#in my ideal world neil dies bloody

[alice-the-brave]

“I guess,” Harrington shrugs, “I just – my parents, you know? They like to have things to brag about. Sports are about the only thing I’m good for.”

He says it like it’s easy, like its fact. Like he’s heard it a million times and it doesn’t bother him.

Billy thinks about him dropping out of the swim team, about the way he loiters about the pool, watching his kids and staying as far from the water as he can. Thinks about that last season he had on the basketball team, lackluster and disappointing. Cut short by a concussion that benched him for the last game of the season. The last game of his high school career.

A concussion that Billy gave him.

He remembers, too, the way he had talked about the kids, the way he said ‘people who care about me’ like he didn’t have anyone else. Like there weren’t any other options. Like they were all he had in the whole world.

            “Well, don’t forget about that pretty face of yours, Harrington,” Billy says, looking away, watching the kids, trying to see them the way Harrington might.

Harrington laughs at that, throwing his head back, and Billy can’t help but turn slightly to watch him.

            “Yeah, well, I guess I’ve got that going for me, huh?”

            “Sure,” Billy agrees, leaning over to pass him a coke bottle, “Popeye’s turning green with envy, man.”

Harrington snorts at that, reaching out to punch lightly at Billy’s shoulder before he takes the offered drink. 

“Listen man, it’s not that bad if I ditch the hat,” he says, leaning back against his seat and twisting off the cap, oblivious to the way Billy can’t help but watch the flex of his bare arms as he does, “It’s company policy, but, c’mon, Robin’s my manager and it’s not like she’s gonna call me out.” 

“She’s definitely gonna call you out,” Billy argues, “She likes to watch you suffer too much to let that slide. Besides, isn’t that unhygienic or something?” 

“Dude. You really think a dog bowl shaped hat is keeping any of our hair out of the ice cream?” 

“Hmm, yeah, maybe you should get a hairnet.” 

“A hairnet?” Harrington says, scandalized. “You want me to wear a hairnet? Seriously?” 

Billy can’t help but laugh at him, at the suburban house-wife outrage on his face. 

“Listen, man, it’s not about what I want, it’s about safe business practices.” 

“Does Scoops Ahoy seem like the kind of chain that cares about ‘safe business practices’ to you? Dude, Ballast Bubblegum is radioactive, I swear on my life. Nothing approved by the FDA should be that pink.” 

“Since when have you known what the FDA is?” 

Harrington’s smile turns a little wry at that and he takes a long sip of his coke, throat bared and bobbing. Billy adjusts his sunglasses just to make sure they’re still hiding him. 

“Been reading up on all those government agencies lately,” Harrington says, glancing at his kids again, eyes watchful behind his shades, smile placid, “Kind of required reading at this point. What’s with all the letters, anyway? Couldn’t they just name them something that wasn’t a pain to say in the first place?” 

“They’ve got to keep the uneducated masses from asking questions somehow,” Billy shrugs, “Making everything a pain in the ass to tell apart helps.” 

Harrington turns to him with raised brows, lowering his shades to look at him, expression delighted and surprised. 

“Billy Hargrove, are you telling me you don’t trust the American government? How unpatriotic.” 

Billy snorts at that, fishes a cigarette out of his shorts and lights up. 

Billy doesn’t trust the government for shit. He’s not stupid. Korea, Vietnam. The crazy shit that’s still coming out from the earlier days of the Cold War. He’d have to be braindead to trust the feds. The whole thing’s rotten from top to bottom, from the three letter pigs to Tweedledee and Tweedledum sitting at the corner shop in their cruiser. 

Neil had some cop friends back in California. They didn’t do shit about anything if it wasn’t a bank robbery or pushing someone around if they looked like ‘trouble’ – the criteria for which changed depending on the day of the week. Neil hadn’t even cleaned up his act around them all that much. More than that he knows the kind of laws they keep, the kind of things they do to people like him. The cops might not have been able to arrest him just for existing since ’76 but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t beat him to death for it if anyone ever found out. 

So, no, he’s not particularly a fan of Big Brother or whatever. 

But Harrington? He’s the kind of upstanding member of society that volunteers at the police station or on election campaigns. With his parents’ money and reputation, it wouldn’t be strange if he grew up to be some kind of small-town politician. 

Hawkins is the kind of place that really buys into the whole American Dream shit. Working husbands with stay at home wives and two kids with a dog kind of stuff. Wholesome, normal, respectable stuff. They trust the government here. Buy into that ‘serve and protect’ crap Billy’s always known better than to believe. 

But Harrington looks delighted by Billy’s casual rejection of it all, looks like he’s been dying for someone to agree with, someone who wouldn’t laugh nervously or call his mother. Someone who isn’t in fucking middle school. 

“I’m patriotic as hell,” Billy says, blowing smoke up to the sky, “I love beer and a hot dog as much as the next guy. Just would prefer if Big Brother wasn’t watching me take a piss.” 

“Yeah, okay, a real Yankee Doodle,” Harrington says, rolling his eyes, “Big Brother? That’s uh, from that book, right? With the eye.” 

“1984.” 

“Uh,” Harrington says, brow furrowing, “No? ’85? June 15th, it’s – it’s a Saturday?” 

Billy stares at him for a long moment, cigarette dangling from his lips, blinking slow. 

“The book, Harrington. It’s called 1984.” 

“Oh.” 

Harrington flushes, turns back to the water, fidgeting with his bottle. He’s got that same blush he had when Billy was bothering him at work, before Kathy ruined it, like he’s embarrassed. But not – not in a bad way. The line between embarrassment and humiliation is thin as a knife’s edge for him, but Harrington seems to walk it effortlessly. He knows how to be embarrassed without being particularly ashamed, knows how to not let it hurt. Not let it slip and cut too deep. 

“It was written in the 40’s or something,” Billy explains, “as a warning. About government overreach and war and shit.” 

“Yeah, well, that guy was on to something,” Harrington says, shrugging. 

“What, the FBI giving you trouble, pretty boy?” 

Harrington pauses, bottle halfway to his mouth, and cuts Billy a look over his still lowered glasses. 

Suddenly Billy remembers himself. Remembers that the FBI probably should be giving Harrington trouble. Billy knows that he’s an accessory to murder, at least. Knows that he didn’t seem too bothered about that. The kind of unbothered that makes Billy wonder if he’s been more than an accessory. 

Just because Billy doesn’t want to know doesn’t mean someone else doesn’t. 

They’d buried Neil in a patch of dirt somewhere up north, closer to Roane than Hawkins proper. The only Catholic cemetery around for a while. There had been a few graves there, fresh, dates ending in ‘83. The year before they moved here. The year Will Byers died and was resurrected, a cornfed Christ figure that no one seemed to rejoice except for his mother and his gang of nerdy apostles. 

Billy hadn’t asked about the strange number of corpses that cropped up that year.  

He doesn’t want to know. 

[dwjensen]

Upon Death While Dying... The Last Resolution

January 01, 2018

Being born in the southern hemisphere, the term “Summer Solstice,” its date (21/12) and its history were not significant in my education if my memory serves me correctly. However having lived in Canada for several years, this all changed when this date became the first day of winter and reversed to be the Winter Solstice. The date was also revered by many of our Canadian friends as one to be celebrated for it marked the date of the longest night of the year; its origins steeped in some pagan ritual of seasonal change. While in Australia, its already summer and the longest day of the year (to my knowledge) isn’t something that you celebrate, rather than bitch about the bloody heat that could fry an egg on your forehead. Yet the term Summer Solstice itself means “The Sun Stays Still” and that’s what it felt like on the Solstice just passed.

 R.I.P. Beloved Neils Victor Jensen  April 17, 1928 - December 21, 2017

Laurie and I were driving to the Hospital that morning to receive my latest scan results and to lock in some serious palliative care strategies with the Oncologist. My brother rang me during this hour and a bit trip in to inform me that our Father had passed away early that morning. The highway that we travelled is notorious for black spots of mobile phone reception, so the message took time with recalls and outages until finally all of the details could be relayed with any kind of accuracy. I had no words, just outbursts of sobbing that felt uncontrolled. My stomach pitched with the roll of the road and my heart felt literally torn with a sadness that I hadn’t expected. As we ended the call with a promise to call again that afternoon, the sun did indeed stay still; the longest day was well underway. 

Dad was 89 and had been suffering from “vascular dementia” for several years. He had also been recovering from a fractured femur, suffered in April of this past year and had been gradually deteriorating ever since. During our last face-to-face conversation in April, he had told me with a vulnerability that I had never seen in his eyes before, “I don’t want to die here.” Ironically during one of our last phone conversations not too long ago, I finally told him that I had terminal cancer and bid him my confessional of gratitude for being a wonderful Father to me and that I loved him dearly. The irony lay in his concern for me, not for himself or his situation, but simply for me. He had lost his vulnerability toward his own demise and turned that into a vicarious strength to feed me in what he considered to be my time of need. He had chosen to die well and lead me, yet again by example, into another layer of his generosity and strength.

  Our Dad died in his sleep in the early hours of that Thursday morning. In my mind’s eye I can see my deceased mother taking him by the hand through that gossamer curtain that had separated them for 15 years. Dad had no fear and no pain; he had simply tired of this world and the shell that had served its purpose for perhaps too long. He had served his country, his community and his family and friends with due diligence, honor and loyalty as a member of the armed services (RAN) post WW2, as a Police Officer (ranked Inspector 30 years + service) and as a much loved Father, Grandfather and Great Grandfather.

  As I drifted in and out of the conversation with the Doctor that morning, trying to remember items of discussion or listening to the ambiguous scan findings, I found myself becoming resolute that today…this very long day…would be for Dad and that the words that I was attempting to filter had little to no relevance for me. I was dying anyway and no when or why could benefit me. I was offered radium and different chemotherapy almost as an afterthought, and declined with a surety that bordered on aggression toward this exercise in futility. It was if somehow the death of my own Father had completed this cycle of avoidance of my own death and allowed my true perspective of “going home” a greater insight.

From the beginning of my diagnosis this journey had always felt like I was being called home by the nature of the universe. Everything is mortal and if life feeds death then so to does death feed life. Those of us who are so fortunate to have time to contemplate our own mortality (all of us) should therefore revere both ends of the spectrum with an appreciation of fulfillment. Therefore, my contentment with my life must give true measure to my death and embrace it as my interpretation of the poetry of the universe; or as it sings to me during the chorus of my last breaths…I’m going home.

  And this is what Dad’s dying has gifted me; his last lessons to me were how to die well. I have felt enough fear in my life up to this point and I have no more use for it now. Given the nature of this disease, the amount of pain that I might suffer from now until I die, can and hopefully will be managed from a medical perspective. I would prefer to have some degree of consciousness during my last moments, though this ideal is reliant on many differentials. I am no longer content to say that I accept my death and its process, rather than now I am beginning to embrace it, to love it, as I did my life. This triad of no fear, no pain and to love the nature of the process of dying and death itself is what I believe that it takes to die well. This is my last resolution.

  So now, if this is my “Last Post,” I thank you for reading, for your generous comments and for allowing me to detail this journey. I will soon be joining those waiting for me, yet the next journey will not set me adrift from this one. I’m simply going home.

[cherita]

11 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Deluxe Edition Books for Gift Giving

Books make for great gifts, don't you think?

Except . . . book lovers have probably already bought or read most of the books they want. Enter the deluxe edition: those fancy, illustrated editions designed especially for gift giving — I mean, I assume that's what they're for, with their gilded edges, pretty pictures, and fall release dates.

If you're searching for the perfect book to give your favorite sci-fi or fantasy reader, elevate your giving with a deluxe, anniversary or collector's edition of a beloved book. Or a hardcover edition instead of a mass market paperback, or a series collected into one volume. Here are 11 such deluxe edition books to get you started in these trying holiday shopping times...

Jump to: Sci-Fi Books || Fantasy Books || Young Adult Books

For Science Fiction book lovers...

Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy

Jeff VanderMeer

In time for the holidays, a single-volume hardcover edition that brings together the three volumes of the Southern Reach Trilogy: Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance — perfect for fans of dark sci-fi films and books alike, as the Annihilation movie adaptation starring Natalie Portman is set to hit theaters in February.

SYNOPSIS: Area X — a remote and lush terrain — has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer. This is the twelfth expedition.

Their group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.

They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers — they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding — but it's the surprises that came across the border with them, and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another, that change everything.

Ender’s Game (Hardcover Reissue)

Orson Scott Card

This engaging, collectible, miniature hardcover of the Orson Scott Card classic and worldwide bestselling novel makes an excellent gift for anyone’s science fiction library.

SYNOPSIS: Once again, Earth is under attack. An alien species is poised for a final assault. The survival of humanity depends on a military genius who can defeat the aliens. But who?

Ender Wiggin. Brilliant. Ruthless. Cunning. A tactical and strategic master. And a child.

Recruited for military training by the world government, Ender's childhood ends the moment he enters his new home: Battle School. Among the elite recruits Ender proves himself to be a genius among geniuses. He excels in simulated war games. But is the pressure and loneliness taking its toll on Ender? Simulations are one thing. How will Ender perform in real combat conditions? After all, Battle School is just a game. Isn't it?

Old Man’s War (Hardcover Reissue)

John Scalzi

A perfect gift for an entry-level sci-fi reader and the ideal addition to a veteran fan’s collection, John Scalzi's Old Man’s War will take audiences on a heart-stopping adventure into the far corners of the universe.

SYNOPSIS: John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife’s grave. Then he joined the army.

The good news is that humanity finally made it to the stars. The bad news is that, out there, planets fit to live on are scarce―and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

Responsible for protecting humanity, the Colonial Defense Force doesn’t want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You’ll be taken off Earth, never to return. You’ll serve two years in comb

For Fantasy book lovers...

The Broken Earth Trilogy

N.K. Jemisin

For the Kindle lover, get the complete New York Times bestselling trilogy that began with The Fifth Season (2016 Hugo Award Winner for Best Novel) and The Obelisk Gate (2017 Hugo Award Winner for Best Novel), and concludes with this year's highly acclaimed The Stone Sky.

SYNOPSIS: This is the way the world ends...for the last time.

A season of endings has begun. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.

Edgedancer

Brandon Sanderson

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, a special gift edition of Edgedancer, a short novel of the Stormlight Archive (previously published in Arcanum Unbounded).

SYNOPSIS: Three years ago, Lift asked a goddess to stop her from growing older--a wish she believed was granted. Now, in Edgedancer, the barely teenage nascent Knight Radiant finds that time stands still for no one. Although the young Azish emperor granted her safe haven from an executioner she knows only as Darkness, court life is suffocating the free-spirited Lift, who can't help heading to Yeddaw when she hears the relentless Darkness is there hunting people like her with budding powers. The downtrodden in Yeddaw have no champion, and Lift knows she must seize this awesome responsibility.

The Name of the Wind 10th Anniversary Edition

Patrick Rothfuss 

This deluxe, illustrated edition celebrates the New York Times-bestselling series, The Kingkiller Chronicle—a masterful epic fantasy saga that has inspired readers worldwide.

The anniversary hardcover includes more than 50 pages of extra content; a beautiful, iconic cover by artist Sam Weber and designer Paul Buckley; gorgeous, never-before-seen illustrations by artist Dan Dos Santos; detailed and updated world map by artist Nate Taylor; and more.

SYNOPSIS: My name is Kvothe. I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep. You may have heard of me.

So begins a tale unequaled in fantasy literature—the story of a hero told in his own voice. It is a tale of sorrow, a tale of survival, a tale of one man’s search for meaning in his universe, and how that search, and the indomitable will that drove it, gave birth to a legend.

Neverwhere Illustrated Edition

Neil Gaiman

The #1 New York Times bestselling author’s dark classic of modern fantasy, beautifully illustrated with strikingly atmospheric, painstakingly detailed black-and-white line art by award-winning artist Chris Riddell, and featuring the author’s preferred text and his Neverwhere tale, “How the Marquis Got His Coat Back.”

SYNOPSIS: Richard Mayhew is a young London businessman with a good heart whose life is changed forever when he stops to help a bleeding girl—an act of kindness that plunges him into a world he never dreamed existed. Slipping through the cracks of reality, Richard lands in Neverwhere—a London of shadows and darkness, monsters and saints, murderers and angels that exists entirely in a subterranean labyrinth.

Neverwhere is home to Door, the mysterious girl Richard helped in the London Above. Here in Neverwhere, Door is a powerful noblewoman who has vowed to find the evil agent of her family’s slaughter and thwart the destruction of this strange underworld kingdom. If Richard is ever to return to his former life and home, he must join Lady Door’s quest to save her world—and may well die trying.

For Young Adult book lovers...

City of Bones 10th Anniversary Edition

Cassandra Clare 

Celebrate the tenth anniversary of Cassandra Clare’s City of Bones with this gorgeous new edition, complete with new cover art, gilded edges, over thirty interior illustrations, and six new full-page color portraits of everyone’s favorite characters! Also includes the Clave’s official files on some of the series’ most beloved characters, written by Cassandra Clare.

SYNOPSIS: This is the book where Clary Fray first discovered the Shadowhunters, a secret cadre of warriors dedicated to driving demons out of our world and back to their own. The book where she first met Jace Wayland, the best Shadowhunter of his generation. The book that started it all. A perfect gift for the Shadowhunter fan in your life.

A Darker Shade of Magic Collector’s Edition

V.E. Schwab

A stunning collector's edition of the acclaimed novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author V.E. Schwab. With an exclusive metallic ink cover and reading ribbon, this edition will feature: end papers of London, fan art, a glossary of Arnesian and Antari terms, an interview between author and editor, and original (never before seen!) tales from within the Shades of Magic world.

SYNOPSIS: Kell is one of the last Antari―magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black.

Kell was raised in Arnes―Red London―and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.

Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they'll never see. It's a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.

After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they'll first need to stay alive.

The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic

Leigh Bardugo

Inspired by myth, fairy tale, and folklore, #1 New York Times-bestselling author Leigh Bardugo has crafted a deliciously atmospheric collection of lavishly illustrated short stories filled with betrayals, revenge, sacrifice, and love.

SYNOPSIS: Enter the Grishaverse...

Love speaks in flowers. Truth requires thorns.

Travel to a world of dark bargains struck by moonlight, of haunted towns and hungry woods, of talking beasts and gingerbread golems, where a young mermaid's voice can summon deadly storms and where a river might do a lovestruck boy's bidding but only for a terrible price.

Perfect for new readers and dedicated fans, the tales in The Language of Thorns will transport you to lands both familiar and strange―to a fully realized world of dangerous magic that millions have visited through the novels of the Grishaverse.

This collection of six stories includes three brand-new tales, each of them lavishly illustrated and culminating in stunning full-spread illustrations as rich in detail as the stories themselves.

Red Queen Collector's Edition

Victoria Aveyard

A beautifully designed collector’s edition of the #1 New York Times bestselling Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard, featuring exclusive content, fan art, a redesigned cover, printed case, stained edges, a never-seen-before look behind the scenes of the Scarlet Guard, and more!

SYNOPSIS: Mare Barrow's world is divided by blood--those with common, Red blood serve the Silver- blooded elite, who are gifted with superhuman abilities. Mare is a Red, scraping by as a thief in a poor, rural village, until a twist of fate throws her in front of the Silver court. Before the king, princes, and all the nobles, she discovers she has an ability of her own.

To cover up this impossibility, the king forces her to play the role of a lost Silver princess and betroths her to one of his own sons. As Mare is drawn further into the Silver world, she risks everything and uses her new position to help the Scarlet Guard--a growing Red rebellion--even as her heart tugs her in an impossible direction. One wrong move can lead to her death, but in the dangerous game she plays, the only certainty is betrayal.

The perfect gift for anyone looking to add this beautiful edition to their collection, and for new readers eager to discover the lush, vivid fantasy series where loyalty and desire can tear you apart and the only certainty is betrayal.

[alice-the-brave]

“I don’t know,” she hums, licking at a stray drop of melted ice cream running down her hand, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it seems like you want to see Steve.”

He pauses, bottle halfway to his lips, still staring down the road. He turns slowly, stares at the side of her head where she’s intent on her ice cream, innocent and unbothered. Pretending she didn’t say something that even just a few months ago would have turned this all ugly. Still might.

            “Good thing you do know better,” he says, voice low and warning.

She frowns at her ice cream, glances up at him, something defiant and stubborn in her eyes.

            “You’re allowed to be friends with him, you know.”

He flinches at the weight of her gaze, at the knowing look in her eyes.

It had been her fault they’d moved. Because Dad hadn’t liked her dad being so close. Hadn’t liked another man having any kind of claim on his wife, or his daughter. But also because Max had always been too smart. Had always seen Billy a little too clearly. She had looked at him, and the people he hung around, the company he kept and had asked questions. Had asked Susan. Susan, who as always, had asked his Dad.

Neil Hargrove hadn’t ever made a habit of asking Billy anything.

            “I don’t need you to tell me what I’m allowed,” He spits, slamming the bottle down on the roof of the car hard enough that she jumps, eyes wide and surprised, as if she’d forgotten what he was like, “You need to learn to mind your fucking business or I swear to God, Max, you’re going to regret it.”

            “You think I don’t?”

That draws him up short.

            “What?”

            “You think I don’t know that half the reason your dad moved us out here was because of what I said?” She aska, crunching the ice cream in her hand into sad, wet crumbs on the gravel. “I didn’t think – I mean. I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know he’d – that he’d do that. Any of it.”

She doesn’t look at him as she says it, turns to frown at the gravel below them, like the dirt can hide the way she looks afraid.

It had been the first time Max had really seen how bad his Dad could be. She’d seen him scold Billy before, seen him threaten things, seen him slap him upside the head or push him around. But until then he’d been careful to never really let her see how bad it could get.

But that night, Max had seen it all. That night, Neil had been so incensed by the very idea of what she had inadvertently implied about his son, that he’d forgotten to pretend to be a decent fucking person.

Billy remembers, vaguely, hearing her crying, hearing her yelling something, and Susan dragging her away. He remembers her face in the waiting room of the hospital, the pale, wide-eyed look she’d given him. The way she flinched away from not only Neil but Susan too.

            “I didn’t think mom would say anything to him about it,” she says, fists clenching in her pasty freckled lap, “I didn’t think she’d let him do it.”

He stares at her for a moment. Tries to think past the rushing of his blood, the immediate anger in his gut.

            “Which part?” He asks, and she turns to him quickly, brow furrowed. “You didn’t think she’d let him do which part?”

            “I didn’t think-” she stalls out, looks away, clenches her sticky hands on her thighs. “I didn’t think she’d let him hurt you like that.”

He stares at her, baffled.

It had never occurred to him that Susan might try to stop him.

She tried to diffuse things, sure, tried to head off arguments before they got past stern words and threats, but Billy had always thought she just wanted to avoid the ordeal of it all. Thought that she was scared of breaking her façade of peace.  

He had never expected her to really step in. He’d only ever wondered at her staunch witness to it all. Her refusal to walk away, even as she stood in the corner like a pale-faced wraith, unmoving unless it was to get Maxine out of the room. 

He'd never expected her to step between Billy and his Dad, never expected her to speak against a single thing that he decided to do. 

Neil Hargrove got what he wanted, always. 

But for the first time it occurs to him what that must have looked like to Max. 

Billy’s Mom was the only good thing he’d ever had in this life. She’d tried to defend him from his Dad, tried to stand against him. She’d bit and spit and screamed and hadn’t let him get away with it, not without a fight.  

She’d been his only defense. Right up until the day she left. 

Max had Susan, who had been her confidant, her safe place. He remembers the way Max used to hide behind her when Neil came around, remembers the way she would tug at her hand and whisper.  

He doesn’t remember when she stopped. 

Can’t pinpoint the day she realized her mother wasn’t safe. That she wouldn’t protect her from Neil, wouldn’t keep her secrets, wouldn’t fight for her. Susan never bit back, she never screamed in defiance. She never shielded Max with her own body, never told a soul what happened behind closed doors. She had thrown away both of their lives and torn Max away from the only people who could have saved her from the prison they all lived in. 

Which is worse, he wonders, staring at her glassy blue eyes, tears all dried up. Which is worse, really, being abandoned and left to the wolves, or being abandoned and having her stick around to watch you die? 

He at least could pretend that his Mom might come back for him, that she was bidding her time, that she hurt as much as he did. When he was small and angry and terrified he could pretend that she had made a mistake, that she hadn’t meant it. 

Max had to stare Susan in the face every day and reckon with her betrayal. She didn’t get to pretend.  

“You never think,” he says, turning away, staring up at the cliffs again. 

The birds are loud here, the forest alive in a way that belies the ominous air it exudes at night. Here, in the sun and the chirping of birds, the rustling trees and animals seem serene. It’s enough to make the midnight gloom of it seem like a dream. Enough to make the memory of Harrington standing in the shadows holding a bat caked in dried blood seem false, imagined. Enough to make the memory of Maxine, trembling and fierce and drowned in the blood of his Father seem like a hallucination. Like the strange, dark dreams he has on fever nights, when the sickness and the broken bones stir dark things in his sleeping mind. Impossible things. Things that make him shake and shiver with fear, with horror. It doesn’t seem possible. Seems like a nightmare. She’s getting sunburnt, sitting there on his car, hair up in a scrunchy, wearing his sunglasses. Her hands are sticky with ice cream. Little girl hands. Like they ought to be. 

“Sorry.” She clenches her hands in her lap, fiddles with the hem of her shorts. 

He stares at her for another moment. Breathes. Thinks. Doesn’t let himself spit and snarl, though the urge to is choking him.  

How many times are they going to do this? Wander in circles, biting and snapping and begging for forgiveness, back and forth, forever. He thinks it might drive him crazy. That they can’t just get past it all, that even though his Dad is gone – even though they aren’t going to have to step on each other just to breathe the clean air anymore – there’s still so much rot between them. He wonders why she bothers. Thinks, maybe, that she won’t leave, no matter how vicious he is, just because she’s just as bad. Just because she’s never known when to drop it. Never thought anything through. 

Mad Max, the daredevil, fearless and headstrong and going nowhere fast. 

“Put on your sunscreen,” he says, instead of any of that, reaching into the passenger seat through the open window and tossing the bottle at her. 

She catches it clumsily and tosses back the bitchiest look a fourteen-year-old can muster. 

“You sound like Steve,” she sneers, not as harsh as she usually might.  

Like she’s still testing the waters. 

He snorts and snatches his sunglasses off her face, slipping them on and leaning back against the car as if he’d never gone tense in the first place. 

“Fine, get burnt for all I care, just don’t bitch at me about it later.” 

She huffs and rolls her eyes, but she opens the tube without a word and he can see the edge of a smile on her face even though he isn’t looking.