Ripple by Heather Smith Meloche Page A

perfect—the lighting, the mood, the angle—and I snap it into existence, it’s like my own personal scream:
See what’s happening? Notice! Notice!
And I wish I could go right now and capture the snarl on his face, his tight fists, the dark circles under Mom’s eyes as she tries to calm him down. I want him to stop and look so he can see what I see and understand what it does to us all.
    â€œThe girls are better off here,” Mom says. “And an apartment is more expensive than what we pay Spencer each month.”
    â€œGoddamn it.” Something slams against the living room wall. Tremors fill my gut.
    â€œWe need to ride this out,” Mom says, sounding drained. “Spencer’s willing to give Tessa an education we could never pay for.”
    â€œThanks for reminding me,” he growls.
    â€œI’m not knocking you. We work hard. We do the best we can.” Mom lays a loud kiss on my stepdad’s cheek. “I’m going to bed.Please lay off Tessa tonight. You’ve had a lot to drink, and she doesn’t need any more negativity.”
    He may have nodded, agreed to play nice. But he lied.
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    An hour later, when I come out for a glass of water, he starts firing on all cylinders. Apparently, I’m stupid, irresponsible,
and
a bitch. His eyes are watery pools of inebriation, but still his words cut like a butcher’s knife, precise and clean to the bone.
    â€œIf you just got into that goddamn school,” my stepdad spits, “that woman might be a little more civil. You just need to give it some fucking effort, Tessa, but your problem is you don’t give a—”
    The chime of my phone stops him short.
    â€œWho is it?” He asks me like I’m telepathic. Like my cell isn’t halfway across the room.
    â€œI’m stupid, remember?” I say. “I don’t know.”
    â€œShut up.” He stalks into the bathroom.
    When I answer the phone, the voice is familiar. “Tessa?”
    â€œHey.” It’s this guy from Coffee Haven in Hallend. I met him last month.
    â€œCan I see you?” he asks.
    My stepdad curses from the bathroom. I can still smell my grandmother’s expensive perfume everywhere. My insides are twisted, everything tight and painful, and I imagine warm hands in my hair, a finger tickling down my bare thigh, hungry eyes on me. Wanting. Accepting. I open my mouth to say yes.
    Don’t.
I shouldn’t.
    â€œI wouldn’t be great company tonight,” I tell him. “No one would want to be with me.”
    â€œI want to be with you.” He says each syllable like a soothing dose of painkiller. I close my eyes, listen to him breathing on the other end of the line. Think about the other words he might say that I groove on. The
You’re amazing
or the
God, you’re beautiful
or the super-rare and loose
I love you
. No matter how half sincere. I can coast on those comments for days, lick at the residue like it’s chocolate batter in a cake bowl. It may not be cooked or whole or done, but it’s still delicious.
    And tonight, my boyfriend is busy, probably somewhere with Simone. I’m weak. And stupid. Irresponsible.
And
a bitch.
    So I write down his address. Grab my car keys. And head out for the brief moment of comfort.
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    I choose my locations carefully. Can’t meet guys too close to my hometown. Can’t meet them anywhere where Pineville High students frequent. Rumors whip fast through school, and I don’t want any talk about who I’m with or why. So I choose guys outside the city limits.
    I pass the “Thank You for Visiting Pineville” sign. Pineville burns bright as a sparkler in my rearview mirror, but everything around me is black stretches of fields and woods and low, dark hills. Before I make it to Hallend, a flare spikes ahead, like an orange rip in the