Letter Four
You still aren’t talking to me.
Before, it seemed like defeat kept you silent.
But today, I saw something different in the set of your jaw, in the casual way you folded your hands on top of the steel table: defiance.
The look you gave me said, You’re not talking? I’m not talking, either.
Your eyes blazed with it as they held fast to mine: a challenge.
I bit the insides of my cheeks, struggling to control my breathing.
And you noticed. You know me well enough to know when I’m angry, and the signs were all there. Your gaze swept over me as you tallied each one. By the time I left, a little smirk had your lips quirking up on one side.
You think you’re winning.
Back in my cell, I picked up the first thing I saw and threw it as hard as I could against the cinderblock wall. But it was only a paperback book, so it did very little to quell my rage. Not like breaking something. Or slapping that smug look off your face, for example.
Without missing a beat, I swiped the book off the floor and went crazy, ripping out pages as fast as I could, ignoring the sting of a paper cut, and that’s when my cellmate walked in.
She’s hardcore, Casey. She’s got tattoos and body piercings and nasty scars—pink jagged things, garish against her pale skin.
She’s a real bad bitch. There’s no mistaking that about her.
She saw those pages littered across the floor and yanked the book from my hands.
I realized too late—the book I’d ripped up was one of hers.
She yelled, “What the fuck?” and called me names and asked me what the hell my problem was.
And when I didn’t answer, she snatched me off the bed by my braid, jerking me down to my knees.
She demanded to know why I’d ripped up her book, and when I still didn’t answer, she drew her lips together and kneed me in the face.
The world turned red as white-hot pain ricocheted across my skull, blooming out from my cheekbone.
As you know, I’m no stranger to being struck in the face.
What I never told you the first time someone hit me, but I’m willing to tell you in writing, is this: I didn’t like why I was hit, but I liked being hit.
The after part especially—when the pain reaches its peak, and my whole body clenches around it, desperately holding on, and I can’t focus on anything else.
There’s just pain.
Pain and nothing else.
Pain, blotting out everything.
Pain, moving through me like a wave and, slowly but surely, bringing me back to a state of relief.
The pain feels good, Casey. I like it.
It quells the rage.
Another time I felt rage? The day I walked downstairs and spotted you on the third floor of my house, standing in the bedroom right below mine, unpacking clothes from an enormous suitcase and stacking them on top of the four-poster bed in there.
I paused on the landing, confused, before wandering into the room.
Gaping at your clothes, I asked, “What are you doing?”
Your eyes narrowed. “I’m…unpacking my things.”
“I don’t understand. Why are you doing that here?”
“Has your dad not told you yet?”
“Told me what?”
You raked a hand through your hair, wincing at my panicked tone. “You should probably speak with him.”
I fled downstairs, finding my dad right off the entry hall, leaning forward on the settee in the sitting room. He dropped his phone on a side table, clearly expecting me.
“Elliot,” he said. “Sit down.”
“What’s Casey doing here? Why’s he unpacking his stuff on the third floor?”
Calmly, Nic said, “Because Casey will be living with us for a while.”
“Living with us? Why?”
Nic stood and took my arm, leading me to the settee.
“Listen,” he said, taking a seat next to me.
“I can’t keep leaving you at the Harrises’, and you fought me on the nanny.
With Casey here, you’ll have someone to keep you company after school.
When I work late, you’ll have someone to eat dinner with, someone to help you with homework. He—”
“Wait. Are you saying you’re letting him live here so he can watch me?”
“He’s not here to watch you,” Nic said. “Think of him more like…a companion.”
“But he’s a total stranger! We don’t even know him that well.”
“Oh, I know all I need to know,” Nic said confidently, and knowing my dad, he’d taken a fine-tooth comb to your life, Casey. Likely interrogated the shit out of you, too. But still.
“You act like I’m not allowed to date until college, yet you plan to leave me here, all alone, with a boy who looks”—I paused here, clearing my throat—“the way he does, and the potential ramifications of that don’t concern you?”
“Not at all,” Nic said. “That won’t be a problem.”
“He’s not gay, Dad. I saw him checking out Tinsley’s mom.”
“Still,” Nic said, unperturbed. “It won’t be a problem. You can trust me on this.”
I reared back—both shocked and, honestly, kind of offended. But I considered this, too: Nic might’ve threatened you.
“Okay,” I said. “Well, what if I don’t want him here? What about that?”
“You don’t have a choice in the matter,” Nic said. “This is final.”
“I’m seventeen. I don’t need a fucking companion.”
“I’m not leaving you here alone, Elliot. You can fight me on this, but you won’t win—not this time. Casey is here to stay, and it would be nice if you could accept that.”
“He’s a stranger!” I cried. “You’re moving a complete stranger into our house—on the floor below mine—and you’re completely disregarding my feelings, Dad! Do you even hear yourself? This is my house, too, and I get no say? None at all? You want me to just sit back and accept it?”
With a sigh, Nic plucked my hand off my lap and squeezed it between both of his.
“Everything I do, I do for you. All I’m asking is that you do this one—admittedly big, but very important—thing for me.
We’ve been having a rough time lately. We need a change.
” In a soft, reassuring voice, he added, “He could be good for us.”
As Nic squeezed my hand, his eyes filled with something I hadn’t seen there maybe ever: hope.
And that didn’t just bother me, Casey—it hurt. It felt like Nic was saying our little family wasn’t complete. That I wasn’t enough for him. That we weren’t doing well because of me—because of the problems I caused—and he needed a change. He needed you there for him. Maybe for his sake the most.
“Good for us?” I repeated, jerking my hand away. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I retreated upstairs, where I stewed for hours, so angry I left little red crescent moons in the palms of my hands.
Do you remember your first night with us, Casey?
I skipped having dinner with you guys, because my dad needed to face facts. I wasn’t accepting shit. I did have a choice. When I skipped dinner for the foreseeable future and stopped talking to him altogether, he’d realize what a giant mistake he’d made by moving you in with us.
Later that night, when I knocked on your bedroom door, you answered wearing those blue-striped pajama pants, a white t-shirt that stretched nicely across your chest, and a pair of jet-black reading glasses.
In a shocking turn of events, the glasses made you even more attractive, the same way every actor who plays Superman also makes one smokin’ hot Clark Kent. For a good thirty seconds, I stood there, frozen, gaping like an idiot, forgetting why I’d knocked on your door in the first place.
With one hand on the doorknob and the other shoved inside the pocket of your pajama pants, you waited a few seconds before saying, “Yes?”
I drew air into my lungs. “Let’s get one thing straight: I don’t want you here. This is my house, and you don’t belong. If you choose to stay, I’ll make your life a living hell, and that’s a promise.”
You sighed. “He warned me you would do this.”
“And I warned you the first time we met—you have no idea what I’m capable of.”
Your head cocked to one side. “Well, that’s not actually true, now is it? I have some idea, thanks to the stories you’ve told, and what you haven’t told me, your dad has. I know what you’ve done, Elliot, and I’m not afraid. This act of yours might frighten other people, but it doesn’t frighten me.”
“It’s not an act,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Why do you feel so threatened by me?” you asked, keeping your head cocked—and that thoroughly pissed me off.
“You do not”—I laughed bitterly—“threaten me.”
“I’m here to help your dad however I can. That’s all.”
“I don’t need your help. My dad and I? We don’t need help from anyone.”
“It’s okay to let new people in,” you said. “It doesn’t have to be a bad thing. If you give me a chance, I think we could be friends.”
“I don’t need another friend. You and I will never be friends.”
“That’s rather unfortunate,” you replied, your eyebrows knitting together. “I hope you’ll change your mind, because it looks like we’ll be spending quite a lot of time together.”
Doubting my ability to respond in a way that didn’t include violence, I stomped upstairs and slammed my bedroom door.
Every day the following week, I stormed home from school and went straight to my room, and it was hell.
It was like being grounded, but you weren’t watching me.
No fucking way. You were there each day, waiting for me on the stairs, the first thing I saw when I walked through the front door.
When you asked about my day, I shot you a death glare and refused to speak, but that didn’t deter you from asking anyway.
You even left snacks outside my door. Once, you left apple slices.
Fucking apple slices, Casey. Like I was five.
Determined, I spent an alarming amount of time devising ways to make your life a living hell like I’d promised, but I didn’t know you well enough yet to know what made you tick.
On nights and weekends, I hid in my room until hunger made it absolutely necessary to emerge. There’d be a plate saved for me in the fridge, waiting to be warmed up, but I’d scrape that food—no matter how appealing it looked—into the trash and grab something random from the pantry instead.
That one time, I found you and Nic talking at the kitchen island, and I can picture the scene so clearly.
The dark blue-gray of the cabinets. The black soapstone counters.
The big brass faucet in the island, burnished with age.
The glossy, pearlescent square tiles on the backsplash.
Your copper teakettle, sitting on the middle eye of our French range, its aged brass knobs matching the brass handle of your kettle.
The mahogany stools where you and Nic sat, both pausing to watch me as I grabbed a protein bar from the pantry.
“I miss seeing you downstairs, Elliot,” Nic said. “I wish you’d start joining us for dinner.”
It did look like Nic missed me, and that pissed me off.
Because Nic had chosen this. He had. I slowly walked over to the fridge, grabbed my dinner from the middle shelf, and while the two of you watched, dropped the plate into the sink.
Dropped it so hard the porcelain shattered into three separate pieces.
Now I’m not saying my behavior was mature, Casey, or even close to being right.
I’m ashamed of how I acted back then. But as I left the kitchen that evening, I felt justified in my anger.
Giving my dad the silent treatment was the only thing that gave me some modicum of control in a situation where, once again, Nic had completely stripped me of it.