Tethered Page 2

  Emmet was my best friend’s older brother, but he was a lot like my brother, too. We argued a lot and he was always yelling at me not to touch his stuff, but like the skateboard, I always did anyway. Even though I had no business being on that skateboard, when Benny pushed me Emmet dropped the basketball he had been bouncing around in the street and took off after Benny.

  “Don’t ever touch my sisters!” Emmet yelled after he bloodied Benny’s lip. Benny ran away crying while I tried hard not to cry. Boy did my skinned knees and elbows burn.

  “Are you okay, Donya?” Emmy asked, bending over me. She pushed strands of loose hair off of my forehead.

  “I hate that kid!” I snarled and pushed myself to my feet.

  “Come on, brat,” Emmet said. He picked up the skateboard in one hand and took my hand with his other. “Mom will give you a Band-Aid.”

  Emmy took my other hand and we headed across the grass to the house.

  “What in the lord’s name happened to you?” Samantha Grayne asked with her hands on her hips. She was wearing a flowery apron that I really liked. I liked her aprons. She always looked like a TV mom with her perfect blonde hair and big green eyes. But she wasn’t like a TV mom. She was kind of loopy.

  “Benny pushed her off of Emmet’s skateboard,” Emmy said, stomping a foot. “I hate him!”

  “I told you to stay off of my board anyway,” Emmet said, plucking me square in the forehead.

  “Ow,” I murmured, rubbing the spot.

  “Did you kick his ass?” Samantha asked her son.

  “Yes, I kicked his ass,” he said, standing up straighter.

  “Don’t curse,” she admonished and then put her hand on my shoulder. “Come on, honey. Let’s go get you cleaned up. You should feel blessed that you have a brother like Emmet.”

  Blessed? He just plucked me in the forehead!

  I stayed for dinner, like I did most days after school. I had my own place at the table, between Emmy and her dad Fred at the head of the table. He talked to me like I was one of his kids. Besides Emmy and sometimes Emmet, he was my favorite. My other “brothers and sisters” were okay, but they were so much older than me. The oldest brother, Freddy was about to graduate from college already. Charlotte was only a couple of years younger than him and Lucy was about to turn sixteen, so she was a little bit closer in age to Emmy, and Emmet and I, but honestly, I didn’t understand those mystifying teenage years. So, I didn’t spend much time with her. I spent most of my time with Em and Em.

  After dinner, Samantha packed up a bag full of food for me to take home for my parents. My dad wouldn’t be home from work until it was almost my bedtime and my mom didn’t cook much. She didn’t clean much either. She didn’t do much of anything but sleep and watch television. Sam said my mom was sick, but I never saw any tissues or anything, so I wasn’t sure about that.

  Sam told Emmet to walk me home. He argued. He was tired of me and Emmy. He put up with us all afternoon and even beat up Benny for me. Why couldn’t Lucy walk me home, he had whined.

  “Boy, if you don’t pick up that bag and walk that girl home I will slap your head sideways,” Samantha threatened.

  Emmet huffed and he puffed and picked the bag up.

  “Can I walk with them?” Emmy asked, hanging by the door.

  “You need to go take a bath and get ready for bed,” her mother said. “You look like hell. How do you get so dirty? What happened to your hair anyway?”

  Emmy rolled her eyes. “I like my hair in a side ponytail, mom. You always put it where I don’t like it. So I fixed it.”

  “Well, it looks stupid,” Samantha spat out.

  “Your shirt looks stupid,” Emmy sassed. “Nobody likes stripes anyway.”

  “Let’s go,” Emmet growled, snatching up my hand. We stepped outside and the door closed behind us. I could hear Emmy and her mom arguing a little bit.

  Emmet was quiet. He was probably still mad about the skateboard and then having to walk me home. He always got stuck walking me home. It made my chest feel funny to know that he was mad at me.

  “I’m sorry you always have to walk me home,” I said quietly.

  He looked down at me with green eyes. “It’s not your fault.”

  “I come over every day. I can maybe not come over so much and you won’t have to walk me home every day.”

  We were quiet again until we were almost to my house.

  “You have to keep coming over,” he said when he started to talk again.

  “Why?” I asked.

  We stopped at the end of the walkway to my front door. He handed me the bag. It was a little heavy, but I tried to pretend that I could handle it.

  “You’re special to my family,” he said. Then he plucked me in the forehead. “And you’re kind of special to me, too.”

  He pointed to the house. I walked up the sidewalk, up the two steps and pushed open my front door. My mom was sleeping on the couch with the television on. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked at me and smiled, but it wasn’t a real smile. It was one of those smiles people give to kids when they really don’t feel like smiling at all.

  I looked back at Emmet standing on the sidewalk. He made a waving motion like I should go in the house. He looked like he was ready to go. I waved, but just before I closed the door, he shouted “And stay off of my skateboard!”

  Emmet had made my chest feel funny again when he told me I was special to him, but it was a different kind of funny. It made me feel like giggling and crying at the same time. I never forgot the day he said that and the way it made me feel and the way his green eyes looked at me. Like I was special.

  Special or not, I didn’t stay off of his skateboard.

  Chapter Two

  By the time I was ten, I knew my mom was depressed. I knew what it meant to be depressed. It wasn’t one of those words that went over my head anymore. I couldn’t stand to be in the house with her. I loved her, but being in the house with her felt like being in a dead house. When my dad was home it wasn’t much different. I didn’t think he was depressed, but I think he gave up on my mom and it just made him sad. He didn’t know what to do with a growing young girl. It was easy for both of my parents to let the Graynes take over and do what they were incapable or unwilling to do, and raise me.

  The summer after my seventh birthday, I started going away with Emmy and her family. Her mother is originally from Louisiana, but her dad is originally from New Jersey. They kept Sam’s family home down south and they traveled there every summer and some holidays. Sam’s family was still down there, and her best friend still lived close to her childhood home. Her children were the same ages as Emmy’s older brothers and sisters, and they were all good friends. The first time I went down there, I felt a little out of place, but after a few days I was just another one of the kids in the great big family.

  It was my third summer in Louisiana. Emmy’s cousins Tabitha and Mayson also made the trip from New Jersey. I got along with them fine, but they all wanted to do girly things. I liked girly things just as well as they did, but I liked playing football with the boys, tinkering around on cars with the older guys, and fishing. Those girls wouldn’t touch a worm if their lives depended on it.

  “You got your pole?” Fred asked me early one morning as we packed up to head to a nearby fishing hole. There was a great big lake right in their back yard, but Fred said he couldn’t fish in peace there between Samantha and the steady stream of kids. And boy was there always a lot of kids. Sometimes I wasn’t even sure where they all came from.

  “Yeah, but why did you buy me pink?” I pouted, throwing the pole into the back of the big truck.

  “Because you’re a girl,” Emmet sneered.

  I took a swing at him and missed.

  “I picked it out,” Fred Jr. said, pulling the bill down on my hat, partially blinding me. He was twenty-five years old already, and was getting married in a couple of weeks. Charlotte was twenty-three and getting married in the fall. Both of them felt more lik
e a third set of parents rather than siblings.

  “We’ll buy you a new pole for next time,” Fred promised, fixing my hat. “What does the princess want?”

  I looked at Emmet’s pole. “Green, like Emmet’s.”

  “Copycat,” Emmet said, climbing into the back seat of the truck.

  I followed after him, lost my grip, and started to fall, but his hand was around my wrist. I regained my footing and my hold on the truck and let him pull me in.

  “Clumsy,” he teased, pushing my hat down again.

  I blew a frustrated breath out and fixed my hat and turned my head to glare at him, but he was smiling at me and I couldn’t be mad when Emmet smiled at me. I tried not to smile back and looked forward as Fred and Freddy climbed into the front seat.

  It was very early in the morning. The sun was just beginning to rise when we reached our fishing spot. I was anxious to start. I loved fishing, ever since Fred took me when I was eight. I tried to convince Emmy many times to come with us, but the few times she did she only scared the fish away and made her brothers mad. I stopped asking.

  After a couple of hours of fishing, I had to pee. Too many cans of soda. There weren’t any bathrooms out there in the swampy woods. When I first realized that when I was eight, I was horrified. So were the guys. They didn’t know what to do about a little girl that had to pee in the middle of the woods. I learned quickly that if I wanted to keep going on fishing trips, I had to act like it wasn’t a big deal, find a place away from everyone else and go pee.

  “Going to the little girl’s room,” I announced.

  “Don’t go too far,” Fred said over his shoulder.

  “I know,” I said and marched on.

  I walked through the woods for a couple of minutes. Like an animal, I tended to go back to the same spot to do my business. The thought made me snicker as I dropped my pants and squatted with my back to a tree. I hated not wiping, but I thought it would feel weird to walk into the woods carrying a plastic bag and a roll of toilet paper. It was bad enough I was a girl. I didn’t have to keep reminding the guys of that. I always took a shower when I got back to the house though, which made me think of guys. They don’t wipe. They just put it back and go on through their day. It made me wonder if they smelled like pee.

  “Ew,” I muttered to myself as I zipped up my jeans. I was grossed out about thinking about a potential pee smell and the thing they peed out of. I knew what it was called. I just didn’t like saying it. Or thinking it.

  Nasty.

  I kicked dirt and leaves over the area I was just squatting in. This made me snicker again. Just like an animal. Pee and cover it up. Like a cat.

  I started back towards the pond, thinking about my mom. I missed her, and my dad, even though we didn’t exactly have a nice family relationship like other families. I hoped that my mom was eating and that my dad wasn’t drinking too much. I was lost in such deep thought about my parents that I wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking.

  There was a big root sticking out of the ground. I had tripped over it several times before. I usually know to step over it, but this was one of the times I forgot about it. I tripped. I didn’t put my hands out fast enough to brace myself. I hit my head on the rock that was the size of a human head. Why was that rock so big and why was it in the woods? Were there rocks all over the woods and I never took note before?

  Duh. There are rocks everywhere.

  I felt the blood trickling down the side of my head as I lay on my back staring up at the canopy of trees. I didn’t remember rolling over, but I had. I was tired. Of course I was tired. I had awoken super early after only sleeping a few hours. The girls and I were up late watching movies. My head didn’t hurt, but there was a weird pressure where I had hit it.

  Oh, my god, I am so tired. I can take a quick nap and they won’t even know I’m gone.

  I closed my eyes.

  *~*~*

  “Donya!”

  Someone was shaking me. I moaned and swatted at them. My hand hit a forehead. Someone cursed. Oh, I was so telling on Emmet for saying shit. As soon as I woke up from my nap.

  “Leammelone,” I murmured.

  “No, you brat,” he growled.

  I felt arms slip under me. I heard a soft grunt and then I felt myself being lifted off of the ground. As Emmet carried me, I tried to tell him to stop and put me down. All of the moving around was making me sick to my stomach, and I couldn’t even open my eyes to throw up!

  I tried really hard and after what felt like a very long time, I made my eyes open.

  “Emmet,” I mumbled, looking up into his face. He looked scared. Why was he so scared?

  “What?” he dared a glance down at me with those green eyes.

  “I’m gonna…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I puked on Emmet’s chest. He was going to be so mad, but I couldn’t help it.

  “Great,” he muttered. “Dad! Freddy!” He shouted for the Freds. The Freds. I tried to laugh, but it came out choked. It was then that I noticed the pain in my head. It hurt. A lot.

  Fear slammed into me hard. I was hurt. Emmet was carrying me, and Emmet looked scared. I tried not to cry, but my vision was blurring with tears. Emmet stopped walking and dropped to his knees. Very carefully, he put me on the ground and shouted for his dad again.

  “Hey, no crying,” he demanded.

  “You’re only thirteen,” I said through my tears. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

  “I just did. Now stop it.” He wiped my face with his hand.

  I heard running and then shouts of alarm. They left all of the fishing gear and rushed me into the truck. Emmet was being very nice. He had one arm wrapped around me in the back of the truck and kept talking to me and making me answer him. Fred told him to keep me talking and he did an annoyingly good job at it. I just wanted to go back to sleep, but he kept making me talk and if I didn’t answer, he pinched me. Okay. Maybe he wasn’t being that nice.

  I had a mild concussion. My mom seemed to come out of her depression long enough to freak out over the phone. Sam fussed over me and yelled at the boys for letting me walk off on my own. Emmy ditched her cousins and curled up with me in my hospital bed. When I was allowed to leave the hospital, Sam made me stay in my room. I argued with her, but she got her way. I was stuck in a first floor bedroom while the other kids played outside. Emmy spent a lot of time with me, but I felt bad that she couldn’t be outside and I would make her leave. Others came and went, but the best visit ever was the first night out of the hospital. Emmet came into the room with a bowl of ice-cream.

  “I snuck this for you,” he said quietly and threw a glance at the door. “It’s mom’s secret stash of mint chocolate chip.”

  “If she knows you found her ice-cream and took some, she’s going to kick your ass,” I said wearily.

  “Don’t say ass,” he said and then shrugged. “I don’t care if I get in trouble. Here.”

  He held out the bowl. I looked at the bowl and then I looked at his face. He was smiling at me again. He winked. I took the bowl.

  I dug in and then moaned happily when I tasted a big spoonful. I smiled at Emmet. After I swallowed it, I thanked him.

  “Sure,” he said. “It’s nothing.”

  I ate a little bit more ice-cream and he watched me. It felt a little weird having him watch me eat it. I offered him some. He took the spoon and ate a little bit before passing it back to me. I don’t know why, but it made my chest feel all funny again, like it did that time when he told me I was special. There had been a few other times that it happened with Emmet, but none of those times really stood out as much as that first time, and now this time. It’s not like I didn’t share with the Grayne kids. We were always picking at someone else’s treat or taking a taste of something, but this time felt different.

  “How did you find me?” I asked Emmet after a few more bites of ice-cream.

  He looked at me weird, like I just asked a stupid question.

  “I mean in the wo
ods. How did you find me?”

  I had a sneaky suspicion he had spied on me while I peed. The thought made me mad. I would dump my whole bowl of ice-cream on his head if he said he did that. I know some boys in my grade would do something nasty like that.

  “When you didn’t come right back, I went looking for you,” he said, and took the spoon from me. He ate some and passed it back. “I don’t know how I found you. I just did. I just had a feeling and followed it.”

  I didn’t quite understand that at that time. I can’t say I ever really understood it fully later.

  “Thank you for finding me,” I said softly as I stared down into the ice-cream.

  “You’re welcome, brat.”

  “I hope this doesn’t mean I can’t go fishing anymore,” I said a moment later and passed him more ice-cream.

  “We’ll have to sneak past mom, but I’m sure dad won’t mind.”

  “What if this happens again?” I worried.

  Emmet smiled at me and tapped my nose. He took the empty bowl from me and stood up.

  “Then I’ll find you again,” he said and slipped out the door.

  Chapter Three

  I watched my mom shuffle around the kitchen, making herself a cup of hot tea. She wasn’t in a talking mood today, but at least she was up and moving around.

  “Mom, do you need anything before I go?” I asked her.

  She looked at me briefly and shook her head.

  Her hair needed a brush, badly. She had lost so much weight that her clothes were hanging off of her body. She didn’t smell too good either, but what was I supposed to do? I used to try to help her with all of those things, but she was so difficult about it. I pushed and pushed and one day she snapped and slapped the shit out of me. Right across my face. The noise had been so loud, it echoed off of the walls of her bedroom and in my ears for several minutes. I didn’t push her again.