heels carried down the hall. I shut the worn copy of Wuthering Heights and scowled when she entered the kitchen. “Mom, I told you I’ve been fine.”
“There’s a boy on our couch that tells me otherwise. And anyway.” She waved her hand, grabbing a bottled water. “My last kid was a no-show.”
Mom was a self-employed music teacher. She taught piano, guitar, clarinet, flute, violin, and even singing in a small building she leased above the town’s greatest coffee shop. Her words when she’d snagged it a few years ago. She used to work from home, but it soon became too much to manage from here. She’d said our garage was too small and unorganized to maintain a professional atmosphere.
“Ugh.” I dropped my head to the table, pretending to bang it on the wood. “He’s just waiting for Hendrix.” Lifting my head, I peered over at her when she didn’t respond.
Mom took a sip of water, then tucked some of her blond hair behind her ear. “He plays well.”
“He’s supposedly a beginner.” I used air quotes.
Mom’s lips puckered in that way they did when she was curious. “This is the same boy who’s been coming over these past few weeks?”
“Yeah, Everett.”
Mom vacated the room, and I cringed as I listened to her introduce herself to Everett, her voice chipper and soft. I didn’t hear a word spoken about his split lip, but a little while later, as I was heading up the hall to take a shower and get my things ready for school the next day, I heard them laughing.
My limbs loosened when she began to sing alongside his strumming. Melancholy, velveteen, and smile-inducing. Unique but beautiful, Mom had a voice that could sing me to sleep long after I’d needed her help to.
And when I shut off the shower, I heard something I’d never be able to wash from my ears, or heart, for as long as I lived.
I heard a sound that scraped over your skin like hot gravel, leaving goose bumps instead of burnt flesh in its wake. A sound that was both rich and caustic, wrenched from the depths of someplace deep and carried on waves of turbulent, crackling nerves.
I heard Everett sing.
For months, even if Hendrix was at soccer or out with one of his latest girlfriends, Everett came over after school.
Mom nurtured him, unspoken words drifting in the air between them, and my dad watched him, hesitant to take on the responsibility of some riffraff boy with too many issues.
And me, well, I had a new companion most days of the week. Even though we rarely talked, and when we did, it was stilted. I did my homework and he did his, often finishing in record time so he could disappear into the living room with Hendrix’s guitar.
“They were fighting, screaming, at like two in the morning. I heard it, so the whole neighborhood probably did.” Mom sounded freaked out. “Couldn’t you?”
“Couples fight all the time, babe.” Dad grazed a pan with the dish towel before hooking it above the island in our kitchen with the other hanging pots and pans. “It’s none of our business.”
“It is.”
“He’s here enough,” Dad hissed in a hushed voice, tossing the dish towel onto the island. “Don’t you think it’s getting to be a little much? We can’t afford a third kid, Brenna.”
Mom sighed. “I’m not saying we need to adopt him. I’m just saying I see it. I feel it, and I know something’s wrong. Very wrong.”
Mom’s words sent a spark of fear zooming straight for my chest. For weeks, ever since Everett had shown up at school with a violent bruise on his cheekbone, worry had nibbled at my stomach. The fact she was seeing and feeling it too, no matter how much Everett might want us to ignore it, made me feel less crazy for worrying about my brother’s best friend.
“I agree,” I croaked, finally finding my voice.
Both turned, mirroring expressions of shock on their faces as though they’d forgotten someone was still seated at the dining table after dinner.
“What?” Dad’s thick brows met.
“His parents, or I don’t know.” I pushed up from the table. “Someone is hurting him.” Someone or something was the reason he was growing into a cold young man with an extra-large chip on his shoulder.
“Christ.” Dad pinched the bridge of his nose. “Have any of you spoken to him about it? Hendrix?”
“I have,” Hendrix said, entering the kitchen, and I almost jumped. “But he’s always got excuses or changes the