Caught Between My Bully and My Stepbrother novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: Laundry Room

Through the gap I could see a slice of Corey's room.

His bed.

His duffel bag.

Him, sitting on the end of the bed with one shoe off, looking straight at the door.

He'd heard the lock spin too.

Neither of us said anything.

Then he got up, walked over and pulled the door shut from his side, very gently.

A second later I heard a chair scrape across his floor and settle under the knob.

"There," he said through the wall. "Now it locks."

I sat on my bed for a long time with my hand over my mouth.

Thanksgiving dinner was at three.

My mother had made enough for twenty people, which she always did, because she grew up with five brothers.

Turkey, two kinds of stuffing, sweet potatoes with the marshmallows on top, the green bean thing, rolls from scratch.

My stepfather sat at the head of the table with a beer.

Nobody else drank.

Before we ate, my mother filled a plate with everything and covered it in foil.

"Take this next door, baby," she said. "And tell that boy he can come over for pie."

I carried it across the frozen grass to the Kimble house.

The TV was loud inside.

Crew opened the door in a black sweater with his hair pushed back.

Behind him his dad was asleep in a recliner with a football game on and cans around his feet.

Crew looked at the plate.

Then at me.

"Your mom," he said.

"My mom. Pie's at six."

"Tell her thank you."

He held the door half shut behind him, so I couldn't see in any farther.

I didn't push.

At our table nobody talked much.

My stepfather carved.

My mother passed things.

Corey ate two plates of stuffing and said nothing at all.

Then, when my mother got up to bring out the rolls, he put his fork down.

"Dawn."

She stopped in the kitchen doorway with the basket.

"Thank you for dinner," he said. "It's really good."

My stepfather looked up from his plate.

"And thank you for the other ones," Corey said. "Nine years of them. I never said it. I'm saying it."

My mother stood there holding the rolls.

Her face went soft and then crumpled.

She set the basket down on the table very carefully.

Then she went into the pantry and shut the door.

We could hear her in there.

My stepfather stared at his son.

Corey picked his fork back up.

I kicked him gently under the table.

He kicked me back.

Crew came over at six and ate two pieces of pumpkin pie standing up at the counter, because he wouldn't sit down at the table.

My mother sent him home with the rest of it.

The house went to bed at ten.

I couldn't sleep.

At one in the morning I went down to the laundry room off the kitchen with my mother's good tablecloth, the one with cranberry sauce all over my end.

It was a tiny room.

Washer, dryer, a pegboard of my stepfather's tools, the ironing board folded against the wall.

I'd hidden in there a hundred times when I was thirteen.

I started the washer and sat on top of the dryer in my sleep shorts and an old Bell Creek Hardware T-shirt and listened to it fill.

The door opened.

Corey stood there in gray sweatpants and a white T-shirt, his hair flat on one side.

"I heard the pipes," he said.

"So go back to bed."

He came in and shut the door behind him.

The room was so small that he was standing nearly between my knees.

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