---

My uncle’s truck rumbles to a stop in front of my stepfather’s house. It’s the corner lot on the street, a two-story colonial with blue shutters and a porch swing right out front.

It only took my dad dying for my mother to have the house of her dreams.

“I don’t see the point,” I tell my uncle as I stare at the front door and then the driveway. “Both their cars are here.” I turn to look at Uncle Rob as I speak. “If they don’t want me, what’s the point of me even going in there?” I ask him.

“You need to face the music, kid,” he says like that’s why I don’t want to go in there. My eyes narrow and I feel my forehead pinch.

“You don’t get it. It’s not just today or yesterday. It’s every day. Every single day I have to live in a house where I’m hated.”

“Knock it off, Dean,” my uncle says like what I’m saying has no weight to it.

It’s quiet for a long time, but my heart’s pounding and I can hear the blood rushing in my ears. I want to get it all out of me. Uncle Rob’s the only one who listens. He’s the only one who gives a shit.

“Ever since Dad died,” it hurts to say the words out loud, “she doesn’t want me anymore.”

“That’s not true-” he starts to say but I raise my voice and cut him off.

“It is true!” My eyes sting and I hate it. I hate everything. But I hate her the most.

“You’re just angry,” Uncle Rob says although he twists his hands on the leather steering wheel and looks out of the window like he’s judging my words. “Why can’t you just be like Jack’s kid?” he asks me. Jack is his one friend who has a kid my age. “Go out and have fun. Sneak a beer, kiss a girl. Why do you have to run your mouth and make a scene?”

“It’s easy for you to say,” I mumble under my breath. It’s quiet for a long time. I was going to go out with Jack’s kid to a party tonight. I was actually looking forward to meeting Mike and a few of the guys he knows. It’s been lonely since Dad died. I’m desperate enough to admit that and I finally said yeah, I’d go out. No fucking way that’s happening now.

“She didn’t even cry at his funeral.” My words come out hollow, just like how my chest feels. “She was already with him.” I look him in the eyes. “He slept over when Dad was in the hospital.”

Uncle Rob is my mother’s brother. I know he’d never say a bad word about her, but he can’t deny the truth. The minute my dad got sick, my mother started counting up how much she’d get from the insurance policy. Richard came next. Just like that, she moved on and didn’t look back. Leaving me behind and alone and that’s something I can’t forgive.

Uncle Rob looks uncomfortable as he runs his hand through his hair and sighs.

“Why can’t I just come live with you?” I ask him. I would give anything to get away from them. I would do anything. “You at least cared that Dad died.”

“It’s not that she didn’t care.” He doesn’t say anything after that. I wait for more. For some sort of explanation that would make any of this alright, but nothing comes.

“She was happy he was going to die. All they did was fight.” I admit the truth and although it hurts, there’s relief in saying it out loud. Even more so because Uncle Rob doesn’t deny it.

“Look, Dean, different people cope with things differently. It’s hard when someone’s dying and you have to handle everything.”

“It was so hard that she went on smiling,” I tell him. I don’t want pretty little lies. I’m tired of living this fake ass life my mother created. “Why can’t I just live with you?” I ask him again. He’s all I have. If not him, then I have no one.

“You just can’t,” he tells me and my blood chills. An uneasiness rocks through me. Hopelessness.

“Alright then,” I tell him and open the door to the truck, sick of arguing over pointless shit.

“It’s life, kid,” Uncle Rob calls after me.

“Life can go fuck itself,” I tell him as I get out of the truck, making it rock forward and then slam the shiny red door shut.

A sickness churns in my stomach with each step I take closer to the house.

Day in and day out. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be reminded every day of how easily someone else replaced Pops. That asshole my mother cheated on my dad with expects me to listen to him? No fucking way.

I push the door open and then slam it shut from pure adrenaline, but I regret it the second the slam reverberates through the house.

Do I regret what I said in school? Yeah, I do. I say stupid shit, I pick fights. Maybe I am angry. Maybe I’m filled with hate.

But when I get in here, it changes.

I’m just fucking sad. I’m sad that this is my life.

The kitchen is in the center of the house, and my mother’s right there on a barstool, a glass of wine in her hand and the half-empty bottle on the granite countertop.

“Mom,” I greet her and slip my bookbag off my shoulder, leaving it by the door. I grit my teeth when she looks up at me with daggers. She’s quick to change her expression. Like she wants to hide what she really feels about me. She doesn’t have to though. I know I ruined her chance at a perfect life with Richard. The accidental son who forced her to marry my father. If only I’d died with him. Then we’d all be happier.

“I can’t believe you,” my mother says with tears in her eyes. Or maybe they’re just glassy because she’s drunk. Her lips look even thinner with her mouth like that, set in a straight line.

I don’t say anything; I can hear Rick getting up from the recliner in the living room.

“There you are,” he says as if I’m at fault for not being here on time.

“They wouldn’t let me leave till someone picked me up,” I tell him, looking him square in the eyes as he storms over to me. My blood spikes with adrenaline, with the need to run or at least hold up my arms in defense.

“Is that what you got to say?” he yells at me. Rick’s a former marine and he acts like it. Only angrier and usually drunk. That’s one thing he and my mom have in common. His face turns red as he screams at the top of his lungs.

The backhand comes quick, but I’m expecting it. The pain rips through my jaw, sending me backward as I hit the front door.

“You want to act like a little punk, I’ll treat you like one,” he spits at me. I can vaguely hear my mother yelling in between Richard’s threats and the ringing in my ears.

I expected the first, but as I stand up, I don’t expect the next blow.

Or the one after that.

I really should have. Richard doesn’t stop until I’m crying. It’s not like I’m big enough to fight him, so I don’t know why I try to hold back the tears. I should’ve just come in here looking how I feel. Defeated and hopeless. Maybe then it wouldn’t last so long.

---

Metal is all I can taste when I wake up. My lip’s bruised and swollen. My body’s stiff from sleeping in a weird position since it hurt my face to sleep on my side.

The side of my face still stings and I’m sure it looks like shit too.

I’m not going to school. Not looking like this. It would make Richard all too happy to know I had to go out with the proof that he knocks me around so easily seen.

Even better for him because those asshole teachers think I deserve it. Everyone does. I’m just the piece of shit kid from her first marriage who’s acting out and needs his ass beat.

That’s what the last principal told my mom. That I needed my ass beat.

Maybe I do.

I swallow thickly and sit up in bed to crack my neck.

There’s just a dresser and my bed in this room. I don’t have much since we moved. Most of my stuff I left behind. My eyes glance toward the closet, where I know I have two duffle bags.

No one wants me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t leave. I can go somewhere. I have a little bit of cash from working with Uncle Rob this summer. I can buy a cheap car and live in it.

I might be kicked out of school; I don’t know, and I don’t care. I can still get a job at Nick’s up the street, doing landscaping. He’d hire me. He knew my dad and I’ve met him a few times.

I force myself off the bed, quietly. The only question on my mind is whether or not I should even bother telling my mother goodbye. A sharp pain shoots up from my jaw to the back of my skull, radiating there when I bend down to the bottom drawer to pack up my jeans.

I don’t think she’d give a fuck either way. But maybe it’d be easier for her if I don’t tell her. Then she won’t have to pretend like she feels a certain way. She can just be happy with Rick and her new life.

I’m not a piece of shit like he calls me. I’m not a waste of life.

I close my eyes and refuse to cry. I’ll never cry because of what they think of me.

They can both go fuck themselves.