The You I've Never Known(65)

Golden Gloves could’ve been my ticket out. I worked all the way up to state, and would’ve been a finalist except Dad’s accident made that impossible. My dream died along with him, but hey, at least I’m still here.

“You could go back to it,

couldn’t you?” I ask, even

though the idea of regularly beating people up makes me

even more nauseous than

the mess on Syrah’s floor.

Don’t think so. I have to get real about life some time, and with Mom coming home at some point soon, now is probably the right time.





Sounds Way Too Adult


As does cleaning up the mess

on the floor, and when Syrah

returns with the supplies,

Gabe volunteers for the job.

I don’t offer to help, don’t dare get too close or I’ll only add

to the ugly puddle on the tile.

At least they managed to miss

the carpet. There’s that, I guess.

Instead, I start tidying tables and countertops, tossing cups

and cans, some with cigarette

butts floating inside. Monica

joins in the effort. “Why are people so gross?” I ask, only to make

conversation. No answer really required, Monica shrugs in reply.

Parties bring out the bad in some and the worst in others. You sure you don’t want to report Garrett?

“No. Let it drop. We should open some windows. It stinks in here.”

It does. It smells like sweat and weed and old booze with a float of tobacco.

We finish the cleanup, windows open, Syrah flirting obnoxiously with Gabe all the while, and

the strange thing about that is I don’t seem to care. To his credit, Gabe doesn’t bite, but if it’s only to impress me, I almost want

him to know it’s okay if he does.

Almost. Shouldn’t I feel more

possessive? Is it just because

I discovered something about

him tonight I never expected?

I’d say something completely

foreign, but it’s not. It’s something I’m intimately aware of, having lived with it all my life. Dad hides it well most of the time, and obviously Gabe does, too. In fact, he disguises it better, or maybe it only seems that way because I’ve known him for such a short while. But beneath his gentle exterior, way down

in the depths of those lizard eyes, roils a red-hot mantle of rage.





Maya


For Casey


Oh my God! What’s happening? We’re a long way from New York City, but if it could happen there, maybe it could happen right here. It seems like the whole world’s gone crazy. NYC. North Carolina. There. Here. Everywhere. Crazy. Who would do such a despicable thing? Who? And why?

It’s September 11. Your birthday. I got up early to see your daddy off to work and bake a cake for your party. It’s Tuesday, so I didn’t plan anything big, just a few of your playgroup buddies and their moms, who I can more rightly call acquaintances than friends.

Daddy said we should’ve waited until Saturday, but I think a girl should celebrate the actual day she was born, rather than hold off to accommodate other people’s schedules. But now your party is on indefinite hold.

Not too long after your daddy left, he called me. “Turn on the TV.”

“Why? What channel?”

“All of them. Just do it.”

Every channel showed the same thing. The twin towers of the World Trade Center, the biggest buildings in this whole country, were in flames. Smoking. Falling apart. Someone flew planes into them. On purpose. Big planes. Jetliners.

They showed it in slow motion.

I couldn’t stop watching. Still can’t turn it off, even though I know people are dead. They keep repeating footage of them screaming. Falling. Jumping. Jumping from so high up in the air they could never survive, but they preferred that to burning to death.

One of the towers crumbled. Crashed to the ground, nothing left but rubble, dust, and smoke. And bodies. In pieces. So much carnage. How do you escape when you’re seventy stories up in the air, only stairs to get you down, not knowing what’s below, or if what’s above you will crush you?

Then the second tower broke apart, too. There were—are—people trapped inside. Some are first responders—cops, firefighters. Trying to save the others. You don’t know, baby girl, you don’t know.

It’s like a scene from a movie. Some awful disaster flick. Only it’s real life. Real death. So many must have perished. Men. Women. Little kids. Babies. What if you and I were there in that building or on the ground, when it all came tumbling down?

Now they’re saying another plane crashed into the Pentagon, and yet another in a field somewhere. Hijacked, all of them. Passengers and crew, minding their own business, traveling to or away from home.

“Collateral damage.” That’s what the military spokesman called them. Not wives or parents or brothers. Cold as a mortuary slab. “Collateral damage.”

A pretty newswoman, coaxed not to smile as she usually would, says, “These are concerted acts of terrorism.”

Well, yeah. What else could they be? We don’t know who these terrorists were, or what motivated them to commit this kind of atrocity, and we won’t for a while. But our country is under attack. That means we—you and I—are under attack. This isn’t supposed to happen on American soil.