Page 20 of Midnight Curfew

Macon’s always the first one up. I mean, usually. Glancing at the clock on the wall, I see it’s after eight.

“Is he worn out?” a voice teases, heading into the kitchen.

I look up to see Clay stroll in dressed in pink boxer shorts and a white tank top, followed by my sister, whose hair looks like it just orgasmed.

Clay takes a glass out of a cabinet. “What the hell were you guys doing half the night?” she asks Krisjen. “Making a baby?”

Krisjen’s expression changes like there’s a smile about to burst across her lips, and the light just starts to dawn in my head before Clay sees it, too, and screams. “Oh, my God!”

I wince, her shrill cry slicing into my eardrum.

She wraps her arms around Krisjen, rocking her side to side.

“I didn’t…” Krisjen blushes and then laughs. “Shhh.”

Liv joins in. “Krisjen!”

“Keep it down.” But she can’t hide her happiness. “We just started trying, okay?”

“That’s so exciting!” Clay squeals.

I push off the counter. “Oh, Jesus.”

Sour taste in my mouth, I dump the rest of my drink into Krisjen’s potted fig tree in the living room before I climb the stairs to escape their joy.

That’s all we need. Another screamer in the house.

And what about Macon? Is she thinking of him? He has the same problems our mother did, and having children only worsened her health. It’s why he denied himself a woman of his own for so long. He didn’t want to do to his own family what our mother did to ours. Albeit unintentionally.

But the truth is, I’m the only one without something. Army has his son. Trace has his dream, Liv has Clay…

It’s hard not to feel like I’m stuck when everyone else keeps moving.

I don’t want anything, though.

Just control.

I don’t want love, and I don’t want someone’s heart. I don’t want children, and I don’t want memories. My parents’ blind love for each other killed them. No one lives happily ever after. No one.

I pause halfway up the steps, feeling the long, thin split in the wood under my feet on one stair in particular. The memory of my mother’s crying drifts through my ears, and I remember it so clearly, because this was the step where I stopped.

I heard her that day, and I backed down the stairs, and I never saw her again.

I swallow the lump in my throat. That day taught me one thing: holding too tightly to things you can’t control pulls us under right along with them.

If I don’t change, what will happen?

I’ll be alone.

And I never disappoint myself.

Heading to the shower, I stop at Macon’s open door, seeing him lying across the bed, the top button of his jeans open. He stares at the ceiling, and I almost start to back away.

Army comes up behind me, dressed in black cargo pants and a black shirt with matching tie. His badge sits pinned to his chest.

He starts laughing. “You okay?” he asks Macon.

“Girl’s trying to get pregnant in one night,” he grumbles. “I swear to God.”