Page 4 of Secrets That Bind Us

Verity

Age: Sixteen

“Mama?” I shake her a little harder this time.

She stirs, but it’s slow and… late - like she just couldn’t fathom waking up to her life again. “Hey, sweet girl. I was just takin’ a little nap.”

Except it’s not just a little nap. Her eye is purple, shut at the corner, and her lip is busted.

Dried blood is on her cheek, and her lip is already scabbing, which means she’s been on the ground for hours.

I help her up and walk her to the couch so she can rest. I set my backpack down beside her, go to the fridge, open up the freezer, and take out the already prepared ice bag.

I take it back to her, then to grab the new first-aid kit I bought with my tutoring money from the bathroom down the hallway and come back to her.

In the last year alone, she’s aged significantly. Mama and Daddy had me old. They’re more like grandparents than parents, but Mama’s head is almost fully gray now compared to last year. She’s only in her fifties.

She hisses when she puts the ice on her eye. Her lip starts bleeding. I want to look away but I can’t. “You’re home late.”

“I was tutoring Evelyn at the library. Mrs. Sinclair dropped me off.” I reply, cleaning her wound. Dabbing at it before reaching for the ointment.

“Keep addin’ those g’s to the end of your words, and people may think you ain’t from ‘round these parts.” She jokes with a chuckle and her lip bleeds again.

That’s exactly what I want, if I’m honest. I have plans to get out of Adelaide – I won’t be coming back.

But I’m seething at how normal this is for us.

It shouldn’t be. I shouldn’t be picking my mother up off the floor.

I shouldn’t be having to clean up wounds my father caused.

I do my best to stifle my anger. It’s not her I’m mad at– it’s the circumstances. “What was it this time?” I ask.

Her smile fades, and the light in her eyes dims just a little more.

Mama used to shine. Her eyes used to glitter.

It wasn’t always like this. But something changed one day when I was about seven.

Her bottom lip trembles– the same one I’m cleaning– but no tears spill.

Mama hasn’t cried in a long time. She shakes her head softly and glances away from me.

“I burnt the bacon in his sandwich, he said.”

I hum my disapproval. That means she’s been on the ground since lunchtime.It’s close to five now.

We’ve tried to run before, but he found us– burned through the money Mama had spent months saving on more whiskey.

We’ve got no family other than each other now.

My Aunt in San Antonio died last month, and she donated her house to the historical society, and set me up with a small trust fund.

I’m grateful for it, but the money in the bank she set up for me– I can’t touch until I’m twenty-six. That’s ten years away too long.

Just as I finish cleaning her up, there’s a clinking of a belt and a clambering of boots coming from above against the floor – noises I’m all too receptive of.Guess beating someone takes it out of you enough to warrant a fucking nap.

“Go. Pretend you’ve been here for hours.” She whispers, a cool hand tapping my cheek.

Mama used to be warm.

I run to the study room Daddy made for me out of the old guest room, with an old desktop he got from the pawn shop.

I set up my books and schoolwork, my head down, anxiety high as I hear his boots hit the first step on the stairs.

Each one creaks under his weight, and a chill rushes down my spine.

Daddy takes the warmth out of any room he enters.

I take a deep breath and hold it.

“Is that my little girl?”

I exhale as silently as I can. “Hey, Daddy.”

“ Dean ,” I groan, side stepping him as Micah grabs my hand, tugging me away as we make our way to the bus stop.

“ Please , Verity. Coach will bench me if I don’t pass and you’re the smartest girl I know.”

I stop in my tracks, Micah skirting back, and hauling my arm when I don’t move so I can look at the boy who just bumped into me from behind – the boy who makes me feel all weird inside. “I’m not doing your homework for you.”

“It’s one paper. Just one essay. Please. Ver!”

“It’s not one paper, Dean. It’s an entire short story, and you have a whole month to write it. You don’t need me to do this for you.”

“She said no, dude.” Micah says for me when we finally make it to the bus stop behind the school. Micah always says that when he passes his driver’s test, he’ll take me home. No more riding the bus.

Dean steps in front of me, blue eyes piercing through mine.

The freckles scattered across the bridge of his big nose do things to my heart and make my stomach flip.

Or maybe it’s his nearness – how close to me he is, and how good he smells.

Like summer nights, sweat, and a tinge of sandalwood.

It does things to my brain. “Please. If I don’t pass, I don’t play.

We could really make it to the playoffs this year. I’ll – I’ll pay you.”

That does make me stop. He has worked hard coming back from that alternative school after getting caught screwing Tiffany Myers. He even made Varsity – the only underclassman to do that in over a decade. And while he impresses me a lot on and off the field, I could really use the money.

If I could save up more money than I do with tutoring… could Mama and I try to run away again? Could we make it out this time if I’m the one holding the money? Daddy wouldn’t search me the way he searched Mama – would he? I shudder at the thought. I don’t think I’m brave enough to find out.

“You can’t seriously be thinking about this, Verity. If the school finds out-“

“I won’t write it for you. But I can tutor you.” I say, interrupting Micah. I step to the side, pulling Dean by the elbow, still staring up at the cobalt blues that invade my thoughts almost hourly. “You can write this. You’re smarter than you let on, Dean.”

He opens his mouth, then runs his fingers through his short hair.

He always cuts it short at the beginning of the school year and lets it grow out on top, keeping the sides faded.

Like Brandon Fraser in The Mummy. Not that I pay attention.

He shakes his head at me. “Forget it.” Dean scoffs and walks away.

Later that night, once I’m already headed for bed, the doorbell rings.

I make my way down after Mama calls me. I watch as Dean turns – shoulders that are too broad for a sixteen-year-old, and yet great for a Quarterback.

He glistens with sweat, his blue shirt clinging to him like a second skin, and my mouth fills with saliva.

I’m not real sure if it’s normal to have a response like that to a boy.

I move my pigtails back and fix my camisole, squaring my shoulders – ready to tell him to piss off, even though I’m squirming on the inside to get closer, when he says, “Okay, tutor me.”

I nod once, and he bounds off the side porch, running off.

Always running.

When I turn back to head to my room, Mama has this weird look on her face, and a smirk – like she knows a secret I don’t.

“You alright, Mama?”

She nods. “Just fine, sweet girl.”

“Who was that?” My dad’s voice comes from the shadows as he steps into view – tall, white-haired, and red-faced from decades of working out on the farm.

I don’t miss the way Mama tenses, or the way she squints, as if already preparing to run.

Daddy may be old, but he’s fast. He always finds her. Sometimes he finds me instead.

“Just Dean, Daddy. He wants to know if I can help tutor him for this project Mrs. Bryant has us doing in our English class.”

Dark eyes eye me up and down. Daddy’s eyes used to be green. Maybe they still are but all I can see is the demons in them. I count my heartbeats. He nods once, eyebrows hiking up in the direction of the door. “That’s the sheriff’s boy?”

“Yes sir.” One heartbeat. Two. Three.

He dips his chin. “Here. You won’t be going there. I’ve heard stories about that boy.”

Haven’t we all?

“It’s just for a month, sir. He needs to pass so the coach will let him play, and he really thinks he can take us to the playoffs this year.”

“Boys like that ain’t no good, and especially not good enough for my daughter to be alone with ‘hind closed doors.”

But how can Daddy – or men like him – say things like that , but then beat their wife to a pulp?

Because he ain’t been drinkin’ since Friday when I came home and found Mama.

Because the whites of his eyes aren’t red, his words are clear, and the sweat rolling off his body is from working outside – not from detoxing. But it’s only Monday.

On Sundays after church, that’s when Daddy loves us most. On Mondays, he’s a good husband and father.

On Tuesdays, the shakes start, and he gets short.

On Wednesdays, even shorter. By Thursday afternoon, he’s riding to the next town over – where all the bars are.

On Fridays, he wakes up drunk, and on Saturdays…

It's best to be at the Farmers Market all day in town, from sunup till sundown – not buying anything, just praying that one of the sisters from church invites us over for dinner, so we don’t come home before he’s belligerent or passed out. Otherwise…

“That’s fine, Daddy. I’ll let him know when I see him at school tomorrow. He can come here after practice or even after church.”

Daddy eyes me up and down again. I play with the hem of my camisole. “Alright, then.”

I climb into bed, worry flaring – thoughts of being close to Dean Carson, of having his scent in my nose, his voice in my head, his lips… Would he do it right? That kiss thing, I mean.

Suddenly I sit up in bed.

This is probably the worst idea I’ve ever had.

But I kinda hope it’s the best.