Dare You to Hate Me

I don’t blame Aiden.

And I’ve never forgotten him either.

That’s the problem.

Chapter Two

Ivy

For almost two weeks, I busy myself with school and work until I’m too tired to care that there’s another party going on when I get home. I ignore the red plastic cups and abandoned half-empty beer bottles, step around the mass of bodies gyrating in the crowded halls, and collapse in a heap on my bed downstairs, tuning out the music thumping and people laughing above me as best I can.

Unfortunately, lulling myself into a peaceful oblivion is nearly impossible. Not only because the bass from upstairs rattles the windows, but because my thoughts run rampant in my head, bouncing to the beat of the techno music. Trapping myself in my thoughts is dangerous territory because I always wind up in the same spot.

Two years ago.

The cold tile.

And every single moment leading up to it.

The small green establishment with an Underwood’s Grocer sign hanging crooked from the side became the center of all our problems.

My father spent every second he could at the store while my mother stayed home fulltime to take care of me and my little brother Porter. Every night when Dad got home from the store, there’d be bags under his eyes, and a new streak of white in his hair, and nothing me, Mom, or Porter could do ever got those tight lips to form even the tiniest smile like we used to be able to.

Whenever I asked Mom if Dad was okay, she’d pat my back, pass me a plain sheet of construction paper and a box of crayons, and tell me the same thing. “Your father is just stressed.”

But every resounding explanation came with a heavier delivery, timid pat, and demand for distraction. When drawing wasn’t enough, Mom’s tired honey-brown eyes that Porter and I get from her would look to me after a hushed conversation with Dad after dinner and tell me to check on Porter then go to my room.

She never failed to come in later, pick out my favorite book from the small shelf of fairytales and fables we collected, and read until I fell asleep.

The moment the atmosphere changes is when I look up from the TV Porter and I watch our favorite Saturday morning cartoon on to see Mom gaping at a piece of paper she took from the mailbox earlier. The lips she always paints pink are parted, her hand holds her head up with her wedding ring I’ve always been obsessed with glinting in the light, and her copper hair falls messily over her shoulders because she hates doing things with it.

When I slide off the couch and tug on her shirt, she takes a few moments before setting the paper down to look at me. “I’m just stressed, Ivy. Don’t worry.”

I’m not sure when I realized that I hated those two little words. Don’t worry. How could I not worry when hushed conversations in the kitchen turn into heated phone calls in the living room? Or when their voices raise in their bedroom and Dad would storm out and slam the front door behind him and be gone all night?

I don’t know what’s been going on, but Dad stopped coming home for dinner at his normal time, Mom stopped reading to me at night, and soon it was just me and Porter at the kitchen table while our mother took calls in other rooms. Sometimes I’d hear her talk about Grandma Gertie and a trip to visit her, but most times I’d hear the store brought up and listen to the muffled cries my mother tried hiding behind closed doors.

It came time to worry when Dad came home late last night to find Mom waiting for him with a face void of emotion. I snuck out of my room to listen to their conversation and heard him tell Mom we have to sell the house and find something smaller. Mom had asked, “Why can’t you let the store go, John? I’m tired of it not going anywhere.”

And even at the tender age of eight, Dad’s response sliced through me like I knew it wasn’t right. “I can say the same about us, Kate.”

Their voices become louder as they moved down the hall, their argument becoming heated until I heard something loud in the kitchen crash.

Mom yelled.

Dad yelled back.

For the first time, I took refuge in my closet and burrowed into the line of ugly dresses that I hated wearing. The material may have been scratchy against my skin, but it served as a barrier that drowned out some of the noise.

“Why don’t you go play?” Mom suggests, breaking me from the memory of falling fast asleep in my closet until a mixture of bright blue and red lights flickering underneath the door woke me up.

I think

of the one thing that always makes me happy on Saturdays and wonder if it’ll work on Mom too. “Want to watch cartoons with me and Porter?”

Her smile doesn’t take right away, and when her lips curl upward, it’s slow and nothing like the warm one she used to flash me. “I’ve got adult things I need to handle right now but maybe next time.”

It isn’t until sometime later when Porter and I go to our rooms to play when I realize something isn’t right. When I go to ask Mom about it, the landline is held up to her ear as she shakes her head at whatever paperwork she’s going through.