I walked into the kitchen early the next morning, rubbing my face to try to wake myself up a bit. I needed coffee, food, and a shower before I was really up to talking to anyone.
“Hey, Jesse.”
I looked over at Holly sitting at the kitchen table and grunted. I’m not exactly what you’d call a morning person, but she was used to it, so she just went back to her breakfast.
Grabbing what I needed from the fridge, I stuck some butter in a pan and left it to melt.
“So how are you?” Holly asked.
I turned and raised an eyebrow at her. “Fine, I guess?” I cleared my throat, hoping to dislodge the gravel, and went back to the fridge for some milk to help me sound a bit more normal.
“What was up with you yesterday, anyway?”
Ugh. “Can we not talk about this right now?” I kept my back to her, cracked an egg into the pan and stuck some toast on. “Aren’t you already late for work?”
“Nah, I picked up a later shift today.” She came over and put her dishes on the counter next to the sink. I shoved her aside and shifted her dishes to the dishwasher. “When’re you leaving?”
“Fifteen minutes or so.” She had a determined look on her face, and I held my breath in anticipation. She only looked this serious when she felt like she needed to be in parent mode.
“So what was wrong yesterday?”
As I turned away, she gripped my arm, and I flung it to the side without even thinking, hitting her hand hard against the counter. She yelped in pain and let go of my wrist, taking a step away.
“Shit, Holly, I’m sorry!”
She just laughed, rubbing her wrist. “I guess I kind of asked for that, didn’t I? I’m just glad you’re never actually angry enough at me that we’d have to fight. You’d kick my ass in a second.”
I did my best not to grin and elbowed her out of the way so I could grab a spatula out of the drawer to flip my egg.
“But you’re just proving my point, you know,” she said.
I raised an eyebrow, still looking at my egg. “Oh?”
“Well, you haven’t looked at me once, have you?”
I blinked and then forced myself to meet her gaze. “I dunno, I hadn’t noticed.” My voice was a lot calmer than I felt.
“Bull. You always look everyone in the eyes—you used to creep people out with it.”
I shrugged and went back to dealing with my breakfast. “I dunno,” I said, concentrating on buttering my toast. “I’m not doing it on purpose.”
“Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong and drop the bullshit?”
I put my sandwich together, cut it, and sighed. She was waiting for a response, and I wasn’t sure what to tell her if not the truth.
I promised Brent I wouldn’t tell her until she figured things out with Scott, though.
Yeah, you did. And you tried. Now tell Holly the truth so that she’ll get off your back.
And have Brent angry at me instead?
It’s easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission. Especially when he’s already told you not to.
“Well?”
“Alex is cheating on you.” I clamped my teeth shut as soon as the words slipped out—I’d been planning on telling her to just leave it, but my mouth didn’t follow what I wanted it to do.
“He—what?”
“Yeah, that’s about what I said.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “I…I’m pretty sure of where I heard it from.”
“Where?”
“I don’t want to—err, I said that I wouldn’t say.”
“Let me guess—your girlfriend told you?”
I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. “No, it was a…friend.” I wanted to say it, but I was already getting angry and didn’t want to spark that potential argument, too.
“How the hell would they know?”
“I’m pretty sure he—”
“Seriously, I’m not going to believe you unless you tell me how the hell this guy would know.”
“I—why would I lie to you?”
“I dunno, but I’m not just going to take this on good faith—you’re telling me that Alex is doing something I know he’d never do.”
“I’m, uh, friends with Brent, Scott’s brother.”
“Oh, Alex says Scott’s turned into a giant asshole,” she said, sounding relieved that Brent was my source of information.
“Because clearly he’s not saying that to cover his ass,” I said. Idiot.
“Jeez, are you—”
“—actually listening to what you’re saying? Yeah, and I think I’m the only one!” I snapped, and she took a step back.
“Calm down, Jesse. I’m just saying—”
“You’re an idiot.” I’d stopped listening to her—gone back to how I was when I was younger—and I needed to get out of her way. Snatching up a plate and my sandwich, I walked towards the stairway.
“Jesse, get back here and talk to me.”
I wheeled around and threw my plate at her, but I didn’t release it at the right time, so it hit the counter next to her, shattering into a dozen pieces and making her cry out. I couldn’t tell if it was from surprise or pain—she’d blocked her face with her arm when I threw the plate. Honestly, I didn’t care at that point.
She was still calling after me as I stomped up the stairs, eating my sandwich, and slammed my bedroom door. I winced at the loud bang echoing in my room.
Okay, I haven’t done that since I was about twelve. I took a few deep breaths and waited for my pulse to calm down before I chanced going to the bathroom. I’d apologize to Holly after I got out of the shower—give myself time to cool off. Hopefully, she’d still be around.
This was the first time in years that I’d completely exploded—that I’d done something stupid like throwing a plate. I sighed, disappointed. Holly would probably just step around the mess, too, instead of sweeping it up, so I’d have to deal with that before school.
It was strange. I went from being a messy child to a bit of a clean-freak teenager, mostly due to the anger management classes. Cleaning was something productive into which I could channel frustration, and living alone with Holly meant there was almost always something to be cleaned.
I’d rebelled against the anger management classes, but as time went on, I could tell they’d really helped. I used to throw and break things every week or two and would get into fist fights with Holly almost daily—fights that, due to my size, almost always ended with me crying, even more frustrated.
What I still disagreed with—but quickly learned to stop talking about—was the reason behind being sent. Holly had locked me in the living room while we were alone in the house, and suddenly the light had gone out and the TV was acting weirdly. I stopped trying to get out of the room—there was no way I would have been able to move her at that age—and lay down on the couch to wait her out. Next thing I knew, I was being blamed for the TV screen being broken and for setting the couch on fire!
I still don’t know what happened, but it had eventually led to something good: not only was I much more able to keep myself calm but when I did explode—like downstairs—I knew how to say sorry. I didn’t think that I’d hurt her, to be honest, but I still needed to say sorry.
But she kind of deserved it for being so fucking dense.
I swallowed the thought as I walked downstairs, pulling my T-shirt over my damp hair. “Holly, you still here?”
Silence.
“Guess not,” I said and went back to my room to get ready for school. I’d send off a text and then apologize properly when I saw her later that night. Close enough.