I jerk my arm, but he constricts his grip. “Jackson, let go of me.” I bend my elbow and twist my arm again and jerk on it, but he won’t let me go. “Please, you’re hurting me.”
His eyes are as icy as the snow beneath my feet and his fingers unwrap from my arm. I stumble to the side and press my hand to the side of the house to get my footing. “I’ve been best friends with Caleb since I was six, Callie, and you used to be friends with him too.”
I back down the driveway away from him, shaking from the confrontation. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“You never want to talk about anything, Callie.” He bends his knee and steps up to the next stair without turning around. “You just shut down and go to your own weird little place.”
“Because I have to!” I whirl around and sprint down the driveway. That weird little place he’s referring to is more of a home than this place will ever be. This place holds memories that stab at me every time I step foot inside it.
I hop into the truck and the warm air flowing out the vents comforts me. I climb over Seth’s lap, because he refuses to “sit bitch” and I settle in the middle. Once I’m situated and my seat belt’s buckled, Luke shoves the truck into reverse and backs down the driveway. My brother is standing at the top of the stairs, watching us with his hands in his pockets.
“What’s his deal?” Seth asks, nodding his head at Jackson.
“He’s upset about stuff.” I position my hands in front of the heater vent to warm them up. I can feel Luke and Seth’s eyes on me, but I don’t want to look at them. With my head hung low, I breathe through my nose to force back the hot tears wanting to spill out.
The truck bumps up and down as Luke floors it over the small snowbank at the end of the driveway, and then he rams it into drive and we’re speeding down the snowy road. The radio plays peacefully in the background and the engine makes these clinking noises. Halfway across town, Seth and Luke take out their cigarettes and crack the windows so they can smoke. It’s chilly and smoky and my head is falling into a very dark place.
I wish I could do it. I wish I could walk into the house, when my mother and father and Jackson are all sitting down at the table.
I’d have a loud voice, not a shaky one, and I’d finally tell them.
They would hug me, comfort me, and tell me that it was all going to be okay.
But I know that’s not how it would go. It’s been six years since it happened and each year I spend in the shadows of silence is another weight added to my shoulder. It makes it harder to tell the truth and time makes it harder for people to understand.
Seth and Luke flick their cigarettes out the window as we turn into Luke’s driveway. Flakes of gray ash blow back into the cab and land on my clothes. I’ve seen his house before, when my mother was driving me to school, but I’ve never actually been there, nor do I know much about his mother and father, other than that they got divorced when he was young. It’s a smaller home, with green siding in desperate need of a paint job. There is a few feet of snow in the yard and a tree in the center near a salted pathway that leads up to the front porch.
Luke shoves the truck into park and turns the key, silencing the engine. He stares at his house as he removes the key from the ignition and stuffs it into the pocket of his black hoodie. “My mom’s not here,” he explains. “And I suggest we leave here before she comes back.”
“What exactly are we doing here?” Seth wonders as he pushes his thumb on the buckle to unlock his seat belt. Then pushes the button on mine, releasing my waist from the strap.
“We’re making a plan,” he states with a pensive look on his face as he rubs his hand across his cropped brown hair.
Seth and I trade a look. “A plan?” we say simultaneously.
“To get out of this place.” He flips the handle and pushes the door open. “I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of being here. It’s depressing.”
“We’re would we go?” I wonder as Seth opens the truck door and hops out into the light layer of frost covering the slender driveway.
Luke jumps out and looks back into the cab at me with his hand resting on top of the door. “Anywhere but here.”
I glance at his house, wondering what’s so bad about it. I scoot across the seat toward the open door where Seth is waiting for me with his hand extended for me to take. “Any exact ideas of where we’d go?” Slipping my fingers into his, I jump out and slip on the ice, but Seth catches me by the arm and saves me from a very painful fall.
“Somewhere cheap,” Seth says as he helps me get my balance. “I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty much broke after buying all those Christmas presents.”
“I still can’t believe you bought all your Christmas presents from the Quickie Mart,” I tell him as he slams the door. I fiddle with the fifty-cent machine bracelet he gave me that has a gold teddy bear charm on it to remind me of “better times” he told me when he gave it to me. He was referring to the carnival where Kayden and I first kissed and where he also won me a teddy bear, which we dressed up and left with a Take me home sign on it.
“Oh, you know you loved yours.” He smiles at me and then loops his arm through mine and we skip after Luke up the pathway to the front door of his house.
Luke shoves the door open and steps to the side to hold it for Seth and me. We turn sideways so we can fit through the doorway without letting go of each other and Luke follows us in and shuts the door.
I get the feeling that something’s wrong the moment I step inside. There are heavy striped curtains blocking the windows so it’s very dark and musty. The orange-and-brown-plaid couches are covered in plastic and there’s a plastic rug sprawled over most of the shaggy brown carpet. There are shelves built into the walls and each one is lined with rows of animal figurines that are coordinated by breed. Plants decorate the windowsills and are lined up from smallest to largest, but they’re all brown and dying.
It’s cold too and I can see my breath puffing out in front of my face and it mixes with the dust.
“What’s with all the plastic?” Seth asks as Luke makes his way to a hallway at the back corner of the room.
Luke shrugs as he flicks the thermostat with his fingers. “My mom’s insane.”
We don’t utter another word. We leave the living room and head down the hall. I notice how bare the walls are, no photos, no pictures, no decorations, and it gets colder the farther back into the house we go. I’m getting kind of nervous, especially because the air is really dusty and it’s making it hard to breathe. When we reach the end of the hall, however, Luke opens a door and I step into the room and the air clears.
“So this is my room,” Luke tells me awkwardly and then cracks a joke. “You two are the only two people besides Kayden who have dared step foot into the shithole.”
“Oh, I bet.” Luke’s mouth turns upward and I realize he doesn’t smile very much. “He used to chew us out all the time at practice.”
Thinking of Kayden hurts my heart. “Maybe we should go see him,” I suggest.
“I was planning on it.” Luke clicks the mouse on the PRINT PAGE button on the screen and the printer beside the tower illuminates. “Right after I plan our running away.”
“Aren’t we a little too old to be running away?” Seth asks, looking up from his phone. “Isn’t it more like a road trip, which is something I suggested a few days ago?”
“It sounds more adventurous when you say running away,” I admit. “Like we’re doing something scandalous.”