And then I just let him leave and didn’t say anything, even when he instructed me on how he likes his damn bacon cooked. I mean, if someone is doing something nice for you—you know, like cooking breakfast—you don’t balk at how it’s cooked. You eat it.
God, I wish I had some vegan bacon to really make his day. Amusement pulls at my lips, but I force it back.
I keep hitting and kicking the bag, a light sweat grazing my brow as I think of all the things I could’ve responded with. Why does it bug me so much I didn’t get the last word?
Why do I let everything go and never say anything?
I throw my fist into the bag and someone is suddenly there, holding it from the other side.
“Hi,” Noah says, peering around the bag at me.
He looks amused, and I halt, standing up straight. Was he watching me? Was I talking to myself?
His eyes crinkle a little more, and I see a self-satisfied grin peek out. “Don’t stop,” he tells me.
The dark blue T-shirt sets off the color of his eyes, and the same baseball cap holds his hair back where it sits backward on his head. He and his father look a lot alike.
I drop my eyes and back off, breathing hard. The muscles in my stomach burn.
But he keeps egging me on. “Come on.” He pats the bag where my last punch landed. “He can piss off a saint. Why do you think I hung this punching bag up in the first place?”
I press my lips together, still not moving.
He sighs and stands up straight. “Okay. Are you making breakfast, then?”
I dig in my eyebrows, unable to stop myself, and twist my body, swinging my leg with full force into the punching bag. He shoves himself away from the bag just before my foot lands and stands back wide-eyed with his palms up. I watch the bag swing back and forth.
I wasn’t trying to hit him. It would’ve just been a happy coincidence.
But my legs still feel charged, and I almost wish my uncle would walk in right now, so I could ask him to hold the bag instead.
I’m angry.
I’m actually angry.
And it feels good.
I’m still here.
Noah breaks into a chuckle and comes forward, hooking an arm around my neck. “You’ve got spunk.”
I’m too spent to pull away and let him lead me around, walking us both into the house.
“Come on. Help me make breakfast,” he says.
I place the third plate on the table and drop a fork and butter knife next to it, moving to the cabinet to put that fourth plate away.
“No, no,” Noah says, kicking the fridge closed and dumping the butter and jam on the table. “Put the fourth plate down. Kaleb can show up anytime.”
I glance at the table and then turn back to the cabinet, slipping the extra plate back inside. “Kaleb has a plate on the table.”
“You’re not eating?”
“Yes, she is,” Jake suddenly says, walking into the kitchen.
He heads for the fridge and pulls out a pitcher of juice and places it in the center of the table, pouring himself a cup of coffee before he sits.
“I’m not hungry,” I tell him.
Moving to the sink, I rinse off the knife and spatula Noah just finished with.
“You didn’t have dinner,” Jake points outs. “Sit.”
“I’m not hungry.”
And before he says anything else, I stroll out of the kitchen and up the stairs. I feel his eyes on my back, and the farther I go away from them, the more I brace myself for a confrontation.
But he doesn’t chase after me.
He lets me go, and in a moment, I’m in my room, closing the door behind me.
The truth is I’m starving.
Pangs hit my stomach, and the scrambled eggs I made—while Noah was busy burning the bacon—looked amazing.
Luckily Noah didn’t press for much conversation while we were cooking, but if I eat with them, I’ll have to talk to them. I’ll wait until they’re back outside and then scrounge up something.
The green light on my phone flashes from where it lays on the bed, and I walk over and pick it up.
Unlocking the phone, I see my home screen with my email and social media apps, all dog-eared with dozens of notifications. Twitter alone has ninety-nine plus alerts.
A knot tightens in my stomach.
I rarely even use Facebook, Twitter seemed an efficient way to follow the news, and I got Instagram due to peer pressure to keep up with bunk-mates from summer camps whom I no longer remember.
My thumb hovers over Twitter, and I know I shouldn’t look. I’m not ready to face things.
But I tap the app on my screen anyway, the notification feed updating.
Condolences for your loss… says one person.
I scroll through the notifications, some of them direct tweets of sympathies and some of them where I’m tagged in the conversation.
Brave girl. Stay strong, writes RowdyRed.
And another directly to me. How does a mother decide to abandon her child for her husband? I’m so sorry. You deserved better.
Shut up! comes someone else’s response to that tweet. You have no idea what they were going through…
I scan tweet after tweet, and it doesn’t take long for me to lose what little interest I had in checking my DMs.
People yelling at me, because they can’t yell at my parents. People yelling at each other in conversation.
Suicide is self-murder. Murder is the gravest of sins.
Your body belongs to God. Taking your life away from him is stealing!
At least your mother made her contribution to the world, writes one asshole, captioning a nearly nude picture of my mother from one of her earlier films.
I close my eyes and don’t open them again until I’ve scrolled past.
And it just gets uglier as they carry on their conversation, either oblivious or too callous to care that I’m being tagged in everything they say.
She hasn’t even made a statement. I think she has like Asperger’s or something.
Yeah, have you seen pictures of her? It’s like emotion doesn’t register.
And then ‘Deep State’ Tom chimes in with his gem of wisdom: Asperger’s is the modern-day pussy’s excuse for what we called back in my day being a cold bitch.
I’m not cold.
And, of course, others are worried about my father’s unfinished projects: Who’s finishing the Sun Hunter trilogy with de Haas gone now?
I feel like I should say something. One tweet or whatever, even though I don’t think it’s important for these people to hear me, but I feel compelled to remind them that a human is here, and I…
I shake my head, closing my eyes again.
I don’t want them to think I didn’t love my parents.
Even though I’m not sure I did.
I swallow and start typing out a tweet.
Thank you for all the support, everyone, as I…
As I what? Mourn their loss? I stop, my fingers hovering over the letters before I backspace and delete what I wrote.
I try again. Thank you for the thoughts and prayers during this difficult…