Personal Effects by E. M. Kokie

anymore. And I definitely can’t sit on the bed with her. Or pretend everything is OK.
    Crap. Dad’s truck in the driveway.
    Shauna’s up and in motion, all thoughts of talking forgotten. She’s never really felt comfortable around Dad, but it’s been worse since the funeral.
    I get her out the side door just before Dad comes in the front.

T HE NEXT MORNING I WAKE WITH A HEART-CLENCHING jolt. Dad’s voice bellows down. All the blood rushes to the top of my head and pounds there, trying to get out. I was in the middle of a dream, a Shauna dream, a good one.
    “Did you hear me? Get your ass up here!”
    7:27 a.m. Shit. I’m gonna be late for work.
    I skip the shower in favor of breakfast. Takes all of ten minutes to brush my teeth, throw on some clothes, and be up in the kitchen wolfing down a bowl of cereal.
    Partway through the second bowl, I hear Dad’s feet on the stairs. Too late to get my boots on and slip out the side door, I finish my cereal.
    Dad looks over his shoulder at me on the way to the coffee.
    “Saw your girlfriend’s car last night. Didn’t hear her leave, though. What, you sneak her out after I went to bed, or was it this morning?”
    Dad’s leer broadcasts all the things he’s thinking: all of them disgusting.
    “Just be careful,” he says, his chest all puffed out, almost swaggering over to the table, tossing the newspaper open as he yanks out his chair. “Her family can’t afford another mouth to feed, and I’ll be damned if I finally get your ass in gear just to have you piss it all away.”
    I should correct him, for her sake, her honor or whatever. But I can’t make myself do it, for mine. His thinking we’re having sex means maybe he worries a little less that he has to make a man out of me. There’s something vomit-inducingly wrong about lusting after your best friend. But letting your fucked-up father think you’re screwing her is a million times worse.
    “You hear me?”
    I snap my chin to chest and up again, like he does.
    “I want to hear you say it.”
    I swallow hard around the guilt. “I hear you.”
    “OK, then.” He beams and cuffs my shoulder as he struts past.
    “Working tomorrow?” Dad asks.
    I shovel in more cereal, slurping out a “No.”
    “Good,” Dad says. “Don’t make plans. Storm windows should’ve been down a month ago.”
    Oh, joy. Time for the biannual fun fest of pinched fingers and rusty scrapes, not to mention a whole afternoon of frustrating Dad by failing to follow his orders fast enough.
    “Hey.”
    I wipe my face into a blank mask and nod my understanding.
    “Finals in a week and a half?”
    He knows they are, but I nod again.
    “Better get studying. You fail and we are going to have a serious problem.”
    Failure equals dead. Sure thing. Got it. Thanks for the pep talk, Dad.
    “I looked into it. GED won’t cut it for the better assignments, and if you’re gonna have any chance at all to advance through the ranks, you’ll need to start off right.”
    Of course. OCS is out, but he’s just tweaking the plan. Not giving up the dream. Not Dad. Already thinking beyond enlistment and Basic, like they’re a foregone conclusion.
    “You hear me?”
    I grit my teeth. “Yes, sir.”
    “Good. Now you better haul ass over to the site. Roger’s not paying you to stroll in whenever it suits you.” I shovel in one last mouthful. Then one more. “Now,” Dad commands, glancing at the clock.
    I drop my bowl in the sink and grab my boots, start shoving them on as fast as I can. But he’s staring, and I can’t find the right feet.
    “If you can’t get yourself up and —”
    The doorbell.
    “— to work on time . . .” He trails off into a head-shaking sigh. I struggle to get my right foot into my boot.
    Someone knocks on the front door.
    Dad glares, pissed, like that helps me get out of here any faster.
    Another round of knocks.
    Screw the laces. I grab my backpack and head for the side door.
    Outside, I go to lock the door, and