From All the Roads Between For a few years, I was the tallest kid in school, but by the summer going into ninth grade, everyone was catching up and passing me by, including Jax. His voice was changing, and he was getting hair on his face. He still acted like a five-year-old every now and then, but despite the fact that he was living with a junkie, had lost his brother a couple of years before, and had no father, Jax somehow managed to keep getting sweeter and sweeter.
I knew he was dealing with a lot, but he held it together and focused on his schoolwork. When Leila wasn’t working, she was comatose on the couch. When she’d clean up her act a little and go to work, there’d be an endless stream of sleazy men hanging around the house for days.
Jax and I spent more and more time in the shed. We both found things we could steal to make the place more habitable, like it was our own house.
“What have you been writing in that journal?” I asked. Jax was lying on the cot in the corner and scribbling notes in a black leather-bound notebook.
“I’m just outlining my novel.”
I was sitting in one of the wooden chairs with my arms wrapped around my legs, staring out the window at the swaying trees.
“The one about the ant family?”
“No, I ditched that. I’m writing about a boy and girl who become superheroes and save the world.”
“The Adventures of Jax and Em?”
“Something like that.”
“You want to go swim in the creek?” The water in the creek had settled down for the season, and one of Leila’s short-lived boyfriends had built a deck and rope swing for us. We had carved our names, along with Brian’s, in the wood. It was our memorial to him. Jackson would go down there alone a lot; I knew he was talking to his brother.
“I’m kind of busy,” he said. I got up and yanked the journal out of his hands. “No, Em. I’m serious, give it back.”
“I want to read it,” I whined.
“Please don’t.” His voice cracked, and his face was red. He wasn’t playing around.
“Why won’t you let me? You let me read the ant story.”
“Because this is different. It’s not done yet. You can read it when it’s done.”
I handed the journal back. “I’m bored. I just want to find something to do.”
“Fine, let’s go swimming.”
I went home and got my swimsuit. It was a purple, tattered one-piece that I had bought at the Goodwill for two dollars, but it did the job. By then we were on welfare and food stamps, so it felt like I was living the life. We had cereal and cheese and milk and juice all the time. My father would give me twenty dollars every month to buy the things he had too much fucking pride to buy, like tampons and dish soap.
No wonder my sad excuse for a mom had left, but why couldn’t she have taken me with her? Besides the fact that my dad was a bigot and a belligerent alcoholic, I was especially saddened when I realized I was being raised by a misogynist. Jax had taught me that word. He basically called every man Leila brought home a misogynistic creep.
“Where are you going in that?” My father spoke from the hallway as I stood facing the bathroom mirror. I didn’t make eye contact with him as I wrapped my hair in a ponytail.
“I’m going swimming with Jax.”
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
I turned and faced him. His beard and hair had grown thick, and there was always a yellowish tint clouding his eyes. Was it terrible that I wished his liver would finally call it quits once and for all?
“Put a shirt over that.”
“It’s a one-piece, Dad. It doesn’t show that much.”
Smack! He slammed his hand on the wall. “Are you talking back to me?”
“No, sir,” I said, stiffening.
“I said put a shirt on. I don’t want you slutting yourself around with that boy. Why don’t you have any girlfriends? Why are you always with Jackson?”
“I don’t know.” My father knew exactly why, but he liked to make me feel bad about my life anyway. I would never bring anyone to my house, even if I did have other friends. I would never subject some poor kid to the kind of crap that went on here at the end of the dirt road. But besides that, I liked Jax more than anyone else. Our friendship was easy and we cared about each other. Even though we didn’t have the words back then, he was the only person I trusted.
“Out of the bathroom. I need to shave,” he said, finally dismissing me. But I lingered in the hall, confused. “Why are you shaving your beard off?”
“Your dad got a job, kid.”