find a friendly face, none of the boys would meet my eyes. Even Nathan ignored me. His mouth was pressed tight into the smallest of lines, and he concentrated on stabbing a few stray peas rolling around his plate with a fork.
For the first time since I arrived at the Walters’, the house was deadly silent, and I realized no one was going to stand up for me. “Katherine,” I said, adopting my father’s businesslike tone. “I’d ask Jack and Jordan what they know, or rather, what they caught on camera. I’m sure that will help resolve the issue. If you don’t mind, I’d like to be excused.”
Without waiting for an answer, I stood up, threw my napkin on the table, and walked out of the kitchen.
When Katherine came to apologize for her boys’ behavior later that night, she found me sitting at the windowsill, staring out into the backyard. By then it was dark. I could only see slivers of moonlight reflecting off the pool, and the grass beyond the deck had been swallowed up by the shadows as if it never existed. Half an hour before, I’d heard angry shouts from the kitchen, and judging by George’s tone, one of the boys was in deep trouble. Now everything was still.
“It’s strange,” I told her when she came and stood next to me. “How empty it feels here.”
“Empty?” she asked, a look of concern on her face.
I offered her a small smile, knowing that she’d misunderstood me. “Back home, when I looked out my window,” I started to explain, “even if it was nighttime, there was always something out there: light from the lampposts that ran along the streets, a stray taxi screeching around a corner, someone walking their dog. The dark is so thick here that when it gets quiet like this, there doesn’t seem to be anything out there except emptiness.”
“I suppose our nightlife is a bit more subtle,” Katherine said, looking out the window with me.
We both fell quiet then, and I focused on the darkness. Every once in a while I could make out the yellow blink of a firefly, but then the glow would vanish like it had never been there, and I was left with the feeling that my mind was playing tricks on me.
“Jackie,” Katherine said after a minute, “I’m sorry about how my boys treated you this morning and at dinner. It was completely unacceptable.”
There was nothing for me to say back to her, so I nodded my head. Upon my suggestion, Katherine had confiscated the twins’ camera and gone through the video clips. Not only had they caught me rushing out of the bathroom in the curtain, but the twins also recorded Isaac picking the lock on the bathroom door and stealing my clothes, so he had been caught red-handed. She apologized again, promising that everyone involved was being punished, and when I told her I would pay for the damage I caused, she laughed. The cost of the curtain was coming out of Isaac’s allowance.
She stayed for another fifteen minutes or so and chatted, asking me questions about my first two days of school and how I was settling in. I figured it was her way of checking up on me, making sure that everything was okay.
“I’m fine,” I told her. “I swear.”
I mentioned that I’d made some new friends and my classes were easy, unimportant fluff to keep her happy. In reality, I was just going through the motions: wake up, shower, go to school, sleep. Colorado was just a bookmark between the pages of my life, the place I had to stay until I was old enough to go home.
Worn out from my long day, I was yawning by ten, so I collected my toiletries and headed for the bathroom. Not surprisingly, when I stepped out into the hall and saw Lee, he scowled at me before sweeping into his room and slamming the door behind him. I stood in the hallway, taking in his angry attitude. He must have gotten in trouble for lying.
I wasn’t bothered by the fact that he’d aligned himself with Isaac at dinner, throwing me under the bus with blatant lies. Lee had made a point of being rude to me
For the first time since I arrived at the Walters’, the house was deadly silent, and I realized no one was going to stand up for me. “Katherine,” I said, adopting my father’s businesslike tone. “I’d ask Jack and Jordan what they know, or rather, what they caught on camera. I’m sure that will help resolve the issue. If you don’t mind, I’d like to be excused.”
Without waiting for an answer, I stood up, threw my napkin on the table, and walked out of the kitchen.
When Katherine came to apologize for her boys’ behavior later that night, she found me sitting at the windowsill, staring out into the backyard. By then it was dark. I could only see slivers of moonlight reflecting off the pool, and the grass beyond the deck had been swallowed up by the shadows as if it never existed. Half an hour before, I’d heard angry shouts from the kitchen, and judging by George’s tone, one of the boys was in deep trouble. Now everything was still.
“It’s strange,” I told her when she came and stood next to me. “How empty it feels here.”
“Empty?” she asked, a look of concern on her face.
I offered her a small smile, knowing that she’d misunderstood me. “Back home, when I looked out my window,” I started to explain, “even if it was nighttime, there was always something out there: light from the lampposts that ran along the streets, a stray taxi screeching around a corner, someone walking their dog. The dark is so thick here that when it gets quiet like this, there doesn’t seem to be anything out there except emptiness.”
“I suppose our nightlife is a bit more subtle,” Katherine said, looking out the window with me.
We both fell quiet then, and I focused on the darkness. Every once in a while I could make out the yellow blink of a firefly, but then the glow would vanish like it had never been there, and I was left with the feeling that my mind was playing tricks on me.
“Jackie,” Katherine said after a minute, “I’m sorry about how my boys treated you this morning and at dinner. It was completely unacceptable.”
There was nothing for me to say back to her, so I nodded my head. Upon my suggestion, Katherine had confiscated the twins’ camera and gone through the video clips. Not only had they caught me rushing out of the bathroom in the curtain, but the twins also recorded Isaac picking the lock on the bathroom door and stealing my clothes, so he had been caught red-handed. She apologized again, promising that everyone involved was being punished, and when I told her I would pay for the damage I caused, she laughed. The cost of the curtain was coming out of Isaac’s allowance.
She stayed for another fifteen minutes or so and chatted, asking me questions about my first two days of school and how I was settling in. I figured it was her way of checking up on me, making sure that everything was okay.
“I’m fine,” I told her. “I swear.”
I mentioned that I’d made some new friends and my classes were easy, unimportant fluff to keep her happy. In reality, I was just going through the motions: wake up, shower, go to school, sleep. Colorado was just a bookmark between the pages of my life, the place I had to stay until I was old enough to go home.
Worn out from my long day, I was yawning by ten, so I collected my toiletries and headed for the bathroom. Not surprisingly, when I stepped out into the hall and saw Lee, he scowled at me before sweeping into his room and slamming the door behind him. I stood in the hallway, taking in his angry attitude. He must have gotten in trouble for lying.
I wasn’t bothered by the fact that he’d aligned himself with Isaac at dinner, throwing me under the bus with blatant lies. Lee had made a point of being rude to me
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