Page 39 of When the Night is Over

Charlotte

“Throw your shit in the back and get in the car.”

The way he swerved close to the curb and then slammed on the brakes should have me fearing for my life right now, but my survival instincts aren’t what they used to be. I’m simply too wrung out to cower in fear.

I’m pretty sure my brother has always been this way. I imagine he didn’t even cry when he entered the world. No, I can envision him exiting the womb and fixing the doctor and nurses with a scowl.What are you waiting for, dipshits? Clean me up!A similar look of annoyance directed at my mother when she paused to look on at him in wonder.Stop gawking, lady, I’m hungry!

He is a man of few words, and the words he directs my way are rude and clipped. Since Christian got caught nailing my father’s girlfriend a few weeks ago—shocking, given his reputation for honesty and integrity—he’s been on thin ice around Mason Motors. My dad ditched Liza, which hasn’t turned out to be the positive development I once thought it would be. He’s home more often now and walks around in a constant state of pissed-off. Christian is on his best behavior when my father is home, but then reverts to an even more twitchy and disagreeable version of himself when he has the run of the house. I’ve been avoiding the place like the plague. I’ve taken on one extra shift at the diner after school on Wednesdays, and when I’m not working, I hole up in the library until closing time.

I’d like to say I’m being productive, catching up on homework or prepping for my college entrance exams, but I’m not. Most days I can barely stand upright, the combination of pregnancy hormones, shock and misery knocking me for a serious loop. I’ve fallen asleep in those uncomfortable chairs, drooling with my head on a table more times than I can count. On those rare afternoons when I’m not doing a spot-on impersonation of Sylvia Plath, I scan the stacks like a spy on a covert mission and then tuck into a corner to read. There’s nothing to do but shake my head in disbelief, stunned by the fact that I am now no more than a grim statistic.

A whopping 38% of teen mothers earn a high school diploma.

Only 2% earn a college degree by age 30.

Less than 20% of teen fathers marry the baby’s mother.

That last one hurts the most.

I’ve written him three different letters, but I never get it quite right. I start off by asking how he is. It’s an awkward opening line, given that we didn’t exactly part on good terms. In one draft I go on to ask what college is like, figuring small talk is the way to go, a way to lessen the impact of the bomb I’m about to drop in paragraph two. And after that little nugget, I reassure him that I’ve got this, that I expect nothing from him. I can’t read over the words without shaking my head—it’s a total crock of bull.

I want to tell him I’m scared, that I’m lonely for him, that I can’t breathe. I want to ask him to hold my hand through this and help me make a decision, to take this burden on and shoulder it with me. But I won’t do it. I won’t trap him, won’t saddle him with a responsibility he surely doesn’t want. I won’t keep him in a place that has done nothing but torment him.

I make an executive decision: I’m not going to tell him. And the joke is on me, because I couldn’t mail the letters even if I wanted to. Simon left no forwarding address.

Christian has found me on a bench, waiting for the morning bus bound for Pittsburgh. The grand plan was to make my way to Florida. My mother has a sister near Tampa. Her name is written on a scrap of paper in my pocket. It’s got her phone number and address on it too, all written in my mother’s hand. I met her just once, years ago. I don’t know her, and I don’t know if this decade-old information will lead me to her. The only thing I do know for sure is that I have twelve hundred dollars saved up and no future here.

Center Street is a vision of suburban blight, with approximately half of the retail properties shuttered, but it’s still the heart of town. Christian Mason, upstanding businessman, won’t make a scene by backhanding me in public, so I’ve got that going for me.

Slamming the door, he circles the back of his car to loom over me. “Simon Wade…Really? And where is Simon now?” He lowers his voice to a menacing whisper. “Gone now that he’s had his fill.”

“No,” I whisper.

“Yes, yes, yes,” he barks back, mocking me. “Maybe this’ll teach you to keep your damn legs closed.”

He knows.

I flinch when Christian leans in closer. “Yeah, Iknow,” he sneers as his gaze shifts towards my middle, “and so does Dad.” He grabs my small suitcase and hurls it into the trunk. “Now get in the fucking car.”

Welcome to Ohiothe sign reads less than an hour later.

“Where are we going?”

“You’re going to live with Dad’s sister, Janelle.”

I feel dead. No energy or desire to protest the arrangement, the plans made without my consent. And as a girl still shy of her seventeenth birthday, pregnant with a baby whose father has just traipsed off to some fancy college I can now only ever dream of attending, I know I don’t have much in terms of bargaining power. Aunt Janelle? I’ve never met the woman. She’s no more than a mythical being. What does it matter anyway? Nothing matters anymore.

He looks over to gauge my reaction. I give him nothing. It’s what I do when he’s itching for a fight. “You think Dad wants you shaming us in our community?”

Shaming us? Right, because we’re so upstanding. A father who whored around the entire time his sick wife lay dying in the hospital, and a brother so used up and angry at the age of twenty-three that if I didn’t hate him so much, I’d pity him. Sad state of affairs, but my father is one of the few business owners in the county who actually manages to turn a profit, so I guess he does feel justified in viewing himself as a pillar of the community.

I keep my gaze fixed out the passenger side window, taking in the all too familiar landscape, the evidence of small town life along the side of the road. Desolate stretches of highway broken up by the occasional truck stop or Walmart supercenter. Billboards for adult entertainment shops, antiques or fireworks. Clusters of houses dotting the hills, recently painted and well maintained near some exit ramps, but those are the exception to the rule. Most towns look like replicas of my own, the majority of the homes dilapidated and neglected.

“I have to use the bathroom.”

“Of course you do,” he mocks, voice sweet and laced with sarcasm.

By the time he pulls off at the next highway rest stop, I’m about ready to wet my pants. He takes a spot near the entrance. “I’m gonna use the bathroom quick and then get gas. Get us something to eat and I’ll meet you back out front.”

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