I turned just as someone leaned over me. Dad? But he was out of town.

Jerked from the bed, I stumbled. Something was stuffed into my mouth as I opened it to scream – I gagged and couldn’t make a sound or spit it out. I thrashed and kicked but couldn’t get loose. Couldn’t move my wrists. I was shoved to my knees at the foot of the bed, and then he was gone. I tried to stand up, run, grab my phone to dial 911, but I was stuck.

My wrists were tied. I strained to scrape the binding loose with my fingernails, but it was too tight. Plastic. It was plastic. I pulled against the restraint, but it didn’t budge. I tried to rotate my hands to see if I could swivel them free, or fold them and twist them free, like Houdini, but the plastic just cut into my wrists. My hands were too big. Mom said my hands and feet were like the big, floppy feet of a puppy that would be a ginormous dog.

From her room down the hall, my mother screamed. I froze. She called my name. ‘Landon!’ There was a crash and a thud and I struggled harder, not caring if it hurt. I couldn’t answer her. I couldn’t tell her I was coming. My tongue shoved against the cloth in my mouth.

‘What did you do to him? What did you do to him? LANDON!’

There were more words, the sound of a slap – an open palm against bare skin, more screams, and I heard them all but they didn’t register because there was a buzzing in my ears and my blood swishing and my heart pounding. She was crying. ‘Oh, God. God. Don’t. No. No-no-no-no-no!’ Screaming. ‘NO! NO-NO-NO!’ Crying. ‘Landon …’ I yanked harder, pulling the bed with me, all the way to the door, my feet bracing against the floor, my legs straining. The bed ran into the dresser, wedged against the wall. I couldn’t feel my hands.

I couldn’t hear her any more. I couldn’t hear her. The rag in my mouth finally worked free. ‘Mom! MOM!’ I screamed. ‘DON’T TOUCH HER! MOM!’ My wrists were on fire. Why wasn’t I strong enough to break these stupid f**king plastic bands? I screamed until I was hoarse and kept screaming.

Gunshot.

I stopped breathing. My limbs shook. My chest quaked. I couldn’t hear anything beyond my heartbeat. My blood. My thick swallows. My useless sobs. ‘Mom … Mommy …’

I puked. Passed out. The sun came up. My wrists and arms were covered in blood. The zip-ties on my wrists were covered in blood. It was all brown, dried, itchy.

I called for my mother, but I’d screamed too much. A rasp came from my throat, nothing more. Useless. I was useless. Fucking, f**king, f**king useless.

You’re the man of the house while I’m gone. Take care of your mother.

‘Do you want me to leave?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ I answered.

25

Landon

The number of people in my graduating class was forty-three.

That number could have easily been forty-two. I’d been one of the projected dropouts since the first day of high school. Before that, probably. In this town, there was no such thing as a fresh start; we carried our histories year to year like lists of impairments pinned to our shirts. The only reason I crossed that gym floor in a cap and gown was the man in the third row of the bleachers, sitting next to my father.

My classmates and I filed through the side door as our band – minus the senior members – played the processional. Seated in a matching cluster of royal blue, we fidgeted as Mrs Ingram, our esteemed principal, assured us of our bright and shiny futures. I knew she was full of shit, and so were her optimistic claims. I stared at the two vertical lines set between her eyes, permanent from decades of hostile glares at unacceptable students. Those lines made her graduation-speech grin look sinister.

Many of my brainwashed classmates – those who’d scored near-perfect grades since learning to print their names – thought they’d skip off to college in the fall and perform just as well, just as easily. Delusional dumbasses. My eighth-grade prep-school courses were more challenging than almost anything demanded of us here. Getting into a good school wasn’t winning the lottery. It was winning the right to work your ass off for the next four years.

As valedictorian, Pearl gave the expected speech about opportunities and choices and making the world a better place – she actually used that phrase: make the world a better place. As one of the ‘top ten per cent’ of our class – four people – she’d earned automatic admittance into the state university of her choice, while I’d scraped up a probationary admittance to the same campus she chose. I liked Pearl more than I liked the majority of people sitting around me, and I had no doubt that she knew how to work hard. I just hoped she wasn’t betting on improving the world.

On the second page of the commencement programme, my name was listed at the bottom of the first column. My last name was the alphabetical midpoint of my class – student number twenty-two of forty-three. The placement was fitting. As far as almost everyone here was concerned, I was average. Mediocre. Not exceptional, but not a total fail, though some – like Principal Ingram, believed that remained to be seen.

When my name was called, I crossed the worn oak floor in front of the band, staring over my principal’s shoulder at the giant fish – our renowned mascot – depicted in painstaking detail on the far wall. In mascot form, its expression was supposed to look aggressive, intent on winning, but it seriously just looked like a stupid, pissed-off fish.

I’d been determined to cross the stage staring down the bitch who’d made my life hell for almost four years. To show her she hadn’t broken me, whether or not that was true.