VI.

Youth is depravity.

Oppression.

Youth is the meager expression of rebellion against a war that ended long ago. At least, that's what you'd always told me.

I had watched from the bathroom doorframe as you carefully shaved your head. I had watched as the brown strands fell purposelessly to the ground. Does it cease being hair when it's no longer on a head, I had wondered. It limped, dampened. It was no longer livid, you cut its life force and it lingered limply in the air, flitting downward to its ultimate demise. And I had watched until there was but one strip left down the middle. I could see the veins beneath the milk flesh, deep blue rivers.

When you'd finished, you'd turned expectantly at me. As answer, I'd stuck my tongue out at you. You threatened to rip it from my throat if I did it again.

You pulled a wool hat over your head and said you were going out. I asked if I could come but you told me no sharply. You smirked, told me you were meeting Layla. I tried to hide my frown but you caught it and made no comment, placing your hand like a soft breeze against my cheek as you passed by.

I watched you clamor downstairs, heard mom yell at you. She wanted to know what you'd done to your hair. You told her you'd put it in the trash. I could feel her hand against your cheek as though it had struck my own. She yelled at you, Spanish words I didn't know. You left before she finished.

I crept downstairs after you had gone, snatched up my skateboard, and snuck out. I walked away from our house, clutching to me the light from the streetlamps as I passed. The night was a curtain over the sky, you were blanketed in its lies. I wanted to find you. I wanted you to find me. I stumbled about, slid my board against the pavement, riding it carelessly.

I rode it over the Pier, across the boardwalk, listening to the vibration in my jaw. Skateboarding was banned from the boardwalk, but I didn't care that night. No one was there to witness my crime. I almost wished someone was. It seemed a bravado thing to do. Something Otto would do. I wished I could share it with someone.

I wondered where you went with Layla. There was a patch of glinting sand on the boardwalk, it caught in my tires. I skidded to the ground, my arms sprawled beneath me, my cheek, my chin plastered to the heavy wood below my shaking body.

You never talked to me about her. If I brought her up, you changed the subject, or pushed me away. I wanted to know where your fingers lingered on her flesh. I wanted to know how she quavered when your lips touched her own. I wanted to know what you whispered into her ear, your breath hot against her neck. I wondered how she would react to your bare skull, wondered if she would stick her tongue out at you, wondered if you would threaten her.

I rolled onto my back, heard my skateboard crash into a cluster of tin trashcans not far away. The moon leered down at me, half a sneer. The milk of the moonlight spilled over the Pier, the beach, over me. I closed my eyes, pictured you drenched in the same pure white.

Wherever you were, you were here. The moon attested to that.

Mom yelled at me when I returned home.