touch my hand against his. “I went to a traveler camp with someone from work. Couldn’t get home.”
“The shower is on, Christopher.” Dad fills the doorway.
I run my hand through Jay’s hair as I drag myself up off the floor.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you like this again,” I mutter, wishing it wasn’t a lie, but knowing however determined I am to be there when he gets out of school from now on, I won’t always be there to stop them.
T HE HEAT of the water needles my skin, making my head throb even more intensely. Too tired and weak to stand, I curl on the hardwood grate that lies across the floor of the cubicle, shower spray glancing off my back and soaking the horrible green carpet that covers the rest of the bathroom. I wish I could rip the fucking carpet out, chuck the whole stinking mess out the skylight and into the river.
I don’t know what the worse part of today has been. I only know for certain I can’t undo any of it, and I want to. I want the sensation of Finn’s fingers inside me gone. I want Jay’s face untouched. But maybe I do know what’s worse, what hurts most of all, and I just want to deny that it affects me like this—it’s been ten years since she left. I want Malachi to never have said her name, to never have caused me to think of what she was like, because I can’t even remember her face anymore. The harder I try, the further it obscures, like a fading photograph soaked in the bitter waters of time.
I step out of the shower, flick the water heater off, and wrap one of the worn, thin towels round my shoulders. I catch my pale reflection in the mirror by the sink and look away in disgust.
My hair is too long. It’s been too long since I last hacked at it with the blunt, unwieldy scissors we keep in the kitchen drawer.
The impulse to cut it now is greater than any I remember. Dad has a battery-powered electric razor in his wash bag.
I run the tap so that he won’t hear what I’m doing until it’s too late and start to shave my hair off, watching detachedly as clumps of blond fill up the brown sink. It’s not very neat, a few crazy tufts stick up at the center back where I can’t reach too well, but the hair is gone. Jay will help me neaten it up. It pleases me how different I look now—the shape of my face more apparent, less boyish, thinner, angular. I shave the fine hairs along my jaw and around my lips, the hair there too patchy to form a beard. The thought of me with a beard is faintly ridiculous anyway. I stare at my reflection, and for the first time in a long while, I wonder if Jay and I would have looked more alike if the accident had never happened.
T HE DAY dawns bright and clear. It’s hard to believe this is only the fourth day since we moored here.
I’ve slept in Jay’s bunk again. It’s getting to be a habit. Now we’re awake he keeps running his hand over my head, stroking my hair. He likes the feel of it tickling his palm, he says. Dad’s not seen it yet.
Eventually, the movement starts to irritate me, and I pin him down, my knee pushing him into the mattress, my hand tickling him until he yells.
I release him and get up, going out on deck to check if the gray saloon is still there. When I see it is, I go back into the cabin and turn on the stove to make a black coffee and a couple of pieces of toast to take over.
Malachi is slumped against the passenger window, his arms loosely wrapped around Maisie’s middle, his bare feet resting on the driver’s seat, the both of them deeply asleep. I’m conflicted about whether or not to wake him. Maybe I should just let him sleep his hangover off. Minutes pass and I just stand there uselessly holding the cup of coffee and the plate of toast, my stomach flip-flopping weirdly, warmth swirling through my gut like eddies in a stream.
I don’t want to feel like this.
And even though I’m desperately trying not to, I notice a thousand little details that my mind files away for later:
“The shower is on, Christopher.” Dad fills the doorway.
I run my hand through Jay’s hair as I drag myself up off the floor.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you like this again,” I mutter, wishing it wasn’t a lie, but knowing however determined I am to be there when he gets out of school from now on, I won’t always be there to stop them.
T HE HEAT of the water needles my skin, making my head throb even more intensely. Too tired and weak to stand, I curl on the hardwood grate that lies across the floor of the cubicle, shower spray glancing off my back and soaking the horrible green carpet that covers the rest of the bathroom. I wish I could rip the fucking carpet out, chuck the whole stinking mess out the skylight and into the river.
I don’t know what the worse part of today has been. I only know for certain I can’t undo any of it, and I want to. I want the sensation of Finn’s fingers inside me gone. I want Jay’s face untouched. But maybe I do know what’s worse, what hurts most of all, and I just want to deny that it affects me like this—it’s been ten years since she left. I want Malachi to never have said her name, to never have caused me to think of what she was like, because I can’t even remember her face anymore. The harder I try, the further it obscures, like a fading photograph soaked in the bitter waters of time.
I step out of the shower, flick the water heater off, and wrap one of the worn, thin towels round my shoulders. I catch my pale reflection in the mirror by the sink and look away in disgust.
My hair is too long. It’s been too long since I last hacked at it with the blunt, unwieldy scissors we keep in the kitchen drawer.
The impulse to cut it now is greater than any I remember. Dad has a battery-powered electric razor in his wash bag.
I run the tap so that he won’t hear what I’m doing until it’s too late and start to shave my hair off, watching detachedly as clumps of blond fill up the brown sink. It’s not very neat, a few crazy tufts stick up at the center back where I can’t reach too well, but the hair is gone. Jay will help me neaten it up. It pleases me how different I look now—the shape of my face more apparent, less boyish, thinner, angular. I shave the fine hairs along my jaw and around my lips, the hair there too patchy to form a beard. The thought of me with a beard is faintly ridiculous anyway. I stare at my reflection, and for the first time in a long while, I wonder if Jay and I would have looked more alike if the accident had never happened.
T HE DAY dawns bright and clear. It’s hard to believe this is only the fourth day since we moored here.
I’ve slept in Jay’s bunk again. It’s getting to be a habit. Now we’re awake he keeps running his hand over my head, stroking my hair. He likes the feel of it tickling his palm, he says. Dad’s not seen it yet.
Eventually, the movement starts to irritate me, and I pin him down, my knee pushing him into the mattress, my hand tickling him until he yells.
I release him and get up, going out on deck to check if the gray saloon is still there. When I see it is, I go back into the cabin and turn on the stove to make a black coffee and a couple of pieces of toast to take over.
Malachi is slumped against the passenger window, his arms loosely wrapped around Maisie’s middle, his bare feet resting on the driver’s seat, the both of them deeply asleep. I’m conflicted about whether or not to wake him. Maybe I should just let him sleep his hangover off. Minutes pass and I just stand there uselessly holding the cup of coffee and the plate of toast, my stomach flip-flopping weirdly, warmth swirling through my gut like eddies in a stream.
I don’t want to feel like this.
And even though I’m desperately trying not to, I notice a thousand little details that my mind files away for later:
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