"HE USED ME."
No one ever tells you how heavy grief truly is. The only people who bother to check in on you after the fact are the ones with pearls lining their throats - keeping their prayers trapped on their tongues - and casserole dishes clutched in their hands. They don't ask how much sleep you've been getting. They don't ask if there's enough food in the fridge to keep everyone fed. They don't ask if their sons have stopped jumping your brothers, now that you're orphans and all. The only people who really know how heavy grief is, are the ones who refuse to speak of it at all.
No one tells you how heavy grief is, because they've spent what will be the rest of their lives locking it away. In a suitcase, a closet, a shoebox filled with pictures shoved under your bed. No one tells you how heavy grief is because they're still fighting against its weight. They're still struggling to keep their heads above the ever-growing rapids that threaten to pull you under into the abyss, and crush you to pieces, much like whatever is left of your heart.
Grief weighs the same as my textbooks. It weighs the same as my locker door clanging shut in the empty halls, it weighs the same as my backpack being wrestled into my shoulders. I don't miss my parents here. The pain is something new and fresh, its sting is sharp and bitter, instead of dull and old. My legs ache and burn when I push myself to my feet and look over at the endless line of chipped blue paint. Most of the lockers are dented, some are painted with phrases or symbols, like a stripe of gold, here and there. But for the most part, it's familiar.
I miss the beginning of the year. When I was petrified of high school and trying to figure things out on my own. Sure, I had Two-Bit, but I'd barely seen him in any classes, much less my own. But Darry had walked me in on that first day. While Momma and Dady were busy combing Sodapop's hair and helping Ponyboy find his shoes, Darry was with me. He'd stuck to my side so close that day, you'd have thought we'd been glued together. Whether it was prying my locker open when it got stuck, or standing with me on the outskirts of the schoolyard until I found Sylvia, he'd been there for me. Now, all I had was the uncomfortable weight of my bag swinging back and forth against my spine, and the soft patter of my shoes hitting the floor.
It was a little after ten when I sat down on the front steps of Will Rodgers, like I'd done a million times before when I was waiting for the gang. Darry was still inside, signing the last of the papers that would officially dub him a high school dropout. I guess we were both flipping through pages, though, only the one on my lap had nothing to do with me. Tim hadn't been showing up in class for the last few days, either, I guess. I busied myself with his chemistry exam, flipping through the pages and reading each question, all while feeling pride bloom throughout my chest. Some of his answers had been copied from my notes word for word, but I really couldn't care less. The only thing I cared about, was our science teacher's writing, and the red 78% scribbled in the corner.
He'd passed, his grade had shot up to a sixty-five - not great, but passing - and I was proud of him for it. I was so hopelessly proud of him, that I didn't even notice the door swing open until Darry dropped to the stairs beside me. "Well," he begins simply, "that's that."
We'd talked over the last few days, but with the same simplicity that we used to. Our words were strained and forced, all for the sake of pretending nothing was wrong at all. We used to stay up together when we were younger. We'd sit in the living room and go over our homework, all because I couldn't do long division and biology was Darry's worst subject. We'd talk about our days, our friends, anything. But at least we'd do it together. Now, it was a miracle I could stand to look at him at all. "So what's the next step?" I ask stiffly while closing the exam. Darry's eyes flicker over the cover - the name scrawled on it, too - but doesn't say anything about it at first. "I've gone; through the paper a lot, y'know, lookin' for a good job. I'm thinking I'll swing by the grocery store and see if they're still hiring."
Darry's never been one to fidget - especially not with his hands - but that's all he was doing now. Twisting his fingers and cracking his over and over again to the point where I was afraid they'd snap. "You ain't lyin' to me, right?" I wasn't sad or scared anymore about the truth slipping into the light, I was exhausted. If Darry was about to drag our family name through the mud, the least he could do was be honest about it. Darry hauls himself to his feet before answering my question and wipes his hands on his old blue jeans. Then, without warning, his hand hooks around my arm and yanks me to stand beside him. he still towers over me, even if I'm on the top step and he's two below.
"I'm lookin' for a job, Marley. I mean it." His eyes are stern and sharp, like Daddy's when he caught me watching the stars on the front step hours after he's put me to bed. "An' what in God's name are you doing with his exam?" My backpack swings with every step I take down the stairs as I let the question fester. I know I'm being annoying. I know I'm giving him every reason to drag me back to the house by my hair and ground me for life, but I do it anyway. I'm really testing the waters when I reach the edge of the schoolyard and Darry still hasn't moved from his spot on the steps. So, I turn around to face him. "I've been tutoring him in chemistry since November."
Then I leave.
The house looks different in the daylight, not like when the only light is a soft yellow glow coming from one window. Now, in the middle of the morning when my eyes aren't watered down with tears, it looks morbid. I can see every chip in the glass, every ugly smear of paint, every shingle barely clinging to the roof. I step over every crack in the cement carefully before climbing the three wooden steps to the front door. People are talking on the other side of the door. Loud, boisterous yelling that fades to mumbled insults as quickly as they'd arisen. The voices are pulled into silence once more when my fist drums against the door.
I can't tell you how long I wanted out on that front step - because it couldn't have been more than a second. The door is flung open instantaneously, and I'm left there staring at Mr. Shepard for the second time in my life. His lips spread into a thin smile around his cigarette once he finally realizes I'm not here to arrest him or any of his children. He straightens his spine and crossed his thick arms across his chest before letting his eyes tear into mine. It takes a lot more control than I thought it would've to not just leave, right then and there. "Can I help you with somethin', sweetheart?"
I smile and nod before digging my fingers into the strap of my backpack. "Yeah, actually. I'm just lookin' for Tim." I could've just risked a glance around him, but I was too scared to do more than breathe, like any minuscule action would set him off. "If he ain't here, you can just tell him-" He turns before I can finish my sentence, leaving me with a clear view of Andy Keep, another man, Pat Macrorie, and Tim, all sitting together at the kitchen table. I see Andy first, just because his eyes are already trained on me. Something is seriously off about that kid, and I'm not fixing to stick around and find out. In an instant, three different voices all clash together, fighting to be heard over the uproar.
"Tim! Marley Curtis is here for you!"
"'She's just a girl', ain't that what you said, Tim?"
"Hey, Marley!"
Tim is still mumbling insults when he comes to the door, a white-knuckled grip on the bronze doorknob. I take a step back as Tim begins to step over the threshold and pull the door closed behind him, but Mr. Shepard's hand is all we need to freeze. "Leave it open," he orders dismissively. "Air out the smoke while you two talk." Then he walks away, the cigarette between his fore and middle finger now as he makes his way back to the table and the people surrounding it. In front of me, I can already see the goosebumps exploding across his skin. He has one hand is still wrapped around the doorknob while his left is pushed against the frame like they're the only things responsible for holding him up. "The hell are you doin' here, Curtis?" He snaps. I feel my grip on my backpack falter and my eyes snap to the people just behind him. Out of everyone, Pat looks the most concerned. The other three watch us like some late-night soap opera.
"I can come back later if you want," I start gently. I tear my eyes away from the kitchen and bring them back to Tim, to the veins straining against his skin, to the dark marks circling his eyes. "I just wanted to-" That's when he scoffs and rolls his eyes, dragging his tongue across his teeth. "You ain't gonna come around here again," he says slowly. As if we were back at my kitchen table, going over the notes that had gotten him a passing grade. "I don't fucking need you anymore, Curtis. What did you think this was?"
I stand there for a second and wait. I wait for the words to register in my mind, but my heart's already picked up their meaning. My chest feels painfully hollow as I stand there and wait for him to backtrack. For him to take the step onto the porch and slam the door behind him. For him to say he didn't mean any of it and that he just felt like being an asshole. "I don't get it," I admit softly. "Tim, what's goin' on-"
"You don't know anything about your brother or his whole operation, so I don't have to pretend I care about you anymore," he snaps. "That's what's going on." Little by little, everything falls into place. Like I'd been trying to solve a puzzle with only half the pieces. Frank Shepard had been arrested five years ago for selling drugs, and then Darry filled his empty position. He used me to figure out what he was doing - tried to anyway. Now that it was obvious I was of no use, he could cut me loose.
"An' I mean Jesus Christ, did you give it up easy," he continues. "It really didn't take much to get you naked, did it? That desperate for attention you were willing to give it up to the first guy to look at your eyes longer than your tits-"
He used me. He used me to get a passing grade in chemistry, and then he used me to take down Darry. I don't know why I didn't just leave immediately, but I couldn't force my legs to follow my brain's instructions. I was frozen to his porch, searching his eyes for anything that could've given it away as some sick joke. But there was nothing. Just cold, harsh, angry. "I don't fucking care about you, Marlene. I never did."
That's when the levee breaks. I didn't cry or yell, but I pushed the exam against his chest with enough force to send him stumbling back a step or two. "Well, you sure as shit fooled me," I snap viciously. My backpack dangles off one shoulder precariously as I storm off the porch and down the street, wanting nothing more than the safety and comfort of my own home. I know it'll never be home again - not without my parents - but it's better than nothing. I reach the end of the street in a matter of minutes, but that's as long as it takes for an inkling of an idea to take root.
Grief is relentless. Just when you're finally able to think you've moved on, it comes back full force and crushes all the progress you've made. It was heavy and obnoxious, constantly trying to crush you under its weight. Sometimes grief weighed as much as the textbooks stuffed inside my bag.
Other times, it felt the same as a bottle of lithium tucked in my back pocket.
Sure, I wanted nothing to do with Darry and his "operation", but we needed the money. We needed the money to keep our electricity and water on, we needed the money to keep the fridge stocked. I told myself for the rest of the night I'd only do it for the money, but something about beating the Shepards at their own game sounded real pleasing, too.