Me, Myself, and I

everybody hates kyle

Before either one of us could speak, we heard muffled voices through the door. The crinkling of paper. The echoing of steps halted. I exchanged a glance with Kyle, and we leaned against the door frame, watching the shadows move.

My dad's voice sounded first. "This is a student paper. A student journalist wrote this."

Silence. Mr. Wood finally spoke, "We know that."

"You paid for the silence of a student journalist. So...this Nancy Clemmings..." Pacing. Dad always paced. "These aren't in circulation?"

I glanced down at the paper again. Top right corner, the giant symbols in bold, separated by a good amount of space between each letter. I followed them with my finger, tried to ground myself in the present. D. C. C. Delcoph Community College's bright orange wolf logo took up most of the space beside it. They must not be in circulation. I didn't even know our college had a paper.

"Kyle found it before we did. He showed up out of the blue about a month ago, said he was going to take Ben away, then showed us the paper in some grand defensive," Mrs. Wood said. "Ben told us that you covered for him that day. You told us you'd invited him over for support group. That he'd forgotten to tell us."

Dad's pacing stopped. "I apologize. At the time it seemed more important to build up some trust with him than anything. I shouldn't have deceived you to achieve that. He and Julia showed up at my doorstep; she told me she'd found him out walking and invited him over. If I'd known the truth of it, of course I would have informed you."

Their conversation blurred in my head. Kyle looked back at me, that vein in his forehead about to explode. I glared at the paper, that stupid color image. Then balled it up and threw it back at him.

"What do you want me to say?" I said. "Yes, I found him there. He was holding that knife. I stopped him from doing anything with it. Where were you?"

As was often the case, I hadn't meant much of whatever words had come out of my mouth. Just needed to hurt him, feel a bit better about myself than I did. He started shouting at me. I started screaming at him. Our voices were too loud for that waiting room. The distance was getting closer, that vein bigger. His brothers had stood up, joined in the arguing.

Then the door opened.

Kyle went pale, his chest moving faster, fingers suddenly quavering. He stepped back, gripped the table for support.

My dad returned the same wide-eyed expression.

"What's going on?" Mrs. Wood demanded.

Kyle grabbed his shaking wrist, clenched his eyes close a moment before turning back towards me. His voice had gone rasp. "What kind of sick game were you playing at, not saying anything?"

Before I could answer and further myself into hypocrisy, Mr. Wood stood between us. "Son, you need to calm down."

"I am calm."

"Clearly," muttered Nick, flicking his scarf.

Kyle's hands were shaking. He held one of his sleeves, a few broken stitches around the elbow.

Mr. Wood stepped closer. "You have no right to be questioning anyone on what they did or didn't do about Ben."

I paused, watching them size each other up as we all shrank back. Micah whispered something to his wife, who ushered the girls out of the room. Last time Kyle had been to Delcoph, Ben told me he'd fought with his parents. He also told me that it was far from the first time. Kyle's presence seemed to be a bigger disturbance in the balance of this family than Ben ever claimed it to be.