4. Everett
EVERETT
The optometrist’s name is Dr. Carter, and he’s already pissing me off.
“These are going to take some time.” He turns Isla’s taped-together disaster over in his hands like it’s a science experiment.
It’s his tone that sets my teeth on edge.
The one people use when they want you to know they’re doing you a favor just by existing.
“We’re looking at a full lens replacement, new frames.
I would need to order them. It could be a week, maybe two. ”
Isla’s shoulders drop. She’s sitting in the exam chair with her legs dangling off the edge because she’s too short for her feet to reach the floor, and now she looks like somebody just told her Christmas is canceled. “Two weeks?”
“At a minimum. We’re backed up.”
I’m leaning against the doorframe with my arms crossed, not saying a word.
Just standing here is enough. The doctor glances over for the third time since we walked in, and I had to angle my shoulders sideways to fit.
I’m used to it. People look at me the way they look at a dog they’re not sure is friendly. Most of the time, I let them wonder.
Right now, I don’t feel like it.
“Two weeks seems like a long time,” I murmur.
I don’t raise my voice. I don’t step forward.
I just say it, and I look at him while I do.
Something about the combination of those two things makes Dr. Carter’s whole posture shift.
He might even be questioning whether it was a good idea to come to work today.
“Well.” He clears his throat. Adjusts his own glasses. Glances back at the broken pair in his hands. “Let me... check the back. We might have comparable frames in stock. It could speed things up considerably.”
I step aside to let him pass, and I’m pretty sure he mumbles something close to “thank you” before he hurries down the hall like a scared rabbit.
She watches him go—at least, she tries to, since she’s not wearing her glasses now.
The best she can do is stare in the general direction he went in. “Must be nice,” she muses.
“What?”
“Getting whatever you want with a single growl.”
“I didn’t growl.” She only laughs softly. “Listen, why are you even complaining? If it gets the job done, it gets the job done. Or do you want to wait two weeks for new glasses?”
She pulls her feet up onto the seat and wraps her arms around her knees, which makes her look even more like a little kid. “But this is exactly why you’d be perfect. You don’t actually have to hurt anybody. You just have to make them believe you would do it if they don’t back off.”
I don’t answer that. Not because she’s wrong, but because I don’t feel like admitting she’s not wrong.
I’ve spent pretty much half my life being the guy people are afraid of, because I know the feeling of being the guy who’s always afraid.
But I figured out that if you get big enough and you get mean enough, things change.
You break one guy’s jaw in front of enough witnesses, and all of a sudden everybody treats you like a loaded weapon.
Most of the time, it’s annoying.
Sometimes, it’s useful.
Right now, after I watched an optometrist hustle his ass into the back room to find frames he definitely had the whole time, it’s a little bit of both.
It takes twelve minutes for Dr. Carter to come back with a pair that fits her prescription. He doesn’t mention the two-week wait again.
Her new glasses aren’t anything special.
Basic black frames, rectangular, a little too big for her face, but a hell of a lot better than the packing tape she was wearing.
When she puts them on and blinks a few times, something in her expression changes.
Like the world just snapped back into focus, and she’s surprised by what she finds in it.
She looks at me—actually looks at me, for real, without squinting this time—and her cheeks go pink.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. You’re just...” She trails off, pushing the glasses up her nose. “Taller than I thought.”
I have a feeling she’s not telling the truth. You can’t miss how large I am. But I’ll let it go for now because she looks kind of scared. That would usually be a good thing, but right now it doesn’t feel so good. More like I’d be kicking a wounded animal. “You were pretty much blind.”
“Yeah. That’s true.” She adjusts the glasses again, more like she’s fidgeting now, then mumbles, “Thank you for these. You didn’t have to go out of your way to make sure I got them so fast.”
“I didn’t go out of my way.” But I do go out of my way when we reach the register, and she starts digging through her backpack for her wallet.
Jesus Christ. She’s still not getting it.
I hold out a hand, which is pretty much the international sign for knock it the fuck off, then I pull out my own wallet and swipe my card at the reader.
“Wait. No, you don’t—”
“I swear, if you tell me I didn’t have to do it, I might break this pair, too.” She winces, but I add, “Really. Technically, they belong to me because I paid for them. So I could do it.”
Her mouth snaps shut, which is a relief, but the look on her face gives me a funny feeling inside. I’m used to people staring at me like I’m a puzzle they’re trying to figure out. I don’t know why there’s anything different about her doing it. There just is.
“Thank you,” she mumbles.
“Sure.” It seems like this is new for both of us.
I’m not usually kind. And obviously, people aren’t usually kind to her.
It’s the look on her face. Confusion. Like nobody’s ever done something for her without a catch, and now she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I’ve seen that look before. Hell, I’ve felt it before.
A long time ago. Before I got big enough to make sure nobody could take anything from me ever again.
I don’t want to think about that now.
“Are you hungry?” I ask once we’re back in the truck. “You never did eat lunch.” And neither did I.
“You don’t have to—” Her head snaps around to look at me. The way I narrow my eyes makes her press her lips together tight before she replies, “Yes. I’m hungry.”
There’s a diner about ten minutes from the optometrist’s office.
I’ve been there a few times after fights, when I need to eat something before the adrenaline crash hits.
Nobody asks questions, and the coffee is strong enough to strip paint.
I take her there because I figure she’s not the type of person who would be comfortable anywhere loud or crowded.
I’m right. When I let her pick the booth, she heads straight for the back corner and slides all the way in against the wall.
I order a burger without looking at the menu.
She orders a grilled cheese and a side of fries, then changes the fries to a side salad.
“Wait. No, I think I’d rather have the fries, after all.
” The waitress is patient about it. I’m not, but I bite my tongue.
I don’t know why. I don’t know this girl, but I’ve already given her more grace than I’ve given pretty much anybody else in my life, ever.
“So,” I say once the food is ordered. “Tell me about the HOA.”
She looks up from the sugar packets she’s organizing. “Yeah? You want to hear about it?”
“Please.”
Her eyes light up behind her new glasses, but not like she’s happy.
More like she’s glad she can finally get something off her chest. “There are five members. Christine Jones is the president. She’s the worst, but they all suck.
Mr. Delaney is the vice president, but he just goes along with whatever Christine says because I think he’s scared of her, and he does business with her husband.
There’s a lady named Patty who moved in two years ago and right away started measuring everybody’s grass with a literal ruler.
I’m not kidding. She actually has a ruler she carries around in her purse. ”
“Seriously?”
She wraps her hands around her water glass and nods.
“Last year, they fined the Millers three hundred dollars because their mailbox was two inches too far from the curb. Two. Freaking. Inches. Mr. Miller is, like, eighty-one years old. He can barely get to the mailbox, much less measure how far it is from the damn curb.”
“And nobody pushed back?”
“Nobody ever pushes back,” she snaps. “That’s the whole thing.
Christine sends a letter, and everybody panics because nobody wants to deal with the fine or the hearing or whatever she threatens next.
There’s this family, the Wagners? They live next door.
They repainted their front door because Christine Jones said the shade of blue they’d picked wasn’t on the approved color list.”
So this Christine Jones is a real bitch, in other words. “Some people get off on whatever little bit of power they can get,” I murmur, looking over at the little caddy where the packets are now arranged by color.
“She lives for it, I swear to God.” When the food comes, Isla goes from leaning across the table to sinking back in the booth with her head down and her hands in her lap.
Like she’s reminding herself to behave. I kind of wish she wouldn’t.
She’s more interesting when she lets herself get pissed off.
At first, neither of us says anything. I devour my burger in about four bites. Isla dips each fry into a tiny cup of ketchup. Slowly, carefully, like she’s performing surgery.
“And your chickens?” I ask between bites. “How long have you had them?”
Now something else floods her face. They make her happy, those chickens.
She loves them. Her eyes go soft before she replies, “I’ve had them since I was fifteen.
Grandma got them for me after...” She pauses and picks up a fry, then puts it down again.
“I had a really hard time in high school. There was a while where the bullying was really, really bad. Mostly they made fun of my name. Isla Pickel. You can imagine.”
I can. Actually, I don’t have to imagine. My memory is clear enough.