AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Seventeen
Malcolm
Six Years Ago
“Where are you going?”
I look over my shoulder. Dad is standing in the kitchen, his khakis and Polo hanging limply around him because he’s lost too much weight in the past few months. Not that I’ll tell him that. Anything that comes out of my mouth these days earns me a backhand. That should scare me, but it doesn’t, because they have nothing behind them, like he either doesn’t care enough to really whale on me, or he has no muscle anymore.
Looking at him, I think the second option is the truth.
Preston Brady is sick. I don’t know if it’s the drugs he buys from a friend and pumps into his system like candy that have him looking like this, or something else—but the man who has terrorized me for the last nearly sixteen years, is now being terrorized by something much stronger.
“Out,” I say.
“Not anymore. I need you to drive me somewhere.”
I’m tempted to tell him to fuck off and drive himself, but then I take another look and realize he isn’t asking because he doesn’t want to drive himself. I don’t think hecandrive himself.
Without another word, I grab the key fob to his BMW 7 Series, and walk out to the climate-controlled garage to wait for him.
The only time we talk is when he gives me directions. We head east off the five, away from the water and homes that look like homes, and into neighborhoods that have chain-link fences and square boxes that act as houses, paint peeling off the sides, and lawns fried from green to brown.
“Stop here.” I do as he tells me, looking over when he fumbles with his door handle a few times. “Don’t move.” He disappears inside a house that looks just like all of the others, reappearing fifteen minutes later.
“Where to?” I ask when he just sits, eyes closed, body slack.
“Dad!” I bark. “Where am I going?”
“Pharmacy,” he mumbles. But he passes out before we get there, so I keep driving until I get home, pulling the car into the garage and shutting off the engine.
He’s out, his frail body rattling a little with the deep breaths he’s taking, the loosened skin on his cheeks wobbling slightly. Not able to stand it any longer, I get out and close the door, leaving the keys with him. And then I grab my skateboard and head down the hill and across to the beach.
The sun is lower than it was an hour ago when I started to come here, and my eyes track the beach as I get to her normal spot, wondering if she already left. We never really plan this, meeting at the beach near sunset. Some nights, I don’t come, and others, when I get here she’s already gone. But most of the time, we see each other.
I don’t think too hard on the fact that a girl who is almost three years younger than me is becoming my best friend, because I can never make any sense of it. All I know is that most nights I leave the house while the sun is starting to drop in the sky, and I don’t come back until it’s completely gone.
I push hard on my board, weaving in and out of the evening crowds at the boardwalk, circling all the way to the end where she usually is, away from the shops and restaurants and crowds, where there are mostly small sand dunes and little outcroppings of rocks.
When I finally spot her bag and towel by their usual rock, relief blows through me. Tonight of all nights, I needed to see her. Unlike Hunter and Brooks, Nala knows just about everything that goes on in my life. I don’t know how it happened, but one minute I was ignoring her questions, and the next, I was telling her—small stuff here and there, an explanation for a bruise, a swollen lip, a black eye.
In the past few months, the bruises have gotten less, and she’s taken note of that, too. It seems Nalani Jansen sees everything; I’m lucky enough that she sees me.
Eyes trained on the water, I kick up my board and grab it, heading over to her things. Sometimes I surf with her, but mostly I just sit here and watch. Again, not something I want to dwell on, but looking at the water in silence, watching Nala take wave after wave and own each of them like a pro, my chest loosens.
This, always, is what makes living in my dad’s house bearable. Before, I used to go to the skatepark with Jacks, throwing trick after trick until I was either the master of the air, or skinned and bloodied from head to toe. A lot of the times, I still meet Jacks at the park, but it’s usually before I come here. Since Jacks’s mom keeps a close leash on him, he has to go home anyway.
If I didn’t go home, Dad wouldn’t care, not until he was in a rage and had no one to take it out on. I wonder idly if Nala notices when I don’t make it some nights, and if she worries.
That thought gets pushed to the back because it’s so emotional I feel like I should give up my man card. Doesn’t matter who notices me—I’m headed out of here as soon as I prove myself enough for professional skate competitions. The twinge of regret is unexpected when I watch Nala coming out of the water, her near-white hair spilling in wet, curly ropes over her shoulders and dripping down her arms.
I keep my expression easy, a bit removed even when she offers me that bright smile that lights up her face and makes those sky-blue eyes even brighter.
If there was a cure for darkness, it would be Nala.
“Didn’t think you would be here,” she says. Which tells me she does miss me when I’m gone—or at least, she notices. Something happens in my chest, a wild beating that keeps me from speaking right away.
Nala finishes walking the rest of the way up the beach with her board under her arm, dropping it in the sand and reaching for the towel she already had laid out. I keep my eyes trained on the water, waiting. “What…” Nala’s voice is barely a whisper. “Oh my god, Mal, what is this? Did you do this?”
