Beast(21)

The two of them pick up where they left off, JP starting to elaborate on the most recent rage his mom was in. She’s a mean drunk. It kicks me out a little faster. I just can’t hear about it, I don’t know why. It’s like I want to be there for him, but I prefer to leave it at that. I got you, we’re friends, moving on. Hearing about JP’s mom issues gives me a mild temptation to go down to the basement and see the trains.

When my dad first got his diagnosis, he started building a train set. I was a baby at the time, so Mom told me all this later, but it’s still down here. Dusty and lost. As the years went by, my father expanded the table and added tiny mountains and villages. It takes up an entire corner of the basement next to full-length mirrors. Maybe he wanted the fake little trees and tracks to reflect into infinity. A miniature father and son wait at a faded red train station for a locomotive that will never come.

The whole thing works. All the lights and switches and town houses with doors and windows that open up. He even left behind Christmas bunting for the entire town to get gussied up for the holidays. Mom tried to get me into the trains when I was eight and then again at ten. I never wanted to flick that switch and make them run. They made me deeply sad, but I didn’t know what kind of sad to call it.

I still don’t.

I wander into the living room to get my school bag, but my leg hurts so much I have to rest. Mom would’ve filled that frigging prescription if she knew what it felt like to have your bones try to grow inside a cast.

I’m growing again. I know it. No book or quiz or podcast can save me.

I think of Jamie. She understands.

Another cup of coffee sounds so good right now—let’s stunt these legs right up!—but group is so far away. One more week. All I have to do is hold on, and we can be horrible again.

I sink into the oldest, softest chair we have and disappear into the cushions. No wood to creak, just worn-out springs that gave up years ago. Mom hates this chair. When she sits in it, she can’t climb out because it’s an abyss of threadbare plaid and compressed foam. Once it was my dad’s, but I’ve made it my own.

Pulling some books from my bag, I open one and shake my head sharp and fast. Focus. Study. Chemistry. Let’s get pulled into Coulomb’s law, pun intended, because opposite charges will produce an attractive force while similar charges will produce a repulsive force. I’m ugly as f*ck, so let’s get some lovely equations to give me a lap dance.

“How are things at home?” my mom says loud enough so that I know she’s making sure I hear too. I should’ve gone upstairs.

JP sighs. “She tripped and knocked herself out on the coffee table. Again.”

“Did you pad the corners, like we talked about?”

“Yeah, but then that pissed her off even more and she threw them away. She’s like, ‘I’m not a baby!’ and all that, but she’s real bad right now.”

“And you sent that email to your dad?”

“He doesn’t care,” JP says. “I could get a plane to write it in the sky over his office and he wouldn’t give a crap. He’s like, no one can make her go back to rehab, so it’s not his problem anymore.”

There’s rustling. I don’t have to see them to know they’re hugging.

My mom hugs and I punch. Go figure.

When JP started doing this loan-business stuff back in the eighth grade, I didn’t give it much thought. Why would I? I was there for the first transaction. Chase Cooper wanted a pack of gum and was short a dollar. JP spotted him and a week later, with my help, got two dollars back. It was even a little fun shoving Chase into the wall; I’m not going to lie. It’s a rush. Now we’re in high school and his side project has gone school-wide, which is weird. Especially since he doesn’t need any cash, ever, but it’s his thing and we all have a thing. Something to distract from real life. He gets off turning guys who need a favor into clients who owe him. So if I can make him happy in some dumb way, then that’s what I do to help. Better than sitting in the kitchen.

When Mom gets up and fills their glasses with more ice, I sneak my things into my bag and whisper away off the couch. The cane is wood with a worn-down rubber tip that normally tack-tacks against the floor, but I work to be as light as a cotton ball.

It takes forever. I breathe once I’m in my room and the door is closed. I hop over to my window and stare at the roof. That football still taunts me. I close the curtains and sit at my desk to ignore the pull to go get it. I search for a podcast I haven’t already heard, but I’ve heard them all, so I randomly pick the one about dazzle camouflage. The spine of the chemistry book cracks as I lay it flush against the flat wood. I’m reading, but my eyes slide down the page. My mom and my best friend are downstairs talking about wine-bottle-dodging strategies while my leg screams in pain.

I mean, jeezus. His own mother throws empty bottles at him. I’ve seen the welts. He’s shown me. And afterward JP’s head would shake, and his perfect hair and perfect body and perfect face would follow as he slumped against the wall, looking like a young Greek god on a bad day. It dawns on me I would still trade places with JP. Any day. So WTF does that say about me?





NINE


“Strip down and climb up onto the bed,” the nurse says. “We have to measure you.”

This is what all kids want to do at 8:30 on a Tuesday morning. Get half-naked in a hospital and wheeled into surgery. Yesterday I had an emergency appointment with Dr. Jensen and he looked at the X-rays and was like, yeah, that cast needs to come off ASAP.