Click to Subscribe - By L. M. Augustine Page 0,45

want anything! I just want to be sure you’re okay! Why don’t you believe me?”

“Hmm,” I say, pissed off now too. “Maybe because you’ve ignored me for the last year? Maybe because you haven’t shown a hint that you so much as care about in the longest time? Maybe because you treat me like shit all day, every day? Oh wait,” I say, laughing angrily. “I have an idea: maybe because you fucking killed my mother and never said anything about it?”

“I didn’t kill her!” he screams, his eyes wild, and it looks like he’s about to punch me. “I made a mistake, West! I made tons of fucking mistakes! I treated you like shit and I deserve all of this, but you look hurt and I want to make sure you’re oka—”

I push away from him, grabbing my backpack and feeling the bile rising in my mouth. “Never talk to me again,” I hiss. “You aren’t even my father. Not anymore. Not anymore.”

For an instant, a look crosses his face—a pang of inexplicably raw sadness and regret. It disappears as soon as it comes, though, and a dark look replaces his features. His eyes narrow, and his hands begin to shake like he’s fighting the urge to lunge at me. “You’re a fucking waste of space,” he hisses, so seriously that it actually makes me shiver. “Get the hell out of here.”

“So you can scream at the air to make your dinner next time and starve to death when it doesn’t? Deal.” My heart is racing. The blood pounds in my ears. I throw my backpack at him and start to head right back out the door, needing to get out before I explode from anger and all of the stress of the recent days.

“Good! Now go cry to that girlfriend of yours like a goddamn baby!” he screams.

Now I spin around. I can’t stop myself. My fingers curl into a fist. “She’s not my girlfriend.” No one messes with Cat. Not even my asshole father can get away with that.

“Yeah, suuuure. I know you two have been getting it on!”

My blood boils. “Fuck you!” I yell. “She’s my friend. My best friend. I guess you wouldn’t know about that, though, seeing as you have no friends!” I storm across the room, barely resisting punching that smug smile off of his face right then and there, and swing open the door. “I hope you’re fucking dead when I get back!” I scream and slam it shut behind me.

Then, I run.

I run and run and run until I can’t run any longer.

It’s late afternoon now, and the sun is just starting to set. All I feel is the cool wind against my skin and the anger boiling within me and I just need to get away, to escape all this. I sprint down the street, past the other tiny, falling-apart houses in my cramped neighborhood, down toward the town center. I’m running so fast, so furiously, that I barely even know where I’m going. I just keep pumping my arms and legs, moving faster and faster, because maybe if I run quickly enough I’ll outrun all of this. Maybe everything will go back to normal. Maybe I’ll be shocked back to that happy time before Dad stopped caring and before Mom died, when I still had my best friend and family and when all I did was laugh and smile and not worry about anything except for cars and school.

I keep moving, letting the wind clear my head of everything but Cat. I don’t want her to go. I don’t. I always thought I loved her like a sister, but do I really? I keep feeling these things for her, things that are certainly more than just friendly. Am in love with her? How would I know?

Seconds turn into minutes, streets turn into avenues, and before I know it I’m stopping, out of breath, in front of a dark field. I pant for a minute, surveying line after line of graves in front of me. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse the yellow, orange, and light red of the setting sun beyond them.

After a minute, I take a deep breath and start walking through the maze of graves. Every step, every turn, is natural now, and I don’t even have to look to know I’m going in the right direction. After six months of visiting this cemetery I know the path to the grave by heart, like