Chapter 4 #2
I spent the rest of the evening exploring the rest of the house.
Keith’s room was on the main floor behind the stairs, and the basement was locked off.
I heated up one of the TV dinner meals from the freezer and found my new textbooks in a clear sealed bag that had been thrown in the corner of the kitchen.
In one day, I’d be attending a new high school.
My stomach suddenly felt like it was full of butterflies, and three names echoed again and again in my mind… Lee… Shaw… Vail…
It took forever to fall asleep last night, so by the time I did wake up, the sun was streaming through a crack in the curtain over my window.
I moaned, rolling over to bury my head beneath my pillow, only…
there was no bed there. I fell to the floor on my stomach with a hard smack, knocking the wind from my lungs.
I coughed and gasped as I sat up, and from downstairs, the quick running of heavy footsteps raced down the hall, up the stairs until Keith had burst through my bedroom door in just his underwear, looking freaked the fuck out.
“Casey! What the fuck did you do? Jesus! What happened?” He ran to the window, throwing the tattered blue curtain aside to check the lock, thus revealing his hairy, practically naked body to the neighborhood.
He spun around to face me, and I quickly held up a hand, shielding his crotch area from my view as I wheezed, slowly catching my breath again.
“Fell… out of… bed…” I gasped, and Keith visibly relaxed.
“Fucking Christ!” He sagged where he stood, his hand over his heart as he rolled his eyes to the ceiling like he was silently saying a prayer.
I got up, sitting on the edge of my bed; my lungs slightly recovered, but I kept my eyes averted. My birth father still didn’t seem to understand that his near-nakedness was making me uncomfortable because he moved closer and placed a hand on my shoulder, ignoring how I tensed.
“You rest okay?” He sounded as awkward and uncomfortable as I felt.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Just gonna shower and make sure I’m ready for school tomorrow.
” I peeked up at his face, avoiding to focus anywhere south of his neck carefully.
He really looked nothing like me. He had a sunken, long face, with ruddy reddish-brown curls and pale, blue eyes.
He had ruddy cheeks, evidence of his drinking.
I tried to spot some sort of physical similarity between us, but there was nothing.
Not our noses, chins, even our ears. It’s like God literally made me a mini version of my mother, though we really only shared the same colouring.
Clearly, my looks must have come somewhere down her line of the family.
When I met Keith’s stare, I noticed how he flinched slightly, as no doubt he saw the resemblance with my mother, too.
“Okay, kid. You just do what you gotta do today. I’m gonna catch a few more hours of shut-eye. I get Sundays off, so I’ll be around if you need anything, alright?”
“Yeah, sure. Thanks, Keith.” I lowered my head, trying to ignore how weird it felt to be talking to him.
Even at the funeral, he didn’t look my way or say a word to me.
He was too hammered to notice much around him, save for Mom’s casket.
Before then, the last I’d seen of him was when I was turning nine, and he showed up at my birthday party absolutely trashed and started a fight with my mom.
I was so livid, and I had gone into defense mode, ready to try to beat the crap out of him for yelling at her, when Lee had scooped me up, throwing me over his shoulder like a potato sack as Vail and Shaw collected my gifts together, and we took off.
We raced down two blocks to Lee’s place, where we sat in his living room with his grandparents, who were bedridden, opening my gifts, chatting with the sweet, elderly couple, while his mom served us popcorn and called my mother to let her know we were safe.
Now this man, the one who had scared me out of my home and who Mom had run from, was half-naked, holding my shoulder and looking at me with what felt like false concern as if he was trying to act like the concerned parent, but there was no heart behind it, and it just made it more awkward.
Finally, after a few agonizing seconds, he seemed to catch on with how uncomfortable I was and lamely let me go, and he trudged out of the room, closing the door behind himself.
The rest of the day with him was hell. I stayed up in my room for as long as I could, but eventually, I had to go down and at least try to make some sort of effort with Keith.
He was lounging in his sweats and a long sleeve shirt, the electric fire going, and the TV was set to a CFL game.
As to who was playing, I didn’t pay attention.
Nylah had gotten me into basketball, and football only reminded me of Patrick.
But I made myself some tea and sat on the other end of the couch, and attempted conversation.
However, as it turns out, Keith was too absorbed in his football game, and most of my questions were answered with a grunt, a ‘hm,’ or an ‘uh-huh.’ I’d have to try later when he was free to focus.
So I went up to my room and double-checked my bookbag, which was a leather satchel bag Matthew had bought me last year, to ensure I had all my texts, notebooks, and stationery supplies before I snapped the clasps shut.
I’d already been texting back and forth with Nylah, letting her know everything was alright while I was checking in on her.
I was thinking about that biker she’d mentioned and wished she would tell her father, but she swore she hadn’t seen or heard anything since before I had stayed with her, so all was well.
When Mr. Bryant even texted to make sure I was okay, I was tempted to let him know about it, but knew that Nylah would lose her mind if I said anything. Since things had been quiet, I kept my mouth shut and assured him I was doing okay.
I tried to distract myself, to calm the building tension in my chest about tomorrow, but I was too worked up.
I was nervous as hell. I needed to toughen up if I was going to survive.
This was going to be different from the kids at the private school I attended.
I was going to need to adjust quickly if I was going to survive my final year of high school.
My plan?
I needed to keep my head down. Don’t draw attention to myself.
Don’t get involved in anybody’s shit, which means no snitching, and just concentrate on my studies.
Survive. Endure. In a year, I’d be getting my parent’s life insurance money, which would be more than what I knew what to do with.
If I could just survive high school in one piece and graduate, I could live off that money for a few years as I decided what it was I wanted to do, if I hadn’t figured it out by then.
Once I was twenty-one, I’d receive the rest of my inheritance, and I could do whatever the hell I wanted, and I could leave Harley and Keith and all this bullshit behind me.
That night when I went to bed, I felt more confident with my game plan. I could do this. I just needed to hold my tongue, keep a low profile, and pray that no one noticed me.