Now Is Everything

by Amy Giles

  I tell them the tiniest details about last night, just enough to get them off my back. The rest I hoard to myself.

  then

  During the two-hour car ride on Saturday, I pretend to be grateful for every last scrap of my father’s scrimmage advice. I smile and nod as we drive down the Southern State Parkway, over the Verrazano Bridge, onto the Garden State Parkway, pretending he’s sharing the secrets to a happy life. This advice-giving version of him, even if it’s unasked-for advice, is so much better than the other guy, with the sledgehammer fists and Jackie Chan kicks.

  With my mouth guard in and lacrosse stick in hand, I play the best game of my life, scoring five goals and three assists. I also get more fouls than ever before. I’m fueled by my pain, which is a constant reminder of Thursday night, of every time my father took his anger out on me. My muscles scream for mercy as I push my body beyond its limits.

  I do everything my father told me to do in the car. I shove myself into the other players. I throw my elbow into more than one back. I even “accidentally” swipe one girl in the head with my crosse. It pays off, even when my penalties force me to sit out. Our team wins. My father throws his fists in the air and howls on the sideline as if the victory is his own.

  Dad rushes the field and shakes me by my shoulders, ignoring the look of scorn from both teams. “You were fucking amazing out there!” he roars to the raised eyebrows of some of the other parents on the field. Coach Kimmel watches us. She shakes her head and walks away, looking defeated despite our big win.

  “We should get home now,” I say, wandering off the field. “Beat the traffic.”

  He looks behind him longingly at the players still on the field, wanting to be part of the celebration.

  “What’s the hurry?” he asks. “Enjoy this, Hadley. It’s yours. You earned it.”

  I didn’t earn it, I stole it. I needed to gain some leverage back with him. I had lost too much of it lately. But if I’m going to convince him to let me stay home and go to college locally, I have to at least try to get on his good side.

  It doesn’t mean I don’t hate myself a little right now.

  Mom slinks downstairs in a black gown, her dewy, spray-tanned shoulders exposed. She’s worked on her makeup and hair for hours. Diamonds glisten off her earlobes, her neckline, and her wrists. She looks like a middle-aged Barbie doll.

  Dad comes downstairs a minute later in his tuxedo, tugging at the collar.

  “You guys look great,” I say, forcing a smile.

  Dad scowls. “Tell me why I agreed to this again?”

  Mom walks over to him and straightens his bow tie. “It’ll be fun.” She smiles up at him.

  “For you,” he says. “I hate this shit.”

  Holding my smile, I watch them collect their things. As Dad pockets his wallet, he turns to me.

  “So your sister decided last minute to sleep over Casey’s, huh?” His eyes narrow as he scrutinizes me. “What are you going to do here tonight, all by yourself?” He sounds suspicious, I think. Or I’m just being paranoid.

  “Study, watch a movie maybe.” I shrug. He stares me down, trying to find the crack in my story.

  “We better hurry, Miles,” Mom says, her smile tight. What’s the point of putting up with all of this if she can’t show off?

  The garage door rumbles open and shut as they leave. I check the time. Six-oh-seven. There’s a rap on the back door soon after they leave. Too soon. It’s enough to make my heart slam against my rib cage.

  I turn on the back-porch light. Charlie’s standing there grinning when I open the sliding door.

  “Charlie! They just left!” I yell, my knees going weak.

  “I know.” His hands plunge deeper into the pockets of his hoodie. “I’m parked a few houses down. I watched them go.”

  “Oh.” I exhale in relief. We stand there a few more seconds. “Oh right, come in!” Charlie steps in slowly, walking through the den, looking around the kitchen, until we get to the foyer. His neck cranes, following the winding staircase to the second floor, then up to the chandelier that dangles two stories up. To his left, the living room. To his right, Dad’s study. He groans.

  “It’s as bad as I thought.” His shoulders slump.

  “Bad?” I ask. “Are you being sarcastic?”

  “Sadly, no.” He leans against the kitchen archway, his hands still jammed in his hoodie pockets. “Why are you with me again? Remind me.”

  I walk over to him and wrap my arms around his neck.

  “Do you really need me to spell it out?” I lean up against him and lift up on my tiptoes to kiss him, to remind him why he’s here.

  He pulls his hands out from his pockets and wraps them around me. “If you want to slum it with me, who am I to argue?” He laughs, but I can tell he’s only half joking. He tilts his head down to meet my lips.

  After a few moments, he pulls away and smiles suggestively, simultaneously unzipping his hoodie. “I’d love a tour of the rest of the house.” His eyes glance over to the stairs. “My guess is your bedroom is thataway.”

  He drapes his sweatshirt on the banister as we walk upstairs hand in hand. One step into my hot-pink bedroom and he bursts out laughing.

  “Not what I expected.” He walks over to my bed and lifts my faux tiger-fur throw, taking in my room with a bemused look.

  “Yeah, this is all my mom. She finally got to have the princess room she always wanted.” I take the throw from him and rub it against his cheeks. He wraps an arm behind my back and pulls me in, bringing his lips down while his hands skirt down my side and under my shirt.

  “Hold on,” I whisper. “Let me just shut off the light.” I reach behind me for the light switch.

  “Don’t.” He smiles against my neck. “I want to see your muscles.”

  I laugh uncomfortably. “I’m embarrassed.”

  “Why?” His hand skims around my waist.

  “Because . . .” I pause. “I just don’t want you to see me like that in the light.”

  “Trust me,” he murmurs against my chin. “You’re perfect.”

  It almost makes me want to stop everything, right now.

  “Charlie, I’m far from perfect.”

  I find the wall switch with my fingertips and flick it, throwing us both into darkness.

  We curl into each other while Charlie keeps a watchful eye on the chandelier overhead.

  “What’s that song? ‘I’m gonna swing from the chandelier.’ You must think that every time you go to bed.”

  I laugh. “Well, now I will.”

  “It’s so big,” he says, awestruck. “All of it.”

  I nod. “It is.”

  “What’s your father do again?” he asks, combing his fingers through my hair.

  “He’s a hedge fund manager.” My fingers trace his bicep.

  “Those guys practically print their own money.” I detect a note of envy.

  “It’s just stuff, Charlie,” I echo Grandma.

  He exhales. “Stuff helps sometimes, though.” He drums his fingers along my shoulder. “You could go to any private school with that kind of money. Why are you in public school?”

  I shrug and smile wryly. “Because we wouldn’t be the richest family at private school.” Charlie rolls over to face me. “My father likes having the most, being the best. The most money, the prettiest wife. Even my lacrosse team captainship is all about him. At private school, we’d be just like everybody else.”

  Charlie shakes his head and groans under his breath. He glances over at my alarm clock. It’s almost seven. “What time are they coming home?”

  “Not till late. Like one or two.”

  His arms pull me closer.

  “Do you want to watch a movie downstairs?” I ask.

  “Okay,” he says, but his hands start to roam. “Or we could . . .”

  “Watch a movie!” I edge away from his reach, laughing. “Let’s pace ourselves! This is still all new to me.”

  I grope around for my clothe
s, putting on my bra and underwear. My pants are in my hands when Charlie’s keys fall out of his pants pocket and hit the floor with a clang.

  “Crap.” He turns on the light.

  With my back to him, I glance over my shoulder. Standing in his boxers, jeans in his hands, his eyes twinkle when he sees me half-dressed. Then they darken and grow cold. Horror, then anger, cross his face as he stares at my hips, taking in my tie-dyed skin: the faded yellow bruises and the deep purple ones from the other day. I spin to face him, hiding the evidence behind me.

  “Hadley, what the fuck?” He crosses the room in two steps and stands in front of me.

  “What?” I say, jumping into my jeans. They get as far as my knees when he grabs me by the elbow.

  He turns me around and moans when he sees all of the bruises. It takes him a moment to speak. “Where’d these come from?”

  I want to cover myself, hide, run. Like a trapped animal, I would rather chew my own limb off than face this moment, face the truth in Charlie’s eyes.

  “Charlie, stop.” Shame churns inside me. I try to pull away, but he holds tight.

  His stare pierces through me, deeper than anyone’s ever dared to look before. “Don’t lie . . . Did your father do that?”

  I’ve trained myself to dodge the truth, but I don’t want to lie this time, not to Charlie. I pull my arm out of his grip, finish getting dressed, and sit down on the bed. Charlie joins me, waiting for an answer.

  “Yes,” I say finally.

  He bends over, throwing his hands over his face. “FUUUCCCKKK!”

  I press my hands between my knees, a different kind of terror snaking through my veins.

  “I knew it! I fucking knew it!” He finally sits up and looks at me. His eyes search mine. “How long?”

  I lift a shoulder, looking away. I don’t know how to answer that. The first slap was when I was six. I didn’t clean up my Lego blocks off the floor of the den like my father told me to, and then he stepped on one with bare feet. I didn’t even know what happened until my cheek was stinging and tears were streaming down my face, more in shock than from pain. He didn’t hit me again until I turned twelve, when I left the garage door open overnight and someone stole his golf clubs.

  Charlie stares ahead, his face twisting with angry thoughts. “There’s a reason why my dad doesn’t live with us anymore. My mother thought she could live with being smacked around. It was when he hit me that she left him. I haven’t seen him since.”

  I see it in his eyes, the burning question: Why hasn’t my mother left my father? But he must figure it out as he looks around the room that is one hundred percent my mother, zero percent me. He shakes his head in dismay.

  “You can leave, though.” He turns to me and grabs my hand. “We’re almost eighteen. We could get a place together, you and me.”

  My chest compresses as if there’s a foot pressing down on it, threatening to crush me. In my wildest imagination, I would fantasize about just that. About running away with Charlie, about getting away from this.

  I swallow hard, fighting back the tears. “I can’t. I can’t leave Lila.”

  Over the years, I’ve learned how to hide my thoughts, my emotions. But not Charlie. It’s all over his face, why I really, truly can’t leave. And that’s when it becomes too real. There is no way out.

  We walk downstairs together. Charlie’s arm is around my shoulders the whole way, like he can’t bear to let me go, even for a second.

  The garage door roars open.

  We both freeze in terror on the staircase.

  “You have to leave. Now.” I rush down the stairs.

  Charlie jumps the last three steps. “Why are they home so early?” He races right behind me through the kitchen to the den.

  “I don’t know!” I throw open the sliding back door, and a gust of cold air blows in. I push him out into it.

  He looks back at me over his shoulder. “I hate leaving you like—”

  “GO!” The mudroom door slams open as I slide the back door behind me.

  Mom walks in first. Her mascara is running down her face. She doesn’t even look at me as she runs up the steps, holding one cheek.

  Dad comes in a few seconds later.

  “Bitch,” he says under his breath, staring up the stairs where Mom just took off. The atmosphere crackles around him as he marches into the foyer.

  We both see it at the same time.

  “What’s this?” He strides directly over to the banister.

  I reach for Charlie’s hoodie. “It’s mine.” He grabs it first.

  Holding it up with two hands by the shoulders, he looks at the size. It’s too big for me, and we both know it. His nose wrinkles as he pulls the jacket to sniff it. Then he digs in the pockets and pulls out a pack of cigarettes.

  “So you smoke now?” His eyes bulge from their sockets.

  My heart pounds a familiar beat of terror throughout my body.

  “No!”

  He crushes the pack in his hands and throws it across the room. Then he holds the jacket up in the air in a tight fist. “I’m going to ask you again. Whose jacket is this?” He shakes it like an animal rattling its prey to death. Tears spring to my eyes.

  Be strong. Be brave. Look him in the eye.

  “It’s Charlie’s. Charlie Simmons’s.”

  He steps forward, bearing down on me. “The friend from the game.”

  I nod.

  “You’ve been dating him behind my back. After I told you to stay away from him.”

  “Yes.” I try to scrape together an ounce of courage, the fearlessness I have on the lacrosse field, the confidence I have in the classroom. But I’m hopeless around my father. The quiver in my voice betrays me.

  “And you brought him here.” He points to the ground. “While we were gone. To screw around. In my home?” His words come out painstakingly slow; we’re in the eye of the storm.

  I can’t look anymore. It’s his eyes, always his eyes, that terrify me. Detached. Hot and cold. I turn away like a submissive dog.

  I mumble, “I like him, Dad. I can’t help liking someone. I’m seventeen.”

  He tosses the jacket at me; I catch it limply in my arms. Then he grabs the vase off the foyer table and hurls it across the room, where it smashes against the wall. I flinch, absorbing the impact as if it were my body shattering into pieces on the floor.

  “IN MY HOME!” He screams in my face and then smacks me hard with the back of his hand. My head reels; my eyes struggle to realign. It shocks me, like it always does. But the sting is fleeting, already a memory. It’s never about the pain. Pain is quickly forgotten. It’s the violence I always remember. The rage. The hate.

  His eyes turn sad almost immediately, like they usually do, at what he is and can’t seem to control.

  This blow changes me, more than all the others. My heart, already calloused, thickens in an instant. Blind, reckless fury consumes me, burning everything in its path, freeing me from my constant fear.

  “You can hit me all you want,” I scream, tears streaming down my face. “I don’t feel it anymore! It doesn’t mean anything!”

  He flinches, hot anger giving way to a flicker of uncertainty.

  “Go to your room,” he says quietly, his shoulders slack, the tension leaving his body. I inch around him carefully, waiting for the surprise kick from behind that will send me flying. But it doesn’t come. I race up the stairs.

  Charlie texts me all night and morning.

  I left my hoodie there! I realized as soon as I got outside but I couldn’t come back in to get it.

  I know. I have it.

  Did your parents see it?

  No.

  Good. I kind of left a pack of cigarettes in there.

  I found them.

  I’m sorry. Don’t be mad. I’m still trying.

  I know.

  Why’d they come home so early?

  They got into a fight.

  Are you okay?

  I’m fine.

>   Are you sure???

  Yeah. Don’t worry. I’m okay.

  I don’t think he believes me. Maybe because I’ve lied to him so many times already.

  I hide in my room all morning, avoiding my father. The garage door rumbles; I watch from my bedroom window as his car takes off down the street before I sneak downstairs to get food. In the kitchen, I find my mother sitting quietly at the table, staring blankly at her coffee cup.

  “What time is Lila coming home?” I ask, making a quick sandwich to take back upstairs. She blinks and stares at me.

  “What?”

  “Lila. What time is she coming home?” She looks lost. “Mom?”

  “I don’t know,” she says, her voice flat. I walk over to her. She doesn’t have her makeup on yet. One cheek is red. He must have hit her hard, even harder than me. I checked this morning in the mirror; my face just has a rosy flush on one side. Nothing a little foundation and blush can’t even out.

  “Do you want me to get her?” I ask.

  She takes a deep breath through her nose, trying to find her bearings. “Yes. I think that’s a good idea.”

  I walk back to the island and cut my sandwich in half, watching her. It’s hard to feel sorry for her. But right now, I feel like she and I have more in common than we want to admit.

  Charlie’s mother left his father. Mom could do it too, if she wanted to.

  I put my sandwich down and pull up a chair next to her. “You don’t have to put up with him.”

  That wakes her up from her trance.

  “What?”

  “You could leave him. We wouldn’t have to put up with this anymore.” I point to her cheek.

  She sits straighter, filling every space between her vertebrae with renewed denial.

  “I would never leave him,” she says. Her lifeless eyes reignite, and the flow of her anger redirects at me, as if I’m the cause of all her problems. “And you’d better start making smarter choices.”

  “He hits me too, Mom!” I cry.

  Her lips pinch, and she shakes her head vehemently. “No. It’s different. He disciplines you.”

  My throat tightens.

  “Disciplines? No, Mom. He ki—”

  “Someone has to!” She talks over me, stopping me from making it real. “You’ve been lying to us, and sneaking around! Everyone knew . . . all of my friends . . . except for me! Do you have any idea how humiliating that is?”