Page 27 of River Wild

River

Ten Years Old

“You got into another fight at school,” Gran says the moment I walk in the door.

I’m guessing the school called her because she hasn’t even looked at my face yet. I only got a busted-up lip though. The other kid came off worse.

I walk into the living room, where she is.

This is my gran’s house. Well, my home, too. I live with her now.

Gran is sitting on her favorite armchair. She’s smoking a cigar. She doesn’t usually smoke them inside the house. Always out on the back porch. Things must be bad if she’s smoking indoors.

I slip my backpack off and set it on the floor by the sofa. I take a seat.

She finally looks at me. “Are you all right?” she asks.

“Yeah.” I nod. “Only my lip that got cut.”

“You cleaned it up?”

I nod again.

She takes a puff of her cigar. The smoke filters in the air. Wafting into my nostrils.

I love the smell.

“You can’t be fighting at school all the time, River.”

I shrug. “The kid was an asshole. He said I was a freak.” And that my mom was a cop killer and that she should rot in jail.

But she isn’t a cop killer. I am. It should be me in prison, not her. But she wouldn’t let me tell the truth.

She made me promise not to tell the truth about what had really happened that day in the kitchen. Not even to Grandma.

She said she’d failed me once. She wouldn’t fail me this time.

I don’t even know what she meant by that.

All I knew was, I didn’t want them to take my mama away. But I didn’t want to go to jail either. I was scared.

I’m still scared.

And angry. So damn angry all the time.

“Don’t use that word,” Gran tells me. “And you are not a freak.” She leans forward to put her cigar out on the ashtray that sits on the coffee table. “The principal’s threatening to expel you.”

I shrug.

Like I care. I’d be happy to be out of that place. I hate it.

The kids are all assholes. The few friends that I used to have suddenly forgot my name when my mom got arrested.

Even the teachers ignore me.

I spend recess and lunchtime alone. Mostly, I just sit in the library and read.

I’m alone. But it’s fine. Because I don’t need anyone.