What is Real by Karen Rivers

Author:Karen Rivers
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: JUV013000
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2011-05-03T04:00:00+00:00

chapter 16

september 22, this year.

Tanis drives me to school in my dad’s car. I’ve been driving, but every time I have to punch the clutch, I scream in pain. This is better.

Tanis stayed the night and my dad is furious. He has lines, he says. And I’ve crossed them.

I make a mental list of my dad’s “lines”:

Doing drugs? Okay.

Having sex? Not okay.

I am grown-up enough to be the man of the family and I am also not. I am the kid. Have I forgotten that I’m the kid?

Yes, Dad. I have.

When we got up this morning, sweaty and sleepy, the alarm scaring the crap out of me, Dad was waiting for us in the kitchen. In his chair, he looked regal, like a man on a throne. If you overlooked the fact that he was in his pajamas and smelled like he hadn’t showered in days, that is. He had three days of stubble. His beard was gray now. It made him look old.

He didn’t look at either of us while he spoke, but he said all the things that proper dads are supposed to say. I was nearly proud of him. Right up until the part where he called Tanis a slut and me a loser.

He might be right about me, but he should have left Tanis out of it.

She holds the steering wheel so tightly, her knuckles are white. She is mad at me.

“You don’t fucking understand anything, Dex,” she says. The windows are steamed up. I want to roll the window down but that might be rude, so I don’t.

“I do understand,” I say. “I’m sorry. It was my fault and my dad is a total wang. What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know,” she says. When she’s mad, the bad side of her face gets even more scrunched up than normal. She looks bad. Her hair is flat on one side where she fell asleep on my chest. I should probably find that sexier than I do.

“I’m sorry,” I say again. “You aren’t a slut.”

“That’s not why I’m mad!” she says. “God, you’re so freaking stupid. Don’t you get it? I’m wearing the same clothes as yesterday. Everyone’s going to know.” Then she says, “You’re making me someone I’m not, you fucking idiot.”

“My knee hurts,” I say. The whole time she’s yelling at me, my knee has been pulsing with this pain that feels like something gnawing at my flesh from the inside. The pain has taken over my whole body. It’s radiating everywhere like some kind of internal octopus of pain, arms stretched to cover all of my flesh. “I’m not making you anything. You are who you are.”

“Fuck you,” she mutters.

I think I probably should go to the hospital. I probably need some kind of surgery.

But I can’t have surgery.

Who would take care of Dad? Gary?

Forget it.

“You’re not even listening!” she yells. Then she bursts into tears. I don’t know how to deal with tears.

“I’m sorry,” I say again.

Her lips are moving. Numbers, numbers.

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