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to Lena and just hold her. She made everything
seem better, made the world look less fucked up. She was his light in this
dirty, grimy darkness.
    The
sound of the television on low in the background was just loud enough he didn’t
have to look at the screen to know porn was playing on it. His old man was on
the grey, stained and frayed couch, a cigarette hanging from his mouth, his arm
hanging off the cushion, and his potbelly protruding under his wife-beater that
should have been white but looked more brown . If Rory
wasn’t stuck here, having no place else to go, wanting to finish school, and
loving Lena too much to just leave like that, he would have gotten the fuck out
of here.
    Rory
turned and went into the kitchen, exhausted from being up all night and being
with Lena, but hell, what a fucking reason to be tired. He filled a glass with
tap water, and drank it as he stared out the window.
    There
were old tires stacked up against the nearly debilitated shed a few yards away.
A car that was on cinder blocks, the wheels stripped, the paint gone to hell,
and the engine gone, sat beside the shed. The yard was trashy, just like Brian,
just like Rory’s life had been. Hell, the grass wasn’t even green—what little
grass there actually was—and hadn’t been for years. It was like the grass had realized
what a shitty life it had on this strip of property, and said, “ fuck this.”
    The
hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and the feeling of someone watching
him filled him. Rory set the glass down and turned to look at his dad.
    Brian Jaymes might have been a decent human back in the
day, but there wasn’t a time Rory remembered where he wasn’t hassled by the
man. After his mother died when Rory was only two, Brian told him he’d had no
choice but to take care of “the kid”. But Brian hadn’t taken care of him, not
in the sense that a parent took care of their child.
    Rory
had done that all on his own, had dealt with everything that was thrown at him,
and always came out standing. He hadn’t put up with his father’s shit since he
was ten years old and could defend himself. He might have gotten knocked around
back then still, but that didn’t mean he didn’t at least try to fight back. And
then when he’d gotten old enough to actually do some damage his old man had at
least thought twice about laying a hand on him. Of course when he was drunk,
like Rory could tell he was right now, the fucker thought he was Iron Man.
    Brian
didn’t say anything for several seconds, and then walked into the kitchen,
opened the freezer, and grabbed a bottle of vodka out. He popped the lid and
drank straight from it. When he had his fill for the moment and set the bottle
down on the yellow seventies style Formica counter, he looked at Rory.
    “It’s
late as fuck, boy.” Brian paused a moment. “Where you been?”
    “Out,”
Rory said and went to move past him, but his dad grabbed his arm. Rory stopped,
breathed in and out to calm himself, and looked at his dad. “You better get
your hands off me,” Rory said, knowing that his old man was drunk enough he
might start shit, and Rory didn’t allow himself to get beat anymore. He threw
punches back.
    “Who
the fuck do you think you are, coming back here this early in the goddamn
morning?”
    Rory
wrenched his arm out of his father’s hold, turned and faced him, and showed him
he wasn’t afraid of his bullshit. “I said I was out, and that’s the end of it.”
He didn’t talk about Lena with Brian, didn’t even like thinking about her when
he was in the fucker’s presence.
    Brian
let go of Rory, grabbed a cigarette from off the counter, and the pack
crumbled. He put one of the sticks in his mouth, bent over, and turned on the
stove. The flame on the burner’s flame was a vibrant blue, and he bent closer
to it and lit the end of the cigarette. When he straightened he inhaled a few
times, blew the smoke out through his nose, and chuckled. “You with that