Chapter 16
Dylan
It was afternoon, and the school’s bell announced that the long day was finally over.
Usually, I would stick around a bit in front of school.
Talk with some friends about teen stuff—like an old episode of South Park that reran late at night again.
Or like Nate’s driver’s license struggles.
He had literally managed to back into the same car seven times while trying to pull into a parallel parking spot downtown. Seven freaking times!
But today I said my good-byes quickly and fled the school as if I were being chased by one of the zombies out of Dawn of the Dead.
The cool fall air brushed my face as I stepped out and mingled with the students waiting to get picked up by their parents.
I was usually one of them, but not today.
My high school wasn’t too far from my home by bike, maybe about fifteen minutes, and with everything going on, I told Grandma I was biking so she could go visit Mom in jail.
I didn’t like riding my bike. But this wasn’t the time to complain.
This was the time to survive in whatever way possible.
As crazy as it all was, considering we’d been just a normal family not too long ago, my life had turned into utter horror overnight.
One day, I was a normal kid with school sweethearts and soccer practice, the next, my mom was in jail for murder.
All while my grandma was trying everything she could to get her out.
She barely ate or slept anymore. My mom was on her mind constantly, like an imaginary clock going on and on and on.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, endlessly without the slightest break in sight.
I walked along the brick wall to the back of the school. Past the overgrown landscaping and dirty windows that screamed budget cuts at every corner. I knelt next to my bike to unlock it.
I was about to get on it, when my eyes locked with Benny’s. He was lingering behind the school with two friends, and he instantly focused on me. His thin lips curled into a provoking grin, then he just stared. Like some alpha dog trying to warn me to look away.
I knew what this was about. My friends had told me he was talking shit about my mom behind my back.
My misery and pain had drawn him to me like a bloodhound to a wounded fox.
And why not? That’s what piece-of-shit bullies like him did.
Live off others’ pain and struggles to make themselves feel powerful and important.
“Not with me, bitch,” I mumbled and leaned my bike against the brick wall. My arms stretched wide open, and I waved him over for the whole school to see. “Come on, bitch. Come on. Make my day.”
Little coward prick looked away instantly. Pretended he was in some deep conversation with his loser friends all of a sudden.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, coward!” I yelled over to him.
Six foot two at sixteen. Number one wrestler on my team. I would wipe the toilets with their ugly-ass faces.
When nothing else came from the loser trio, I got on my bike in one smooth motion and rode off.
I usually took the sidewalks and back streets home, but today I decided to take the longer way so I could stop at the gas station and get some chips and a soda.
The good thing about all this mess with Mom was that I ate what I wanted when I wanted without an adult’s eagle eyes scanning my world for sugar and artificial colors.
The gas station was only a short ride down the street, and I could already see its bright neon sign glowing in the distance as I approached Bubbles and Brews—the local dive bar—to my left.
But there was nothing bubbly about it. The concrete in front of it was cracked, and some of the windows were boarded up.
Faded posters from decades of this and that hung half-torn on its walls.
Drunks were coming in and out to blasting rock music, smoking and vaping, stumbling and laughing too loudly about shit that most likely wasn’t funny.
My bike rolled by, then I hit the brakes so hard it almost sent me flying over the handlebars.
I completely froze when I saw a man stumble out.
All six foot four of him.
Broad shoulders. Huge arms and muscular build. A baseball cap pulled into his face, like that would do the trick.
This man could just as well have been wearing a full biohazard suit. I still would’ve recognized him.
It was my freaking dad!
And he wasn’t alone.
Some woman who looked barely old enough to be in anything with “Brews” in its name was laughing with him as they stumbled and swayed into the alley next to the bar.
The woman was wearing tight jeans and had way too much makeup on.
Her high heels scraped over the cracked street as Dad led the way, holding her hand.
Ice-cold needles stabbed me up and down my spine. Every inch of me told me to keep going, to go home. Told me not to follow them. But it was like I didn’t have a choice. Like a moth that flies into a campfire knowing it will die but does it anyway.
Quietly, I pushed my bike up the small alley, but they weren’t there anymore.
When I walked all the way to the corner of the alley, I stopped and peeked around it.
My bike almost slipped from my grip when I saw the woman on her knees right in front of my dad.
He gripped her head with both hands, and his head was tilted upward with his eyes closed.
She was fucking giving him a blow job.
I tasted bile on my tongue. Bitter and sharp. I actually had to swallow not to gag.
Emotions pressed in on me from all sides. Sadness. Anger. Rage. Hate. And even shame.
I should have run over there and confronted him. Taken a picture with my phone. Posted it on TikTok for the whole world to see the pig as a pig.
But, as if my body wasn’t my own, I jumped back on my bike and hit the pedals as fast as I could.
What the hell was I doing, riding off like a coward? I should have gone back there. Punched him in the face. Screamed at her that he was a married man. With kids. Who betrayed his mute wife and dropped her like she was trash.
But I didn’t.
The road in front of me turned blurry as tears burned in my eyes. The wind bashed mercilessly against my face as I thundered my bike past stores and homes.
I hated him. I fucking hated this man so much.
The familiar oak trees on my street came into view. I took the back alley, where the trash trucks collected bins, to avoid any lingering camera crews.
When I made it to the back door, I didn’t lean my bike against the wall; I just tossed it. No. Smashed it to the ground. It made a metallic clink, and the bell broke off, but I didn’t care.
I walked to the door. My hand was already reaching for the handle when I froze.
I needed to calm the hell down. Ethan and Lila were in there.
Most likely coloring with Anna, their babysitter.
They asked for Mom day and night. All while Dad had completely abandoned us.
Just like he did back then when Mimi and Poppy died.
He spiraled instantly after losing his parents.
And not in the usual way of grief—in some psycho way that would torch the whole world so it would suffer with him.
I’d been too young to make sense of all the details, but there were certain things I still remembered even now.
Like when our neighbor rang the bell in the morning to tell us that Dad was passed out in his boxers on the front lawn, and the sprinkler was soaking him.
Or the time Mom begged him to stay home, and he grabbed her by the wrist and threw her out of his way. To get more booze.
It took everything my mom had in her to save him. But, in the end, she pulled off the impossible. She got Dad sober. Got him on some pills or something and into treatment. All while she was nine months pregnant with Lila, all while attending college and working a real job.
However, unlike my mom—who seemed to see something in him I didn’t—I always knew he was a ticking time bomb. And today I understood that better than I ever had before.
I took a deep breath and steadied my shaking hands as best I could. Wiped the tears out of my eyes with my sleeve. Then I went inside.
But instead of Anna doing arts and crafts with the kids at the kitchen table, I found Lila on the couch, her eyes glued to the screen as the fast-moving lights from the TV reflected off her face.
I looked around. The living room was in total chaos. Toys and snacks were scattered everywhere. I picked up a stuffed unicorn and a fire truck.
“Where’s Anna?” I asked.
“She left,” Lila said, still staring at the screen as if hypnotized. Which she was. We kids and screens.
“She just left?” I sounded as outraged as I was. Lila instantly looked at me, her eyes wide with worry. Maybe thinking she’d done something wrong.
She nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said, like the good girl she always was. Always taking the blame even if she wasn’t at fault.
“It’s not your fault,” I said gently. “Where is Ethan?”
Lila jumped up from the couch. “He was playing over there.” She pointed at the area where I had just picked up the fire truck.
A loud thud echoed from upstairs. Both of us froze for a second, then we thundered up the stairs.
“Ethan!” I yelled and stormed into his room. But he wasn’t there.
“Ethan!” Lila called out and ran into her room, but he wasn’t there either.
My heart hammered against my rib cage like it was about to break free. My little brother could be a real little shit sometimes, but I loved him with all my heart.
Lila checked Mom and Dad’s bedroom while I stormed into my room, and, thank God, there he was. Relief hit me so hard, I actually stumbled back a step.
He was standing on my gaming chair, stretching his little arms high up to reach the shelf in my closet.
His blond curls shimmered golden under the light, and, like always, he had smears on his cheeks, hands, and legs.
Food stains, paint—who the hell knew. Next to him was my baseball bat, which must have fallen out of the closet.
“Ethan!”
I scooped him up quickly and hugged him so hard, the little rug rat actually said, “Ouch, too tight.”
“He wanted to get your Halloween candy,” Lila said and pointed at my pillowcase up there on the shelf. It was still filled with candy, and somehow Ethan knew this.
“Well,” I said, reaching up to pull it out with one hand, still holding Ethan, “let’s not let all his effort be for nothing.”
“Really? We get candy?” Lila hollered cheerfully.
“Mmh-mm, but don’t tell—” my voice broke off. I almost said Mom. “Anybody,” I corrected quickly.
As we made our way down to the living room, Ethan and Lila both swore on their favorite toys that they wouldn’t tell anybody.
I placed the candy on the carpet and turned on their favorite show: Masha and the Bear.
My heart broke for them as I watched them eat candy with big grins on their faces. How the hell could all this happen to them? And, even more so, how the hell could Dad do this to them? They needed him more than ever right now. They were just innocent little kids.
My hands balled into fists as the memory of him behind Bubbles and Brews flashed in front of my eyes. I shook it off and pulled my phone out.
“You wait here for me, okay? I really need to call Grandma. After that, we’ll play some games and color.”
Lila nodded. Ethan was too busy with the TV show to even notice I’d said something.
I stepped into the kitchen and was about to call Grandma, but then paused with my phone in my hand. Anna had just abandoned Ethan and Lila. And Dad was drunk at the bar.
But was I supposed to tell her all that?
That Dad was getting BJs behind Bubbles and Brews?
Grandma was barely holding on by a thread herself.
And Mom needed her to fight for her. I was able to hold the fort with the kids here at home.
She needed to know about Anna, of course.
And we needed to get Dad back home before he drove drunk into some family and killed them. But the rest would stay with me.
I steadied myself as best I could. Told myself to be strong.
That they needed me. Mom, Grandma, Ethan, and Lila.
I had to place my own needs and pain behind theirs.
Just like Mom always did for me and everybody else she loved.
I would cry later. Alone in my bed. When everybody else was asleep and nobody could hear.
And, until then, I would fucking step up and be the man my dad would never be.