The next day, I walk on eggshells until our father leaves for his National Guard duty. It's Saturday and I'm sleep deprived, but I don't dare sleep late. Ryan's finishing a painting job at a neighbor's home and I want to see him. I sigh remembering the money he's earning for the car that's going to take him far away from us. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I hear the phone ring.

"It's for you!" My mother calls me from the kitchen.

"I'll take it upstairs." Usually I hate to talk on the phone, but it's Loren, my best friend. I've known her since grade school. We're the same age, but her mother died when she was six. She's always been more advanced for her age than I am.

We met when she walked up to me one day at recess. "Wanna play handball?" With my unruly mop of dark curly hair and ebony eyes, I was always shunned by the blond haired girls and their cliques populating the playground. I usually sat alone on the curb, but that day the geeky girl with the glasses surprised me with a compliment. "I really like your curls. I wish my hair wasn't so straight." She held out her hand, offering her tennis ball to me. Loren wore glasses and had long, dark hair, so thin it always looked greasy. She acted like we'd known each other forever. Once I learned she loved to read as much as I did, we immediately bonded. She's the only friend I've ever had. That's why I'm hanging on the phone listening to her inane conversation.

"Did you hear what happened to Greg Davis? He stabbed his father in the back last night." My mind's in a fog from lack of sleep and anxiety. A blurry picture of a quiet boy with sandy colored hair surfaces in my mind.

"I remember him. He always wore those washed out colored jeans, like he's from California. Maybe he had good reason to stab him. Maybe he was defending himself." I don't want to hear about this, stabbing someone's father. It hits too close to home.

"Evie, he stabbed him in the back! That's not self defense. You remember him. The weird kid in math class. Everyone's talking about it. Are you still there?"

"Yeah, sorry. I didn't sleep last night." Exhausted, I suppress a yawn. "I feel like someone's sucked the brain right out of my head." Restlessly, I roll on my side, pulling the telephone cord across the bed.

"Maybe you have insomnia."

"Maybe." Or maybe it's fear. "Even Valium's not helping me anymore."

"Wait, you take Valium? You don't even smoke. Evie, you shouldn't be taking sleeping pills." She's one to talk. Last year, she devolved from a straight A student into a pot smoking druggie. With her suede, fringed purse, she's a living testament to the sixties hippie culture, but no matter how far we go in opposite directions I won't hold her faults or lousy fashion choices against her. She lowers her voice. "That shit's hard to come by. How'd you get it?"

"It's my mother's. I sneak it out of her purse." Usually, Loren's not interested in the details of my life. She's too focused on herself and her single minded pursuit of boys.

"Why can't you sleep?" I hear her gum crack on the other end of the line.

"I'm worried what's going to happen after Ryan leaves. I don't want to be alone with my parents." From my bedroom window, I observe my brother loading paint cans into the family station wagon.

"Seriously, you never tell me what's really going on in your family. Why don't you want to be alone with them?" Loren and I were drifting apart long before she got contacts, curled her hair, and then started sleeping with boys. I perk up on the bed. This is the most interest she's taken in me in a long time. Taking a deep breath, I tell her about my nightmares.

"These dreams I keep having terrify me. I've been afraid something bad's going to happen for a long time. I just haven't talked about it to anyone. It's like a deja vu feeling, but worse because of my father's stoney silences, his violent temper. He's like that caretaker from The Shining. The one with the axe that tried to kill everyone. I'm afraid after Ryan leaves he's going to kill my mother." Or me.

"Man, my father only looks at porn. I know where he stashes his magazines. He hides them in a hole in the wall besides the toilet." I grimace at the gross visual. If she's trying to joke me out of my dark thoughts, she's making it worse."

"That's disgusting." Our conversation stalls. I can tell she's shocked by what I've just shared with her.

"Evie, you father would never hurt you, or your family. We live in the suburbs for God's sake." Why did I think she could relate to what I'm going through? "By the way, when does Ryan start college?"

"Next year. He's going to an Industrial Arts institute. His SAT scores didn't qualify him for college." I don't tell her he's leaving early this fall.

"But he's so smart! How could he bomb on his SAT's?" Loren ranked highest in language arts in our school two years straight. She was a gifted student before she started smoking pot.

"He was born with dyslexia. He doesn't do well in reading comprehension." I know how smart my brother is. He helps me with my algebra. My father's a teacher, but oddly enough, he never allowed educators to place my brother in special classes to correct his reverse vision.

Instead, he would sit Ryan down at the table to tutor him. "No son of mine's going to special education. I'll fix this!" Frustrated, my father always ended the lessons abruptly, yelling at my brother, "You're so stupid! How could a son of mine be so dumb!"

My mind returns to Loren's chattering banter. "We're having a pool party next week. I scored some good weed from Greg.... before he was arrested."

"Mmm.. Isn't that weed kind of tainted?"

She snorts. "What? You mean because he was busted? Don't be silly. Weed is weed."

Finally, she comes to the point of her call. "Hey, you and Ryan should stop by." She wants to get into my brother's pants. Last week when she came over, she showed up in some very short shorts. My mother wasn't happy. "I could see her buttocks falling right out of those hot pants! Tell her to get dressed before she comes over here."

"Thanks, Loren. I'll tell Ryan. Got to go. Call you later?"

"Yeah, sounds good. "Hey, Eve, you shouldn't touch your mom's pills. She probably needs them. Say hi, to Ryan, for me."

I should tell Loren if she hopes to get closer to my brother through me, then the jokes on her. I've never been close to Ryan. We're complete opposites. Unlike my brother, I hold a grudge. I never forget when someone hurts me. I'd hate my father, even if he didn't beat us, but my brother's different. He's too forgiving, like my mother. Last month, Ryan got stoned and tried to wake our father from his nightly drunken stupor in the dining room.

"Dad, wake up." From the dining room, I'd heard their voices. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, until I saw him grab our dad's arm and urgently shake it.

"What are you doing, waking him?" I mouthed. "Do you want to get hit?" I couldn't tell if my brother was ignoring me, or he didn't understand my pantomimed warning. His eyes were glazed. Finally after three or four minutes, my father had lifted his head from the table, his hair sticking up straight from his balding head. "Get the hell away from me."

I'd backed away from the table, preparing to flee, but Ryan wouldn't budge, " Dad, I want to help you. I love you." The weed he'd smoked that night must have been very strong. He had that unfocused far way look in his eye like the Bob Dylan poster in his room.

Our father's response was brutal. He might as well have shoved a knife into my brother's heart. "I told you! Leave me the fuck 'lone!" Pushing him aside, he'd grabbed his keys. I had no idea where our father'd gone that evening, but after he'd left, a chilling thought had entered my mind. Maybe if he had stayed, he'd have done something he regretted. I'd seen the murdering look in his eyes.

Running back into the dining room, I'd found my brother in tears of frustration. "What are you doing, Ryan? I thought you were smarter than this. Why do you care about him after what he did to you? You know he hates us!" I wanted to snap him out of his fugue of vulnerability.

"Shut up, Evie! Don't pretend to care about me when all you think of is yourself. Selfish bitch."

"Don't yell at me! This is how you should be talking to dad, not begging him to love you. He doesn't care about you." I'd left him alone, retreating to my bedroom. Who could live in such chaos?

It's moments like these I want to build an impenetrable wall between myself and everyone else, or crawl back into my mother's womb. Life's too painful. I've tried not to care about my brother, but I always fail. Underneath his masculine bravado, I see a frightened little boy. I remember he had the same look on his face when he won a Christmas tree in the church raffle when he was eight. He was afraid to walk up and claim his prize.

That winter day, he'd planted the tree with my mother on the edge of our property, wearing a green coat and one of those pilot caps that snap under the chin. He had on red rain boots since it never snows here, only raining with the air pollution that blows over from Philadelphia. I can't stay angry with my brother, I always see that little boy in his eyes.