Hick by Portes Andrea

Author:Portes, Andrea [Portes, Andrea]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Unbridled
Published: 2009-05-06T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY

Iswim to the shallow end and get out, trying to act casual. But I’m stumbling over my feet now, tripping my way over towards the house. Behind me Eddie’s staring straight through me to somewhere beneath my skin. Something like shame is rustling up inside me, blushing and quivering, shaking me into feeling guilt for God knows what. I grab the screen door and try to slide it open. it’s locked.

I turn around, expecting to see Eddie there, caught up and clawing. But instead of fangs and a full moon with lightning, he’s just sitting there on the other side of the pool, Indian-style, not even looking my way. I try the door again, no luck, and make my way over the crabgrass to the front. Halfway there, I hear noises from inside the house, strange and stilted, like someone’s trying to move a dresser. I peek in one of the windows, hiding in the curtain shade.

It’s dark inside and I can barely see her. it’s that late-afternoon light creeping into night, where the outside’s yellow bright but the inside’s getting ready for dinner. she’s got her back towards me and she’s moving up and down, up and down, not wearing a stitch. I stand there, gawking dumb. Her back looks like one of those lions you see on National Geographic shows, carved out and smooth. The muscles twitch and twitch back again when she moves, up down, up down, over and over.

I keep looking.

I hear something behind me and jump back, startled and embarrassed. You’re not supposed to watch this part. But there’s nothing there. Some trick of the wind or maybe just my guilt creeping up, tapping me on the shoulder. I sneak around the front of the house, shamey, tip-toeing my way through the gleaming frogs and fishponds. The front door is wide open, knocking around in the breeze. I hustle into the kitchen and dry myself off with a dish-towel, too scared and frinkled to go anywhere else. The kitchen is yellow linoleum and quiet, like the eye of the storm. You’d never guess what’s going on in the other room. I sit down at the table and lay my head on the checkered plastic tablecloth.

I miss my room. I miss my bed. I miss being a little punk with no care in the world, giving two fucks about it, just looking for trouble.

I guess I found it.

There’s a darkness here. There’s something you can’t put your finger on that’s creeping in through the edges of the linoleum and the squares between the tiles. it’s something sideways behind the drywall, something dirty and bored and mean.

I want to go home. I want my mama. All this time I thought she and I were just pure hatred. And maybe that’s true a little. But maybe a little part of her looks at me and remembers about being young and now I get to be and she’s not. Not no more. She traded in her young part to give me mine.

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