Chapter 3

Adrian didn’t carry out his threats for several days. I was alright with him ignoring me, and I did the same. Although Madeline, unlike my dad, insisted a few times that we hang out together, nothing came of it, and eventually she gave up. During their short stay here, both mother and son managed to make themselves well-liked. As expected in our tiny town, where dreams came to die, Adrian was a rock star. The girls swooned, and the boys wanted to be his friends.

Except for me. I wasn’t swooning, and I didn’t want to be his friend, either. His words – his threats – still echoed in my brain when the silence of the hours I spent bent over my books became too stifling. I could hardly focus. I didn’t even know why I was studying. I got into college already. It was more a habit than anything else, and a method to make the hours pass in a less dreadful manner.

Dad was smitten with Madeline. He’d always been harsh with me, but I’ve never wished him harm – so I had to be happy for him for finding someone who could endure that claustrophobic town for his sake.

Again and again, I couldn’t understand for the love of all that’s holy how such a good-natured and kind woman could have such a son. She might have married the devil himself before my dad, someone who took advantage of her goodness.

She didn’t see Adrian for the fiend he was. Maybe she’d learned not to scrutinize him much when he came back at night, his clothes smelling of cheap perfume and cigarettes.

I was pretending to read a book when he came knocking one night. I didn’t have a lock on the door – it’s not how we do things in my father’s house – and after ignoring his knocks, he decided to come in without being invited.

“Reading the bible, choir boy?” he whispered and snickered as if there had to be something amusing about someone perusing religious texts.

I scrunched up my nose. “Have you been drinking?” I asked.

He closed the door behind him with a thud.

“Are you fucking mental? Our parents must be already asleep.”

He shrugged and tried to be cute by giving me a sheepish smile. To make things worse, he opened the door and closed it again, this time making sure to do it noiselessly.

“Go to sleep, Adrian,” I said, burying my nose in the book I was supposed to be reading.

As if that were enough for the fiend to make him go away. He plonked himself down on the bed and grabbed my book. He held it with its top down and stared at the upside-down letters, while his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I can’t read a thing. What language is this?”

I seized the book away from him and closed it. “What do you want?”

He was drunk. I could feel it clearly now that he was so close, a smell of cheap beer and something else.

He ignored my question and stretched out on my bed. With his hands behind his back, his t-shirt hiked up, allowing me a peek at a sliver of skin, darker than mine, and a small patch of treasure trail hair.