Burning Lili

Toss. Catch.

Toss. Catch

Her voice. Toss, catch.

There’s no way, I think as I throw the baseball above my chest. I’m studying the caked, sponge-patterned paint on the ceiling, determined the memorize the terrain before the anniversary of my first full year in this room. I wonder if the kid who had this room before me learned the ceiling, too or if my methods of entertaining myself are just weird. I could read the patterns on my old ceiling like a favorite poem. My memory is good, really good, so why do I doubt what I heard? The ball connects with my hand, and I immediately toss it back into the air where it belongs.

“Everett?” Mrs. Smith taps on the door before opening it. She peeks her head in with a timid smile. The baseball lands in my hand with a smack as I turn to her.

“Hey.”

“How was your first day? Different, I’m sure.”

“A lot more people,” I say, and she smiles a little wider at my joke.

“Well, yes, homeschooling tends to have a smaller roster. Were you comfortable, though?” Her face shifts to concern as she studies the good side of my face. “You can always finish high school online.”

“Not that many people stared,” I lie. Everyone studied me like I knew they would, staring like I was an unknown bruise that appeared on their perfect thighs. How could they ignore a blemish in their otherwise unscathed student body? I’m used to it now, so there’s no reason to worry Mrs. Smith about it. She has enough on her plate. Her own losses. But it was a lie and we both knew it.

“Bullshit,” someone laughed from the hallway.

Mrs. Smith sighs and turns to the voice. “Luke Anthony Smith, you watch your mouth in my house,” she says to her son. Mrs. Smith opens the door wider to reveal her duplicate. Average height and ghost-white skin. Hair so blonde it could pass for white. The only true difference between them is Luke’s angular features, whereas his mom’s are round and feminine, and her bone-straight hair where his curly. He looked nothing like his dad did.

“I’m just saying,” Luke adds. “Everett basically held a sign that said: New Kid With Huge Scar, Look At Me. He tried to hide like he always does as if it isn’t obvious as hell.”

“Luke!” Mrs. Smith fusses.

I’m more annoyed than angry. I wish now more than ever that I had gotten a random placement. Instead, someone’s mistake led me to the recovery house, which led me to meet Luke. Which led me to live with the Smith family. One act of negligence cost so many lives and left me with this nice lady and the son she’s staring daggers at. “Everett, should I call the school?” She turns back to me, her disappointment softening to pity.

“It’s alright, Mrs. S. I’m good. It’s no different than the grocery store or restaurants,” I glance at Luke, who is still smiling, enjoying my embarrassment, then look back to Mrs. Smith before admitting, “I want to try out for baseball. I was maybe thinking about college, so I want to stay.”

“What a great idea! I can help with financial aid, but a scholarship would be wonderful.”

Behind her, Luke rolled his eyes. It’s been this way for a year now. We were close once upon a time. He kept me company in the recovery center after it became clear I wouldn’t be getting any visitors. There was no one left to come see me.

“It’s not a guarantee. It’s senior year, and I haven’t played since before.”

Mrs. Smith smiles a sad, encouraging smile. “You do the work, Everett. Since you came to live with us, I’ve seen you work hard to get back to who you are. I admire it, and I know it will pay off.”

“Thanks,” I mumble, uncomfortable at how good her words make me feel. She reminds me so much of my mom that connecting with her is hard. I don’t want to feel maternal warmth and encouragement from someone else’s mom. I wanted mine back. I continued tossing the ball, wanting them both to leave.

Faith Hunter was a sports mom to the max. There weren’t many at South Heights because most kids’ parents with jobs they couldn’t leave to give out Gatorade and energy bars to teens for free. My dad, James, played baseball at South Heights when he went there and met my mom, one of the few white girls in his class. There weren’t many on the south side. They were both only children, and they quickly fell in love. That love extended to their children, making it that much harder to accept they’re gone.

At the thought, I feel the anger from two years ago threatening to flood my everything. “I would appreciate some privacy,” I force out. My parents are gone, but it wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s true that everything happens for a reason, and I am sure of the reason for my family’s death. It wasn’t chance or simple human error. It was negligence, and it was the gross kind. The anger quickly turns to guilt when I lock eyes with a scoffing Luke.

“Yea, go back into your cave,” he spits. That’s how it is now and has been for over a year. He has the nerve to be mad at me for wanting nothing to do with him. There was a time when he was my best friend, close enough that he convinced his parents to take me in, but there’s no going back to that. When I look at him now, I feel regret having met him. His own mother might be feeling the same way as she looks at him, expression unreadable.

“Alright, get some rest, hon,” she says before shutting them both out of the room.

I want to scream. Am I kidding myself? I haven’t put a ball to bat in years. I haven’t so much as caught a ball that I hadn’t thrown to myself. I toss the ball above me again in a demonstration before studying the ball. It’s browned with caked sand left over from my last game. Coach told me it was a good ball, but that was an understatement.

I was relentless in the field, quickly collecting names in my mental notebook of jersey numbers. Each one I got out was added to the list; another player was taken out by the precision of my glove and ticked off like they were on a grocery list—just items waiting to be checked off. But as good as I was out in the field, I wasn’t that good at the bat. A sport-movie-level excitement went through me when my bat connected dead center of the strike zone and was perfectly aligned for a homerun. Coach even had a freshmen run around the fence to get the ball for me.

That was years ago. I toss the baseball again and catch it square on. That could’ve been where it ended for me. Maybe I forgot how to play as some kind of punishment for my sins. Maybe all I can do now is toss this ball back and forth like some sad reminder of what I once had. I have to accept the fact that playing baseball might not be like texting. Something you never really forget because of how often you have done it. I might be done with baseball for good.

“Everett! Dinner!” Mrs. S calls from downstairs. I will forever be grateful that she took me in, but I can’t help and cringe as I think about what it cost her. How much I took from her by being in her son’s life.

I tuck the ball in the drawer next to the room's bed and roll out of it. My hood slips off, and I catch a glimpse of the me I’m still trying to get used to. I’m not ashamed of it. It’s my face now, and there’s nothing I can do about it. What I really feel when I look at my face is rage and regret. Negligence has costs that can’t be refunded, and I’m the one who is stuck with the bill.

I fluff my hair and slide my hood back on. Down the stairs, Mrs. S is stirring noodles in a pot of boiling water as a pan of thick red sauce with large meatballs simmers beside it. Another reminder that my home is long gone, and my family with it. Mom and dad were from South Harbor, where the meatball sauce was accompanied by ground beef and sausage, and the spaghetti was mixed in with it. A one-pot meal, no slopping sauce and meat chunks on top of bare noodles like in the Smith household.

“Smells good, Mrs. Smith,” I say, heading to the butler’s cabinet to grab the table settings. I will never get used to living in a house with a butler’s cabinet and a table worthy of being set. Mr. Smith was a lawyer of some sort. Mean as one of hell’s own and better off gone. His best qualities were that he made a lot of money and didn’t hit Mrs. S too often, according to Luke. Mrs. Smith doesn’t talk about him much, but Luke is quick to diss his father anytime the thought is prompted.

“You could have made garlic bread,” Luke complains, grabbing a fork and chopping off a piece of a meatball. Mrs. Smith doesn’t even flinch after a move that would have had Faith Hunter backhanding me. The complaint alone would have gotten me snatched. My mom didn’t play about her dinner. I lay out three place settings. One at the top of the wide, circular stone table, the other two on each side and at a distance from the first. This isn’t for a family dinner.

“Just put the salad on the table, Sweetheart,” she sighs, straining the noodles before placing them in a serving bowl. No scooping it straight from the pot and onto a plate.

“No one wants salad but you anyway, mom. Just get it from the cabinet,” he says like a bratty kid being asked to clean up a mess that isn’t his.

I eye him with contempt, once again wondering how I ended up in this house with Luke Smith. His dad had just died when we met, and his mom had been especially vulnerable. Her unpleasant son had found a friend, astonishing enough in itself, but that friend was in need of a family while her son was in need of, well, anyone. She had fostered a few times before, but I have been her longest. I think she’s glad to have me to help her while her son helps himself to do whatever he wants.

“Chill, dude,” I say, meeting his icy blue eyes. A slow smile sweeps across his face as he breaks off another piece of meatball. His teeth scrape the fork as he slides it out of his mouth. He looks away with a chuckle and grabs a plate from the cloudy, thick glass cabinets.

“So E, you catch anyone's eye today?” Luke asks with a smirk. “Girls, I mean. Not everyone else.”

I ball my fist, walking to get the salad bowl from the cabinet. I set it on the table with a bit of a thud, both pissed and distracted at the thought. I don’t know if I caught anyone’s eye, asshole, but someone caught mine. I won’t be telling him that, though. It may not even be her. “No. And don’t call me ‘E.’”

“Too bad. A handsome guy like yourself—”

“Not tonight, Luke!” his mother yelled, her back to us. She doesn’t raise her voice often, but even she gets fed up with Luke’s insistence on being an ass. It makes me want to chunk the salad bowl at his face, but he’s right. Mrs. S is the only one who eats it, and I wouldn't want to ruin her dinner with floor salad and a trip to the hospital for her son. No matter how much he deserves it.

“Whatever,” he grumbles, flipping me off behind her back. I seethe. It’s been this way since I officially moved in, and I don’t know if I can take it anymore. It’s why I need to redirect my focus. I need a way out of here, and my current options are: to rely on Mrs. Smith to help me pay my way (even though she has helped me so much already this past two years that I've known her son), or get a scholarship and be free of the Smiths, Luke, especially.

She walks the serving bowl of noodles, then a ceramic Dutch oven of sauce and meatballs, to the table, and I place silverware before we all sit and grab plates. Luke still had his fork from the meatball theft earlier and eyed his mom disdainfully as he chewed on it. She either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care as she makes her plate more noodles than sauce.

“Tell me more about the school, boys. Did you help Everett find his way, Hon?” she looks at her son. Luke and I make eye contact at the question, a brief moment of shared understanding we haven’t had in a long time. He wouldn’t fucking dare help me, and I sure as hell wouldn’t let him.

“I was given a tour,” I chime in. “It was thorough.”

I look back at my plate, hoping the last part wasn’t telling of just how little of the school I saw. After she jerked away from me— that girl, Lili— something went off that hadn’t registered in the office. Yea, I noticed her skin, deep and smooth. And her hair, loose but a familiar thickness, and it still hadn’t clicked. The recognition in the office was like hearing the melody of a song your parents used to listen to when you were younger. A song you hadn’t listened to since you believed in Santa, but you just know you’ve heard it somewhere before. It’s faint, like a whisper of something from the past. But when she tensed in front of that ridiculously huge library… when she was scared of me. The light seemed to switch on, the song blared its familiar tune, and thoughts I had been suppressing were exposed clearly like a spotlight was shining on them.

I found all my classes okay with her directions. It seemed like she had been a student there a while as she listed shortcuts down the back elevator and the best lines for lunch. It was nice of her after my response, and it really helped. I wandered through my schedule with no issues or introductions in any of my classes. I politely declined with a “No, thank you” when asked, leaving each teacher to tell everyone my name and that I was new, the only information they had on me at that point.

I hadn’t cared in any classes what people thought about me being antisocial until the seventh and last class when I saw her sitting on the far side of the room. She was leaning back in her chair, looking untouchable in her heavy books and thick jeans. Her t-shirt and scarf made her look tough and carefree like the girls I was used to at South Heights. Girls who could handle their own. I sat by the door, ready to bolt if the need arose. After the negligent act that took my family, I learned to keep an evacuation route. always. When the teacher, whose name escapes me asked me to introduce myself, my refusal was less carefree and confident than it had been in classes before. When she looked my way, waiting for a response along with the rest of the students in University Preparedness, I mumbled no thanks and sank into my seat.

“I found everything okay after that,” I add for extra effect.

“That’s amazing, Everett,” Mrs. Smith gushes. It’s like she’s impervious to her son and the tension he causes us to have. Maybe she knows he just can’t help but spew the maliciousness he has coursing through his blood. She knew who she had a child with. “A fresh start. Maybe even for the both of you?” she says, looking between her son and the boy she took in to give him a friend. Oh, how it backfired, Mrs. Smith.

“Fuck no, mom,” Luke looks pointedly at me. “There’s no starting over. Why is he still here?”

“Luke, we’ve discussed this. You have known each other for years, and he’s almost eighteen. We’re getting him on his feet, it’s the least we can do.”

“And what has he done for us? Live in our house, eat our food, spend our money… He doesn’t do his part, and he never has.” I can feel my face heating, and I ball my fists as if I were gripping the stiff baseball that's currently in my drawer upstairs. He delivers his words with much-intended malice, and I jump up in my seat.

“I’m sick of your shit, Luke. You wanna talk about me doing my part?" Flashes from that night invade my head, and my bravado shrinks. "Whatever, I do plenty here, and we all know it. Your mom wishes you were me.”

I had to say it. I couldn't get out of this without at least one punch.

“Everett. Uncalled for,” Mrs. Smith looks over at me, barely a scold on her face, before turning back to her son. When he meets my eyes instead, it’s glaringly obvious to both of us that she didn’t try and correct me. He’s shooting daggers at me as if he could kill me, and at this moment I don’t doubt that he could.

“I’m getting out of here,” I say, leaving my barely touched dinner on the table and meaning it in more ways than one. I square my shoulders toward Luke who also stands, ready for anything I may throw at him. I walk past him instead, glad I have two inches on him. We’ve never actually fought, but I could definitely take him with his measly average height and build.

“Don’t hurry back,” Luke spits before mumbling in a voice only I could hear. “Or don’t come back at all."

I let the door slam behind me as I start walking toward my spot. This isn’t the first time I have had to get away from Luke and his anger toward me. I knew starting at a public school would be hard; I knew people would stare, but I was ready for that challenge. In the end, I'm finding that Luke might be the biggest obstacle in my path at East Harbor. He’s a landmine that could erupt at any moment, ruining my life even more than he already has while he takes everyone near him down. He can't find out about her if he doesn't already know.

I walk and walk, thoughts of Luke and his way-too-nice mother whirling like clothes in a washing machine. The occasional thought of Lili bangs against the side of the machine and scares me. If it’s really her, I might lose the chance of even trying out for baseball. Maybe I should leave East Harbor High and return to my life under the radar.

The square looms in the distance, marking the few more miles until I reach the only place I feel good on this fucking side of town. I long for the feeling of freedom and the escape from eyes and obstacles. When I make it there, everything will be okay for a moment, at least.

“I miss my fucking life,” I whisper to myself before pulling the strings of my hoodie and picking up the pace.