wide, ushering Amanda and Luke inside. I step aside as he walks up to Scott and pulls him down into a hug.
"You should have come last night, son," he says, and kisses both his cheeks. Alcohol fumes are wafting off him like we're standing in a brewery.
"I didn't think I was all that welcome," Scott mutters, sounding like he's about ten.
"Of course you're welcome here, Scott," Andrew says, taking off his glasses and rubbing them on his sweater. "Can we just have some breakfast now?"
Marjorie humphs and grabs her children, leading them from the room. A few moments later I can hear her heavy footsteps thumping above our heads.
The front door slams and I lunge to stand between Scott and the only way into the kitchen, his arm falling through thin air as he tries to stop me. A second later, Mike's standing in the doorway to the kitchen, his bottom lip swelled black and blue to three times its normal size, the bruise extending down his chin and up towards his eye.
But his dark eyes aren't hard and cold now, and his hands are shaking as he looks from Scott's cast up into his face.
"I'm sorry about last night, Scott. I don't know what I was thinking," he says, not moving from the doorway.
I glance back at Scott, who's staring Mike like he's not going to accept the apology, his eyes darker than pitch.
"It's alright, whatever," he finally says.
"I shouldn't've come at you like that," Mike mutters, and finally takes a step into the kitchen. "I don't know what happened."
"As long as it won't ever happen again, right?" his dad says, and wraps his arm around Mike's shoulder leading him to the table.
"Right," Mike mutters and sits looking down at the wooden surface, as Tina and Andrew bring enough cups for everyone.
I pour the coffee for Scott and myself, clutching his hand so hard our skin might just get fused together.
The clock on the wall ticks and ticks, but time does not seem to be moving. It's like we're stuck in some paining, some eerie void in time, which is trapping all the pain and tension, leaving none of it outside. The idea solidifies as Marjorie and her children come back down. She pours herself a cup of coffee and drinks it leaning against the counter, her large breasts rising and falling with each breath she takes as she stares off at the wall of snow falling from the sky outside.
I let go of Scott's hand so Amanda can climb into his lap, and watch her fight off Luke as he tries to do the same. The room is filled with their childish bickering, but it's not breaking though the timeless silence does nothing to make the void dissipate.
CHAPTER FOUR
"Well, at least that's over," Scott says to me later, as we're standing on the porch, each clutching an umbrella his dad forced into our hands before we left.
I have no idea how long we spent in that silent kitchen, and I'm not really sure any time passed at all.
I open my umbrella and descend the three steps off the porch. Scott follows me.
"Yeah," I mutter.
"That was really hot the way you stood up to Marjorie for me," Scott says, looking at me from the side, the edges of his lips curled up into a sheepish grin.
I close my umbrella and stand under his, wrapping my arm around his waist. "She had it coming."
"She's really pissed at me. And with good reason," Scott mutters.
"Be that as it may, she has no right to threaten your life." My feet are slipping in the snow, and my whole right arm is white from it.
"Shouldn't take her so seriously. She's always been explosive like that," Scott says. "But she wouldn't actually hurt me. Her and Derek have been dating since I was like Luke's age."
"All the more reason for her to be nicer to you," I say.
The harsh, commanding anger that permeated my words to her is bubbling up in my chest again. My entire family is made up of a dad doing his best to disappear in his work, an aunt and two cousins I never see, an uncle living in California, a grandma who berates me all the time, and a bunch