Letting Go of Gravity

by Meg Leder

Even Charlie looks uneasy.

  The bell rings, and both boxers move forward. Finn’s jogging in place, while his opponent lumbers: slow, focused, and sure.

  As the guy makes his first swing, Finn’s whole body arches back, graceful, and he throws a quick uppercut, hitting the guy in the ribs. The guy stumbles back a few steps, and in surprise, Charlie murmurs, “Finn’s really good.” The crowd cheers, and I look over at Johnny, his eyes locked on Finn, but I can’t watch him for too long, my eyes going back to Finn.

  Finn dances around his opponent like David and Goliath, like Jack and the Giant, before throwing a right hook. This time the guy’s ready, jerking back, faster than I thought he could with all that bulk, and he quickly lands one right on Finn’s jaw.

  I grip Charlie’s arm hard as Finn staggers backward. But even though Finn’s eyes are glazed, he catches his balance, pushing his shoulders forward, and before the guy can register, Finn hits back, knocking him right in the face.

  The crowd erupts in more yelling, whistling, and Johnny hollers, “Get him, Finny!”

  The giant wipes his face with his arm, and Finn leaps toward his opponent, throwing a light rain of punches against the guy’s gut.

  The other guy is pissed now, and using all his mass, he launches himself at Finn, one huge fist meeting Finn’s face again. This time, Finn tumbles to the ground in front of us. I want so badly to close my eyes, but I can’t stop looking at the outline of his ribs, his chest heaving up and down, his eyes scrunched closed, the trickle of blood from his nose.

  “Get up,” Charlie says under his breath as the judge begins to count, the crowd starting to count along with him.

  Johnny pushes close to the side, yelling, “Don’t blow this, Finn!” The judge shoots him a stern look, and Johnny backs up, holding his hands in front of him.

  The giant paces, restless, knocking his gloves together.

  From the ground, Finn turns his head and opens his eyes. He sees me then, his eyes locking onto mine, and for the first time since I met him, the storm in them has calmed, now just the quiet still gray of a winter afternoon.

  The judge finishes his count, declaring the giant the winner. I glance at Johnny and see the disgust and fury on his face as he shoves a big wad of money at a guy, then pushes away through the crowd.

  I go back to Finn, holding his gaze, until hands lift him up, slinging his arm around a shoulder, Finn’s eyes fluttering shut and jerking back open, his gait woozy, and then I realize it’s my brother holding him up, that Charlie’s the one walking him toward me, that Charlie’s the one getting us home.

  Forty-Six

  WHEN WE STEP OUTSIDE, Finn still propped against Charlie, Johnny’s waiting across the parking lot, smoking. His eyes hone in on Finn.

  “Shit,” Finn says under his breath, his body tensing. He turns to us. “I’ll talk to you guys later?”

  “Sure,” Charlie says.

  I give them both a hard look. “No.”

  “Parker,” Finn starts.

  Maybe it’s the sleepy glaze in Finn’s eyes or the way Johnny responded to Finn’s loss, but I’m not leaving him right now. I shake my head. “You’re coming home with us.”

  “Johnny’s right over there. He’s got my truck keys. He’ll drive me home,” he insists, stepping away from Charlie. He’s gotten a little steadier on his feet.

  “I see him over there, but um, yeah, NO.”

  “Parker, if he wants to—” Charlie says, but I shoot him a glare that immediately shuts him up.

  By this point, Johnny has stalked over to us. He drops his cigarette, grinds it out with the heel of his boot, giving me a long look and a nod before turning his attention to Finn. “What the fuck was that, Finny?”

  His voice is casual, but everything else about him is projecting barely controlled fury.

  Finn shrugs, but it’s not nearly as lazy as he’s making it look. His whole body is alert, the animal instincts in him poised for fight or flight. “He got me. I didn’t see it coming. It happens.”

  “ ‘It happens’? You know how much your little fuckup just cost me?”

  “Cost you?” I ask.

  “Back off, princess,” Johnny snarls.

  Finn steps between us, turning his back to his brother. “Can you give us a few seconds?” he asks.

  “No,” I say, clenching Mom’s keys in my fist.

  Finn looks to Charlie—for help, I’m guessing—but Charlie’s eyes go to me, and I shake my head firmly. He turns back to Finn. “Uh, no, man. Why don’t you just come with us?”

  Johnny laughs. “Hiding with your fancy friends?”

  “What a dick,” Charlie mutters under his breath.

  “Come on, Finn. Please,” I say. I take his hand in mine, wrap my fingers through his.

  He searches my eyes, then lets out a small sigh, nodding before turning back to Johnny. “You go. I’ll see you later. And be careful with the truck.”

  Johnny shakes his head in disgust, a two-fingered point from his eyes to Finn’s. “This isn’t over, Finny. You lost us a shit ton tonight.”

  “What’s he talking about?” I ask as we watch Johnny leave.

  “Nothing,” Finn says.

  “Finn.”

  “Can you just drop it?” he snaps. And then more quietly, “Please?”

  The three of us walk to Mom’s car.

  As we’re walking, the fear I felt watching Finn starts to recede. My eyelid is still occasionally twitching, but with each step away from the boxing crowd, I feel my resolve strengthen.

  Finn might not want to talk about what just happened with his brother, but he needs someone to take care of him right now.

  I can help him.

  I open the back door of the car, pushing a stack of Mom’s student papers out of the way.

  “I guess this means I owe you a gift card sometime?” Finn jokes.

  “Keep your nose tilted back,” I say, ignoring the gift card comment as he climbs in, an involuntary groan escaping his lips as he settles against the seat.

  I can’t help it, letting my hand rest against his cheek for a second, wanting to take away all his hurt.

  I turn to Charlie, who’s just standing there looking at me like he’s seeing me for the first time.

  “What are you waiting for? Let’s go,” I say, hiking my thumb toward the driver’s seat.

  “Yeah, okay.”

  As Charlie pulls out of the lot, I dig through Mom’s glove compartment until I find a packet of tissues and hand them over the seat to Finn.

  “Thanks,” he mumbles.

  In the rearview mirror, I watch him shove one up the nostril with the dried blood.

  As Charlie drives, Finn closes his eyes, but I can tell he’s still awake by the way he winces every time we go over a bump.

  For the next half hour, the only sound in the car is Charlie’s jam-band music. When we finally reach our exit, I realize my eye hasn’t twitched since we got on the highway.

  Charlie looks at me expectantly. “Where to?”

  Finn’s breathing sounds sticky. I can’t imagine leaving him with no one to watch over him but Johnny and a ghost with sharp teeth.

  “Our house,” I say. “I don’t think he should be alone.”

  I expect Charlie to argue, to tell me I’m worrying too much, but to my surprise, he nods. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  We decide to leave the car in the driveway so the sound of the garage door doesn’t wake up Mom and Dad. Charlie comes to the passenger side to help me ease Finn out of the backseat, Finn suppressing a yelp when he stands.

  Between the both of us, we get him into the house, me kicking the front door shut behind us.

  “Family room,” I say.

  Mustard winds between Charlie’s legs and then yelps when Charlie gets part of his tail. “Ugh, Mustard.”

  “Here,” I say, nudging Mustard out of the way, and then scoot ahead of them so I can push aside the coffee table.

  Charlie helps Finn onto the couch, and
with a sigh, Finn lies down, resting his head against Mom’s hand-embroidered Queen City pillow—the one that took her ten years to finish. The previously bleeding side of his nose is now precariously close to the image of the suspension bridge.

  A nervous giggle escapes my lips before I clap my hand over my mouth, and Charlie shoots an exasperated look at me.

  “Really?” he asks.

  “I’ll put a towel under there,” I say. “It’s just, this whole evening has been . . .” I throw up my hands.

  “I know. Me too.” He surveys the situation. Finn’s eyes are closed, his body slumped on the couch. “Do you need any more help?”

  “No. I have it,” I say. “Since he’s talking and can walk and his pupils aren’t weird, it’s okay for him to sleep.”

  “All right there, Dr. McCullough.”

  I roll my eyes at the name, but before he reaches the stairs, I look over my shoulder. “Charlie, thank you for tonight.”

  He pauses, then says, his voice low, “Parker, you know Johnny was betting on Finn, right? That’s what he was mad about.”

  “But gambling on that isn’t legal,” I start, and Charlie gives me a look, like, Really?

  “He can’t be happy Finn lost,” Charlie says.

  “Well, maybe he should get in the ring himself, then. What a jerk.”

  “Just be careful, and stay away from him, okay?”

  “Of course,” I say.

  He stands there for a second longer. “Finn’s lucky to have you watching out for him,” he says before turning to go upstairs.

  I watch Charlie’s back, shocked he complimented me, and wonder if I misheard him. I chalk it up to adrenaline and exhaustion and turn back to Finn.

  His breathing is a little less labored than before, but the entire left side of his face looks puffy.

  “I seriously don’t get the allure of boxing. Why would you do this?” I say, more to myself than him.

  In the kitchen, I fill a plastic bag with ice and grab a kitchen towel.

  When I get back to the family room, Finn hasn’t moved, so I push down on the pillow, carefully sliding the towel under there so he doesn’t bleed all over Mom’s ten-year project. Then I turn off the lights and squeeze onto the couch next to him, the pillow and Finn’s head practically in my lap.

  Mustard hops onto the back of the couch, nudging his wet nose against my neck and head, purring frantically in the hopes of a few good pets, but instead, I rest the bag of ice against the side of Finn’s face. I wait for him to flinch at the cold, but he doesn’t, only lifts his hand and holds the bag against his face too, his hand on top of mine.

  I have no clue how I’m going to explain any of this to Mom and Dad tomorrow. But that’s a problem for tomorrow. For now I let myself just listen to the sound of Finn’s breathing evening out. Mustard falls asleep behind me, his head lying flat on the back of the couch, soft cat breath against my neck.

  I wonder if Finn’s sleeping too, but then he whispers, “I really blew that one, didn’t I?”

  “Well, at least you tried,” I offer, and Finn lets out a low chuckle.

  I think that’s it, but then he says, his voice still quiet, “When I fight, everything else goes away. Johnny and my dad and my uncle and everything else about this shitty, shitty town. That’s why I do it.”

  I hold my breath.

  “But tonight, when I was fighting, you didn’t go away with the rest of it.”

  “Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I didn’t want you to.”

  I blush, glad he can’t see my face.

  “So here we are,” I say, my voice quiet.

  “Here we are,” Finn echoes.

  I sit there for a long time, waiting for him to fall asleep, trusting his breath to stay steady with mine.

  Forty-Seven

  A HAND SHAKES MY shoulder, and I jerk up.

  Mom’s looking down at me with this super-serious expression on her face, and I realize sometime in the night I fell asleep with Finn on the couch. The bag of ice has become a sloshy bag of water, and Finn looks relaxed, all his sharp edges softened from sleep and the morning light, the bruising hidden in the sun. But when I look up at Mom, I see what she’s seeing—her daughter entwined on the couch with a boy, one who has dried blood on his face to boot.

  I extricate myself, careful not to wake up Finn, and follow her into the kitchen. Dad’s sitting at the table, his face tightly knitted with fury, and I reflexively straighten. I can’t think of the last time I’ve seen either of them this mad.

  “Want to tell us what’s going on?” Mom asks, leaning against the kitchen counter and folding her arms against her chest.

  “I’m sorry—my friend Finn needed help last night.”

  “Your friend?” Dad asks. “How come we’ve never heard of this friend before?”

  Mom does a double take. “Is this the same Finn . . . ?”

  I nod, cringing as the eyelid twitch returns.

  “The same Finn what?” Dad asks.

  “Parker’s friend from first grade.”

  “The Casper kid?” Dad’s face is so red, it looks like he might keel over.

  “Seriously, Dad?” I snap.

  Mom’s frown furrows all the way up into her brows.

  “Yeah, he is a Casper, and he’s my friend. He needed me,” I say, my voice getting louder, daring either of them to contradict me.

  “This is the type of person you want as your friend?” Dad says, but Mom shoots him a look.

  “Phil,” she says, and he flops back in his seat, irritated with both of us now.

  I cling to the fact that Mom has a soft spot for underdogs.

  “He was boxing in some amateur contest—”

  “For chrissakes,” Dad mutters.

  “Boxing?” Mom asks.

  “Yeah, and he got punched really hard”—I mentally cross my fingers against the lie I’m about to tell—“so he called me and came over here, because he was worried he had a concussion.”

  “He drove here while he had a concussion?” Mom says. “He should have gone to the emergency room!”

  “No. Someone dropped him off. And his dad and brother? They aren’t the best. So we figured it was better he was here.” I’ve lowered my voice, praying Finn isn’t awake and listening to all of this from the other room.

  Dad looks doubtful, but Mom’s face is softening a bit already. Time to bring it home.

  I look at my father, channeling my best valedictorian voice. “Dad, he knows I want to be a doctor, so he thought I could help. I figured it was better than nothing, you know?”

  He’s still grimacing, but he gives a tight nod. “You should have woken us up.”

  “You’re right. I should have. I’m sorry.”

  Finn appears in the doorway then, plastic bag of water in hand, looking pretty terrible. His face is starting to bruise, and he’s holding his side gently, like it hurts.

  “I’ll get that,” I say, taking the bag from him and then turning to my parents.

  “Mom and Dad, this is my friend Finn. Finn, these are my parents, Phil and Jean McCullough.”

  Finn stands there awkwardly in front of my parents, and I watch it happen when they don’t say anything, his face starting to harden, all his defenses going up, but then Mom steps forward. Stopping just short of hugging him, she puts a hand on his shoulder.

  “Finn, let me get you some more ice. Sit down, please.”

  Surprise crosses his face. “Um, okay, thanks.”

  “Coffee?” she asks.

  “Water is fine, thank you, ma’am.”

  Mom smiles at the “ma’am.” “So, Parker tells us you were boxing last night. How are you feeling this morning?” she asks, handing him back the bag, now filled with fresh ice.

  Dad’s still scowling from across the table.

  “Okay. A little sore, I guess,” Finn replies.

  “Would you like some aspirin?”

  “Um, yeah, I mean yes. Thank you,
ma’am.”

  “You can call me Jean,” she says, handing him a glass of water and aspirin.

  “Thank you, Jean,” Finn says as Dad grunts.

  Charlie comes clattering down the steps into the kitchen. He freezes when he sees us all: me and Finn sitting next to our glowering father, Mom doing her thing bustling about and trying to make everything better with small talk.

  I jump in before Charlie outs us. “Charlie, this is my friend Finn. He came over here last night after his boxing match,” I say significantly, as much for Finn as for him, mentally begging Charlie to roll with it.

  “Nice to meet you, man,” Charlie says, stepping forward and shaking Finn’s hand.

  “You too,” Finn says, doing that guy-nod thing.

  “You were lucky to have my daughter taking care of you last night,” Dad finally says.

  “I know, sir. You’re right. She’s going to be a good doctor.”

  Nice one, Finn.

  “Humph,” Dad replies, but I can tell he’s thawing just a little bit.

  It’s quiet for a moment, but then Finn clears his throat. “Parker said you like music, sir?”

  Dad gives a reluctant nod.

  “I was just reading online the other day how Charlie Parker’s nickname was Bird,” he says.

  I let out a small breath of surprise.

  “Humph,” Dad says again, not disagreeing.

  “Phil just got a new Charlie Parker recording for Father’s Day, didn’t you, hon?” Mom asks. “Why don’t you go put it on?”

  “It’s not new,” Dad says. “It’s just a digitally remastered recording.”

  “I’d like to hear it,” Finn offers.

  “Go on, Dad,” I say.

  “All right. I guess so,” Dad says as he heads out to the stereo in the family room.

  I turn to Finn. “Why were you looking up Charlie Parker stuff?”

  He shrugs. “I wanted to learn more about your namesake. And when I read about Bird, I thought it might make for a better nickname than Parking Lot.”

  I blush.

  “Finn, can you stay for pancakes?” Mom asks.

  Finn looks at me, checking to make sure it’s okay.

  “Stay,” I say.

  He turns back to my mom. “I’d like that. Thank you, ma’am.”