Between the Sheets (16 page)

He’d taken the red and white clay and he was trying to make a miniature version of the Indian Chief motorcycle Ty had just finished refurbishing.

Ty said he was going to sell it soon, and Casey thought it would be cool to give him a miniature version. But only if he could figure out how to make the handlebars.

“Hey!”

Casey tried to put the clay back in his pocket, but it was too late. Scott and John were already around the corner.

“Hey guys,” he said, jumping to his feet.

“You working on something for Ms. Monroe?” John
asked. No matter what John said, his tone of voice always said “you’re a total pussy.”

“No.” There was no way he was talking about Ms. Monroe with John. No. Way.

“No?” John looked back at Scott like he was confused. “Scott said you were in his little art class after school.”

Casey didn’t say anything, but his hands curled into fists. John was such a jerk.

“You like Ms. Monroe?” John asked, stepping closer. He shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his camouflage hoodie. John went hunting every weekend with his dad and he bragged about it every Monday. Casey didn’t want to admit it, but that sounded pretty cool. Cooler than church, that was for sure.

“She’s cool,” Casey said.

John grinned, showing off his two big front teeth that were probably going to need braces real soon, and Casey couldn’t wait for that day. “Yeah, but do you like her?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think she’s pretty?”

Casey thought Ms. Monroe was the most beautiful woman on the planet, but he wasn’t going to breathe a word of that to John.

Pull up the bridges
, he heard that counselor’s voice in his head.
Become an island; do not let these guys get to you
.

But it was too late. They were here and they were getting to him, and the counselor had never told him how to get all the bad thoughts and all the people who wanted to do him harm off the island once they were on.

“Come on, man, this is stupid,” Scott said, still standing at the corner, close to the tether balls that the second graders were using as Tarzan ropes.

John ignored Scott and pulled an iPhone from his pocket.

“You aren’t supposed to have that on school grounds,” Casey said, because he was getting kind of scared and because he was totally jealous that his own iPod had been confiscated practically his first day at school.

“The teachers don’t care, not if you don’t use it in class,” he said and turned it on. “So what’s Ms. Monroe like at the Art Barn? Scott won’t tell me anything.”

Casey blinked and stepped back as John stepped forward. “She’s just like she is in class. Cool. Nice.”

“Has she sucked your dick?”

Blood roared through his ears and he felt himself go super hot and then freezing cold. “What!” he cried, too loud, probably.

“Has she sucked your dick?” John shrugged, his arms out wide. “You know what sucking dick is, don’t you?”

“Why do you let him talk like this about her?” Casey yelled to Scott.

Scott shook his head and looked away.

“Hey, hey,” John said, playing around with his phone. Casey could barely hear him because his heart was pounding so hard. “Let me show you something, it’s on YouTube. There was a TV show this summer and Ms. Monroe totally sucked this guy’s—”

“Shut up, John!” Casey didn’t want to see anything like that. He didn’t want to hear any more about it. He felt like crying. He felt so angry and so scared and so freaked out by all this bullshit that he just wanted to go into the boy’s bathroom and hide until it was time to go home. And then he wanted to hide at home.

But Mom had called. Mom had called and now that house with the weird fridge and the overgrown weeds
and the stray dog—that house wasn’t safe anymore because she had gotten in.

He turned to run, but John grabbed the pocket of his hoodie.

“She’s a slut—”

Casey jerked away and his pocket ripped, and the sound of the heavy cotton tearing away at the seams ripped away something in him.

Casey punched John. It only got him in the arm and shoulder, but John dropped the phone and lurched back and sideways.

“Shut up about Ms. Monroe!” Casey could feel himself spit as he yelled, but he didn’t care.

“Look on YouTube, Casey. Everyone in town knows what she’s like.” John’s face screwed up good and ugly and he opened his mouth to let more of his filthy garbage out into the world.

Casey pushed John against the wall, where he punched him again and again. Hitting John’s face, his chest. He felt the cut of John’s teeth across his knuckles. John was yelling and crying a little and Casey felt like there might be blood on his hand somewhere and he knew this was bad, all of this was really, really bad, but he couldn’t stop.

Mom had found him.

“Casey!” Scott yelled. “Casey, stop!”

Casey took a deep breath, so deep he nearly fell backward.

Suddenly Scott was there, pulling Casey back, holding onto his arms. Casey felt like there was a swarm of bees in his head. His hands hurt, the knuckles stung. His palms where his fingernails had been digging into the skin throbbed with his heartbeat.

John stood up and faced him. He was bleeding from his lip and his eye looked red and puffy. He was rubbing
his shoulder where he’d landed when Casey shoved him to the ground. “What the hell is wrong with you, Casey? You’re a freak. You get that, right? A total freak. Everyone knows your mom is in jail. Ms. Monroe is only nice to you because she feels bad for you.”

John bent over and reached down for his phone.

Casey knew better, knew he should just stop, but he couldn’t. He kicked John in the chest, knocking him over. It took him a second but John stood up, his face full of hate.

Uh-oh, Casey
thought,
this is going to be bad
.

Casey tried to brace himself, but it wasn’t enough.

John when nuts on him. While Scott held Casey’s arms, John totally beat the crap out of him. One of his punches got him square in the nose and something popped and there was a gush of blood.

He heard the scream of one of the second graders and he wanted to tell John to stop, that he was scaring that kid, that they were all going to get in trouble, but there was so much blood.

And then Mr. Phillips, the sixth-grade teacher, was yanking John away. Someone was pulling Scott away, and Casey spun around, not sure what he was going to do but still feeling like he needed to do something. Needed to hurt someone. Needed to apologize or scream or find out if that second grader was okay. He was torn in a thousand different directions at once. None of this was right. None of it.

And he wanted to make it worse just as badly as he wanted to try to figure out how to make it better.

Ms. Monroe was there. She wore silver earrings, long leaves that brushed her cheeks.

There was blood on her white sweater.

“Casey?” she breathed and he could see the tears in her eyes, and when she held out her arms as if to touch him or hug him, he dodged out of the way. She dropped
her arms, but didn’t look away and he felt trapped. “Casey, you’re hurt.”

He opened his mouth, but a sob broke out of his chest.

“Oh, Casey, Casey please let me—” She reached for him again, but he shoved her. As hard as he could, with every bit of strength he had left, he shoved her and tore off for the side entrance to the school. He heard her cry out and someone yelled after him and he was pretty sure he’d knocked her down. Pretty sure this was the worst moment in his whole life. And there had been a lot of bad ones.

He got himself to the boys’ bathroom and hid in the corner stall, his feet curled upon the seat next to him so no one could see him by looking under the door.

Snot ran down across his lip and the tears stung the cuts on his cheeks and he hissed when he tried to wipe them off on the knees of his jeans. He was panting and crying and he couldn’t get himself to stop. He unrolled tons of toilet paper and held it up to his nose, trying to stop the bleeding.

“Casey?”

It was Mr. Root, and Casey held his breath.

“I know you’re in here.”

The door to his stall rattled and he squeezed his eyes shut. “Casey,” Mr. Root said. “Please, come out. Ms. Monroe said you’re hurt.”

The sob ripped through him. Did he hurt her when he’d pushed her over? Oh, God, he wanted to throw up.

“Buddy?”

“Go away!” he yelled.

In the end, Mr. Root got the janitor to take the hinges off the door and they came and got him.

*   *   *

Ty turned the corner into the school’s office, ready to take his son apart.

Honest to God, what part of “you will be suspended” didn’t the kid understand?

Ty had been fooled by this weekend, by their Sunday afternoon together. They’d had fun after church. They’d gone to Cora’s and had fritters and then headed out to the river to throw stones. They went to go see the new aliens-and-robots movie and had popcorn and licorice for dinner.

The phone call from Vanessa never came up again.

He’d thought, stupidly maybe, that they’d turned some kind of corner. It had been fun. Happy. Easy.

And the very next day Casey gets suspended for fighting. And Ty just couldn’t believe how angry he was. How … betrayed. How fucking at the end of his rope he was with this kid.

But then he caught sight of Casey slouched in the chairs outside Mr. Root’s office and all the anger he had toward his kid for pulling him out of work, for fighting during school, for getting suspended, vanished.

Casey’s head was tilted back and a cold pack wrapped in paper towel pressed to his nose. The neck of his white tee shirt was red with blood.

Ty had gotten the shit kicked out of him more than once.

But he wasn’t prepared for the sight of his son’s face.

The terrible squeeze around his heart, the push and pull of his guts, made him stop for a second in the doorway. Made him brace his hand against the door frame.

He’s so little. So young
.

All Casey had wanted from him was to take him out of those foster homes. To keep him safe.

Oh God, I’m failing him. I’m failing him so bad
.

“Mr. Svenson,” Colleen said, looking over the top of
her computer at him as if he had single-handedly ruined the delicate balance of her whole damn day.

Stirred into motion, he ignored Colleen and stepped right to Casey. He leaned over to try and see his son’s face past the brown paper towel. To access the damage.

Casey saw him and closed his eyes with a moan.

Part defeat. Part fear. All grief.

“Casey,” he breathed, reaching for the cold pack, but Casey turned away. When he reached again, Casey jerked away to sit on the chair sideways, his back to Ty, the small knobs of his spine pressed against his tee shirt.

“You okay?” Ty set his hand against his son’s back, spread out his fingers, and covered all those knobs.

“Don’t.” Casey jerked away.

Mr. Root’s office door opened behind him, and Ty turned, only to see a boy in the same shape as Casey and a very grim-faced mom behind him walking out of the office.

The mother stopped the boy beside Casey’s chair and she gave her son a little nudge with a sharp elbow.

“I’m sorry, Casey,” the boy said, not making eye contact.

Casey was silent for a long minute and Ty didn’t nudge anything. He had no idea what had happened, but until he got an idea, he wasn’t sure who owed whom an apology or if one should be accepted.

After what seemed like a good mental shake, the mother turned to Ty. “I’m Mary James, John’s mother. I’m really very sorry. If Casey needs to go to the hospital for his nose, please let me—”

“Hospital?” Ty said. He turned Casey around in his chair, just picked him up and moved him, and Casey didn’t fight it. He just let himself be manhandled and that was a terrible indication of how low Casey was, because there was no other time he would have stood for this.

Ty pulled his son’s hand and the cold pack away from his face.

“Holy shit,” Ty breathed, and John, the other kid, snorted.

His son’s nose underneath the cold pack was swollen, red, and bruised. Blood was smeared all over his face. It looked broken.

“I’m so sorry,” Mary whispered. “Really, I don’t—”

“Someone needs to tell me what the hell happened, right now.” He stood up, glaring at every adult in the room.

“Come on inside the office,” Mr. Root said. “I’ll explain.”

Ty looked from Casey to the other kid, who had a split lip and a dark bruise forming under his chin. John. The kid’s name was John and when he looked at Casey, he didn’t look sorry. He looked mad, as though if there weren’t any adults around he’d do it all again.

“Really,” Mary said, and for a moment all the grim fell from her face and he saw a woman with her back against the wall. Her hands shook as she dug through her purse and her eyes were wet with tears. “Here’s my number,” she said and handed him her Mary Kay Representative business card. “It’s just me, so you can reach me at those numbers and if you do need to go to the hospital just … let me know that he’s okay.”

Ty took the trembling card she held out to him. He wanted to be furious with her; he wanted to yell that she needed to manage her son better. She was just like him, though, a parent who was trying really hard. And screwing it up sometimes.

But he was still pissed, still scared, and all he could do was take the card and nod.

Mary force-marched her son out the door.

Ty looked down at his son, at that defeated bend to
his body, the blood splatter across his shirt. The broken nose.

“You okay?” he whispered. Casey didn’t answer. “Son?”

“I’m fine.”

“I’m going to talk to Mr. Root. I’ll be right back.” Casey’s ice-blue eyes twitched to him. Full of doubt and hope and fear and worry. Ty squeezed his shoulder and stepped into Mr. Root’s office.

The door shut behind him and he sat down in the chair that Shelby had been sitting in the last time he was here. “What the hell happened?”

“Well.” Mr. Root walked around his desk. “Your son won’t say a word, so all we have are the stories told to us by John and Scott and Mr. Phillips and Ms. Monroe.”