Delicate Monsters Read online

  Emerson took a deep breath. Promised himself he wouldn’t get angry. “Why’re you eating that crap?”

  Miles shrugged. “Hungry.”

  “You’re gonna get sick.”

  Miles shrugged again, skinny shoulders rising up with the sort of ennui he was known for. Fifteen going on fifty, Emerson knew three things to be true about his younger brother: First, he was sickly, something Emerson had come to believe was just a part of his nature the way impulsivity and overthinking were a part of his. Over the years, Miles’s list of diagnosed ailments had grown faster than he had—night terrors, abdominal migraines, separation anxiety, failure to thrive, wheezes, rashes, fevers, impetigo, now possibly this celiac thing. When they were younger, their mom had been blamed for his frailties, but Emerson knew she’d done nothing but try and make him better. He’d testified to that in court.

  The second thing about Miles was that he didn’t like other people and didn’t care to. Perhaps this was the result of their father’s death, eight years prior. It was something that had made Emerson himself go a little crazy. No kid expected his seemingly healthy father to expire without warning one rainy Wednesday night while working on his Mustang in the family garage. And no kid expected to be shielded from the cause of his seemingly healthy father’s death for reasons that had never been fully explained. It wasn’t until years later that Emerson stumbled onto the disturbing truth: His dad hadn’t succumbed to a heart attack or stroke or any kind of accident. No, his death had been a deliberate act, the calculated outcome of starting the engine, attaching a rubber hose to the tailpipe and running it back into the driver’s-side window.

  Lastly, for all his oddities, Emerson felt his younger brother was destined for … something. Greatness? Notoriety? Emerson hadn’t pinpointed it yet, but there was a force within Miles that both awed and frightened him. Emerson wasn’t awed or frightened easily, so these were definitely feelings he took note of.

  “How was school?” Emerson asked, walking into the kitchen to pour a glass of water from the tap. He figured he needed to drink at least a gallon or two to even think about functioning in the morning. “Didn’t see you all day.”

  “I was there,” Miles said, and although Emerson waited, no further elaboration came. That was the extent of their communication. A few minutes later, Miles went pale. He gripped his stomach, slid from the barstool, and bolted for the bathroom. He didn’t come out again. He probably wouldn’t for a long time. Emerson cleaned the kitchen and put the dishes away so their mom wouldn’t have to when she got back from her shift at the nursing home. He owed her that. He owed her more. He and Miles didn’t have much after their father’s death, but what they did was the result of her work ethic, her ability to move forward and not look back.

  Finishing with the last of the dishes, Emerson went to the small room he shared with Miles and closed the door. He lay on a sagging twin bed. He turned the ceiling fan on high.

  His head spun from the Stoli and the heat.

  Despair took many forms in this room. In shadows and memories best left forgotten. In shame, dark and cloying. Tonight despair came for Emerson cloaked in the knowledge that he’d have to get up and do the whole school thing all over again tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. The only bright spot in Emerson’s life, besides basketball, was May—the girl, not the month.

  Thinking of her, the way her body curved and the way he liked it, Emerson slid his pants off, then his boxers down. He longed for a real connection with May, of course. He wanted Friday night dates and lazy afternoon sex and whispered phone calls after curfew. He wanted those things with a need as bright and frantic as life itself, but tonight Emerson chased simpler dreams, using his hand and his loneliness to lope dutifully after brief fantasy and even briefer pleasure.

  He longed mostly for the sleep that would come after.

  chapter three

  It was the third day of school when Sadie got called in to the vice principal’s office to discuss her educational “strategy.” As if educating her might be akin to warfare, requiring hawkish tactics and well-planned maneuvers. Although considering what she’d done to get kicked out of her last school, that approach might not be unwarranted. Sadie wondered what Sun Tzu might have to say on the matter.

  Practice dissimulation, and you will succeed.

  There was no doubt this meeting was going to be a bitch and a half, but Sadie was glad to be attending alone and without her mother, who liked to make a big showy production out of everything and get lawyers involved. Sadie wasn’t into that. Throwing money around didn’t always mean you got your way, and it didn’t make people respect you. Collateral was more important.

  Leverage, the most.

  Sadie strolled through the halls of Sonoma High at roughly the pace of the continental drift. She coolly eyed the students around her. Did they know who she was or what she’d done? The story of how Roman Bender had nearly died in an unfortunate “prank” last winter had made headlines in New York, but did it make waves out here? She doubted it. The California wine country didn’t keep up with things like prep school hijinks or erudite tradition or how long-term exposure to the snow and subzero temps could lead to heart arrhythmia and frostbit fingers. It didn’t keep up with much at all.

  This whole place was gross, she decided, stagnant in its banality. Not that the fancy boarding schools had been great or anything, but at least there’d been a sense of relevance. There was nothing relevant in Sonoma. Beneath the glitzy wine industry and quaint tourism pooled a dark futility, a cruel sort of helplessness. It lurked in corners. It oozed from hormones.

  When she got to the office, the school secretary waved Sadie right in. She was late, which was good, because if there was one thing Sadie hated, it was being made to wait for others.

  The vice principal was an older woman. Well put together at first glance, but there were other hints Sadie quickly picked up on: the frayed hem of her houndstooth jacket, a plastic travel mug with a cracked lid that left ring stains on the fake wood-grain desk, a brown-bag lunch she hadn’t bothered to refrigerate. Sadie felt both disgust and disappointment. Not for herself, but for the world as a whole. If this woman, with her budget lifestyle and bureaucracy headaches, was meant to be inspirational or, worse, aspirational, it might be better for everyone involved if Russia or North Korea or someone just dropped a bomb on the whole damn place. Put them all out of their misery. American exceptionalism was a mass delusion, Sadie thought. A real sickness. Unless you defined exceptionalism as the ability to bargain shop at Ross and eat Lunchables.

  The vice principal prattled on for a bit, first making changes to Sadie’s class schedule, then dropping buzzwords like “accountability” and “opportunity” and “appropriate disciplinary action.” Sadie made sure to nod along a few times, but she wasn’t listening, not really. Not until she heard the words “mandated counseling.”

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “One of your conditions for going here and not Birchwood is that you attend weekly counseling sessions.”

  Birchwood was the nearby continuation school. AKA fuckup city.

  Sadie narrowed her eyes. “Counseling with who?”

  The vice principal sat back in her chair. “The school has a psychologist on site. Or you can see a private therapist. Whichever you prefer.”

  She thought about it. A private therapist meant letting her mom pick one for her. Sadie envisioned sitting across from some large-breasted woman who made her fortune listening to rich matrons bemoan the state of their vaginas. Worse, she’d probably have a water feature in her office and want to talk about chakras.

  “I’ll see the school one,” she said quickly. “Whoever it is.”

  “Fine.” She was handed a vellum card with the name THOMAS MACDOUGALL, PH.D. printed on it. “You can make your own appointment.”

  “Okay.”

  When Sadie didn’t move, the vice principal leaned forward and made a scoot scoot gesture with her hands as the
bell rang. “Have a good day, Miss Su.”

  *

  Dumped back out into the bustling hallway with a printout of her new schedule, Sadie decided she’d make an effort to go to class. That was a big deal for her, effort. If she was genuinely good at something, then she shouldn’t have to try. But there was a drumbeat of warning running through her head. It was a soft sound, rolling like the distant wind. The drumbeat told her to Stay the course. Be good. Be patient.

  It whispered, You’re going to shine.

  It whispered, Just you wait and see.

  Sadie ducked her head and ran right into Emerson Tate. Her childhood friend.

  Or something.

  Always the golden boy, now a good foot taller than her and handsome in a dumb kind of way, Emerson looked as surprised as she felt. She didn’t show it, though. Unlike him.

  “Sadie,” he said in a deep voice, rubbing his hand along his stubbled chin before repeating the motion. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “You have? Why?”

  “I wanted to say hi. It’s been … a while. I didn’t recognize you at first.”

  Sadie frowned. She hadn’t expected him to recognize her. In fact, she’d sort of counted on it.

  “You look different,” she told him.

  Emerson shifted his weight around. “Yeah, sure. I’m a lot taller. Bigger. Six four. Two hundred twenty pounds.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  They stared at each other.

  “I play basketball,” he said lamely. “Varsity.”

  “Oh.” Sadie let her eyes sparkle. “So I guess you like niggers now?”

  “Wh-what?” Emerson fumbled for his words and Sadie watched his cheeks go red.

  She shrugged. “You like basketball, I figure it’s a given. I mean, I don’t care. I don’t have a problem with it. It’s just, I remember the way you used to talk about them.”

  He went even redder. “Well, what are you doing back here? I haven’t seen you in forever.”

  “My folks sent me away to boarding school. Only I did some bad things and it turned out boarding school wanted me even less than my parents. So here I am.”

  “Our senior year,” Emerson said.

  “Our senior year,” she echoed.

  He rubbed his chin again. Looked more uncomfortable than ever. “Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you ’round then, Sadie.”

  “Why I guess you will,” she said smoothly.

  chapter four

  Et tu, Brute?

  There were many things about starting his sophomore year at Sonoma High that dissatisfied Miles Tate. The noise. The crowds. The interminable teasing. Last year a group of guys he didn’t even know had decided the soft features of his face and overgrown blond hair reminded them of a certain online porn star best known for her athletic blow jobs. Rather than admiration, this resemblance earned him nothing but torment. Deep Throat, they’d whisper at him in the hall, in the classroom, in the lunchroom, at the urinals. Show us how you take it. Suck me. Show me. Do it. You know you want to.

  Well, no. Miles didn’t think he wanted to. The act seemed like a messy one and more trouble than it was worth. But those hissing words had shown up again, on the very first morning of classes, along with a crudely drawn image of a jizzing dick, which was scrawled across his locker door. In truth, the drawing more closely resembled an earthworm eating a stick than anything anatomical, but the intent was clear. Miles chose to deal with it the way he dealt with everything: through brooding silence and heavy resignation.

  The newest and worst burden of the year, however, was gym class. His advisor had pulled him aside and informed him that he needed PE units in order to graduate. Miles had had no idea. He didn’t appreciate what he did with his own body being a requirement for anything, but apparently the matter wasn’t up for discussion. In a flustered haste he’d agreed to take fencing, which was a sport he knew nothing about, other than the fact that he’d get to wear a mask.

  So now here he was, standing in the Old Gym, sword in hand. Well, a foil, really, and there was a knob on the tip to keep him from killing somebody. The instructor had left the room in search of a missing attendance sheet, and the other fourteen students milled about, looking equally lost and incompetent. They all moved awkwardly in their cushioned uniforms, mesh helmets in hands or on their heads. Sunbeams and dust motes swirled around their bodies like auras.

  “En garde!” A girl he didn’t know lunged forward suddenly and poked Miles in the side with her foil. Hard. It didn’t hurt, but he felt a little like barfing, which was how he usually felt when people talked to him or worse, touched him. Still, Miles realized she was being friendly and he, melodramatic. He lifted his own foil up and let her jab at him some more.

  Soon those around them had paired off as well. The small gym rattled with the cacophony of shoe-squeak on glossed wood and ring-song of metal on metal. The more Miles parried, the harder the girl thrust, but seeing as he wasn’t one for competition or conventional gender roles, he was content to stay on defense.

  She jabbed him again and again. In the shoulder. The chest. Twice in the ass. Miles danced on the balls of his feet, mostly for show, but also for reasons not totally clear even to himself. The more he moved, the more it felt like his nerves had become sentient, sprouting jittery little minds of their own. He grew sweaty, then short of breath. These were symptoms he attributed to physical exertion, but when his head began to buzz and his skin went hot and tingly, he understood through a flutter-flap of panic that something else was happening.

  Something purposeful.

  And real.

  Miles stumbled back from the girl and clutched his chest. He felt his heart pounding. He felt people staring. He needed air. Ripping his helmet off and letting it fall to the floor, he strode for the nearest fire exit. The panic bar gave under his weight and the door flew open. No alarm sounded.

  The emergency was all in his head.

  Stepping out onto the blacktop and into the sunlight, Miles inhaled deeply. He worked to force oxygen to his extremities, his brain, but the heat inside him flared. He was burning up, serious internal combustion. With a gasp, he tipped his head back. Stared at the too-bright sky.

  He knew what was coming.

  He knew.

  This vision came down with shooting star speed. It rolled over him, faster than a wish, leaving him sick and sweaty and trembling. The details of what he was seeing were hazy, hazier than usual, indistinct surges of chaos and death. Miles floated choppily in his own consciousness, somewhat aware that the other students from his fencing class had streamed outside to gawk at him, foils still in hand, their eyes wide, their laughter sharp.

  Part of him was embarrassed and part of him didn’t care because by now a low pulse of electricity was spiraling up his spine and radiating through his limbs, and all Miles wanted was to see. But as more and more of his classmates appeared, a swirling parade of white cotton and steel, Miles felt the innermost core of his gut rumble with the pinpoint conviction that whatever was going to happen, whatever pain or tragedy the future held and wanted him to know about beforehand, was directly related to him and the people around him. To the blades in their hands and the curiosity in their minds.

  Somewhere, somehow, in the near future, Miles knew, some of them would be winners, some losers, and others, like himself, would be asked to fall on their swords.

  chapter five

  Saturday afternoon was sunny, clear, and a parade of hot air balloons dotted the blue sky like ornaments on a tree, but there was still something undeniably morbid about driving around in the same ’64 dynasty green Mustang convertible his father had offed himself in. It was a feeling Emerson got every time he slid behind the wheel. And it wasn’t even the dying part that made it so damn awful. It was the fact that this was the precise spot where his father had decided being dead for himself was better than being alive for his wife and sons.

  Maybe there were times suicide made sense. When the immoral choice was
moral. Emerson could believe that. But his father was no Walter White. He hadn’t been terminally ill or struggling with addiction or living a dual life where he’d accrued huge gambling debts that he couldn’t pay off. There’d been no sacrifice in his actions. Only weakness. And his pain, however deep it had been, hadn’t disappeared with his death. He’d simply passed it on to those who’d loved him.

  That’s what really got to Emerson.

  The selfishness of it all.

  And yet …

  And yet the Mustang was a car that no one in the surviving Tate family could bear to get rid of. The thought of seeing someone else cruising through town in it, filling it with their own life, their own memories, when all they had was their grief and their bitterness, was unfathomable. So Emerson’s mom had kept the car, driving it only once when they lost the house on Outlook and were forced into the apartment complex. Over the years, she’d kept it covered, if not serviced, and for that Emerson was grateful. When he’d turned sixteen and gotten his provisional license, he’d gone to her and asked for the key.

  She’d cried. She always cried.

  “You look like him,” she said. “Oh, baby.”

  Emerson had clenched his jaw, had strained to hold his own sorrow at bay. She’d been through so much over the years, not only as a widow, but as a mother accused of terrible, terrible things, the worst. “I know.”

  Then she’d given him the key, kissed him on the cheek, and made him promise to drive his brother around. Emerson was fine with that, but Miles never needed a ride anywhere and it was strange how not needing something could feel like a rejection.