“No hanky panky up there,” Sully says.
“Yeah,” Church adds. “If I see a hand cross those seats, it will get smacked.”
“Smacked?” Sully says. “If I see a hand cross those seats, I’ll chop it off and burn it.”
“Shut up.” I pray my hair covers the heat in my cheeks. I am not going to get into an argument with my brothers over their stupid inappropriate mouths while Wallace is in my car. I turn the radio to some of the garbage alt-rock they like so much, and pretty soon they forget about us.
Wallace and I walk the perimeter of the sports complex during the two hours of Sully and Church’s practice. It’s empty enough that Wallace doesn’t have an issue talking, though he does speak softer. We don’t hold hands, but his knuckles tap the back of mine like he’s trying to send me a message in Morse code.
“My sister comes to this place,” he says. “For tennis.”
“Younger or older sister?”
“Oh, definitely younger. The only exercise Bren gets is playing with the dogs in her obedience classes. Lucy loves tennis, though. And basketball. And most sports.”
“Your family seems nice.”
“I like them. They want to meet you.”
“Is that a thing we’re doing now? Meeting each other’s families?”
He shrugs. “Only if you want.”
“I don’t know. I guess that would be fair. You’ve been subjected to mine.”
“You don’t like them?”
Now I shrug. “It’s weird. Like, I know they love me, and I know I have nothing to complain about, but they’re always trying to get me to do things I don’t want to do. Every time we come here, my mom and dad try to convince me to sign up for a new club sport or intramural team. If I have my phone out talking to you or my online friends, they think I’m ignoring them, or being disrespectful, or whatever. And it’s like, no, I’m in the middle of a conversation. If you saw two people talking to each other face-to-face, you wouldn’t interrupt them and call it disrespectful, would you?”
“No, of course not.”
“No. I understand that it’s a teenage thing to say parents don’t get it, but they don’t get it. It’s not their fault they were born two and a half decades before me, but would it kill them to ask me what I’m doing on the phone before they assume it’s something pointless?”
“Maybe they’re worried you’ll snap at them if they ask what you’re doing,” Wallace says.
I open my mouth to argue but remember that I have actually done that to my parents before.
“Do yours ever do that to you?” I ask.
“Sometimes. Not as often as they used to. We’ve . . . moved past that, and into other issues.”
Before I can ask what issues, he says, “Why did your brother call you Eggs Benedict?”
“Because I eat hard-boiled eggs for breakfast. Dad calls me Eggs, and Sully and Church just kind of tack on whatever egg type they can think of that day.”
“Cute.”
“I think my brothers hate me.”
It must sound too real, because Wallace actually looks concerned. “Why?”
My gaze fixes on my feet, Mom’s worn Nikes scuffing the ground. “I don’t know. Because I don’t try to hang out with them more, or get invested in what they like doing. According to Dad, they’re really good at soccer, but I wouldn’t know because I never pay attention when we go to their games.”
“So hang out with them more.”
“But I don’t like doing what they do, because all they do is play soccer. Or video games. I don’t like sports. They make fun of me for being bad at them anyway, so what’s the point?”
“Of course they’re going to make fun of you. They’re middle-school boys raised in a highly competitive, testosterone-fueled environment. That’s how they psych each other up.”
“And you know this how?”
“I watch the sportball on the television. Also I played peewee football when I was younger.”
“You did play football!”
He laughs. “Yeah, when I was like a quarter the size I am now. They had me as a running back.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means I ran real fast.”
“You? Move fast?”
“I know. One of life’s great mysteries.” His knuckles rap the back of my hand. My resistance meets its end, and I grab his fingers, holding them in mine. He smiles and says, “I don’t think your brothers hate you. I think you don’t like the same things. It’s not a bad thing, it just is what it is. They do sports. You do art.”
I do Monstrous Sea. That is what I do, and all I need from Sully and Church is their silence about it to their friends at school. We don’t have to get along. They just have to keep their mouths shut. They’ve stayed quiet this long; they must have some idea how important it is. So maybe Wallace is right. Maybe they don’t hate me.
“So where’s your house at?” I ask, swinging our hands between us. “I want to properly Google Maps creeper-stalk you before agreeing to meet your family.”
He laughs again.
The walk home that Amity normally found meditative now teemed with her own unquenchable thoughts. Her guilt. If she was the only one who could stop Faust, didn’t that mean she had to? Even if it meant danger to her? It was easy to think of him in the abstract when he was only terrorizing faraway places, but what if he came to Nocturne Island?
What if, instead of strangers, he attacked Faren?
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[Unique Works - 144]
UPDATES
View earlier updates Nov 24 2016
SWEET POTATO PIE DAY.
Nov 28 2016
I have begun reading the work of human genius that is the Children of Hypnos. Why did no one ever tell me how great this series is? I’m holding you all responsible.
Dec 02 2016
So glad everyone’s loving the transcription! More chapters on the way. Will try to get some of Auburn Blue up in the meantime, but can’t promise anything. Also STOP ASKING ABOUT CUTE GIRL FROM SCHOOL. Gosh.
Dec 13 2016
Going silent for a while. Midterms to study for. Will be around the boards, though. #Mathslaughter
* * *
Dec 19 2016
As a reward for surviving midterms, the fourth CoH book. No, I don’t care if the author is a nutjob. This had better end well.
Dec 19 2016
Yes, I was introduced to CoH by Cute Girl from School. NO THANKS TO ANY OF YOU.
Dec 21 2016
I am an absolute wreck of a human being, and right now I am completely okay with it.
CHAPTER 21