Chapter Twenty Keely
Chapter Twenty
Keely
Keely woke violently from a dream about Max Simmons.
A particular kind of dream, one that picked up right where they’d left off in the locker room.
Some sort of alternate universe, where they’d never been interrupted and Max followed through on his promises.
Or were they threats? In the morning light of her childhood bedroom, she wasn’t quite sure.
The violence itself arrived in the form of her little brother, Vincent, whose knobby knee was currently threatening to rupture multiple internal organs.
“Keely! You’re here!” He bounced on her again, and she groaned, rolling out from under his weight. Vince was only eight, but gravity worked the same at any age.
“Vincent!” she croaked back, matching his inflection if not his volume. “You’re yelling!”
Keely had made it to her childhood home last night just before midnight, so she hadn’t had the chance to greet her little brother. She thought she was going to wake the whole house when she stepped into the dark hallway and stubbed her toe on a box.
He plopped down beside her. “Can we spend the whole weekend together?”
He already wore his school uniform, khaki shorts and a navy collared shirt. At least he didn’t have his shoes on yet. He looked so eager, his tongue trapped between his still-growing-in teeth, hair sticking up in a cowlick their mother could never tame, eyes sparkling with childlike wonder.
“I’ll be here all week,” she told him, and his pure adrenaline was contagious, working almost as well as a cup of coffee.
An angry shout filtered through Keely’s open door.
“It doesn’t matter, Jason. Your lawyer was supposed to send the final draft over to my lawyer last week.”
Keely and Vincent shared a look, and wordlessly, she lifted her covers so he could crawl in with her. She tugged the blanket over their heads. It didn’t do anything for the noise, but they’d gotten used to drowning that out on their own.
She nudged him with her elbow. “I’m sorry I can’t be here with you when they’re fighting.”
Vince’s little shoulder, pressed against hers, gave a weak shrug. “It’s not as bad since he moved out.”
“Do you like his new apartment?”
Another shrug. “It’s close to my friend Eli’s house. We get to ride the bus together when I stay at Dad’s.”
“That’s really cool,” Keely said.
Downstairs, their mother’s voice rose, words like alimony and new girlfriend flying over Vince’s head and stabbing right through Keely’s soft middle.
Her parents’ marriage had never been perfect, and if she was honest with herself, this divorce was long overdue.
Growing up, Keely had known what was important to her parents by what they showed up for. It wasn’t ballet recitals or soccer games but for awards ceremonies, honors programs, science fairs.
It was the only time her parents ever got along. They were so focused on her for one presentation, for one posterboard, for one single night, they stopped hating each other for a bit.
She swallowed. Would it be better or worse for Vincent, this way? “Mom’s not being too tough on you, is she?”
“It’s fine,” he answered, which splintered Keely’s heart into tinier pieces. After a second, he added, “Do you have to move to California?”
Tears filled her eyes, and she shut them, even though it was dark under her covers. “I love you, Vince, but, yes, I have to.” Was that true? “I’ll still visit all the time.” Was that?
He nodded and rested his head on her shoulder. “I love you back. Can I come see you there? I wanna go far away sometimes, too.”
“Of course. Where else would you go, if you could go anywhere in the world?”
And they talked about dreams and plans and faraway places—life outside of these four walls—until the yelling stopped.
Once it did, when they emerged from underneath the safety of Keely’s covers, she got a whiff of coffee and shoved her brother off the bed to get to it faster.
So, naturally, he wrapped himself around her ankle, and she was required to carry him out of her bedroom and to the kitchen like that.
It was a journey. Boxes stacked precariously in corners, windows naked aside from the blinds. Shadowed impressions of paintings hung on bare walls, and it made every footstep, every breath, sound twice as loud in Keely’s head.
Their mother stood at the counter in a cream-colored loose linen shirt, tucked into boyfriend jeans with fraying ankles.
Her makeup was perfect, her jewelry minimal but effective to highlight the long lines of her face and neck, even if the skin around her eyes was red-rimmed after the shouting match.
Keely had inherited her dark blonde hair, the cerulean shift of her eyes, her petite frame. Keely’s mother was the blueprint by which Keely measured her own success. Sometimes just looking at her made Keely’s heart ache for how beautiful she was, how put together even as her life was torn apart.
How unlike Keely.
“I see your brother was successful in his mission.” Mom took a sip of coffee. Her voice was hoarse.
“If his mission was to rupture my appendix, then sure.” At a sharp pinch, she peered down. Vincent tried to pluck out another leg hair. “It’s good to be home,” she deadpanned.
“Vince,” her mom chided. “The school bus will be here soon.”
Keely grabbed a mug from the under-cabinet hook and poured herself a cup. Mom set out Keely’s preferred creamer and slid the sugar canister across the counter. The movements were so practiced, she felt for a millisecond like she belonged.
Her phone chimed in her pocket, one of today’s many reminders. The sooner Vince was at school, the sooner her mother was tucked into her office for work, the sooner Keely might finally be able to breathe.
“You don’t have to wait around for me,” she said.
Mom sipped at her coffee leisurely. “I took the day off.”
Keely’s heart skipped a beat. Was the fight with her dad that bad? “Why?”
Her mother gave her a sad smile. “It’s been a while. I wanted you all to myself today while Vincent’s at school.”
Amidst Vincent’s protest, Keely’s mind whirred. An entire day of her mother’s undivided attention, when they were both already tender? She wouldn’t survive. She’d turn into a diamond from all the pressure. All the lies. “That’s really not—you don’t have to.”
A finely manicured hand sliced through the air. “I insist,” her mom said. “Now go get ready.” Ronnie James-Sinclair didn’t take no for an answer—even from her daughter. Was she keeping the Sinclair? Keely hadn’t asked. “We’ll get breakfast and grab boxes so you can pack your room.”
Keely glanced down at her body, which now featured a red patch near her ankle thanks to Vincent’s ministrations. She’d been planning to stay in her pajamas, a Woman in Science T-shirt and oversized joggers, all day. “What’s wrong with this?”
“Nice try,” her mom said, shooing her away. Keely didn’t even get to go back for her coffee.
· · · · ·
Keely’s parents had entertained the idea of divorce for years.
She remembered the yelling, the holidays and family dinners where Keely shrunk into herself because if she was small, quiet, likeable, a good kid, they wouldn’t have anything to fight about.
The afternoons and weekends she spent at Max’s were a reprieve. The noise in his house was laughter instead of shouting, and if something broke it was on purpose, or maybe it wasn’t, but it was never from a place of anger.
Then Max moved, took Keely’s safe place away, and she was alone.
Her parents discussed it seriously around that time, when Keely was thirteen, but it didn’t stick. Ten months later, when Vincent barreled feet-first into their family, Keely understood why.
It became when Vincent starts daycare, when Vincent starts grade school, when Keely finishes high school, then when Vince does.
Now there was a sold sign in the front yard of the only home she’d ever known.
It had been four months since Thanksgiving, when she and Vince had learned her dad was moving out.
His things were gone before Keely went back to school, and her mother hadn’t tried to fill the spaces.
There were gaps in their family, and Keely didn’t know how to fill those, either.
At least she could put off packing her childhood bedroom for a bit longer and focus on avoiding high school acquaintances in the grocery store instead.
She was pulling a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch off the shelf when her mom laughed in disbelief. “No way. Small world, huh?”
Keely looked up and the cereal dropped from her hand. She may as well have swallowed an entire box of wheat squares dry. Because who else was at her hometown supermarket but the person who had her pinned to a locker the day before?
The same hand that had gripped her waist, her hip, caught a wisp of her hair with his knuckles, lifted to wave at her and her mother from the other end of the dry goods aisle.
She considered diving into the shelf to hide. Instead, she bent for the cereal box and fumbled it three times before it landed in the basket.
Mom tapped Keely’s elbow with a sleeve of English muffins. “It’s your old friend, Max. You used to be thick as thieves in middle school.”
Max shoved his hands deep in his pockets. Good. She needed them out of sight, especially if—why the hell was he walking over here?
“How are you, Mrs. James-Sinclair?” He tipped his head to her mom.
It shouldn’t have done anything that he remembered his mother’s hyphenated name.
So what? But it made Keely wonder—did he remember how Keely used to hate it because it meant her middle name was a boy’s name?
Did he remember teasing her with it over and over again? Keely James, Keely James.
“Keely,” he said.
She expected a smirk, but he didn’t look capable at present. Purple smudges under his eyes, a shadow to the very edges of his jaw, messy strands of hair in all directions like he’d been pulling at it. . . Between last night and this morning, something had changed. Something was wrong.
“Just Ms. James now,” Keely’s mom said.