“Who’s Charlie with?” Jasmine asked from somewhere in the background.
“Nobody,” I hissed. “Just meet me at the corner of Meridian and eighty-sixth, all right, Uncle Vic?”
“It’s probably Esmer,” Jasmine squealed. “Ask him if he’s with Esmer!”
“Who’s Esmer?” my uncle asked.
“Oh, for the love of—” I threw Esmer a scalding look when I realized she was giggling. She bit her lips. “I’ll see you later,” I growled at my nosy family and then hung up.
“Why didn’t you just let him come get us?” Esmer asked once she had control over her expression again. “I swear it’s getting colder by the second.”
I shoved the phone back into my pocket. “Sorry, but I’m not in any hurry to get ‘The Speech’.”
“Ah, the ‘You’re a Disappointment’ speech.”
I gave her an incredulous look. “No.”
Esmer scrunched her face at me from the depths of the windbreaker’s hood. “The ‘How Could You Do This to Me After All I’ve Done for You’ speech?”
“No.”
“The ‘How Could You Be So Stupid’ speech?”
“All right, enough. How many speeches have you gotten?”
Esmer shrugged and squinted against the wind. “I stopped counting after a while.”
“I shouldn’t have called it a speech. It’s more of a telepathic message, full of disappointment and hurt, that leaves me feeling about two inches tall.” I tucked my hands into my armpits. “And then, just when I think I can’t take the silence anymore, he says something like, ‘The next time you scare me like that, I won’t come looking for you,’ which we both know is bullshit. He’ll only give me one word answers to any questions I ask, then he’ll transition into one sentence replies, and finally, after a week or so, things will go back to normal between us.” I smirked. “After hearing some of the speeches you’ve gotten though, my uncle doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Looks to me like you already have a pretty good parent.” Esmer elbowed me, a smile making half of her mouth curl. “Who needs Mom and Dad, am I right?”
I’d all but forgotten about my mom’s letter. Esmer’s words caused a mixture of emotions to course through me—grief, worthlessness, anger, hope—all of which I suppressed. “Yeah, I guess,” was all I said.
We walked in silence for a while. I watching the cars that passed, occasionally glanced at the shop windows along my left side, moved over to let other people walk past, all the while shivering in the wind.
“You never told me what you like to do in your spare time,” she said at last.
I wiped my nose with the cuff of my sleeve and shrugged. “I make things, mostly.”
“What kind of things?”
“Sculptures, pieces of furniture, optical illusion pieces, the occasional necklace or earrings for my sister, stuff like that.”
“What materials do you use?”
“Recycled wood, metal, and glass.” I nodded at the sidewalk as it curved away from us up ahead. “We’re turning here.”
Esmer placed a hand over the top of her head when the wind threatened to blow her hood off. “Yeah, this looks familiar.”
“So…” I cleared my throat. “Why’re you here anyway?”
“Took you long enough to ask.”
I scowled at her, heat rise around my neck. “We said we weren’t going to talk about our shitty family situations and I thought maybe your reason for being here might have something to do with your family.”
Esmer elbowed me again. “Soothe your boobs, Charlie boy. You explained why you like being a social outcast. It’s only fair that I tell you the tragic tale of Esmer’s Banishment to Seattle.” She blew the fiery strands of hair out of her face. “It all started when Dad died. My brother, Robbie, was already off at college so he wasn’t around for the dark shit. Mom was depressed for weeks. Wouldn’t say nothing. I didn’t know how to feel. I mean, my dad was a good dad. He wasn’t around much, but when he was home, he and I got along real well. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that he was actually gone forever, ya know? I was only fifteen and my mom had checked out. It was too much.” She rolled her shoulders. “So I joined the gang.”
How’d that work out for ya? I had to bite my tongue to keep from voicing the sarcastic question aloud.
But when Esmer glanced at my face and rolled her eyes, I figured she could probably read my mind. “Yeah, it wasn’t the smartest idea I’ve ever had,” she admitted. “But I was desperate.”
I held an arm out to stop her from walking in front of a parking garage exit. The driver waiting just inside the concrete building gave us a grateful wave before pulling out into traffic. I lowered my arm and we kept walking.
“We did the usual gang stuff: party, vandalism, some fighting,” Esmer said as if there hadn’t been an interruption. “The leader, Marty Gutierrez, claimed me as his girlfriend. I did some time in juvy, got my piercings and my tattoo. My mom started noticing me again, but we spent most of our time arguing.
“Then my mom started dating Hunter. It’d been three years since we buried my dad and, if it’d been anyone other than Hunter, I might’ve been sort of okay with it.” She grimaced. “But Hunter’s a dick with anger issues. I was already dating an abusive asshole; I didn’t want to have to come home to one too. But it didn’t seem to matter what I wanted.
“She married him six months later. He pretended to give a rat’s ass about me while they were dating, but he dropped the act as soon as he moved into the house.” Esmer waved a hand at the side of her head, most likely gesturing to the hidden scar around her ear. “Stuff like this started happening and my mom…she didn’t do nothing about it. I mean, she tried to get him to calm down before he could hurt me but she’s weak and non-confrontational. I think
