AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m just fine, thank you very much.” I head as quickly and carefully as possible to our bedroom. I close the door behind me, my heart thudding with relief. It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust.
Ricci is splayed out on the bottom bunk, her thumb jammed in her mouth. I put the laundry basket on the floor and open the door again, pausing to listen. I don’t hear anything, so I creep out as quietly as possible to the bathroom, waiting to flick the light on until I have the door closed. The suddenness of the light stings my eyes because my dad likes superbright bulbs. I sit down and pee what feels like a gallon of liquid and then stand up and wash my hands.
I look at myself in the mirror. Tired face. Sad face. Round and childish-looking, except for my smudged makeup. I trace the outline of my face in the mirror, leaving a fingerprint trail.
“That was stupid,” I whisper to the girl in the mirror. “You could have got caught. Don’t do that again.”
I stifle a giggle.
Back in our bedroom, I fold my clothes in the dim glow of the fairy lights, set the alarm on my phone for tomorrow morning for work, squinting to make sure I have the time correct, because everything’s getting blurry again, and start climbing up into my bunk with my backpack on.
But my foot misses one of the steps and I slip, jamming my chin on one of the rungs.
I freeze, pain slicing through me, and it’s all I can do to hold back a scream. I take several deep breaths, try to refocus, my heart thudding in my chest.Jesus.
I grip the rungs again and slowly climb all the way up to my mattress, throw off my backpack, and turn on the small light clamped to my headboard. I feel under my chin, but no blood comes away on my fingers. That was close.
I check my phone. Put it down. Pull my school laptop from my backpack, lie down, rest it on my stomach, reach up behind me and click on the tiny lamp on my headboard. Maybe I should do some reading for English lit. We’ve got that paper due on Wednesday for the nonfiction module and I choseWild,but I haven’t finished it yet or even taken notes, even though I told my mother I did. I’m just filled with lies these days.
I slide the book from my backpack, but the words swim in front of my eyes. This book makes me sad, because the writer lost her mother, which makes me think of Laurel. I don’t know if I would have what it takes to walk that far and for that long by myself, but maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. No one to bother me. Just some trees and dirt and birds and a tent.
I start reading, forcing myself to concentrate on the words,as if I can stop their fluttery movement in front of my eyes. I shouldn’t have stayed in the laundry room so long. I didn’t pay attention. Bad Bella. I sigh; I can’t concentrate. My chin aches.
The bottle is peeking from the top of my backpack. I look at it, then look away, then look back at it.
I mean, what does it even matter now?
—
I wake up with the book on my chest and the Sprodka bottle on its side, liquid pooling on the sheet under me and my bladder so full it’s burning the inside of my body. Dammit.
I almost fall climbing down the ladder and catch myself just in time. I hold on to a rung, try to calm down. Am I seeing double? The room is spinning.
I blink a couple of times. The doubles go away.
From the living room comes the sound of soft strumming and low voices.
Dad.
The front room is separated from the kitchen by a breakfast bar, and after that, if you go left, you go to Dad’s room. If you go right, it’s me and Ricci’s room. Right in the middle of our rooms, next to the kitchen, is the bathroom, so I’m going to have to see Dad in this state whether I like it or not.
Like I said, act like nothing is amiss and nothing will be amiss.
I open my bedroom door and stand in the doorway of the front room, trying not to sway. I don’t think my dad would be mad if he thought I’d been drinking, since he’s lazy in the parental enforcement area, but he would think it was weird that I did it by myself, on a night I was working, and not with friends or something. My mother told him about what happenedwith Dylan, and about Luis’s party, but he didn’t tell me to not drink or anything. It was mostly an awkward conversation about “taking it easy on the hard stuff” and “sometimes a broken heart makes us do some pretty crazy things” and my favorite, “what a little prick that kid is.”
“Hey, Bella,” my dad says. He’s sitting on the couch, a guitar on his knees. “Did we wake you up?”
His voice is a little thick and his face is soft.
Oh. Right. Vanessa said he went out to listen to a band. So he’s tipsy, too.
“Belly!” It’s my dad’s friend Hoyt. He’s stretched out on the floor between the couch and the television, a couple of beer cans by his head.
I flinch. I don’t like it when he calls me that. I feel like grown men should not be referring to girls by their body parts, evenifit’s because when I was really little, Hoyt could get me to lift my shirt by asking me, “Where’s your belly button?” Which is also kind of gross, when you think about it.
“I don’t like it when you call me that, Hoyt,” I say. “Can you…not?”
He chuckles. “Aww, come on. It’s your nickname. It’s cute.”
