Soul Keys–Excerpt

by Alex Rosas

I turned the corner on my street to find Mom’s car in the driveway. Shit. She never came home this early unless she was having a bad day at the office. Maybe if I just slipped into my room... I opened the door as quietly as I could to find Mom sitting on the loveseat in the living room, laptop open and wine glass in hand. She turned to me. The glass nearly slipped out of her grasp. “Zack, baby, what happened to you?” My hand unconsciously went to my face, ghosting over a slowly blackening eye. I’d known this conversation was coming, but it didn’t make it any easier. “Just a tussle in PE. We were playing basketball, and it got a little heated,” I lied. She pursed her lips. “Well, that’s just not acceptable. I’m going to call the school first thing tomorrow morning and have a talk with your principal.” “Mom!” I said forcefully, “It’s fine, really. I talked to Dad about it, and he said that it’s good for boys to rough around every once in a while.” It was a thing of beauty really--the change in her demeanor, or it would’ve been if it weren’t my mom, or if it wasn’t directed at me. In a second, she changed from concerned parent to burned ex-wife. Her eyes narrowed, her eyebrows disappeared into her hairline, and her mouth morphed into a hardened sneer. It was the face of the woman who argued countless nights away in the kitchen. That was not the face of my mother. “Well, if that’s what your father says, then who am I to disagree? He can be the one to take you to the hospital next time!” With that, she slammed her laptop shut, grabbed her wine, and stormed off to her room. Interactions like this had become the norm in my household after Dad left. At least Ellie hadn’t been around to see it. She still had another hour of school left. With Mom’s absence, I finally let the tension out of my body, feeling the pain for the first time. There was no one around to see me wince. I made my way to the kitchen and found an ice pack in the fridge. It was going to be a hard night tonight.