“Goddammit, Ellie, haven’t we had enough drama with that family? Can’t you leave it well enough alone.”
“Fox offered,” I shrugged. I was purposefully acting aloof and nonchalant in a sad attempt to quell his alarm.
“Who the hell do you think is going to pick up the family business now that Cal and Monty are gone?” he bellowed at me. Dad rarely yelled, it seemed like his anger has reached a breaking point.
“Give me a break, Dad. I don’t want to go to school alone. People are intimidated by Fox and maybe this way, they won’t drill me with questions about Calvin,” I told him with tears welling in my eyes.
“Honey, she’s got a point,” my mom said, grabbing his arm. Dad looked like he’s about to blow a fuse. “Poor Fox and Meghan are over there in that house, stuck inside those four walls of trauma. We know what that’s like, we should be the first to offer them some relief. Meghan certainly hasn’t done anything wrong and don’t be so quick to judge Fox when he’s just lost half of his family overnight and has to deal with the fallout.”
My father’s face fell like he felt shame for his reaction. Then he reddened when the doorbell rings, like he was disappointed Fox had manners so he couldn’t be angrier at him.
“I’m out of here,” I said. I grabbed my water bottle and my phone and headed toward the front door. “This is hard enough as it is, Daddy, you don’t need to make it worse,” I said to my dad before I stepped outside into the damp and grey morning.
“S’up lil’ sis?” Fox greeted me. He grabbed my backpack and opened the passenger’s side door for me. Fox had a vintage Trans Am that he’s always up under the hood tinkering with. When he slid into the driver’s seat, he looked huge and intimidating. Fox was physically bigger than Calvin but with the same mysterious green eyes. He put the car into gear and peeled out of the driveway. Both brothers drove like maniacs, which must have been an inherited trait.
“How you feel? Did you tell anyone yet?” he asked me.
“Awful, and fuck no. I still haven’t decided what I’m doing and my parents can’t take any news.”
“I hear you. You sure you’re still up for going to school?”
“If my brother’s death taught me anything, it’s that you have to get back on the horse.”
Fox lit a cigarette and then put his window all the way down. “Sorry,” he said and exhaled out the open window.
It rained last night, with thunder and lightning. Everything was wet and the rain clouds were still hovering low and menacing in the sky.
“At least he’s not dead,” I tried to say with conviction, but my voice started to break. Those past few weeks, I kept telling myself that fact, repeating it like a mantra. At least he’s not dead.
But maybe death would have been better. Death would mean that someday I might find closure and move on. But instead, Calvin was treating me like I was dead to him—refusing me in every way possible. It hurt more than I’d ever imagined possible.
“If at any point in the day, you feel like you need to come home, just shoot me a text and I can be here in ten,” Fox told me reassuringly. Fox Montgomery wasn’t quite as overprotective as Calvin, he was worried for a reason. One I’d only told him and couldn’t yet bring myself to tell anyone else—not even my own mother.
I was pregnant.
If this tragedy hadn’t happened, I knew that Cal would have been ecstatic and eventually, the most wonderful father a child could ever have asked for. But now, looking down the barrel of a hefty sentence, the knowledge would destroy him. Calvin’s biggest dream in life was to become a father. To find out he was becoming one four days after he’d killed his own? That would be too much for him—too much for any man to take.
“I know I can’t tell you what to do, Ellison. I’m not even gonna try. But know that you can talk to my mom. She loves you like a daughter, she’d never judge you, and that news might help heal her heart.”
I looked at Fox and nodded. I knew Meghan was hurting and I knew I could talk to her. It was just all so much to process and having to do it alone, without Calvin by my side, felt daunting, overwhelming. It felt impossible.
Fox gave me a power punch and I opened the door into a fair amount of depressing drizzle, swung my backpack over my shoulder and trumped up the front walk to my last year of high school, pregnant, my baby’s father incarcerated, and alone in the knowledge that pregnancy was risky for an epileptic.