Page 24 of Too Late

I don’t know what unnerves me more. The fact that I’m suspicious of every move he makes or the fact that he seems suspicious ofme.

SEVENTEEN

SLOAN

It took me half an hour after Carter walked away to finally regain my composure enough to pack my things and walk back home. It’s been ten minutes since I reached the edge of my dark driveway. I’ve been staring at the pavement, following the winding path with my eyes. It would be so easy to keep walking. There’s nothing in that house I want. Nothing I even need. I could keep walking along the pavement until I’m too far to turn back.

I wish it were as easy as it sounds, but once again … it’s not just about me. And no onebutme is going to be able to change any of this.

Carter can’t save me. Asa sure as hell isn’t going to save me. I just need to continue saving my money until I have enough to make it on my own and bring my brother with me.

I take a step onto the grass, toward the house, but I hesitate. It’s the last place I want to be right now. I want to be back at the park, back on the bench, back in Carter’s arms. I want that feeling again, but I’m ashamed to admit I want more than that, too. I want to know what it feels like to be kissed by someone who respects me.

Just having that thought makes me feel incredibly guilty. To my knowledge, Asa is faithful to me. He provides for me. He takes care of my brother financially … a responsibility that isn’t even his. He does this because he loves me and he knows I want to see my brother happy. I can’t discredit that. It’s more than anyone has ever done for me in my entire life.

I throw my backpack of completed homework in Asa’s car and walk through the front door. I just keep walking until I get to the kitchen. I’ll do like I do every night and take something to eat and drink up to my room. I’ll stay there alone and try to sleep amidst the sound of music and laughter and sometimes the occasional muffled screams. I’ll fall asleep and hope that Asa gives me at least four good hours before he wakes me up again.

I set the timer on the microwave and fill my cup with ice. I shut the freezer and go to open the refrigerator door when the familiar handwriting on the dry-erase board catches my eye. My breath hitches when I read it.

Worries flow from her lips like the random words that flow from her fingertips. I reach out and try to catch them, clenching them in my fists, wanting nothing more than to catch them all.

I look at his words, written clearly out in the open for anyone to see, but I know they’re meant only for me. It’s obvious he played the game wrong. He actuallythoughtabout what he was going to say before he wrote it this time. It makes me smile.Cheater.

I erase the words, but not before imprinting them on my mind. I pick up the marker and press it to the dry-erase board.

EIGHTEEN

ASA

Myhands are wet from sweat. The air conditioner is broken again and it’s too hot to go outside. I run my sweaty palm along the leather arm of the couch, leaving a streak of sweat behind the path of my hand.

I wonder where sweat comes from?

I wonder where leather comes from?

My mother told me it’s made from cows, but I know she’s a liar, so I don’t believe her. How could leather be made out of cows? I’ve touched a cow before and they’re sort of fuzzy. They don’t look like leather to me. Leather looks more like it’s made from dinosaurs than cows.

I bet leather really is made out of dinosaurs. I don’t know why my mother always lies to me. She lies to Daddy, too. I know she lies to him, because she gets in trouble for it a lot.

Daddy always tells me not to trust whores. I don’t know what a whore is, but I know it’s something my daddy hates.

Sometimes when he gets mad at my mom, he calls her a whore. Maybe a whore is another word for liar and that’s why he hates them so much.

I wish my mother wasn’t a whore. I wish she would stop lying, so she wouldn’t get in trouble so much. I don’t like watching her get in trouble.

Daddy says it’s good for me, though. He says if I want to grow up and be a man, I need to see what a woman looks like when she cries. Daddy saysa woman’s tears make men weak, and the more I see their tears when I’m younger, the less I’ll believe their lies when I’m older. Sometimes when he punishes my mother for being a whore, he makes me watch her cry so that I’ll grow up knowing that all the whores cry and it shouldn’t bother me.

“Don’t trust anyone, Asa,” he always tells me. “Especially the whores.”

I grasp the leather strap tethered around my arm and pull it tighter, then slap at my skin. I realize now that leather isn’t made from dinosaurs.

My mother wasn’t lying aboutthat, at least.

I don’t remember a lot about the fight in their bedroom that night. The yelling had become a daily occurrence, so it wasn’t new to me. What was so different about that night was the silence. The house had never been so quiet. I remember lying in bed, listening to myself breathe because it was the only noise in the entire house. I hated the quiet. Ihatethe quiet.

No one found out what he did to her for a few days. They found her body wrapped in a bloody sheet, shoved under the house and half-covered in dirt. I know this, because I snuck outside and watched them pull her out from under the house.

After the cops arrested my father, I was shipped to my aunt’s house where I lived until I ran away at fourteen.

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