3. Dean
DEAN
Present day
M y dad’s had the same recliner ever since I can remember. The worn brown leather, the soft creak that’s gotten louder. The way it falls back when he drops into it. … it's all familiar.
The chair is also broken, but Dad won’t get a new one even though he sits in that chair every fucking day.
He’s the kind of guy who worries about money and decisions like that. He pinches pennies and spends forever deciding which purchases to make. The house was always the most important. Had to pay the mortgage to keep the house.
The leather on his recliner is molded to his body and shiny in the spots where he always sits. There’s a dent on the right arm where he rests his elbow when he holds his can of beer.
When he drops down into it, I let it go. He’s never getting a new recliner and it’s not like I can get him one. If I did, I don’t know if he’d accept it. He’s too damn proud.
My dad picks up the beer, balancing his elbow in that spot, and extends the footrest. The metal creaks. Probably needs some WD-40. Sometimes I think that chair will outlive me. My dad crosses his ankles, wiggling his toes and the white socks he buys in the big packs at the farm store.
I retake my seat in his living room watching whatever game is on TV. The sound is down too low to hear the announcers, and I don't’ mind. Light slants through the blinds in the living room windows onto the same carpet that’s always been here. No sense in replacing carpet when you can just have it cleaned—or rent the machine from the hardware store and clean it yourself. There’s not much pile left after all these years. The carpet is worn pretty thin.
Still better than concrete.
I stretch on the ratty sofa and try not to think of so-called classrooms with concrete floors. The floors were what reminded me for so long after I came home. If I stretch enough, I can work the soreness out of my muscles and bring my mind back to Haley. I try not to think of her when the thoughts of back then are so raw. I try… but recently, I’ve been failing.
Easy to get lost thinking about her, especially when I think this game might be a rerun. I sort of remember what the score might be, but I don’t really care. My dad isn’t paying much attention either. It’s just better to have something on then sit together with nowhere to look.
It’s comfortable, I guess. House still smells the same as it always did—a mix of old wood and carpets cleaned too many times and wallpaper glue. Not much has changed around here. Same pictures on the walls. Same disintegrating coasters on the side tables. There’s a round rug in front of the TV that used to be a mix of bright colors, but it’s faded in the sun. That’s the only sign that time has passed.
I’m the only other thing that’s different. Although when I sit here, I can almost remember how I used to feel before. If I try hard enough, I can almost pretend none of it ever happened and I’m still the same.
Like none of it ever happened. But then I never would have met her .
That never works for long. My mind doesn’t have to wander far to drag me back to the long nights and the screaming and crying and begging.
The punishments. There were always so many punishments. That shit never ended. None of us could ever do anything right.
It was designed that way. Tough love is what he called it when my father let them take me. I glance back at him and take a sip. He didn’t know.
Sit up straighter. Don’t look at them, look at me. What rule did you break? You broke it again. Straighter. You need to learn. You’re here to learn. Your parents want you to learn. That’s why they sent you here. So you’d learn. You’re not that fucking dumb. Act right! You’re such a fucking failure. You’re never going back at this rate. They’ll keep you here. Better for you here than out there where you’re always hurting people. Why do you hurt them? You hate them, don’t you? Don’t you?
The screams echo in my head.
If you hear that kind of thing often enough, it starts to sound true. My arms would burn from lifting them up and up and up while we did jumping jacks until your body couldn’t take any more. My feet hurt. Once I had a swollen ankle from when one of the teachers tackled me—damn thing was probably sprained—but I still had to do jumping jacks. Ankle’s never been the same since. The pain never really went away.
Maybe it did, but I still feel it.
Haley . I should think about Haley. I’ll never forget the rest of that shit, but I can choose to concentrate on Haley.
My memory of her is like my phone. Hundreds of images locked away even though I know they’re there.
Sometimes she pauses, and something about the way she goes still makes me think she can feel me watching.
I like the thought of her feeling my eyes on her. It’s like she saw me.
No one else really did. They looked right through me.
When her bedroom light is on, it’s like a one-way mirror. She can’t see me watching her, but I can see her. The curve of her neck. The way the fabric slides off her body when she takes her shirt off, smooth and deliberate. How she stretches her arms over her head, so beautiful, so perfect.
And then, when the light goes off, I know she’s crawling into bed and the soft sheets are touching even softer skin and she’s warming up the blankets with her body.
Maybe she still thinks about me watching when we weren’t supposed to. She was the one rule I broke. One more reason I was convinced I’d die in that place. Maybe she touches herself, thinking about me watching. Maybe it turns her on to know I’m out there in the dark on the other side of the glass, all these years later.
My dad sighs and I’m snapped out of my thoughts. He picks up his can of beer from the side table, drinks, and sets it back down.
I forgot my own beer. The condensation from the can has soaked into the ragged coaster below it. I pick it up and take a swig and pretend I wasn’t thinking about her … and that place. The fan on the ceiling spins. It seems a little louder for a second, then gets quiet again.
The game switches to a commercial. It’s definitely a rerun. We’ve probably sat here watching it before.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see my dad glance at me.
“You seem out of it,” he says, tone gruff and casual.
I shuffle on the sofa and raise my eyebrows at him.
“Do I?” I question and play it off.
My dad shrugs, then turns to the TV again. His gaze is unfocused, more lost in thought than in the game. Or I guess the commercial for some weight-loss pill.
“You weren’t here last night. Thought you were staying over.” He talks without looking at me. His tone nonchalant but I know him too well.
“I was.” The commercial changes. “Went to bed early.”
“Oh. Guess I didn’t hear you.” My dad picks up his beer again, but sets it back down without drinking.
Adrenaline rushes through me but I stay still. Don’t ask questions Dad.
Thoughts of last night try to trickle in and instead I focus on anything else. The living room is warm from the sun. It was never warm at that place, no matter how bright it was.
It was never warm until the summer came, and then it was too hot. The teachers had personal air-conditioning units and box fans that stayed on them, but we didn’t have anything. During those few summer months it was like being baked alive in an oven. The concrete floors held all the heat in.
The teachers believed in keeping it cold until they believed in burning us to death. Never a middle ground. We had to earn comfort. It was a privilege.
I guess you could say I don’t have a middle ground, either.
I go between memories of screaming and torture and wanting to die to memories of Haley through a window.
It’s going to be over soon. All the shit that happened in the past is going to be taken care of. It’ll be dead and buried, and then these thoughts can go away.
“You alright?” my dad asks quietly. I can feel him watching me.
“Yeah.” I don’t take my eyes off the TV. “Fine.”
He doesn’t say anything for a minute. There’s a weight in the air, like he’s getting ready to break some bad news. Don’t know what bad news he thinks he has to tell me. I pretend I don’t feel it and keep looking at the TV.
“I know,” he starts, then waves his hand at the TV. It’s just the game on the screen. “I heard the news.”
“What news?” My jaw tenses and I wish he’d stop. We don’t have to say anything.
“About the principal.” He drops his hand into his lap and looks me in the eye. “Your principal from that… fucking nightmare.” My dad’s voice cracks.
I look back at him, my expression blank. That’s a habit that came with me from that place, I’ll probably never get rid of it. It’s not smart to let anything show. My default is no expression at all. They taught me that.
My dad’s jaw works, the look in his eyes changing. He doesn’t like it when I look at him like this. He’s said so before. But he won’t like it any better if I try to change my face.
I won’t, anyway. I can’t.
“He’s dead.”
He’s dead. The words land on the worn-out carpet like dust. My heart ticks up a little faster. It doesn’t stay that way. My dad’s not telling me anything I don’t already know. Memories of that man’s face come up like they happened yesterday, but I push them back down. He had the kind of face you could see anywhere, on any guy you passed on the street. That’s the kind of face you can’t get away from, even if you forget what he looks like.
I haven’t forgotten any of it.
My dad hasn’t looked away from me. He’s waiting for an answer, some kind of response. The air between us is tense. He wants something out of this but I don’t know what. He probably wants me to be the same kid I was before he sent me to that place. He’s said it before. How much he regrets it.
“Mr. Jay?” he nudges the suggestion. “The principal of that boarding school you went to?” He tries to get me to remember or acknowledge anything.
I bury more memories of that asshole and the screaming and punishments and sitting up straight. The fact that he’s dead has nothing to do with me.
I bury more memories of the building, and how, when I finally left, I didn’t think the outside world was real. I spent years waiting to be taken back and put in those same rooms and left there for the rest of my life.
“He wasn’t my principal,” I say finally. I want him to drop this. I know he can tell. “It wasn’t a real school Dad, remember?” I tell him flatly, easily. Like I’m unbothered.
He nods and opens his mouth like he might say more, but he doesn’t.
We turn back to the game. I watch dust motes hover in the air and look through the doorway to the kitchen. The same old microwave, plastic all yellow with age, still sits on the counter. The damn thing looks like hell, but it hasn’t died yet. It just keeps living and living, heating up food with a crackling sound and a little rattle where the glass plate isn’t quite even. My dad doesn’t care about that. He won’t buy another one until this microwave burns out and all the wiring melts together.
“Dean.” His voice is thick. The emotion he’s trying to control makes me want to get up and leave, but I don’t.
“Yeah?”
There’s another long silence. Emotion fills the room, but it’s outside of me. It doesn’t make any difference what my dad feels. There’s a twinge, I guess, somewhere deep down, but that’s just as likely to turn into anger.
Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I still expect to see myself at sixteen. I still expect to see him how he was, not this older, grayer version. Some of those years feel like they never went by at all and I hate looking at the evidence that they did.
“Look at me,” he commands and I do.
My dad’s face falls, his eyes shining.
“It has to be—” His voice is even thicker with sorrow. It’s impossible to ignore now. “You know, I’m sorry.” He clears his throat. It’s always easier for him to sound angry rather than sad. That’s fine with me. I don’t need weepy apologies. “I’m sorry, Dean. I didn’t know.”
“You already told me that,” I say confidently, offering him solace. It’s true. He has told me that. He’s told me that while he’s crying and yelling and whispering. He was a wreck when he found out what they did. They closed down the school although no one was ever charged. Everyone got away with what they did.
He clears his throat again. Sounds like it hurts.
Part of me softens. Enough that I can make my eyes soften, too. “Dad.”
He meets my eyes. I can tell he’s trying to keep a straight face. I can also tell he wants me to bail him out of all the guilt. I don’t want to see him like this, so I will.
“There’s no way you could have known.”
The breath goes out of him like he’s never heard me say this before. He has. I tell him the same thing every time this comes up. He lives with the pain like I do. It’s just different.
“Does it bring up… anything?” My dad tries. “Hearing that news.”
There’s nothing to bring up. The feelings are always there. The memories too. I bury the screams deep inside—the feel of the rough concrete floor, the knowledge that I’d never get out, that I’d die in that place, and they’d bury my body in an unmarked grave in the yard. I knew it was hopeless. I knew nothing would ever change. I buried those feelings too. It’s not the news that makes them come back. They’re always with me.
I make a sound and shrug. My dad can take it to mean whatever he wants.
“Did you tell your therapist?” he asks, sounding even more gruff. “Are you still going?”
I don’t want to talk about any of this with my dad.
“They just gave me meds and they’re working,” I tell him. “Let it be, Dad. I’m alright.”
He nods, then takes another drink of his beer. I can tell the can’s empty from the hollow sound. He rests it on his thigh, tapping it a few times like that might make it fill itself up again. In a few minutes, he’ll get up and get another can from the fridge. I hope he’s lost interest in this conversation by then. If he hasn’t, I’ll think of some excuse and head out.
My dad shifts in his chair again. Guess he hasn’t lost interest.
“What’s your girlfriend say about it?” He sounds fake when he tries to be casual. “What’s her name again?”
He glances at me, smiling, trying to get the two of us to be buddies. I prefer this. In a lot of ways it’s a second chance.
I smile back at him. “Which one?” I say it like it’s a joke.
The fond expression on his face is real. So is the laugh he lets out.
“You’re a smart-ass, Dean,” he says, and goes back to watching the game. “Love you kid. If you ever need to talk, you know I’m here.” He says and then that old chair creaks as he gets up.
“I know Dad,” I tell him and turn back to the TV, trying to forget like I do far too fucking often.