Jex Malone (16 page)

I'd get a job if I had a way to get to a job, which might not be a bad way to ask again about my license. But then again, Dad might get offended if I offer to help pay for things around here. He's pretty old-fashioned that way.

Oh my God, he'd kill me if he knew I'd just written that down.

I know it sounds so awful. Most kids at school have been around people who are mad, but this is another kind of mad. It's mad with threats and the breaking of things, plus some shoving and slaps. It's nuts kind of mad.

Dear Diary:

So, I am back again because I've just had the most awful day. The worst day you can imagine. Dad and Billy pretty much decided they hate each other. Not just a little bit of hate, but a lot of hate. They got into it pretty good, and I seriously thought Billy was going to punch Dad in the face, and considering Dad had way too much to drink, I was pretty sure Billy was really going to hurt him.

The thing about Billy and his temper is that it goes into the red fast. When my boyfriend gets mad, he pretty much doesn't care who the person is at the other end of his fist. He doesn't back down, he just gets madder. I had to get in between Dad and Billy (and it wasn't the first time) to keep them from killing each other.

I don't even know what started the fight. Billy and I were hanging out doing our homework in our living room when Dad came home from work, and I could tell right away he'd stopped to drink on the way home. He never should have been driving, and when he saw Billy, he said something really mean about me doing his homework for him. “What are you? Some kind of 'tard?” Dad taunted him.

Billy got mouthy, calling him a “stupid, drunk old man” and then it was on. Before I could catch my breath, they got right up into each other's faces just screaming horrible things, and I know Billy really did want to hit him and probably should have. Mom took Cooper into the back room because she didn't want him to see anyone get his nose broken. I think she was pretty mad, too, and figured if she didn't get out of there, it was going to be a three-way fight. To be honest, she's not crazy about Billy either, but at least she doesn't call him nasty names. Dad didn't back down despite their age difference, telling Billy, “You want some of this? I'll put you in the ground.”

Anyway, I ended up standing between them and finally got them far enough apart. I kept telling Billy to just leave, and that I would talk to him later. Then Dad said if I called him ever again, I'd be grounded forever or maybe even be thrown out of the house. Just to be mean. Billy took his time walking down the driveway and flipped the world the bird. Then Dad was so mad he went into the den to drink some more. I know this because I can always hear the empty bottles smashing into each other in the garbage. One thing about my family: It's all about the broken glass.

Dad's passed out on the couch out there now. We're lucky someone didn't call the cops, because I am pretty sure it sounded like someone was being murdered in here. That's how loud Dad was ranting and raving about how I was “going down a wrong-way street” and my life would be “over” if I didn't “get rid of that … ” I don't even want to write down what he called Billy.

Anyway, I don't know what's going to happen when he wakes up. Hopefully that won't be until sometime tomorrow and I'll be at school. Maybe he won't even remember what happened—that's been known to happen around here. Later tonight, I'll just sneak downstairs and throw those broken bottles into the big trash bin behind the garage. Every day is a clean slate, right?

That stupid gym teacher, the bouncy one, noticed I had a few cuts on my hand and asked me if I wanted to talk about it. Right! How could I say, “My dad is a drunk and I clean up the evidence every night. Sometimes I reach in and cut myself on a piece of broken glass, but that's nothing compared to how cut up I feel inside about all of it.” How could I tell Ms. Nosy Teacher all of that without being in a world of trouble? So I keep my mouth shut or say something like, “I fell off my bike.” I know she doesn't believe me.

I take another drink of Perrier and look around the room.

“Is anyone else noticing something?” I say. “All of her days are awful.”

“Maybe she just writes when she has a bad day,” Nat offers as an explanation. “She didn't seem to have a lot of alternatives.”

Everyone is quiet, so I keep reading.

Dear Diary:

Grounded. Dad totally remembered what happened. Now I am banned from seeing Billy at all, having him at the house, talking to him at school, or any contact whatsoever. My life is over.

PS: Dad can throw away his own bottles tonight. I don't want to be his daughter, and I certainly don't want to be his maid.

Dear Diary:

So this grounding thing is kind of complicated because even though I'm not supposed to ever talk to Billy again, I see him at school and we have a class together. So how's that supposed to work? Dad's not crazy enough to actually come to the school and spy on me to see if Billy and I are talking there. He totally would catch us.

What we need is a plan. We've figured out Billy can just come over to Melissa's house on his bike so that if Dad drives by her house when I tell him that's where I am, he won't see Billy's car out front. His bike is easy to hide around the back. I really don't like having to lie to my parents, but they are soooo unfair.

Melissa has been a really good friend through all of this, super supportive and really helping me get through what is probably the worst year of my life. School is getting really hard and I have to take my college-board tests soon. That's the only chance I have of getting into a good college on an art scholarship. I'm studying night and day when I'm not with Billy. Each night, I pray, “Please, please, please get me out of here!”

Dear Diary:

School was okay today, but when I came home Dad had really been drinking a lot. He didn't even say hi to me at all and just grunted. Now he's shouting at me through my paper-thin, fake-wood bedroom door about spending so much time in my room. Like I'm going to go out there with him. That's like standing in the middle of the jungle next to the snarling lion. Forget it!

Billy was such a jerk today too. I tried to tell him that we couldn't be out late at Melissa's house anymore because it was starting to look suspicious and he just got all mad and punched his locker door. Hard. When I begged him to stop before he got detention, which would get him in trouble with the football team, he started punching that same fist into the open palm of his other hand. He forgets that he has to be perfect at school to stay on the team. The coach doesn't tolerate any bad behavior and doesn't care if it's football season or not. I don't know what would happen to Billy if he got kicked off the team. Football is pretty much his life.

I was trying to calm Billy down, just like I do with Dad. That got him even madder. He said all of this stress was my fault and maybe we should just take a break for a while because clearly I'm having a hard time “managing the situation” and that any girlfriend of his had better make him “priority number one or else!” That sounded like a threat, didn't it?

Can you believe it? He's the one who can't manage to get me home in time even though he knows how much trouble it causes. He doesn't even care. He's even said things like, “If you want to be with me, you have to figure out your situation.”

Now what's that supposed to mean? I think he's losing interest, and then what am I going to do? I can't imagine life without him. I don't care what Dad says or does … I'm not losing Billy, because I would die if I did.

I have to take a real break. This is just too intense. Even if I get past the fact that I'm holding a diary that belonged to a girl no one has seen in thirteen years and we're reading her private thoughts about all these awful things, what she lived through is almost too much. I wasn't planning on it being so—so personal.

I draw in a deep breath and keep going.

Dear Diary:

It's been a few days since I've written, sorry. Things are so messed up right now. He's just being horrible and I don't know what to do. Last night he grabbed me by my arm and twisted it. Hard. I have a huge purple mark that has really started to throb.

And if that wasn't bad enough, today in PE that nosy Miss Sandy was at it again. She saw my arm and was totally asking me a million questions. I told her I fell against the door, but she kept looking at my arm and said, “No, it has been twisted because the bruise goes around. If you had fallen, it would be black and blue in just one spot.”

God, why don't people leave me alone? Lillian was really worried about me. But she reminds me that every great artist has had it hard at some time in his or her life and he or she uses that to become better. She's right, I do feel better when I'm working on a new drawing or painting. I can forget about all the other things going on and just concentrate on getting the picture to look just right.

So that's what I am going to do. I'm not going to cry, I'm going to draw a really pretty picture and see if that helps my mood. I'll do one of my little white dream houses with the meadow and Cooper walking in the flowers.

“Wait!” Nat shouts, startling us all. “Does it say ‘he' or does it say a name? Who is the ‘he' she's talking about?”

“It doesn't say,” I answer, rereading the sentence just to make sure. “She doesn't say who hurt her. What's freaking me out even more is that it was Sandy who noticed the bruise. Sandy! My dad's, uh, Sandy. How weird is that?”

“Do you think Sandy knows who hurt Patty?” Deva asks. “Sounds like she was more than a big snoop, and really cared about her kids. She might know something.”

“If she did know something, she would have immediately told the police when Patty disappeared,” I said. “She would have been the first to tell what she knew. She lives to be helpful and informative.”

“Good point,” Deva agrees. “Go on.”

Dear Diary:

Oh, you are not going to believe this! Miss Sandy Butt Into Your Business sent me to the school psychologist (a.k.a the mind control master) who asked me if there was anything I wanted to talk about—as if?

He asked if someone was hurting me purposely and I said “no” and got out of there. Fast. I was so embarrassed that I ditched school for the rest of the day and came home. Melissa is totally freaked out because she said our fourth-period biology teacher was looking for me and now I bet the principal is going to call my parents.

Great—call my parents, because they are going to make this better? Adults are so clueless.

“See, there's your answer,” I add, continuing to read.

Dear Diary:

I am so grounded for leaving school. Dad is blaming this all on Billy and he doesn't believe me after the tenth time that I've told him that Billy had nothing to do with it. Billy is furious at me too and started yelling on the phone that this is distracting him from his training and that if he isn't in perfect shape by his senior season, he's never going to get a scholarship. Now I can't go see Lillian either because Dad has it that I can't even leave my room except for school and meals.

Everything is just closing in on me. I've never seen Dad so mad and now he's downstairs drinking and tossing the empties in the trashcan so hard that it's like he wants me to hear the glass crashing. When I came down for a glass of water, he started ranting again about my sorry future—yeah, I know. I'll never amount to anything. I'll end up marrying that loser. I'll have a loser life. I just wonder how it can be more loser than this life.

My head really hurts. I think there's a dent in the wall, too, from where Dad punched it. This is all Miss Sandy's fault.

“Well, Patty and I had one thing in common
—
we both really don't like Sandy very much,”
I think to myself.

Dear Diary:

Day Two of being grounded. This means I have to go straight to school, where I have to go to all of my boring classes, then an hour of in-school suspension in study hall for ditching, and then straight home. No going to Melissa's house, no seeing Billy or Lillian, and I can't go to the mall or to the movies. I'm just hanging out in my room watching old reruns and thinking it would be so great to live in one of those perfect sitcoms or anywhere but here.

Their problems on TV are totally nothing and their little town seems so cute and everyone is weird but nice. Why isn't real life like that?

So on top of everything else, now Mom is mad at me too. She says she can't take the tension in the house anymore and would leave if she weren't pretty sure Dad would just come after her anyway. I think deep down she really loves him and wants to see him better, but I don't know why she thinks it's my fault that he's so messed up. I didn't have anything to do with that, and poor little Cooper really is the victim of all of us here. I'm at least old enough to not do things that I know are going to make him mad.

On top of everything, Melissa is mad at me because now that I'm not in biology she has no one to help her do her homework and maybe she could have gotten by with a C-, but now she's definitely going to fail. Her grades are so bad, she may even have to leave school and just go get her GED. It's not like she's going to college anyway—of course, I'm probably not either since there's very little chance of higher ed or art school with everything going on. There is also very little chance I'm going to get a decent score on my college boards. Better get working on that beauty school application—that would be funny, if it weren't so sad and true.

Dear Diary:

Okay, we've got a lot of catching up to do because it's been a really, really long time since I've had any privacy to write anything. My dad thought I was spending too much time in my room, so he took what was left of my door off the hinges. Can you believe that? So for the past week, like every ten minutes, someone is in here.