Page 16 of Lifebound

“No, Dad. I thought I?—”

“You thoughtwhat?!” he shouted—shoutedlike he so rarely had done before. Once that I remembered and never this loudly. “You though what, Nilah?” His hands were on his head. My tears slipped down my cheeks. “What did you think when you did what you did last night? And when you ruined the Jenkinses’ pool a week ago? Or when you broke the window and threw a skunk inside the Reeds’ house before that? What was it—what did you think?!”

If I were to have any motivation to defend myself, I’d tell him that Mike cheated, and that Tamara Reed had trashed my locker to deserve us bothering to catch and throw a damn skunk inside her house back in February—but I wasn’t. Just because someone ruined your things and wrotecuckooon your locker and desk and even the toilet stall you usually used didn’t justify breaking and entering.

“I-I-I…I’m sorry, Dad,” I said, and I meant it, I really did. “But they deserved it. You saw what they did to Fi. They?—”

“And who are you to decide that?!” He came closer, and it felt like his voice slammed onto me—it was that loud.

He remembered himself quickly and he regretted his outburst—I knew he did. He even took a few steps back, but he was too out of it to control himself now.

I got it. I didn’t blame him at all. God knows I deserved it.

“You have trouble, you come to me, damn it! Do you know what you’ve done?” he shouted and probably said more things, but my brain blocked half of it to keep me safe.

Still, I heard plenty.

“Do you know how much I have to pay for all that damage? Do you care that I don’t have a job anymore—do you? Do you care that you’ve put an even bigger target on her back with this—do you care about your sister at all?!”

With every word he spoke, I felt smaller and smaller. Like I said, I was really,reallynot going to blame him, butlater.Right now, I did. Right now, I needed to; otherwise, I wasn’t going to survive this at all.

I needed to blame him so I could gather the strength to walk out of that kitchen while he still shouted and go all the way upstairs, lock the door to my room to make sure nobody saw me crying.

I promise I won’t blame you later, Dad. I promise.

Sometimes pretending got to you.

Sometimes everything just became too much.

I made rash decisions. I took stupid risks. I acted on anger when I knew better—God, Ialwaysknew better.

But I acted anyway because I was always more afraid of regret than repercussions. Yet, somehow, I always ended up headfirst into it. Knee deep into guilt. Nose deep into shame.

I’d been trying to tell myself for so long now that I knew what I was doing, but the truth was that I didn’t. I just threw myself at cooking and trying to fix everything around the house that I could fix because that way I didn’t have to sit and think. I obsessed about dealing with other people, making sure Fi and Dad were okay, making sure others got what they deserved, that they didn’t get away unpunished, but the truth was that I was only punishing myself. My family. The people I cared about.

Betty, too.

By trying to run away from myself, I was fucking this up even more.

Dad and Fi would be better off if I were away. I knew that, always did. I just pretended that I didn’t because the thought of being alone with my own thoughts all the damn time terrified me worse than anything else.

“Cuckoo!”

Kids ran down the street, laughing. Shouting out to me while I sat there in my driveway and waited for Betty. She said she’d come say hi before going home. And my room was going to suffocate me, and those things that kept on fucking floating—for real or not didn’t matter—were going to make me jump off the rooftop, so I came outside. Just to get some air. Just to try to forget.

“You have to believe me! I can move things with my mind! I can make things fly! Look!”

The fuckers looked older than Fi, about ten of them, most on skateboards, ready to scatter if I went after them, which I usually did when they called to me like this.

Not today, though. Not today.

“Cuckoo-cuckoo-koo!”

Their laughter echoed in my head, but I watched them. They were having the time of their lives laughing at me. So maybe my existence wasn’t a complete failure?

“Look at me, I can make things fly!” They raised their hands, moved their fingers, while their friends jumped in the air, gasping, playing. Just laughing. Someone must have told them about me because they weren’t old enough to have been there when I actually said those things.

Then someone came running up the street, throwing rocks at them.

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