How to Save a Life(16)

Beside me, Garrett cowered. “Oh, no…”

“Oh, that’s it. You are dead. Dead.” Shane gaped at me, running his bony hand over the white ticks on the truck’s rear fender, like little chalk marks on a blackboard. “Dad’s going to kill you for this.”

Merle, to whom the car was a source of pride, took one heavy-lidded look at the damage, his piggish eyes widening. “I’m going to kill you,” he grunted.

I made a beckoning motion. “Come on, then,” My heart pounded until I thought it would explode. “Come on, f*cker!”

Merle was always itching for a fight. He didn’t hesitate, but charged at me like a bull.

I was ready for him, burning up on the inside, the image of that scrap of paper curling and blackening to ash in the red haze of my vision. Merle came at me swinging. I ducked and managed a right hook to his kidney, putting my entire weight behind it. I felt the strength of my punch all the way up my shoulder. It would have ended the fight with anyone else. Merle only grunted and thrust his forearm up, catching me under my nose. Blood poured, but I hardly felt the pain or heard Shane’s cursing and Garrett’s cries. I grappled with Merle, our fight turning into a scuffle of half-cocked punches and scraping feet over cement.

I was losing. Merle found more openings in my defenses than I did in his, but I savored the pain that was so much easier to take than the loss of that note.

A new voice sliced through the fog and Merle shoved me from him. I stumbled back and saw Norma on the outskirts of the driveway, arms crossed as if to hold herself together, her face twisted with mortified rage.

“What in God’s green earth are you boys doing? In full view of the entire street?” she hissed.

I didn’t say a word, but wiped my nose on the sleeve of my shirt. I’d never gone running to her over Merle and Shane before. I wasn’t a snitch and never would be. But Shane on the other hand was bursting to tattle.

“Look what he did! Threw rocks at our car! The whole back end needs a new paint job now.”

Norma Salinger’s eyes widened at the damage, then narrowed in with laser focus on me in that look we all knew so well: The Death Glare. “Is this true?”

“They burnt up his note!” Garrett said from beside me. “The one he had since the fire house? From when he was a little kid? They burnt it up for no reason!”

Shane and Merle glared at their little brother, silently promising vengeance.

“Garrett, hush,” I said.

For once, even Norma was stunned at her sons’ cruelty. “Did you?” she demanded with a crack in the foundation of her normally stony voice. Both older boys quailed under her stare.

Was this the time? Is this when Norma stands up for me and puts an end to Shane’s sadistic hatred?

But no. I saw the thoughts behind her eyes sorting themselves out to align with her flesh and blood children without seeming cruel to me.

“We don’t poke around in people’s private belongings like thieves in the night,” she said to my adopted brothers, her voice frosty. Then she turned to me. “And we don’t vandalize what isn’t ours. None of you did right here. Now get to school. You’re late. I’ll decide how you’re all going to make up for what you did when you get home. Now, get.”

We went our separate ways, Shane shooting dirty looks at both me and Garrett, outraged that he’d gotten in trouble. God, what a f*cking joke. Norma would give him and Merle some easy chore, while I’d have to pay for the damage to the truck. Or work on the paint job myself at the shop.

Only little Garrett escaped punishment, at least from Norma. I always dropped him off at the Williamsburg Elementary, and as soon as we were on the road, I told him, “Look, you gotta stop standing up for me. It’s going to get you in trouble with Shane.”

“I know,” he said, wiping his nose. “But it’s not fair. They’re so mean to you.”

“I can handle it. But you’re too young. You’re going to get hurt.”

“Aren’t you supposed to stand up for what’s right? That’s what Ms. Johnston is teaching us at school. And what Shane did wasn’t not right.”

I glanced at him. The smoldering concoction of rage and grief in me mellowed to see tears welling in Garrett’s eyes. “No, it’s not. You keep standing up for me and they’re going to turn on you.”

Garrett sniffed again, this time defiantly. His little chin was thrust forward, his eyes on the road. “I can handle it.”

I recalled the murderous look in Shane’s eye when Garrett defended me. No, you can’t. The burning letter cut me to the core and left a gaping wound I knew wouldn’t close any time soon. But more important than that was keeping Garrett safe. No matter what.

I drove in silence, hardening my heart and steeling my courage. I pulled into the roundabout of Williamsburg Elementary as my little brother—the only brother who felt like flesh and blood—hauled his oversize backpack onto his lap. He reached for the truck’s door handle but stopped before opening.

“You should leave,” he said, looking up at me through his tousled mop of blond hair. “You should get far away from them.”

“I’m planning on it,” I snapped, and faced forward, my voice as stony as I could make it. “Go. Get out. You’ll be late.”