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“Max!” Ricky called at the same moment I heard Molly ask, “What’s going on?”

“Something happened to Max.”

“What happened to him?” It was Laura’s voice, tinged with urgency.

I stopped short and spun around on my heel.

Not far behind me was Ricky, Molly, and Laura.

Fuck, Laura, with her soft eyes and beautiful smile.

All of them stared at me now, expressions of concern blanketing their faces.

They were my friends, and they cared, and I was so mad at them for it.

I was so fucking mad that they would make me believe I deserved it.

“Nothing happened, all right?!” I shouted at them. “Nothing fucking happened! Now, let it go and leave—"

“Mr. Tailor! Language!” one of my old eleventh-grade teachers shouted from across the hall, her head poking out of her room.

But then a worried expression contorted her features. “Mr. Tailor, are you bleeding?”

“Fuck,” I whispered as I lifted my hand to gingerly touch my injured ear, my voice strangled as the back of my eyes pricked with tears that I knew were coming.

Weak. Fucking weak.

Pussy .

I squeezed my eyes shut and turned in the opposite direction before the tears could fall.

With a feeble attempt, I brushed past Ricky, but he grabbed my arm before I could rush down the hall.

Shame crept up from the collar of my shirt, heat blossoming across my cheeks, as I felt his eyes pin to the side of my face.

“Shit,” he whispered, his hand beginning to tremble around my arm. “Come on.”

The next thing I knew, he was dragging me down the hallway until we reached the boys’ restroom. Ricky pushed the door open and shoved me inside. Molly and Laura followed, and one of them—I didn’t know who—locked the door behind us.

Finally, I pulled my arm away from his hold and spun around, away from him, to face the big metal garbage can in the corner.

“Max,” Ricky began warily, “I know you keep saying nothing happened, but … I don’t know … I’m kinda getting the feeling that something happened.”

I glanced in the mirror and saw the hazy trickle of blood slowly sliding down my neck. I’d thought the bleeding had stopped. I’d thought I could get through this damn day without anyone noticing.

I looked back at that garbage can as my frustration and so, so, so much anger built higher and higher until there was nowhere else for it to go.

With my hands clenched at my sides, my fists shaking with a violent torrent of rage, I screamed, “ Fuck !” from between my gritted teeth.

Before I gave myself a moment to think or reconsider what I was about to do, I pulled my foot back and kicked that stupid fucking garbage can again, again, again as tears soaked my face.

The resounding clatter of metal bouncing off of ceramic tiles rang throughout the restroom, drowning out the persistent droning in my ear, and I kept on kicking that damn thing until I couldn’t anymore.

“Fuck,” I said again, this time in a whimper. Quiet and choked.

Weak .

I was so weak .

I wiped the sleeve of my sweatshirt beneath my nose as I swayed on the spot. I was so dizzy that I thought I might fall over, but I took a deep breath and dared my eyes to glance over my shoulder at the friends who shouldn’t have wanted to know me at all.

Molly held on to Ricky’s arm. Ricky’s lips were trapped between his teeth, his eyes glistening beneath the restroom lights. And Laura …

Laura’s face was as wet as mine, and I hated that she would cry for me.

I wanted to yell at them, to tell them off and make them fucking leave for good.

It would be better that way. It would make things easier .

I didn’t need friends. God, I hardly wanted them.

They had forced themselves on me, made it impossible to push them away, but that was exactly what I wanted to do now.

Scream at them. Belittle them. Make them hate me as much as my father did.

Yet all I could think to say was, “He destroyed my book. ”

Ricky cleared his throat and gently pulled his arm from Molly’s hold as he took a step toward me, approaching like he would a scared, wounded animal.

“What book?” he asked.

I looked away, suddenly ashamed. “The one you gave me.”

“ Dracula ?” Laura guessed, and I nodded.

“He tore it up,” I said, unsure of why I would say it out loud. “And he beat me. I can’t hear anything out of this ear.” I lifted my right hand, gesturing toward the throbbing they couldn’t see, but, oh, I could feel it.

“Who are we talking about?” Molly whispered.

“His asshole dad,” Ricky said, and I was shocked to hear how mad he was. “You gotta get out of there, Max.”

I shook my head, which did nothing to quell the pain or ease the dizzy sensation in my head. “No. I … no. I can’t leave my sisters.”

“How old are they?” Ricky asked, crossing his arms.

“Fourteen. They’re twins.”

“So, call the cops,” he suggested. “Get that bastard thrown in jail.”

“No, no, I can’t do that either because they’d take them away,” I said, meaning my sisters. Ricky seemed to understand with a nod. “We’d be separated, and I can’t do that.”

“Does he beat them too?” Ricky asked.

God, I realized then how good it felt to talk to someone else about this. How good it felt to open up and let it spill out. It was freeing in a way, even if I wasn’t free at all. My body wilted and sighed, as if to say, Finally .

I shook my head again. “No. As long as I’m there, he doesn’t touch them.”

What would he do to them if I was gone?

“Okay,” Ricky said, nodding as if he were deep in thought. “Okay. So, if you’ve thought this through, then what’s your plan? What are you going to do? Because, man, you gotta do something . You can’t live like this forever.”

“Get a job as soon as I graduate,” I said, shrugging, my shoulders aching from all the bruises. “Save up some money while living at home, and as soon as my sisters turn eighteen, get them the hell out of there. We’ll get an apartment or something.”

“Four years is a long time, Max,” Laura reminded me, her voice barely louder than a whisper.

I glanced at her. “Do you have any better ideas?”

Ricky scoffed with a bitter chuckle. “Uh, yeah. Go to the damn cops. Tell them what’s going on. I understand you don’t want to be separated from your sisters, but at least they’d be safe . Isn’t that more important?”

I fixed my gaze on the garbage can again and thought about it.

Would they be safe? Would we be better off?

Would the cops even take me seriously? My father ran a tight ship, and he was cruel and harsh …

but wasn’t that just the way some people were?

Was it bad or even wrong for someone to choose to raise their kids the way my father had chosen to raise his, just as Ricky’s mom had chosen to be gentle and kind?

Maybe Dad had been right. Maybe all of this had always been about raising me to be the man he thought I should be .

I sniffled and wiped my nose again with my sleeve. “We should get to class,” I muttered.

Ricky looked at Molly, then at Laura, before bringing his disbelieving gaze back to mine. “Are you serious? We have to figure this out. We have to do something. We—"

“I will . I’ll figure it out,” I said, knowing it was a lie. “But I can’t do anything from in here, so we might as well leave and go to class before we get in trouble.”

The restroom was eerily quiet as the three of them stared at the one of me. I was outnumbered, and I worried they wouldn’t relent easily.

But then Ricky sighed and nodded. “Okay,” he grumbled. “You should see the nurse about your ear though.”

I lifted my hand, touched the drying fluid oozing from my ear. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

He turned to unlock the door when he quickly shifted gears and barreled toward me. Instinct told me to flinch and back away, afraid he might hurt me somehow, more than I already was. But then his arms were thrown around my shoulders in a tight hug.

My breath caught in my lungs. I couldn’t remember anyone outside of my sisters hugging me. Not ever my mother and certainly not my father. It felt warm, it felt nice, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from succumbing to another round of tears.

I wrapped my arms around him, letting my chin touch his shoulder, and he said, “We got you, man, okay? It’s gonna be all right. ”

It was a nice thought, and I leaned into it, believing that he could be telling the truth. But we were kids . We were only eighteen. What the hell did we know?

Not enough—that was for damn sure.

***

I got home after school and made dinner.

Lucy and Grace were careful not to talk to me, not to upset me.

Afraid they’d find me crying again, the way they’d found me the other day.

I never wanted them to see me like that again—weak and helpless—and they never would. Not if I had anything to do with it.

Dad came home as I was putting the roasted chicken on the table. Lucy and Grace were quick to greet him, keeping his attention on them and not on me. But we all knew who his sights were set on—always—and after he blandly asked them how school was, his focus was on me.

“Maxwell,” he said, laying a napkin on his lap.

“What?” I grunted, cutting up my portion of chicken.

“Have you put any thought into what you’re going to do after graduation?”

Irrationality wrapped its iron grip around my mind as I wondered if he’d heard my conversation with my friends in the school restroom—or had one of them said something to someone?

No, no, they wouldn’t do that, but … had he found out somehow?

Was he aware of my plans to get out of this hell in four years?

Did he know I was going to take my sisters with me?

“No,” I mumbled .

“Why not?”

I shoveled a forkful of food into my mouth and shrugged, keeping my gaze on the other side of the table and never on my father.

I never wanted to look at him again.

“Not sure what the point is when you demand so much of me here,” I said, a frosty bite to my tone.