Chapter 4 Max

Chapter 4

Max

A vase shatters against the wall behind me, missing my head by less than an inch.

I scratch at the tickle left behind by the near-hit before jumping into action and rushing into the bedroom. Dad stumbles toward the bed, leaning heavily on his cane.

"You're a goddamn whore, Carol Ann!" he shouts at nobody.

He's slurring so badly, it would be difficult to understand him if the words weren't so familiar.

I step forward with a cautious gait like he's a rabid animal prepared to pounce—which isn't the worst analogy when he tries to drink himself into a coma.

My eyes track him as he tugs at his thinning hair. He's aged. Dad had us later in life—making him recently sixty—but even still, he looks like he's been dead for years, recently dredged up from a crud-laden coffin. Yellowing sclerae and blackened fingernails add to the zombie persona.

Finding my voice, I swallow hard and take another step closer. "Dad, it's me. It's Max. You should lie down."

He swings his head back and forth, still fisting his hair from the roots while muttering gibberish under his breath.

"Dad—"

"Where is she?" he demands, looking up suddenly, his sick eyes darting around the room. "She's with Rick, I know it. Tell her she's dead. I'll kill her myself."

"Mom's been gone for five years."

"She's with Rick." His face turns crimson, the veins in his neck popping. "That backstabbing bitch!"

Glass shatters when he chucks an empty bottle of whiskey at the far wall. He doesn't throw it in my direction this time, but I still jump back on instinct and almost trip over a booze-stained rug. I watch with hopelessness as he starts tearing apart the bedroom as if he's looking for something…but what he's really looking for walked out on him half a decade ago and never came back.

I shout for backup over my shoulder. "McKay!" I'm confident he put his earbuds in and can't hear me. He'd already be in here by now, considering Dad is on a rampage and it's a damn miracle the neighbors haven't sent the cops over for a welfare check. "McKay…fuck!" I storm out of the room, and sure enough, I find my brother lying on the couch with an arm draped over his eyes, two wires dangling from his ears.

Anger burns me. I can't blame my brother for blocking out the destruction going on a few feet away, but I can blame him for leaving me to deal with it all on my own.

Not like that's anything new.

I stomp toward him and yank a wire from his right ear. "Asshole. Get up."

He opens one eye, then the other, irritation shimmering back at me. "I'm listening to a podcast. True crime." Throwing his arm back over his eyes to erase the image of me looming over him, he finishes with, "It's riveting."

I pluck the earbud from his other ear with double the force and fling both across the room until he's glaring up at me. "You're about to be living a true crime if you don't help me calm Dad the fuck down. He's going to kill himself."

"Well, it's just a matter of time, anyway."

My heart stutters. "How can you say that?"

This has him lifting off the couch and scrubbing both hands over his face, elbows planted on his knees. He swipes at his hair, the same chocolate-brown color as mine, only longer. His hangs at his shoulders, where mine is a tousled mess on top but shorter in the back.

McKay closes his eyes for a beat, flinching when it sounds like the dresser gets flipped upside down in the adjoining room.

He pretends he doesn't care.

But I know better.

My twin brother has simply grown content in the role of useless bystander, knowing damn well I'm here to keep the house from going up in flames.

Steepling his hands together, he finally looks up at me with something other than aggravation. "He needs help, Max. Actual help. We can't keep doing this."

"You think I don't know that?"

Crash.

Bang.

" Whore! "

My throat rolls with despair. "Just help me get him into bed. Once he sleeps it off, he'll be fine. I'll get rid of the liquor he managed to get his hands on."

"Solid plan," he grumbles. "You're such a genius."

No —I'm not a fucking genius. If I were a genius, I'd have come up with a better strategy by now, instead of the following endless charade:

Keep Dad sober.

Keep Dad alive.

Keep myself alive.

Go to school and learn about pointless shit like potato batteries and long division, instead of important things like the above-mentioned points.

Repeat.

The thing is, he wasn't always like this.

Once upon a time, we were a picture-perfect family living that idyllic, rural lifestyle in southeastern Tennessee. We had bonfires. We swam in lakes and washed dirt off our skin under waterfalls after endless afternoons of hiking and exploring. We fished, we laughed, we roasted hot dogs on tree branches over firepits, and we ate s'mores until our bellies ached.

Then the accident happened.

Seven years ago, my father worked as a machine operator at a local factory and was responsible for operating heavy industrial equipment. On that shitty, fateful day, Dad was maneuvering a large hydraulic press used for shaping metal components, and due to a misjudgment in timing, the press came down unexpectedly, resulting in a severe crush injury. Despite the emergency stop being activated, the damage was done. The force exerted by the press caused significant trauma to his spine, resulting in a spinal cord injury that nearly paralyzed him from the waist down. He used a wheelchair for the better part of a year, while he took to the bottle to ease his pain and self-loathing.

Mom couldn't deal, so she had an affair with a coworker named Rick.

Then she left.

She left all of us with nothing but a note that said: " I'm sorry. "

We haven't heard from her since and that's fine by me. I want nothing to do with a woman who was so quick to walk out on her family, leaving two young boys behind.

McKay took Mom's abandonment the hardest, leaving me to step up to the plate. At twelve years old, I became a caregiver. The head of the household.

And to be fair, Dad isn't always like this. Some days, I see glimmers of the man who raised me right for twelve golden years, who showed me how to build and fix things, who took me camping under the stars, and who taught me that the most important thing in the world is family. For better, or for worse. Always.

Dad is my "for worse."

My father is not a bad person. He's a flawed person who needs somebody willing to put in the effort to bring him back to his former self. He's a run-down house with peeling paint, cracked tiles, and faulty appliances, where the inspector tells you that it needs some work, but at least the bones are good.

When another crashing sound rattles the walls, McKay finally pops up from the couch with an exasperated sigh and sweeps past me, beelining toward our father's bedroom.

I follow.

We both enter the room, but it's me who Dad looks at, his chest heaving, shoulders sagged and hunched over. He stares at me with drunk-glazed eyes, hobbling in place, a look of absolute defeat etched all over his face. "She left me," he murmurs, bottom lip quivering. "And I miss her…so much."

McKay is not at all moved. "She left all of us. Not just you," he states firmly.

Dad's gaze is still locked on me. Something tortured gleams within the shadows and desaturated blue. A shade of blue that was once ocean-strong.

And it breaks my fucking heart.

"It's okay, Dad." Even though McKay shoots me a deadly look that screams, " It's not okay, you dipshit ," I step forward and lead my father toward the bed. "Let's clean up this mess and get you to bed. We can talk later."

"I d'wanna talk," Dad slurs, stumbling along and holding on to my arm. "We've got that barbecue tonight. Jefferson'll be here soon. Gotta make my brisket."

Jefferson was an old coworker. Haven't seen the guy in years. "I've got the brisket covered. Don't worry about it." I help Dad slide into bed and pick up a pile of wadded-up blankets from the floor, draping them over my father's shivering, weakened body. He curls his knees to his chest and latches on to a downy pillow like it's his only lifeline.

I'm about to turn away when he stops me.

"Maxwell," he murmurs, face partially buried in the pillow.

I glance down at him. "Yeah?"

"You're a wonderful son." His eyes close and he's passed out within seconds.

There's a ball of brimstone in my throat when I lift my eyes to McKay. My brother remains silent, his stance rigid as he ignores the inadvertent dismissal and focuses on a blue jay perched on a tree branch outside the window. Then he pivots and stomps away, heading back to the living room.

I flick both hands through my damp hair, still slick from a water-bottle cooldown while mowing the lawn. When I exit the bedroom, McKay is plucking his earbuds off the living room floor and returning to his can't-be-bothered position on the couch.

He collapses with a long breath. "You should go to the bonfire tomorrow night," he tells me, avoiding the prior exchange like a skilled tactician sidestepping a minefield. "You're still young and stupid. You should do what I do and enjoy life while you can."

"What, and watch other people get drunk and belligerent?" I counter, crossing my arms over a sleeveless heather-gray tee. "I've had my fill. Thanks."

"Bring a girl and get your dick wet. It's a great distraction." He smirks at me. "Libby would climb you like a tree if you'd let her. Or…what about that redhead across the street you used to hang out with when we were kids?" Collapsing onto a sofa cushion, he spreads his arms across the back of the couch. "She got hot, I'll give her that. Weird but hot. Great tits."

"I don't give a shit about her tits."

"That's your problem. You have no hobbies, no interests, no sex life. Your entire existence is holed up in this cesspit with a depressed alcoholic who doesn't appreciate a single thing you do for him."

My teeth grind together but I don't acknowledge the barb.

Our father isn't the only one who doesn't appreciate me.

McKay has no fucking concept of the fact that I'm doing all of this so he can live the life he wants me to live. He doesn't realize that we both can't have that life. One of us has to hold down the fort. One of us has to sacrifice, so all three of us can survive.

And that person just so happens to be me.

I brush off the bonfire invitation and slip into my beat-up running shoes. "I'll think about it," I mutter, catching the shrug he sends me before lying back down and closing his eyes.

I take a moment to savor the silence.

Dad is quiet.

McKay is quiet.

But my mind is still restless, so I do what I always do when I need to find true peace:

I run.

***

It's mid-September and the weather is a scorching ninety degrees. The lemony fragrance of bloodroot wafts underneath my nose while a shaft of sunlight breaks through the cloud cover.

It's the perfect Friday afternoon for being anywhere but there.

Sticks and branches crunch underneath my shoes as I make my way down the wooded trail toward Tellico Lake. I'm eager to be in the water, to erase the decay off my skin. McKay used to come with me, back when we were younger. We'd race to the lake together after Dad worked himself up into a whiskey-induced meltdown, and we'd pretend we were plotting our grand escape out of this town. For a few hours, we'd hide underneath the lake's surface, counting those blissful seconds of freedom while we held our breath.

No sound, no sight, no stale taste of agony and broken dreams on our tongues.

It was just…quiet.

Peaceful.

I'm not sure when McKay stopped coming with me. I can't pinpoint the exact year or date, but eventually he found other outlets to keep him sane.

Schoolwork. Basketball. Girls.

Brynn has been the best thing that's ever happened to him and I'm thankful for that. But for me, a relationship just isn't in the cards. Girls, friendships, connections—they all take up too much emotional capacity, and I don't have room for the added burdens.

Besides, how could I ever invite a girl over? Our house is small, hardly nine-hundred square feet, and my father's demons are vast. My responsibilities are widespread. Brynn has never even come by, and while McKay is content with the arrangement, I wouldn't be.

A relationship is not feasible.

My fists clench as my speed kicks up and I leave a cloud of dirt and dust in my wake. The lake water sparkles on the other side of the tree line, calling to me, serving as one of the only things in life I can actually count on. Nature soothes me. I have a secret spot in a clearing a few yards from the water's edge, tucked within a canopy of moss-covered branches that embrace each other like old friends. It's where I go to relax, to decompress. To get away from it all.

After stripping down to my boxers, I take a dunk in the lake, floating on my back for a few minutes and staring up at the pillowy clouds.

It's not long before I'm restless again.

I need a cigarette.

The legal age to buy tobacco in Tennessee is twenty-one, so my neighbor, Chevy, scores me a pack every now and then when he has the extra cash. Sometimes I'll find them tucked inside a bag of groceries he'll leave on our front stoop. It's not even an actual patio, just a block of cement. Kind of like our house is barely a house—it's an unfinished product of a washed-away dream.

Pulling my jeans back on, I fish out a cigarette and light up, watching as the sun dips lower in the sky and sets the treetops aglow.

I'm inhaling a long drag when a flash of orange catches my attention in my peripheral. Glancing up, I spot a girl in a carrot-colored romper leaning over the bridge, her arms folded on the rail as she stares down into the water.

Auburn hair, long and thick.

Pale skin.

Sad jade eyes.

Ella Sunbury.

Ropes of red-brown hair dance across her face while she hangs over the edge, unaware of my presence. Her attention is on the water as it flows downstream. She leans over farther, then farther, and my heart skips, wondering if she's contemplating climbing over and jumping in. Maybe she wants to wash her entire life away. For a beat, I find her painfully relatable as I watch her hair float and undulate amid the early-autumn breeze. I've stood on that exact bridge before, in that same position, transfixed by the running river water and praying it would take pity on me and haul me away from here.

She lifts up then, shoving the hair out of her face.

The breeze goes still.

And so do I.

Her head tilts toward me and our eyes meet across the embankment. Recognition flickers to life. Ella straightens and stiffens, her fingers curling around the railing.

She doesn't smile and neither do I.

I don't wave and neither does she.

We just stare at each other as the sun lights her up and causes her hair to shimmer like a vibrant flame. Memories burst to life. Golden, long-ago memories of watching her smile at me in the schoolyard on the first day of first grade with a Winnie the Pooh storybook splayed in her lap, and thinking with my whole heart that she'd be mine one day.

Stupid.

Silly, stupid childhood fantasies.

I swallow, my throat tightening as smoke curls around me and drifts skyward. My breath stalls. I wonder why I'm staring at her and I wonder why I can't seem to pull away.

But I don't have to wonder for long.

She blinks, glancing back down at the water and breaking the palpable tether as dishwater-gray clouds roll in, blotting out the sunshine.

Another beat passes before she sends me a final, sharp glance across the ridge with an expression that screams, " Fuck you, Dr Pepper ."

And then she walks away.

I toss the still-smoking cigarette to the ground, stomping it out with the toe of my shoe as I watch her saunter away in a cloud of volatile orange.

I smile.