my first thought was that the ritual act of prepping and installing a lock on my door would have given me some peace of mind. yet, even as the last screws were driven in and the deadbolt set with a thunk, i was still anxious. had she seen the condoms in the trash? or the sheets way back when? was kelsey somehow connecting two sets of unrelated dots? i wanted to retch every ounce of fluid in my body and manually remove my organs one by one. my second thought was to rat her out. i had plenty of ammunition, thought utilizing it would be more trouble than it was worth. 

there was no way to go to dad. no way to reasonably defend myself. sure, kelsey would get a slap on the wrist for sneaking out and maybe dad would stick up for my privacy, but how was i going to explain that i was, in the best case, bringing girls over to have premarital sex. i couldn’t bring myself to consider the worst-case scenario. 

it was a lose lose situation where i almost certainly lost harder, and only kelsey’s predisposition for making our lives hell had saved me from being tattled on. i had no leverage here at all and it was stressing me the fuck out. was i going to get an offer i couldn’t refuse? what would she even want? more ‘hangouts’ like that? a thing of comfort had been twisted into a hanging sword that kelsey held a knife to.  

the offending articles had been removed, my room thoroughly cleaned. even my stash of condoms and some vyvanse i had borrowed from keith were all displaced to a more reliable hiding spot. none of this did anything to assuage my anxiety. lacey was feeling things too. i wasn’t sure if she had drawn the same connections i had about my nights with kirsten, but i could tell that she was just as worried, if not more than i was, about kelsey’s leverage. it came to a head before either of us could make a move. 

“oh, oh lord bless me with strength.” martha said, crossing herself as if i were some kind of demonic entity she needed to purify. 

“can i help you, ma’am?” i asked, testing the door clearance. 

“what are you doing to my house?” she hissed. my eye twitched at that. 

“a lot of people have been barging into my room recently. it’s chafing my sense of privacy as a developing man.” i stated dryly. martha’s eye didn’t twitch, but if that feeling could be compressed into a look my comment had achieved the intended effect. 

“absolutely no locks on doors, especially not for developing young men.” 

“well, why don’t we talk about it as a family.” i replied, turning the key in the lock and trotting past her. she reached out to grab my arm and i lowered myself down the next step, pulling her off balance. i made a specific display of catching and righting her, practically hoisting the woman back up the steps. “careful.” i added, giving her my best interpretation of the placid neutrality kelsey had displayed earlier. she looked like she wanted to smite me down where i stood. 

“let’s see what your father has to say about this.” she hissed again, pulling herself away from me and stalking down the stairs. i followed, enduring the recap of what i had just experienced to dad who looked like a deer in headlights on the sofa. kelsey was in the kitchen, trying and failing to look like she wasn’t paying attention. 

“cain, is this true?” he asked. 

“yes, including the part where i’m tired of having to run border control in my own room.” i said. “especially that part.” dad sighed, taking his readers off and sitting up. 

“son, you need to ask before you do home improvement.” 

“that is hardly the issue here.” martha cut in. 

“protecting my privacy is an issue?” 

“did something happen?” my dad asked, put out. kelsey grinned. i could see her contemplating when to jump in. i decided it was now or never. 

“yes. the girls keep playing games in my room, using the TV, leaving clothes everywhere, its annoying. it’s not a playspace.” 

“hey-” kelsey shouted from the kitchen. 

“i just want to preserve the sanctity of my space.” i added, cutting her off. dad looked at martha, who silently fumed as she realized the direction the conversation was turning. 

“the other rooms do have locks, dear.” dad noted. a shrewd smile appeared on martha’s face and it dawned on me just how far a chasm yawned between the high priestess and cerberus.  

“as long as we have a copy of the key, then.” she stated, clearly not looking for pushback. i debated pushing back anyway but knew i would lose. the other rooms were simple push locks and the master keys were all above the doorframes in the hall. i would have to accept that martha could theoretically violate my privacy, which, she could have done before the lock. my thoughts lingered on kelsey’s ingenuity. 

“i’ll give dad the key tomorrow when i clone it.” i said, shooting a side eye glance at a furious kelsey. martha left in a huff, and dad sighed. 

“i understand you’re at that age, cain, but do you really need to be difficult?” he muttered, reaching for the glasses he had set aside. 

“i’m trying to get along, i just need boundaries.” i said. dad sighed again.  

“if you went back to your old room we could make the attic-” 

“no. boundaries. b. o. u.-” 

“i get it, cain. i’m only trying to help you all get along.” he said, giving me one of his usual looks. i was completely out of pity in that moment and all i could muster was a meek ‘yeah’ before walking away and very firmly locking my door behind me. 

trying to fall asleep that night was miserable and like many others the past few weeks, i tossed and turned into the wee hours of the morning. sometime just before dawn had filtered in through the attic window, my phone buzzed. i fought the urge to check it, but i was wide awake enough that i did anyway. 

Lace: lacey hawthorne, 13, found dead after idiot brother throws her under bus 
Cain: Only way out of that one, sorry. Tried to make sure the bus hit Cerberus too. 
Lace: you know its separate but ‘equal’ here. 
Cain: Well, it was that or let her spin a web about us –sleeping- together. 
Lace: seriously???? gross. 
Cain: Moving on. 

moving on. i silenced my phone and tossed it onto the futon. i couldn’t bring myself to even engage with the conversation, let alone contemplate my theoretical responses. that feeling of wanting to rearrange my intestines outside my body returned and i curled up into a ball.  

lacey made two quick raps on my door in her usual way and i waited for her to open it, realizing too late that it now had a deadbolt. when i clambered out of bed and ambled over to swing it open, she was already halfway down the steps. 

“oh, hi. you stopped responding…” 

“i…figured the conversation was over.” i mumbled. “did you want to talk…more?” lacey was silent and turned back towards the bottom of the stairs, taking another step. “at least take the spare key.” i added. she spun and wordlessly put her hand out. i closed the distance to hand it to her and she accepted the metal token without comment, once again retreating to her room. there was a moment of hesitation on the steps before i followed suit and closed the deadbolt for the last time that night. i retrieved the actual spare from the packaging on my desk and tossed the refuse into my makeshift recycle bin.  

boundaries. lines in the sand marking out things we should keep separate. neat and orderly organization for issues that were rapidly escaping the confines of their enclosures. i groaned and messed up my hair. it was one thing to keep kelsey out, but to explicitly invite lacey in? it felt like going back to square one and i was left to wonder why she had taken the key. use your brain, man. this girl is your charge; she looks up to you. the control is in your hands; you just need to exercise it. go find your phone and set. those. boundaries. 

i felt like tearing my hair out piece by piece. in the moment, i wanted to fire off paragraphs. demand that lace adhere to a strict set of rules regarding the use of the key. a part of me wished that we could go back to the way things were though, despite our prior conversations. a tug of war that bent my common sense to the will of semi-conscious desire. i loved her, missed her dearly. if this was a way to have more than a piece of her back, was it so wrong to just let it happen? 

i couldn’t answer any of the questions plaguing my mind and heart. instead, i subjected myself to another sleepless night in the attic. staring at the ceiling, flinching when the wind rattled the door in the early AM, and kicking myself for even thinking that it sounded like a key in the lock.