WE SHOULD HAVE LEFT while Dean was gone.That’s what I kept thinking as they argued at two o’clock in the morning. She kept asking him where he’d been. He kept telling her it wasn’t any of her business. She tried to tell him it was her business because he took her car and her money. He told her to shut up, shut up, SHUT THE HELL UP, making Mom cry.Yeah, I got a lot of sleep that night. What was he doing with all our money? So many scenarios ran through my brain, and not one was good.I felt like a zombie the next day. An empty shell. Like someone had reached inside me and ripped out my heart.Most days I managed to leave the darkness behind me. It stayed at home, confined to those ugly walls. Because, unlike my mother, I knew the world was a bright and colorful place, and I wanted to enjoy it.But that day the darkness followed me. It followed me to my truck. Rode with me to school. I was too tired to shake it. Too worn out to tell it to leave me alone and bother someone else. I think Nathan must have known he was approaching both of us that morning, the darkness and me.I walked across the gravel parking lot, kicking rocks as I went.
