Free Bite Me by Donaya Haymond Page A

was ten. I’d decided one day that there are five main types of interests that define personalities, at least when it comes to school. There are the academics, the artists, the athletes, the accessorizers, and the (forgive me) assholes. Most people I knew were two of these, with one dominating. I was an athletic academic, my parents were artistic academics, while Matt seemed to be an athletic artist. Matt. . .
I felt the need to hug something, and reached out from under the blankets to grab Ozzie, a worn black toy dog with floppy limbs. It was my favorite stuffed animal. Mom gave it to me when I was five, after I lost my first tooth. Mom. . .
No matter how I tried, the same thoughts always returned. Whether I began with life, science, philosophy, counting sheep, or deciding what to wear tomorrow, it always ended with DadMattMom. Round and round in circles. DadMattMom. DadMattMom. My mind kept ducking something it couldn’t bear to contemplate, but landed straight in another painful subject.
DadMattMom. DadMattMom.
MomMomMomMomMomMomMOMMOMOMOM.
After the three of us had stopped going into hysterics, Dad had asked Mom if she wanted to let her family and the school staff know. Her reply whispered and sighed in my ears. “I think. . . not yet. I can’t. I need to get used to it first and not have a dozen people watching my every move. I don’t want sympathetic unhelpfuls being the theme of every conversation. Worse, people will realize that you must have it too. And they will talk. Who had it first? What did they do to bring it upon themselves? . . . Not now. It will have to come, but I want it to be as far away as it can be.”
I once again experienced the sense of being full of liquid sloshing around inside. When this happened I was sure that in a moment I would dissolve completely and flow in all different directions. But my eyes were made of bone, too worn to let out the water that threatened to drown me.
I finally pushed off the covers and left.
The closest thing I had to a plan was the vague idea that I might like some hot chocolate, already-brushed teeth be damned. I tiptoed downstairs, hoping not to disturb my mother, who needed all the rest she could get. Our house has three ‘real’ floors and the loft, which is kind of half a floor within my parents’ room that we use as a library and as Dad’s office. The basement has two rooms; one with our television and DVDs, the other with all the machines, pipes, and things that run a slightly-lower-end-middle-class life of a suburban family. Though the last time I checked, the neighbors didn’t have any large steel cages in their basements.
It was dark except for a dull red glow coming from the living room. When I unthinkingly flicked on the lights there was a surprised squeak. The source of the noise was almost buried in the easy chair–the springs are bad and it tends to engulf anyone of moderate size–with a folded laptop on his lap, and currently shielding his face with his arms. After a few seconds he realized who it was and lowered the arms. Slowly, he said, “Have I embarrassed myself again?”
“Don’t worry, Dad, your ‘eek!’”—I did an exaggerated high-pitched imitation—”is very manly.”
He did a sort of half-smile with the barest glimpse of pointy teeth. Sometimes I mulled over how by the time I was in college we would look like we were the same age, and that I had better start concocting cover stories. Maybe, I thought grimly, I could say that both my parents died of disease and this was my older brother Andy. Nat said he’d start aging eventually, but how many decades would it take before Dad looked like he could be my father? I shivered.
“To ask the extremely obvious, you can’t sleep, Dianne?”
“To state the extremely obvious, especially as this is 1:20 a.m., yes. Are you working?”
Dad stared at the Apple as though willing it to open itself. “In theory.” He was wearing different clothes than from when he had just woken up; I