by TJ Klune
“How could I?” I shout at him, raging. “You never told me anything! You did what you did to me, and then you left!”
His head snaps up to me, his eyes no longer sad, but blazing. “What I did to you? Jesus Christ! Who the hell do you think you are? You all but told me to leave!”
“I know who the fuck I am, you bastard. And I know who you are. You’re just like her.” I reach into my pocket for my wallet and pull it out. Inside is a piece of paper I’ve carried for a year and a half. It’s yellowing with age and has ripped in a couple of places from how many times I have opened and read it. I hurl it at him. It bounces off his chin and into his lap. “Read it.” He doesn’t move. “Read it!” I shout.
He opens it and I see his face go white. “You… you kept this?” he whispers. “Bear, I—”
That’s it, I can’t take it anymore. I fumble about for the door handle, blinded by tears for Christ’s sake, and throw open the door. I am furious. Furious at myself for crying in front of him, furious at Otter for tricking me like he did, furious at myself for thinking of him like that. No! I growl to myself, stomping through the rain, not caring where I am going. Otter did this! I didn’t do anything wrong. He tricked me! He tricked me and left! Just like I knew he would! I think I hear him call my name, but my ears are pounding too hard to be sure. It sounds like the ocean. I’m about to start running when I feel strong arms wrap around me from behind, clasping on my chest. I turn around to swing at him but can only get partway before I get caught in a vise grip.
“Let go of me!” I snarl, wanting to kick and bite and punch and hurt.
“Bear,” he says, his voice grumbling in my ear. “Bear.”
“I’m not like you!” I say, still struggling to get away. “I’m not like that!”
“I know, Bear. I know.” His breath is hot against my cold skin. “Don’t you think I know that? I shouldn’t have let it happen. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I stop fighting him, feeling all the anger fall out of me like someone flipped a switch. “Why are you here?” I moan. “Why did you come back?”
He grabs me by the chin, forcing me to stare into his eyes. “It has nothing to do with what happened between us. As far as I am concerned, that was a mistake. We never should have kissed.”
3.
Where Bear Looks
to the Past
OKAY, time out! Seriously. This is getting way out of hand. And no complaining, either! The way you’ll hear it from him will probably make me sound like a fag. Well, I’m not, so you can get that out of your head right now. Besides, I’m the one telling the story, and I’m going to tell it my own way. You’ll just have to deal with it. And besides, this whole thing would make a lot more sense if I could go back a little bit to tell you what led up to this moment. Maybe it’ll make sense to me too as to why I am standing outside of the Seashack: Gifts and Curios, clutching my best friend’s brother in the rain. Shit like this isn’t supposed to happen to me.
I’ve got too much to deal with already.
THERE I stood, my mind reeling, hearing those words play over and over again in my head:
i know this is going to be hard for yu to read
i have to leave
tom sez that ty can’t go
i am going to leave him here with yu
please don’t try looking for me
mom
I thought it was some kind of joke. I mean, it had to be, right? Nobody does that to their kids. I reread the letter, all the while thinking any minute now, someone was going to jump out and say, “Ha ha, Bear! Ha ha on you!” I read through the letter a second time, then a third, and a fourth, but the words never changed. It became impossible to read it the fifth time, and I didn’t understand why until I saw my hand holding the letter was shaking so violently that the words were illegible.
“Mom?” I croaked out, stumbling into the small living room. The tattered thrift-store couch where she would normally be at that time of night was empty. I turned and walked down the short hallway into her room. I threw open the door and slapped the light on. No one was there. Neither was any of the shit she kept in her room. I pulled open her chest of drawers, one by one, finding them all empty until I got to the last. In the last there was a framed picture of me and the Kid that Otter had given to my mom as a birthday present. It showed us walking up the beach when Ty was three, me holding onto his hand, him pointing toward something on the ground. It was the only picture she had of us, and she left it.
I clutched the wall, feeling bile tickle the back of my throat. This can’t be happening. This is not happening. I wanted to sink into the darkness that was threatening the corners of my vision. It would have been so much easier to just curl into a ball in the corner rather than face what was really going on. It would be so much easier just to….
I felt something poking into my stomach, and I opened my eyes to see that I’d slumped to my knees, my head pressing against the wall. I still held the picture in my hand, and its corner was jutting up against my stomach. Anger tore through me, and I slammed the picture into the wall, feeling it shatter around my hands. Glass bit into my skin, cutting my palm. This pissed me off even more. The remains of the frame crashed to the ground, followed by little droplets of blood. I looked stupidly down at the picture, watching first my face go red then the Kid’s, blood roses blooming across the captured memory.
Ty. Shit.
I got up quickly and ran to the room we share. His bed was pressed up against the right side of the room and hadn’t been touched. He wasn’t there. I stopped for a moment and tried to think of where the hell my mom was supposed to leave him today while she went to work. I didn’t think he was with our neighbor, Mrs. Paquinn, because she normally came over to our apartment to watch him as Ty liked to play in our room. I figured it was the best place to start and was heading to the front door when my cell phone vibrated in my pocket.
I reached into my pocket, using my cut hand and not realizing it until I felt a piece of glass press into my skin further. I pulled out my phone quickly and saw that it was Anna. “Anna, I can’t talk right now,” I said when I answered. “I have to find Ty. She’s gone. She’s gone.”
“What are you talking about?” she said. “The Kid is here with me. Your mom dropped him after I got home from work and begged me to watch him. She said you were going to come pick him up when you got off. Wait… Bear, what do you mean she’s gone? Did something happen to your mom?”
“Ty’s with you?” I said hoarsely.
“Yes, he’s sleeping on the couch. Bear, what’s wrong? Why do you sound like that? Is everything okay?”
“No,” I said and began to cry.
I TRIED to drive over to Anna’s house as quickly as I could and would have gotten there sooner had I not pulled over every two seconds or so to alternate between throwing up and having to punch something. By the time I got to my girlfriend’s house, I was so worked up again that I couldn’t see straight. I clutched the letter in my good hand and made my way to the door, trying not to destroy Mrs. Grant’s flowers that lined the front walkway. Someone must have heard me coming because the porch light flashed on and the front door opened. Anna rushed out to me, throwing her arms around my neck. I hugged her back, breaking yet again, knowing I was getting blood on her but not caring. I thought she kept saying, “What happened, what happened?” but I couldn’t answer her just then. So she held me, rocking me back and forth, whispering nothings into my ear, until it was all out of me, and I couldn’t give anymore.
SHE eventually got me to go inside her house and told me she needed to clean my hand.
“Where’s Ty?” I asked, ignoring her.
“He’s sleeping on the couch.”
“Are your parents here?” I said as I pushed past her.
“No, they’re still in Portland until tomorrow. Bear, what’s going on? What happened to your mom?” I heard her following me into the living room.
I thrust the letter at her without looking. I fe
lt her take it from my hand. I rounded the corner from the kitchen to the den and saw the Kid asleep on the couch, covered in a SpongeBob SquarePants blanket that Anna had gotten for him for when he came to her house. I reached down and rubbed the top of his head gently, not wanting to wake him. I think that was more for my benefit than for his. I hadn’t yet thought of what I was going to say to my almost-six-year-old brother when he woke up. How do you explain to someone that their mom is gone? I still hadn’t even processed it myself yet.
“Bear?” Anna said, her tone worried so I know it hadn’t been the first time she called my name.
“What?” I asked gruffly, not taking my eyes of Ty.
“Your hand… it’s bleeding.”
I looked down. I had forgotten all about it. “Ah, shit.” I winced. Drops of blood were still running down my fingers, dropping onto the carpet. “I’m sorry. Your mom is going to kill me.”
She touched me on the shoulder, urging me to follow her. I took one last look at Ty and followed her to the bathroom. She made me sit on the toilet while she tweezed out broken bits of glass. She asked me what happened. I told her I broke a picture. She nodded and got out the peroxide, and it stung like hell but it didn’t matter. She covered my palm in a heavy bandage and wrapped my entire hand with gauze. She didn’t think I would need stitches. She was cleaning up when the doorbell rang.
“Shit!” she said, scowling. “I told them not to do that. If they’ve woken the Kid….” She rushed out the bathroom door.
“Who?” I asked, following her. For some reason I was scared that she had called the police.
“Get the door. I’ll check on Ty.”
“But—”
“Bear, it’s fine.”
I stared after her and then went to the door. Creed stood on the front stoop, followed closely by Otter.
Creed spoke first, obviously relieved to see me. “What the hell is going on? Anna said something bad happened and to get over here. Where’s the Kid? What happened to your hand? Dude, have you been crying? Why do you smell like barf?”
“Creed, keep your voice down!” Anna hissed, walking back into the kitchen. “You’re lucky you didn’t wake up Ty when you rang the doorbell, dumbass.”
He pretended to look hurt for a moment and then turned back to me. “Well?”
I handed him the letter. Otter read it over his shoulder, page by page, each of them growing identical looks of disbelief as they went on. Otter finished before Creed did and immediately came over to me and wrapped his arms around me. I thought I was all cried out, but a few more slid out as my forehead rested on his shoulder. He didn’t have to say anything as Creed spoke for all of us.
“This is some fucked-up shit right here.”
LATER, we all sat on the floor in the living room, the others talking in hushed tones so as not to wake the Kid. I knew we probably shouldn’t have run the risk of having him hear us as I still had no idea of what I was going to say, but I didn’t want to let him out of my sight. Some irrational part of me kept thinking that if I turned away, even for a second, that he would disappear too. I felt numb as I watched him lay there under SpongeBob, needing a haircut. Well, he needed his mom more, but that didn’t appear to be happening anytime soon.
Anna hovered near me, holding my unmarked hand. Creed and Otter were unwrapping the other, wanting to make sure it didn’t need to be seen to right then. I felt the gauze fall off and heard Otter hiss softly. I didn’t want to look at it because I knew it would depress me more. Apparently, given the years of medical experience between the two of them, my doctors decided it could wait till morning, and I could feel Otter wrapping it back up gently.
Creed sank back onto his elbows. “I hate to state the obvious, but what do we do now?” I couldn’t help but notice how he said we.
Otter rubbed his eyes as if he had a headache. “First thing we gotta do is find out where she ran off to. It said in her letter that Tom got a job somewhere. Bear, do you know where she went? Did she say anything to you in the last couple of days or so? Or did Tom?”
I shook my head.
“Anna, did she say anything to you when she dropped the Kid off?”
Anna thought for a moment. “Not that I can remember. She just asked me if it would be okay if I watched Ty until Bear got off of work. I wasn’t planning on doing anything until then, so I said okay. I don’t even remember if she was with Tom when she did it. If she was, he must have stayed in the car. What about this job, though? Do any of us even know where Tom worked at?”
“I think he was in construction,” Creed said. “Well, at least he looked like he was in construction.” Otter smacked him on the back of the head. “Why’d you do that for?” he grimaced.
“You’re not helping,” Otter growled at him before looking back at me. “So we don’t know what he did or where they went. There has to be some way to track them down. Did she have credit cards or a checking account or anything like that?”
Anna laughed bitterly as she answered for me. “Oh come on, Otter. You know the answer to that. She never had any kind of bank account. Bear is the only one who did, and she would always take money from that.”
“First thing in the morning, then,” Otter said, “you need to call your bank and take her name off your stuff or change your PIN number or whatever.”
“Why?” Creed protested. “If she tried to take money out, wouldn’t that tell us where she’s at?”
Anna glared at him. “Yes, it would, after she took all the money out. Which she may have done already.”
“Oh, yeah.”
I giggled.
You know how sometimes you can laugh at the most inappropriate time? When everything seems bleak and gray, and you know you should be feeling sad/depressed/angry but for some reason, something strikes you as funny in a sick, non-funny kind of way? Like a funeral. Or your mom leaving. It was one of those.
Creed looked at me like I’d lost my mind, which I was on my way to doing. “What’s so funny, Bear?”
“$137.50,” I said, snorting out spurts of laughter.
“What?” Otter said, frowning at me.
“S-she left m-m-me a hundred thirty-seven d-dollars and fifty cents!” I was shaking by the time I finished, feeling the mirth crawl through me like a tapeworm. My vision was narrowing again, and I could feel my gorge rising, but I couldn’t stop laughing. “T-there were two kwuh-kwuh-quarters put in with the rest! She left me kwuh-quarters!”
They all stared at me, mouths agape.
I staggered up and ran to the bathroom, dry-heaving as soon as I hit the toilet. I heard someone chase after me, but I frantically waved my hand at the door, sending them away. My stomach clenched and my bowels felt loose, and the world grayed slightly as I gripped the seat. Wave after wave of nausea rose through me, and I think I passed out for a moment as I felt my head hit the side of the bathtub next to the toilet. My face felt swollen and my breath sour. I moaned.
Oh GOD, this can’t be happening, I thought. This is just a nightmare. Any second now, I’m going to wake up and feel relief when I realize it was all just a bad dream. I’ll look over at the clock and see that it’s not quite time for me to get up yet, so I’ll pull the blanket over my head and crawl back down into darkness and won’t I just feel so much better? Because this can’t be real. Nobody does stuff like this to someone else. Especially a parent. That’s why this can’t be real, because not even my mother could do this.
It is real, though, Bear, a voice whispered back. You know it’s real because of that taste in your mouth, the headache you’re beginning to feel. The cut on your hand. That sickness in your heart. That’s how you know it’s real. You could never actually feel those things if this were a dream. That’s not the question you should be asking, though, if this is a dream. The question you should be asking is what you’re going to do now? Because you’re awake?
I didn’t want to do anything then. I wanted to lay there for the next two months and then pack up my shit and get the hell
out of Seafare like I was supposed to have done. That was the plan and what I had worked my ass off for to be able to do. I was supposed to leave and go to Eugene and go to school and become a writer or a teacher or whatever the fuck else I wanted to be. A reporter. An astronaut. The President of the fucking United States. I had gotten a scholarship, for Christ’s sake! I was going to become someone that I wanted to be, not be forced into something I didn’t. As I lay there, her letter, that goddamn letter, swam through my head, taunting me. Why do yu need college? it said. That scholarship will be there later, right?
I need yu to do something for me.
I need yu to do something for me.
Yu were always better at taking care of him than me.
I heaved again. And again. And again.
After some length of time—when I was sure there was nothing liquid left in me—I rose unsteadily to my feet. I went over to the sink and rinsed my stinking mouth out. The water felt good against my fevered skin. I splashed it on my face, trying hard to ignore my reflection. I didn’t want to see what I looked like right then. I knew what I would see on my face, and if I had dared to look, to see that resignation, that anger, I would have hated myself for it. I would have hated her for it, more than I already did.
And I would have hated Ty. That’s the one that hurt most of all.
I WALKED back into the living room, feeling more tired than I’d ever felt in my life. Anna rose immediately and wrapped her arms around me, squeezing me to the point where I couldn’t breathe. I left my arms at my side. I couldn’t give her what she wanted. Not right then.
She must have felt it, too, because she pulled away and looked at me. I could see that she had been crying and part of me was annoyed by that. After all, what did she have to cry about? She just didn’t get screwed over. She didn’t have to worry about her future. She didn’t have to worry about how she was going to take care of a fucking little kid. Right then, I am ashamed to say, I didn’t want to be with her anymore. I wanted her to go away and not come back. After all, wasn’t that what everyone of any importance was doing now anyway? I tried to check myself before this came welling out, but she could see the anger on my face, and she flinched. Some small part of me hoped that she knew it wasn’t directed at her, not really. But only a small part.