Page 12 of Revenge At Raleigh High
That has to do something to a guy. My suffering, pain and hurt has made him feel weak and riddled with guilt, like he failed to protect and take care of me. Mom’s betrayal has made him feel like half a man. He’s doing a stellar fucking job of hiding it, but I know this is the lowest point in his life. If he wants to rescue a dog, even a dog as ornery and potentially rabid as Nipper, then who the hell am I to stand in his way?
I don’t apologize for bringing up the subject of his cheating wife. I’ve learned over the past month that, when something bad happens to a community, to a person you love, it’s all too easy to tiptoe through your days, cringing and apologizing as you trip over accidental references and difficult topics, and the act of constantly saying you’re sorry becomes both exhausting to you and infuriating to the other person. Dad and I have driven each other to the point of madness with our apologies.
Instead, I thump him in the arm, nodding my head in the direction of the kitchen. “You think we could trap him in there if we form a pincer movement? You close the living room door, and I get the hallway?”
The color’s already fading from Dad’s face. “Why? Are we quarantining him in there and writing the kitchen off as a no-go zone? ’Cause I need to rescue the coffee maker if that’s the case. I can survive without a lot of things but caffeine isn’t one of them.”
“I was actually thinking we could go to Harry’s and order some tacos.”
He scowls. “It’s not Tuesday.”
“You can eat tacos on other days of the week, Dad.”
“Heresy.”
“Don’t be so miserable. It’s time you had a shave. Time you left the house, too.” I stand behind him, placing my hands against his shoulder blades, urging him toward the stairs.
“Nice try, kiddo. You’ll recall that I was growing this beardbeforethe apocalypse. I am not shaving.”
“Damn.”
He reluctantly climbs the bottom step of the stairs. “I’m not really feeling Harry’s, Sil.”
“Come on. It’ll be fun. My treat.”
“You do realize that I have more money than you. A lot more money. I can pay for my own two-dollar tacos.”
“Which makes my offer to pay even more generous. God, will you stop resisting me!” I slap his shoulder, growling. “I need to get out of this house. It’s starting to feel like a tomb. And, Dad, I didn’t want to have to tell you this, but you’re starting to smell real bad. If you insist on keeping the beard, then you’ve at least got to take a shower.”
“I was considering becoming a hippy and wallowing in my own natural odor full time.”
“Nice. That shouldn’t damage your future dating prospects one little bit.” My left hand is still on his back, so I feel the muscles in his shoulder tense. We haven’t talked about what he wants to do next—if he’s planning on giving things another shot with Mom, or if that’s it, they’re done, and he’ll be filing for divorce. I honestly haven’t been able to think about it. Sure, selfishly, things still feel pretty normal for me right now, but if my parents get a divorce, I don’t know how that will color my view of the world moving forward. I don’t really know whoIwould be in a world where my parents weren’t the notoriousCameron and Celesteanymore.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what I think. This is their thing. Their issue. Their life together. I’m old enough and mature enough to understand and accept that. Max, on the other hand…god, I have no idea how he’s taking any of this. He must be so fucking confused. For an eleven-year-old, this whole mess must be frankly terrifying.
It’s Max’s twelfth birthday soon. It’s always been our family tradition to take him to the aquarium over in Bellingham, but god knows what’s going to happen now. Mom’s definitely going to want to spend the day with him, and so is Dad. Are they going to end up fighting over him like he’s some kind of pawn, to be used to hurt the other person? I really hope not. I couldn’t bear to stand by and watch that happen.
If Mom and Dad do get a divorce, then at some point one of them is going to start dating again. Eventually, new people will be introduced into Max’s life, people that just shouldn’t be there, and he’s going to have to grow up in this strange, alien childhood that I never had to endure. We are going to turn out very different people because of it, and that, to me, is the saddest thing in the world.
These thoughts all occur to me in one harrowing split second. Dad places a hand on the banister railing, turning around to face me, and when I see the look on his face, I get the feeling that the same thoughts all just occurred to him, too. If I could, I would ease the heavy burden he’s carrying on his shoulders. I’d remove the frown that creases his brow every waking moment of his day. If someone could wave a magic wand and give me one shot at time travel, offering me the opportunity to go back and change just one thing, I wouldn’t change what happened to me in Leon Wickman’s bathroom. I would go back and find my mother the day before she first allowed herself to fall prey to her desires and sleep with her boss, and I would tell her about all of the hurt and pain she would cause if she didn’t remember that she was a married woman.
“I don’t think we need to worry about my future dating prospects,” Dad says wearily. “Raleigh’s a small town. I went to high school with most of the women here. I wouldn’t date any of them even if they were single. None of them have changed since we were seniors, and they weren’t particularly nice people back then. I don’t suppose any of us were.”
“Dad—”
“Screw it,” he says loudly, slapping his hand against the banister railing. “This conversation just got really dark and depressing, didn’t it? Idoneed to get out of the house. Maybe those tacos aren’t such a bad idea after all. Give me twenty minutes and we’ll head out.” He turns and charges up the stairs before I can say anything else. Not that I wanted to continue the conversation, of course. It really did get dark and fucking depressing.
I manage to corral Nipper in the kitchen while Dad’s upstairs getting ready, and I have the kitchen cordoned off, the dog safely secured inside, by the time he comes down dressed in a fresh, pressed button-down shirt and a clean pair of jeans. He looks like a brand-new person. A much happier person than the man who looked down at me on the staircase just now. He even manages a smile as he snatches up his worn red Converse from the shoe rack by the door and begins to jam them onto his feet.
“I’m not sure I’d call that appropriate footwear, Dad. The weather’s not so great.”
“Don’t be such a baby. I’ve been wearing Chucks come rain or shine since the eighties. Pretty sure I’ll be fine.”
We’re laughing together, joking around, arguing about which music was better, the eighties or the nineties, when Dad pulls the front door open and a piece of debris hurtles past the doorway.
“Jesus!” He bars the doorway with his arm, halting me from stepping forward.
The projectile—probably the best term for it—turns out to be one of the fence posts from the McLaren’s yard next door…and it narrowly missed Dad’s face. The staked end of the post is now buried in our front lawn, the post itself sticking out of the lawn at a weird angle, wobbling from the force with which it hit the ground.
