Eleven
Maddox
2008
As usual, Kris is the first thing I think of when I wake up. But this time the thinking is different. It’s not abstract. It’s not what if. It’s not I wish.
It’s a memory
It’s real.
She fell asleep about halfway through the second movie, our parents having gone to bed hours ago. They don’t even pop their heads in to check on us. They’re just happy we’re getting along for once. That things look like they might be going back to normal between us. The way they were before they got married.
Pushing the thought of it aside. I watch the movie without really watching. Flashes of shape and color set to ominous music while Kris sleeps beside me. I should wake her up. Put her in her own room. Her own bed. I should do that, but I don’t. I don’t want to.
I turn the television off and tighten my arm around her. Pull her close. Hold my breath when she slips her arm around my waist and buries her face in my chest because I don’t want her to wake up. I just want to hold her. Listen to her breath. Feel her against me.
Then she did wake up and as usual, my dumb dick fucked everything up.
Afterward, I cleaned myself up as best as I could before taking a quick trip to the bathroom. When I got back, she was gone.
Kris is sitting at the kitchen table when I come downstairs, a half-eaten plate of eggs and toast in front of her. Her mom is a breakfast is the most important meal of the day mom. Mine shoved a Poptart in my hand as she hustled me out the door so I could run for the bus. If I was late, Kris would stall the bus driver—dump her backpack on the sidewalk or stand on the bus steps, asking stupid questions until I made it. After we were settled into our usual seat near the back of the bus, I’d open my foil-wrapped breakfast give her half.
Pulling a mug from the cupboard, I pour myself a cup of coffee while her mom watches with a disapproving eye. She doesn’t believe in caffeine—which makes her the fucking anti-Christ as far as I’m concerned. I muttered as much once into my cup, not long after they moved in. Kris heard me. Looked at me and laughed even though at that point, I’d been pretty much ignoring her for weeks. Even after it was clear that I didn’t want anything to do with her, she kept trying. Said good morning. Asked me about football or student council. Whatever girl I happened to be seeing at the time. No matter how big of a dick I was to her, she always tried. Now, sliding into the seat across from her, she won’t look at me. It’s like I’m not even here. Like I don’t even exist.
I don’t know what I expected. What I thought was going to happen but this isn’t it. I didn’t expect her to go catatonic on me.
“Kris, honey—” Behind her, her mom bustles around the kitchen, cleaning up the breakfast mess before she goes to get ready for work. “you’re going to miss the bus,” she says, even though the bus won’t show up for another twenty minutes.
When she doesn’t answer her, her mom starts to issue her standard second bus warning. “Kris—”
“Okay, Mom,” she says, standing so she can shoulder her backpack.
“I’ll take you.” I’m out of my seat and making the offer before I can stop myself. Not really an offer—more of a declarative statement, while behind her, her mom stops and stares at us both. I’ve been driving myself to school since we turned sixteen but I’ve never offered to give Kris a ride and no one has forced me to.
She can’t say no. Like last night, her mom will see my offer as progress and Kris refusing it will upset her. I know that. I know that I’m practically kidnapping her. That I might as well snatch her off the street and force her into my truck but I can’t help it. I can’t let her go.
She stands there, facing me without actually looking at me for what felt like forever before she finally answers me.
“I’ll be in the truck.” she says it to my shoulder before she turns and heads for the door.
Stalking my way across the yard, I half expected my truck to be empty. I thought I was going to have to go find her and kidnap her for real but she’s there, sitting in the cab of it, like she said she’d be.
Tossing my backpack into the bed, I yank the driver’s side door open and slide into my seat before I slam it behind me. And then I just sit there, turned toward her in my seat and stare at her, because I’m obviously some sort of weirdo.
She’s pressed against the passenger side door, knees turned away from me, hands clasped tightly in her lap, face aimed at the window that is inches from her face. The longer I sit here, the tighter my chest gets. “Kris—”
“I don’t want to talk about last night.”
“That’s too bad.” Something about her tone tips me over the edge. Pushes me from confused and frustrated to almost angry. “Because we’re going to talk about it.”
“Look—” She says it to the window. I can’t see her face but I know what she’s doing. She’s gnawing on her lower lip like she always does when she’s feeling out of sorts. “You got what you wanted. It’s over—so can we please just not do this?”
“What’s over?”
“We should leave. We’re going to be late.”
“I don’t give a flying dick if we’re late,” I tell her. “I’m not moving until you—”
She reaches for the handle and pops her door open and I have to lunge across the seat and grab her hand to keep her from jumping out. “Okay.” I give her a gentle tug, urging her back into her seat. “We’ll go, just don’t get out, okay?”
She doesn’t say anything but she sits back and shuts her door. I don’t let go of her until we’re backing out of the driveway.
“What do you mean, it’s over.” I throw her a quick glance to judge her reaction to what I just said. Not a blip. “Kris—”
“What part of over are you not getting?” she says to the window again. Won’t even look at me. “You got what you wanted, Mad— so can please just forget it ever happened?”
You got what you wanted.
She keeps saying that.
Every time she does, the more certain I am that the way I remember things happening last night aren’t the way they really happened at all.
“Did I do something?” The thought makes me a little sick to my stomach. “Last night. Did I—”
I want to pull over, find somewhere quiet so I can ask her what she means. So I can make her answer me but I can’t because I know she’ll just jump out of the truck.
She finally turns in her seat and lifts her gaze to meet mine. “Why do we have to talk about it? It won’t change anything. It won’t make it unhappen.”
For some reason, hearing her say that tightens the skin across the back of my neck. I should be relieved, right? I should be happy that she’s willing to just chalk last night up to raging hormones and bury it. Go back to normal, but I’m not. “Is that what you want?” I’m not even sure how we got here, but we’re in the school parking lot. I pull into my assigned spot and kill the engine. “You want to pretend it never happened?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
As soon as I say it, her head snaps around and she pins me with a hard, green glare. “I know this might be hard for you accept but not everyone that you grace with the gift of your dick is eager and willing to just over and beg for seconds.” Before I can say anything, she’s shouldering her backpack and opening her door. “No more movie nights. No more rides to school. You keep treating me like shit and I’ll stay out of your way, deal?”
No.
Fuck no.
I don’t want to go back.
I don’t want to forget.
Before I have a chance to say it she slams the truck door in my face and leaves.