“I'll c-call him,” I say, leading her to a chair.
“The police just came. Dad was hit by a car. He’s dead.” That’s how I tell Scoot. It comes out so clear and crisp. I’m not sure if it’s numbness or peace I feel, but this trance I’m in lets the words come out smooth. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a twinge of satisfaction in being the one to deliver the news to Scoot. It’s the first taste of the thrill I have in delivering misery to people like him. Scoot chuckles at first. But I don’t protest, I just hold the receiver in silence as he keeps asking me if this is a joke. Until he stops asking. Until his distraught cries burn my ear. I listen to his wailing. Feeling like a stranger in this family, full of people who cared for a man who wished I was never born. Who dragged me out of bed for years to torture me and make me run until I puked, or carry unfinished logs so that my back was ripe with dozens of cuts and splinters. The man who screamed at me for not being like Scooter. Who looked at me with such disappointment. Who I knew gladly let me live at this farm because he was ashamed. In a family full of generations of success, I was a failure.
I can't muster up a single tear.
Scoot takes it upon himself to call the extended family. People who I haven't seen since I was little, my mother and I tucked away and forgotten, her sickness something to be hidden behind closed doors. Her own brother, a prominent Senator, hasn’t visited her since before we moved out here. Scoot would be on the next bus up, getting to us early tomorrow morning.
After so many tears, my mother goes to bed with a handful of pills. Our family is strange, but they found a way to stick together despite the obstacles, and maybe when they shouldn't have.
I tend to the animals and sit on the porch as the sun sets. I wouldn't have to worry about his bullying, or the sick feeling in my stomach when he'd walk into a room. Even when he wasn't mad, I could feel him judging me.
And that's when I realized the gift he had left me with. He introduced me to the night. When the world is quiet and calm and I don't have to worry about people hearing me speak. When mom is tucked in bed on her sleeping pills, so I don't have to worry about making her sick with worry. I used to dread the night when he was here, but now I don't have to share it with him. It's all mine.
I wander towards the woods that lead to the pond, when I stop halfway. I've been in those woods countless times. I've swam in those waters, run through that brush, climbed those trees. I want to see something new. Something forbidden. I grab my bike and ride it down our long driveway that winds for over a quarter mile towards the mailbox that marks the end of our property. I bike hard, my lungs pumping air, my legs burning, just like the afternoon that car slammed into me. I ride as fast as I can, like a prisoner escaping a jail, but as I near the end of the driveway, my stomach contorts painfully. I ignore the feeling of nausea, pumping the pedals, the mailbox getting closer. I pass it. The road is just ten feet or so, but when I reach it, I slam on the brakes, the rubber burning against the chrome. I turn the bike skidding it on its side so I don't go flying over the handle, stopping right where the driveway meets the road.
I stand there, gasping for air, trapped by an invisible barrier. I don't even know if I believe the reasons my mother has kept me here all these years, and yet, I'm frozen. Back there is where I'm safe. Where I don't worry about the way I sound or look. But every year, my thirst for what's out there grows stronger, and I imagine all the things I would be experiencing if I wasn’t stuck here.
Once my breathing calms, it's silent. Of course there are crickets chirping, but that's just white noise to a kid who's been living here most of his life. Besides the new moon, there's no light. The road is black and uncharted. The night can cloak my scars. It can cloak me, so I can see what it's like out here, how people act before they see me and change.
I let my bike fall to the ground. I need to be able to duck off the road if any cars come by. I choose to run right, just a slow jog. Dad used to make me run miles in the woods, through the trees and branches. They'd smack me in the face, cut me, and I'd fall. He'd make me get up and keep going. Mom would notice the marks sometimes, but she believed they were from my days alone in the woods.
I run for a half an hour until I come upon a small house with one light on. I suppose these are some of my closest neighbors, though I've never met them before. My heart pumps faster, not because of the jog, but because of the thrill of becoming a part of someone else's life.