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I
am a pussy. I know this, and not much else.

A wet smack sounds in the next room. My mother cries in pain. “Please, Cameron, I didn't mean anything.” He hits her again, twice, dense flesh on flesh.

“The fuck you didn't,” Cameron, my mother's boyfriend, slurs. She must have made some joke that he was too drunk to understand. Again.

So he's kicking the shit out of her. Again.

I'm sitting on the corner of my bed, listening, but not doing anything, even though I want to. My muscles are all coiled, tight, like I'm ready to roll, but I won't. Cameron is wiry, works construction, and could toss me across the fucking room. At least that's what I tell myself about him,
this
boyfriend. I've had excuses for all the others as well, and an entire list of reasons for my father.

He hits her again, a dull thud, the sound of his fist hitting her head. “You gonna apologize or what?”

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything.”

Another blow, and she hits the wall. The house vibrates. “Damn straight, you dumb bitch.” The door squeals as he pounds down the hall and the fridge opens. He's grabbing a beer, or two. The can clicks and pops, followed by the sound of him falling into the recliner. The volume on the TV goes
up: lots of screaming and yelling.

Fuck, maybe it's over. I grab the back of my head and bury my face into the crooks of my elbows. I want to block out the sound of him and forget what I just heard, but my mom's crying seeps through the paper-thin walls. I hate the noise, but more, I hate how common it is. How many times has she been like this? It's impossible to keep track, there's been so many.

Her cry lifts and then is muffled. She must be using her pillow. I hope so, because if he hears her . . . hopefully she'll be able to calm herself and then sit, red-faced and swollen, and wait for Cam to get a sleepy buzz. Then, like always, she can ice or shower, depending on how bad it is. Once it started, it only took them three months to find this pattern. Not a record, but pretty fast.

Wonder how long it took for her and my dad?

He's the reason I'm such a little bitch now, hiding out instead of stepping up. As a kid I never once went after him, just daydreamed about taking him out. In the end I didn't have to; he just left. As have all the rest. But Cameron's still hanging around, and this time I see myself stepping into her bedroom when he's wailing on her. I grab his arm midswing and twist him around. He sees me and his eyes go wide, but then he gets that sneer like he always does. But before he can do anything, I head-butt him. He collapses to his knees, grabbing his face as the blood pumps out. I ignore it and put my fist into his jaw. No, through it. My mom screams, but I ignore her and enjoy his pain. He goes to speak but realizes that his jaw is shattered and I laugh, because I know in that moment I could kill him. I may not be big, but you don't get beat your entire life without hardening.

I
could
take him out. I have the capacity, and that is enough for me, because I don't want to actually do it and be like him, or the others. In my fantasy I help my mother up and walk her out of the room, away from the oozing mass in the corner. We step into a cleaner version of our life, where we're not confined to our prison of a trailer and no one sees us as white trash.

It's never gonna happen though, so there's no point in wishing for it. I stand up and walk to the bathroom and the trailer wobbles. Or it could be I'm still amped and it feels that way. Or the fucking thing may really be falling apart. Why wouldn't it? Everything else is.

I piss and brush my teeth. The TV blares and I listen: an announcer's voice. Fuck. I peer down the hall. He's watching a cage match. Two guys hop around a mat. One is all tatted up and has blood leaking out of his nose. The other is so thin that his abs look like individual plates. I don't know how they can even be in the same weight class, but they throw jabs back and forth and then the tatted one kicks. The skinny one catches it, and the tatted guy's eyes go wide. He knows what's coming, and sure as shit the skinny dude latches on to the tatted guy's leg like a monkey to a tree and takes him to the mat. The skinny guy squeezes on the tatted guy's leg and arches his own back, every muscle popping. The ref hovers over them, wearing the same black latex gloves we wear at Vo-Tec, and the tatted guy screams as the blood pumps faster. He looks up, grinds his teeth, and then taps the mat. Fight's over.

“Fucking leg bar.” Cameron tosses an empty can to the floor and then pops open another.

I head back to my room and have to shake away the fantasy rising again. I'll stay awake all night if I don't put it out
of my mind. I sit on my bed and can hear my mom still crying. I lie back and pull a pillow over my head, but it doesn't help. Her tears still seep through, and the sound of another fight beginning on the TV punches in.

I
'm standing out by the Pleasant Meadows park sign, waiting for the bus. There's not one thing pleasant about this place and no meadow that I've ever seen. Feet scuffle down the lane and the girls giggle, while Rob's laugh echoes.

“There's my little bitch.” Rob wraps an arm around my neck and squeezes. My head throbs as he pulls me down. “You ready to suck it? Huh?” His crotch is inches from my face, and I go limp, just hang as dead weight in his arms. “Man.” He lets go. “No fucking fun if you don't fight back.”

“Leave Tony alone. His house was on fire last night.” Amy kicks Rob in the ass. I stand and tuck my hands into my pockets, happy to be out of the hold, but not if I have to talk about this. “Cameron?” She takes a drag off her cigarette and closes an eye when she exhales.

“Yeah.” There's no point in denying it. Everyone knows everybody's business around here, and sadly, mine is real fucking common. I kick the loose stone at our feet.

“Fucking temper. But hot as a motherfucker. I'd do him.” Amy licks her lips.

“You'd do your fucking dog, you whore.” Charity lights a cigarette and juts her chin.

“If his dick were big enough. Holla!”

The girls laugh, and Rob shakes his head.

“For real, man. You need to get ready for when he turns on you. I'll show you some moves.” Rob pops into stance, like the fighters on TV from last night, and paws at the back of my neck. He's wearing his MMA gym's hoodie today. Like every day. But he's got a point about Cameron, just like I was thinking last night. Sooner or later they all turn on me: all her boyfriends, and my dad, too. But Cameron just doesn't seem to be going anywhere. He doesn't have the ability to be disgusted with us, or himself. But fuck Rob and his karate-ass shit. There's no ring at my house.

“Yeah. I wanna grapple with you. So we can get
real close
to each other.”

Rob's eyes draw together. “Yo, it's not like that.”

“Really? You just wanted me to suck your dick.”

The girls laugh.

“Fuck you, Tone. I'll kick your ass right here. No grappling.” He pops his stance again and weaves around me. I used to be able to take him back in middle school, and even freshman year. But now? Maybe. He is bigger, but that doesn't always matter.

Brakes hiss behind us, and the bus door wrenches open. “Put them cigarettes out!” Hack-Face, the bus driver, leans over her seat. She looks like someone once went over her with a cleaver. Every inch of her skin is wrinkled and red.

The girls take long drags, and then step on the butts and mount the stairs. They exhale as they pass Hack-Face. Rob's still in his stance and I shake my head and turn my back on him.

I sit alone because I don't feel like talking to Rob. He'll just want to go on and on about fighting and the gym, and with last night still swirling in my head, it's about the last topic I want to deal with. He's been trying to get me to join
ever since he started last year, but it's not like I've got the money. All the guys who go there wear the same hoodie with the gym's logo on the front—two figures, one standing, the other lying on the mat—and some quote on the back. Either that or it's those ugly fucking TAPOUT shirts or the ones with images of fighters on them. It's like they're in fifth grade again, busting a nut over some A-Rod or McGwire jersey. No, I really don't want to be one of them, either.

I spin the dial on my locker and then check the schedule taped inside. It's Thursday, but I don't have a clue what day in the rotation it is. A girl nearby closes her locker. “Hey, what's today?”

She looks at me, squints, and her mouth forms a wiggly line, like she wants to say something, but can't find the words. It's always like this. Kids know I'm trash from who I hang with, but not from the way I look. I keep myself clean, ironing board in the bedroom and everything pressed. I do my own laundry and make damn sure my kicks stay spotless, so if I'm on my own, they have to guess. “Thursday.” She presses her books close to her chest.

I shake my head. “No. What day?” I point at my schedule.

“Oh.” She straightens. “C-Day.”

“Thanks.” She's got her back to me before I speak, but at least she spoke. Shit, C-day blows. Bio, then PE, then English. Afternoons are always Vo-Tec, but it doesn't make up for the three long hours I'm here. The bell rings and kids look around, waiting for the first person to take off. Eventually, we all do.

I don't even know why I gotta take bio. Not like I'm
gonna be a fucking doctor or some shit. Mr. Bransfield starts writing notes on the board, and kids get out their binders or notebooks. I don't have a notebook or a pen. Not even a book bag. I look at the extra textbook he makes me use and listen. Period. If it sticks, it sticks. He's written something up there about the three layers of the skin. Who gives a shit? Skin's so thin, might as well all be one.