Page 99 of How to Hide in Plain Sight
Not when you know what youreallyare.
Manuel looked back at me. Raised his eyebrows.
And then the porch lights—designed to illuminate the lake during night swims and, therefore, roughly equal in power and wattage to football stadium floodlights—switched on. As did the surround-sound speaker system. Everything reset to the state it had been in when the electricity shut off the night before, which, apparently, was as bright and loud as possible. Clarence and Karma’s handiwork, no doubt. Queen exploded from the speakers at a volume loud enough to reach mainland Canada.
“Jesuscriminy,” yelled Speedy up on the porch, jolting out of sleep and covering his ears.
Mom leapt into the air. “The power’s back on!” She started to applaud.
You know what you are, Eliot.
Caleb ran over to the system and shut off the music. Speedy, grumbling about already being a cripple and not needing to go deaf, too, turned his chair to face away and cranked it back into a lounge position. He tilted his head back and shut his eyes.
Disgusting.
Immoral.
Evil.
“Eliot?”
My eyes shot back to Manuel. He had pushed himself up onto one elbow and was watching me expectantly. Almost hopefully.
“Were you going to”—he tilted his head to one side—“say something?”
Freak.
Deviant.
I opened my mouth, unsure of what would come out, but a yell cut me off.
“—you juststop? For fuck’s sake, Clarence!”
I spun around. Across the rocks, Caleb stood, face red, fists clenched, whipped cream all over his cheeks and nose. His glasses were gone, likely on the ground somewhere. He glared at Clarence, who just smiled lazily back.
“Oh, lighten up,” said Clarence, rolling his eyes and shaking a stolen can of whipped cream. “It’s just a bit of fluffy sugar.”
“You know I scratched my cornea two weeks ago. I can’t afford to get anything in them.” Caleb dropped to his knees, feeling on the rocks for his glasses. “God. You’re such a fucking child sometimes. You never know when to let a joke die.”
I inhaled, eyes snapping back to Clarence. Though he tried to keep his expression light, I could see the way his spine stiffened, the tightening of his fingers around the can of whipped cream.
“As opposed to you,” Clarence said flatly, “a man who is such a mature adult that he can’t even admit to the rest of his family that his wife is—”
“That’s enough of that!” interrupted Wendy, voice shrill with false positivity. She’d been talking to Speedy up on the patio, but she sprinted down the steps to stand between her two stepsons. “Let’s move the party inside and get cleaned up, shall we? Karma, darling, can you—”
“Is this a joke?”
The words were out of my mouth before I even knew I was going to say them.
Everyone turned to face me, stunned. I pushed myself to my feet, wiping whipped cream from my chin. I must have been drunker than I realized, because I didn’t even consider stopping myself. Instead, I could only see the vitriol rippling between my older brothers and the ridiculous attempt by my mother to just smooth it over. Could only hear that voice, the one that had fought too hard to reappear and had finally won.
Disgusting, incestuous freak of nature who doesn’t deserve to be loved.
I looked around the group. “Am I the only one who sees how messed up this entire family is?”
“Eliot!” Wendy said, shocked to hear such sharp words coming out of my mouth.
“No. Mom, no. You float around these events like the leader of a cult, with your obedient little husband and your five obedient little children. Like we’ve all grown into these perfect little adults, like we’re all best friends, like these events are filled with so much love. But guess what?”
