The Cave Dwellers by Christina McDowell (readict books TXT) 📕

She opens the palm of her hand; the tips of her fingers are covered in pink blood. She rinses them under the tap, and watches the pink water swirl down the drain.

“Mackenzie!” Betsy yells through the intercom. “We’re going to be late!”

“I’ll be right there!” She wipes her fingertips on an embroidered hand towel, then hops up onto the sink, scoots as close to the mirror as she can. Butterflies swirl in her stomach as she thinks about her upcoming exam, her father telling her Marty isn’t good enough because he doesn’t feel like home, her new violin piece. She parts her hair to the other side of her head, her fingers crawling along the roots. She rubs the root with her pointer again, her obsessive ritual, then curls the thin, tiny strand of hair around her finger and yanks hard, holding her breath. She exhales just as Betsy bursts through the bathroom door. Startled, Mackenzie turns her head and it hits the open medicine cabinet.

“Ow! Jesus, Mom, can you knock?!”

“What are you doing?” Betsy grabs Mackenzie’s hand, sees the blood on her fingertips. “Wash this off right now.”

“I am!”

“Let me see.”

Mackenzie tries to swat her mother away. “Mom, stop!”

“Let me see right this goddamn minute.” Betsy wrestles her, forcing her into a headlock, her diamond Cartier watch digging into Mackenzie’s cheek.

“Ow!”

Betsy flips her hair over. “Oh my God, you’re bleeding.” Several new scabs have formed against the fresh patch of Mackenzie’s bloody and picked roots.

“Mom, stop!” Mackenzie begins to sob, now limp in her arms. “Stop!”

“This isn’t normal! This isn’t normal, Mackenzie! Why are you doing this?!” she yells, letting her daughter fall from her arms as if she’s dropped her over a cliff.

“I don’t know!” Mackenzie sobs, up against the bathroom wall and sliding down to the floor.

“I’m calling the doctor right now.”

Haley walks into Mackenzie’s room with her backpack over her shoulders, ready for school. “Mom? What’s going on? I’m going to be late!”

“It’s your sister, we’re dealing with an emergency. Teresa needs to take you. Go tell her I said she’s taking you.… Go! The keys to the Jaguar are on the hook by the back door.”

“Get out!” Mackenzie screams at her sister. Haley runs out of her room.

“Are you on drugs? Was it that boy, Billy Montgomery?”

“No!”

“You have to stop doing this, Mackenzie.” Betsy squats down, puts her hands on Mackenzie’s shoulders, and shakes her against the bathroom door. “Do you hear me? You have to stop!”

“Stop! I’m tired! I’m tired! I’m tired of performing; I don’t want to perform anymore. I don’t want to perform.” Mackenzie curls over, buries her face in her hands as she sobs, rocking on her bath mat.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Bunny sits on the swan garden bench in Bishop’s Garden smoking, her Doc Marten tapping its claw as she exhales. An arch of thorns over her head, and decomposing leaves stuck to the stone pathway beside her. She throws her cigarette into the fountain to her left, water spewing from the mouth of a stone gargoyle, gaping like a yawning cat. She crosses her arms and wraps them around her stomach, hunching over in her red peacoat, her freckles barely visible this time of year, faded against her translucent skin. She’s wearing red Dior cat’s-eye sunglasses to shield her eyes from the flat light now ripe for giving her headaches.

“What’s with the sunglasses?” a voice asks from behind.

Bunny jumps and spins around. “Jesus, Billy. You scared me!” Bunny collects herself. Billy stands opposite her, black peacoat, tousled hair, hands in his pockets, dark circles under his eyes. Gaunt.

“The light, I got a headache,” Bunny says. “Did you just climb through the bushes?”

“Yeah. Being followed.” Billy ducks his head, peering out at the black Suburban parked across the street, tinted windows, government tags. “How come you’re not responding to my texts?” he asks.

“I can’t find my phone,” Bunny says, the tension between them like sticky residue inside of an unfinished breakup.

“Can we talk for a second?” Billy takes a few steps closer to her and removes the sunglasses from her eyes.

Bunny winces, the light stinging. “Ahh! Can you stop?” she says, squinting up at him, a glassy veil over her clear blue eyes. “Give them back!”

Billy surrenders and hands them back. “Okay, diva.”

“Fuck you. My eyes are sensitive to the light.” Bunny puts them back on, takes a seat on the bench again.

“So did you give your money away?” Billy asks, sitting next to her.

Bunny sighs, annoyed. “Not yet.” She feels the impulse to tell him about the Christmas homes tour but finds herself stuck in her own story, sinking in confusion, unsure of how to explain it anymore or what to say.

“Interesting.” Billy nods his head.

“I don’t want to talk about this, if that’s why you came here.”

Billy looks up to the sky, then puts his head back down as if looking up might reveal something he doesn’t want to see. “My dad’s being indicted for war crimes.” The words slip out matter-of-factly, unusual for Billy when he’s with Bunny, a more withholding and less sensitive tone.

“What?” Bunny says, confused. “That sounds like an oxymoron.”

“Hah. I didn’t think about that.”

“What does that mean? Indicted.”

“Honestly, I don’t really know, but I think it means prison. Unless the president pardons him, which, I don’t know…”

Bunny looks down at her Doc Martens, kicks the claw of the bench with her heel. “Wow,” she says.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Billy says.

“No you don’t,” Bunny says.

“Look, everything we have… everything my father built for my family was done on the backs of my dirt-poor ancestors—”

“Billy, everyone’s families were built on the backs of their ancestors, this isn’t unique. Why can’t you just accept that the world we live in is morally bankrupt and racist? And that your dad probably did commit war crimes.”

“Will you let me finish?!” Billy shouts.

“Finish!” Bunny shouts back, both of them angry about the same thing, but neither willing to hear