My father committed suicide when I was eleven. Nobody knew why; nobody had thought twice about the man who spent each day going out of the way to help someone. The man who had the biggest smiles that seemed to extend on infinitely in either direction all hours of every day. I refused to believe that it was all a mask, that he'd lay awake in bed until the earliest hours of the morning contemplating, making a list in his head to check off.

            That he was trapped in the never-ending hell that I was.

            Mom had found him and I was never told how he'd done it. If he'd gone the quickest route as Gage had tried to do and put a bullet through his head. Or if he'd gone the more sadistic route of hanging himself. Or if I'd followed directly in his footsteps and he'd wanted to take the easiest, most painless way out by dying in his sleep. With each year that passed, my curiosity had grown stronger, and my mother's willingness to talk about it weakened. When she'd met Rodger, it had been gradual, her taking down all of Dad's pictures. Then she'd gotten pregnant with Xavier and it became as if my father never existed at all. It felt like he was a lucid dream that only my mind had conjured up.

            I spent the next week wondering if it would be the same for me. If my mother would eventually take every photo of me and hide it somewhere in the basement to become covered in dust. If she'd continue on with her life as she had after Dad died. If Xavier would never remember his big sister; the nights she'd spent in her bed with him curled up on her lap watching Friends reruns until he fell into a peaceful sleep.

            I couldn't find it in me to stay at school, My mother tried; she'd even sit in first period until all my classmates filed into the class before leaving. It was heartbreaking, seeing her try so hard to keep me on the path I'd been steadily riding on since Freshman year. I wanted to pay attention in class, to have the straight A's typed up on my report card. I wished to have the friends that would all but drag me into their car and drive us girls to the mall for a fun day. But it just wasn't in me to try anymore. Not with Louis around every corner of my mind picking apart my psyche.

            Whatever had been going on with Gage had seemed to fade a bit as he tried to hold conversations when I'd sit on the wall and watch him smoke, most days not partaking in it, and on the days I did, making sure to try and keep as far away from my house as humanly possible. It was on a cold morning in early September that I eavesdropped on my mother's conversation with Rodger in the dining room on my way to the door to be dropped off for Therapy.

            "Michael started like this too. Manic depression, attempts, then eventually he just stopped." Mom said quietly, leaning into Rodger. It was the first time I'd heard her speak of Dad in years. "He stopped caring, he stopped coming home, he stopped loving us. He spent a long time telling me he was trying to live for her, Marley, but it just wasn't enough for him to overcome whatever was bothering him."

            Rodger took his eyes off my mother and stared into the empty kitchen in front of him. "I know your worried, Anne, but she's doing better. You heard Dr. Chao."

            Mom took a step back, face twisting into an angry scowl. "You call her running off campus with a druggie better? She's not going to her classes, she's hardly eating, and she's alost never home."

            "You've got to understand what she's going through. That video, Anne, it was horrible and all of her classmates saw it. Think about how you'd feel being back in that hell. I still think we should try pulling her out and see if it helps."

            My fondness for Rodger grew in that second and for their sake, I wished changing schools would help. But it wouldn't. Because it didn't matter where I went, I couldn't escape the thoughts, the memories, that preyed on my innocence every time I closed my eyes. Even with my eyes open, I'd be watching and waiting in anticipation, ravaged with anxiety over when the monster would decide to attack again.

            "That's not going to do anything! She used to tell me everything, Rodg! Now she acts as if we're these evil humans trying to force her to go to school and stay in her room."

            The footsteps echoing in the quiet hallway stirred both my parents and myself out of our thoughts. My Mom poked her head out just as I turned around to find Louis edging closer to me. My throat suddenly closed and I lost any ability to breathe. I started toward the door, but Rodger intercepted me before I could reach it and stared down at me in concern. "Are you alright, Marley?"

            Eyes that had once been so beautiful to me I'd compared them to the sky on a clear day were now those of a horrifying monster.

            "Marley, sweetheart." he went on. "You know we're here if you need to talk, right?"

            I nodded and pretty much shoved my stepfather aside and slipped out the door, relieved to be able to inhale the cold, brisk early autumn air. I sent a quick look over my shoulder to ensure that Louis hadn't followed me out and started down the driveway.

            "Marlene! Don't you need a ride?" Mom shouted from the porch, slipping into a jacket. My stepbrother came into view behind her, helping her pull her hair out from where it'd become trapped underneath the hood. I quickly looked down at my phone, hoping to find April's number lighting the phone.

            I knew tonight was game night for my brother. He had a football game and Mom had promised him we'd all attend a few days ago at dinner. I'd made plans seconds after to use my session as an escape and luckily hadn't had much of a fight on it. Mom, however, was also Louis' ride as Rodger had to pick Xavier up form karate.

            On cue, April's old beater pulled up along the curb behind Rodger's Range Rover and I climbed in, locking my door as soon as I had my left leg tucked inside the car. I couldn't say if it was because she saw the horror on my face or felt my anxiety that she immediately pressed on the gas. As soon as we were out of my neighborhood, she snuck a quick sideways glance in my direction. "What was that?"

            "I'm sorry." I trained my eyes on the floor rather than try and face her directly. "Just didn't want to be late."

            She didn't try to pry, but I could tell by the pursing of her bloodied lips she didn't believe a word that had just left my mouth. My train of thought was momentarily interrupted by my eyes roaming the car. It wasn't dirty, but cluttered, and when I glanced over my shoulder and into the back seat I started to gather why. There was a thick blanket and a stack of pillows on top of it, a duffel bag tucked in between the back of her seat and the one directly behind her.

            She was obviously living in here.

            "Was it the man or the boy." she eventually asks, filling the car with her quiet voice.

            I tensed, starting to dig my nails into my legs. "What?"

            "The look on your face." she whispered. "I know that look. Which one of them hurt you?"

            I started to shake my head but stopped when she turned in my direction at a red light and I got a good look at her face. A fresh bruise sat just under her right eye and expanding across her nose. It was hard to tell whether she'd been hit on the bridge of it or given a black eye.

            "April—" I extended my hand as if there was something I could actually do before letting it fall limply against the console. She blinked rapidly, catching tears in her lashes.

            "Please don't ask. I don't want to talk about it." she sniffled, quickly touching the top of her hand to her nose to keep anything from coming out. "Can we just not talk?"

            I thought back to Gage's comment about her looking as if she'd been through some shit and I could finally say I wholeheartedly agreed with that notation. So I did what seemed to come naturally now and remained silent, pulling my phone from my pocket so there'd be something to tame the elephants dancing around the car between us.

            *

            "You need a ride home?" Gage asked as soon as our support group ended, in the midst of peeling a liner off a cupcake.

            "I came with April." I answered, looking toward her in deep conversation with Joe. "I have no desire to go home anyway."

            He split the cupcake in half and offered me half. I took it and started plucking pieces off to put in my mouth.

            "Hmm," he made the noise with his mouth full. Once he'd swallowed, his amber eyes met mine. "I was going to go scream in a middle of a field if you're interested."

            It was hard to decipher whether he was joking or not. When no laugh or smirk followed the comment, I came to my own conclusion he was being serious.

            "Really?"

            "I know it makes me sound crazy, but it helps to let that aggression out somewhere."

            I wiped out the outer corners of my lips to get rid of crumbs as April joined us. "Hey."

            "You down to come field screaming with us?" Gage asked her.

            She looked to me, confused, but when I shrugged a little she repeated, "Field screaming?"

            "Get all this pent up shit out." he explained what he had to me. "I honestly just don't want to be alone tonight."

            My head tilted a little as I narrowed my eyes at the boy. I hadn't really heard him falter since I'd met him a month ago. He did a great job of concealing his emotions and staying on guard, but the look in his eyes as he looked between the two of us had me questioning just how truly over his trauma he was.

            "Honestly, me either." she hugged her arms around herself, becoming lost in the oversized pink sweatshirt. "I'm down. Marley?"

            "Yeah, sure."

            She looked back to Gage. "Who's car are we taking?"

            He nudged her shoulder with his own and smiled, but it didn't touch his eyes as it usually did. "I mean this in the nicest way possible, but your car is a hunk of junk."

            "Gee, thanks."

            **

            I leaned back into Gage's BMW, staring up and into the dark blanket over the sky. April was beside me, but the second we'd climbed out of the car she'd started crying. She continued to lift her sleeve up and wipe at her damp cheeks, but they trembled every time she lowered them down. Gage had already let out his own aggressions and sat on his trunk, occasionally looking to April with a sad look before sighing and looking down at his lap.

            "I just want it to stop." April's outburst sent Gage forward and he nearly fell. My hand instinctively shot up and slammed into his chest hard, but it steadied him enough to regain his balance. He nodded as I dropped my hand and we both looked to April. "I just wish it would have worked."

            It didn't take a rocket scientist to crack the code of what she was saying.

            "Hey, don't say that." Gage jumped down and touched a hand to her shoulder. "You're here for a reason."

            She backed away and glared, eyes glossy with tears. "For a reason? What, to stand and live through the abuse continuously? It never ends! It never stops! You know when the only time, in my eighteen years, I felt relief was? Those two minutes I died. Those two minutes I didn't have to think about when the next blow was going to come, about how fat I am, what was going to happen if the attempt failed."

            I recoiled, but Gage stood strong in front of her, unwavering. He then fell back a step, and for the first time since I'd met him, he didn't have anything comforting to say. No wise words he'd pulled out of the air and applied to our situation. I pulled my hands from my pockets and brushed passed him, and though it had taken a lot of internal confliction on whether to do it, I closed my arms around the crying girl. She stiffened for a second, shocked by the action, before her arms circled around my waist and her cries morphed into loud sobs. When I looked away from her and to Gage a few feet away, I felt my heart sink. He was oblivious to my stare and was staring at the black car beside his leg, but his eyes were as misty as April's had been, and even with rapid blinking, a stray tear escaped his left eye and rolled down his cheek.