It's always been like a quiet, constant humming one could ignore after a while, given it remains the same tone and volume. Any change to these factors shifted the balance immediately to unease, throwing the carefully masked dynamic just off it's axis. I've become quite good at this precarious balancing act: I can't imagine the stress he's under, I reason.
He grieves his father quietly.
There's always something that comes up in his meetings that he has to manage, and at the very least we don't see the worst of it.
He's present for the big moments: our birthdays, the holidays, cracking the same jokes just to get us to smile or roll our eyes. He manages still to showcase love in thoughtful ways, remembering times when we'd mention something offhand and he takes the time to find it for us. It's so much that it's easy to not notice the times when he's not there. When he's nursing a headache. Being grumpy. Sleeping a bit late.
Once or twice the reek of his empty bottles crept under the door to his office but by morning the evidence is already long gone. Often times I wondered if I should worry--rather, if I should have worried sooner--all the talks in school about alcohol abuse paint a portrait of somebody unlike my father. I even ask my classmates for confirmation. Your parents drink during dinner, right? Some answer yes, some answer no. If I'm pressed for details, I only maybe a glass or two at mealtimes. Nowhere near dangerous levels.
Despite my thinking if I should worry, it must show on my face. He catches my eye one night as I'm glancing at the glass in front of him on the table, and he gives me an exasperated look. As if he could read my mind, Pa just says "It's just one, Atala." I can feel my face get hot and I say nothing. It's nothing like what my teachers have said about The Alcoholic Father, nor like what I've heard from classmates. Still, I glance toward Ma and she seems unbothered.
Also, it's not like I'm one to judge him for it either. On rare occasion, they've allowed me to try a little bit at dinner Just with them though, at home. That was the rule, and it was definitely not all the time. It felt responsible, and a sense of being seen like I was a fellow grown-up was the feeling I loved chasing.
"Atala!!" I turn my head toward the voice and see another Neweman girl, Brigit, waving me over. "Hey! I haven't seen you since that Saw Strobe concert. How have you been?"
I try to think back to the last time I saw Saw Strobe, if I could recall seeing her there. I know she's in a few of my classes, and sometimes hung on the periphery of Thorn's friend group, but since the incident of him being weird to me I've tried to stay away. Brigit was always cool though in a way that came naturally to her.
"Great, actually. You?"
"Good! Listen, I know it's been a bit awkward since you and Thorn split up, but I hate to think you're just moping around with nothing to do. I'm throwing a little house party over the weekend and you should totally come."
Likely Thorn would be there too. The thought of seeing him making out with his girlfriend all night made me feel slightly ill, but so did the same lonely night at home on repeat I can feel my head nodding in agreement, and she scrawls out her address on a torn-out sheet of notebook paper.
Sneaking out wasn't even the hardest part. I get ready up in my room quietly, scouring through my closet to find a cool enough looking band shirt and the distressed jeans that still have faded permanent marker doodles and phrases scrawled on the thighs. Oversized Sweater and Skirt Atala doesn't seem like the right person to show up for this, so she has to stay behind for tonight. Now, it's Rock Concert Atala, swiping a shimmery dark eyeliner over her lids and pulling a few rubber bracelets on over her arms. At the last minute, I find a choker I'd woven in a short afternoon and put it on too. Leaving unnoticed was just a matter of unwinding the tight hold I have on my magic these days to cloak myself in an aura of you can't see me, I'm not here.
The second I arrive to the house, two teen boys stumble out and throw their heads back to the clouded sky, letting out bellows and cheers. They don't notice me. From inside I can hear a couple laughs and let myself in. The radio dramas may have overplayed how crazy these parties get, as the crowd is less of a wall-to-wall mass of people and more like smaller groups of vaguely familiar classmates and total strangers alike. A few give me curious glances as I make my way through, one or two looking a little too long for my comfort. Everyone else is mostly clustered together in the dim, some dancing--and some thrashing about--to the eye-wateringly loud bass thumping through a giant speaker that had been set up in the corner of the living room. I spot my friend and go to her side immediately, and she grins.
"You made it!" Brigit says. "Want a drink? We have stuff you can have, come on--" She takes my arm and leads me to the kitchen. I stand a bit awkwardly as she clinks through the fridge, my eyes focusing through the doorway back out to the living room. From there, I could see Thorn with his girlfriend entangled with each other and dancing close, his relaxed hands draped over her shoulders as they sway. A cold bottle is pressed into my hands and I glance down at the label for just a moment before twisting the cap off. The first sip smells and burns in an almost chemical way all the way down my throat, leaving a tingle in my mouth that gives me an immediate rush of wicked mischief. I should not be doing this, but the sensation is a welcome distraction of suddenly being somewhere unfamiliar, surrounded by mostly strangers, and staring down my ex.
"Good, right?" She asks and I nod. I sip again. Halfway through the bottle, I feel quite warm up in my head and I've been coaxed into a circle sitting on the floor on one side of the living room. Somebody's pulled a deck of cards out and is dealing out hands, while others are putting assorted trinkets into a small pile in the center. Not a lot of us carry cash, it seems, so the betting pool is whatever is on our person: bottlecaps, pins, the occasional bauble from an earring or other small piece of jewelry. I twist the choker around my neck idly and finally sit, untying it from my throat.
"Deal me in," I say, dropping the choker onto the pile.
I'm able to hold my own for a couple rounds, even as the alcohol starts threading it's way through my body. I ease it along with another drink between card games and lean back. People invite me into quick conversations, asking who I am, who I know, what other games do I know how to play? I drink, they drink. Someone smokes. It's easy to lose count when we're having fun. There's a warm fog in my head, a comfortable haze settling in my nerves that make me feel at ease. Everyone here is great, and for a moment I can even picture myself being here often with them: these strangers could be my friends, for real. I wonder if this is what Pa gets out of drinking--if it's the same warmth for him, the same shield against social conventions and letting it smooth over talks--and I'm caught up in the moment long enough to not immediately notice there's a hand clasping over my shoulder.
I tilt my head up to look, and the face above me is the Chloro, Vesa, I'd encountered at school some time back. Part of me thinks I should probably be afraid, seeing him staring down at me with an expression halfway between amusement and anger, but instead I feel myself smiling. Maybe I'd be afraid if I was sober, but I'm too relaxed to even worry.
"Your wrist must be feelin' better," I say. Behind him, his friends scoff and the anger on his face only becomes sharper.
"You're real fuckin funny, aren't you?"
"Oh, are you the only one allowed to make jokes now?" I reply. A smaller, quieter part of me can't believe the words out of my own mouth, and tries tugging at my attention to back off. My wicked mischief wants to egg this on, asking what is he really going to do here in the middle of this crowd? My gaze flickers to the people I've been playing cards with, but their faces are either focused elsewhere or passively neutral.
These people are not my friends, I remember.
"Vesa, stop being a dick and come over here," I hear one of his friends say. A badger Nomad sitting next to me quirks an eyebrow at the situation, one ear flickering in our direction as he tries to gauge context, and leans in.
"What's this guy's problem?" He asks, but before I could answer I hear Vesa speak.
"I'm not the problem here," He says loudly. "But you might not want to sit too close to this fucking weirdo unless you want her to lash out like a rabid Feral."
The badger rolls his eyes and snatches up the card deck to start shuffling. Vesa gives my shoulder an unfriendly squeeze and I feel something deeper than that mischief roil up in the pit of my chest. I dig my fingernails into the carpet and focus, tampering it down. "If she's really so rabid maybe you oughta take that hand off of her, hm?" He asks.
"She knows I'm just messing around. Right?" His words have a sharp edge to it that feels like it's pressed right against me. If I'm not too careful, his voice could cut me. The awareness of everyone's eyes on the situation settles over me very abruptly, and I stare at nothing. I'm too focused on the furious scream in my chest that wants to erupt out, lashing my fingers into his vines until just splinters remain--"Listen though, Listen. Atala?" He gives my shoulder a shake to snap me out of it and I glare up at him. "We can come to an understanding with each other."
"Sure." I hear myself say.
Oversize Sweater Atala tugs at my attention harder, demanding we get up and leave immediately. I want to stay and test this crowd, really test and see if I could belong here with them. Have friends. Be protected. This badger guy seems alright, even if he's largely tuned out whatever dumb teenage bullshit is happening in front of him.
"What would really make me feel better about all this and let it be water under the bridge is just one thing." The vines of his hands and wrists look healthier and watered. Snapping them consciously would be more of an effort. My eyes scan the people around me but everyone's gone back to their small groups. The poker game has moved on. "One kiss."
That's it?
"What?" I ask, the glare on my face shifting into visible confusion.
"One kiss," He repeats. The smile on his face is wicked. Stupid. Another stupid joke. It's not like it'd be taking anything from me if I say yes, but the thought of it fills me with immediate rage. Somewhere in the poker group I hear someone gasp in excitement, whispering that we should start a game of truth or dare. It sounds like she's far from here and not directly across from me. Slowly, I stagger to my feet, resolved to just try to walk away from him and find Brigit.
The next thing I know, he's grabbed both sides of my face and has shoved his tongue into my mouth. There's a cacophany of laughs and shocked gasps around me, his hands moving from my head to dig into my waist and pull me closer, and multiple things happen at once: my hand connects with his face with a loud crack, shaving off splinters from his cheek the exact moment the badger next to me jumps to his feet. I'm hearing yelling above me as he lets go, shoving me back as he does. I stumble, only for a moment, and feel my arms wheeling up to grab the front of his shirt.
Someone grabs me from behind to hold me back as the badger gets between us, and my hands clamp down on the arms keeping me away. The grip on my own mind fights me as well:
--stop breathing stop thinking stop existing make it stop make him stop end it end it end it end it end it END IT END IT END IT END IT END--I turn it against myself--END IT --there's splinters under my fingernails, in the skin of my hand--STOP THINKING--I could feel the tips of my fingers hardening and sharpening, the flesh turning ashen and a sticky, mottled black--STOP--
A couple of his friends are standing in front of him talking. The badger is now standing in front of me, and he's talking as well but I can't hear what he's saying yet. Up close, I realize he's older than I initially thought and my gaze focuses in on the patches he's sewn into his vest. He's waving someone over but I just keep staring anywhere else but his face. My vision is getting blurry and it takes me a few long, slow seconds to recognize that it's tears in my eyes.
Did I say yes? Did I say anything at all?
"Did you come here alone?" He asks. Brigit is at my side with a napkin, trying to wipe my face. I nod mutely, and he swears quietly under his breath. He turns to my friend to ask her questions and I stare across the room. Thorn has joined the group talking to Vesa now, and though I can't tell what expression he has under the mask I think he's unhappy. His arms are crossed, hands tight against himself as he seems to be talking with rapid, frustrated jerks of the head. Someone finds my jacket and drapes it over my shoulders. I look down at my hands, and they've returned to normal. If anyone noticed, nobody has mentioned it.
Brigit and I walk to the bugabus stop in silence. The wind feels harsh against the drying tears on my face, and the warmth from what I drank has morphed into a swimming, sickening feeling that won't cease. As we walk, I smell a sharp burning scent as she lights a cigarette and blows the smoke away from me. "Vesa's an asshole," She finally says. "He told me he'd be cool if he saw you."
"You invited him?" I ask. It's the first words I've said since he'd kissed me.
"Mm." She mutters non-committally. I blink, staring down the road. It takes me a few moments to find more words.
"You know what he said to me, right?" I ask her. "Did he tell you?"
"I heard about it. It's just stupid boy shit, you know--they're always saying or doing dumb shit--"
"It didn't feel like that--"
"He was probably just drunk!" She says. "Things get crazy at these parties!"
"Yeah, well I didn't taste any beer on his tongue when he had it in my mouth," I snap. She grimaces and drops the cigarette onto the ground, twisting out the ember with the heel of her shoe.
"Disgusting," She says.
"I'm drunk," I say. "You see me going around actin' like that?"
She doesn't look at me immediately, and instead glances down the road to check for the bus. "No," She says. "Man, I'm sorry this all happened. This was supposed to be a fun night." I say nothing. Up the block, I can see the bugabus starting to finally arrive. "It'd probably be better for you both to just stay away from each other."
The wind rushes past my ears, every syllable of what she just said echoing around in my head on a grotesque loop. "What?" I ask quietly.
"You know--if he's being weird, don't provoke him."
The bugabus pulls up, but my legs are locked in place. I'm stuck staring at her face, the way she is almost making eye contact with me but isn't. There wasn't a single friend at that party, I think quietly to myself. "Sure," I say. My whole body feels cold. It's the last thing I say to her before boarding. She waves me off, her mouth pressed together in an imitation of an apologetic smile, but I just stare back.
Sneaking back into the house is just as easy as leaving was. Ma isn't here to surprise me this time, and I creep up to my room in silence. I shed layers, leaving them in a pile on my floor and climb under the quilts on my bed. The shimmer of my smudged eyeliner twinkles in the sparse light coming from under my door, and I curl up under the sheets. My body is trembling, and it feels like I can't get warm no matter how many blankets are on top of me. Sleep comes for me quickly.
I wake the next day to a radio call coming through to my direct line. It rings rarely these days, as the people who'd have my direct line don't talk to me much anymore. I relutantly reach a hand out and answer.
"Hello?" I ask, my voice thick. A creeping headache has spread through my skull; the remnants of the 'fun' from last night. The person on the other end doesn't respond immediately, even as I release the button to open the signal up. When he does, the voice surprises me enough to almost snap me out of the hangover completely.
"Are you okay?" Thorn's voice asks me, and I hear the gentle static of him opening the signal to me. I blink.
"Yeah, I think so. My head hurts." I laugh a little bit. "Why are you calling?" The question sounds meaner than I intended it.
"I didn't see what Vesa did last night but heard just after it happened," He says. "He's such a prick. I'm sorry."
"Mnh, 's not your fault," I mutter, rubbing my eyes. There's a heavy silence on his end of the signal before he replies.
"I mean, last year--" He falters. "When we'd hang out, you know? Him and I, he wanted to know about us. I guess I told him once that you were actually pretty nice but he had it in his head that you were just a creepy loner." I idly pull at a thread on my quilt, feeling the weight of dread start to build in my chest. "I don't think he believed you'd even be interested in sex at all until I told him."
My hand stills. "Why was he even thinking about that?" I ask, and then clamp my eyes shut. I don't need to know the answer, and to his credit Thorn doesn't entertain it in any serious way.
"I'll tell you a secret Atala. Assholes like him always like the so-called weird girls." Thorn says. The dread doesn't leave me, but I laugh a little anyway. "There's something else," He says, and he hesitates again. He keeps the signal open on his end though, despite giving himself a long moment before continuing. My heart is pounding, as it used to when him and I talked, but now I finally recognize it as a sign of something being terribly wrong.
Funny how it could be confused for excitement.
"I always liked you," Thorn said. "You know that. You know that I can't lie. Vesa knew it too, and he kinda... dared me to just do something about it. We all kind of do shit like that with each other when we think someone is being a coward or lazy about getting something done. That just sped up the timetable for me."
The signal finally opens up on my end. "We slept together as a dare?" I ask him. My voice is deathly quiet.
"I always liked you." He says again. "If one of your friends had a crush but was not doing anything about it, wouldn't you want to dare them to stop being chickenshit and say something?"
"Do you really believe that's why he dared you?" I ask, my voice a little louder. "Or do you think he did it because it'd be funny to watch you date a creepy loner?"
"You're not a creepy loner. Look, I know we kind of fizzled out but I still think you're really cool. He's too much of a dumbass to understand that." The signal is still open on his end so he can't hear me pressing the quilt into my mouth to let out a frustrated scream. The anger is so sudden, so shocking that it barely registers that he's finished talking and the line is back open to me.
"Would you have ever done that at all if you were never dared to?" I ask him. The signal switches back to him, where he doesn't respond immediately.
"I would have." He finally answers. "Probably." Listening to him feels like swallowing blocks of ice.
"Then why wait?"
"I don't know." He exhales heavily, making a crackling sound into the receiver lodged up against my ear. "There are a lot of reasons, I can't just point at one and say that's it. I liked you, I liked other girls, and I thought I wanted to keep my options open."
"Options open for someone who's normal and not a freak, right?"
"The other guys didn't know what to make of you. You're walking around the school looking like you're wrapped up in like three different knit sweaters, staring murder at anyone who looked at you a little too long, but secretly had sick taste in music and are actually kinda funny and nice?"
I press my free hand against my eyes, taking in deep breaths. When the signal switches back to me, my voice shakes.
"Your new girlfriend is nice," I say. "The other girls in my classes, usually they give me weird looks or laugh behind my back like I can't hear them. She doesn't do any of that though, so out of your options you picked well."
It's mostly true. She was generally pretty popular, didn't cause a lot of waves and stayed well liked with most peer groups and teachers. I can picture her in the back of my mind volunteering at some charity on the weekends, graduating with a perfect 4.0 and moving on to some pleasant and successful real estate gig as an adult. Normal, bland, and perfect to bring home to the parents. The only part I'm dishonest is about the glances toward me when he wasn't looking. A girl that normal could still level a judgemental gaze like nothing else. A different, uglier thought comes to mind so while I still have the signal on my end I continue talking.
"Hey Thorn, who was it that dared Vesa to kiss me at the party?"
"If it was anyone it was probably Klemens," He answers. The silence that follows joins the dread in my chest, and I hear him sigh as he realizes what he's just said.
"Thanks for the warning." I spit. "I know you saw me there long before Vesa did."
"I know how bad this looks." He sounds frantic. "Can you hear me out, please? I didn't think he was serious about it or that if Vesa went through with it he'd do it like that!"
"Are you joking?" I ask, my voice shaking again. "You're joking right? Fuck you Thorn." I've gone to my feet at some point, being vertical making my head pound even more, but I can't remain sitting anymore. "Fuck you, fuck you--" I disconnect the signal completely, slamming the receiver back down before pressing my hands against my mouth. I scream again, muffling it against my palms until it feels like it's been depleted completely from my body.
When I finally join my family downstairs, I can see Pa and Ma at the table in their usual spots, and Kalliste is singing a repetitive melody over and over, idly doodling on paper with some crayons while her tiny tendril feet kick back and forth beneath her. Pa looks slightly ill, rubbing a hand against his forehead and flinching when her melody gets into a higher pitch. I sit at the table, a similar grimace on my own face from the lights and the sound.
Kalliste continues singing and drawing. The twins, thankfully, are sitting much more calmly and keeping their drawing as a silent activity. Ma scrapes a fork across the plate and we all collectively flinch, a pause in Kalliste singing before she continues. I glance down for just a moment, then--
"Kalliste please knock that off." Pa's voice is sharper than I normally hear it and I jump, snapping my head up toward him. "My head is hurting a lot today," He says, his voice gentler, but the damage is done. She's looking up at him with big sad eyes, startled by the sudden anger in his tone, and I could practically see the countdown above her head before the waterworks. I guess him and I are fighting similar hangovers.
"Come on," I say, standing up. The scraping of the chair on the floor hurts to hear, but I coax her away from the table. "We can go draw in the sitting room, okay?"
She's crying before we make it out of the dining room, but it's short lived. I'm able to be much gentler, shushing softly and giving her a big hug before setting her up at the coffee table with her crayons. Her little song has been simmered down to a humming, the sniffling beginning to wane. Something feels like it's been carved out of my chest, and a burst of terror hits me like a tidal wave. Kallliste is so small, small enough to be so sensitive against just a sharp tone in Pa's voice. The world is too big--would that sensitivity grow and mature with her or will it be trampled underfoot by the first person who sees the chance and takes it? How am I supposed to look out for her and Phoebe if I couldn't even do that for myself?
"Look Atala," She says, holding up her drawing. She's drawn me in what looks like gigantic combat boots that take up half of the page. When I take the paper from her, my hands are shaking.
"Wow!" I say, and I hope she can't see how wet my eyes are. "Is this me? That's so cool!"