Eighteen (18) (5 page)

It is a constant source of white noise that I have gotten used to. It’s a comforting hum in a life that should be empty silence.

I am not even halfway across the grass, heading towards our corner apartment, and I can hear the baby. The windows are open and she is loud. I know I should go inside and help Jason, but I haven’t eaten since lunch and I still have two dollars in my pocket. So I keep walking past our front window, thankful that the curtains are drawn, and slip into the alley. Bill’s Burgers is just on the other side of the freeway and they have ninety-nine cent sliders for happy hour. I have about fifteen minutes to make the deadline, so I jog, my backpack slapping with the rhythm of my feet.

I’m still wet, but the heat is on and it rushes past my face when I enter the restaurant.

“Hey, Shan,” Jose, the owner, says from behind the kitchen counter. He says this even though there are about a dozen people milling around and waiting for service or take-out.

Every head swings to look at me and I can’t look down at my feet fast enough.

“The usual?” he asks.

I nod and slip to the back where I sit at a two-seater table that no one ever wants because it’s right next to the bathroom. But I like it. I like everything that is less desirable. I like to be where other people aren’t.

I run the day through my head. The meeting this morning feels so far away. But one thing that still feels very close is the heat of Mateo’s breath when he whispered his name in my ear.

And he was looking at my tits.

It’s so inappropriate.

A few minutes later Jose comes with my sliders and sets the red plastic basket down, along with a Diet Pepsi, which I can’t afford. “Thanks,” I say, hunching down into myself. I set my two dollars on the table and he pushes it back towards me.

“You keep it. I made this for some lady who got an emergency and walked out before picking them up.”

“Liar,” I say. But I smile.

“How is that no-good bastard?”

He’s talking about Jason. They grew up together. In fact, Jason has a lot of childhood friends in this area of Anaheim. This is where he grew up. He even went to Anaheim High too.

I envy people who have a whole community of history surrounding them. I wish every day that I was still at home in my familiar neighborhood.

“He’s OK.” I force a smile and look up as I take a bite and talk with my mouth full. “Mmmm. You have the best greasy burgers in town, Jose.”

He shoots me with his finger. “Tell everyone you know.” He walks off when his wife, Maria, starts yelling for him to get back in the kitchen.

My mind wanders back to Mateo. I will have to see him every day if I go back.

Should I go back? Is a stupid piece of paper worth all this trouble?

I’m not sure yet. So I just chew my food and drink my DP, and pretty soon, I’m out of reasons why I should stay here.

The rain has stopped when I walk back home. And the baby is silent when I grab the door handle and give it a turn.

Jason is sitting on the couch watching TV, his feet kicked up on a bright blue trunk that acts as a coffee table. “Where the fuck have you been?”

He’s angry, and drunk. Well, maybe not drunk. But he’s definitely drinking because there’s two bottles of Corona on the side table next to the remote. They’re both empty.

I sit on a chair across from the couch. “So it turns out…” But then the words get stuck in my throat. It’s so complicated, way too complicated to answer in a few sentences, so I just give up. “I was getting high with Phil.” It’s so much easier to lie.

“Hmmm,” Jason says. “Must be nice to fuck off all day and have no responsibilities. Whose coat is that? You have a boyfriend now?”

I don’t say anything to that. Phil is another childhood friend who lives all the way down the alley in a little house across West Street. He’s a small-time dealer. Pot mostly. And he sells it by the joint, so he’s my kind of dealer—affordable. Plus, he likes me and smokes me out whenever I go over there.

“You’re gonna need to get a job, Shannon. I can’t pay for you anymore.”

I nod. “OK. I’ll look tomorrow.” All I want is to go to my room and collapse on my hard futon. It feels like sleeping on concrete, but things could be worse. I could be sleeping on the disgusting twenty-year-old carpet instead.

“So where were you really? Because I called down to Phil’s and you weren’t there.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Poor baby,” he says, his words rumbling out of his chest. “You’re eighteen now,” he continues, looking me up and down in a way that makes me uncomfortable. He makes me uncomfortable a lot. He came on to me once back in San Diego, but he was very drunk and the next day he pretended it never happened. “Legal.”

“What’s that mean?” I don’t look like Jill at all. She had blonde hair and blue eyes and I have brown hair and brown eyes, so if he thinks I’m her replacement, he’s wrong in every way I can think of.

Jason gets up from the couch and walks towards the small kitchen in the front of the apartment, his fingertips dragging along my knee as he passes. I hiss in a breath but he pretends not to notice. My eyes track him as he grabs another bottle of beer from the fridge, then pops the top off and throws it into the sink. That’s when I notice several more empty bottles on the counter.

He takes a long drag on his beer and then walks back over to me, stopping right in front of my chair. He places both hands on the arms and leans down. “You’re prettier than her, you know that.”

“Well, she’s dead,” I say back. Emotionless. “So it’s not that hard.”

He reaches out and the back of his knuckles sweep down my cheek. My foot comes up automatically and I kick him hard in the chest, sending him reeling backwards. He must be drunker than I figured, because he crashes against the trunk, spilling over a vase with dead flowers left over from Jill’s funeral last month.

The baby starts screaming in the other room and I see the rage in Jason’s eyes. “You fucking bitch!” he snarls, trying to get up.

But I’m out of there. I bolt for the door and pull it open, but he’s behind me, slamming it shut again. His drunken slowness has no dampening effect on his rage. He spins me around and punches me in the cheek, good enough to see stars.

My rage is out of control. “I hit back, motherfucker.” I grab his shoulders and bring my knee right into his balls.

He steps back just enough to let me turn and open the door again. I push on the screen and step outside, thankful that I had the good sense to never take my backpack off.

There’s a woman across the grassy area shoving a key into her door. She turns and I close my eyes and grit my teeth.

Jason appears behind me, but he must see the same thing I do, because he says nothing, just slams the door closed behind me.

“Shannon?”

How is it that I’ve lived here for one month and everybody seems to know my name?

I ignore her. She’s a cop who just moved in two weeks ago. But she parks her squad car on the street, not back in the alley. So I see her getting in and out of it all the time when she comes home during a shift.

“Shannon?” she repeats.

I make for the little path that leads to the alley next to the laundry room, but she catches me by the leather jacket and I spin around and shrug her off. “Don’t touch me.” I growl it.

She lets go. “Is everything OK?”

“Does everything fucking look OK?” I snarl it this time. But I don’t wait for an answer because my face is stinging from the hit I took and I’m pretty sure it’s red and getting ready to bruise. I take off down the alley, walking as fast as I can without running.

Eighteen had better improve fast. Because if this is what it’s gonna be like for the rest of my life, then what is the point?

Chapter Six

I don’t have many options.
I could go to the arcade across the street from the high school. That’s only two blocks away and the guy who runs it, Mark, another friend of Jason’s, is cool. He always gets me high when I go there and it’s slow.

Why are all Jason’s friends so nice and he’s such a raging asshole?

But all the kids from school hang out at the arcade in the evenings and I don’t want to see anyone right now. So I go to Phil’s. It’s a dumb move because if Jason wants to go looking for me that will be the first stop.

But again, limited options.

So I trudge up the alley, my Chucks soaking wet as I splash through the leftover puddles, and cross West Street. Phil’s car isn’t in the driveway, so I know he’s not home. But I knock on the door anyway. Desperate times and all.

The locks disengage and I have half a second of excitement about being wrong, but then I look up into the face of Taking Back Sunday.

Jesus Christ. No breaks, huh?

“Hey,” he says. “Cage the Elephant. Nice jacket. Didn’t have that on this morning.” I hear lots of rowdy voices inside as I wonder if he saw who
was
wearing this jacket this morning.

“Is Phil here?”

Sunday shakes his head. “Mexico for a few days. I’m watching the dog.”

“Oh,” I say, surprised. “I’ve never seen you here before.”

“Ditto. He’s my cousin. Want to come in? We’re passing a joint.”

I sigh, look over my shoulder at the street, and then shrug. He moves aside and opens the door, and I slip past him, my jacket brushing against his arm.

Everyone stops talking for a moment as I log their faces. I recognize most of them. A group of kids from school who also hang out at the arcade. I realize now that I’ve seen Sunday before. But these are not my people, not that I even have people here, and I’ve never really talked to them.

“Shannon,” a tall girl standing in the kitchen says. She’s got short jet-black hair and her eyes are thick with black eyeliner. “Miss Bad Day, huh?”

I squint my eyes at her. “What?”

“Danny,” she says, nodding to Sunday, who is now standing next to me. “He told us about your epic tantrum in the office this morning. Way to go, bitch. I hear the fucks were flying and everyone was too afraid to stop you.”

“Who—”

“That’s Rocky,” Sunday says. “And that’s Greg, and Tim, and Matt.” Sunday points to the three guys passing the joint in the small living room.

“Wanna hit?” Greg asks. He’s got light, curly brown hair that ends at the top of his shoulders and a kind face.

I shake my head and look around, feeling more helpless than I have in a very long time. “Can I use your bathroom?” I ask Sunday.

“You know where—”

I do. So I just walk off and make my way down the hallway, taking a left at the end and slip inside, locking the door behind me.

I can hear them whisper so I turn on the faucet to drown out the hum of gossip and splash water on my face. When I look in the mirror there sure as shit is a red mark on my cheek. I touch it with my fingertips and will it to go away, but it doesn’t. It practically darkens as I watch, my hands propping me up on each side of the small, white, pedestal sink.

“Shannon?” Sunday’s soft voice is accompanied by a knock. “You OK?”

Silence from me. I feel a little paralyzed. I’m so not OK. “Yeah,” I say, clearing my throat. “Be right out.”

“You want a dry t-shirt? I have a clean one if you want it.”

“Um.”

“It’s outside the door.”

I turn the faucet off and listen to his retreating footsteps, and then open the door as quietly as I can and grab the shirt. It’s another black concert shirt, but this one says
My Chemical Romance.

I take my shirt off and drape it over the towel rack to dry, and then slip the new one on. It’s way too big, but it feels nice. I stare at myself for another few minutes, desperate to find a way out of this day. But I’m not a coward and I’m done hiding in here, so I gather myself and walk back out to the living room.

It’s empty.

Except Sunday.

“Where’d everyone go?”

He smiles at me. “You look like…”

“Hell?”

That gets a small laugh out of him. But he shakes his head. “Nah, just tired. And like you’re not in the mood for company.”