Page 22 of Bad Wolf

Blowing out a breath, I sit down on a wooden bench on the boardwalk. It’s at that balmy stage of the day when the sun is past its peak and it’s done a good job of warming through everything, but it’s not so hot that everywhere is scalding to the touch.

Not wanting to sit in my depressing condo a minute longer, I’d walked the endless flights of steps of our shitty third floor walk-up and decided to run a few errands, never imagining my afternoon would take this kind of turn.

This is going to be straightforward, right? All I’ve got to do is drive a $100,000 muscle car, 1,300 miles, and hand it over to Knox, the boy who hates me. In one piece.

Easy.

My mind works a mile a minute, as I brainstorm all the things I need to get done. I make a deal with myself to work the next four nights while I get packed up in the day. Then, I’ll spend my final hours here at the beach, soaking up as much sun and ocean as I can before heading back to where it all started.

My head falls forward into my hands as an anxiety-ridden laugh bubbles up from inside of me.

Goddamn, this is crazy…and I’m just batshit enough to do it.

* * *

“Dad, I’m home!” I yell as I boot the door closed with my foot. After sitting in the sun for a little while making plans and to-do lists on old receipts, I headed to the grocery store, wanting to make my father a few home-cooked meals before I left.

We also need to talk, and I thought this would be a nice way of spending time with him, as it will probably be a while until I see him again. Not that I think Knox will have anything to do with me, but I plan on making my position clear, and that means committing to staying in New York.

He doesn’t hear me as I place the brown bags on the harvest yellow laminate countertop, or when I pack all the groceries away in the wooden cabinets that are straight out of the ’70s.

When I fight with the door to the crappy refrigerator because it won’t stay shut and there’s still no sign of him, I assume he’s not home, especially as his preferred seat on the beat-up old couch is empty and the TV isn’t blaring the sports news.

It’s when I hear rustling that I head toward my room. I push on the door and it flies open, my dad jumping right out of his skin in panic.

Whatpanicsme though is theMy Little Ponylunch box he has in his chubby fingers and the look of sheer guilt written across his sweaty, red face as he fiddles with the clasp.

I race towards him and rip the tatty box out of his meaty hands, shakily opening it up, even though I know I’ll find it all gone.

“Oh, no Dad. No. What have you done?” I whisper, as I slowly take a seat on the edge of my bed.

“I’m sorry, Birdy. I’m going to pay it back. I promise, I just needed a little more. It was a sure thing—the tip. I heard from a friend who knows a guy, and…but…”

His voice trails off as I wipe the lone tear that falls over my lashes and onto my cheek, staring blankly into the little box.

“There…” I swallow through the lump forming in my throat, “There was fifteen hundred dollars in here, Dad. Do you have some of it at least? You didn’t, you didn’t use it all yet did you, Dad?” I sniff.

“It was a sure thing! I was going to come right back after the volleyball game and put five times what I took back in. It was going to be a surprise. A surprise for you.”

Volleyball. He stole fifteen hundred dollars and bet it on a volleyball tournament.

“Damn you, Dad,” I say as I hurl the box against the wall, where it breaks in half.

“We needed that money! It was this month’s rent. How are you gonna pay the bills, Dad? Fuck!” I storm out, him following behind me. It takes me ten strides to land back in the kitchen.

I clean often, but it’s outdated and messy. Everything is forty years too old, and how we’ve managed to stay here a full year is a miracle.

“Stop worrying about me, Wren, I’ll be fine. You’re the kid and I’m the parent. I’ll get us the money we need by the end of the month,” he says, pulling his shoulders back and stretching to his full height. He runs his hands over his little pot belly in an attempt to straighten himself up.

I briefly take in the shirt he’s wearing and falter when I see it’s a relic from a better time. The Foreigner t-shirt from when he saw the band in concert way before I was born.

Whenever we’d take long trips, which I now know were snap decisions after a big win, he’d play and sing along to the songs he loved, and because he did, I loved them too.

We’d stay in these terrible motels and eat utter junk, but we’d have a blast sightseeing, and then after a few days, we’d head back home with a few little souvenirs and the cycle would start again.

Delusional optimism, followed by a few months where the cupboards were full of food, to sweaty, desperate pacing, sleepless nights, and a frantic look that would deepen his wrinkles and age him far beyond his years.

All the while, I had no idea what was going on. I just thought it was the stressors of his job. Adult things I didn’t need to concern myself with. He used to tell me it would all work itself out, and the only thing I needed to worry about was keeping up my grades and getting a scholarship by any means necessary.

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