Furious - By Jill Wolfson Page 0,49

privacy. I look around. “Where’s your mom?”

Alix coaxes Simon to let go of Raymond for a minute by dangling the promise of an awesome roller-coaster ride. Together the three of them set off on a search around the room for Simon’s shoes. “My mom’s working. She’s always working. It’s not easy for her. Mom’s okay, except for her totally crappy taste in a father for her kids.”

Sneakers found. Simon holds one up to Raymond’s face like it’s a trophy. “You like my new shoes?”

Raymond makes a big deal over checking it out, turns it upside down, squints inside, holds it to his ear like he can hear the ocean. “Size twelve. My favorite flavor.”

This sends Simon into a fit of laughter. We’re all laughing as we leave the apartment, say bye to the little girls who are coloring, and head across the levee toward the boardwalk. You can hear the excited screams of roller coaster riders from blocks away. Simon won’t let go of Raymond’s hand.

“Too slow!” he says, and pulls Raymond ahead of the group. As they pass us, I hear Raymond say, “Cotton candy? Now you’re talking my language!”

We walk another block, turn the corner, and that’s when Alix comes to a sudden stop. She freezes there, arms hanging at her sides but with her fists bunched. She blinks once, twice, as if she’s trying to clear away a film from her eyes to make sure she’s seeing what she thinks she’s seeing.

“I can’t believe it.”

“What?” Stephanie asks.

“A new record for low. Even for him.”

We follow the line of her vision across the street to the front door of a nasty-looking bar called the High Dive. Country-rock blasts out of it. Two people just stepped outside.

“Hahahahahahaha,” the guy laughs. He is short and square with long hair in a graying ponytail.

“Hehehehehehe,” the lady laughs back.

“Yo, shithead!” Alix yells.

The couple look over. The man’s upper lip curls and I bet he’s picturing himself charging across the street and getting in the face of whoever dared cross him. But the woman puts her hand on his shoulder to hold him back. She squints hard. Quickly she leans in and whispers to the man, whose whole body jolts upright and then slumps. I can see him reminding himself of something. He puts his hand on his lower back. With his face wincing in pain, he raises his hand and waves limply in our direction. As an actor he’s truly pathetic.

Dwayne. Her dad. The shithead.

Alix chews at her lower lip, and I feel a pull to do the same on mine. I bite down hard and taste a pinpoint of blood. I take in her anger like it’s a living, breathing thing, a virus that’s entering my body through my mouth, my nose and eyes. I start to sweat. She sounds the first note. I sing. My vision blurs, and I know that Stephanie, too, feels her muscles pulsing, her bones vibrating, the world of the bar and the boardwalk, the ground beneath us coming undone.

Alix’s rage is our guide, our rope and ladder. We enter a space, but this is not deep enough, so we plunge even deeper—deeper than we’ve ever been, much deeper than with Pox and the others. We don’t hold back. Why hold back? On the way down we break things apart, rip and tear, until we burrow into the nucleus of something dark and dank.

We present Dwayne with our true face—not just the terror of three, but we fracture into a million furious fractals that are smaller than no-see-’em bugs and we are everywhere. We swarm, hissing in a million undeniable, inescapable voices of torment:

You’re worthless.

You’re a coward.

Your life is meaningless and hopeless.

Worthless, meaningless, hopeless.

Worthless, meaningless, hopeless.

Far away I hear shouting, but I push it aside. Let them shout.

Off in the distance I hear sirens. Let them tear the silence apart.

I hear “Stop!”

I hear my wronged sister Alecto urging: “Don’t stop!”

Another voice: “Stop!”

“Don’t stop!”

“Meg! Stop!”

This last voice somehow reaches in and loosens my grip like my fingers are being pried from around someone’s throat. “Enough! Meg, that’s enough!”

I have to fight hard to clear my head and come back into ordinary consciousness, and when I do I’m blinking into the terrified face of Raymond, who’s shaking me by the shoulders. “Meg! Stop!” Simon is sobbing, his neckerchief is wet, and his arms are wrapped around his sister’s waist, begging her, “Come back!”

Alix, glassy-eyed, rigid, empty. Stephanie, pale and shivering.

Across the street there’s chaos. I see a cluster