As insane as tonight was, it was hardly the worst thing I’d ever endured.
At fourteen, I stepped between Damien and my mother, who’d lifted then-two-year-old Margaret in front of her like a human shield. His knife sliced into my arm.
I now run my fingers over the silvery-white line on my flesh. No longer tender to the touch, no longer an ugly, stamped memento of an even uglier night, it’s just part of me, part of my past. Any lower, and the scar would look like a ragged suicide attempt.
I spring up from my prone position on the couch upstairs, where I’m resting just down the hall from where my sisters sleep, and stare at the wall. Everything is still and quiet. I watch a spider crawl from one end of the room to the other.
I’d talked to the police tonight, and my little sisters backed up my story, even if my mother, when the cops called her cell phone while she was on her way to the hospital, pretended not to know anything about a visit from her drunken ex.
“It couldn’t have happened.” Her voice had come through on the speakerphone. “I was at home until a few minutes ago. I just passed you on Carpenter Street. You were going to my house? I drive a VW bug. Do any of you remember seeing me?”
One of the officers had nodded in agreement, in verification.
“I’m sorry my son wasted your time,” Rosie had said. “And my daughters . . . well, they idolize their brother. They’d say anything he asked them to. He’ll be dealt with, I assure you, when I get home.”
I stuck to the truth; Rosie flat-out lied. She threw me under the bus. Told the cops I was prone to causing drama if I didn’t get my way, and that I was pissed because I’d hoped to go out with a girlfriend and was stuck at home watching my sisters. This phony report, she guessed, was my way of retaliating, my way of trying to convince her to miss her shift and come back home.
Needless to say, when Chatham texted that she was ready, and the cops asked about it, they pretty much closed their notebooks and stopped taking me seriously.
“We have your account on record,” one of them said, lingering at the doorway. “Let us know if anything else happens.”
Yeah, yeah.
So I had to cancel with Chatham.
With no guarantee that Damien won’t be out there somewhere, waiting for us—and now that there’s no chance he’ll be in a cell overnight, he’ll only stalk me again—I’m not going to take my sisters out of the house, not even to rush them out to the car and back. So now it’s after midnight, and I’m alone in a house that’s deadly quiet, except for the rainforest tracks sifting out from the girls’ room.
I’m so pissed I could start breaking shit. And maybe I would be throwing Rosie’s stupid ceramic unicorn against the wall, if I didn’t just get the girls tucked in about an hour ago, freshly bathed and smelling like lavender baby shampoo. It’s always hard to calm them down after a dramatic scene like the one they witnessed tonight. I can’t stir things up for them again, so the ceramic unicorn stays put.
My phone buzzes with a text.
My mother’s name, accompanied by the middle-finger emoji—which is how I programmed her in—stares up at me from the screen.
I almost don’t want to look at her message. It’s either a rant about my decision to involve the police, or considering we’re still somewhat in stage three, a bleak explanation of why she’d lie to the cops, which might include any of the following:
Child support is hard to collect from a man in jail.
Better to let sleeping dogs lie, or don’t mess with the bull, or insert cliché here.
Or some bullshit about the no-contact portion of the order of protection works both ways, and she’s in violation of it, too, because she slept with the guy last week.
Yeah, well, whose fault is that?
Her message: Sorry. I’ll explain later.
I delete it.
I hear something. A scratching, or maybe a tapping, coming from downstairs.
Instantly, I’m on my feet. I tune my ears into the creaks and the ticks of the house.
Am I imagining it?
I hear the scratch again, and this time, it’s followed by a thump.
I grab my phone. If I call the police again, and again they can’t substantiate my report, it won’t go over well. Still, I can’t be too careful. I can hold my own against a drunk, even if he is a beast of a man, but I have to think about my sisters.
My phone buzzes again, its vibration sending a humming sensation through my nerves.
Geez, I get it, Rosie. You screwed up. Again. I’ve got bigger problems right now.
I go to swipe away the message, still contemplating calling the police, when I see Chatham’s name on the screen. I tap on it.
Let me in?
I glance at the back door in the kitchen. The porch is empty.
I walk down the half-flight of steps to the landing and peek through the window next to the front door. No one’s on that porch, either.
And there it is again: the tapping/scratching. Another thump.
I leap down the second half-flight, even skip a few stairs, and round the corner to my bedroom, where I see her—Chatham Claiborne—kneeling outside my window.
My fingers fumble nervously over the lock, but I manage to shove it clear of the latch.
I meet her gaze in the seconds before I push the window open.
She smiles at me.
My heart quickens.
“Hey.” She hands me a carry-out container through the window. “You seemed to really enjoy that cake, so . . .”
“I did.” I take it and put it aside. “Thank you.”
For a second, we just stare at each other.
“Well, I know you’re busy with your sisters, so I’m just going to”—she thumbs toward my backyard—“you know, get out of your hair.” And she actually starts to get to her feet.
The scar on her hip is eye-level to me now, peeking out at me above the waistline of the shorts that have become signature to Chatham Claiborne.
I reach for her, and land a hand on her cold hip and cover the marring with my palm, as if hiding it could possibly make it, and the memories it carries with it, go away. I tighten my fingers against her skin. “Stay.”
And before I know it, her backpack lands on the floor at my feet, and she’s sliding through my window, guided by my hands, and we’re standing there, practically belly-to-belly, in my room.
“Hi,” she says. Her hands are at the front of my shoulders. The base of her left palm is touching me in the location of my tattooed fourteen.
I chew on my lip and look down at her. She’s so fucking pretty.
And I’m so happy to see her that without thinking about whether I should, I brush my lips over hers, then second-guess my confidence.
Just as I’m about to pull away, her lips part in the tiniest of invitations, and we’re kissing.
I pull her closer. Trace her cheek with a fingertip. Sigh along with her when my hands find their way into her wavy hair.
“I want to tell you something,” I whisper between kisses.
“What?” she asks.
I feel the heat of her breath on my lips. “Everything.”