Proof

by Craze, Chelle C.

  Remembering this, I simply rested my hand over his and watched him create a rainbow of constellations, a word he’d taught me. It meant a bunch of stars that made a cool picture, if you could see it, that was. I couldn’t really see what he was talking about, but I pretended to know when he told me about it.

  After a few minutes, his breathing evened out and his jaw relaxed. “I don’t have cancer, Jaci,” he dryly answered, glancing to my face and then focusing on our painting.

  Not wanting to see a repeat of Wednesday’s outburst, I quickly changed the subject to something safe. I’d learned to do this with Mom. “You’re coming over for dinner tonight, right?”

  He nodded, but didn’t look back to me or speak for the remainder of the hour, which was the last of the day. Thankfully.

  (chpater split)

  “Cal, buddy, will you pass the mashed potatoes?” Dad coughed while we all watched him add yet another spoonful of potatoes onto the mountain that was already on his plate. At this point, I think we were all just watching to see how high he could get it before it fell. Well, I knew Cal and I were, until Dad interrupted him.

  “Sure thing,” Cal quickly said, dropping the serving spoon into the middle of the bowl and trying to fish it out with his fingertips without actually touching the food with his skin. When he set the bowl onto the table, the potato mountain leaned over and eventually the top landed beside the bottom.

  “Here. Let me.” I laughed, picking up the bowl from him and placing it on the other side of my plate. Since I hadn’t used my spoon yet, I used it to flip up the one he dropped into the potatoes and laughed as potatoes flung onto the table in front of him. He snarled his nose up and was fast to clean it up with his napkin. Cal didn’t like messes. That was another thing I learned about him. Whereas I didn’t care if something was a huge mess or not, he hated going into my room because of it. I hated him going into my room because of this. Every evening after dinner, he’d help me pick up my room and complain the entire time until it was clean. Some days, like yesterday, I intentionally made a mess after he left, so we’d have to spend time together today after we ate. I loved the time we had to spend in my room. It meant we were together a little longer. I was happy to have Dad back in our lives, but I was equally happy I’d found Cal.

  “Dad.” I paused to make sure I had his attention and handed him the bowl, hoping Cal wouldn’t have a meltdown because of the mess.

  “Yes, Memphis?” he answered and jerked. “Ouch! I mean Paige.” He glanced sideways at my mom, but didn’t mention what we all guessed had happened. Mom had kicked his shin beneath the table for him calling me anything other than “Paige.”

  Swallowing the lump that rose in my throat, I unfolded the napkin on my lap and intentionally made a noise as I set my spoon onto the placemat as if any of this would help me mentally prepare to question our lives. You did funny things when you’re young, yet you’re unaware that they’re peculiar until you’re older. This was one of those moments.

  “Where have you been, Dad? Why do Cal and I go to a school with locked doors? Why aren’t we allowed outside? Why weren’t you with us?” By the end of my questions my voice had seemed to betray me and an imaginary fire started in my throat. My happy demeanor faded as sadness crept up my body and begged for tears to fall from my eyes. I refused them because I knew I’d be in enough trouble as it was without crying. I hated to cry. Mom cried enough for the both of us, so one of us had to be strong.

  It was my turn to be kicked under the table by Mom.

  “Mom! I want to know!” It was in that instance my voice found strength and I all but yelled and immediately began to apologize. I’d ruined our nice family dinner, and everyone knew it. If it wasn’t clear by the silence, the way Cal’s freckled face fell, I knew I shouldn’t have asked.

  This was the first bad memory we’d shared since Dad had come back to us, and I caused it. A knock at the door startled all of us as we jumped in reaction to the noise. The only person to check the door was Mom, and she was quick to return. Her mood had changed, but I couldn’t figure out to what. I knew she was upset for me mouthing off, but whoever was outside had caused her to completely freak out. Tears rolled down her face as she kissed my forehead and told me to go hug my dad.

  “Okay,” I murmured and did as she instructed me, letting my heart and all of my confidence fall to the bottom of my belly. I didn’t want to end this conversation. Something was wrong. I could tell that her behavior was off.

  “What’s wrong, Mom?” I asked while planting my feet. The sweet tea I’d just drunk tried to come up into my throat. She shook her head and bit her lower lip.

  After exchanging a long silent stare with Dad, he spoke up, “Why don’t you all go outside?” He cleared his throat and shoved a bowl into Cal’s arms, dropping another spoon on top of the mashed potatoes.

  “That’d be for the best,” Mom answered in a small voice, her eyes flickering from where Cal and I stood to Dad.

  “Come on,” Cal quickly said, using his shoulder to push me backward, and led the way into the backyard.

  He was the first to climb up the rope ladder and into the tree house, and I followed his lead. He sat down in the furthest corner and started rocking. I didn’t know what else to do, so I straightened his bent legs and sat on them. He needed to stop before he melted down, and I didn’t see any other way of making that happen.

  “Jaci,” he cautioned through gritted teeth and balled his fists to his sides.

  “Cal,” I answered and took his fists in my palms, unraveling them, shoving my fingers into the spaces between his. “It’s okay. I promise,” I assured him and stared into his eyes.

  His eyelids closed, and he leaned into me. As his lips touched mine, I sat completely still. I never imagined my first kiss to happen in a situation such as this, in the middle of dinner. I’d never been one to dwell on how it would happen, but I had thought about it once or twice and hoped it would have been a little more special. After that thought, I almost protested, but he was calm, and that was a better option than the opposite. My stomach flipped and all of the stars we’d painted formed colorful pictures behind my closed eyes, and I finally saw the constellations…or at least I think that’s what they were. Maybe this was how a first kiss was supposed to be. I knew Cal was someone special to me, and I’d never felt that for anyone else in my life, but what did I know? I wasn’t even a teenager yet.

  Before I opened my eyes, a loud bang rattled through my ears, and another followed right after. Our eyelids opened at the same time, and I knew something was wrong by the obvious fear pulsating in Cal’s eyes.

  “Don’t,” Cal whispered, pushing himself on top of me as my mom screamed the loudest I’d ever heard her scream. I tried to push him off me. I needed to check on them, but somehow all my strength was gone. My body shook with fear, and I told myself to remain calm.

  “Get off me, Cal!” I tried to scream, but the words came out just above a whisper. I knew something was terribly wrong, and honestly, I was too afraid to move.

  One more loud bang rattled the wooden tree house, and the tears I’d fought for years sprang free as Dad screamed. He sounded like he was in pain, and then he screamed a name I hadn’t heard in a long time. My mother’s real name. As soon as the last syllable thrashed into the air, a final bang exploding was the noise to answer him. Not Mom’s voice as I had prayed. Both Cal and I jumped, and he was quick to pull me into his arms.

  “Just close your eyes,” Cal softly said against my cheek streaked with tears, and although I knew I needed to go into my house, I didn’t move. I let him roll me onto his lap after he got to a sitting position, and we both closed our eyes.

  Two people could only sit so long with their eyes closed before they eventually had to open them. How long that time frame was for Cal and me, I had no clue. Minutes? Hours? Seconds? The duration we’d sat in the tree house, clinging to our innocence, was beyond me. The only thing I was sure of, without question, was once we opened our
eyes, there was no turning back.

  “Don’t,” Cal cautioned in an almost inaudible tone, taking my hand in his as my other encircled the doorknob that would lead us into the house. More than anything, I wanted to listen to him. I didn’t want to enter the house that now stood silent. Despite what he’d said, he didn’t try to stop me when I turned the knob and guided us both over the threshold. I wished he had. Over and over again. This was the first time in my life I’d wish for death. It wasn’t the last. Far from it.

  At such a young age, it was strange to experience what was happening around us. As my heart screamed in fear, my body pushed forward, although I was not really sure how I was still moving. When my toe stepped into a red substance, I told myself I had to keep walking. It belonged to whoever came to the door. Not Mom or Dad. It couldn’t belong to them. We’d only just gotten Dad back into our lives. There was no way he’d leave again this soon. Willingly or otherwise. Our family was fighters. I clung to the fact that they were still alive, refusing to take a second glance back to the floor where the pool of blood surrounded my feet.

  It wasn’t until the toe of my shoe hit something and Cal tried to catch me that I had to accept otherwise. Keyword was tried. Cal tried to catch me as I lost my balance and fell on top of a lifeless body. This time, without instruction, I closed my eyes.

  “Shit,” Cal’s lips murmured the first cuss word I’d ever heard a kid say, and then mine repeated it, marking it as the second.

  Four

  Eight years later

  “Three and O,” I announced, spinning the red paddle to celebrate my bank shot before the game shut off again, and stuck out my tongue at Mar. She and I met in the most unconventional way in the most conventional place. We met at the grocery store, both shopping for our parents, and fought over a bag of Doritos. Apparently, we’d both had a shitty day, week, year…life. It was probably pretty typical for teenagers to want the last bag of chips, but for an eighty-two-year-old woman to not only announce her age and her right to said bag…well, she won without any objection on our part. Mar and I were so preoccupied with arguing with one another that a grandma snagged that last bag of Doritos like it was her job.

  The only thing we really had a common interest in was hating certain things, the eighty-two Dorito stealing grandma being number one. Homeschool being number two. Okay, maybe we had a few more things in common, but who was counting? This summer we’d both convinced our moms to let us enroll in public school and would be starting bright and early Monday morning...in two weeks. I’d counted down the days, but wasn’t really sure of the reason behind it. Nothing was too extravagant when I had attended before. I just missed being out of the house. Truthfully, I hadn’t stepped foot into a public school since before we lost Dad.

  Upside, after moving away from the town where Dad was killed, I was able to keep the same name. I might not have been enrolled in another school after we moved, but it didn’t bother me. I didn’t like the last place they claimed to be a school anyway. Later, after we tucked tail and left the town, I found out my old school wasn't a school at all. It was some extension of a government psychiatric hospital for children. None of the kids had cancer as I’d thought. They were just fucked up in the head, or in my case, running from someone. Apparently, Mom found the best way to hide me was to lie about my mental health. I couldn’t blame her, though. She was only trying to protect me.

  A part of me wished Dad had never found us again. If he hadn’t, maybe he’d still be alive. I might not have known him, but I could have found him once I was an adult. Now, that would never happen.

  We were part of the Witness Protection Program. We ran from the man who murdered my father. Mom told me one day he would get the justice he deserved. Yet until that day came, we would run to stay safe. I neglected to tell Mar any of this. It wasn’t exactly a Dorito fighting story, so I’d failed to ever mention it.

  Really, I was surprised when Mom let Mar come into our house. We never had visitors, and considering the meltdown that happened when she found out I’d been “sneaking” off to the library to hang out with Mar and not checking out books, it was a miracle Mom let us be friends. We actually were checking out books, but Mom had a tendency to overreact. I blamed hormones. I think she was going through menopause. I could say that, but it wasn’t true. She wasn’t old enough to be going through “the change.” I was just a shit. I think Mom had done the best with the cards she’d been dealt, but the world really had given her the shittiest of hands. By the time she was twenty-one, she was a single parent, struggling to put food in our mouths and keep a roof over our head, but the world wasn’t done shitting on her. Oh no. She then drew a joker out of the deck, and everyone was aware those were supposed to be removed before the shuffle. Her joker was Phillip. Although if you ask me, he’s more of a bastard…or a fucking asshole…or any cuss word or insult I could think of or had read. I hated him.

  I was blown away when Mom agreed to us going to the movies tonight. She never let me go anywhere. I think she let me go because Mar asked. Not me. She had a tendency to tell Mar yes more than she did me. We weren’t stupid. We noticed that pattern early this summer and used it to our advantage when we could.

  “Yeah. Yeah,” Mar mindlessly answered, rolling her eyes and flipping her long blonde hair over her shoulder. I pulled at my loose brown curls and then pushed my headband backward to secure the stray hairs back into place. Amaris had fair skin like my mom and brown eyes like my dad. I had my mother’s blue eyes and my father’s attitude.

  “You ready to be freed?” She giggled, handing me a movie ticket you had to be eighteen to see. The owner of the movie theater was practically in love with her, and she knew it. To be frank, I was glad I was her friend. Mar had a way of getting what she wanted. She shared that trait with her dad. He was something high up in a motorcycle gang, but I wasn’t sure what. He lived two counties over in Zanesville, and I was barely allowed to go to her mom’s house, let alone visit him with her. I’d only been to her house one time.

  “Are you kidding? I was born ready to see those abs!” I squealed, not caring that I hadn’t seen the first two movies. I’d snuck and read all the books. Mar’s dad practically bought her anything she wanted and rarely questioned what was on the list. I was thankful at least one of our parents didn’t censor everything coming and going. The older I’d gotten, the more I understood why Mom was overprotective, but understanding and appreciating were two very different things. I rarely felt the latter when it came to our situation.

  A perk to being homeschooled was the seclusion. I never had to explain what happened to my dad. Not that I could if I wanted to, which I didn’t. Seclusion was also a downfall of being homeschooled, which was the reason we’d practically spent our entire summer begging to go to public school.

  We high-fived and walked into the packed theater just as the lights dimmed and the previews began. Just as my luck would have it, the best seats in the house, in the middle of the very last row, were already occupied by two guys wearing sweaters and scarves. Call it intuition or being just plain paranoid, but my skin crawled as I looked at them. The heat was so hot outside that we described it as sticky. This was due to the amount of sweating you did as soon as you were out in it. I shot a cautioned look to Mar out of the corner of my eye, but she shrugged and licked her teeth. She saw it as a challenge.

  “Are you boys hot?” she purred as soon as her knees hit the seat’s cushion and she flipped around backward to taunt them.

  “Fuck off, Barbie,” the guy on the left barked, adjusting his scarf that’d slid down a hair. His mouth was still covered. Between that and the baseball cap he wore, not much of his face was visible.

  “Fuck me?” she asked, and her blonde hair slung as her head flung backward as though his verbal assault had caused physical pain.

  “Let’s just move, Mar. They’re insecure whiny little boys trying to flirt,” I insulted them both, not really sure the guy on the right deserved it, but he was guilty by ass
ociation. It was juvenile, but I scooped our bucket of popcorn under my arm to free my hands and flipped them off with both hands as I stood up, hoping Mar would follow my lead. It was hard to tell from one minute to the next what she’d do. She was unpredictable, but then again, so was I.

  She climbed out of the chair and flipped both of them off as I had, taking it a step further. “Oh no, fuck you and fuck him, too,” she announced as one credit ended, so the whole theater heard her. Typically, I didn’t particularly care about the people around me, but I was glad with all of the “fucks” flying around we weren’t here to see a kid’s movie.

  The funny thing about Mar and me was how protective we were of one another, as if I needed someone else protecting me. Not only did my mom tend to be overbearing, the government probably knew more about me than either one of us. It was different with Mar, though. At least with her it felt like our relationship was equal. We looked out for each other. Honestly, this was what Mom and I did as well, but your relationship with your best friend usually was pretty different than the one you had with your mom. If our lives had even a remote amount of normalcy in them, maybe it wouldn’t be that way, but as long as we were under the government’s thumb, I didn’t think we would find any.

  Mar and I settled into two seats beside one another in the middle of the theater, and she ripped open her box of assorted jelly beans, griping when she found they were still in a bag she’d have to open as well. A little too loud laugh snuck through my lips, and I used my cupped hand to try to stifle the sound.

  Seconds later, a light shone onto the red-carpeted floor, followed by two average-sized men. When the screen brightness peeked, I noticed the second was a police officer. I nudged Mar with my elbow, and she coughed, spitting out a few jelly beans.

  “Bitch,” she complained, and her eyebrows knitted together.

  “Shh!” I discretely said through the corner of my mouth. We’d been caught. I bet those assholes from the back squealed and told them we weren’t old enough to see the movie. Although I hadn’t seen them pass us—not that I was looking. “I bet they told on us,” I whispered to her and hunkered farther down into the seat. She mirrored my actions.