Beast(45)

“News flash, Mom—JP is a piece of human garbage.”

“He was scared of you. Didn’t you see how he was cowering? He thought you were going to hurt him. What’s wrong with you?” She hugs herself instead of me. “I know you two are having a rough patch. And that’s normal. All friendships encounter some rocky times here and there. As long as you guys have open communication, you’ll be fine.”

I want to scream, but I don’t. My pillow’s all the way upstairs. “Mom, he’s using you just like he uses everyone else.”

“He is not. I swear, Dylan, you are so selfish, it’s infuriating. He comes here for a little piece of comfort and security—he’s a very sensitive young man.”

“He’s a manipulative *!”

“His mother is a full-blown alcoholic. Where is your compassion?”

“Mom…”

“I’m serious, Dylan, what is up with you these days? Turning your back on your lifelong friend? You two never even play video games anymore.” She pauses. “You know, I blame Jamie.”

“What?”

“I do! Ever since you met her, you’re destructive, you’re moody, you insult your father’s memory, I don’t know what to do with you anymore.” She walks back into the kitchen and flings dirty dishes into the dishwasher. “And I know it’s Jamie because her poor mother told me the same thing. She’s bending over backward for her son, and then once he declares he’s a she, her new ‘daughter’ treats her worse than dirt. Jamie’s a bad influence on you.”

“What the hell are you talking about? I don’t treat you bad.”

Mom wraps her fingers together. “We used to be so close, Dylan.”

“We still are.”

“Do you even want me around anymore?”

“Of course I do. Is this why you can’t get enough of JP? Because he’s a needy prick and I’m not?”

“Enough! That’s Jamie talking; I can hear it.”

I take a breath and hold it, letting it out slower than slug trails. “Mom. I need you in my life. I love you. Everything between you and me has nothing to do with Jamie or JP or anyone else.”

“But we’ve always looked after JP. You two used to call yourselves brothers.”

“Leave him alone!” I slam my hands on the counter.

Looming over her, I can almost see steam flying from my nostrils. Mom looks up at me with wide eyes. “I see.” She picks up her book, steps into her house shoes, and leaves me.

“Mom,” I say, hoping to coax her back. Now is the time, I want to say. Shake the Mom-Poms? and tell me how everything is going to be okay.

“Sleep off your anger, Dylan. Calm yourself. We’ll talk about it again in the morning,” she says with a dull voice from the living room. The TV clicks on so she can double down on ignoring me with her trashy novel and blaring a hideous crime drama with raped-up little kids and murderers, murderers everywhere.

I catch my reflection in the window. My head hangs low. I touch the top of my scalp. My hair’s growing back. Just like the rest of me. Growing, growing, always growing.

I disappear to the basement.

Down in the cool clamminess of the cement walls filled with clumps of pebbles and rocks, I hop across the lost chunks of broken glass still hiding in thin cracks on the floor and make my way over to the trains.

Tiny broken trees and tracks. If Dad was as big as me, it’s strange to think he sank so much time into making something so small. I kneel down and come face to face with the tiny town. Flaps of grass and uneven terrain. Splayed wiring tangled in between bumps of fake moss. I nudge a few tracks into place with my fat finger. I smooth a raggedy row of shingles flat.

When I sit in the corner, my pocket doesn’t yield. My phone. I get it out. No messages. There’s only one person I was hoping to see there anyway. I start a text, but halfway through I stop and make the call. I have to.

“What’s up?” Jamie says.





NINETEEN


“I just wanted to talk to someone who understands,” I say.

“Then I have no idea why you’re calling me.” She pauses. “Are you okay?”

I press my back into the concrete. “No.”

“What’s wrong?”

Everything I want to say is caught in a snare, pulling and tugging against the rope. The trains lie crumpled on a model of a tiny town that looks like an earthquake and a tornado hit it on the same day. I rest my chin against the small world. Everything is chipped and plastic and smells like a musty cabin. “When you and your friends busted up, how bad was it? Like, did they turn the whole school against you? Is that why you transferred?”

“I…it was not good. It was partially them, but it was mostly me.”

“Why you?”

“I changed.”

“Um…” Beyond the obvious? Or am I allowed to say that? “In what way?”

“It’s hard to say, because you can be like, oh, it’s because I stopped doing her hair or she didn’t want me to wear skirts because my legs are better than hers, but I guess because I found enough pieces of me that were real. And they weren’t fans.”

“They sound shallow.”