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I glance at Landon to see if he saw it, and I find him grinning in that direction. He did see.
But there’s no amusement in his tone, only soft solemnity, when he says, “Tell me something.”
I immediately understand what‘something’he means: he wants to know some detail of my childhood. He has told me about his parents and now he wants to know about mine.
This has been part of our conversations since our spaghetti dinner. I’m still not quite used to it, so there’s a pinch of nervousness in my stomach, but it’s nothing I can’t get around. I’ve just never talked about these things with anyone.
Since I’ve had a hard time recounting the worst areas of my past, I’ve been starting small. The first thing I told Landon about was my dad leaving my mom before I was born. Then I talked about my earliest memories, which are made up of shouts and smashes, stinging spankings, lots of smoke, bottles of dark liquid, and a dirty house. He knows about the times Kelle and I got in trouble for missing school because our mom was too messed up from partying to get us there. He knows about the time she lost us in the mall because she thought a couple of small children would stay in one place while she met up with someone for drugs.
I also told him about another meet-up of that sort, when she drove us to someone’s house and left us in the car with preemptive swats on legs and harsh orders not to get out for anything. She came back a long time later and noticed Kelle had wet herself because she was too scared to approach the house and ask to use the bathroom. Mom was so angry that she made Kelle get out of the car and then drove off while my sister stood in the driveway—I remember crying and begging her to turn around, and her screaming at me to shut up before she put me out, too, and then her cussing furiously as she promptly went back and got Kelle.
These weren’t exactly easy things to describe, but it’s…it’sniceto be able to talk about them.
I don’t like that I can somehow remember how those ass-beatings felt, and I don’t like the looks of shocked anger that never fail to flit across Landon’s face, but I always tell him something new when he asks. It’s like each memory is a piece of mind-trash getting burned away—or, at the very least, getting wadded up into a little ball that isn’t completely awful to look at.
I wonder if I’ll feel that way when I get around to telling him about the most painful parts, or if there’s just no cleaning up stuff like that.
I don’t understand why it’s been difficult for me to discuss those things, but it has. It’s not like I’ve ever tried to block them out or downplay them. I know what happened to me, to the point that I sometimes recall it so vividly I get sick to my stomach. I even know who’s at fault. Yet the words keep getting stuck in my chest and just will not come loose.
One day, though—I’ll tell Landon about it one day.
Today, right now, I remember something I thought about when I first met him, and that’s what I mention.
“My mom used to make me and Kelle drink cough syrup when she wanted us to go to sleep.” I shudder involuntarily. “It was always cherry-flavored. When you said you were eating a cherry Jolly Rancher that first night, I wanted to gag.”
“The hell? You’re not supposed to overload kids with that stuff.”
“Definitely not, but I wouldn’t call her a caring woman.”
He grumbles, “I wouldn’t even call her a smart one.”
That makes me laugh. “Yeah, again, definitely not. One time—I swear to God, this is a true story that actually unfolded before my eyes—one time, she got into a drunken, screaming fight with a boyfriend in the middle of the streetwhile they were naked, and when a policeman showed up after they’d come back into the house, they both answered the door with drinks in their hands,still naked,and slurred at the cop that whoever called made the whole story up.”
Landon’s mouth falls open. “Ew and wow!”
I nod and laugh some more. “I’ll tell you, if the other kids in the neighborhood didn’t make fun of me and my sister before that, they sure did after.”
As I sigh, I think about a particular comment I clearly remember.
“In fact, one of them rode the bus with us, and the morning after all that, he said,‘Your mom is the trashiest druggie bitch I’ve ever seen in my life.’”I can see him in my mind: Justin Comber, with baggy shorts and a white t-shirt and dirty teeth. “‘You’re both going to end up like her, so do the world a favor and just kill yourselves.’Said that to us in front of everybody.”
My voice has lowered, I realize, because the memory has drained the wry amusement out of me. Yes, I can see Justin in my head, sneering with distaste as he knocked our backpacks around. And I can hear everyone on the bus laughing and agreeing with him, can hear his friends offering to get the back door of the bus open so Kelle and I could jump out and splatter ourselves on the street.
My cheeks heat up with humiliation that hasn’t dulled even after all this time.
There’s a hollow sadness twined with it—humiliation and sadness that anyone would say such a thing about my mom, and that it was true, and that one of her daughters turned out to be almost exactly like her, as predicted.
The terrible question,Would being dead really be better than living that life?crosses my mind.
A sick feeling fills my stomach.
I close my eyes and mentally shake myself, because of course being dead wouldn’t be better. People can change and get out of their messes if they’re alive. Death is permanent. There’s no chance to find happiness or stability in death the way there is in life.
But what if Mom and Kelle never change? Never get out of their messes? Never find stability? What if all they ever do is cause damage?Wouldthe world be better without them?
I feel something touch my arm.
Only mildly startled, still very stuck in my thoughts, I look that way and see Landon’s fingertips resting there.
