She probably thinks we’re some happy family.

We’re not.

She was.

Her and Tommy and I—we were.

She climbs the steps until she’s one down from him and bends down so they’re eye to eye. She runs her fingers across his cast, her eyes filling with tears. And then she reaches out, her arms around him, her hug so fierce and so full of love that my chest tightens, the pain so overwhelming it forces a sob out of me—because, fuck, how can everything feel so right and be so fucking wrong?

Tommy pulls back slightly, his eyes on hers and his hands on her cheeks, wiping her tears. She doesn’t flinch—not for him.

“You have a booboo?” he asks her and she nods.

“Where?”

She chokes back on her own sob, her eyes only for him. Then she points to her chest.

Tommy frowns and kisses the spot on her chest she just pointed to. “Daddy say kisses make all booboos better,” he tells her.

I hold my breath.

She smiles sadly and taps her nose followed by her chest. He nods and throws his arms around her neck, squeezing tight. “I love you, too, Becca.”

★★★

It’s a hard emotion to explain—what it feels like to fake every single moment of your life. To breathe but to not exist. To smile but to not be happy. To nod and agree but to not really care. And some nights, I’d put Tommy down to sleep and listen to him speak and there’d be an ache in my chest and I didn’t know why. So as I sit on the edge my bed, beer in hand, and listen to the fireworks go off around me—the cheers as hundreds of people bring in the New Year—I can’t even find it in myself to look forward to the next day, let alone three hundred and sixty-five of them.

Natalie knocks on my door and lets herself in, because apparently this is her house now and she doesn’t need permission to do anything. She’s wearing one of my work shirts, which she uses to sleep in. Her legs, long and tanned and much more defined than when I’d been between them over three years ago, are bare as she makes her way over to me. She stops in front of me, her hands at her sides. “Happy New Year, Joshua.”

I rub my eyes and try to fight off the effects of alcohol. “Yeah. You too.”

She steps forward, between my legs, and I don’t stop her.

Because I don’t care.

But when her hand reaches out and cups my face, my eyes drift shut and my breath leaves me in a shudder. She lifts my chin with her finger and I keep my eyes closed because I don’t want to see her and I already know what she wants and a part of me wants it too. Not because I want her but because I want to feel something that isn’t nothing. Her hand takes mine and settles it on her leg and I don’t take it back. I don’t remove it. Then she whispers my name and my eyes snap open and she’s undoing the buttons of my shirt she’s wearing. And dammit, I miss this—not her—but I miss this touch, this intimacy, this need. Both my hands on her legs now, drift higher until I feel the fabric of her panties. I focus on her fingers as they undo the last button and she spreads the shirt open. My gaze moves from the top of her panties, to her stomach, where stretch marks streak down her skin. I trace a single one with my finger, from the bottom of her breasts to the side of her belly button. The marks are faded now, marks we’d created together, back when we thought we were in love and that love would get us through anything.

“I know they’re gross,” she says. “The guys I’m with are always turned off by it.”

“What?” I whisper.

“Yeah…” Her fingers trace where mine had just been, clueless to the fury she’d just unleashed inside me.

I push her away from me so quickly she stumbles into the wall behind her. “Get out!” I shout, getting up and pulling her suitcase out of the closet. I fill it with whatever clothes of hers I can scramble, all while she cries, trying to stop me as she buttons my shirt to hide her fucking shame. She grabs my arm as I carry her shit down the hallway. I shake her off; the rage, the anger, the fire within me uncontainable, and for the first time ever, I don’t hold back. I open the front door and throw her crap from the top of the stairs down onto the driveway.

“Josh, stop!”

I turn to her. “Get. Out!”

She cries harder and it just makes me sick. Like, deep in my gut, sick. I push past her and pick up anything and everything that belongs to her. All her shoes at the door, her stupid cookbooks, her stupid owls… so many fucking owls.

-Becca-

rage

reɪdʒ/

noun

violent uncontrollable anger.

At first I thought the screaming and yelling were that of a celebration. But the screaming got louder. Louder than the fireworks, and then the unmistakable sound of Tommy’s cry fills my ears. I push off the covers and race downstairs, meeting Grams in the hallway, our shocked faces matching each other’s. The second I open the door I know it’s bad.

Josh’s at the top of his stairs throwing clothes and books down onto the driveway, adding to the pile already there.

Josh yells.

Natalie screams.

Fireworks go off.

Josh yells louder.

Natalie cries harder.

But Tommy—he cries the hardest.

Josh swears as he pushes Natalie off of him, then goes back in the house, I guess finding more shit to throw. Natalie’s still crying, begging him to stop, and Tommy… he just stands at the top of the steps covering his ears and crying in the corner—away from his fighting parents. “Daddy, stop!”

“Get that little boy,” Grams says. My bare feet race up the stairs. I pick up Tommy and shield him from the destruction going on around him.

“Take him inside,” I tell Grams, handing him to her. And I march right back up there. I don’t know what I’m doing but I need to do something so I step in front of Josh and block him. His eyes are wide, filled with rage. He freezes, holding an owl figure in the air. “What are you doing, Becca?” he says through gritted teeth. I wrap my arms around his waist and push him into his house. He trips on his feet and lands on his ass. I raise my hand, telling him to stay there.

Then I close the door just as Natalie yells, “He’s lost it!”

I turn to her and in my mind, I punched her—twice; one on her perfect nose and one on her perfect pouty lips. But in reality, I raise my chin and stand toe to toe with her. “He’s allowed to lose it,” I yell over the fireworks, my voice breaking in and out. “And you need to leave. Now! Before I call the cops.”

She rolls her eyes. “For what? Domestic violence?”

“Trespassing.” I point a finger into her chest. “Fuck. Off.”

I wait at the top of the stairs, arms crossed, while she gathers her shit into a pile on top of her car. Josh’s front door opens and keys are thrown, I assume hers, but I don’t get a chance to ask because he’s running down the stairs toward her. I chase after him, trying to get him to stop. He stands in front of her while a single firework goes off for the last time. Now we’re surrounded by nothing but still, dead, air. “You’re fucking insane,” she says to him. He doesn’t respond, just storms past her and opens the toolbox in the tray of his truck. He pulls out a board, flips it in his hand and then raises it above his head…