81. Capable

These are the things you don’t expect will happen to you when you’re sixteen years old.

Stepping up to the house of the girl you love holding a heavy gun in your hand.

Thinking of knocking, then instead trying the handle and finding it open.

Walking into a house uninvited, scared of what you’ll find and pumped full of fearful adrenaline.

Hearing screams from the back, screams that you know belong to Jocelyn, screams that sound midway through something gone bad.

Tearing through a living room toward a hallway and then toward a slightly opened doorway where the screams are coming from.

You would shake if you weren’t so determined. You would stall if you weren’t so enraged.

Your foot kicks open the door, and the scene isn’t surprising, but it’s shocking nevertheless.

You see a figure clutching at her chest with bare arms, her shirt open and torn, her hair wild, her eyes tear filled, hate filled.

Jocelyn is screaming. Her jeans look like they have blood splattered on them. Her neck and shoulders bear the marks of nails scraping against the flesh.

You don’t need to know any more.

Inside the bedroom with its large king-sized bed, the man with his back to you is shirtless, wearing only boots and dirty jeans.

A tattoo of a black-winged vulture covers his back.

And as the door slams against the side of the wall, he turns around.

Glowing embers stare back at you. Blood is smeared under one nostril and against his cheek. His fists curl.

These are the things you don’t think will happen to you when you’re sixteen years old.

But age and sense and peace and love don’t exist in a place like this.

“Get away from her,” I say.

The voice coming out surprises me, but I don’t have time to stand and evaluate it and wonder how I feel about it.

“You really gonna use that?” Wade asks, his mouth and lips sickly wet.

I’m standing maybe ten feet away from him, pointing the gun at his head. “Don’t make me.”

He laughs at me and curses as Jocelyn screams out at me to stop.

“Don’t make me laugh, little boy.”

He takes a step, and I think for a split second and decide to go for it.

I press down on the trigger.

The gun is aimed at the wall and takes out a chunk of a dresser.

Jocelyn screams again; Wade curses and holds his head.

“Jocelyn, get out of here,” I say.

Her shirt is ripped, hanging open, and I feel embarrassed so I look away.

“She’s not going anywhere.”

I point the gun back at him. “I don’t think this is the first time you’ve hurt her, but I swear on my life, it’s the last.”

“You better swear on your life because it ain’t going to be around much longer.”

Jocelyn moves past Wade, and he puts out an arm, sending her back into the wall. She crumbles to the floor.

I aim and fire the gun again. It roars to life. A bullet hits the edge of the bed.

I fire a third time, and this bullet finds its way to Wade’s lower leg.

He howls and drops like a poached animal as Jocelyn stands up and runs out of the room.

I look at the writhing figure on the floor and want to say something brilliant, something a tough guy might say in a movie. But I have nothing. I’m scared of him attacking me, scared of him dying, scared of what’s going to happen to me.

We exchange a glance. Even though I’m scared, I don’t back down.

He sees it in my eyes.

He knows what I’m capable of doing.