Dare You to Hate Me

She nudges me with her leg, a matching smile teasing her lips. “That we used to make up random commercials for Doritos and pretend you were their newest poster boy? Yeah. I remember that well.”

We both get a laugh over the old memories of us perching ourselves in front of my mother’s video camera and acting out a scene. Ivy always told me to keep it under sixty seconds and would make me do it again if I went over.

Once the nostalgia rubs off, the reality sinks back in. We lose the smiles and watch each other with wariness.

It’s me who says, “I may be a demanding prick these days, but it’s because I want what’s best for you. Is that so bad?”

She bites her bottom lip and slowly shakes her head. “I guess not.”

“Then why do you fight me?”

“A lot of reasons. Do I really deserve you treating me with respect? Sometimes it feels like I should have a worse life than I already do for making the choices I have. It’s fight or flight for me, Aiden. It always has been.”

“You don’t have to do either here.”

I can tell she wants to argue but something in her mind tells her not to. Instead, she says, “The day you had to help me into your room was the first day I’d ever thought about hurting myself. I heard Mom telling somebody on the phone that she thought about packing up and leaving. I don’t know who she was talking to, but she said something about not being sure if she’d take us. When she found out I overheard she tried telling me it was because she’d have to find a job and get her own money before she could support Porter and me. But there was something in her eyes that made me feel like she was lying. I’d felt like a burden before whenever she’d say how much she wished she weren’t stuck at home with us or married or how much she wished she’d gotten an education to have a different life for herself.

“I guess I thought if I hurt myself maybe she would feel differently. Be motherly. Feel bad about all the times she wanted a different life because she was stuck with two kids. It wasn’t like she was cold to me my whole life. She’d take care of me when I was sick, make my favorite food for my birthdays if they had the money, and buy m

e things whenever she could. But the moments her and Dad were at each other’s throats it was like she was a different person. I remember her telling me once that love changes people and I never understood why she let it. There are so many things that could have made them better. They could have sold the store or split up or something. I mean, no kid wants to see their parents get divorced but it’s better than them constantly being visited by the cops when their fights get too loud, and making their kids feel like part of the problem.”

The first time the lights from the cop car lit up my house after the Underwoods moved in next door, I’d asked Mom if everything was okay with Ivy. We hadn’t known each other long at that point, but I knew cops showing up usually wasn’t a good sign. Mom was holding the phone to her chest with a frown on her face as she looked out the window, her eyes focused on the large bay window that lined up with their living room. When she glanced down at me, she rubbed my shoulder and told me to go back to bed after saying, “Ivy is fine, sweetie. Her parents just need a little guidance, that’s all.”

And I believed her.

Until it happened again.

And again.

And again, until I saw her father being put into the back of one of the cop cars.

When I made the pact with Ivy, I wanted her to know she could always come to me whenever she needed someone. It took one more fight between her parents for her to tap on my window after dark and make a spot for herself in my closet.

I promised her I’d never speak a word to either Mom or Dad about her frequent sleepovers, but I think they knew. Mom would give me extra food and a knowing look or leave one or two more blankets on my bed. But we never discussed it, so I kept the charade up.

“I didn’t hurt myself until after I left.” Her voice breaks me from the red and blue memories, dissolving them until her face comes back into view. “That day was a wakeup call for me. I could find another way. I thought it’d be better if I left. There were…things that were said to me out of anger, things that couldn’t be taken back. Sometimes Mom would apologize but most times she pretended it never happened or acted like she wasn’t serious. Those sorts of things build and build and build, collecting under your skin and in your soul until you can’t take it anymore. Sometimes the emotions won’t come out on their own and you need to do something about it. It started with my thighs for me. A tiny cut here and there. Then got worse with each day that went by after leaving that letter and realizing there was no looking back.”

My fists clench until there’s a bite of pain in the center of my palms from where my fingernails dig in. “You always had a home with us. If you didn’t want to go back to your parents, I could have convinced my parents to find a space for you at my place.”

“Don’t do that,” she tells me gravely. “I already told you that you can’t wish for things to be different. None of us get a re-do button in life. I used to stay up at night wondering what would happen if I went home and begged for forgiveness, but nothing would have changed. They’d be angry, maybe angrier, and they’d fight and make me feel worthless all over again. If I wasn’t a burden then, leaving and causing a scene like that would have made me a big one if I’d gone back. I’d be the chaos in their lives like they said I was.”

My lips part. “What?”

Her tongue dips out for a moment in contemplation before nodding. “Mom was on edge about everything and I kept asking for money and attention. Things Porter seemed to get so easily from them. And I’ll always remember Mom saying, ‘I don’t need all this extra chaos right now, Ivy. And that’s all you are.’ And that wasn’t the first time she’d indicated I was the chaos in her life. She’d said it when I was little and would do something stupid like draw on the walls or accidently knock something over when I was playing. She’d be upset with Dad and say things to me that I remember to this day.”

When she sees my face, she frowns but manages to reason with me. “The thing is, I sort of get it. When our emotions run high, we say things we don’t mean. I like to be by myself when I’m upset because I’ve seen firsthand what our emotions can do to us if we’re not careful.

“Either way, it started feeling like I was the chaos she said I was, even if all I wanted was for everyone to get along. I stopped remembering what it felt like to hear them talking instead of fighting. I wasn’t able to remember when Dad would come home. Sometimes he’d just be there, and the only reason I’d know is because they’d find something to argue about. He avoided her when she’d suggest selling the store, she’d get upset when he ignored her, I’d fail at making it better, and it’d start all over another day. It’s why I don’t like being called Chaos. I tried making a joke out of it, like I could embrace what I was, but it stopped being funny when I realized Mom might be right.”

Even though I shake my head in disagreement, there aren’t words to tell her that isn’t true. She’ll always believe her version of things, and nobody will convince her otherwise.

I remember Mom and Dad coming back home after I told them Ivy ran away. Mom’s eyes were red, but she tried hiding them from me, and Dad patted my back and shook his head when Mom disappeared into their room as if to tell me to leave her alone. When he went in after her, I heard them talking, Mom’s wavering voice asking Dad, “How can they just send her away, John? She has a life and friends here and they act like they don’t care.”

I never understood what they meant. Ivy told me she was getting on a bus and finding something better for herself.

Come with me.

Three words that haunt me still.