Page 178 of Scrimmage

“What are you talking about?”

“Who the fuck is Damien?”

I feel like I can’t breathe. I don’t move a muscle. I just stare at him because I don’t know what to say. There isn’t a lie I can tell. How the hell would he know about Damien in the first place? The hair on my arms rises and goosebumps spread across my skin.

“Why...” I clear my throat. “Why are you asking me about him?” I can’t bring myself to say his name. My mouth is sour and I didn’t even say it, only thought it. My stomach lurches. I might be fucking sick.

“Because you’re fucking married to him.”

Now is the time to panic. “I’m not...I…He’s…”

“Yes, you are,” he growls. “It’s all right here.”

He holds up the letter that I keep hidden in my favorite book. It’s been torn open.

“No.” I shake my head vigorously. “That letter is from Memphis.”

“Oh, you meananotherman that I’ve never heard of? Really? If that’s true then why is it signed Damien?”

“It’s not. It can’t be.” Tears spring to my eyes. “It’s from Memphis.”

I already don’t believe it when I say it.

Koda thrusts the sketchbook he had previously stolen onto the counter and flips through the pages, tearing some of them in his fit of rage. It’s all there. Laid out on the pages are my personal horrors and nightmares. Every memory that I haven’t managed to smash down and set on fire like tinder. The darkness leaks from the pages, crawling toward me. The charcoal morphs into glistening blood. There was so much of it. So many years of it.

Damien. Damien. Damien.

His name is chanted in my mind. Am I distressed? Am I panicking? Am I dying?

The metal door flies open, and Damien strides in. It feels like months have passed, but it’s probably been a week. I’m lying in the bed, doing my best to pretend I’m asleep. My biggest star is clutched in my palm underneath the pillow, the sharpened corners digging into my flesh.

He counts them out loud. He does it sometimes to remind me of how much I have to lose.

“Eighteen, Nineteen…Yang!”

I flinch when Damien shouts his name. There’s a plan. There’s a plan. There’s a plan. It’s my latest mantra.

“Yes, sir?” Yang says like a perfect little soldier. The door closes behind him and scratches the floor when it swings shut.

He’s going to betray me, I think. This was a test, and I’ve failed. How many stars will this be?

“Can you count the stars for me?” Damien asks.

“Yes, sir. One. Two. Three. Four. Five…”

My heart beats wildly in my chest. I’m sure they can hear it.

“…Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten…”

I might throw up. I try to pull the rage I used to have from the depths of my soul.

“… Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen…”

I focus on everything that I’ve lost.

“…Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen…”

How the back yard used to be filled with honeysuckles. The way the nights smelled different in the summer. The sound the creek would make when we would splash around. The way Yang always protected me. Just like he is now.

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