Beast(77)

I exhale.

That’s honestly the only thing I have to look forward to. After that, I don’t know. Maybe taco night.

Night falls and I try not to think about them. I can only hope JP has a heater on in his fort while they play video games. It’s getting kind of cold and I want her to be comfortable. There’s all kinds of thoughts bubbling up. Me showing up out of the blue and Jamie flying into my arms, the two of us running away. Jamie realizing it was all a mistake, me telling her no, I made the mistake. I want so bad for everything to happen just like that, but I can’t run.

Dear Dad, I’m letting her go.

I turn on my computer and update my podcasts. Ooh, the Dyatlov Pass Incident. That sounds interesting. I click on that and collapse on my bed. Five minutes in, I’m hooked. A possible paranormal modern-day incident with likely scientific explanations? Yes, please.

Lying on my bed, I am being as apathetic as possible because if I actually acknowledge things, it will be painful. So I zone out and play a stupid game on my phone. My fingers are too big to do much damage, but I like to beat my mom’s score when I can. I’m halfway through Level 5 when my phone beeps. An alert to update Settings. Whatever, that’s a quick fix and I’m already losing this game. Might as well do it now. I swipe out of there and into the updates. Security, check. Games, check. Privacy…Wait. Hold on. What the hell is uGoiFindU, and why is it buried in the Privacy folder?

I leap up and google it. The first link I find fills me with cold rage. Install on any phone and track an individual’s whereabouts via your device. Does not show on their screen, virtually undetectable. Perfect for parents of minor children!

It comes up as a cough. My eyebrows cinch together as I stare at the computer. Scattered laughs choke my throat because oh my god. This whole time I’ve been begging a two-dollar-and-ninety-nine-cent app to talk to me. To love me and tell me everything is going to be okay.

And then I’m furious because are you shitting me? I slam my phone down on the bed. It was never my dad. Mom freaking lied through her teeth! Pacing my room in the ragged remains of my stumpy cast, I’m furious. My mother used a dead man to cover her ass. Telling me my dad can help her find me in the middle of a city with a tin can and a string from his cloud in the sky? This is bullshit. This makes everything I’ve been waiting to hear from my dad a freaking waste of time. Mom doesn’t have a direct line to heaven; she has a shady phone app from the Apple store.

He’s not talking to her any more than he’s talking to me, which means I don’t have to listen to any f*cking rainbows.

It was never about fallen power lines and random penguins. What I should’ve done is freaking talk to Jamie.

When it finally, fully occurs to me, it’s like a slap in the face. No, a punch.

I grab a warm sweater and write a Post-It, then leave my phone on the bed with the Post-It slapped on it and head out for the tree house. I can’t draw for shit, so there’s no picture of a giant middle finger, just a simple sentence for Mom: Nice try.





THIRTY-FIVE


Irvington is miles away, no exaggeration. The mist—the freaking miserable, cold-ass mist—won’t stop, but by now I’m used to it and I don’t care. I have a mission. Get to the tree house. Say things I want to say. See what happens after that.

My crutches slip in the thin puddles and the back of my neck is slick with water, but I keep going. When the houses start to get a little ritzier, I know I’m getting closer. These houses are nice, dream houses even, with two stories and urban farmstead backyards, framed by tall fences whimsically full of reclaimed windows from old houses that bit it long before theirs will. Ideal places to plant roots of all kinds, but they’re not Irvington.

Irvington, Knott Street in particular, is full of semi-mansions with three stories and people wearing NPR pledge-drive T-shirts, peering out of double-paned windows and pretending not to judge you. Makes nodding pleasantly at the lady walking her goldendoodle and gripping the zipper of her North Face anorak as you pass along the dimly lit sidewalks a fun experience. Hey! I want to tell everyone. Don’t worry, I’m a fifteen-year-old kid. Not gonna club you on the head and rob you blind.

I get to JP’s house and stop. It’s a corner house. Three stories and fenced in by a stone wall. Taller than me by at least half a foot and every twenty feet a wrought iron light graces a post. I mean, shoot, it’s lovely. I want one just like it someday. Except looking at the few lonely lights feebly suggesting the house is a home, I definitely don’t want what’s inside it.

Stuck on the sidewalk, I’m faced with a dilemma. How to get to JP’s fort up in the big oak tree on the other side of the property. I could conceivably ring the doorbell and risk asking his mom, but that’s not super appealing. She’s either passed out or will scream and throw things. I’ve never asked him which variation of his mom he prefers. An inkling of pity trickles in for him, but I crush it down.

I’m not here for him.

I try to keep inconspicuous so neighbors don’t get all eyeballs on what I’m doing. Last thing I need is for the cops to get called. Surveying the house, I guess I can go in through the garage. There’s a code on the door, and I think I remember it, but then again, I don’t want JP to hear the beeping of the buttons. He might think it’s his dad. I sure as hell don’t want to get his hopes up that his dad actually came home. That would suck. The window above me is the kitchen and I could go through there, but I might break something.