2.4

 

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I’d been home for thirty minutes and all I’d done was sit and stare at a weird shadow thing that was being cast on my carpet. Or maybe it was a stain or a spot or something. I’d been looking at it for longer than I looked at anything really and I still couldn’t tell.

I knew they called my dad. I knew they would call my dad. So of course I went ahead and did the stupid thing anyways and now I got to sit on the edge of my bed in the school clothes I had yet to take off and practice disassociating for when the actual big blow-up lecture came. My stomach was tying itself in knots with or without my help so pretending I it was giving me a feeling to pretend I didn’t experience at least.

The first few time this had happened I had felt like a fucking genius. Before all this really kicked off I’d been failing a class because at that point projects had been hard and I just had decided to not turn things in. Essays and assignments and PowerPoint presentations weren’t done for a reason I felt really deeply but couldn’t articulate. So I’d called the home phone and let it go to message and pretended I was speaking to my dad. Principal hadn’t caught on.

Then I just deleted it when I got home because I arrived before him. Easy as that. Did the same thing for the first handful of complaints about missed classes. And then they’d called his cell at work because of course they would, they weren’t getting an actual response from him and I was still missing class. Stupid fucking me. So I’d got to sit for an hour in the living room feeling trapped for no particular reason, feeling stupid by my dad for missing class and stupid by myself for not thinking it through. Could have done it better.

And I’d just sat there and took it. Like I always did. I wasn’t Nate. I didn’t talk back or storm off or slam doors. Didn’t get angry back. Your dad twice your size reprimanding you when you’re fifteen and sixteen and seventeen is scary. And I had never told anyone that. That I remembered the pushed-over chairs and the grabbed arm and the slammed tables. None of that crossed Nate’s mind because he’d defend me as easily as himself. It never seemed to get to him in the same way. He didn’t retreat inward. He’d say his fucking thoughts and retreat away so he didn’t have to hear the loud rebuttal.

Then he just left for university and it was like no one had ever pushed back against my dad. Like he didn’t know how that would even be possible. Or maybe he was just making up for lost time.

So I replayed this same series of non-actions I’d looped through too many times. Sat on my bed with my clothes still on. Stared at different spots in my room. Sometimes I was tempted to just- just not come home. For a little bit. Stay out like I usually did so I didn’t have to see him and he didn’t have to see me. Maybe he’d forget.

But that was wishful thinking because he would just get madder and madder and it would compound over time like pressure making a diamond and then when I did return because I needed somewhere to sleep I’d be hit with every bit of that at once and it would probably just fucking paralyze me.

So eventually after tens of minutes of sitting and waiting and feeling my stomach twirl and tumble the door opened. Things were dropped right beside it with a bang from a height that would probably get me yelled at for scuffing the floor. Then I heard the footsteps come up the stairs and to my door and with zero warning that last barrier was opened. Like he was showing me that I wasn’t in fact safe in the one place I felt like I could breathe in this house.

“What the hell are you doing, Pandora?” He asked very roughly. I was looking at his chest or his legs and my fingers were already playing with each other because I didn’t have an answer. My default was to shrug. But I knew that would just set him off. Yet I did it, because I didn’t even know what else to fucking do at this point. My room had one exit and he was in it. Tall and broad just like my mom and just like me and Nate. He could block out a doorway easily enough.

“Christ sake, you are not eight years old anymore. ‘I don’t know’ isn’t how you can respond to things anymore.” I swallowed at that. My dad was intense about everything. Like a drill digging through a tunnel with two speeds. On or off. And he knew this. He totes it like it’s not a negative. Like it’s not looking into the sun and trying not to blink or flinch.

“I just didn’t want to go.” I said. And then started biting my lip because I knew that was stupid. Dumb thing to say. But I didn’t know what else I could fucking say. I was in a corner with no way to escape past him and nothing I could say would make him listen. I could scream so every other person in this row of houses heard that I couldn’t find a reason to get up in the morning but I still did. And that I feel like I deserve heaps of praise just for that even though I never get anything but the opposite. He wouldn’t care.

“Do you think that’s how the world works? You don’t like something, so you can just miss a couple shifts without notice or try to sneak out early without anyone seeing you? You’re going to need to be getting a real job very soon, and you’re going to get nowhere if this keeps up.” All of this was said like I just had an empty skull he needed to put this information into. Like I didn’t know this. Think about how I was going to handle this when I was in bed at night. Think about how I was going to pay my bills or eat or whatever when I leave and still just can’t get up. When I don’t even have my friends around to use as a crutch. When it’s just going to be me.

The only good part of that nightmare was that he wasn’t there.

“You barely went to class when you were my age.” I didn’t even look at him when I said it. I knew from stories he’d told. There was a reason we didn’t talk to his parents really. He’d almost dropped out of high school. If I knew them more maybe it could have been someone to talk to. Some way out of this pressure cooker of a town. But I barely knew them. And my mom’s parents were across the world and strangers as well. I’d seen them for two days years before my mom had died. Now that connection had been cut and neither side had reached out.

“Because I had it fucking rough, Pandora. My dad had left at that point and my mom had a lot of other kids to manage. You have a roof, a stable source of food and I don’t hit you or scream at you. You have it way easier than I did, so don’t pull this shit.” I swallowed. I still wasn’t looking over at him. None of this felt easy.

“If you don’t want to go to university or college, fine. It’s your life, I guess, but finish high school. Cut this crap out, because no company is going to hire an eighteen-year-old without a high school diploma.”

And there was nothing I could say to that. Nothing that would ever just fucking get through to him. So I curled my toes around the fibers of the carpet as hard as I could and rested my hands loosely on the bed and kept my face neutral as he closed the door much harder than I ever would. It almost made me jump.

I thought of texting Shannon or Ellie. Or both. They would be on my side in this. Maybe. Or would Shannon just give me the same lecture I just got. Because I’d told her that she takes school to seriously in so many words and shown her how not seriously I take it.

So I just kept it to myself. I just flopped over and curled up a bit and stared at the wall. Played music into my ears and realized I was hungry. I had zero intention of going back door there and tiptoeing around him and risking another talk that led into something about what he was making for dinner that I probably didn’t want. More reprimands. More things he could tell me I was doing wrong. Pressure. So why even fucking try.

I played whole albums in the time it took me to sufficiently stare at the wall. I used to cry after shit like this. Press my face into a pillow and sometimes just sob at how unfair it felt and how angry I felt and how I wish I could in fact just stop doing this shit. I felt like I’d used up the entire supply of tears I had for the rest of my life in those early years. The urge just didn’t come anymore. Over anything.

Then an alarm went off.

Go bus of magic was what it said on my phone screen. I think I’d fallen asleep. And my dad hadn’t bothered calling me for dinner. Part of me took that deeper than a lot of criticism I’d received before. Part of me was grateful. I rubbed my eyes and paused my music and pocketed my headphones. I had a water bottle and some notebooks in my backpack and not much else so I just grabbed it and quietly opened he door to my room. I didn’t even really make it to my shoes.

“What are you doing?” My dad asked. He was already standing up from his place on the couch. Glasses off and put down on the table. He entered the little foyer we had and crossed his arms and stood there. Stood over me almost.

“Going out.”

“Absolutely not after what happened today. Get back upstairs.” I bit my lip and reached down and grabbed my shoes by the heels. I’d fucking run in socks if I had to.

“I just want to see my friends.” Which was true. No lie there. These hours since lunch could maybe act as a reset. Maybe Shannon wouldn’t be mad at me and we could all go and talk to this guy who felt so far from the world I was currently in that I wouldn’t have to think about this for at least one night. I could go do magic with my friends. Nothing else.

“No.” The world felt dark. His jaw was set now. Like he was talking to a dog. Or a child. I stared at his shins for a lot of moments and clenched my jaw and bit my lip. Everything was just feeling like quicksand again. Dark and way too close and making it hard to breathe because I couldn’t see a fucking way out.

I took a page from Nate’s book and just left. That’s how he stopped caring about arguments. He would just leave in the middle of a lecture and block his door from being opened. I never felt brave enough to do that. Still wasn’t brave enough to. But I felt like I physically needed to be elsewhere. So I turned and walked fast and reached out for the door. But his legs were longer and he slammed a hand against the surface.

“Go back to your room, Pandora!” Was the shout that accompanied the sound of hard hand against hard wood. I flinched back and I really fucking hated that I did. I didn’t look him in the eyes but I did look up and his entire being was surrounding and blocking the door. And that realization made it so easy to just crumble and turn around and give up. I fought the urge to slam my own door because I knew it would be another reprimand and I couldn’t really bear to make more noise.

Once again I laid down and rested elbows on knees and stared at this weirdly discoloured and warped spot on my wall. No music this time. I was putting my entire bodyweight on my earbuds in my pocket so I couldn’t really be bothered to move and get them out. Even though they were digging in.

Didn’t fall asleep this time. Just stared and felt seconds pass in the dark. Saw the ambient light form my window tick away very slowly until it was almost gone. When my phone buzzed I knew who it was because I should have dealt with this situation an hour ago but I couldn’t bring myself to do much of anything else but this.

Hi, your two magical friends are waiting to take a magical GO bus ride with you

There was too much backstory for everything to tell Shannon or Ellie about this. Wouldn’t know where to start. Wouldn’t know how to start because my words just got twisted and lost inside my chest and throat whenever I tried to talk about things this close to me. Like a thread so long and unruly I lost track of any progress I made straightening it out.

I stared at the screen for a moment and considered just ghosting. Saying nothing. Shannon was probably already mad. She’d get over it with a night of sleep hopefully. Just rib me about it tomorrow. Where I could say some sort of explanation I’d prepared over hours of looking back on this interaction. Zero emotion fueling it.

                Not coming

 

 

Shannon had been kind enough to buy me a Coke in this heat. A nice partner for her Coke Zero. She’d grabbed a piece of cafeteria pizza which was whatever. Basically just pepperoni and bread with cheese melted on it. Some had said sauce existed on it, but I had yet to substantiate that rumour.

“Here’s some notes on last night that Ellie was a smart enough cookie to realize we should take.” Shannon said. She leaned down to her bag and pulled out a very tiny pair of papers. She handed them over to me and then took a bite of her food now that her job was done.

I read over them. Clone made from glamour and twigs and old clothes, made an audible noise at that. Fucking cool. Entities not being able to be classified like other creatures, there was a few lines of that. Mentioned a couple times. Lady made a deal with Pedro to trade something for his help, seems like some sort of power he can use. And finally, he was willing to help us and was coming to stay in Atwood.

“What was he like?” I asked. Shannon took the papers after another quick bite when I slid them over to her.

“He seemed decent, I guess, although we didn’t get to talk to him much. He seemed really- I don’t know? Very normal guy you’d see working in like construction or something.”

That didn’t exactly endear me to him and I think Shannon realized it wasn’t a great analogy. All three of us had changed our route home after hearing stupid fucking shouts from the couple construction sites around town. Shannon dressed up a lot, so maybe she could have been a visiting twenty-year-old. I very much looked like I was in high school still. So, gross. Gross in both cases actually. Fuck that.

“He seemed like a normal, nice dude. I wouldn’t have pointed him out as a fucking wizard on the street, okay?” Ellie nodded at that.

“He reminded me a bit of Blake.” She said. I nodded at that, now. Kind of got the image a bit. Normal sort of guy who looked fit and liked jeans and t-shirts. If the description was a one-to-one sort of a deal, at least.

“He wants to meet tonight.” Shannon said. I blanched a bit at that. Outwardly at least. Inwardly I felt my stomach drop and kept my face from falling. Was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be able to go out tonight. My dad hadn’t talked to me since he had slammed the door last night but I would bet money that it would be a repeat performance if I tried again.

“Don’t know if I can come.” I said. Shannon looked at me and tilted her chin up a bit while a confused look crossed her face. Ellie furrowed her brow and pursed her lips.

“Why? We would very much like you there, and I know you want to meet the mage guy.” Shannon said. She adopted a sing-song-y sort of voice in the last few words. I flicked a piece of napkin at her and she swatted at the air and looked annoyed.

“Everything okay?” Ellie asked. I felt that closer to my heart than I thought I would. It was simple and matter-of-fact and didn’t really have any pretense about anything in it. And I really wanted to just tell them now.

And then I remembered we were in a crowded lunch room surrounded by dozens and dozens of other people who didn’t care at all about whatever was happening with me and everything inside me closed up again.

So I just nodded at her.

“Yeah. Dad’s just unhappy about me skipping. Didn’t let me go out last night and probably won’t tonight.” I took a sip of Coke so I could stop talking before anything else came out. Swished it around slowly in my mouth until it was frothy and kind of gross.

I could see Shannon ruminating on something. Holding back a comment about me skipping maybe and how she would be unhappy too. Or she is unhappy or was. If she was holding that back I was silently grateful for it.

“Let us now a bit earlier at least, we can plan around it. At least call you and get you there in some way or another.” Shannon said. I nodded again. Took another sip of Coke.

Letting my friends down. Yay. I was the one who wanted to do this entire magi thing and now I was putting it on their shoulders because I’m a fucking asshole. Or I can’t do much right or whatever you want to pick. Throw something at a dartboard of failure and whatever it hits will track in some way or another.

“I’ll try to get out.” I said.

“If you can’t, we’ll live, I think.” Ellie said. She pushed her tiny carton of fries towards me just a bit. More of a nudge. I looked down and took one after a moment of consideration took one and put it in my mouth. Ellie smiled a bit at me and patted my hand a bit.

When the bell rung I didn’t even consider going to class. Two more days until exams started. Nothing worth even doing. Revision and studying and useless fucking talking to other people about things I could do at home. I couldn’t do two more classes of that. That feeling of everything being too close was the tightest it had ever gotten and it felt like I was being cocooned by spiritual saran wrap. As soon as my foot crossed the threshold of the school’s front door I was running.

Ellie would have been proud of the speed. I transformed where anyone who was looking could see me. In the middle of the front field. Because my brain wasn’t focused on caring about that right now. I wanted to be able to run as far and fast as I wanted and not stop because I was literally running from this feeling. The feeling my dad and my school and even my friends gave me, where every day was the same and every day was going to be the same. Which meant I was going to be like this forever. Because every day was the same.

I was going to have this thick metal core around my feelings that lived deep inside me now where I could barely fucking reach them. I was going to wake up and wonder why I had to wake up. Not in a suicidal way. The thought had crossed my mind and either I wasn’t there yet or it wasn’t something I wanted. I was just wondering why this stupid fucking planet needed one more person on it to fill space and do tasks that anyone else could do. Because everything seemed to be telling me that I didn’t need to be here. My dad. My brain.

I thought I was chosen by Lady because of something special I brought to the table but this whole was still moving forward without me when I wasn’t there. Large and important steps that I should have been there for and not read out of stupid lined paper ripped out of a spiral notebook.

I wasn’t tired when I reached my unintended destination of the clearing kilometers away from the school. The place where the wraiths spawned. Part of me wanted to see if they were there because I wanted to do something that was so violent and unrelated to everything that was going wrong. Part of me had been working on this weird autopilot; go to last remembered important location. \

Because the run hadn’t done anything for me and I had all this air in my lungs I stopped and stared at the sky. Stared at the bark and the trees and the leaves and the heat that seemed to be literally thickening the air. The quiet wasn’t helping. Which was worrying me. The quiet had always helped before.

I screamed as loud as I could with the excess of air still in my lungs. I didn’t use my diaphragm or chest or whatever and it was all in my throat and it fucking hurt. When I was out of breath I did it again and clenched my fists as I did it. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Fuck this stupid fucking town.

Why did it feel like I couldn’t talk to anyone, even the wind?

The screaming had hurt and now I just felt tired. Not physically. I’d be impressed if I managed that with this form. Spiritually or mentally or emotionally tired or whatever. Fuck.

I sunk to my knees and let them hit the dirt and grass hard. Then fell back and let my butt do the same thing. Hugged my knees to my chest in the middle of the clearing and for a few minutes just rested my forehead on my knees.

“Oh.” I heard someone say. A male voice. I looked up. A guy who was about my height and wearing a button-up and pants and boots that all looked like they came from some workwear or hardware store. He had a hooked nose not too different from me, although a little bigger, and eyes that seemed to be squinting against the sun in the shade. He was topped off by a bit of shaggy black hair. I furrowed my brow and squinted a bit. Like my eyes would telescope out so I could see him better.

“Pedro?” I asked. I’d gotten a kind-of, sort-of description from Shannon and Ellie. Was still a bit unsure and felt a bit off-kilter after everything so it came out way more casually than I meant it to.

“Uh, yeah. Are you the third girl? Magi?” I started nodding before the last two words and he nodded back slowly.

“Pandora, right?” he asked. I nodded again. Realized I should probably talk.

“Yeah. That’s me.” He looked around a couple times and blinked. Scratched a fingernail against the pad of his thumb.

“You okay?” He asked.

I was a bit taken aback by that. It was like Ellie. Blunt. Uncaring, but only in the way that they didn’t care about all the protections people had built up to hide all this shit.

I thought about it for a moment and he seemed to not really care aside from looking a bit more concerned as I stared at the ground and then looked up at his neck area and then slowly looked back down to the ground. I shrugged. And at least here I couldn’t be yelled at for it.