Drowning in You by Rebecca Berto Read Free Book Online Page B

on the
stem. Girls either love them or hate them. Would Charz hate this, my body? As
soon as I’ve wondered that I vow never to think any more girly
things like that again.
    Dad’s voice interrupts my dash
to the laundry for clean clothes. He’s on the phone to someone from
what I can hear of the one-sided conversation behind the shut
door.
    Mom and Tahny aren’t home, so,
ear pressed to the door, I reach my bag around the corner and drop
it out of the way. Dad’s tones are clipped, making his voice
ridiculously hard to hear, which also makes me realize how
vulnerable my position is. I’d have no way to talk or run my way
out of this one.
    Pulling my hoodie from my gym
bag, I hurl the rest into my room. The air outside is frigid when I
step out the back door. At first, I rationalize that it isn’t so
bad because Chicago winters shit all over Melbourne when you
compare weather and freezing temps. Snow either flutters—Mom’s
word—or it pummels you and you’re either cold to the bone or your
balls are so high inside you, you wonder how much of a man you are
on those days. But we always have layers to protect us. Here? My
calves have goose bumps and the bargain price I paid for this
hoodie makes total sense, because it looks a helluva heap better
than it is at keeping the warm in. I find a beanie in one pocket,
mess out my hair and pull it over my head.
    The room Dad’s in has the
window open. Our junk room needs airing whether we’re home or not
because our house has piles of stuff we haven’t used since way
before Tahny got pregnant. Stuff that old leaves a smell.
    The grass is a bit mushy when I
test out the firmness, so I settle for squatting and crab-walk
until I’m under the windowsill.
    Yes. Out here it’s loud.
    Dad says, “I can’t do that.
That’s a fucking rip. What do you take me for?”
    The sound coming through the
receiver is muffled but I reckon if I shuffle in closer and squat
higher… and I catch one word. The voice says, “Payback”.
    Payback in any terms isn’t
good. No one says I’m giving Jim payback for gifting me a
grand.
    Children use payback for kids
who steal crayons, teenage girls use payback for girlfriends who
tell their secrets, and adults use payback only when it’s worth it
because by this stage, you’re no longer worried about petty
issues.
    Payback by my father is
worse.
    Childhood seems like another
world once you’ve grown up, and you wonder how you could ever have
been as stupid as kids these days seem to be, but this conversation
sparks a memory and suddenly it’s just yesterday for me.
    The images flicker through my
brain. Mom walking me to school every day; me playing Nintendo 64
by myself; having to learn what to do on my own at the age of eight
to impress a girl in my class. All because some people Dad knew had
him too busy for his own family and got him involved in stealing
donations from a fake organization for parents of cancer patients
who gave money to research cancer drug trials. Kept him out of my
life for four years and eight months.
    “ What about
what fucked up at MSR?” Dad says, his voice traveling from one side
of the room to the other.
    MSR. A medical
term? A new trial drug? But he said at MSR. Sounds like a
place.
    The penny drops. Mason’s Ski
Resort.
    Is Dad worried
about the plan falling through again if he did actually have
something to do with that disaster? Falling through is a cowardly fucking
euphemism for shifting blame. For keeping himself out of trouble
for what happened at Mason’s—the same thing that had the cops all
over my ass—his son —and killed Melissa May.
    A feeling
churns inside me. It’s a hook grabbing onto my insides and pulling
them into a swirl, knotting it—a type of pain that only my mind
understands. The way I deal with this is muttering fuckfuckfuck as a single
breath.
    My thigh muscles are so tight
they start to shake. I slip a little and my beanie rides up my
head, caught on the nicks in the brick