Down World by Rebecca Phelps (beach read TXT) 📗

my aunt Amalia that had been sitting on the windowsill since January peeked out from under the lid of the garbage can beside her.

I put my backpack down by the door and grabbed a bottle of cleaning solution from beneath the sink. “Here, Mom, let me help you.”

“You don’t have to. I can do it.” This meant it was my turn to say, “I don’t mind,” or something along those lines. I had made the mistake in the past of taking her words at face value and going up to my room, only to find her eyes red-rimmed and her mouth set in a rigid pout all through dinner. I didn’t make that mistake anymore.

I got to work on dusting the windowsills and rubbing down the counters until they shone. I tried to think of something funny and light to say to her—the kind of thing that rolled off Robbie’s tongue so easily, that would always make her laugh—but nothing came to mind.

“Where’s Dad?”

“Got hung up at work.”

She didn’t stop scrubbing, and so I grabbed my backpack to leave. “I’m gonna go do my homework.”

“Oh,” she suddenly said, her mind landing on something that seemed to surprise her. “I’m sorry. How was your first day?”

“Fine,” I said, maybe a bit too robotically.

“Homework already?”

“Yeah, already.”

“Jeez.”

I could feel the impulse in her to get back to work, as though she were weighing how long she had to feign interest before she could be dismissed.

“Okay, I’m gonna get started, then,” I said, still standing above her.

“Okay, honey.” She turned back to her scrubbing. “Dinner in an hour.”

“Thanks, Mom.” I stood there for a beat, watching her. She was starting to look thin across the shoulders, and her unruly hair had all but escaped the overstretched hairband that had at one point held a ponytail. It was hard to believe that there was a time when she could have won a Salma Hayek look-alike contest. That’s what she’d looked like when she met my Irish Catholic dad, while working as a temp at the hospital where he was a computer tech.

She stopped scrubbing and looked up at me, her eyes momentarily dead before she caught herself and forced a smile.

I forced one back.

I hate her, I thought. I hate her when she’s like this.

“See you at dinner.” I all but ran from the kitchen and took the stairs two at a time, the world turning to a blur until I could be alone in my room.

CHAPTER 2

It was a stupid crush, really. Brady Picelli. The kind of crush that you can’t even think about in public because you’ll start giggling and everyone will know. But I couldn’t shake it. I found myself looking for him every day for the first few months of school, doing a double take when I saw someone with a similar haircut or jacket in a distant hallway. I saw him only twice, both times in school assemblies, but way on the other side of the bleachers. Brady was a senior, so his classes were all in the maroon wing, and mine were in the olive.

I looked for him anyway. Maybe I was just lonely.

I have to admit, I didn’t make very many friends in those first few months. The kids who remembered me from elementary school and who knew about Robbie looked at me like I was cursed, if they noticed me at all. Usually people acted like the dead-brother bad luck might rub off on them if they made eye contact.

The others just resented me. Everybody in town knew that the kids from St. Joe’s thought they were better than the kids from East Township. Which was true, of course. They really did think that.

Sometimes I’d see my old friends in the hallways and we’d half nod to each other. Holland Pfeffer, who had always been a little pushy, was now a cheerleader with a perma-scowl. She looked down whenever I passed her, and once in the cafeteria, I heard her telling a tall girl in purple glasses about my dead brother, and giggling into her palm.

By the time Christmas vacation came, I had basically given up. I spent the two-week break at home, reading Kurt Vonnegut novels alone in my room, while my father paced the hallway and occasionally asked if “things were cool.” Yes, they were, I assured him through the closed door. Though I doubt I was very convincing.

In January I turned sixteen and my dad took me for my driving test. But I hadn’t been practicing at all, and I failed the written exam.

“We’ll try again next month,” he suggested.

“It’s fine, Dad.”

Honestly, I didn’t really want to drive. I had nowhere I needed to be.

And maybe that’s why, when I finally did hear Brady’s voice coming from the art room sometime in February, I had to stop in the hallway and listen. I had been looking for him for so long, I had started to wonder if I had imagined him. But if I had known what was going to happen next, maybe I would have just kept walking.

Brady sounded angry—that was the first thing I noticed. Or maybe just scared, an oxymoron that didn’t coalesce with my idea of the cool guy I had met that first day. If I had to guess, I would have almost said he was pleading with someone. The other voice belonged to a girl—a raspy voice with more than a touch of sadness to it.

Walk, Marina, I told myself. Don’t let him catch you standing here. He’ll think you’re a stalker.

But who was I kidding? I wasn’t going anywhere, not until I had heard what they were saying. I wasn’t eavesdropping, I told myself; just checking to make sure he was okay. I would do the same for any friend.

Only snippets of the conversation came to me. The girl saying, “They’ll find me. They’ll look for me.” Brady then reassuring her, something like, “It’s the only way.” Or maybe it was, “It’s