and when I push through the door, I find Becky and Marcus sitting at our table, each with a burger in front of them.

  He stands when he sees me. “I was just…” His eyes flick to Becky, as if they’ve been caught doing something wrong and I know from his look she’s already told him too much. “I came in for takeout, but since your burgers were up already…” He trails off again with a shake of his head.

  I send Becky a pleading look.

  “Sit,” she says to me, standing from her seat. “I’ll take your father home.”

  I shake my head. “I was just getting his keys.”

  She starts toward the bar as the waitress comes out of the kitchen with two paper bags. “I’ve got it.”

  When I glance back at Marcus, he looks unsure. “If you just want to grab yours to go, or whatever,” he says with a gesture at the plate where Becky was sitting, “they’ll wrap it up for you.”

  I sink into Becky’s seat as she passes toward the door with Dad’s keys and the burger bags. She gives me a nod and I watch her go, then stare at the untouched burger on the plate in front of me.

  “You okay?” Marcus asks, his voice barely audible over the music and chatter.

  “Yeah. That was just…” I trail off with a shake of my head when I feel heat creep up my neck. “I know I shouldn’t be embarrassed. Everyone here, including you, has already see worse. But it is embarrassing. We’ve lived here two months and my dad’s already the town drunk.”

  “This town has a few,” he says. “Including mine.”

  “What did she tell you?” I ask the burger.

  “Nothing I hadn’t already guessed at.” His voice is low, soothing, and just the sound of it settles the chaos in my head.

  I lift my eyes to his. “Which is?”

  “Your mother’s dead, your father’s drunk, and you’re basically on your own.” There’s no judgment in his statement or his eyes, despite having just witnessed Dysfunctional Family Theater, starring me. But it’s not like I’ve ever been invisible to Marcus. I think he’s seen me from the very start.

  But I’m not ready for him to see everything. There are parts of me I can’t even look at yet.

  I gesture to the burger on his plate. “You should eat that before it gets cold.”

  He glances down at it, then at me. “This is sort of an intense moment. Wouldn’t that come across as rude, crude, and socially unacceptable?”

  Just when I was sure things would be forever awkward between us, he says that and makes me smile. “What’s wrong with rude, crude, and socially unacceptable?”

  His eyebrows raise. “Good point.” He picks up the massive burger in both hands. “I’m convinced there are no better burgers anywhere on the planet,” he says, then rips a huge hunk out of it with his teeth. His eyes flutter closed and he moans a little as he chews. Finally, he swallows, his eyes worshipping the burger in his hands. “So good it should be its own food group.”

  I take a bite and he’s sort of right. It’s really good. We eat and make small talk, mostly about the team and when I might be back. My burger is nowhere near finished, but I’ve stomached all I can. Between Dad’s public spectacle and sitting across a table from Marcus for the better part of an hour, my insides have rolled themselves up like a pill-bug.

  “You gonna eat that?” he asks, eyeing what’s left of my burger.

  I pick a French fry off the plate and slide it toward him. “All yours.”

  He grabs the burger and takes a bite, and something about that sends a thrill skittering through my insides.

  The waitress takes the empty plates stacked in front of Marcus and hands him the bill.

  I dig in my pocket for the few dollars I have and slip them onto the table.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Marcus says, pushing them my direction.

  “Just take it so I can feel a little less humiliated,” I say.

  He presses the bills into my palm and his hand lingers there. “They give me a discount. It’s really no big deal.”

  At his touch, blood rushes through my ears so loudly I’m sure everyone in the room can hear
the pound of it over the music.

  Finally he lets me go and we head to the bar.

  “You’re going to be okay?” he asks low, for my ears only.

  “It’s nothing new. Dad’s been this way for a while.”

  He shakes his head and his gaze latches onto mine. “I’m not talking about your dad. I’m talking about you. Are you going to be okay?”

  No one’s ever asked me that in quite that way, with quite that intensity. I have the sudden urge to answer him honestly—nothing’s ever going to be okay again. But instead, I nod.

  We step up to the bar and Vicky gives us a nod as she finishes topping off the beer she’s pouring, then sets it on the bar in front of her customer.

  Marcus hands her the check with a twenty and she hands him back enough change that I realize he wasn’t kidding about the discount, making me feel a little less guilty.

  “Keep an eye on this one,” Vicky says with a nod at me. “You know what she’s dealing with.”

  Marcus gives me a “see” look and a small smile as we head for the door. Just as we step though the door onto the sidewalk, I realize I don’t have a car. But before I can even say anything, he grasps my elbow gently and guides me to his truck, just up the road.

  “I know what it’s like to deal with a drunk dad, Addie,” he says. “I can’t make Bruce change, but I want to be your go to if you ever need to talk or there’s anything I can do to help you deal, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say. I don’t dare say more because his hand on my arm is doing things to totally unrelated parts of my body and I’m afraid he’ll hear the shake in my voice.

  We get to his truck and he loads me into the passenger seat. He comes around the driver’s side and gives me a look when he climbs in. “Home?”

  I shudder with the thought that he might have something else in mind. But I really should check that Dad and Becky are okay. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  He starts the truck and pulls away from the curb, but then stops at the stop sign in the middle of town and looks at me. “Think about what I said at school today. I really, really don’t want you to quit the team, Addie. I need you in the pool.”

  There’s a second I get lost in his darkening eyes. They seem to reach right inside me, but instead of feeling nosy or prying, they manage to still the storm inside me. “I’ll think about it.”

  He navigates us the short distance to my house and stops out front.

  “Look…I really am sorry about what happened,” he says, tapping his finger on his head where my bandages are. “I feel responsible for pushing you too hard in the pool.”

  I shake my head. “It wasn’t your fault I forgot to eat. And you didn’t push me… Or maybe you did, but I like being pushed. Either way, I could have stopped anytime I wanted and I didn’t. Which makes this,” I say, tossing a hand at my face, “very not your fault.”

  A slow smile creeps over his features as his eyes scour my face. “No one’s going to mess with you,” he says, and this time, instead of tracing the skin under his own eye, he oh-so-softly traces the purple smudge under my eye with his thumb. “You look dangerous.”

  When his gaze finds mine again, there’s a spark of something in his eyes that goes straight to my heart. For an electric moment, I’m sure he’s going to kiss me. I hold my breath in anticipation.

  Finally, he takes a deep breath and backs away. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I repeat, then drag my gaze out of his and climb out of the truck. I head up the walk to my door without looking back, because I’m sure the sudden raw need I feel coursing through my body is written all over my face.

  But needing Marcus like that is only going to get me hurt. Or worse.

  When I walk into the house, Becky and Dad are sitting at the kitchen table eating. There doesn’t appear to be any blood, so maybe they’ve come to a truce. But when I look at Dad’s plate, his burger is untouched.

  He pushes away from the table and looks at me. His lips press together and he sighs deeply. “I shouldn’t have made a scene at the bar. I’m sorry.”

  I glance at Becky and when she gives me a small, sad smile, I know this is her doing.

  I should say it’s okay, but I can’t find understanding or sympathy in me right now. “My head is hurting. I’m going to bed,” I say, already turning for the hallway.

  I shuffle toward the bathroom and my aunt’s lowered voice drifts up the hall on my heels. “You can’t check out like this, Bruce. Addie’s not ready to be on her own yet, and you’re the only parent she has.”

  “Whose fault is that?” Dad says.

  I stumble over my own feet as familiar guilt slices through me in the form of a hot blade.

  “I don’t know, Bruce,” she answers. “I wasn’t there. I don’t know what happened in that car. But you can’t let that child go through life believing it’s hers.”

  “Even if it is?” he challenges. He sounds much more sober all of a sudden, and it sends a cold finger up my spine.

  There’s a silence that seems to stretch forever before she says, “Even if it is.”

  I scoot into the bathroom and click the door shut. I make it to the toilet before my legs give out and drop heavily onto it. My insides feel like I just got off a roller coaster and I put my head between my knees when I start to feel sick.

  The moment I knew I couldn’t live with what I’d done was after Mom’s funeral, when I overheard Becky tell a friend she felt dead too. But I’ll never tell her that. I don’t want her to blame herself for what I did when I got home, and I know she would.

  I can still hear her and Dad talking, so I crank on the faucet. I sit with my forehead on my knees and focus on breathing until the nausea passes. Finally, I pull myself up and lean on the counter with my head over the sink, waiting out the last waves. When the knock comes on the door a second later, I jump.

  “Yeah?” I call, but my voice is weak.

  “You okay in there, Add?” Aunt Becky asks through the door. I should have known five minutes of running water would set off alarms for her. She stayed with Dad and me for a month after they let me out of the psych ward. She’s versed in all the warning signs, thanks to my shrink.

  I push off the counter and open the door, pasting on a smile and trying to look normal. Whatever that is. “Just getting ready for bed.”

  “You look pale,” she says, giving me the once over. “You’re sure everything’s okay?”

  “I’m just really tired and my head’s hurting.” Blame it on the concussion. That should work.

  “You know if you need anything…” She lifts her hand tentatively and squeezes my shoulder. “I know I’m not your mom, but I want to be there for you, Add. If you need to talk or cry or scream or…whatever.”

  My smile feels more pasted on with every word out of her mouth. “Thanks Becky, but I’m really fine.” As I say it, I back a step into the bathroom and her hand falls away. I want to close the door so I don’t have to look at her, but if I shut it in her face, she’ll know I’m lying.

  “Okay. Get some rest and I’ll see you in the morning. I can give you a ride to school on my way out of town.”

  “Thanks,” I say, hoping that’s the end of it.

  She looks at me a moment longer then turns up the hall to her room. I pad to mine and crawl under the covers. But I don’t want to fall asleep, because the images already creeping through my mind aren’t ones I want to relive again tonight.

  “I don’t understand,” I say, cutting a sideways glance at Mom as we roll down the road toward school.

  She looks so drab, so unlike how she seems when she’s writing. That glaze of euphoria is gone, as if she turns from color to black and white when she steps out of her books and into the real world.

  And I hate her for it.

  She rubs her temple as if she has a headache. “This isn’t how I planned this conversation.”

  “Oh, really, Mom?” I say, flinging a hand in the air. “Was the plan to write it o
n a cake? So sorry to ruin your going away party.”

  She turns her face away from me as a tear slips over her lashes. “There’s a lot you don’t know, Addie. Your dad and I—”

  Her words cut off in a gasp as her hand shoots out and slaps my chest, the way it used to when she was little. My heart leaps into my throat when, past her, I see the other car.

  Too late.

  “Addie!” she screams.

  I spring to a sitting position in the bed and gasp for air that I can’t get, my wide eyes seeing smoke and blood that only exist in my memory.

  The last word my mother ever spoke was my name.

  My heart gallops in my chest as I peel away the sheet stuck to my body with cold sweat. I rub my eyes and open them wide, forcing away the last remnants of the nightmare and bringing myself fully back to the room. As my shaking slows, I look at the clock. Three. I flick on the light and reach for the book on my nightstand, because there’s no way I’m going to be able to sleep any more tonight. I never read when Mom was alive and I know it really bothered her. Which was the reason I did it. It was my passive aggressive protest to her choosing her imaginary friends over her family. But when I can’t bear to be in my world, losing myself in someone else’s is the only escape, so I read now.

  Three hours later, when the sun comes up outside my window, I remove myself from James Joyce’s world and stick my toe into mine. The dark cloud seems to have lifted, so I sink back into my body and drag myself to the shower. By the time I’m ready for school an hour later, I have my “normal” mask fully back in place.

  Chapter 7

  Marcus

  All I can do is close my eyes and pretend I didn’t just see Corinne’s entire left boob as she pulls herself up on the pool edge.

  “Whoops!” she says, lifting the strap and tucking it back into her Speedo.