Read On the Fence for Free Online

collapsed to the wet grass, her white nightdress now red, her limp hand filling my view as I stared at its lifelessness.
    My new job had deprived me of my late afternoon run, leaving my body less exhausted than normal. I’d have to figure out a new running schedule for Tuesdays and Thursdays. My dad didn’t like me to run alone at night, and it wasn’t often I could talk one of my brothers into going with me.
    I lay there staring at the ceiling, wondering what my brain would do to me if I fell back asleep. Late the next morning, we were supposed to play a game of basketball on the elementary school’s outdoor blacktop. I wished it were morning already.
    My clock read three a.m., and my now frayed nerves weren’t letting me go to sleep. I rolled out of bed and walked downstairs. First I paced the kitchen, then I went outside. Before I discovered the amazing effects of running four years earlier, I spent a lot of hours in the stillness of my backyard.
    I walked the cement around the pool, staring down at the dark water as I did.
    A set of headlights swept across the blackness as Mr. Lewis’s truck pulled up next door. I was surprised at how late he was getting home. Lights went on upstairs a few minutes later, and that’s when the yelling started.
    I backed up to get a better view of the upstairs. A few more lights flipped on, and then the back door slammed shut. Peering through the cracks of the fence that separated our houses, I saw Braden emerge wearing a pair of boxers and a hastily thrown-on T-shirt, all twisted at the bottom.
    “Psst,” I called through the fence. “Braden.”
    He looked around and then straight at the fence, not able to see me, but obviously knowing it was someone in the general vicinity.
    “Gage?” he asked.
    “No, it’s Charlie. What’s going on?”
    He walked closer. “Where are you?”
    I held my hand above the fence, then he walked straight to me. “You okay?”
    He sat down and leaned his back against the boards. I did the same. “My dad just came home . . . drove home . . . drunk out of his mind. I almost wish your dad had seen him driving so he could’ve hauled him in.”
    “Why does he feel the need to wake you and your mom up when he’s like that?”
    “Because apparently he remembers everything he hates about us when he’s drunk and has an overwhelming desire to share his feelings.”
    “That sucks.” The night was warm, and I let it fill my lungs. I pulled on a string hanging off the bottom of my cotton pants. “So you come outside when he’s like this?”
    “Usually. I find that if I walk away he eventually cools down. My mom still hasn’t learned that lesson after all these years.”
    We went quiet, leaving only the sound of muffled yelling coming from his house. “Is she . . . he won’t hurt her . . . will he?”
    “No,” Braden said darkly.
    I leaned my head back against the fence. His parents either went to bed or stopped screaming because I couldn’t hear them anymore.
    Braden’s voice was lighter when he asked, “And what brings you out on this fine evening?”
    “Couldn’t sleep.”
    “Really? The soundest sleeper in the universe couldn’t sleep? Why?”
    “Stupid job messed with my schedule. I didn’t get a chance to run tonight.”
    “Oh yeah, the job. I heard about this miraculous event. How did it go?”
    “It was sheer torture. I’m counting down the days until I earn the five hundred bucks necessary to be done with this sentence.”
    “Didn’t your dad say something about a hundred bucks a month after that too, though? For insurance or something?”
    I groaned. “You’re right. I guess I’ll have to earn another couple hundred and hope I can plea-bargain after that. I think when school starts, that will be a huge argument against having a job.”
    “I’m sure you’ll figure out something.”
    Stillness took over for a while, and just when I started to think he’d fallen asleep there against the fence, he said,