Evil Maybe

Chapter 9- Max

Wait, Ree, wait!” I plead. I’m not sure what I want her to wait for, only that I need to be with her, if only for a few seconds more.

She stops in the window frame, hesitating. I see a corner of her mouth lift up in a smile, but only for a fleeting second. She turns, one foot still out the door- er, window.

“Yeah?” she says breathlessly, though without a hint of urgency.

I look around for an excuse. My father’s footsteps continue to pound up the stairs. I snatch up a blue-and-gray striped hat and throw it at her.

“Here,” I say forcefully, watching it connect with her shoulder, “It’s, uh, i- It’s cold out there. You’ll freeze to death.” I feel heat rise to my cheeks as I look at the floor sheepishly.

Mercifully, she beams at the hat and puts it on snugly over her ears. I hear a crackle of electricity as a few strands of her hair float up to cling to the wool.

She meets my eyes triumphantly. “You do care if I live or die.”

I look up at her. “No!” I say, as if I was a small child, “I just… don’t like the cold. I thought you might not like it either…?” I silently kick myself.

She giggles, and the look on her face makes it seem as if she’s almost shocked to hear the sound coming out of the mouth, like

it was foreign to her.

“Goodbye, Gearbrain.” Ree said with finality. “Dork,” she murmured under her breath, laughing.

I tried to think of something witty to retort. It came out mangled:

“Err, ack- uh, BYE, SHOCKHEAD,” I choke out.

She erupts into giggles. Sliding out the window, she pulls the hat down even more firmly and gives a small wave. I hear the clink of metal as the window frame clicks into place. That’s odd, I think, that doesn’t happen usually. I blame the clink on her sweatshirt zipper and decide to focus my energy on the more important task at hand- my father storming up the stairs with all his rage brewing inside him.

Thinking quickly, I pick up an old Nintendo DS and the closest book I can get my hands on. I toss the DS on my desk across the room next to the stack of homework I should be doing. I flop down so hard the springy mattress almost flings me back off, but I settle down, rest my head on my headboard and open my book ( The Complete Works of Shakespeare - what a surprise) to a random page just as my dad flings open the door with a slam.

The handle is slightly charred and there is a small indent where the knob meets the wall.

He storms into the room and surveys the scene. His eyes lock on the video game across the room a good six yards from me. He walks, or rather stomps, around the room, trying to find something, though I don’t think he knew what. Hearing a noise

behind me, I turn to see Norman leaning nonchalantly in the doorway, his eyes trailing my father with a kind of lazy curiosity. His hair was kind of rumpled. He noticed my stare and shrugged at me.

My father turns around towards me with a kind of deadly silence.

His icy gaze meets mine. His eyes were equally as cold as his next words:

“What did I hear down there?”

I look at him in fake puzzlement. “Is there something wrong, Father?” I prayed I didn’t sound too guilty.

“I heard a voice up here,” he said. “A female voice. Laughter, to be precise.”

“That was only me, Father.”

“And what exactly were you laughing at?”

“Oh, it’s only the paragraph I just read.”

“It says?”

I look down at the page and read the words I lay eyes on first:

“Ophelia, driven insane by Hamlet’s cruelty and the murder of her beloved father, plunges from a tree branch into the current below…” My voice trails off in fear.

Oops.

My father stares at me as if I’ve just grown two heads.

I laugh awkwardly.

Norman is in silent hysterics in the doorway.

My father shakes his head, almost as if he was trying to erase that thought from his mind. He turns his attention back to me.

“I know what I heard, and it was a female voice. Can you explain this to me?” He growled.

God, I’m awful at thinking on my feet, I think to myself, but I have a plan for this one.

“I was listening to the recording again…” I lie. I pull out my MP3 with the recording of my mother and my sister on it. “I miss them so much,” I say. This much is true

.

My father shows no emotion. “Don’t hang onto them too long. They only weakened our forces with their empathy.”

White hot rage boils inside me. My hatred for my father emerges with a fiery hot passion. I’m tempted to attack right then and there, though I know I could never win against him. Norman has his eyes closed in the doorway, taking deep, angry breaths through gritted teeth. His fists are balled really tight, so that his knuckles are a bright shade of white. He had a special bond with our sister Naomi. The two were inseparable. He didn’t talk to us for 16 days after they died, slinking out at night only for food and to use the bathroom. Eventually he came running into my room crying and I hugged him all night, even though he was older and stronger than I was.

I calm down enough to speak. “Yes, Father. May I please have some privacy now? I have work to do.” My hands tremble harder with every word as it gets harder and harder to control my anger.

“You will not speak to me like that,” he growls, his face turning red. I know I’m in for it, but I can’t seem to stop myself.

“Maybe if you actually had the capacity to love someone, you would let me.”

“I AM YOUR ELDER! You will NOT DISGRACE ME IN MY OWN HOME!”

“Well, it’s my home too dad! Or should I say, Father because you won’t let me call you anything that would make us a normal family!”

I know I’m about to hit his breaking point.

“We are a normal family. Every resident of this building wants to be us. Or at least we would be, if you weren’t such an absolute disgrace to the family name! You may be a Corriner, but no son of mine would act like this,” he spat.

“Maybe if you cared enough to raise me right I wouldn’t hate you this much, and I would be your Picture Perfect ‘son’.”

That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. His stare turns steely. His eyes pierce right through my soul. Absolute hatred radiates through him.

“Norman,” he commands maliciously,

“Get the belt.”

Many lashes and tears later, Norman is sitting on the edge of the bed, holding ice to my bare back, telling me how utterly stupid I am.

“Why, Max? WHY would you do it? You of all people should know the old man’s breaking point,” he scolds.

Breathing shakily, I tell him honestly, “I don’t know what came over me. I just… knew I would have to do something someday.”

I wince in pain as I try to move my hand. Rolling over to face the desk, I sigh and gather enough energy to make one final roll so I can face the ceiling. I feel Norman move his hand to adjust the ice so I can grab it and put it under the small of my back again. Letting out a puff of air to move my hair out of my face, I close my eyes and what I’m sure are the last tears come out. Norman looks at me sympathetically and gets me another tissue. We already have a pile by the bed.

He moves to me and wipes my face again. “Last time we did this you had broken your ankle in Wrestling.” We both laugh at the silly memory, even though it was not so silly at the time. Laughing hurts my back a bit, but it’s worth it.

I compose myself, take a breath, and tell Norman to start bandaging.

Twenty painful minutes later, my mummification is complete.

“Thanks, man,” I breathe. Though it still stings a bit where the belt hit, it feels much better now that it’s clean and bandaged.

I realized that it’s Ree’s fault that I acted like I did.

She’s a bad influence, I tell myself, and let out a little laugh because I know I’m supposed to be the evil one.

“What?” Norman asks.

“It’s nothing,” I say, “It’s just that… I felt really strong standing up to the old man, you know? I couldn’t even tell you why. I guess it just felt nice standing up to him for once.”

He seemed a bit skeptical. “You’d tell me if anyone was bothering you, right? You know I’d take care of them, right?”

I felt less secure and more scared knowing this.

“Yeah, I know. Nobody’s bothering me.” Technically not a lie. Ree wasn’t bothering me.

He gives me a last look and gets up to leave after rumpling my hair and telling me to rest up. “Oh, wait,” he says, turning in the doorway. He tosses me something. I raise my hands just fast enough to catch it. “From the other day. Sorry about that.” He saunters out.

In my hands is a bright red apple.

Smiling, I take a bite and lean back back against the bed again. I suddenly realize that I do that whenever I feel an emotion strongly- love, hatred, tiredness…

I close my eyes. Or at least I try to when something catches my eye. A glimmer. I squint across the room. The glimmer is coming from the window sill. My curiosity gets the better of me and, gingerly, I stand up. Blood rushes to my head and my vision clouds for a minute. I stumble, but quickly regain my balance and continue my slow walk to the window.

As I get closer, I see the glint take shape. A small, thin circle. It seems to be a ring. I pick it up and observe it. On closer inspection, I see that it is, in fact, a ring.

A gold ring.

A gold ring shaped like a lightning bolt.

A gold ring that belonged to the girl that just came through my window.