Walk The Edge

“God, you really are too dramatic.” My intestines twist at the sound of my sister’s voice. Clara’s lying flat on her back in the backseat. She taps a package of cigarettes against her hand, removes one, then puts it between her lips.

“Please don’t smoke around me,” I say before she has a chance to dig out her lighter. It’s not a shock to find Clara with Liam. The pair is often attached at the hip.

“Please don’t smoke around me,” she mimics in a high-pitched voice, then resumes her normal tone. “Do you ever get tired of being perfect? For once, Bre, give the rest of the world a shot at not living up to your standards.”

“I’m not perfect.” Clara and I—we don’t work as siblings. On TV, siblings get along, but Clara and I have been oil and water since my birth. She’s four years older than me and I was supposed to be her baby to take care of. Turns out Clara didn’t want a new baby. She wanted a pony. Guess who was disappointed when our parents brought me home from the hospital?

This summer has been hell with her and she’s been more unbearable than normal since Mom and Dad announced she has to pay her own college tuition because it’s her fifth year.

“Boohoo.” A lighter clicks in the backseat followed by the smell of smoke. “My family forgot me, so I’m going to make everyone drop what they were doing to rescue me.”

“Quit it, Clara.” Liam uses a gentle tone as he glances in the rearview mirror. He won’t see her, only a stream of smoke rising into the air. “She wasn’t lying. The Terror was there and they were messing with her. Why do you think I tore out of the car like I did?”

Silence from the backseat. Liam and Clara are inseparable. Like how I wish I was with any of my siblings. There’s an exhale and I swallow the cough tickling my throat.

“How close?” she asks.

“Too close,” he answers.

I crack the window for fresh air. Clara and Liam were together the entire time I was asking for help. Texting next to each other as I was alone. My family does suck.

“I’m sorry, Bre.” Liam’s apology sounds sincere, but there’s a strong suggestion of anger seeping in his tone. “I already had to pick up Joshua and Elsie from practice and it was my sixth time this week. I’m in college now. I shouldn’t be everyone’s damn chauffeur and babysitter.”

I wince at babysitter. Child number five is an odd position. The older four are a clique. Always have been, and for them, I’m the start of the baby siblings they’ve had to drag around.

My four younger siblings consider me a part of the annoying older crowd who “think they’re boss” and “tell them what to do,” which is somewhat true, as I’ve been their official sitter since my older siblings graduated from high school.

Clara sits up. “If you guys are doing this apologizing family bonding crap, I want out.”

I roll my eyes. Typical Clara. She’s the main reason why I’m on the outs with my older siblings. Clara forces them to choose between her and me. My sister wields a frightening amount of emotional power over me and there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of the damaged relationship between me and Clara.

“You and I are going to talk like I said we would,” says Liam. “Let me take Bre home.”

Clara places her hand on the handle. “Stop the car now or I’ll open the door and jump. You know I’m not kidding.”

Liam mumbles a curse as he eases over to the curb and then pleads with me using his eyes. Pleads. Like he wants me to offer to be the one to walk home. Yes, we are three blocks away. Yes, our neighborhood is safe, but I’m not the one pitching a fit like a four-year-old.

There’s an awkward pause in the car as they wait for me to be the one to leave. I cross my arms over my chest. This may make me a horrible human being, but Liam’s driving me home.

“Fine.” Clara breathes out like she’s choking on fire. “I’ll be waiting here when you’re done.” She slams the door, then collapses to the curb in front of the car like a beaten stray dog.

I hate her. I hate Liam for not leaving. I hate myself more for considering getting out. Even though Clara does stuff like this to needle me, there’s something about how she fixates on the ends of her brown hair that makes her appear broken.

“What’s her problem?” I ask. Clara drops her hair like she’s disgusted. Most of us in the family have black hair. She’s tried dyeing hers black, but her hair never holds the color.

“She’s going through some stuff. Big stuff. Clara needs a friend right now.”

Don’t we all.

“Clara’s upset Mom and Dad asked her to pay tuition. She struggles with focusing.”

Clara’s brain is like mine. She also remembers things extremely well, but the craziness I experience when I’m not working on something—when I’m not solving a crossword puzzle or a brainteaser—Clara feels it constantly, and I hurt for her. I’ve felt like she does twice in my life and both times it was like someone blaring a never-ending foghorn. I’ve found ways to keep my brain active. Clara never discovered a solution to stay focused. At least a healthy solution.

“Handling how your brains work,” Liam continues, “it doesn’t come as easily to her as it does to you. It’s like you’re the same, but hardwired differently.”

Clara has said that to me more than a hundred thousand different ways since we were young. My favorite being that I stole her ability to focus while we were still eggs in my mother’s ovaries. Because that happens.

“She needs me,” Liam says quietly.

So do I, but I don’t say that. Instead, I lay my fingers on the door handle.

“Thanks, Bre.” Liam smiles as if his approval should be enough of a reward. Unfortunately, I’m pathetic enough that a part of me gets sappy because I did earn it.

“I am sorry for yelling. The Reign of Terror are dangerous. They hurt people. If you knew the stories I’ve heard, seen some of the shit they pull, you’d understand why I was angry.”

Liam’s eighteen months older, but he consistently treats me like I’m eight instead of seventeen. I doubt there’s a soul in this town who isn’t aware of the Terror’s reputation.

“And you were there with them. Alone. That’s not good.”

“I know,” I say softly. “He approached me. It wasn’t the other way around.”

“Did any of them hurt you?”

“No.”

“Scare you?”

Yeah, but somehow that feels wrong to say. “The guy that was near me fixed my phone.”

Liam chuckles and it relieves some of the tension in the car. “It broke again?”

Against my wishes, the ends of my mouth edge up. “Yeah.”

I need a new one, but with nine kids, three of them in college, money is tight. I bought that phone with money I earned selling soft-serve ice cream last summer at the Barrel of Fun.

“Jesus, Bre. Just, Jesus.” The lightness fades as Liam rolls his neck. “Are you sure you’re okay with this? It’s only three blocks and Addison’s house is on the way.”

It’s not okay, but what difference would it make if I said so. My response is to leave the car. I have the fleeting thought to ram my fist into Clara’s stomach when she hops up from the curb and heads for the passenger seat with a smirk on her face. She played her hand and she won.

I hate her. I really, really do, and for the level of hate festering in me, when I die, I am probably heading to hell.

Liam U-turns and I watch as the headlights of the other passing cars blur into one another. I tilt my head back and stare at the first bright star in the sky. A long time ago, I used to wish on stars, but the act is useless. It’s a fairy tale created to make us think we have some semblance of control over our lives. I used to believe in magic, but I’m seventeen now and I gave up on happy endings a long time ago.

RAZOR

THE WATER BEATS down from the showerhead and steam rises around me. I should scale back the temperature from boiling to near scalding, but the heat eases some of the anger tightening the muscles in my neck.

“Razor?” Dad calls, wondering if it’s me. I come and go as I please and sometimes guys from the club crash here if they require a place to lie low.

A knock, then the door to the bathroom opens. Cooler air sweeps in and a thunderstorm of mist drifts overhead. My hands are braced against the wall and I dip my head so the drops roll along my face and not into my eyes. I’ve been in here longer than needed. Finished washing minutes ago, but I let the water fall over me.

It’s five in the morning. Got in after midnight, and thirty seconds after striding in, I figured out Dad brought a girl home. Walked out and I spent the rest of the night nursing a beer on the steps to the porch.

“You okay?” he asks.

It’s an awkward question, but because I’m biologically his, he feels compelled to ask. We both know he doesn’t want the honest answer. “Yeah.”

“You’ve been in here for a while.” Dad hacks and it’s a reminder as to why I rarely smoke cigarettes. “And it’s early. Sun’s not up yet.”

That’s the point. If I wait in here long enough, Dad will have the opportunity to keep his promise. After Mom died, Dad and I were torn up—at least I thought we both were. I continually gasped for breath like a fish living on dry land and I had assumed Dad felt the same.

But then a few weeks after her death, I caught Dad kissing another woman at the clubhouse. I was ten and in tears. The blonde was barely old enough to drink and vomited after she saw my reaction. Dad was old enough to know better and dropped to his knees.

He promised he’d never disrespect me or my mother by bringing a woman home. His promise disintegrated two months after Mom’s funeral, but he did offer me another oath. One that has stung less and less as the years have passed, but one I expect him to uphold—even tonight.

Dad swore to never let a woman sleep in the same bed as my mother. Never overnight. Not even for an hour. He would do his business and then she’d leave.

I remain in this shower because at two this morning the light sneaking out of Dad’s bedroom door went out. The girl he brought home—she stayed.

The first rays of morning light will hit soon, and if I hang in here long enough, then Dad could possibly keep his promise—he won’t further disrespect the memory of my mother.

“Razor?” he asks again, probably questioning whether he misunderstood my response and it’s someone from the club in here. The door creaks as if he’s opening it more and the last thing I want is to be naked in front of my father.

I turn off the water. “I’m fine. Give me a few.”

There’s a tension-filled silence. He knows what he’s done. I know what he’s done. Neither of us can fix it.

“I thought you would be out all night,” he says. “Heard you and Chevy had dates.”

Mom told me once Dad’s a man worth forgiving. There are billions of other words she could have said before she walked out the door, but that was her chosen parting advice. One more confirmation that I am what the good people of Snowflake say I am: cursed.

I rub my face as beads of water track down my body. The girls and then crashing at Chevy’s place—that was the plan. But thanks to Breanna Miller, I ran late, and when I met up with Chevy and the girls, my brain wasn’t there, it was with Mom.

I had heard Dad was back in town early from his security run for the club, so I cut the night short. I was the moron to assume coming home might solve my problems.

“Told you I’d be home when you got back in town,” I snap. “I keep my promises.”

Silence. The word promises cutting through both of us like a blade.

The door shuts and I silently curse. A long time ago, in a world I barely remember, the two of us used to talk. About stupid shit. About anything. The sound a motorcycle makes before it drops into gear. The best spot to catch bluegill. Which MMA fighter deserved to win. Detective Jake Barlow said Dad worshipped me. Goes to show how jacked up his theories are.

I slide the curtain and the metal rings jingle. The cracked mirror’s fogged and it distorts my image—slashing my face in half so that one side is higher than the other. Creating an external image of what I am on the inside: unbalanced.

I take my time toweling off and slip on a fresh pair of jeans. When I open the door to the bathroom, the cooler air nips at my skin. Dad leans on his forearms against the chest-high narrow table in the kitchen area of the front room. His eyes switch from the television on the wall to me.

Dad has red hair with a brown tint and his recently grown-in thin beard is the same color. I matched his height last year and surpassed him in what he can bench-press the year before. When we’re standing side by side, people can spot the minute ways we resemble the other, but I know what Dad sees when he looks at me: blond hair, blue eyes. He sees Mom.

According to the weatherman, it’s supposed to be a hot day. Scorching. He also reminds those of us who don’t live under a rock that tomorrow is our first day of school. In slow motion, I turn my head to Dad’s bedroom. The bed’s made and there’s no one in sight.

The woman—she’s gone. My wish was granted. As much as I thought her leaving before sunrise would heal the oozing wound inside me, it didn’t. Sunrise wasn’t my breaking point. I broke earlier this morning when the light flipped off. I was just living in denial.

“We need to talk,” Dad says.

I agree. We do. About Mom, the detective, the file, but it feels wrong to discuss anything associated with Mom now. “I haven’t slept yet. Later?”

“All right.” Dad focuses on the coffee cup next to his hand. “Later.”

I head for my room, and when I reach the door, Dad stops me. “Razor...”

I pause, but I don’t respond. I’m not doing this and Dad knows better than to push me.

“I heard about the detective and we’re going to hash this out—me and you.”

He’s aware of my stance on conversation this morning. Besides last night with Breanna Miller, I’m not in the habit of repeating myself.

“The club needs you to be reachable,” he continues. “When all the board’s back in town, you need to be there at a moment’s notice. They’re going to want to hear what the cop had to say. Plus the Riot’s getting too close to town and Emily’s coming for a visit soon.”

Emily—the daughter and granddaughter of the two most powerful men in the club. Not to mention she’s the girlfriend of one of my best friends. Over a month ago, blood was shed over Emily between our club and the Riot. All of us wonder if blood will be shed again.

“You see the Riot,” Dad says, “you call the club. Only the board is allowed to engage.”

I enter my room and Dad raises his voice so I can hear past my now-shut door. “I mean it, you don’t engage.”

I lie on my bed and pinch the bridge of my nose. I hope the Riot busts into town. There’s an edginess inside me. Something stirring like a cold front on the verge of colliding with warm air. Too many demons are hovering near me and the one thing that can release the pressure is a good fight.

Bring it, Riot. Show me your worst.

Breanna

THERE’S A PICTURE on the fridge Mom and Dad had taken of the kitchen when they moved into the house. Back then this room was bright yellow, open, and there were vases of flowers scattered everywhere. Twenty-six years of wear and tear later and three meals’ worth of dishes stacked up from nine people and you’d have today’s version of the same kitchen.

Addison sits on the counter with her eyes glued to her cell while I prerinse dishes, then load them into the dishwasher. She lifts her legs as my two youngest siblings chase each other around the island.

It’s after eight. One of them is in kindergarten, the other second grade. Because elementary and middle schools began a few days ago, you’d expect at some point my siblings would tire and pass out, but I’m convinced that when they’re depleted of their own energy, they suck me dry of mine.

Elsie shrieks when Zac hits her and he howls when Elsie bites him in return. With a groan, I pick up the holy terror closer to me and sit Elsie on the island, then pull over a chair with my foot and deposit Zac into that. “Neither of you move for two minutes.”

They scramble to the floor and run to the living room, calling me “mean.” I should pursue them, but I’m exhausted, and in the end I don’t care enough to discipline them again.

I am never having children. Ever.

Addison surveys the swinging door through which they disappeared like she’s solving a math problem. “You know, they portray large families completely differently on TV.”

I snort. “And how would that be? Sane?”

A laugh confirms that’s exactly what she thought. “There’s a hundred of those reality shows where they have five million children and they all seem happy 24/7. If they can be close and lovey-dovey, why can’t you?”

“You should try sleeping instead of watching television late at night. It could help with your overactive and wild imagination.”

The swinging door opens and Zac aims a water rifle at Addison and fires. She squeals and raises her arms to her face. Whooping, Zac falls back and Addison yells, “I’m going to kill you, you little freak!”

“Freak is Bre’s nickname!” he shouts.

The door opens again and Addison stops from rushing the person entering when Paul walks in with a skateboard in his hand and heads to the fridge. “Bre’s nickname isn’t freak, it’s Encyclopedia-freak. Ain’t I right, Encyclopedia-freak?”

Paul flashes a what-are-you-going-to-do-to-me grin. I used to like Paul. Back when he was cute and had baby fat rolls. Middle school has morphed him into a demon that even Satan can’t control.

Baby brother wants to test me, then I’ll call his bluff. “Showers and baths need to start. You can take yours.”

His grin fades. “Make the babies go first.”

“Maybe next time you won’t call me names.” I shove a glass harder than I should into the top rack and it clanks against the others. If I were at private school, I’d be eating crappy cafeteria food that I didn’t cook and didn’t have to clean up and I wouldn’t be arguing with the demon child. That is my version of heaven.

The pure hate radiating from his glare bothers me more than I wish it would. Back when he had the baby fat and dimples, I was his favorite.

“Do you know why we call her Encyclopedia-freak?” he taunts me by asking Addison.

Because that’s what Clara calls me? I’m five foot six and right now I’m feeling two feet tall. I watch the water falling out the faucet and hold a plate in my hand. Addison’s heard them call me the name. She knows bits and pieces of how my mind works and she’s also aware of how it makes me feel so...different.

“What’s the capital of Russia?” he says.

Moscow. Population of Russia: 143,025,000. Area: 6,592,850 square miles.

“Look at the freak go,” Paul sings. “Her eyes dart when she’s listing facts in her messed-up head, but she acts like she ain’t weird.”

A lump forms in my throat. Paul gives everyone a hard time, but with Clara home for the summer, it’s middle school on repeat.

I slam the plate into the bottom rack. “Go take a shower or I’ll tell Mom you didn’t come straight home from school today.”

He mumbles something not twelve-year-old appropriate, but he leaves. I hold on to the counter with both hands. This is the reason why I keep my little Jedi mind tricks to myself.

“Don’t let him get to you,” Addison offers. “He’s an evil troll that will never get a date when he hits high school.”

“He makes me feel like I’m reliving bad stuff.”

“We aren’t in middle school anymore,” Addison says in a soft tone.

“I know.”

“Sometimes I don’t think you do.” But she moves on before I can answer. “Jesse is following me again.”

This is the reason we’re friends—she doesn’t dwell. Like when I told her Mom and Dad nixed my plans to leave. She shrugged an “I’m sorry” and then she painted my nails.

I continue with the dishes and run the spaghetti-sauce-stained bowl through the warm water. “I’m lost. Are we happy or sad or annoyed over this?”

It’s Thursday and tomorrow is the first day of school. It’s weird to start on a Friday, but the district thought that we, the high school students, would be better readjusted into the school year with this schedule. Because of this, Addison and I are completing our night-before-school-begins ritual of freaking out. This year, our worries about how the year will go are complicated by Addison’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Jesse, and their social media drama.

He unfollows her. She unfollows him back. He posts a picture of him and another girl and tags Addison. She cries. He follows her again, then tags her in some heartfelt message of how he’s sorry. I was over it from the moment he unfollowed her.

Addison wrinkles her nose. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to get back together.”

“Then don’t.”

She sighs, and her pain is so palpable there’s an ache within me. I’m not sure she liked being with Jesse as much as she liked that Jesse whisked her away from her house. Whenever, to wherever, with no questions asked.

There’s a fresh bruise on her forearm that I’d bet is retaliation for my family forgetting us. I focus on how the water washes the crumbs from a plate. “Did your dad do that?”

“How is it possible that every time I visit there are a million dishes stacked up and you’re forever doing them? It’s like we’re living in some strange sci-fi movie and your life is on an endless loop.”

She switches subjects and I let her. Addison’s mom won’t leave her father or throw him out and Addison won’t call the police because she’s terrified they’ll put her and her sister in foster care. Doesn’t help that none of her relatives are willing to help. In other words, Addison’s stuck.

“Look at me,” Addison says.

I do and she snaps a photo from less than a foot away.

Her lips tilt up in a mischievous way. “Perfect.”

“For what?”

“Your profile picture.” She flips my cell to me and the blood drains out of my face when I spot my name, my age, my info and my picture.

Addison and I have had several intense conversations involving opening an account for me on Bragger. I agreed to it when she explained how people use social media to impress colleges and universities. She showed me articles on how colleges were dazzled when prospective students worked what the colleges shared on social media into their essays and when the students could make intelligent conversation online. And emotionally, I agreed that maybe this could help in my quest to break out of my shell. But now that it’s here and I’m deciphering the hundreds of ways this could go wrong...

I lunge for the phone and she’s off the counter and on the other side of the breakfast island before I can reach her. We stand on either side and each time I inch one way, she edges in the opposite direction.

“You’re the one that said you wanted to be noticed,” she says. “Bragger’s a community of people. You can post pictures or something short, something long, something funny, something insightful, and then people like and comment. Whatever your little heart desires. The main point being, you will be interacting with other humans. If you want out of the box you hide in, then you need to crack open the flaps and bask in some sunlight.”

“Remember when we decided my wardrobe change was going to help?” I counter. “The result of that experiment was Kyle Hewitt trying to con me into writing his papers. Change is overrated and my box is comfy.”

“You told me all summer that you feel cramped in the box.” She’s right. I did say that. “You’re suffocating and I’m tired of watching you turn blue. This isn’t middle school anymore. People have matured. If you be yourself around everyone else, they’ll love you like I do.”

My heart pounds hard, but I pause because what she’s saying is what I want. For once in my life, I’d love to be myself around everyone else and be accepted for who I am instead of staying silent for fear of people mocking me.