Please Ignore Vera Dietz(43)
Author: A.S. King

“Son, if I ever see you being a girl like that again, I’ll beat your ass.”

I never tried again.

From here, on the other side, the truth wins. I can see what Vera and her family thought of us. How they never told. Never called the cops. Never interfered. Because we couldn’t escape. My dad brought home our living money, and we were his prisoners. Which was why I lived most of my summers in the tree house after I built it.

I remember thinking, If I distance myself, his crazy shit won’t rub off on me. I won’t become a wife-beating ass**le. I remember daydreaming, One day, I will make enough money to rescue my mother. One day, I will come back and make him sorry he ever had me. One day, I will show him what a real man is.

But then I got confused.

And I made some mistakes.

Which I didn’t forgive myself for.

Which made things worse.

Because then I made more mistakes.

Vera and I had two fights before she stopped talking to me completely. The first one was about what Jenny Flick told me—a lie—about how Vera was telling everyone that my dad was a wife-beating ass**le.

The second was the night of May Day, when she found me in the bleachers by myself, with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in a paper bag.

I told her she was too good for me.

“Bullshit. You’re my best friend.”

“Bullshit yourself. I’m King Loser.”

“No—Bill Corso is King Loser. He can’t even read.”

“Hey. Don’t knock Bill,” I said, trying to bait her. Like my father would.

“Sorry. I know he’s your new pal.”

“Why are you so f**king bitchy about my new friends? What did they ever do to you?”

“It’s not what they did to me,” she said. “It’s what they’re doing to you.”

“What?” I took a swig out of the bottle for effect, but I knew what she meant. I’d been drinking every night for a month.

“Who are you doing this for? Is it Jenny? Is this about being in her pants, or what?”

Oh yes. I would kill to be a pickle on Vera’s Big Mac. Because Vera gave a shit.

And she knew how to tell the truth.

And she loved me.

So I hit her. Right when she said that, I hit her.

THREE WEEKS OF VOCAB WORDS AND OTHER MAKEUP HOMEWORK

Here’s me using bisect in a sentence.

The night when Charlie hit me, I bisected. Half of me will never trust another living soul again. The other half already didn’t.

Vicarious. The night Charlie hit me, I became Mrs. Kahn for a split second, in a vicarious body switch I had always feared.

Zoomorphic. The night Charlie hit me, he demonstrated his zoomorphic abilities by changing into a man-eating tiger.

Altruism. The night Charlie hit me, every ounce of altruism I had for him as a lost soul on a bad path dissolved.

GROUNDED, COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY—PART 3

After our fourth and final meeting with Dr. B, Dad and I go out for ice cream and miniature golf. When we get to the third hole (par 4 through the windmill bridge), I see a new party of players behind us. It’s Bill Corso and Jenny Flick and two other Detentionheads.

“Hurry up, Dad,” I say.

He looks at me and shrugs, then chokes completely and misses the windmill. He sees me rushing and looking back at the Detentionheads and whispers, “Do you want to just go?”

I nod.

Only when we’re back home, trying to figure out what dinner would be good on top of too much ice cream, does he ask me who they were.

“Just some ass**les from school.”

“You don’t usually care about ass**les from school.”

The swearing trade-off is working out great.

“Jenny Flick is the girl who turned Charlie against me,” I say, plopping myself on the stool by the breakfast bar.

“You never told me that.”

“There’s a lot I didn’t tell you.”

That night, we rearrange the living room and Dad throws Mom’s clothing into a few black garbage bags for Goodwill. I round up her crystal collection, which has done nothing but gather dust for six years, and I box it up and take it to the attic. This is a very serious step we’re taking—clearing Mom out of this house. Making my peace with her brings me one step closer to making my peace with Charlie. (Which brings me one step closer to making my peace with myself.)

FIRST DAY BACK IN SCHOOL—MONDAY

It’s been almost a month since I was in school, and Bill Corso is still getting detention for skipping Modern Social Thought. Mr. Shunk must know he can’t read, but even though we have a remedial reading teacher, it’s too close to graduation to help the kid. It’s sad as hell, really.

Over at table two, three kids are listening to something on a pair of earbuds. Two others are doodling in notebooks. Rob Jones is doing his Calc homework. Three cheerleaders are giggling and whispering. I’m pretty sure if Mr. Shunk didn’t stand at the front of class and clap his hands together, these people would just continue to do what they’re doing until the bell rings, and then go to their next class.

This essentially makes Mr. Shunk a kindergarten teacher.

Which makes me a kindergarten student.

It also makes my father right again. How will I ever soar with the eagles if I’m surrounded by turkeys?

After we finish reading Lord of the Flies, Chapter Ten, the bell rings, and on my way to lunch I find Jenny Flick at my locker with Bill.

“How’s your mom?”

How’s my mom? WTF? Haven’t we been through this already? “Fine,” I say, tossing my books into the locker as fast as I can.

“She left you, right?”

“She left my dad, yeah.”

“Where is she now? Is that where you were for the last month?”

I slam the locker closed, and turn away from them to go down the steps to the cafeteria. But Bill reaches out and grabs my arm.

“Where is she?” he asks. It’s like he thinks he’s the freaking mob.

“Las Vegas—not like it’s any of your business.”

“What’s she doing in Vegas?” he says. “She working again?”

“I hear prostitution is legal there,” Jenny says, still standing by the lockers.

I push my way through the reinforced glass doors and go down the steps. I can hear them laughing by my locker, though, and can’t figure out why they think they can get to me with my mom. That’s so last year. Shouldn’t Jenny be avoiding me and hoping I don’t tell the truth about Zimmerman’s? Has she grown cocky now that it’s been so long and I haven’t told? Is she so crazy that she’s forgotten that I know?