What We Used To Know

By the end of the week, I’d been walking to and from school with no sight of Ten-Step. It was relieving in a sense, because it meant that I wouldn’t have to deal with the awkwardness of what happened on Tuesday. It was now three days later, and I still couldn’t come up with any reasons as to why he would have walked home with me, silently.

So by Friday afternoon when I was walking by myself, nearing my neighborhood, I was happy to be back to my normal routine; walking by myself. Of course, it wasn’t the exact normal routine, since Ten-Step wasn’t walking in front of me like usual - but it was nice not to have to worry about any run-ins with him, for now.

And since Tuesday morning, when Jordan had verbally attacked me, he hadn’t been home. Well, he may have been home when I was at school - or getting home after I went to sleep, and then leaving before I woke up - but I didn’t know. The door to his room had been open, and every time I dared to peek in his room on my way to the stairs, it was empty. I hadn’t seen his face - the one that brought back too many painful memories - since he drove off in a rage that morning.

I hadn’t asked my parents about whether they’d seen him or not, because frankly, I didn’t care. After the way he demanded that I get in the car with him - blowing past the point of angry - over a ride to school, I wanted nothing to do with him. Just like how I’d wanted nothing to do with him since he started drugs, since he started ruining himself. Part of me wondered now though what he would have done if I just accepted and got in the car. Would he have been calm, just giving me a ride like a nice brother? I doubted that though. He probably would have driven us into a tree, judging by how “influenced” he seemed. Although I still couldn’t remember correctly if his eyes were dilated or not, because he was so far away. It scared me to think that he was sober, because I’ve never seen a sober person get so angry over something so meaningless. Then I had to remind myself that I was thinking about Jordan, and anything seemed to be plausible with him.

My house was suddenly before me, my hand automatically reaching into my bag for the house key. Without even having to think about it, I slid the key into the lock, turning it until I heard a clicking noise. That signaled the door was unlocked, and I pulled the key out, dropping it into my bag. The door opened swiftly as I budged it, scooting inside, trying to escape the cold of spring in Sheffield. It may be almost the end of March, but it was still felt like frost was escaping my mouth when I breathed.

The heat of the house hit me full on, causing me to sigh in relief as I shut the door, blocking out the cold. No one was home, as usual, and I began the routine that happened everyday after school. I started by taking off my coat and hanging it up, peeking in the mirror next to the hook. As usual, my cheeks were flushed a pinkish-red color from the cold and wind mixture, my hair sticking up in odd directions. I attempted to smooth the pieces that were rebelling, and I didn’t succeed. My feet were cold as I slipped out of the trainers, placing them in line with the rest of the family’s shoes.

When I started into the kitchen, something made me retreat, and head back to the shoe closet. I opened the door again, facing the countless number of shoes perfectly aligned in smooth rows. The pair I pulled out again was different than the ones I had just been wearing. My feet slipped into them effortlessly, and I didn’t bother tying the laces as I made to grab for my jacket again. It slipped over my shoulders, comforting me.

My bag was sitting at my feet, and I rummaged through it, looking for my notebook and a pencil. When I had found both, I closed the bag, placing it at the foot of the stairs.

As I walked back into the kitchen, I peeked outside the window. The weather looked exactly the same as it did three minutes ago, cold and partially windy. My hand began to reach into one of the counter drawers mindlessly as I continued staring out of the window, out to the bleak weather that would soon lay before me once again. I was unconsciously searching for some paper and a pen to write a note to my dad. The only reason I was writing one was because I knew he’d flip if he came home and called my name, only to have no response.

In the note I explained that I was going out for a while, and was sure to be home before nine. I wrote down that I wouldn’t be far from here either, and to add some comedy, I noted that I wouldn’t talk to strangers, either.

After I posted the note in a place I was sure he’d come across it, I backed out of the kitchen, towards the door. My notebook and pencil in hand as I opened the door, dashing out into the cold air, breathing it in fiercely. The bitterness of the air almost burned my nostrils, but I couldn’t stop breathing now, could I?

From the months I had been around here, walking to and from school, as well as going places by car, I had come across a few parks. I’d never been to any of them, though. Every time we’d driven by one, or the times I’d walked past, each park had been crowded with people. And in these seven months here, I’d learned to fear and hate any place that was inhabited with a vast amount of people. What if they noticed me? What if they thought I was strange since I was all alone? Those were the exact reasons that kept me from going out.

My feet started up on their own, taking me down the path and out onto the main road. I was auto-piloting myself to the nearest park, even though I’d never been there. It was right on the way to school, and I passed it twice a day, five days a week. It should be easy enough for me to get there, if I knew it’s location so well already. On the way, the wind blew my hair in all directions, at times causing it to fly into my eyes. My vision would cloud for a moment while my hair lingered there, before I roughly brushed it from my vision.

I came up to the park entrance, looking around. It was completely empty at the moment. There wasn’t a person there, that I could see. As I silently walked toward a bench that was facing the swing set, I wondered why I’d never come here before, on a night like this. Something told me that this park in particular wasn’t the most popular, judging by the rust that had accumulated on all of its features. I figured it was likely to be uninhabited more often than not, so I decided to come back here over the weekend, at least to see if anyone showed up or not. If it stayed relatively empty, I might start coming here more often.

The bench was cold as the metal made contact with my jeans, the iciness of the bench penetrating the denim fabric. I shuddered as I tried to get comfortable, opening the notebook and finding a blank page. A few ideas had been bouncing around in my head, and I figured I might as well pick a nice place to let them out. The park was nice enough for me to sit there and toss ideas around as I jotted them down.

Looking around gave me some inspiration, as well. It was nice to be able to write some place other than the confines of my kitchen. I loved the kitchen, but today, I wanted something different. If this week was going to be something out of the ordinary, then I was going to let my writing become something out of the ordinary. The only downside of writing out here was that my fingers started freezing up after a while, making it difficult to write. The sun was beginning to set, as well, causing my one and only light source to diminish. I craned my neck to look around, searching for a light post. Maybe if the park had some lights around, I’d go sit under one of those and continue writing.

Of course, there weren’t any around here. I guessed that was another reason no one was here. The dim lighting was a bit sketch, and God knows that my parents wouldn’t approve of my being out here. Well, in all honesty, they probably wouldn’t care. But I pretended that they would, for the sake of feeling like I was loved.

I sat at the bench for five more minutes, writing as much as I could before the sun disappeared completely. My head decided to make one last attempt to search for a light, just in case I’d managed to somehow miss something. Unfortunately, I had missed something earlier. But it wasn’t something I’d wanted to see. I tried to avert my gaze, attempting to snap my head back down to my notebook, but the damage was done.

There was a person leaning against the play structure near the entrance of the park, staring straight at me. I’d hoped that he hadn’t seen me, because right now, I wanted nothing more than to make my escape, unnoticed. That wasn’t going to be possible though. Not with that person there. And of course, it had to be a person I’d gotten good at avoiding, without trying. No, it wasn’t Jordan.

I gathered my things together and hurdled towards the pavement, trying to make a getaway, without being completely obvious. Would he know I spotted him, spotting me? Although I hoped the dusk played a trick on me, causing me to think he was looking at me, when he really wasn’t. If that was the case, then I should be getting away just fine.

As I brushed past him, I knew it wasn’t the case. Dreaded Ten-Step was standing there, hands shoved into the pockets of his pants; the pants that looked like they could suffocate his lower half, making me wonder if he was in fact wearing a pair of girl’s pants. He coughed quietly, just enough to make his presence known as I continued walking, not daring to turn back. Lord knows if I did, he’d have positioned himself to face me now, so that I’d look right into an awkward situation. Who says you have to be speaking to them to make things awkward?

‘Cause that’s never been the case between Ten-Step and I. We don’t even have to look at each other to make things awkward.

My feet briskly carried me out of the dark park now, heading towards home as fast as I could, while hoping to God that Ten-Step wouldn’t try and “walk me home,” like he had on Tuesday, which was the last time I’d seen him. Of course, in the dark, I couldn’t make out every feature of his face, but it’s not like I knew what he really looked like. There was still only the select amount of times I’d seen his face. And lately, I’d been seeing it a lot more than what I was comfortable with.

The street my house was on was dimly lit from the street lights, making it just easy enough for me to determine which house was mine. All of the lights on the bottom floor of the house were on, meaning someone was home, since I hadn’t turned the lights on when I got home.

I gently opened the door, trying not to generate any noise. My eyes stole a glance at the clock hanging over the coat rack. It was only eight thirty now, which meant I’d been at the park for more than four hours. Not bad, since it felt like I’d only been there for thirty minutes. Time flies when you’re writing.

Remembering the notebook and pencil in my hand, I flung them on the kitchen table as I walked into the brightly colored room. My father was sitting at the counter, his head in his hands, a glass filled with amber colored liquid sitting near him. I didn’t have to even look at him twice to know something had happened. The only time he sat downstairs like this, or with his head in his hands, was when something had gone wrong. This something would mean that locking himself in his office wasn’t good enough, and that for some reason, he needed to be down here. It was an extreme rarity to ever catch him in the kitchen, no matter what house we had ever lived in.

As I pulled out another chair to the table, sitting down quietly, I remembered the times I’d seen him in this exact same position at some of the other houses we had lived in before. The previous time I’d seen him like this was about a year ago, when we lived about an hour away from Sheffield. I came home from school to find him like this, sitting all alone at the kitchen table with a heavy smelling drink nestled next to him. That night I found out that his mum had died from cancer.

The time before that, it was when Jordan got expelled from his school. It was the second school he went to while we lived in the same town. Since there had been two secondary schools in the area, we thought that maybe we could get away with just having him transferring schools, so we wouldn’t have to uproot ourselves.

The first time I’d seen him like this seemed so long ago, when in reality it was only a short few years ago. This was truly the beginning of it all, when everything just went to crap. It was late at night on a Saturday, when I came into the kitchen to grab a snack before I went to sleep. He was sitting like this, the only exception being that my mum was sitting right beside him, weeping as she rubbed his back. There were multiple glasses scattered about the table, all empty but the two sitting nearest my parents. Mum choked back a bit of a sob as she informed me my brother had just been apprehended by the police, for vandalizing some property downtown. The police confirmed he was under the influence of marijuana. The images of that one night were forever burned into my memory.

And as I looked at my father who was sitting next to me now, it was like déjà vu. The whole of me didn’t want to know what news was going to hit me in the coming moments, because I knew my father would spill whatever he was holding in within minutes. He knew I was sitting down next to him for a reason. He knew that I knew what his entire posture said about what was to come. So I waited at the table patiently, looking down at the spiral in front of me. Less than an hour ago I was writing about a girl who just moved from Sheffield to Rotherham with her family, and now I was sitting here, dreading about the impending moments.

After approximately four minutes and twenty two seconds of sitting there in silence - yes, I was having a staredown with the clock - he cleared his throat. I looked up at him, and he removed his supporting hands from his head, rubbing his face gingerly as he tried looking any place but me. He settled on staring at the glass full of dwindling liquid in front of him as he spoke.

“Addie,” he began, a serious tone to his voice. He paused before he said anything more, no doubt trying to choose his words carefully. “Jordan’s been arrested. Again,” he said, voice faltering towards the end. No, this wasn’t the first time he’d been arrested, or had his “run in with the law.” In fact, it was the fifth time. Fifth time!

I nodded slowly, wondering what else would come out of my father’s mouth. I knew this wasn’t the only news, because dad never got this stressed about every other time Jordan had been arrested. He simply went down and picked him up, paying bail. We’d been lucky enough each time that Jordan hadn’t done anything too serious to require a court case.

“Ads, this is the final straw with ‘im. Your mum and I have decided to send him to a reform school,” he said, finally looking up at me. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy, but I knew for the life of me that he hadn’t been crying. My father does not cry.

The only thing I could do was nod again, showing that I was at least comprehending what he had said.

“You wanna know the funny thing,” my dad began again, not speaking as slowly this time. “He wasn’t even stoned. They checked him; nothing. Sober as the sun.”