Almost Wrong

by Aubrey Parker

  But I keep going, old memories tugging at the corners of my awareness. If I stop, they’ll catch me.

  It’s not just the card dogging me, or our family’s card to him. Now it’s images from our past. Things I’ve tried to forget. Things from when I was a kid, things that ache today whenever I allow them inside me. Day to day, I get along fine. You’d think I’m normal. But although it’s true that time heals all wounds, sometimes those wounds close with a splinter inside.

  I can’t sustain my pace. I slow down. I know I shouldn’t stop all at once, but I can’t help it. I sprinted too long. I’m toxic. I feel like I might collapse in the ratty weeds. Then the snakes will come.

  But I manage to stay upright, bracing my hands on my knees, bent at the waist. A wave of nausea comes, and I retch at the side of the path. It happens again, but then I feel a bit better.

  I wait for the feeling to pass. It takes longer than I expected.

  I resume walking and eventually find the strength again to run. I’m no longer thinking anything, too sick to ponder much but the pressing need to collapse on my bed. I focus on forcing one foot in front of the other, no longer enjoying myself. This time the goal isn’t to distract me or give me time alone, it’s simply to get home.

  The sooner I’m there, the sooner the pain can end.

  But when I round the corner onto my street, I see that a long, shiny, expensive-looking black car has parked in front of our house.

  I want to turn around and run away, but I’m too weak.

  And Hunter, exiting the car as I slow, has already seen me.

  CHAPTER NINE

  HUNTER

  Angela’s sweetness always annoyed me. Back in high school, she was in the drama club, on the honor roll, and did volunteer work at an old folks’ home. All the boys at our school thought she was hot—but only when pressed. They had to really sit down and think hard before realizing that yes, the girl with the long, dark-brown hair was smoking. That truth was hidden beneath her boisterous exterior.

  She took part, helped with everything, and always did the right things.

  It was obnoxious. To me, she seemed arrogant and full of herself. Angela didn’t think she was anything special to look at, but she sure as hell thought she was talented. She tried out for all the plays and always got a part, though never anything major. She sang, but thought she was a lot better than she was. She had this over-the-top way of acting in those high school plays, and an over-the-top, put-on singing voice — all throat and no soul. You didn’t act that hard, smile that wide, or sing with that much lust if you thought you were average. You did it because you knew you were great and would be hurting the world by denying it.

  Angela got straight As.

  Angela got special awards from the principal.

  Angela was friends with her teachers.

  And Angela had all of these obnoxious drama club friends who were just as annoying as she was. They all thought they were amazing thespians. I saw them around school at first — and then, horribly, once my dad moved us in with Maria, I had to see them around my own fucking house. They went to shows and talked about the great performances and ways the director, sometimes, made poor choices. They watched art house films and talked about how shoddy modern movies were by comparison. They talked about the genius of Bergman and Hitchcock. They wore fucking scarves.

  But Angela was always the star. She didn’t get the leading roles in the plays, but she seized it whenever they all got together, grabbing it by the nuts and claiming center stage. The geeks let her do it because she was the loudest, and clearly the funniest. But to me, it was obvious that the guys in the group (the straight ones anyway, and there were probably only a few of those) only thought Angela was funny because of her looks. That understated, unseen hotness she had if you got past her obnoxious, I’m-so-talented personality.

  It took several months of living with the Riccis for me to stop hating them both for existing. I must have matured a bit, because I stopped loathing them enough to be merely annoyed. I realized that we were the intruders, and that as much as I didn’t want to live there, that didn’t change the fact that their allowing it was — in its way — somehow generous. Instead of mouthing off, I stayed away or in my room. Instead of giving Maria shit for enabling my dad’s drinking (something she seemed to think was in control, and proved it by showing me her own AA chips as someone who knew), I began to avoid her. I let my dad be the problem again, same as always. I guess I forgave Maria. She never did the same for me, though, and I could feel her pressure to get the fuck out every day I suffered there.

  Two years. Two years I lived in that house.

  When we moved in, Angela was just sixteen by, like, a few days. She looked younger. She grew into her body and never acted terribly feminine, so at first I saw her as boyish. Or worse: a parody of girlishness. Her room was pink; she had stuffed animals on her bed; she wore these headbands that made her look like something out of Leave It to Beaver. At sixteen, she was all a twelve-year-old girl might have been at her worst: bratty, overly proud, stubborn, always determined to get her way. Angela seemed to think she should be the center of attention—and maybe she should have been, because she did all the things that made parents proud, which just made me look worse by comparison.

  I was failing most of my classes.

  I did no extracurricular activities.

  Whereas Angela got all sorts of male attention she didn’t have the maturity to notice, I noticed plenty of female attention but didn’t want any of them. Oh, I wanted their bodies, but that was all. Yet the more I rejected the girls who approached me, the more single-serving girlfriends came my way.

  I was unpopular.

  I got in trouble at school all the time — which was fine because I seldom went, and Dad was usually too drunk to care when they called to complain.

  I never got arrested, but there were some close calls. Luckily, my friend, Duncan, who later became my business partner, had a father in the force. Not as an officer, understand. He was the commissioner. Duncan’s mom was (and there’s no other way to put this) a socialite. We were the classic odd couple, united by our love of music. He was from the right side of the tracks, and I was from the other side. I got myself in hot water; Duncan pulled me out.

  But still, our broken little hybrid household managed to limp along, at least where Angela and I were concerned. It worked because I quickly realized that she hated me as much as I hated her. I thought she was a pretentious show-off, and she thought I was a derelict asshole. I thought she was a saccharine-sweet, virginal priss, and she thought I was a criminal. I thought she was nicer to her family (including my dad) than they deserved, whereas she thought I was crueler than I had any right to be.

  We rode out the days. I didn’t want to be in that house, and she didn’t want me there. I stayed out late, and everyone was fine with it because at least I was gone. When I came home drunk or high, it was only a problem if I made noise. If I fell asleep while coming down, they all seemed to think it was a blessing. I might choke to death on my puke or my tongue, but as long as I left them alone, that was a risk everyone seemed perfectly willing to take.

  I remember the day, maybe six months in, when I realized Angela was human. The very day, probably, that she realized it about me.

  We went to the same school, and on one of the days Dad forced me to go — School or a job, you pick — I walked by the theater and saw a head with a bright-pink headband bent over in one of the stadium seats.

  I walked by.

  Then, for some reason, I took a few steps back and peeked in.

  It was Angela, all right. There in the theater, in front of the stage. At first, I didn’t know why I’d bothered to check to see if it was her. Drama club annoyed me. Glee club annoyed me. There was nothing interesting at all to me, at age seventeen, that happened in that room.

  Angela wasn’t alone. One — and only one — of the other seats was occupied. The seat beside her, filled by a tall boy with dark hair.<
br />
  Something about their body language compelled me. Supposedly, this huge percentage of what people say is done with movements and posture rather than words, and even from the doorway I could “hear” plenty. Not enough to make sense, but enough to keep me there, just out of sight, curious to scratch an itch that felt somehow wrong.

  Angela, nearer the aisle, stood. The boy stood, too. She said something to him, turned and headed for the stage, not looking back. He followed. They leaned against the stage, exchanging more words I couldn’t hear. Their body language continued to feel wrong. He was leaning toward her, too close. Angela was edging back, wanting her personal space. I could tell he wasn’t threatening her. But still, something smelled sour.

  She yelled something at him. He yelled back.

  Then he spun angrily and stalked away from the stage, toward the exit. I ducked back into an alcove and watched him go.

  He didn’t go far. School was over for the day, and the rooms were mostly empty except for a few floating administrators and kids who did after-school clubs, sports, and all that shit I couldn’t have cared less about.

  The tall boy with the dark hair went into the drama club room, across from the theater’s exit. He sat, more of that telltale body language loudly declaring that he was pissed.

  The scene was over, so I gave myself permission to leave. But for some reason, I didn’t. Instead, I looked back into the theater and saw Angela, now perched onstage with her legs dangling from the front. Her head was still down, her body language speaking volumes one final time.

  I went inside without knowing why.

  Angela looked up and blinked when she heard me. She jumped a little, as if I might be coming to assault her. Then she settled, wiped at her eyes in a casual way I pretended not to notice, and sniffed.

  “Oh. Hi, Hunter.”

  Her acknowledgement was civil. We’d been civil, but we were on a train-station basis at home. She went one way; I went the other. We’d say good morning, but we were barely there: two commuters exchanging nods while passing on the platform.

  “Why are you just sitting in here?” I asked.

  “Just working on my lines.” She clearly wasn’t; even before I’d come past the door, she’d been sitting without a script.

  “You do that alone?” I didn’t know why I cared. Something about what I’d seen was irking me. When Angela talked about drama, I usually gave her a clever insult. Today, doing so — in response to the typically pretentious mention of “working on lines” — seemed like kicking the wounded, and crueler than even I was willing to be.

  “Sometimes.” Another sniff.

  “What’s the play?” I still didn’t know why I was asking. I hated the theater. I fucking hated everyone who had anything to do with the theater. If a copy of me had walked by at that moment and seen me inside, I’d have wanted to kick my own ass.

  “Noises Off.”

  “Oh.” I’d never heard of it, but wasn’t about to ask what it was. I knew the names of maybe three plays, all of them by Shakespeare. Plus Cats, if that counted. I knew that one because Duncan’s parents had taken him to see it in New York once, and I’d made fun of him about it for months.

  Angela didn’t say more. Her eyes were still wet. She looked torn between hiding her eyes and meeting mine despite the tears. Hiding probably felt like denial. Her choice: concealment or pride.

  Looking at her that day, I realized she was pretty. I’d simply never seen it. I probably didn’t want to, as much as Angela pissed me off. But she really was — now that her pomposity had been slashed and she appeared duly beaten — human like the rest of us. I saw that she had a mature sort of beauty, the kind of thing you’d miss if you were used to seeing skanky high school girls in too much makeup and provocative clothing. Angela’s beauty was understated. It was structural, having to do with her bones and features rather than adornments or fashion. She’d probably be attractive if she was bald, and pretty when she was old.

  I looked back toward the doorway, where the kid with the brown hair had gone. I could talk in circles about things that bored me or cut to the chase. At the time, I told myself that I wanted to move things along and get back to hanging with my friends. Maybe that was the reason, but probably it wasn’t.

  “Who was that guy?” I turned my head toward the door behind us.

  Angela glanced up at me, looking surprised. She had big, brown almond-shaped eyes under long, tapered eyebrows that make her look slightly ethnic. Those eyebrows rose, and she looked caught.

  “I saw a kid leaving when I was coming down the hall,” I stammered, backtracking. I’d tried to ask casually, but now she seemed more ashamed. I didn’t care about that; Angela’s pomposity annoyed me, and her pompous friends were neither here nor there.

  “Oh. That was Carter.”

  “So you were … working on lines together.”

  Angela’s lips pressed together. She looked away, blinking. “Carter is an asshole.”

  “Why?”

  She turned her face back to me, almost angry. “Why do you care?”

  “Okay.” I held up my hands. “I don’t care.”

  “Why are you here, Hunter?”

  I exhaled. “No reason. Fine. See you at home. Or not.”

  I was fully turned away when she spoke.

  “He thinks he’s too good for me. Just like you think you’re so great.”

  I turned back. I didn’t think I was great at all. But her words had piqued my interest.

  Angela seemed to have slid past hurt into anger. Her faced looked reckless, wounded.

  “He said he doesn’t want to keep going out with me because my mom is trash.”

  I blinked. I thought Angela’s mom was trash, too. But again, her words kept me rooted. I figured all the drama boys were homos. The idea that this Carter kid had been dating Angela, making out with her, and feeling her up behind the Circle K? That surprised me.

  “What does your mom have to do with anything?”

  “Mom’s asked about him, and I told Carter I’d like him to meet her. That’s how he answered.”

  “So?” I was trying to relate but couldn’t. If someone had a problem with my dad, I’d offer a fist bump.

  “He said he doesn’t want to go to our neighborhood. He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t want to associate with people like that — or be seen there.”

  I shrugged. “Okay.”

  “Then he asked me why he should do anything like that if I won’t even put out to make it worth his while.”

  That got me somehow; I didn’t know why. I was about to say one of a dozen awkward things, but I didn’t have time to think before Carter made the poor decision to reenter the theater.

  “We still have to work out the third act, Angela,” he said from behind me. “We can’t bail on the play just because you’re going to be—” He stopped, noticing me. “Who are you?”

  I don’t know why I did it. Maybe it was the pomposity I sensed from the theater kids in general. Maybe it was the way he hadn’t flinched when he saw me leaning on a seat two rows from his non-putting-out, low-rent girlfriend. Most kids avoided me back then, but this kid asked who I was like I was standing between him and the batch of ice-queen pussy he felt he deserved.

  When Carter the theater kid reached me, still giving me that angry, in-his-way look, I grabbed him by the shirt with my left hand and drove my right fist into his pretty face.

  After enough experience fighting, I’ve learned a few things: Never start a brawl in public, or hit the face. People who don’t fight, they think that slugging someone’s face is the way to get things get done—but skulls are hard as hell, and that’s a great way to break your hand. I usually aimed for the gut, away from prying eyes. If you can get someone on the ground, you can use your shoe to break their face, but never your hand. It’s dangerous and threatens my guitar playing.

  But I couldn’t help it. The impulse hit me. I saw his handsome, theater-kid face and wanted to smash it, where anyone could
see.

  The first strike broke his nose. The second broke it more. He crumpled and staggered back against the other side of the aisle, sagging, but then he somehow miraculously recovered and came at me, his nose gushing blood.

  His recovery pissed me off more. I already hated him and people like him for thinking they were better than me, and thinking they always would be. I hated him for being good-looking. I hated him for having enough money to think of Angela’s family as trash.

  But somehow, I also hated him for being on my turf. At the time (seeing as Dad and Maria had tied the knot almost immediately), I guess I thought that if he messed with my stepsister, he messed with me. I no longer think that was the reason I felt this kid was intruding on what was mine, but at the time that was the closest I could come to making sense of my fury.

  When Carter came at me, I lowered my head and tackled him. We went sideways onto the concrete floor of the aisle. I was a more experienced scrapper; I came up first and stood above him, my temper red and obscuring my vision.

  I kicked him at least twice before Angela stopped me, maybe more. She wrapped herself around me, pushing me back. It was the worst time to notice, but I did anyway: her chest was soft and full. The press of it disarmed me a little. The look on her face took me the rest of the way.

  I blinked, my haze departing.

  I realized what I’d done. I’d be in big trouble the minute someone found out. I might be arrested.

  I met Angela’s big, brown eyes.

  I waited for her to shout at me, call me an asshole and bully.

  Instead, glancing down at Carter’s writhing, bleeding form, she whispered, “Thank you, Hunter.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  ANGELA

  I’m sweaty, out of breath, my hair back in a ponytail that’s coming undone. My breath tastes like vomit, and I’m not 100 percent sure I didn’t get any on my shirt. I don’t dress to flatter when running. It’s already a bad idea for a woman to run alone here, with or without pepper spray and a rape whistle. It’s worse to be pretty; that’s like throwing a bacon-wrapped cat to a pack of wild dogs.