The Enemy of Time, page 8
I didn’t. Not technically, anyway. The day after the party, Megan texted Jamie to ask if he wanted to see a movie. And some dumb part of me thought that after Jamie kissed me for the second time, it meant he wouldn’t be going on dates with other girls. I was wrong. “No, I told you to say yes if you wanted.”
Jamie propped his body up with his hand, his chest almost leaning on top of mine. “And how is that different?”
I pleaded for my mouth to stop moving. “I said if you wanted to. Not that you should.” My pleas went unheard.
The shriek of my bedroom door opening jolted me upright, the sudden intrusion sending my heart into a panicked rhythm. I met my mother’s eyes, which were wide and darting back and forth between Jamie, sprawled happily on my bed, and my guilt-ridden, ghost-white face.
Her lips pushed together as if a bee had stung her gums. “You know we do have a front door, Jamie.”
Jamie reclined deeper into the bed, his hands casually interlocking behind his head, his elbows dramatically stretched out as if this humiliating moment had been simply a lovely conversation in a coffee shop, instead of a nightmare plaguing his day at 6:30 a.m.
“Oops, my bad. I keep forgetting about that.” He grinned, revealing his overly white teeth, at my mom.
“We weren’t doing anything,” I stammered, my eyes darting nervously towards Jamie, who graced me with an eye roll and a smirk. “I swear! He just needed a place to sleep last night.”
My mother’s freckled arms folded over her yellow tank top. “And every other day this week?”
I stepped forward and lowered my head. “Come on, Mom, you know how his dad is right now.”
My mom sucked in a thick breath and her eyes pinched inward; I could tell she was contemplating which emotion would win: pity or discipline. “Yes, unfortunately, I do.” She released the breath she was holding. “Could you two maybe meet me halfway and have Jamie sleep in Lucas’s room from now on?”
I stomped my foot. “That’s not fair—”
“Yes, I can do that,” Jamie interrupted, standing up from the bed and moving to my side. “Thank you, Monica.” He elbowed me in the side, urging me to stay quiet and, for once, let this battle die.
My mom gave her signature nod and thin-lipped smile to both of us—a gesture I knew all too well, one which acknowledged her victory. “Now get ready and run downstairs before Lucas eats all the breakfast. I swear if that boy grows anymore, I’ll need to have the door frames heightened.”
Honestly, I was lucky that my mother didn’t lock me in a tower and behead Jamie with her hedging shears the second she caught him in my bed. Yet I found myself testing the strength of the line she drew, waiting for Jamie to stop fixing his messy black hair in the bathroom.
“If all the bacon is gone by the time we get downstairs because you’ve decided to care more about styling your hair than my need for over-salted pig fat, I’m going to kill you and bury your remains at school so your ghost will forever dwell in math class ... do you understand me!” I yelled as I confiscated Lucas’s hair gel from Jamie’s hands. The clear gunk smothered on the bottle cap stuck to my palms like hair-covered playdough.
Jamie’s eyes lowered to mine. “Excuse me, Miss Time Warden, but if you’re gonna drag me to school, I might as well look half decent.” He smoothed the sides of his hair with his palms, his wavy strands held hostage by too much product.
“You do realize it’s 2013, and you’re not a greaser, right?
“First, you love John Travolta. Don’t deny it. And second, if you would stop yelling at me, I would already be done.”
Ten minutes later, the bathroom was still rumbling with our argument. It wasn’t until I took Jamie’s comb that he finally stormed out of the room to chase me down the hall and stairs. I raced forward, skipping three steps at a time, the heels of my boots slamming against the ground and leaving permanent imprints of my soles on the wood floor.
I dashed down the hallway to the kitchen and pivoted my body toward the stove like a racecar approaching the finish line. I could see the over-greased pan of happiness. As I reached my fingertips toward the lightly burnt bacon, an evil force snatched away my joy and shoved it into his big mouth.
“Sorry, sis, you snooze, you lose.” Lucas licked the remnants of shiny bacon grease off his fingertips.
My face scrunched towards my nose, and my jaw bit down on my back molars, causing my masseter muscle to make a concerning crack and then an ear-ringing pop. Faint footsteps clattered behind me. I turned, quick and sharp, toward the figure lingering at my back.
“Now I’m stuck with oatmeal. Are you happy?” I grumbled at Jamie as I stole a lightly chipped bowl from the counter and scooped in a heap of mushy oats into the porcelain.
Jamie tiptoed next to me and grabbed his own bowl, which he filled with Lucky Charms. “Can I be cremated instead of buried?”
“Nope, I plan on dismembering you and burying your pieces around the school in the shape of a pentagram so that not even a priest can set you free.”
In the dining room, Julian put his morning paper down with what had to be deliberate rustling. “Your knowledge of occultism is concerning. I don’t know if I should call a therapist or an exorcist.”
Lucas stole a piece of bread from the middle of the dining table. “I think an all-girls Catholic school would do the trick. I have pamphlets upstairs if you want to see them.” He smiled through toast-covered teeth.
Jamie and I sat in our typical seats. His eyes traced me from head to boot. “I wouldn’t mind seeing you in one of those uniforms.”
Before I could match Jamie flirt for flirt, Julian interrupted, “So, Jamie, sleep well?” He raised his brows so high I was worried they would fly off his forehead.
Jamie swallowed a baseball-sized lump of Lucky Charms as his cheeks flushed pink. “Sorry, Mr. D, we were watching a movie, and it was really late. I fell asleep.”
“Yeah, and I didn’t want to wake him,” I added.
Julian folded his morning paper into a long rectangle. “That’s understandable.” The table stayed silent as if the placemats and silverware were betting on the severity of my punishment. “It’s lucky, though,” Julian continued.
“What’s lucky?” I immediately regretted my question.
“That you had fresh clothes for Jamie in your room,” he said, eyeing the newly washed black flannel and worn-out jeans hanging on Jamie like two oversized blankets.
Busted. Jamie had stashed his things all over my room this past summer. It was easier than him constantly stealing Lucas’s shirts.
“Uh, yeah, they’re from over the summer. He got something on them, so I washed them, and he forgot to take them back home,” I stammered, trying to find the perfect lie.
Julian put a piece of salty ham on his plate and neatly placed the bite into his mouth. “That makes sense. Very responsible of you.” He paused, putting his fork back on the table. “Just one more thing, Alex. How do you turn the washing machine on?”
Yep, I’m dead. I was a quick liar, truly a skilled manipulator, but Julian could call bull on even my best performances. He was a human lie detector, a fourteen-year-old girl’s worst nightmare. I shoved a chunk of oatmeal in my mouth, my feeble attempt to muffle my fib.
“The on button ...” I choked out.
“Where would that button be located exactly?” An amused grin tugged at Julian’s thin lips.
I glanced at Jamie for help.
“Don’t look at me. My mom takes everything to the laundromat.”
Just as my mouth opened to dig my hole an extra two feet deeper, the front door burst open, sending a shrill squeak from the rusty hinges across the interrogation room.
“You guys started breakfast without me!” Kayla whined at us as she stomped into the dining room and took her place beside Lucas.
Julian leaned in towards me. “Saved by the door. Again. I think you two planned that sometimes.”
Kayla placed a napkin on her lap and turned her attention to my mother, who sat adjacent to Julian at the other end of the table. “Make any pancakes today?” She grinned with an expression that begged for sugar.
My mother raised a brow back at Kayla. “What is this? Waffle House?”
Kayla snatched a piece of toast from the bread plate. “Your hash browns could definitely use some improvement, but you're almost there!"
“I appreciate the almost compliment, Kayla, but you kids should start walking to school, or you’ll be late.”
“But I didn’t get any bacon yet!” Kayla bellowed.
Lucas grabbed his backpack, which rested on the floor, leaning against his leg. “Here, I saved this for you.” He pulled out a grease-soaked rolled-up wad of paper towels and swiftly unwrapped them, revealing the last three pieces of bacon—let me rephrase that … my last three pieces of bacon!
“Breakfast stealer!” I yelled at my brother.
My mother rose from her chair, “Nope, no fighting. Get up and get out.”
After a few more yells and screams, we left the table. I slung my tattered purple backpack over my shoulder, the sheer weight of it sending me almost flying on my ass. Damn, I really have to empty this thing, I thought as I exited the door. Jamie never carried a backpack, so I always packed two of everything, even though there was no chance that he was ever going to crack open a book or take any notes in class, but just in case, I always had everything he might need.
My foot barely hit the sidewalk when Jamie said he forgot something. His eyes darted around like a criminal stalking a bank, but before I could pry, he dashed back into the house.
Jamie’s middle name was “self-destruction.” Perhaps if I hadn’t been so preoccupied with the excitement of my first day of freshman year, I might have given more thought to his actions and realized something wasn’t right. But I didn’t think anything of how his hands shook when he grabbed his bowl or the rapid beating of his heart when we were lying on my bed together. I simply didn’t consider it, at least not until he managed to wreck his first day of high school, earning himself the reputation that would haunt him like a lurking ghost.
If I could go back in time, I would have run into that house and given in to his pleas to ditch school. I would have given him one day where he didn't have to think about reading in front of a class or a teacher calling on him without his permission. I would have given him one day where school was an afterthought and not a nightmare.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I waited for him to exit the front door, his fingers gripping a plastic water bottle firmly to his side. The bottle would later become a nuclear bomb, evaporating any possibility of happiness we may have had. I know that sounds dramatic, but life is like dominoes: one wrong move and everything comes crashing down.
Chapter ten
Knives might slice you
Words might cut you
Lies might stab you
But a rumor will stay with you.
August 12, 2013: (PART 2)
As we stepped into the halls of adolescent chaos, the four of us were instantly separated. I was forced to endure boring lectures and lessons without the companionship of Jamie’s snores as he dozed on his desk or the obnoxious flinches of Lucas’s hand, which would raise high with every question the teacher posed. I even missed the smacking noise of Kayla’s pen dancing on her college-lined notebook paper as she doodled cartoon characters of our other classmates.
So, there I was, forced to endure my morning classes surrounded by peers whose names I either barely knew or didn’t plan to learn.
Jamie and I only had one class together—math, thank God—because he would’ve failed eighth-grade algebra without our brilliant cheating system. One tap on the desk meant A, two meant B, and so on. It worked flawlessly … until our math teacher, Ms. Snitch, suggested to my parents that I get tested for ADHD because of my “fidgeting problem.”
Finally, after four hours down, the passing seconds whispered the promise of lunchtime ahead—the only escape from the monotony of what supposedly were my educational hours. I stared at the clock with glazed eyes. Whoever dreamed up the brilliant idea of confining 400 unbalanced teenagers to a concrete building must have been indulging in something more substantial than Jamie’s dad’s stash. I leaned to the side in my desk chair, accidentally overhearing the latest gossip from two guys with matching mullets. Eric Perez dated Laura Simmons over the summer until a party at Danny Leatherman’s house, when Eric and Laura’s stepsister treated the partygoers to a nude show in the hot tub—earth-shaking news. I rolled my eyes—American tax dollars well spent. Now I know who Biffy’s bopping this week; I’m going to make an excellent doctor or scientist now.
The sound of glorious angels—the lunch bell!—pierced the suffocating air around my desk. I dashed out of my seat and flung my bag across my back. The crushing weight of books inside slammed into the pointy part of my shoulder bone, causing my joint to make a concerning pop and crack. I ignored the sudden sharp pain as I ran down the mud-speckled tile that lined the hallway of happiness leading to the best room in high school: the cafeteria.
My toes made a high-pitched squeal as they halted in place three feet from the door’s threshold. I swiveled my head back and forth, searching for the weather tower that was my brother. My eyes locked onto the sight of his black hair, neatly aligned against the blue-painted wall, as he waited in the lunch line. I dashed to his side, cutting in front of the students behind him, causing a roar of yells and hollers. But I paid them no attention; instead, I noticed the one missing voice in the crowd.
“Where’s Jamie?” I asked Kayla, who stood next to Lucas, wearing an almost guilty expression. Her eyes flickered to Lucas and then back to mine as if debating who should break the news.
Lucas lowered his head slightly to mine. “The last I heard, he skipped English with the Donahue brothers …” His Adam’s apple bobbled as he swallowed a deep gulp.
A burning sensation radiated from my chest to my stomach. If one thing was for sure in this world, it was that associating with the Donahues was as bright as putting your finger in a light socket. Dallas, the oldest brother, was eighteen and still a junior—not because he couldn’t graduate, but because high schoolers were convenient, gullible targets who spent their parents' money on brain-numbing substances and fake IDs. The Donahue family dealt in everything from liquor to crack, and anyone treading these halls with them was expected to follow suit. They were our town’s sorry excuse for a gang, and at the head of the useless pack of mutts was their father, Jack Donahue—Jamie’s dad’s best friend and business partner.
Jamie’s dad wasn’t always scum on the bottom of my shoe. He was rumored to have been a kind boy, working at the local bowling alley to support his sick mother. That was until Jack Donahue offered to bring him along on a job, and just like that, the blood-soaked history was etched.
“Why the hell would you two not stop him?” I yelled, forgetting we were standing in line with fifty other students.
Lucas's fists clenched. “What did you want me to do? Ditch class to save his ass again?”
“Yes!” I growled.
Lucas straightened his posture like a drill sergeant, readying his voice to scold a shoe-shining soldier. “If Jamie wants to throw his life away following those worthless thugs, then that’s on him. He didn’t even make it through the first class before skipping off with them.”
I wanted to scream, stomp my feet, and smash my brother’s head into the undercooked meatloaf the lunch ladies were shoveling onto flimsy plastic trays. But as I opened my big mouth to protest, I caught the hurt lingering in Lucas’s eyes. It was the same look I had when Jamie kissed Maghen. That bitter, jealous ache that burned a hole in my stomach faster than acid. Lucas wasn’t mad at Jamie; he was jealous. Jamie chose the Donahue brothers over the only class Lucas and Jamie had together: English.
I rolled my eyes. “Boys,” I muttered.
Kayla slapped Lucas’s arm and nodded in the direction of the door. Standing in the black-painted frame was the wobbling silhouette of the boy I was about to kill. He stumbled and swayed as he staggered through the cafeteria, bumping into tables and students with every step.
“Damn, I thought the line would have moved faster,” Jamie slurred as he proceeded to cut in line next to me.
The sound of crinkling plastic filled my ears as Jamie unscrewed the white cap of his not-so-water bottle. My fingers fumbled over his in a feeble attempt to lower the bottle out of the lingering sight of lurking teachers.
“Are you crazy!” I then backtracked my words faster than I had spoken them. “Of course, you’re fucking crazy! You’re crossfaded at 12:30 in the afternoon!”
Lucas glared at me. “Language!” He gritted his overly white teeth at me as his black eyes darted around, likely praying no teachers overheard us.
I spun my chin to face his big head. “Is this the time for an etiquette lesson, Captain America?”
The line launched forward, causing my hand to act faster than my brain. Swiftly, I stuffed Jamie’s detention-begging bottle into my bag, its plastic cracking just loud enough to make my heart jump into my throat.
As we inched forward, the rattle and clatter of dingy red trays matched that of my pulse. I cannot get expelled on my first day. I shuddered at the thought as the eighty-year-old lunch lady slopped a thick slice of mushy meatloaf on my tray. I was used to getting in trouble. I had a big mouth, and I liked to use it. But this was different.
I reached for an overripe banana wedged between what I guessed was applesauce and what I hoped was refried beans. As my fingers brushed the browning surface, Jamie’s fingers crashed into mine.
“Oh, sorry.” Jamie used his palm to rub his bloodshot eyes.
I didn’t respond or move forward when the line raced before me. “What’s going on with you?” I asked, attempting to avoid sounding like an authoritarian mother.
