Ella's Twisted Senior Year (3 page)

The Burger Barn is nearly empty when we arrive and the employees don’t seem too thrilled to have to peel their eyes off the TV to help us. Kennedy laces her fingers into mine while we stand in line behind Toby and Keith.

She makes this little pout. “You’re buying my food, right? I don’t have any money.”

“Sure,” I say, looking over her head to see one of the TVs on the wall. They’re showing a destroyed trailer house and interviewing some panic-stricken old man about it. A marque at the bottom of the screen says that so far there haven’t been any deaths, just a lot of injuries.

“Dude, Ethan should buy all of our food,” Toby says, turning around and wiggling his eyes at me.

I look at the woman behind the counter who’s taking the orders. “No.”

She laughs and Toby reluctantly pulls out his wallet. “Ethan is an ass, you know that?” he tells her. She gives him his change and he moves over to let Keith order. “The bastard could afford to take us all out for steak dinners but he’s only going to pay for his girl. That’s screwed up, man.”

Keith takes a sip from the drink the cashier just gave him. “If you don’t want him to be so rich, stop buying his shirts.”

Kennedy narrows her eyes at them. “Keep buying the shirts, boys.”

One of the guys behind us calls her a gold digger and she makes this little curtsey that I’m sure she thinks is cute. It kind of rubs me the wrong way.

We all come from families that are fairly well off, but we have parents who want us to earn money ourselves. Everyone except Kennedy has a job and while yeah, I’m happy to pay for my girlfriend because it’s the southern gentlemanly thing to do, she could at least say thanks once in a while.

The guys actually have no idea how much money I’m making and my job is so great it doesn’t even have me reporting to a boss every day after school. While Toby and Keith both work at the Car Check for minimum wage, changing oil and inspecting cars, I work from home, off my computer.

It started out as kind of a joke. I’d drawn up this funny design of our school mascot, the shark. He was waving pompoms and had bloodied teeth with a speech bubble that said the sharks never lose. The whole thing was satire really, but the teachers loved it and wanted it on T-shirts for the next pep rally.  I found out you can upload digital art online to this website and they’ll let you create a storefront website where you earn commission on every shirt sold. People order the shirt online and the company makes the shirt and ships it out. I don’t have to do anything but keep coming up with artwork.

Now nearly everyone in school has at least one of my shirts. Kennedy claims that their popularity is based on
her
popularity and says no one would care about them if we weren’t dating. I haven’t told her that sales haven’t increased or decreased since we started dating a month ago. They’ve stayed exactly the same.

Kennedy is the kind of girl who likes taking credit for things, and I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t like getting yelled at for disagreeing.

We order our food at take a seat at the only table that’s big enough for all of us. It’s a massive L-shaped booth and Kennedy insists that we slide into the bend part of it so there’s more room. It kind of makes me feel like a kid surrounded by adults on either side of me, but whatever.

Mom calls, and since I’m stuck between two hungry athlete friends who have become one with their food, I know I can’t ask them to get up. Kennedy looks over my shoulder. “Who is it?”

I point the phone to her so she can see my mom’s name and picture and stop wondering if it’s some girl. When do I ever talk to some girl that’s not her?

“Hello?”

“Hey, kiddo,” Mom says, drawing her words out happily. I’ll bet my entire T-shirt company that she’s with her best friend in Houston, drinking more than one glass of wine.

“Hey, Mom. What’s up?”

“Just hanging out with Melissa. We were so into our movie that we didn’t even realize there was a tornado up there. I’m guessing you’re fine though, right? Dad’s stuck at work for a meeting so we won’t be back for a while. I’ll be heading home soon.”

“I’m fine, but you should sober up first before you drive anywhere, Mom.”

Mom’s not a drunk by any means, but her monthly visits to Melissa’s house have her acting like a wild college girl again. It is incredibly gross when she comes home and dad’s there. They’re the very reason why the phrase ‘get a room’ was invented.

“Psh, I’m not that drunk, dear. I’ll be home soon. Be careful! Love you!”

I roll my eyes. Keith looks at me over the burger gripped in his hands. “Did she tell you to
hurry up and get home because the weather’s going to get bad again
?” Everyone laughs at his spot on impression of his own mother, who is by all accounts, highly overprotective and has the gruffest voice ever.

“Nah,” I say, grabbing a fry. “Is it supposed to get bad again?”

I look over at the TV, still showing news coverage of the tornado. Looks like most of the damage was done to the next town over, but some of the destroyed buildings and homes I recognize as being from Hockley. They don’t show our neighborhood though, so I guess our house is fine.

The last time I remember a tornado getting this close, I was about eleven. It was during the summer just before school started and Ella was at our house. She was always at our house during the summer when her parents worked because my mom stays home with my sister and me.

The thought of Ella, yet again today, makes my appetite fly out of the window but I keep stuffing fries in my mouth, if only to look normal.

Kennedy is telling everyone about which cheerleaders will be single soon and giving my friends tips on how to ask them out. My mind slips once again to that day with Ella and the tornado, and I try to push the thoughts away, but like that damn tornado, they’re going to do what they want to do.

The town emergency alarms were going off. The power went out and Mom was listening to this battery-powered weather radio, repeatedly saying she wished my dad was home. According to the instructions in her home emergency manual, we needed to be in a hallway or closet.

So she chose the square walk in closet in my little sister Dakota’s room. We pulled her baby mattress off the toddler bed and tucked it inside the closet, shoving it between the walls so that it made a roof a few feet off the floor. Mom had Ella, Dakota, and me sit against the wall and under the mattress. Dakota thought it was awesome and had her dolls out playing with them the whole time.

Ella was freaked. I remember putting my arm around her and holding her close to me, trying to act like how my dad would act if Mom was scared. The tornado never really got close to our house, and soon the power came back on and everything was okay.

Ella thanked me for protecting her. And that’s about exactly when I knew I had a crush on the girl next door. Of course, eleven-year-old me wasn’t exactly smooth with girls yet. Instead, I’d floundered around the rest of our childhood, trying to find opportunities to protect her and make her feel safe.

Years later, when she decided she hated me, I’d protected her from Corey, who kept shoving her in the pool. I’d railed on him, punching him straight in the face and yelling that he better not ever do that again because he could hurt her. I guess in my idiot pubescent mind, beating up the guy who kept teasing her would make her like me more.

Instead, it only drove her away. She had the same freaking guy tell me to leave her alone the very next day.

So much for chivalry. We’ve pretty much ignored each other ever since that day.

And now, ironically four years later, a stupid tornado brought us back together in the athletics hallway. Of course, unlike our old friendship, that didn’t last very long.

“You guys ready?” Kennedy says, making a pouting face at her phone. “Dad wants me to go home because apparently the stupid weather is getting bad again.”

She grabs my arm as the guys pile out of the booth. “You wanna come to my house? Maybe the weather can get too bad and you won’t be able to drive home?”

She smiles sweetly, her insinuating message totally received on my end. And then I remember how much of a bitch she was to Ella, and the thought of making out with my hot girlfriend kind of churns my stomach.

“Can’t,” I say, trying to look like I’m just as upset as she is about the missed opportunity. “My parents want me home, too.” 

I tell Mom that there’s been “extensive damage” to our house and that once she’s done saving lives, she should probably rush home. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that our two story brick home, which had once been a rectangular structure, now only has one wall and a hall bathroom left.

She’ll just have to see it when she gets here.

The paramedics clear Dad from having any serious injuries. He’s just a little beat up, but they said the mattress in the bathtub most likely saved his life. I can’t believe he was here, inside the house, when it all came crumbling down. The realization that I came very close to losing my dad today is almost too much to bear.

I throw my arms around him while he’s talking to Marcus and a few of the neighbors. It interrupts his story about how loud the tornado sounded as it barreled through our house, but I don’t care. Everyone watches me with those adult-like pitying expressions as I hug my dad tightly, trying like hell not to think about what would have happened if I came home and found him dead.

“What are we going to do?” I ask.

Dad’s lips press into a flat line and he glances up at Marcus and a few of our neighbors who are all standing around. “We’ll figure it out,” he says. The others join in, saying it’s going to be okay. But they don’t know my dad as well as I do, so they didn’t hear the hint of desperation in Ben Lockhart’s voice.

But I did. We’re screwed.

I can feel hot tears welling up in my eyes and now that all of the worry over my dad’s injuries is gone, it’s like the whole house problem weighs a thousand pounds more. I walk back up the sidewalk, to where our front door used to be. Our back yard is now an oasis of broken bricks and wood. I even see a DVD case shoved into the grass at the back of the yard. The wooden fence that separates our yard from Ethan’s is knocked over, and our patio table and chairs are in their pool.

I grimace and turn away. I hate Ethan’s pool. There’s too many painful memories over there. I decide right now that rebuilding the fence should be our first priority. I’ll sleep in a pile of rubble before I have to see Ethan’s backyard all day.

The next hour is a surreal blur. News crews stop by and film Dad, who gives a regaling tale of what it was like to be woken up from a nap to the sound of sirens and the whistle of an approaching tornado. I stand off to the side, arms crossed as I lean against my car. I don’t want to be in the video, another sad girl in the aftermath of a tragedy. Neighbors filter in and out, people from blocks away suddenly deciding to drive through our street to get a good look at the insanity. I really hate people like that, the kind of people who will cause a wreck themselves just to get a peek at someone lying dead on the road after a collision. Ugh.

Mom texts me that she’s on the way home, and April asks if I want her to come over for moral support. I tell her no. I don’t really want anyone or anything right now.

I have this overwhelming feeling that keeps slamming into me as I look around at the cars and people and bright lights of the news van.

I want to go home.

But that’s the only thing I can’t do right now. There
is
no more home. No more 1224 Canyon Falls Road.

Someone has pizza delivered and we eat it off the trunk of my car. That’s when I realize Dad’s truck is also a piece of metal carnage. Even if he had parked it in the garage instead of in the driveway, it wouldn’t have survived. That tornado had a vendetta against our house, and it made sure to take out everything we cared about.

“You okay?” Dad says when he gets a break from talking to people.

I try to smile. “Um, how am I supposed to answer that?”

His lip quivers and he stares at the slice of pizza in his hand. “I know. We don’t have any savings, Punk. I don’t know what the hell we’re gonna do. Mom wants to get a hotel for the next few weeks.”

His lips flatten and he shakes his head. “We can’t really afford that.”

A cold stab of terror fills me as I see the same emotion in my dad’s eyes. He’s the parent here. He’s supposed to have a plan. But he’s just as lost as I am.

“Where are we going tonight?” I ask, keeping my voice low as an older couple approaches us from across the street. I recognize the woman as someone who often walks her dog around the neighborhood.

“We’re getting a hotel for tonight,” Dad says, smiling at the strangers. “After that, I have no idea.”

I close the pizza box and walk away. I make it all the way to the Poe’s mailbox next door and then I stop short, not wanting to get on their part of the sidewalk. Destroyed house or not, I still pretend that our next door neighbor doesn’t exist. Ever since the second I got home, I knew this wasn’t good. But I had no idea how bad it actually is, money wise. Most of the people on our street are well off. My parents built our house with inheritance and have been struggling to make ends meet ever since.

I drop and sit on the curb. I wrap my hands around my knees and pull them to my chest and all of the anxiety and fear I’d been trying to keep at bay comes roaring through my subconscious with the unfettered power of a tornado.

I drop my head to my knees and cry.