Page 4 of Revelry
Picking the bike up, I examined it. The front tire was fucked. It was beyond riding now but I needed to hurry back. I left it at the edge of the road and started running, my knees screaming, my anxiety churning away inside me at the need to be home. It took longer than it should have because of my busted knee but I finally made it back and unlocked the door.
I checked the whole downstairs and there was no one in the house. I don’t know why Ma had thought there was.
Hurrying upstairs to her room, I knocked and opened the door. I expected her to be waiting for me, panicked with terror and tear-stained cheeks, or worse, dead. But she was lying in bed sound asleep, a serene expression on her face.
Anger flooded me. She’d demanded I come home, threatened me even. I’d left work, humiliated, lost money, hurt myself and I finally got home and she wasn’t even awake. I shut her door quietly, resisting the urge to slam it, and paced outside the room, emotions rushing me.
I hated being a teenager, so much angst and anger I couldn’t control or release. I needed to get out of the house. I went outside into the yard, the moon bright in the sky, illuminating the grass and trees. I tried to take deep breaths to get myself under control, but I couldn’t. I kicked one of the pot plants and the momentary relief from expressing my anger flooded me. I wanted more. I kicked it again, and again, kicked another and it smashed. I picked up the dirt and flung it around violently. Only when I accidentally got some in my scraped knee did I stop, the sting burning and pulling me out of my turmoil.
I collapsed onto the wooden bench at the bottom of the garden that was shielded by a row of trees. I put my head in my hands, wondering how life had worked out this way. How I’d had to grow up so fast when all I wanted to do was sit with my friends in a pizzeria with a dark-haired, blue-eyed girl on my arm.
But I didn’t have friends. I didn’t have a girlfriend. I didn’t have any freedom.
The overwhelming sadness crashed into me like a wave and I let it pull me under, drowning me. I buried my head in my hands and cried. Cried so hard I didn’t hear the commotion next door until the back door slammed and I heard someone rushing past the fence, sobbing. Then the ancient Douglas fir tree that spanned both our yards started rustling.
“What the—” I trailed off, glancing up into the dark and I saw a flash of yellow, the same yellow of Gertrude’s dress. Was she climbing the tree? I heard a squeal and some more rustling and my heart leapt into my throat, did she almost fall?
The next thing I knew I was hopping the fence and scaling the tree after her.
“Gertrude?” I hissed in the dark when I lost sight of her.
“Tate?” Her tear-soaked voice echoed on the breeze.
I craned my neck but still couldn’t see. “Where are you?”
“Go away, Tate. I w—wanna be alone,” she hiccupped.
I ignored her and kept climbing. Eventually I spotted her sitting on a thick branch. My hands shook from fear and adrenaline as I maneuvered over to her. Her cheeks shone in the moonlight.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She scoffed. “Everything.”
“Why are you crying? You and Carter have a fight?”Did you break up?I wanted to ask.
She turned to face me and I saw it, her puffed out cheek and split lip and my stomach rolled.
“Did Carter do that?”
She chuckled and shook her head.
“Then—”
“It’s fine, Tate. Just leave it.”
She turned away and I bit my lip, glancing straight ahead. The commotion I heard a moment ago became obvious. Shouting. There was always a lot of shouting from next door. Always followed by an eerie silence.
“Was it your dad?”
Gertrude pinched her lips together and didn’t answer. So we sat in silence.
“What happened to your knee?” she asked after a while, her raspy voice soothing me. I looked at my torn jeans, sticky with drying blood. The sting had faded while I was with Gertrude and came roaring back when I registered the wound.
“Crashed my bike,” I replied, still stunned that I was sitting in a tree with Gertrude.
She leaned into me as she rustled around in one of the pockets of her dress and produced a small packet of tissues. She took one out, dabbed it against the tip of her pink tongue before she patted it over my sore knee. I just stared at her, dumbfounded that she was tending my injury.
I flinched when she hit a particularly deep cut. She placed a hand on my thigh, quieting my thoughts and leaned forward, blowing gently on the skin. I was mesmerized by her, the way her lips pouted, the cool breeze across my skin, the goosebumps that ravaged my body.
