Things We Didn't Say - By Kristina Riggle Page 0,41

the store that there was a shooting last night. And I’m sure Cleveland has its own share of crime and urgency.

My brother ran away once, though he didn’t run away so much as go on a bender with friends and forget to come home. Billy was sixteen then, thinking of himself as a man. I thought of him that way, too, though now I know Dylan and Angel, and those years seem fragile. In a way, teenagers are more vulnerable than Jewel, because Jewel at least knows her limits.

My mom had been panicking the whole time Billy was gone, my dad raging about the house about how he’d “beat his ass” when Billy showed up. When Billy finally did, my dad yelled at him, and Billy just turned right around and got back in his car. By then Billy was a head taller than Dad, taking after my grandfather in the height department, and nothing our parents said seemed to do more than annoy him.

It was me, in the end, who got him to apologize to our mother. I explained to him, once his hangover had receded, how Mom was sobbing through the house and couldn’t even cook dinner, she was so upset, and so we were eating TV dinners and pizza rolls. That got his attention; nothing stops my mother from cooking.

He never did promise to keep to a curfew, but he did call home if he wasn’t coming back for the night.

He also quit going to school. It was like he felt he deserved a trade-off for that one concession.

I told him that he was a dumbfuck.

We’d been sitting in a clearing in a patch of woods behind our property. It belonged to someone else, but no one ever seemed to care that we used it. I think it’s a subdivision now.

There were a few stumps, arranged almost as if they were chairs around a table. Sometimes if it wasn’t too windy we’d play cards out there, the ants coming out of the dead stump to walk across our clubs and diamonds. Didn’t bother me. We were country kids, and a few ants were nothing to fuss about.

This particular day Billy was having a beer. I wasn’t. I hadn’t joined in yet, being only fourteen and in some ways timid. I hadn’t yet understood that parents are powerless against a willful teenager.

“Why should I go back? Do you know they put me in freakin’ algebra? Like I’m going to college.” He pointed at me with the beer bottle. “They’re the dumbfucks.”

“You got a B on your last test. And you didn’t even try.”

He shrugged and took a deep gulp.

“Don’t you want to get out of here?” I gestured to the woods, but I meant our small town outside of Lansing. Michigan State University was close by, and although it had a fair share of hicks—Moo U was its nickname, after all—to me it was like a beacon. I’d swallowed the college education party line as a ticket to a different, broader life. Plus, maybe I could live in a house that wasn’t falling down around me. One of the shutters had fallen off just that morning.

“I like it here,” Billy said, shrugging. “I’ll earn some money. I can work in a shop or something. Down at the Olds plant or whatever. I’m a simple man with simple needs.”

Billy laughed hard at this, tipping back his head and roaring at the sky. Then he finished off his beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “But you know, Sprite. You go to school. Take algebra, take honors English, and you go make us a fortune. And like you said, get out of here. Cuz you’re smart and you’ll do fine.”

He leaned forward to ruffle my hair, then for a moment he cupped my chin in his hand, which smelled of beer and smoke. “Yeah. You’ll do fine.”

I curl over in the desk chair and press the heels of my hands into my eyeballs. It’s been a long time since I’ve let myself think of Billy this long, and thoughts like this would come followed by a long swig of Jack.

I bet a normal girl would confide in her fiancé about such a huge loss. I was all set to try and be normal and tell him, a year ago when it was opening day of hunting season. I kept thinking of Billy every time I saw hunter orange and camo. But the words jammed up in