I gave her my cell phone. “Anything happens, you call the police, okay?” I said. “Stay in here. Hide in the closet if you have to.” I hated doing this to her. Filling her with fear again.
“Who is that hammering?” Mom called.
“Mom, leave it,” I yelled as I ran out of the room. But I was too late. She’d already opened the door. War busted into the room, looking like hell. He had a black eye, a bruised cheek, a long cut across his forehead. His left arm was in a cast. He was scruffy again, hunkered in his leather jacket.
“You little fucker,” he said. “You screwed that up.”
“Warren!” Mom said.
“You shut up,” War snarled.
“Don’t talk to my mom like that.”
Mom seemed to want to speak but just stood there, looking stunned.
“Oh, now you’re going to stand up to me?”
I could see something in his eyes. The same thing I’d seen in the eyes of the hockey dad just before he’d swung at my dad that day. Pure rage. This was directed right at me. It felt awful. It felt as if I was falling back in time, and all the feelings and emotions were rolling back out. Ready to swallow me.
War was big. But I made a quick assessment and decided that if it came to it, especially with the one arm in a sling, he wouldn’t destroy me.
He came at me and grabbed my collar.
“Warren!” Mom yelled.
War spun me around, hitting a lamp and sending it smashing to the floor.
“You abandoned me, you little shit.” I didn’t reply. I didn’t have anything to say. “We’re doubling the amount I need now. Sixteen.”
He had me in a one-armed bear hug. I brought my arms up and smashed them back into his stomach. He let go immediately. I spun around to face him. He was holding his injured arm, his face still twisted with that rage.
“We’re over,” I said. “I have nothing to do with this.”
“Yes you do, son. I’m in your life now.”
“Warren,” Mom pleaded. “Mark, what’s going on?”
“I’m not doing it again,” I said. “That’s not how I play.”
“You will, or I’ll make your lives a living hell.”
He came at me again, his arm raised. He could hit me, that I knew. But I didn’t care. I wasn’t giving in to him. I wasn’t giving in to a bully. I was not going to be the victim of someone else’s anger.
I brought my leg up as he approached and drove my foot into his knee. He fell sideways, taking a side table with him. He swung as he went down and caught me on the side. I fell back, smashing into the mirror that covered the hall closet door. A second later he was up again, hobbling toward me. He was about to throw another punch, one that would certainly have knocked me out, but my mother grabbed his arm. He shrugged her off, and when she came at him again he tossed her to the side, sending her headfirst into a wall. I was so angry that I jumped up and ran dead into him. But he was bigger and stronger, and a moment later I was pinned beneath him again. He had his fist raised, ready to drive it into my face, when I heard the sirens.
One of the things that had appealed to my mom about the little house she’d found when she decided to move us here was that it was only a block away from a police station. Not one of those little community ones either, but a real one. One where officers were always coming and going. Where someone was always around. So when Wendy called the police, officers were dispatched from less than a block away.
War was dragged away in cuffs. Mom and I each told our story of what had happened. I had to sit there in front of her and tell her about the gambling. About how War had promised he’d be a never-ending part of our lives if I didn’t play along. She looked as if she was about to cry. The giant bump on her forehead was awful to see. Maybe the worst thing ever.
I had a broken rib and various cuts on my face and arms, which was no fun for me but much worse for War. I’m seventeen, which meant he’d come into our home and assaulted a minor.
When the police were done with their questions and everyone had left, my mom said, “I had no idea.” It was just the three of us again, the family.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s not your fault,” she said. “He should never have preyed on a kid.”
I didn’t know what else to say. The police told us that that War was going to be in jail for quite some time, probably somewhere upstate. Assault on a minor is pretty serious, especially when you are already on probation. Since he wasn’t from around here originally, the police said it was unlikely we would ever hear from him again.
That’s what we would hope for. That War would disappear from our lives completely.
Chapter Thirteen
When Hippy asked, I told him the whole story. At first I wasn’t going to. I mean, it’s embarrassing, right? The way War inserted himself into our lives. The way he took advantage of me.
The way he made me do things I swore I would never do.
Hippy laid a hand on my shoulder and shook his head.
“And here you are,” he said. “Right?”
“Right.” I leaned down to take my shot and thought about those words. And here you are. That was the point, right? It was shit. I’d made some poor choices, but here I was.
It all could have been worse in countless ways.
Mom has decided to visit Dad in prison. They’ve talked on the phone a few times in the past few weeks, but she has yet to actually go visit. It isn’t that she blames him for what happened. It was an accident, after all. But it was an accident that could have been avoided. He could have managed his anger. He could have left it all alone.
He could have let me stand up for myself that day rather than getting in the middle of it all.
“I should have told my mom what was happening,” I said to Hippy.
“You did what you did, man. It’s behind you now. Yeah, learn from it, I guess. But don’t beat yourself up about it.”
“Okay, whatever you say.” I banged the four and then the eight into a side pocket and straightened.
“I’m going to beat you one of these days,” Hippy said.
“Whatever you say,” I replied, laughing.
We have not seen War again. Apparently, he was released on bail and then disappeared. The officer who came to our house the night of the fight returned to fill us in. Turned out old War was wanted in a couple of other states too. He’d likely gone someplace where the police didn’t know about him.
You won’t see him around here, the officer said. But if you do, give us a call. And that was that.
I can tell Mom wishes Dad was around. We didn’t tell him anything about the whole mess. He is in counseling, working on his anger, and we were worried that if he heard about it, his guilt at being unable to protect us would push him over the edge again.
None of this has helped Wendy at all. She is still afraid of men and likely will be for a long time to come. She has dug into her art and hides in her room after school, reading books. And she has never talked to me about anything that happened that night. I think she will someday, but in her own time.
As for me, I’m fine. I wish I could say I’m great. But I feel awful about how I behaved. I could have reached out for help. I could have talked to Mom or Hippy or even the police. I didn’t have to do all of that alone. I didn’t have to let myself be sucked in. I didn’t have to do what someone told me to do because he said he owned me.
No one owns me. I will never allow someone to think that again. If I learned anything at all from this, it’s that you can’t let people push you around.
But, at the same time, you don’t have to push back either.
Jeff Ross is an award-winning author of several novels for young adults, including the Orca Soundings titles Coming Clean and A Dark Truth. He currently teaches scriptwriting and English at Algonquin College in Ottawa, Ontario, where he lives with his wife and two sons. For more information, visit www.jeffrossbooks.com.
Titles in the Series
Another Miserable Love Song
Brooke Carter
B Negative
Vicki Grant
Back
Norah McClintock
Bang
Norah McClintock
Battle of the Bands
K.L. Denman
Big Guy
Robin Stevenson
Bike Thief
Rita Feutl
Blue Moon
Marilyn Halvorson
Breaking Point
Lesley Choyce
Breathing Fire
Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang
Breathless
Bull Rider
Marilyn Halvorson
Bull’s Eye
Sarah N. Harvey
Caged
Norah McClintock
Cellular
Ellen Schwartz
Charmed
Carrie Mac
Chill
Colin Frizzell
Comeback
Vicki Grant
Coming Clean
Jeff Ross
Crash
Lesley Choyce
Crush
Carrie Mac
Cuts Like a Knife
Darlene Ryan
Damage
Robin Stevenson
A Dark Truth
Jeff Ross
The Darwin Expedition
Diane Tullson
Dead-End Job
Vicki Grant
Deadly
Sarah N. Harvey
Dead Run
Sean Rodman
Death Wind
William Bell
Desert Slam
Steven Barwin
Down
Norah McClintock
Enough
Mary Jennifer Payne
Exit Point
Laura Langston
Exposure
Patricia Murdoch
Fallout
Nikki Tate
Fastback Beach
Shirlee Smith Matheson
Final Crossing
Sean Rodman
Firewall
Sean Rodman
First Time
Meg Tilly
Foolproof
Diane Tullson
Grind
Eric Walters
Hannah’s Touch
Laura Langston
Heavy Freight
Sigmund Brouwer
The Hemingway Tradition
Kristin Butcher
Hit Squad
James Heneghan
Homecoming
Diane Dakers
Home Invasion
Monique Polak
House Party
Eric Walters
I.D.
Vicki Grant
Identify
Lesley Choyce
Impact
James C. Dekker
Impossible
Jocelyn Shipley
Infiltration
Sean Rodman
In Plain Sight
Laura Langston
In the Woods
Robin Stevenson
Jacked
Carrie Mac
Juice
Eric Walters
Kicked Out
Beth Goobie
Knifepoint
Alex Van Tol
Kryptonite
Lesley Choyce
Last Ride
Laura Langston
Learning Seventeen
Brooke Carter
Learning to Fly
Paul Yee
Lockdown
Diane Tullson
Masked
Norah McClintock
Middle Row
Sylvia Olsen
My Side
Norah McClintock
My Time as Caz Hazard
Tanya Lloyd Kyi
Night Terrors
Sean Rodman
No More Pranks
Monique Polak
No Problem
Dayle Campbell Gaetz
Off the Grid
Lesley Choyce
One More Step
Sheree Fitch
One Way
Norah McClintock
Outback
Robin Stevenson
Overdrive
Eric Walters
Pain & Wastings
Carrie Mac
Picture This
Norah McClintock
Pinch Me
Gabrielle Prendergast
Plastic
Sarah N. Harvey
Rat
Lesley Choyce
Reaction
Lesley Choyce
Redline
Alex Van Tol
Refuge Cove
Lesley Choyce
Responsible
Darlene Ryan
Riley Park
Diane Tullson
Diane Tullson
River Traffic
Martha Brack Martin
Rock Star
Adrian Chamberlain
Running the Risk
Lesley Choyce
Saving Grace
Darlene Ryan
Scam
Lesley Choyce
Scum
James C. Dekker
Sea Change
Diane Tullson
Shallow Grave
Alex Van Tol
Shark
Jeff Ross
Shattered
Sarah N. Harvey
Skylark
Sara Cassidy
Sleight of Hand
Natasha Deen
Snitch
Norah McClintock
Something Girl
Beth Goobie
Spiral
K.L. Denman
Sticks and Stones
Beth Goobie
Stuffed
Eric Walters
Tagged
Eric Walters
Tap Out
Sean Rodman
Tell
Norah McClintock
The Way Back
Carrie Mac
Thunderbowl
Lesley Choyce
Tough Trails
Irene Morck
Triggered
Vicki Grant
The Trouble with Liberty
Kristin Butcher
Truth
Tanya Lloyd Kyi
Under Threat
Robin Stevenson
Up North
Jeff Ross
Viral
Alex Van Tol
Wave Warrior
Lesley Choyce
The Way Back
Carrie Mac
Who Owns Kelly Paddik?
Beth Goobie
Yellow Line
Sylvia Olsen
Zee’s Way
Kristin Butcher