Author's Note:

More serious territory, as I said. But we're not done just yet. There are a lot of things I want to explore, familial tension during a divorce being only one of them.

Keep a tab on Ashley; she has quite a large role to play later. Tell me what you guys think of this OC, though she remains pretty one-dimensional for now.

Finally, please continue to review, it helps and encourages me as I write. Thank you.

After we get back from the game with Peterson, Juli invites me to hang out with her at the used bookstore she loves, but the sophomore guys have a little celebration (Jeremort excluded!) planned, and I thought I would join them for a change.

To be honest, it's not much of a win to celebrate. But still, a win is a win. We all get ourselves plenty of wings at Lovett's Diner, which is a pretty popular hangout for… I guess you would call us jocks. Cheap food, loud music, dim lighting for fooling around with girls.

I won't delve into the details about the celebration. There's only so much a group of guys can do, and since everyone is famished, mostly we just eat. Mitch proposes smuggling booze and taking it back to one of our places, but I don't really feel like drinking, so I say goodbye to the guys and hop on my bike to head home. Mom has been expecting me home earlier anyway — my phone died on the way back and I couldn't text her about hanging out with the team.

As I turn onto our street I find that the kitchen lights are on, but nowhere else, which is kind of odd. I guess I should know better, but nothing really strikes me as out of the ordinary until I round the corner of our foyer. I'd been excited about seeing how Mom would react to the news of the win, but the voices make me stop dead in my tracks.

My parents.

Yelling.

I know I should head straight upstairs, and given the way things are going I doubt they'd notice me. Yet this one seems particularly bad; Granddad and Lyn must be out, and my parents are taking full advantage of the situation. I've never heard them this loud before, any mask of civility at the silent dinners these past few days torn violently off. As if mesmerized, I find my feet moving on their own, closer and closer to the kitchen.

Finally, I will myself to stop, barely three feet away from the kitchen door. It smells great in there — Mom's oven-baked chicken, her signature dish. The rich aroma of gravy. Tomatoes from something, probably spaghetti. Every sign of a happy household.

"Maybe you should take a more proactive approach!" Mom's voice slams into my ear. She's using her no-argument-allowed tone, but Dad is having none of it.

"Proactive," he says, disdain practically oozing. He sounds drunk. "Look at you being proactive. You whip up a fancy dinner for five, and look who's here?"

"Rick, don't try to change the topic, we were —"

"We were talking about our daughter hanging up on me. And our —"

"No, that was not what we were talking about," Mom seethes. "We were talking about your responsibilities and how you haven't even been —"

"Haven't been what? You're gonna dig up the old bones now? Is this what you're doing?"

"It's hardly old, it was three weeks ago —"

"And what? What more do you want me to do, huh? Was a fucking iPad not enough? You see how much he enjoys it, right?"

"That's not the point!" Mom shrieks. "How pathetic have you become to have to buy your own son's forgiveness?"

"Let me make one thing clear, alright? I don't fucking need his forgiveness. He lives in my house, eats my food, I don't see him doing chores —"

I blink. I should've known I would pop up. I try to tell myself that I should be used to it by now, being the subject of their arguments. Almost like a prop thrown around to prove a point. But despite that, my fingers turn white on the banister. Where's Lyn? Where's Granddad? I don't want to be here. I don't want to be here. Across the living room I can just make out our picture shelf in the dark. I know exactly where each picture is, all there staring at me in the darkness with mocking faces. Their gazes freeze me in place, forces me to listen.

"Rick, you know he has practice every day," Mom says. "I don't see you helping around with chores either, and do I complain? No I don't! How about —"

"How about what? When I was fifteen I worked my ass off every day on top of practice, and if you think I'm not entitled to a goddamn bit of rest after work everyday —"

"I'm not trying to make you do chores, Rick!" Mom's practically screaming. "I'm asking you to take more of an interest in the kids' lives!"

"I am taking an interest!" my father roars back. "Their tuition, every fucking extracurricular they want, all those game consoles and tickets to concerts, I pay them all! And what do I get?"

"What, you expect them to pay you back for all of that?"

"I expect them to be grateful! Not take your side or your asshole father's whenever there's an argument —"

"Don't you dare bring my father into this —"

"What?" Dad says in the same tone you would use on a kid. "He's not here, is he? He's out and about, helping out in the neighborhood, not a care in the world!"

"He is outside because we are fighting!" Mom screams. "So would you shut up about him!"

Dad snaps his fingers, a loud crack. "Whose problem is it? You're the one arguing with me. Then your dad leaves. And then the brats start talking back to me. And before you know it, they hang up on my fucking call!"

"Lynetta hung up because she knows you're drunk, Rick! Wake up! What is happening to us? What is wrong with you?"

"I'm drunk? I'm not fucking drunk." He laughs, long and bitter. "Those little brats," he says. "At least she has the guts to hang up, huh? What about him? Doesn't bother to call. Can't even answer. Always off with that Baker girl."

I wince.

"You know as well as I do that he has a —"

"A game! Of course! Always a game. Big man on the team! Important enough not to come home!"

"How could you say that?" Mom says, her voice cracking. "Rick, he's co-captain! It's enough that you don't act at least a little proud of him, but this?!"

"Ooo, co-captain," Dad says, and I can almost taste the mockery dripping in his inebriated slur. "And what? I should be proud of that?"

"Yes, you should be proud of that! You should be proud of him! Ask yourself, when was the last time you complimented him? Complimented either of them?"

"I provide everything for them, and now I'm supposed to provide compliments too?"

"Well, it's better than ditching after putting one of them in the hospital!"

"Oh, lookie here! So this is digging up old bones after all!"

"You know what?" Mom's voice is shaking with fury. "Sure. Call it whatever you want. I call it being a good father."

"I'm not going to compliment anyone who acts like this home doesn't exist," Dad fires back. "Why do we have two good-for-nothing ingrates as children —"

"Rick! That is not what —"

"That is exactly what they are! One's a fucking goth, and the other's a fucking coward!"

Mom sounds like she's close to tears. "Don't you dare talk about him like that! Any other family would be proud —"

"Proud? Proud? Of what? His grades? Soccer? Wagging his tail at the Baker girl all day? I just about had enough of that act —"

"Rick —" Mom tries to say something, but Dad drowns her out.

"And you know what? You know what, woman?" he says, clearly gearing up for a tirade. "This is his fault, his fault. No, you listen, if he'd just fucking man up for once in his fucking life, everything would be fine, what with the chicken and not answering his calls — oh, you wanna dig up old bones? You wanna go over what happened that night? He fucking hit me, if he hadn't —"

Mom screams, hoarse and too-raw. "He is your son!"

"And I fucking wish he wasn't!"

I always thought the expression daggers in your heart was a bit overboard. Nobody actually feels like that. But my father's words sting like icicles through my flesh. It's weird how the pain can be almost tangible, when it comes from something so empty as vibrations in the air. My pulse rings at my ear, floosh-whoosh, floosh-whoosh.

Mom says something in response. I don't hear it. I shuffle away from the kitchen door and make my way quietly up the stairs, letting the growing darkness envelope me. At the very top, where I can almost pretend the whole house is asleep and my parents are only chatting downstairs, I sit myself down. The walls of the house seem very thin, and fragile, like those eggs Juli kept bringing over back then. There's a pit in my chest that I didn't realize was there, and it sucks in every scrap of emotion it could get its slimy black tentacles over. The floor feels like an illusion.

Just this morning, absolutely everything had been right. Back then Mom was even humming as she fixed me breakfast. That might as well have been prehistoric.

The soreness behind my eyes builds. I don't want to give in to it. I wonder why I'm so weak — I know for example that Mitch's parents are divorced, and Tom's. A couple of other classmates', too. They all seem just fine; they don't go around sniffling like a kid. I know I should go shower and head to bed, but I can't seem to bring myself to do it.

I don't know how long I sat there. I let my mind wander, pouring over my childhood and the past few weeks, examining every crack in the seemingly ordinary. I contemplate texting Juli, but I don't want to bother her with something as trivial as this. She wouldn't understand, anyway. How could she, with her perfect family?

The stairway lights flick on. With a start I scramble to my feet, and Mom looks up.

She looks terrible. Her blond hair is thin and frazzled, and her eyes are two puffy blobs on her desiccated face, like all the water that's supposed to be in her cheeks ended up in the wrong place. Her eyelids are shadowed red and black.

"Bryce?" she says. Her voice is hoarse, and she blinks up at me, adjusting to the light. "Honey! Where've you been?"

I begin to step away from the stairs, but she bounds up the steps almost in desperation, and it's all I can do to close my eyes as she crushes me in her hug.

She asks me all sorts of things, her questions overlapping each other like relentless waves. I think I manage to tell her I feel tired, and eventually she orders me to the bath.

I go through the motions almost mechanically. Dad's voice is everywhere as I cover myself in soap. This is his fault.

I fucking wish he weren't.

I turn the water all the way up and stare down at the drain in the tub. The steaming jets sting a little as they hit my neck and shoulders. Then they fall in rivulets down my skin, pooling temporarily at my feet, before disappearing down that little black hole. I wonder what would happen if I just disappeared down there, too. Mom would miss me, because that's her job. And Juli too. But I guess Dad wouldn't. Maybe he'd even be happy.

I think I would've stayed in there forever had Mom not banged on the door enough to make my head hurt. I halfheartedly dry myself before pulling on a pair of shorts and letting her usher me to my room, where a lavish dinner sits, freshly-reheated, on a tray.

Mom towels my hair as I eat. She chatters nonstop — handling the groceries, meeting Mrs. Hill from down the street, bumping into Mrs. Baker. Not a peep about the argument. Then she smiles at me, her eyes too-big. How was the game? She asks. How was the ride? Leave any stuff you want washed by the bin.

I tell her we won. She hugs me, tells me to rest up and to put the tray on my desk when I'm done.

I fucking wish he weren't, Dad taunts.

"Mom?" I say. She's holding a few plates that I finished, and is halfway out the door.

"Yes honey?" she says, turning around to beam at me.

"I'm sorry."

She blinks. "What for?"

For making you guys argue.

For pissing Dad off.

For being useless.

"For… not calling earlier."

"Oh, nonsense. Get some rest. And congratulations again."

She closes the door behind her and shuffles away, leaving me to stare at my ceiling, wanting to vanish into the plain plaster whiteness.

ooo

"How old are you?" asks the little girl. I think her name is Evelyn or something.

"Huh?" I say, snapping out of last night's memory. "Me?"

"Duh, you!" she says. "I'm six."

"Oh. I'm fifteen."

"My birthday is next week!" her youngest sister (Evonne? Eva? Everly?) chimes in from next to me. "I'm turn — I'm turning four!"

"Happy birthday," I say. She grins at me, completely adorable.

"It's not my birthday yet, you silly!" she says.

"Well I can wish you a happy early birthday, right?"

"When's your birthday, Bryce?" asks Evelyn.

"May twenty-eighth," I say.

"Oh, cool!" a voice says. "Mine's in June, just a few days after yours."

I turn around, and see a tall auburn-haired girl smiling down at me. The air around her is tinted with a hint of her perfume.

"I'm Ashley," she says, resting a hand casually on my shoulder. "And you must be Alex."

"Err," I say, momentarily distracted by her touch. "I'm Bryce."

"Oh, my bad," she says, laughing. "You just look like an Alex to me. Juli's boyfriend, right? You're the talk of the Moms!"

"Er, I'm not, actually. I'm just her friend."

"Oh, for real? You're kidding!" She squeezes my shoulders and acts all surprised, but something about her smile tells me that she already knew. She bends down, and when I try to shift away her grip on my shoulders tighten. "I think I heard something about you guys living next to each other?"

"Um, yeah," I say, trying to turn my head and find Juli, but scented auburn locks fall like cascades into a curtain all around me, and I can barely see anything.

"You want anything to drink? To eat?" Ashley says, showing no signs of letting up. She's practically hovering over me.

"Er, I'm good. Thanks."

"For your own safety, I recommend the bottled drinks only," she says, giving me a wink. "The kids here have all learned that the hard way."

I don't get what she wants with me. It also unnerves me that she's very, well, attractive… supermodel-attractive. And it's obvious she's older, too, maybe college-age. Beside me, all the Evans girls stare up at her in absolute awe. I guess it kinda makes sense, considering she's like a Barbie doll come alive to them.

"So I'm assuming you live in Mayfield," she continues, oblivious to my unease. "I don't know if Juli's told you, but I'm in Louiston."

"Oh. That's an hour away from us."

"You know that place?"

"Yeah, we play against Williamsburg Prep and Louiston High."

She grins. "Cool! I'm a senior at Willy Prep. I think I remember seeing you at games. Soccer, right?"

"Yeah," I mumble, trying to shrug her off me, but her grip is firm. I'm pretty much pinned down. You might say it's the stuff of dreams to be pinned to your seat by a super-hot girl, and I'm not miserable, exactly, but it's… weird. I wish one of the Evans girls would say something, but even the oldest is too intimidated by all the make-up and mature confidence. I'm beginning to seriously consider just pushing her off me when Juli's voice pipes up from behind us.

"Hey Ashley!"

I breathe out in relief. Count on Juli Baker to know when you need rescuing. Ashley's grip lightens a bit, but she doesn't remove her hand.

"Hey Juli," she says, cheerful and nonchalant. "I was just talking to your neighbor here."

"I can see that," Juli replies, and there's a tone that I've never really heard before in her voice, almost like she's angry. She doesn't make further conversation, but I hear her shoes swishing on her floor until suddenly, she's standing in front of me. "I need to talk to you," she says.

Under the dim light of the alley, I can only see that her brows are furrowed. But the warmth in her honey-brown eyes remains unchanged, asking me silently if I'm alright. I give her a smile and make a move to stand.

Just as my body leaves the seat, though, Ashley's hand clamps down — hard. Not expecting the sudden resistance, I slump back onto the bench with a surprised grunt.

I look up at Ashley, incredulous, but she's staring right at Juli.

"Can't you say it here?" she pouts. "I want to hear it too."

Juli narrows her eyes. "Are you serious right now?"

Ashley bends down in a quick motion and, before I can react, wraps her arms around my chest. I jump. When I try to get her off me, she only hugs me tighter, and the softness of her breasts presses into my back.

"Of course I'm serious," she says in a breathy whisper next to my ear. I flinch. "I'm just getting to know him."

"Er," I say. My face flushes furiously, but my body remains frozen, sending me all sorts of conflicting signals. Ashley's perfume swirls in the air. My heart rate surges.

Juli seems momentarily stunned. Then, her face darkens into what I can only describe as fury. I've never seen her so angry, not in recent years.

"Get. Off. Him." she says.

"What?" Ashley asks innocently. "It's called a hug, Juli."

"You know very well that's not —"

Ashley smirks. "Why are you so mad?"

"Because I don't like to see my —"

"Your what? Your guy?"

"That's not what —"

"Juli, honey, he said it himself; you're not dating. You're only neighbors."

Juli's face colors, and she trembles a little. Then she grabs Ashley's hair, and yanks.

Ashley lets go of me instantly, shrieking. All the Evans girls start shrieking with her. I bound up from the bench before I can get ensnared again, and pulls Juli away before she can do any lasting damage.

"Hey, it's okay," I say. "Come on, we should go."

"No, it's definitely not okay," Juli retorts, still seething. Behind me, Ashley growls and mutters something that sounds like a string of swear words, and for a moment I'm worried that she'll come back for a fight. I wrap my arm around Juli in case a new round breaks out.

Fortunately no such thing happens. Ashley glares daggers at us in turn while smoothing out her ruffled hair. Then off she goes to the bathroom — probably to survey the damage. Just like Lynetta. I smile a little.

"Serves her right," Juli says, still obviously disgruntled. "And what are you smiling at? You almost got jumped on!"

"Oh. I'm just… happy."

"Happy that Miss Bimbocow-extraordinaire tried to hit on you?"

I laugh. "No. Happy that you stood up for me."

And it's true. It might sound weird but, seeing Juli so angry for my sake back then, it made me happy.

Juli looks at me, frowning. "But that's what best friends do."

"Maybe," I say. "Still, thanks."

"Hmm. Whatever floats your boat. But I'm actually glad you're happy; I think this is the first time today I've seen you really smile."

"Oh." Abruptly I remember what happened last night, and it's like part of what Dad said burrows through me again, and I wince. Juli must have seen something on my face because she squeezes my hand.

"You just seemed really down the whole day," she says softly. "Is… is everything alright?"

"Er," I say, avoiding her beseeching eyes. "Yeah. I'm fine." She won't understand what it's like anyway, I tell myself. Her dad is everything a proper dad should be.

She sighs. "Please don't do this, Bryce. This morning, I saw you, and you were not okay. I wanted to ask but my parents were there."

I feel myself tense up. I try to avoid looking at her, because I know if I look into her eyes I'll spill everything, which means I might cry. And I don't want to do that; not in front of her. Abruptly I notice we're walking into an area of the bowling alley that's a bit more secluded, away from the prying eyes of the parents and children.

Here Juli hugs me. Not like her usual hugs. This one is more urgent, more forceful, the kind that knocks the breath out of me. And it feels so good, with all her warmth manifesting in that gesture. It feels like I'm safe, that she cares. She smells like her shampoo, a light, airy scent.

I puts my arms around her, hesitantly at first, then tight, like she's the sole source of light in my darkened world, and if I don't hold on she'll slip away.

"Tell me," she whispers, patting my back. "Let me help you."