Chapter 7
ISAK
I’m in my bedroom, fooling around on my phone. Too early to go to sleep, too late to start something new. Don’t feel like doing homework, because what kind of sadist gives assignments to seniors?
Ha. I’m doing enough to graduate, and that’s it.
I set the phone down and pick up my e-reader. Gay erotica, here I come. Now that I have my own account not linked to Mom’s, the world of spicy love stories is mine for the taking. The screen lights up, and—
Harsh voices from outside invade my room, even with my window closed. “You fucking asshole!” That’s a woman’s shout. Ivy? The decibel level is somewhere around a sonic boom.
Wincing, I click the icon for my next book—Met Him at the Glory Hole by W. G. Ansky, sounds perfect—and watch while it loads on the screen.
“Get the hell out of my house!” a deep, older male voice shouts with so much force I wonder how she doesn’t fall over from being in the line of fire. For all I know, she did.
I close my eyes and shake my head. Ugh. Not this again.
“No!” Ivy yells. Unless it’s her mom, Kylene. When people bellow, they tend to sound the same—I should know, after living next to that viper pit my entire life. And it’s gotten worse lately.
There’s a cacophony of swearing. Doors slamming. General clamor. Like everything in their lives is clattering down to the ground. At least I don’t hear the baby crying.
My cheeks heat. There’s nothing I can do about this, but I don’t want to stay here and listen to them. I just … don’t want to hear it.
What’s going on next door isn’t my business, and it’s not my problem. Tell that to my body, though, since my neck and ears feel impossibly hot, and my chest tightens.
“One day, you fucking whore!” Norman roars like an avalanche, crushing everything in his path.
Dammit, this is too much. I put down my reading material. I have to get out of my own bedroom, even though I haven’t done anything wrong.
I leave my bed behind and shuffle down the hall to the living room where my mom is sitting on our battered leather couch watching a period drama on TV and drinking her usual hot tea with lemon.
She glances up when I walk in. She’s wearing a Prince T-shirt from the ’90s, black leggings, and socks with kittens in Santa hats that I gave her for Christmas.
On her head is a dark purple stocking cap that I knitted a year ago.
Just looking at her, with her no-fucks-given personal style and unfailingly warm heart, makes me feel better. A little.
“They’re screaming at each other again,” I whisper.
Not entirely sure why I’m whispering. The yelling isn’t directed at me, and it’s happening a good distance away. Still, it makes me want to fold up into myself. My heart is racing.
Mom presses her lips together and tips her head with a wince. “I’m so sorry you have to hear that, Schmoopy. That’s all they know how to do.” She pats the sofa next to her, and I sit down, putting my head in her lap and my feet on the opposite arm of the couch.
“I hate it.”
“Me, too.”
“I’m never going to yell at anyone about anything,” I mutter.
We both wince as more muffled shouts come through the windows.
We both sigh.
She glances down my tall, skinny frame. My baggy gray sweatpants are loose around my waist, and my black Nirvana T-shirt—that I stole (borrowed) (permanently) from her—is almost threadbare. “Were you trying to sleep?” she asks. “It’s early.”
“Not yet. I finished knitting a scarf with my new yarn, thank you very much, and did my Linguikk lesson. Then I completed tonight’s scheduled doomscrolling on Ad/VICE and was going to read, um, classic literature.” I flinch as someone over there starts up again. “Do you think that’s Ivy?”
“Hard to tell. Could be any of them.”
“Except Lachlan.” He’s the only one in that family who doesn’t raise his voice on a regular basis.
“Except Lachlan,” she agrees.
His name sends a shiver—the good kind—through my belly.
I don’t hear Lachlan, but his silver vintage Porsche is in the driveway, so he must be there. What does he do to try to keep the peace? I want to go over and save him. Get them to stop screaming at each other.
Except … is it any of my business? Would I make it worse?
I swallow. “I feel sorry for them.” Especially for him.
“I do, too.” Mom nods. “They’ve suffered too many tragedies over the years. I feel like I need to mind my own business, since I don’t have any idea what it’s like to be them.”
That shuts me up. Because they have gone through hell. Finally, I murmur, “What did Tolstoy say? All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way?”
“So you did pay attention in English.”
“I did.”
We both tilt our heads, listening.
And then I sigh. I wish I could make things better for my neighbors, but it’s not my job to butt into their lives.
Right?
I watch the show with Mom for a while, and things seem to calm down next door, so I go back to my room and my e-reader.
I still feel guilty, though. I don’t know how to help Lachlan.
Maybe going away next week with the senior class will be good for him.