by C. G. Drews
He’s not sure what that even means, but Avery will never come back without Sam.
‘And you? What have you been doing?’ The words come tight, forced – like she doesn’t really want to ask.
‘Nothing.’ Sam’s mouth is full of cotton. ‘I don’t have anywhere to live.’
‘Oh, so you’re crawling back for help, are you?’ Veins flex purple in her neck. ‘After all you’ve done, you … you despicable little boy.’
Sam’s chest caves in on itself.
‘I’m not taking you back,’ Aunt Karen says. ‘You go inside my house and I’m calling the police. They can figure you out.’
‘I just … I’m sorry—’
She snatches the shopping bag off him. ‘Really? I can see your hands, Sammy. Still fighting? Still hitting people? Do you know what you deserve? To be locked up. No second chances. No sly apologies.’
Sam opens his mouth, but the lump welling in his throat will only release the dam holding back panic and tears. She won’t budge for that either. She’ll say crocodile tears and I know what game you’re playing.
He wouldn’t be here unless his world had crumpled to nothing.
‘Sorry is not enough,’ Aunt Karen says, vicious.
‘But can I just have one night? Please? I’ll go in the morning—’
‘I told you what will happen if you come inside.’
Sam’s voice cracks. ‘It was an accident—’
‘Oh, don’t start.’ She storms towards her front door, swinging the bags so hard they hit her legs.
Sam looks desperately at her back, needing her to understand. He’d do anything to have one person stop and listen to him. See him. Truly stop and see him.
He runs after her, heart falling through his chest. ‘You always gave Avery another chance—’
She spins and drops one of her bags so it spills across the grass. Her hand shoots up and cracks across his face.
It takes a moment for the sting to catch up.
Sam stares, his mouth open, red fingerprints across his cheekbone.
‘Unlike you,’ Aunt Karen’s eyes are pinpricks of venom, ‘Avery never had blood on his hands.’ She catches his wrist then, flipping it over to his scabbed knuckles.
‘I was protecting him,’ Sam whispers.
‘Bullshit.’ Aunt Karen drops his wrist, like she can’t bear to touch him any more than necessary. ‘You like the power you get from hurting people. You’re just like your father.’
Sam can’t speak. He can’t. He’ll cry. That’s not him. That’s never him.
‘I thought Avery would be the death of me, with those insufferable tantrums and flapping.’
Sam digs his fingers into his shirt, trying to anchor himself. Trying to keep himself here. ‘Don’t talk about Avery like that,’ he whispers.
It’s like she doesn’t hear him. ‘But no. It was the little one with his bloodlust who ended up being the devil.’
Sam’s face burns from her slap.
Aunt Karen says, voice suddenly crisp. ‘Are you coming inside? You can sit down while I call you in. You know you deserve it, Sammy Lou.’
A cute name.
Not Samuel. Just Sammy Lou.
The wrong name for a boy who’s all fists and split skin.
Does he deserve it?
you do you do you do you do
He turns.
He walks away.
‘I thought so,’ Aunt Karen calls.
He gets to the end of the street before he stops and looks back. She’s picking tins of tuna off the grass and tucking them back into the plastic bag. Her shoulders stay stiff. Her face sets. She never cried over a Lou boy before, why would she start now?
Sammy is thirteen and this is definitely going to end in tears.
Or broken bones.
But he has to pull Avery out of his shutdown slump.
Sammy pushes the old trampoline with the frayed mat – gifted by the neighbours who were going to dump it before they moved – close to the house and he kicks off his shoes and shouts for Avery to come over. It’s dusk and the world is full of fireflies and sweet-smelling grass and endless possibilities.
‘I’m going to fly,’ Sammy says as Avery slumps over, lost in a gigantic hoodie because he’s having a rough day.
He’s having a rough life.
High school sucks.
He’s aware of how different he is now. He cares. He tries to fit with the kids in their class, but he speaks at the wrong time and flicks his fingers by his ears and they call him crude names and pretend to be nice until they trip him in the halls and laugh. It’s stupid, wanting friends. But Sammy understands. He wouldn’t mind a friend. He also wouldn’t mind not having to spend hours making up rules for Avery.
Like, (1) people don’t mean what they say, and (2) don’t stand so close, and (3) don’t touch anyone ever, and (4) never never never take your toy car out of your pocket. You’re fifteen and they’ll rip you to pieces if they find that out.
Sammy’s worried school will kill Avery.
But he can fix this, right? He fixes everything.
Avery watches from slitted lids as Sammy bolts forward like his heels are on fire and leaps on to the drainpipe. He scales it like Spiderman. Hand over hand, propelled by momentum and sheer will. He snatches at the gutter and then hauls himself up, ripping his shirt on a rusty hook and scraping his ribs. But he’s up. His arms go out for balance, and he stands on the roof, just him and the horizon and the moon already fat against the deepening indigo sky.
Then he backs up – and runs – and leaps – and for a moment he’s
f
l g
y n
i
And as he falls, he cups his hands in the sky and catches the moon for just a heartbeat before his feet hit the trampoline and the rusty springs groan. It throws him back up so high his stomach spins out and he windmills his arms with a shout.
A happy shout.
He slows the bounces and twirls to make a ridiculous bow.
Avery pulls his hood off. ‘You’re going to kill yourself.’
‘At least I caught the moon first.’
‘You can’t catch the moon,’ Avery says, bitter. He shoves his hands deep in his pockets, probably thumbing his toy car. His secret.
‘I can do whatever I want.’ Sammy trots back to the house. ‘I’ll catch the moon and steal it. Are you coming?’
Avery is coming.
Sammy thinks he’ll have to boost him up, but Avery’s surprisingly agile at scaling the drainpipe and then balancing on the tin roof. Note to self: stop babying him already. Avery runs and Sammy’s heart skips into his mouth and crashes against his teeth, because he thinks Avery’s overshot.
But it’s fine.
Avery lets out a whoop and his hair fans out in a corn silk halo. His eyes light up and he flaps wildly as he bounces – forgetting that he’s supposed to be acting normal now.
He’s just happy.
Sammy can breathe again.
Sammy turns his next jump into a backflip and nearly hits the trampoline on his face. But his world is a rush of air and power, static in his hair, and grass stains on his knees. And it’s good. Everything is good. He jumps again and again. He backflips. He shouts. He throws his arms around the moon before his heels hit the mat and in those moments the world belongs to Sammy Lou.
And he can take what he wants.
Then Aunt Karen’s battered blue station wagon rolls into the driveway. Both brothers are on the roof this time, sweaty and bright-eyed and drunk on night air and when she starts shouting, they just laugh.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Aunt Karen grips her thin handbag and raises a bony finger. ‘Get down right now. Right now! Sammy!’
Get down and get your ears slapped, she
means.
Not tonight.
Sammy nudges Avery with his elbow. ‘Together?’
‘You,’ Avery whispers, ‘and me. We.’
They burst across the roof in a howling run and spring off the edge, their mouths full of the moon and eyes full of stars.
Aunt Karen hollers at them.
They hit the trampoline and bounce high and the poor abused mat gives a wailing r-iiiiii-p
and they go straight through and hit the grass.
Idiots.
They smack together as they tumble through the split. Lightning shots of agony jolt up Sammy’s legs and he rolls, grabbing Avery’s head before it slams into the ground. They tangle for a second in the uncut lawn. Chests heave. The trampoline waves torn threads in apology.
‘Anything broken?’ Sammy says. ‘Because we kind of have to run right now.’
Avery moans and touches his cheek where he collided with Sammy’s head. ‘Your stupid skull broke me.’
‘But worth it?’
Avery’s lips are a fractured smile.
Aunt Karen storms over, shouting about inappropriate behaviour and ruining her house. Sammy rolls out from under the broken trampoline, making sure Avery is on his heels, and then they bolt into the street and leave Aunt Karen raging behind them. She’ll lock them out. But so what?
His fingers tease lock picks out of his pockets, relieved they’re not broken.
‘Where are we going?’ Avery’s panting, but his face is flushed with the thrill.
Sammy slows and they limp, out of breath and bruised, on the footpath. He throws his arm over Avery’s shoulder. They’re height for height right now. ‘We’re stealing a house, because you know what we need?’
Avery shakes his head.
‘We are the kings of nowhere,’ Sammy says. ‘We only need us.’
He’s a very good liar.
The wallet is hot and heavy in Sam’s sweat-slick hands.
Sickness twirls fists in his stomach as he digs out fives and twenties and shoves them in his pocket. He can practically hear Aunt Karen clicking tongue against teeth and saying, You despicable little boy.
He tosses the wallet in a nearby bin, not even checking to see who’s watching, and leaves the crowded shopfronts to go wander the Esplanade. Alone.
It’s the hottest kind of summer day, where everyone smells of coconut sunscreen and carries cups of pink and green gelato. Sam has a headache. From sun beating on his bare head? From sleeping on the ground? From replaying every horrible encounter he’s had this week with every person he knows?
He massages the knot in his neck and scuffs down the boardwalk. Gulls shriek and tourists jostle past in floppy hats with fat wallets he could be taking. Except he doesn’t want to. He just doesn’t care any more.
Ahead there’s an old woman sitting on a tarp, handmade wares spread before her for the tourists. Seaglass necklaces and hand-painted bowls and boxes of postcards. Sam slinks past but then sees fat squares of fabric sitting in a box.
He thinks of Moxie and her sewing needles and thimbles and her lemony frown.
He stops and picks through while the woman haggles with other shoppers over sunglasses and handwoven hats. His fingers brush soft cloth patterned with superheroes and sunflowers and peacock feathers.
‘That’s ten for two, boy,’ the old woman says.
Sam picks rolls out and shoves them in his jean pockets. He drops the notes he just stole into the woman’s lap. Three times what she asked for. But they’re making him sick.
‘This OK?’ he says.
She smiles.
The first person to smile at him in days.
Because Sam is stupid, he ends up in front of the De Lainey house again.
His heart gallops double time and his throat is full of thorns. When is he going to understand that it’s over? She slammed the door in his face. Does he need someone to pound the message home with fists? What’s it going to take for him to stop? The police to show up? They’ll nail him for theft, house burglary, stalking, trespassing, assault—
The sun bakes these pleasant thoughts into his skull, burning his fair skin beetroot red.
It’s been a few days since he left the spool of thread. He should turn a few days into for ever days. Do everyone a favour.
Come on, cut the self-loathing. If he’s going to be here, he might as well knock.
The scrolls of material fit nicely in two hands. Pity he’s soaking them with sweat.
He takes the steps like an old man in need of leg surgery. How can he dread this front door and yet long for it so much? He needs to get himself together. He’s an embarrassment.
His knuckles tremble at the door,
fingers made of glass
ready to shatter when he meets her furious gaze.
He knocks.
Feet patter inside.
The doorhandles twist and then pauses. She knows it’s him, doesn’t she? Finally it cracks open and there’s a sliver of Moxie – one brown eye and white shorts and a top of indigo lace.
‘Oh my God.’ Her voice is flat. ‘You are actually a stalker.’
Sam swallows, trying to dredge up the apology he rehearsed which has suddenly packed bags and fled. His dry lips part and then he raises the fabric rolls.
‘Because you, um, s-sew,’ he says.
‘What is your problem?’ Moxie doesn’t open the door further and definitely doesn’t accept the gift. ‘Were you actually living upstairs like a creepy psycho? Like … why? Who are you?’
She’s talking to him, so that’s progress, right?
I had nowhere to go, he wants to say. I’m the boy of nothing and nowhere. I’m invisible and forgotten, a thief of dust and cobwebs and house keys.
‘I’m nobody,’ is what he says and he knows it’s all wrong.
‘I checked with all my brothers.’ Moxie’s eyes narrows. ‘None of them knows you. And look, I appreciate that you saved Toby’s life, which is why I didn’t tell my dad you broke into our house. But that’s it. Repaid. Now take your creeper self somewhere else.’
He doesn’t argue, doesn’t tremble. He takes a step backwards and lays the cloth on the doormat again. ‘I really am sorry.’
Her glare is broken bricks and betrayal. She slams the door.
Sam leaves without another word. He gets past the rosebushes and across the street before he dares glance over his shoulder.
The front door is open again. She stands on the veranda, arms folded, watching him and glaring as the light summer breeze plays with the corner of her top.
She doesn’t call out after him.
But he notices the material is tucked under her arm.
‘For your girlfriend?’ The florist has tiny rosebuds painted on each fingernail, the pink the exact same shade as her hair. Sam concentrates on her hands as they find the price tag on the tiny pot of geraniums and hopes she doesn’t notice his panic.
A wild antelope with tigers on its tail probably looks more chill than Sam in a florist’s shop.
‘Um, not exactly … um, not my girlfriend.’ Sam rakes fingers across his sunburned scalp.
‘Oh, boyfriend?’ the florist says.
‘I mean, she’s not my girlfriend. I screwed up and I’m trying to say sorry.’ Shut up, please, Sammy, just close your mouth.
The florist looks at him. He picked up the plastic flowerpot, no bigger than his hand, in the ‘on sale now’ section. Five bucks. He’s scraping together twenty-cent pieces until he lifts another wallet. Except that Moxie would burn these flowers to ash if she knew he’d stolen money for them.
Well, she’ll most likely do that anyway.
Why is he doing this?
She made her opinion of him very clear before—
But it’s wrong. This is all wrong. He didn’t mean – he isn’t
that person – he just wants—
‘Hmm, I think you need help.’
Sam’s eyes snap away from the florist’s hands to her face. The sympathetic look in her eyes startles him.
‘How mad are we talking?’ the florist says. ‘Because flowers send a message, you know. And an orange geranium is more like “Hey, I think you’re cute” instead of “I screwed up royally and I’m sorry”.’
Sam knows this.
He should’ve lifted another wallet. But it’s excruciatingly hard without Avery working in tandem, as a lookout or distraction.
He went to see Avery yesterday, waited until Vin’s car wasn’t there and then broke in to find Avery pulling apart a CD player. Destroying more than fixing. Avery was deep in shutdown mode, which always comes after he spins out. So Sam got three jumbled sentences and a keening wail when he suggested they leave together.
Sam left alone.
It’s not like he has anywhere better to force Avery to come. Although a stupid pulse in his heart wishes Avery would ask Sam if he was all right. Just once.
Yeah, OK, stop. It’s not Avery’s fault he can’t look at a face and read the lonely pain.
‘Well.’ Sam shakes the hair out of his eyes. ‘She um … slammed the door in my face.’
‘Ohhh,’ says the florist.
‘She said I have problems.’ Sam scuffs the toe of his shoe against a bucket of paradise lilies. ‘She maybe called me a creep.’
The florist makes a sympathetic tsking sound.
‘Which I’m not,’ Sam adds, quickly, looking up. ‘I’m not a creeper. It’s a huge misunderstanding and she won’t give me time to say sorry and—’ He stops, a rope knotting around his throat.
‘Ouch.’ The florist taps her manicured fingernails on the countertop. ‘I do hate to say this, because it’s not exactly good for my business, but it sounds like flowers are not your fix. I’ll give you a solid piece of advice.’ She leans elbows on the register. ‘When a girl says “no”, what she actually means is no.’
Sam’s shoulders sag. ‘I just want to say sorry. I don’t …’ He swallows. ‘I’m not asking for a second chance.’