“It’s late, and you have school tomorrow.”
“Does he give you trouble?” Chet asked Mom in a low, warning voice.
“No, he—”
“Hey. Boy.”
I froze with my hand on the doorknob. My head turned on a stiff neck to meet Chet’s dark, hard gaze.
“You give your mom a hard time, son?”
His words, casually threatening, slid icily down my spine. I tilted my chin and somehow managed not to blink. “I’m not your son.”
A short silence fell where I could only hear the beat of my heart crashing against my chest.
Mom waved the smoke away as if she could dissipate the tension between us. “Nah, he’s good. He’s a good kid.”
Chet’s eyes never moved from mine as he said to me and only me, “He’d better be.”
“Fucking hell,” I muttered, hands jammed in my pockets as I walked down the silent, darkened streets that wound down toward the beach. Over the last four years, Mom had guys come and go in various shades of loser-ness, but Chet felt like King Loser and permanently fixed to our couch.
That day was a shit day, and I wanted nothing more but to sleep. But now that Mom was having a sleepover with Chet fucking Hyland, I took a walk instead.
Even after Mom and I moved out of the car and to the apartment, I didn’t stop roaming at night. Walking to be alone. To escape. Sometimes I had the urge to walk all night and not stop. But without my meds, I’d wind up dead somewhere, and they wouldn’t find me until the seagulls had picked my bones clean.
“Cheery thought,” I muttered, the wind whipping my words away.
That night, I wandered the remote stretch of rocky beach fronted by high cliffs. I hunched deeper into my jacket. It was technically summer, but the Northern California coast didn’t get the memo.
Black waves, bearded in white foam, crashed against the rocky sand, clawing at it and then retreating, over and over. To the west, the glittering colored lights of the Boardwalk looked garish and wild. Even a mile away, I could hear the last roller coaster of the night rattle up the track, followed by the happy screams of the riders as it plummeted. The Ferris Wheel turned silently and slowly behind it.
I turned my back on the color and light and trudged deeper amid the craggy, porous rocks that were black and jagged under the meager moonlight. The high tide forced me to stay close to the boulders, and soon enough, I was climbing more than walking. To my right, the cliffs loomed. On my left, the ocean reached for me in angry grabs, spraying me with cold water with every attempt. I’d never come this far before.
Only when I stumbled, scraping my palm on a rough, salt-beaten rock to catch my balance, did I surrender. The water was starting to squelch around my boots, and if this stupid foray damaged my guitar, I’d never forgive myself.
I’d started to turn around and pick a path back amid the rocks and dampening sand, when I heard it. Distant but clear, between the roar of the waves. A creak followed by a slam. Like a wooden door on a busted hinge, opening and shutting with every gust of wind.
Against all good sense, I kept going, and my curiosity paid off when the boulders thinned slightly. I was able to pick a precarious path over smaller, rounded stones. The shoreline curved up, away from the water, and the waves couldn’t touch me any l
onger. The way grew easier. The sound—creak-slam!—grew louder.
Finally, I came around a huge cluster of boulders. Ahead, the cliffs had slid toward the ocean, and there was no more beach.
Dead end.
Then I heard it again. Behind me.
I turned and there was the door. It hung on loose hinges, and every time the wind blew it open, it revealed a rectangle of pitch black. It took me a second in the dark of the night to make it out, but I realized I was staring at a square wooden shack built against a collection of high boulders.
I should have left it alone and gone home: first day of school and all. But what was at home? A stranger in our small space. And school was nothing but another year of being bullied for the unforgiveable crime of being poor. And thanks to my colossal failure tonight with Vi, I’d spend it watching her get closer and closer to River until I lost her forever.
I fished my cell phone from the back pocket of my jeans and flipped on the flashlight function.
“This is how teenagers die in horror movies,” I muttered into the wind. The creaking door slammed, making me flinch.
I held up the meager light and peered in, using my guitar case to prop open the door.
“Hello?”