Whisper to Me(79)

“Can you wash up?” said Dad. We had just finished eating—pizza from the restaurant for the third night in a row.

“Sure,” I said.

“I’ll be in the study.”

“Sure.” I was not varying my vocabulary much. I was thinking about you, and how even if you did like me, which I wasn’t at all sure about, but still, even if you did, I had messed it all up now.

He left his plate and went to the bug room. He was still pissed with me, even though he didn’t see me get back from the roller derby, luckily. I didn’t blame him, really. At least he hadn’t shouted for a while. Of course that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Dad’s anger, it surfaces unexpectedly, I’ve told you already. Like spray from a whale’s blowhole. Stillness …

then …

whoosh.

So I was just waiting for him to blow over some tiny inconsequential thing. Like the dishes not being cleaned properly—so as a result I scrubbed them for ages before putting them in the rack to dry, trying to give him no excuses.

I stopped at the door to the study, on the way up to my room. Dad was hunched over the computer, typing. On the forum, I guessed. Dad was always on the forum, when he wasn’t actually feeding the bugs or breeding them or whatever he did with them.

On the forum he was BEETLEJUICE3. It was like a lame superhero identity. I mean, in real life, he was an ex-soldier with a failing restaurant and a sick daughter. But there on the forum he was a PRO-LEVEL BUGGER. He had seventeen hundred posts or something and two thousand comments. People would ask him questions, post comments with lots of animated emojis about how awesome he was—I’d seen him answering them lots of times. He was like a legend on that site.

No wonder he didn’t want to deal with real things. Like me.

“’Night, Dad,” I said.

He turned. “’Night.”

“Watcha doing?”

“Posting some pics of my new giant pills.”

“Pills?”

“Millis. They roll into balls. Like a pill bug, you know?” He went back to the screen, typing with one finger, slowly.

“Okay, well, see you tomorrow.”

He grunted and I went up the stairs. I lay on my bed, all my clothes still on. I stared at the ceiling for a long time. Then I grabbed my phone and texted Paris.



U there? xxx

I waited for, like, half an hour, but she didn’t text back. I turned on the radio, and Katy Perry blasted out into the room.

“Turn that ******* **** down!”

That was Dad, shouting up from the study.

I sighed and turned it down. I got up onto my knees on the bed and looked out the window—but I couldn’t see you and Shane on your deck chairs, and there was no light spilling from your apartment.

My phone buzzed. I picked it up.



Going out. Client. C U tmw?



I thought of Dad, banning me from seeing her. But he’d be at work from eleven in the morning …



Yeah. Wld have to be daytime tho.



The answer popped right up.



That’s cool. Maston Theater? Matinee of Toy Story.



Toy Story? I replied.



Hey don’t diss Pixar.



OK. What time?





1.


OK. Night, Paris.



Night, Cass.



I put the phone down. I lay down again and reached for the Haruki Murakami book on my nightstand.

“No,” said the voice.

“Oh hi,” I said. “Nice to hear from you. And thank you for waiting till after six p.m. to—”

“No reading.”

I thought of Dr. Lewis. I thought: I have nothing to lose here. “Or what?” I asked.

“Excuse me?”

“If I read my book, what are you going to do about it?”

The voice thought for a moment—this sounded different from when it went away. I can’t explain it. I mean, I could still feel it there. “I will make you cut off one of your toes.”

My toes curled. “How?”

“What?”

“How will you make me do that?”

“I will force you to.”

“No.”

Then the voice screamed at me. That was new. I mean, it was always saying horrible things. But the screaming was different. “Don’t push me! ” it screamed.

“I’m not pushing you. I’m just saying no.”

“Go to the kitchen this instant. Tell your dad you’re getting a glass of water. Take a bread knife, and come back up here. Then cut off your pinky toe on your left foot. Do it right now.”

“Or what?”

“What do you mean, or what?”

“I mean, if I don’t cut off my toe, what are you going to do about it?”

The voice thought. “I’m going to kill your father. No more injuries. No more minor ****. You don’t cut off your toe, your dad dies. Okay?”

You can’t imagine how scared I was. My eyes were filling with tears. It was dark out; my room was gloomy with shadows. I flicked on my bedside lamp. But that only made it worse. Now my clothes hanging on the door handle, my posters, my shelves, cast weird shapes on the walls and floor.