Page 123 of Things We Left Behind

Like father, like son.

Over my mother’s low wail.

Like father, like son.

I kept going. Kept swinging, kept dodging his fists, kept going even as my head rang. Even as the red changed and became blue and white and then red again.

Sloane

My hands shook as I clutched the cordless phone in them. I wanted to cry or throw up, and before this was over, I was fairly sure I’d do both.

I’d made Lucian a promise. He’d been adamant. But if I didn’t do something, someone was going to get hurt. Really hurt.

I’d seen Mr. Rollins come home. The fuel door on his truck still open. He’d swerved into the wrong lane then back again to avoid Mrs. Clemson walking her two Saint Bernards. Shouting profanities at the woman, he’d hit the gas too hard and then slammed on the brakes, stopping mere inches from his own garage door.

There had been so many times over the last year that I wanted to tell my parents. But Lucian had made me promise. I was to stay out of it and let him handle it.

He never talked about it. But I knew enough to watch for the signs. I always left my window unlocked, but on the bad nights, I left it open an inch or two and huddled under a blanket on the window seat, listening.

Since I couldn’t stop it from happening, I could at least suffer through it with him.

We were so close in some ways and yet practically strangers in others.

There was the Lucian I saw at school. The beautiful boy with the entourage. The one who’d wink at me or give my ponytail a tug when no one else was looking.

Then there was the Lucian who had dinner three nights a week at my parents’ table. Polite, respectful, quiet. The one who’d volunteered to teach me to drive in the high school parking lot on Sundays after my mom said her blood pressure couldn’t take it.

And there was the Lucian who climbed through my window. He was funny and broody and smart and interestedin me. We argued for hours over music and movies and books. Sometimes he read what I was reading just so we could talk about it. He’d even coached me through my first real relationship with Trevor Whitmer, a sophomore trombone player with an in-­ground pool.

It was June. Lucian’s eighteenth birthday was coming up on Tuesday. The same day as his high school graduation. It felt like a ticking clock was hanging over our heads. He was going through the motions of a graduating senior. Summer plans and college T-­shirts. But no matter how many times I tried to pin him down about it, he wouldn’t open up. Sometimes it seemed like he wanted to know everything about me without giving up anything of himself.

I heard another faint shout carried on the night air and cringed, clutching the phone to my chest.

Lucian almost always came over after. After the fight. After his father had passed out or left again. After his mother had been soothed. There was no one to look out for him. So I stocked bandages and Neosporin in my nightstand. Sometimes I snuck downstairs to throw ice cubes in a baggie or to forage for snacks.

He trusted me enough to tell me. Maybe that meant he also trusted me to do what was right, even if it was something he didn’t want, I rationalized.

I chewed nervously on my lip. I couldn’t just sit here in my pretty room with my pretty life and wait for his father to stop hurting him. That wasn’t what friends did. That wasn’t what you did when you loved someone, and I loved Lucian.

In what way, I wasn’t sure. I just knew that I loved him and I couldn’t stand to see him hurt anymore.

I shoved the window up and climbed out onto the porch roof.

It was almost midnight. My parents would have been asleep for hours, and I couldn’t very well go running into their room, blurt out the whole story, and then ask them to call 911. Could I?

To be fair, my parents were pretty great. They’d call 911 and my dad would run next door and try to calm things down.

I could appreciate the need for de-­escalation every once in a while. But Mr. Rollins seemed like the kind of guy who wouldn’t even let you finish your first sentence before decking you. And I didn’t want my dad to get hurt. Besides, he’d be crushed if he found out what was happening next door. He and Mom would feel guilty that they hadn’t seen the signs. And they’d try to make up for it somehow, which would only embarrass Lucian and make him start avoiding me.

I hated Mr. Rollins with the kind of dedicated passion that only great works of fiction seemed to capture. Every time I saw him, I glared my hate into him, willing him to feel it. To turn around and find me shooting poisoned eye daggers at him. To know that he hadn’t fooled everyone. That I knew his dirty little secret.

But he never noticed me. Never once glanced in my direction. It was better that way, I supposed. Then when I put my plan into action, he’d have no idea that I’d played a role in his karma.

I had a lot of plans. A whole notebook of them.Ways to Get Mr. Rollins Arrested So Lucian Can Go to College. I’d written that in big, block print with my favorite purple highlighter on the first page. On the outside of the notebook, I’d scrawledGeography Notesso no one would get snoopy.

The last plan I’d sketched out skipped the “get arrested” part and went straight to the “murder him” part. I’d noticed Mr. Rollins changing the brake pads on his truck in the driveway every few months—­probably because he was a drunk and constantly slamming on the brakes to avoid hitting things. I’d thought about sneaking over there while he was under the vehicle and taking the parking brake off.

Then I’d wait until I was sure he’d been crushed before I’d call 911 with a quaver in my voice.