Charming (2 page)

“Whatever, Haley. I think you just suck at accepting responsibility.” Jocelyn ran down the stairs without looking back, disappearing into the night once she was out of range of the tacky yellow light.

The cat followed.

“Traitor. See if I feed you tomorrow!”

Haley could have sat outside the remainder of the night, wishing for something, wishing for help with Joce, with Dad,
anything
. But homework waits for no man—or woman—and Haley had plenty of work to intentionally screw up. With a begrudging sigh, she returned inside and spread the papers on the plastic-covered kitchen table, then took a seat.

Before she could decide whether or not doing this homework even mattered, Dad cleared his throat, indication number one of his annoyance. Ice spread from Haley’s heart and raced into her fingers, into her toes.

Deep breath.

He’d only ever hit her hard a few times, but
once
was enough. Each time brought Haley back to the accident, to the night he hit Mom and she reacted by dragging Haley out of the house, into the car to escape. But, apparently, escape wasn’t meant for them. A drunk driver t-boned their car, knocked it upside down, metal and plastic scraping and buckling and groaning as they met with the other car, with asphalt. The tires squealed as the impaired driver tried to stop, tried to stop too late.

How ironic, to run from one alcoholic only to be killed by another.

Dad stumbled toward Haley in a stained faded-blue bathrobe tied loosely around his expanding waistline, shaking hand braced against the wall for support. This was not Dad,
not
Dad, not at
all
the man who’d raised her. This man grunted, set an empty bottle on the counter, the counter she’d just cleaned, then glared at the fridge as though expecting another beer to magically appear in his hand. Magic meaning Haley.

Magic
always
meant Haley.

She jumped to her feet and provided the man with his beer, even went so far as to unscrew the cap.

He leaned his head to the side, lips pressed in a thin line. “Did you say somethin’?”

Haley shook her head. “No, sir.”

“You think you’re better than me, don’t you? Better than this house, your sister, this life! But you’re not. You can’t even pass English.” Dad swiped the bottle from Haley, scratching a fingernail against her skin in a hasty attempt to be forceful, controlling, and continued on his tirade, “That’s right. Your teacher called, again. What’s wrong with you? You stay out late. Working. For what? You saving to escape? You want to buy a house like that whore of a mother of yours? You want to leave us too?”

“No.” Haley stared at her bare feet on the cold linoleum floors, afraid to meet Dad’s eyes. Looking at him only fueled the insatiable anger residing in his mind, the anger bubbling and waiting to erupt, waiting for a victim, waiting for Haley. The anger that would be there no matter what kind of grades she earned or what time she walked in the front door. “That’s not it. I’m sorry for being late.”

“You’re sorry for being
late
? That’s all? Why aren’t you sorry for acting like her, like a whore? Why aren’t you sorry that your mother died and you didn’t? Life would have been much easier if you’d died too.”

Bracing herself for impact, Haley took a deep breath and glanced up, barely holding back the hot tears stinging at her eyes. He didn’t just hate her. He wanted her
dead
. “Please, don’t be angry.
Please
.”

He dragged a hand through his greasy black hair and regarded her with unabashed hatred, eyes narrowed, lip curled up in a jagged sneer. “If your teacher calls again to voice his concern about your grades, I’ll ground you. No more job. No more daydreams about leaving us behind.”

He turned and swayed on the way back to his worn-out chair, saving Haley from his hand, his voice, any part of him that wanted to lash out further.

She quietly cried. Dad may not have hit her, but she’d expected him to, had prepared for it, and the relief that he didn’t flowed out in the form of tears. He couldn’t see how much he affected her. That would give him too much power.

Haley gathered up her schoolwork as calmly as possible. Hostility would make the situation worse. No matter what, she always had to remain calm, collected. She closed her bedroom door and tossed all her papers onto the floor. None of it mattered. Nothing mattered. She changed her clothes, put on jeans and a hoodie paired with running shoes, and waited for Dad to pass out for the night, then slipped from her bedroom window and jogged to the cemetery. He’d freak if he knew she visited Mom. He’d bar Haley’s windows, maybe even break her legs. He’d definitely not worry about her coming out alone, without mace.

Eight minutes later, she sat cross-legged next to Margaret Anne Tremaine’s grave, tending to the cheery flowers she’d planted. Mom would die all over again if she knew they’d engraved her full name on her headstone. She hated the name Margaret, never used anything other than Maggie. Said Margaret was her grandmother’s and her mother’s name but would never be hers. They were too uptight, too judgmental. Mom was anything but.

“I thought he was going to hit me today, Mom,” Haley admitted, wishing she had a way to tie up the yellow mums that were in full bloom and too heavy to hold their own weight. Tomorrow she’d have to bring twine and other gardening tools. “Only five minutes late, too. Christine keeps offering me pot. You remember Christine, right? Sure you do. You remember all your employees and their families. Well, she thinks that if I’m high, he won’t get to me. But we both know he’d still hit me, probably harder. He thinks I’m a piece of shit. And you know what? I let him. It’s so much easier this way, pretending to be stupid, a slacker. If I dream, Mom—God, if I dream, he’ll kill me. If he knew all the things I wanted for my life, for Jocelyn. But, it’s all pretend. I don’t want to smoke pot. I don’t want to give up on college. Somehow, I’ll find a way out of this. Somehow.”

Crack
.

Haley jumped at the sound of a twig snapping. She tried to find the source in the dark and otherwise silent cemetery, in row after row of white and gray headstones, in the surrounding trees. A man wearing a charcoal skullcap and a black pea coat, hands shoved into his jeans pockets, walked by on the car path a few rows from Haley, head down.

The man glanced Haley’s way, and she realized it was just Todd, the cemetery’s part-time groundskeeper. She’d spent so much time here since Mom’s death, Haley knew all the staff.

Todd shot an apologetic smile and cut through the headstones to join her. “Did I startle you?”

She stared up at his sad gray eyes. “A little. What are you doing out here so late?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” Todd was young, late twenties tops, though she’d never dared to ask, and attractive, all sharp angles and thick muscles. He was tall, six-foot-two maybe, towering over her by at least seven inches.

Haley glared at him.

“All right. If you must know, I thought it was a nice night for a walk… until I remembered there’s a murderer on the loose. Which is why we should both probably head home. Would you like me to walk you?”

“That’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

Todd nodded. “Keep your eyes open, Haley.”

He took off and she watched him until he disappeared into the blackness of night, leaving her with nothing but silence, an eerie silence, and she decided staying any longer
would
be dangerous.

“All right, Mom. I better get back before Jocelyn comes in and finds me missing—and decides to tell the whole world.”
Or someone decides to kill me.

Haley placed her palm on the headstone, the only way she knew to say goodbye, closed her eyes, then left.

Maybe tomorrow would be better.

Maybe.

aley’s alarm blared out the most annoying sound ever and she jolted upright in bed, still wearing her clothes from the day before. She looked around the room, blinking at the bare white walls, then finally realized her massive error.

“Holy shit.” Rushing to her dresser to grab pajamas, she pulled off the jeans and hoodie mucked up with black dirt, nearly falling over when the jeans stuck around one of her ankles. Dad would ask questions if he saw her this way. He’d want to know why she fell asleep without changing first and why the clothes were dirty. He’d investigate her room, probably assume she snuck out to have unprotected sex with multiple partners.

Haley slipped into a pair of clean, gray cotton pants and a tank top, then barreled into Dad’s room to wake him up. She focused on the peeling, blue-flowered wallpaper, the stale scent of musky men’s cologne mingled with beer, on anything other than the thought of his hand colliding with her skin. Nudging his shoulder covered with a thin white t-shirt, she whispered his name over and over, but he didn’t move. “Dad, you have to get ready for work. You’ve got an hour to get dressed and be there.”

Not that he’d do any real work. Berkshires offered him a pity job in their headquarters office. They knew he was disabled and no longer operated heavy machinery at construction sites. His fall off the crane had also been his downfall, his path into alcoholism, the path of his estranged late father—they might not have known that last part, but, hey, small town. If they only knew how he drove Mom to her death and Haley to her path of self-destruction. How much pity would they feel for the man then?

But Haley wouldn’t allow this family to fall apart. She wouldn’t allow her sister to lose her ideal parent, her
only
parent. She’d let Berkshires assume Dad would go nuts without Mom, without something to do day in and day out now that he’d inherited so much, so much he refused to spend on himself or the girls.

He’d called it black money, black like Mom’s heart.

She’d never tell them that. Definitely not that.

“Wake up, wake up, wake up.” Words weren’t working, neither was Haley’s gentle touch. This was the most difficult thing she’d have to do all day long, touch Dad in a loving way, in a way that wasn’t a slap on the cheek, a punch to
his
gut. Touching him sent chills racing along her arms and nervousness swimming in her belly.

A glass of water sat on his nightstand; she grabbed the glass and doused him.

“What the f—? What’s wrong with you?” Dad jumped to his feet, gross hairy legs sticking out of a pair of navy boxer shorts, and stalked toward Haley, fists clenched, forearms flexing with his fury. “You are such a little bitch. You know that?”

Haley stumbled to the chilly floor and then crab-walked backward, heart stuttering out a mysterious rhythm. She had to diffuse this monster, calm him down, before he decided she’d make an excellent punching bag. “It’s time for work.”

He kept moving forward, eyes glazed over, nostrils flaring, looking nothing like the loving man he once was. She turned away from him, cheek brushing up against the cold wall, cringing. Waiting for him to strike.

This was it, just like the time Dad punched her in the gut, the very event that sent Haley out for self-defense classes that she was too afraid to use because defending herself would more than likely make things worse.