“If I can’t have a lock on my room, I’m going to move out. I don’t trust the people living in this house,” I say.
She lets the catalog flop onto the kitchen counter. “Can’t you see I’m trying to have a nice conversation about clothes? Why do you always have to be so negative?”
“Can’t you see I’m trying to have a conversation about somebody stealing my money?” I feel like a vein is going to burst from my neck. It’s not easy for me to say what I’m thinking, but I’m trying anyway because it’s important. I need her to know how uncomfortable I am with Uncle Max being in my room. I need her to understand. Why can’t she see that? Why doesn’t she care?
“God, Kiko!” Mom marches to the living room and shoves her hand into her oversized purse. She comes back with her wallet. “Here.” She flings a twenty-dollar bill at me, which I ignore and let fall to the floor.
“I don’t want your money.” I dig my hands into my ribs.
“What is it you want from me, then?” Her voice is shrill and sharp.
WHAT I WANT TO SAY:
“For you to be the mother I need.”
WHAT I ACTUALLY SAY:
“Permission to put a lock on my bedroom door.”
Rubbing her temples with her peach fingernails, she shakes her head. “You can’t have a lock. If you want to keep your stuff safe, find a better hiding place. Or better yet, go talk to Max and you can clear up this entire misunderstanding.”
I don’t tell her I shouldn’t need a better hiding place in my own home. I don’t tell her talking to Uncle Max won’t bring back my stuff. I don’t tell her Uncle Max would never admit to stealing from me.
She’s not listening. She never listens.
I leave her and her twenty-dollar bill in the kitchen.
? ? ?
Taro comes into my room while I’m painting and flicks my ear.
Flinching, I pull my chin toward my chest.
He snickers. “Your boyfriend left this for you on the porch.” He tosses a shoe box on my desk. It’s wrapped with an obscene amount of Scotch tape. On the front are the words: FOR KIKO.
“I saw him pull up outside, so I know it’s from him,” Taro states. He adjusts his thick plastic glasses. “Are you going to open it?”
“Not in front of you,” I say with a laugh.
Taro looks offended. “Why not?”
“Because it’s none of your business.” I blink at him. “Do you want something?”
He laughs. “I want to know what’s in the box. What if it’s a bomb?”
“You’re an idiot,” I say.
He starts walking toward the door but stops. “Someone took some money out of my room too.”
“Seriously?” I feel my chest start to tighten. “Did you tell Mom?”
“I don’t tell Mom anything. I’m a lot smarter than you.” He laughs again, but this time it sounds sad. “I’m only telling you so you don’t think I did it.”
“I didn’t think you did.”
I don’t know what else to say to him. Taro never sounds sad. I’m not sure I realized he could be sad. He’s been smirking and avoiding feelings for as long as I’ve known him. And I don’t know why he suddenly cares what I think about him. He’s never cared before.
Has he?
I honestly don’t know. I understand my brothers even less than I understand Mom. It never occurred to me Taro might understand a little bit about me.
He scratches his nose with his knuckle, laughs uncomfortably, and leaves me alone with the shoe box.
A rush of excitement builds, and I’m no longer thinking about what it means to have brothers who never talk to you but somehow still know you—I want to know what’s inside the box. I saw at the tape with a pair of scissors until the lid comes free. It’s full of photographs.
They’re all from the fair. Some of them are black-and-white and some are colored. They’re candid and beautiful. When I look through them, I can smell funnel cake and fresh doughnuts. I can hear the blend of laughter and screams. I can hear the popping of balloons and air rifles, and I can hear the clink of glass bottles and plastic rings. I can almost feel Jamie next to me, looking at things the way I do—with too much focus on what’s least important, which to us is the most important of all.
The very last photo is the one of me. It’s colorful and rich. I’m barely smiling, but my eyes are content. My ears still poke through my hair, and my nose still seems too wide for my face, but I don’t see the ugly version of myself I normally do. I see what Jamie wanted to capture. I see what he wanted me to see.
And it’s not terrible.
? ? ?
I paint a girl confronting the monster under her bed, who really isn’t so scary after all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
At work, I text Jamie: Black or white?
Lasagna or spaghetti?
Day or night?
And he texts back:
Black.
Lasagna.
Day.
I tell him I’d pick the exact opposites, and it doesn’t make me feel like I’m disagreeing or hurting his feelings. It just feels like we are being ourselves.
? ? ?
I draw a bird and a fish falling in love.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Something stirs me while I’m sleeping. I don’t know if it’s the loud breathing or the footsteps, but when I open my eyes I’m as alert as I’d be in the middle of the day. There’s light spilling in from the hallway, washing over me like a harsh spotlight.
I can hear him. I can hear Uncle Max.
Fear replaces my blood. It’s everywhere, all through my body, and it’s taking away my ability to move. I can’t roll over. I’m not sure I want to. Because if I see him, everything will be real.
I wish I could turn to dust and disintegrate into the dark air like I don’t exist at all. It would be easier that way.
If he touches me, I’ll scream. If he comes any closer, I’ll force myself out of the bed. But right now I don’t move an inch.
He’s breathing with his mouth open—they sound like the snores of a drunken man, even though he’s obviously awake.
Awake but definitely not sober.
I think he’s reaching toward me—I can feel the air shift because it feels like someone is pulling off an entire layer of my skin—so I stiffen all my joints and squeeze my face into the pillow.
What do I do? What do I do?
The footsteps pad away, and the door closes silently. Beneath the door, I watch as the light vanishes and the house goes still.
Alone, I sit up, choking on my own fear. I don’t think—I grab my bag, my phone, and my keys and slip through the house, and before I know it, I’m driving down the road with panic in my throat and no idea where I’m going.
? ? ?
I end up at Jamie’s cousin’s front door because I don’t know where else to go.
Instead of knocking, I call him. Because if I knock, he might think it’s an emergency and get scared. I mean, it’s my emergency, but it’s probably not a real one. Not in comparison to a fire or a burglary. I don’t know what to call what happened tonight. I just know I’m about ten seconds from vomiting all over Jamie’s porch if I don’t sit down and rub the frantic pain drilling through my head.
“Hello?” he croaks sleepily.