Monster (Gone 7)

“What do we do?” Cruz asked. She was buying in, accepting the knowledge that Shade was not merely exploring possibilities or having a little adventure but that Shade wanted power. And she wanted it for a revenge she could never hope to get.

And yet, I’m going along.

“We do homework, Cruz. Down in the living room in plain view of any cameras. Then you go home. Tonight, I hop in the car and drive to Jewell-Osco, where I pick you up and we go test this out.”

It was a bizarre day, to say the very least. The two girls hunched over books and laptops, scribbled and typed, doing work that no longer mattered to either of them if it ever had, making stilted conversation for the benefit of listeners.

“Where’s your dad?” Cruz asked at one point.

“Kazakhstan, believe it or not.”

Cruz believed it: according to Shade, the next chunk of rock, ASO-4, was scheduled to land in a very inconvenient part of the world. Professor Darby was presumably there.

Shade slid her a note, facedown. Cruz palmed it and read it under the table they were using as a desk. I’ve got workmen coming to fix the wall before my dad gets back.

Cruz made a wry expression that meant, Of course you do, because: you.

Cruz left with a promise to be at Jewell-Osco at ten o’clock, after Shade had done the obligatory Skype with her grandmother—one of Martin Darby’s attempts to provide adult supervision when he was away.

Rain had come and gone while Cruz was in Shade’s house, and as she set out for home the trees dripped so energetically it might as well have been raining. A left turn onto Dempster brought Cruz to the Starbucks above which her family lived in a two-bedroom apartment.

As Cruz neared home she began to alter her appearance, taking off a silver chain, sliding rings into pockets, turning her collar down, scuffing at the legs of her jeans until the cuffs lay flat.

She was not denying who she was, not really, she told herself, just reducing the visible triggers that might cause a paternal eruption. It was an everyday decision for Cruz: how much to be herself, how much to risk, when to be bold, when to run scared. It was both automatic and exhausting.

How am I “presenting”? How are people seeing me?

She would say it didn’t matter, but it was not so easy to take that whole don’t give a damn attitude when there were people out there who would tease, bully, beat, even kill her for the crime of being . . . interesting.

“And now I’m interesting but with a friend who has superpowers,” she muttered. She asked the sidewalk, “What have I gotten myself into?” She knew in her heart that no good would come from this. She knew deep down that she should flee, put miles between herself and Shade Darby.

I should call the FBI . . .

The thought percolated through her mind, enticing, oddly empowering. She could end this, end it now before worse things happened. But not before tonight, for sure, not before she’d actually seen it with her own eyes.

And then? Then was then. She would decide then.

She ran the mental checklist, wondering just what would set her father off this time. Her father was not a violent man, she had no fear of his fists; his aggression took the form of sarcasm, slights, sneering looks he didn’t bother to hide. It wasn’t that his teasing or bullying was terribly clever or original—that would have at least showed some effort on his part. No, it was not that he was particularly good at being cruel, it was simply the fact that he was her father being cruel.

My father.

She could pretend that she didn’t care what her father thought of her, but she could never really mean it. She would never stop caring. It would never not hurt.

From that thought, of course, it was down and down in the spiral of shame, blaming herself, hating herself, hating the world for having done this to her. What kind of God would play this game? What kind of sick divinity would sit up in heaven and say, This one shalt be all of the above . . . LOL!

Cruz pictured God throwing back his great, bearded, cis-male God head and guffawing, haw, haw, haw, and the angels snickering behind their hands.

Cruz paused, pulled out her Moleskine, and wrote, God as bro. Bro-god. Angels try to expand his consciousness? It was maybe not a great premise for a short story or novel, but Cruz had learned to write down even the ideas that seemed dumb. Dumb now might trigger smart later.

As she climbed the interior stairs that always smelled of coffee from the Starbucks, she heard an insistent, aggressive, whining voice and instantly knew her father had started drinking early. Five twenty in the evening, when he usually didn’t get home until six—or eight if he stopped at a bar on his way. She took a deep breath, hesitating with her hand on the doorknob. She heard the first sound of an argument breaking out: a dish clattering in the sink, and then her mother’s voice, pleading, weak, and self-pitying.

Every night.

Cruz hoped she could get past them to her room, her sanctuary, while they were distracted, so she pushed in, welcomed by the rich, earthy smell of mole warming on the stove. Her father was still in his work clothes, black work pants with muddy knees, a denim shirt with his name, Manny, in red on a white oval patch. He was not a big man, maybe four inches shorter than Cruz, with curling black hair and a brush mustache.

“. . . no overtime means you cut back, Maria, not tomorrow, not some other day, right the hell now! How stupid are you not to get that?” Manuel “Manny?

? Rojas said.