This Raging Light by Estelle Laure Read Free Book Online

outside?”
    â€œYes.” I try for a pointy look. “Thanks for the warning, by the way.”
    â€œWhy do you need warning?” She’s putting her book in her bag, not looking at me. “It’s just Dig.”
    â€œWren?” I ask. “Was she okay?”
    â€œOh, yeah. We did some rocking out, a little homework, watched
Cake Boss
. He made some kind of lizard.” Eden yawns. “I don’t know how he does that. It shot flames out of its mouth and grew new tails when you ate them. He’s like a god.” She gives me a quick hug, squeezes my shoulders. “Mrs. Albertson came by, though. She wanted to talk to your mom.”
    I thump. “What did you tell her?”
    â€œThat she’s on vacation.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œWhat?” she says from so far away. “What’s the matter?”
    So many lies.

The Night That Was the End of Everything
    The night Dad went away, I left the window open because it was getting to the time of year where it never really cools down but Dad hadn’t gotten the air conditioners out of the basement yet. One of those choices I wonder about now. What if my window had been shut? What if the air conditioning unit had been on, whirring away? Would Mom even still be alive?
    Â 
    I thought Dad was a pig.
    Dad was a mewling, snorting pig making noises outside my window, only I didn’t know it was Dad at first. I sat up looking for the source of that awful, sickening noise, tried to figure out how a pig escaped from a farm somewhere and wound up in the middle of town. Then the pig said my mother’s name, not once but over and over again, a squealing mantra.
    â€œLauralauralauralauralaura—” High-pitched. Animal. Not a man. Except it was Dad. My belly told me. The spit that filled up my mouth told me. My pittering-pattering chest told me.
    â€œShut up, baby,” Mom hissed from down on the street. “Get in the house.”
    I shook in my sleep shirt, took short, quick steps to the window, and hunched down, but they were too close to the house for me to see anything. I stared at the quiet street, our neighbor Andrew’s perfect bushes across the way, and listened fierce.
    â€œI can’t, I can’t,” he said. “I can’t go back in there.”
    â€œJust—Tony, just walk five steps and get inside.”
    â€œIt’s all a lie. I’m a failure. I failed at this, all of it.”
    â€œYou didn’t. Who cares about a stupid raise? It’s nothing.”
    â€œYou made me care about this shit. This is your fault.” His voice got louder, higher. “You did this.”
    â€œWhat did I do? What did I ever do to you?” She sounded so defeated.
    â€œYou wanted babies. I gave you babies. You wanted me off the road. I stopped playing. You wanted me to get a real job. I did it. You did this to me.” He edged out, so I caught sight of his burly shoulders, his old Bones Brigade T-shirt, worn and falling over his chest, his belly, his hands in his hair. “Look at me. Look at me. I’m not a man. I failed. I have nothing to show for any of it. I should be surfing, playing music, not doing this soul-sucking crap. I can’t do this anymore.”
    â€œDo what?” Mom’s voice was so hollow and thick, I almost cried out to her then, but he went on.
    â€œAny of this. I suck at being a suit. I’m a loser. You can see that, right? It’s killing me, this whole sham of a life.
You
are killing me, all three of you. No career, no house of my own, I’m a nothing, a nothing. And you’re a vampire.” A low voice now, one I had never heard before. “You’re a succubus. You and those fucking kids have taken everything from me.” He pointed. “You did it on purpose.”
    â€œYou can’t leave,” Mom said.
    â€œWhy not? You don’t love me. I don’t love you. What’s the point?”
    â€œI love you