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Simon is 8 years old. He likes space, and he uses broken crayons to draw the solar system on the underside of his bunk bed. He has watched Matilda a dozen times, and he wishes he had superpowers. Sometimes, he wishes he could just disappear.
He tried to leave before, but could never get past the kitchen door before he ran back to his room, hands trembling, silently crying so he won't wake up his family. He would hide under his bed because the mattress would always creak; he is afraid that Tommy would peek from his top bunk, and Simon would mistake his hazy green eyes for the two pitch-black holes of the skull mask.
Tommy was fun once, when he would let Simon get his turn on the Nintendo 64. He was fun when they would play with the neighbor's kids in the rain. He was fun when he would throw away a comic book and Simon would pick it up on the trash bin for himself.
It's easy to forget Tommy was a little boy once, caught up in a wreck of a family, just like Simon is now.
Simon is constantly downcast. He laughs at the cartoons sometimes, and smiles when he hears acoustic guitar on the radio, gentle and warm instead of the punk rock his father likes to blare. But his expression has something, deep on his eyes—that true melancholic honesty that only children possess. Everyone can see Simon has something wrong inside him, but no one cares enough. Teachers brush it off as shyness. He’s just always been the quiet kid.
Meanwhile, Simon cares way too much. He is accustomed to policing his expression so his father does not call him a pussy (he doesn't understand what it means yet), so his mother doesn't see him as a weak, and so his brother doesn't mock him.
Simon feels like he is constantly the butt of a joke that everyone, but him, understands.
Simon wants to leave so badly, but he's scared. He is old enough to understand that if he left, all of his father's rage would be directed towards his mother. He does not think of bringing his mother with him, because he's also old enough to form his opinions. One of them is that maybe, deep down, she is part of the problem. Mother's Day feels worse to Simon than it should.
Maybe it's something beyond his understanding. He tries not to think about it too much and uses his free time to do homework. The teachers say he has potential, but he doesn't believe them at all. Knowledge makes you brave, and he is not.
In the morning, Simon's mom cleans the aftermath of whatever happened the night before. Shards of glass, stained carpet, blonde hair strands, smell of cheap beer. She does it before the boys get up for school, because she probably believes that it makes it sting less. Meredith was always one to suffer in silence.
If Simon peeks out into the hallway and whispers, she denies any help he can offer.
But, sometimes, when it stings too much, she lets him mop the kitchen tiles. He pretends he does not see the drops of dried red liquid on the carpet. He also pretends, as hard as he can, not to see newly formed bruises on her arms.
“What's the point of this?” He said once, staring at the mop sliding back and forth along the floor. “He’s just going to do it again.”
“Don't stress it, sweet pea.” Meredith whispered, kneeling down and picking shards of what was once a bottle. “It's not going to change anytime soon.”
The smell of yesterday's beer mixed with cleaning products, along with her answer, makes his stomach churn. He drops the mop and hides under his bed, frenetically scratching the wooden frame until rashes form under his nails.