when he kills things – I hate it when he tries to. I scream, but that doesn’t work. He likes that. When I’m scared. When I scream. My friend Carrie says this makes him a psychopath – some kind of monster, she says, but she doesn’t really know him. Not like I do. He always feels sorry – I tell her – he feels so sorry, after. After killing animals? Carrie scoffs. Well, he should!
There’s more, but I haven’t told her what he does to me.
The thing is, he doesn’t mean it.
Like, he knows you’re supposed to drive 25 around school, but he doesn’t care about rules. Sometimes his friends tag along. Daniel and Mason in the backseat for lunch and we all go to the drive-through and then eat in his car out front with the music blasting. It’s fine. It’s fun. Sometimes he takes me alone to his house. I always come back hungry on those days but -
Melanie starts to go and then she turns back. “I can write it for you, if you want.”
“What?”
“Your narrative. I’m just saying. I can make up a story for you.”
“Like what? What would you say?”
“That time you ‘overcame an obstacle’ -- lamest prompt in the world. There’s a million ways to lie about that.”
“What do you think my obstacle is?” I ask her and it comes out snarky – like she’s challenging me or something, but you know what? I say it again because all of the sudden I actually want to know. Don’t we all?
“What’s my problem?” I whisper.
Melanie doesn’t hear me because instead of answering she starts making up crazy shit.
“How about: once you found a golden egg and kept it and it cracked into a dragon and you had to decide whether to tell your parents or not.”