Fighting for Rain

by Easton, BB

  In the blink of an eye, Not Brad cocks his fist back and lets it fly, landing a blow right in the middle of Brad’s chin. Brad’s head snaps back, but he recovers quickly, putting Not Brad in a headlock and giving him an uppercut to the spleen.

  “It’s a touchy subject,” Carter whispers in my ear as the two guys wrestle to the ground.

  I look up to find him inches away, a smirk on his lips and pride shining out of his honey-colored eyes. That’s another smile I know by heart.

  The one that means I did good.

  Once upon a time, that look was everything the future Mrs. Rainbow Renshaw ever wanted. I was willing to do whatever it took to earn Carter’s approval. And when I did, that look was my reward. I would commit whatever I did to memory so that I could keep doing it just to get more of that look.

  Now, the only look I want to see on Carter’s face is his mouth hanging open when I beat his ass in hockey.

  I clap my hands together, drawing the attention of the group. “As team captain, I choose Brangelina.”

  It turns out that hockey is just soccer with sticks, and I played church-league soccer until middle school—when I realized that church-league soccer wasn’t cool. Of course, when I played, we used an actual ball and goals with nets, not a jagged piece of broken plate and sticks fashioned from wooden pallets, but otherwise, it’s not really that different. Plus, Brangelina and I kinda make a perfect team. I hang back and play goalie while they run around Carter like tornadoes with ADHD. Poor guy is pretty much on his own out there. Tiny Tim’s approach to goalkeeping consists of talking shit while moving as little as possible, and Loudmouth’s main priority is strictly defense. As in, defending himself against having to interact with the puck by all means necessary.

  Carter pulls his signature basketball spin move to evade Not Brad, but I block his breakaway shot with the side of my foot. I have to use the side of my foot because the stick I’m using is just two splintery pieces of pallet nailed together, and it wouldn’t stop a marble. When nobody calls me on it, I raise my worthless stick in the air triumphantly.

  “Boom!” I shout at Carter, but my gloating is cut short when the top half of my homemade stick swings down and practically chops my fingers off. “Ahh!” I drop my stick and grab my hand, holding it as I bounce in place and hiss through my teeth.

  “High-sticking!” Tiny Tim shouts, pointing at me like a suspect in a police lineup. “High-sticking!”

  “What the hell is high-sticking?”

  “High-sticking is when a player is struck by a stick that has been raised above waist-level,” Loudmouth quietly recites to himself while staring at the ground.

  “But I hurt myself!”

  Carter smirks. “Sorry, babe. Rules are rules. You gotta go to the penalty box.”

  “Penalty box?” I swing my head from side to side. “What penalty box?”

  Tiny Tim points to the mildewed cardboard box I noticed when we first walked in and grins through his grimy beard.

  “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “Go on, princess.” He chuckles, waving me off. “Two minutes for high-sticking. Do your time like a man.”

  I stick my tongue out at him as I stomp over to the soggy cube of cardboard. Loudmouth follows me with his head down, and once I’m sitting inside with my knees pulled to my chest, he adds the final touch.

  He picks up the toilet seat lying on the ground next to the box, and just before the quiet little accordion player slips it over my head like a statement necklace, I notice that someone has scrawled the word PENULTEE on it in black permanent marker.

  I glare at him, but it’s pointless. His eyes are on the floor, and he’s already halfway back to his safe little corner of the store.

  The guys howl with laughter, and my pout lasts all of five seconds before I’m laughing right along with them.

  “What’s so funny?” a feline voice purrs from the entryway.

  My head swivels to the left where Q is leaning against the wall, looking cool as hell with her lion’s mane of dreads and her kicked-back posture, but she doesn’t fool me. The intensity in her eyes and tightness in her muscles tell me that she’s ready to pounce on the next gazelle that crosses her path.

  In fact, she can’t wait.

  “The doc got a penalty for high-sticking against herself!” Tiny chuckles, wiping a tear from his eye.

  Q raises a brow as she takes in the sight of me sitting in a cardboard box with a toilet seat around my neck before her gaze cuts back to the group. “Looks like y’all could use a third then.”

  “But … they’re supposed to be down a player for two minutes,” Tiny whines.

  “Two minutes is up,” Q snaps back, gliding across the room to pick up my stick.

  She doesn’t look at me again, but I get the message loud and clear.

  I’m out when she says I’m out.

  And not just in the game.

  I watch from the box of shame as Brad and Carter face off in the center of the store. Q’s presence seems to have shaken everybody up. They all seem so quiet and distracted. After tapping sticks with Brad, Carter easily gets the jump on him, sending the ceramic shard skidding across the hardwood, straight toward our goal. But right before it goes in, Q slams her stick—my stick—down on the ground sideways, blocking the entire goal with a triumphant smirk. The chunk of fine china ricochets off of it, and Carter’s shoulders bunch up around his ears.

  I know, if she had been anyone else, he would have laid into her for cheating, but with her being his only source of food, water, and shelter at the moment, he bites his tongue and glares at me instead.

  I know, big guy. I know.

  Loudmouth hustles after the broken piece of plate and sets it back in the center of the store.

  “I got this,” Q announces, leaving her post as goalie to take Not Brad’s spot across from Carter.

  Not Brad shrinks away from her the moment she gets close, but Carter holds his ground.

  Placing the mangled end of his makeshift hockey stick on the ground next to the broken plate, Carter looks at Q expectantly. He’s not just going to let her have this. He’s still a competitor through and through, and as stupid as that might seem right now, I get it.

  In this post–April 23 world, the only things you get to keep are the things you refuse to let someone else take away from you.

  Carter taps his stick on the ground and lifts it a few inches in the air, waiting for Q to smack it with the end of hers—the signal that it’s go time—but as usual, Q plays by her own rules. As soon as he lifts his stick off the hardwood, she whacks the ceramic puck as hard as she can, sending the shard careening directly into Tiny’s portly gut. The room goes from silent to deafening as Tiny clutches his stomach with a guttural wail, and the puck falls to the floor with a heart-stopping shatter.

  Q makes a show of dragging an inch-long fingernail down her tongue and using it to write the number one in the air. Then, she turns toward me, victory shining brightly in her vomit-colored eyes as she tosses her almost waist-length dreads over her shoulder.

  “Take care of that,” she barks, flicking her ring-adorned fingers in the direction of her latest victim. “And yo, when I said you looked like shit the other day …”

  The corners of her full mouth twist into something truly evil as she stalks toward me. I try to keep my face neutral as she approaches, but when she reaches out to drag one of those talons along the edge of the toilet seat around my neck, I flinch.

  “I was wrong,” she coos, gripping the rim between her thumb and forefinger. A glimmer of malice flashes across her face just before she leans forward, placing her lips against my ear, and whispers the word, “Flush.” Before I have time to react, she jerks her hand to the left, sending the toilet seat spinning around my neck like a horseshoe. Q throws her head back and cackles as sharp, stinging heat sears my cheeks and burns my eyes. “Now, you look like shit!”

  She turns and sashays toward the entrance, still chuckling to herself, and
Brangelina parts for her like the Red Sea. I quietly lift the toilet seat over my head and clutch it to my chest like a teddy bear. Carter squeezes Tiny Tim’s shoulder while keeping his furious eyes locked on me. Loudmouth is practically rocking in the corner.

  And, in that silence, we hear it.

  The pounding.

  Q stops for a second, listening like the rest of us, but when she spins around, it’s like there’s a completely different person in her place. Her face lights up, her mouth splits into a manic grin, and her wide eyes dart from person to person, scanning our expressions for signs that we hear it too.

  Completely ignoring the fact that we’re all glaring at her like she just stabbed our dog, Q snaps her fingers and yells, “Ohhhh shit! Y’all know what time it is?”

  Tiny Tim shrugs off his anger and nods.

  Loudmouth appears to be blushing.

  Brangelina grins at each other and does a dramatic jump high five.

  And Carter’s lingering gaze heats my skin.

  “It’s bath time, muhfuckas!”

  Rain

  Q’s husky voice grows more and more distant as she takes off down the hallway, yelling, “Bath time, bitches!” at the top of her lungs.

  Brangelina and Loudmouth follow, no questions asked, and even Tiny Tim, with a wince and a moan, saunters off behind them.

  “Hey, Tiny?” I call as I step out of the cardboard box.

  He stops in the store entrance and turns toward me. Sad brown eyes, tucked inside a frame of shoulder-length dreadlocks and bushy brown facial hair, stare back.

  “Come see me in the tuxedo shop later, and I’ll take care of that for you.” I give him a sympathetic smile and glance down at the puncture wound he’s covering with his thick hand.

  Tiny salutes me with two fingers before trudging off in the same direction as his friends.

  Suddenly, it’s just Carter and me and the sound of the rain beating down on the roof. His eyes burn like liquid gold, molten hot with unexpressed rage, and are locked on me like I’m the void he wants to pour it all into.

  “You okay?” he asks, stalking across the room toward me.

  “I’m fine,” I snap, dusting the dirt off my ass. “Is she always that much of a bi—”

  Before I can finish my insult, Carter stops a foot in front of me and claps a huge hand over my mouth.

  He scans the room with wide eyes and then whispers, “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re the only other girl here her age. Q doesn’t like competition, so I suggest you keep your mouth shut and your head down if you want to stick around.”

  “Ugh!” I jerk away from him and cross my arms over my chest. “So I just have to take her shit?”

  Carter’s jaw clenches, and his nostrils flare. “Look, I don’t like it either, okay? You think it’s easy for me to sit back and watch somebody disrespect my friends like that? Fuck no. But we have nowhere else to go, do we? Not unless—”

  “No,” I cut him off before he can say another word about places that no longer exist.

  Carter closes his mouth and nods. I didn’t realize there was a glimmer of hope in his eyes until it was extinguished. “Okay then. Home sweet mall it is. Come on.”

  He extends his hand to me, but I just stare at it.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To take a shower.”

  “Shower?”

  Carter rolls his eyes. “When it rains, everybody runs up to the roof to shower off. Q has a stash of soap and shampoo and shit up there. It’s”—he lifts a shoulder in a nonchalant half-shrug—“fun.”

  “Q,” I spit her name out like it’s a bloody, cracked tooth before something occurs to me. “Wait. So, everybody up there is … naked?”

  Carter chuckles and takes my hand even though I didn’t give it to him. “Told you it was fun.”

  “But … what about your parents? What about Sophie?”

  He starts walking backward toward the door, tugging on my hand with a playful, overconfident grin on his face. “It’s not really their scene. They duck out the back door of the shoe store and shower off behind the bushes.” He gives my hand a tug. “Come on, Rainbow Brite … if you’re lucky, I might let you wash my back.”

  Suddenly, my hand is free, and my feet are moving, and my face is hot, and I can hear Carter’s smug voice behind me insisting that he was, “Just kidding.”

  But I don’t stop. I don’t care about his stupid joke. I have a much, much bigger problem right now.

  I run straight back to the tuxedo shop and practically scream at Lamar to take Quint up to the roof to shower off. They look at me like I have two heads, but I can’t rein in my panic. The walls are closing in, and I need them to get the hell out before I have a full-blown meltdown.

  “Go!” I shout, shoving a finger in the direction of the door.

  Quint is finally healthy enough to maybe handle a flight of stairs.

  Maybe.

  I hope.

  “Just don’t touch his bandage!”

  “Okay, Mom. Jesus.” Lamar holds his hands up before helping his big brother off the floor.

  I want so badly to rush over to them, to help Lamar get him cleaned up, but … I just … I just can’t.

  As soon as they’re out the door, I lift the white cube in the center of the store that was once a pedestal for a prom-ready mannequin and pull my backpack out from underneath. I sink to the floor and dig through the contents, feeling my chest tighten more and more with every passing second. A clap of thunder shakes the walls, pushing me to move faster.

  I find the travel-sized toiletries that I packed from home and have to squeeze my eyes shut and count backward from twenty to keep from picturing the beachfront motel where those little bottles came from.

  … three … two … deep breath … one.

  Squeezing the shampoo and conditioner bottles in my fists, I focus solely on my surroundings and begin to walk backward out of the tuxedo shop entrance. Another clap of thunder makes me jump as I turn and continue to move in reverse toward the doors at the end of the hallway.

  I can do this.

  Step.

  I don’t have to look at anything.

  Step.

  Not that there’s anything out there.

  Step.

  Nope.

  Step.

  Nothing at all.

  I feel the rain spitting on the side of my face through the broken windows just before my back hits the smooth metal handle of one of the main entrance doors.

  Every beat of my heart feels like a lightning strike, reverberating through my body and making me tremble. The entire hallway stretched out before me is empty, and although it’s still early afternoon, the storm has darkened the mall to the point that I can’t even see the fountain from here.

  Good.

  The darkness helps calm my nerves. It helps me lose myself and pretend.

  I’m just gonna step out this door into another … wetter … part of the mall. That’s all. I’m not going outside. There is no outside. This is the … the … mall shower room. Yeah.

  I set the bottles on the ground and pull off my clothes as quickly as possible, throwing them in front of me far enough that they won’t land in one of the puddles forming by the door. Then, I press my naked back to the door again, cherishing the feeling of cool metal against my heated skin.

  I’m in the mall. And when I push through this door, I’ll still be in the mall. No big deal.

  I memorize which bottle is in which hand—shampoo right, conditioner left—and then, with a deep breath and my eyes screwed shut, I push against the door with my body. A gust of wind blows my hair into my face, but the feeling of rain pouring down on me doesn’t come. Only a slightly stronger mist, still spitting at me sideways.

  The awning! Dammit!

  My heart lurches into high gear as I realize that I have farther to go. Instead of walking straight back into the open parking lot to get out from under the cover, I decide that I need to stay close to the building. I n
eed something to keep me grounded. With my knuckles against the brick and the plastic bottles in my fists, I move sideways in the direction of the mist. The droplets grow larger with every blind step I take, and when they finally begin to soak my hair and chill my skin, I stop. I can’t remember which bottle is the shampoo and which is the conditioner, and I’m too terrified to open my eyes and check. So, I choose one blindly, squeeze the contents into my hand, and begin to scrub my entire body furiously.

  I hear a sizzle in the air before the next clap of thunder. It’s so close that it shakes the ground under my feet and elicits excited screams and nervous laughter from the people on the roof.

  People on the roof.

  “No!” I yell, possibly out loud, as I push the fear down and try to tell myself that I’m not outside.

  The world I left and all its hurts don’t exist anymore. There is no trigger out here that could possibly hurt me. But I am, and it does, and when I take one more step out from under the cover of the awning—when I feel my feet sink into something earthy and soft and as familiar as barefoot Easter egg hunts and summer games of tag—I find it.

  Thunder claps, and pain seizes me like a lightning bolt striking from the ground up. The grass under my feet hurts worse than anything I thought I might encounter out here, but I’ve missed it so much that I can’t bring myself to move.

  I miss it all so fucking much.

  The shampoo running down my face smells like summer vacation, and I can’t stop the tears or the memories from coming now. I remember my dad taking me out into the ocean so deep that I could barely touch and showing me how to find starfish with my toes. The heartbroken look on his face when Mama said we had to throw them all back. The one he smuggled home in his suitcase that caused the entire car to smell like dead fish for months.

  The memories come faster and faster, slamming into me from all sides. Now, the overgrown grass is smashed beneath my knees, my shins. Cool mud squishes between my fingers as I dig them into the soft earth, desperate for something to hold on to as the pain slices through me.

  Fireworks on the Fourth of July.

  S’mores around the burn barrel after raking all the fall leaves.