by Alexa Land
“Why the hell should I believe you?”
“Because I love my brother, and he loves you. I’m going to help you.”
Elijah shook his head. “You’re lying. Grown-ups always lie!” He spun around and bolted through the back door, and Colt took off after him.
“Elijah, wait!” Colt yelled. His boyfriend was wearing sneakers and sprinted across the rough terrain easily, heading out into the barren landscape. When my brother tried to follow, he stepped on something sharp and fell to his knees with a little wail.
He scrambled back to his feet and tried to keep moving, but I caught up to him and said, “You can’t run after him, Colt. You’re hurt.”
“Come back!” he yelled, still trying to limp after his boyfriend. Elijah was some distance away by that point and just kept running.
Finn had followed us out the back door and said, “I’ll go after him.” He took off at a dead sprint. I was surprised by how fast he could move.
I told Colt, “Come on. We need to go inside and get you cleaned up.”
“I’m fine,” he said, still trying to follow even though his right foot was dripping blood onto the dirt and he could barely put his toes on the ground.
“No you’re not.” I got in front of him and took hold of his shoulders again. “If that cut gets infected, you’re really screwed. Just let Finn handle it. He’s a police officer and really good in a crisis. He’ll get Elijah back here.”
“Shit. He’s a cop? Elijah hates cops, he’ll never come back with him.”
“Finn will handle it, you’ll see. If your foot gets infected, you’ll end up in the hospital. Then how will you take care of your boyfriend, or yourself for that matter?” He swore under his breath but didn’t fight me as I put an arm around him and helped him back to the house.
Once in the kitchen, he sat on the counter beside the sink and we rinsed his foot. He’d managed to grind a lot of dirt into the cut on his instep and I kept the water running over it as I went in search of some first aid supplies. I was surprised that I remembered their location.
When his foot was patched up, I helped him to the couch and said, “I’ll bring you a sock to put on, it’ll keep the bandages clean and dry.”
I started to head to his bedroom but he said, “I, uh, don’t have any clean socks. I’ve been meaning to do laundry.”
“I’ll wash some, then. Don’t get up.”
I grabbed an armload of smelly clothes from the floor of his bedroom and carried them to the laundry room off the kitchen while Colt watched me sheepishly. “You don’t have to do that,” he called.
“I know.”
The avocado-green appliances were the same ones I remembered from my childhood. It was kind of a miracle that they were still running, and no less miraculous that my brother had actually thought to buy detergent at some point. I got a load going and returned to the living room. Colt was standing on one foot by the window, staring out in the direction that Elijah had gone.
I dropped onto the sagging couch and said, “Tell me what happened to Mom. How did she die?”
My brother turned to look at me and leaned against the windowsill. “She was on the back of her boyfriend Pete’s motorcycle when a big RV cut into their lane. Pete wrecked the bike trying to dodge it. He said mom died instantly, and he ended up with two broken legs. They were somewhere outside Cincinnati when it happened.”
“Didn’t Pete try to help you?”
“I didn’t want him to. I lied to him and told him I could move in with a friend’s family. He was relieved. It’s not like he wanted to deal with me. He wasn’t a bad guy or anything, but he and Mama had only been going out about four months and I knew he didn’t want the responsibility of figuring out what to do with me after she died.”
“What happened to her body?”
“Pete paid to have her cremated and he sent her remains to me. That’s what that box is over on the mantel.” I felt a little nauseous as I glanced at the taped-up cardboard box with a hand-addressed mailing label. I wondered if the postal service had any idea what they’d delivered. “I didn’t really know what to do with it.” I didn’t either. Colt pivoted a wooden chair to face the window, glancing at me as he sat down on it. “You’re taking the news really well. I had no idea how you’d react.”
“I’m completely numb,” I admitted. I looked around the dusty living room. The empty ramen bowl collection had started to build back up again. “Do you eat those noodles three meals a day?” I asked idly.
“No.”
“Because you don’t eat three meals a day?”
He nodded, craning his neck to look out the window. “It’s hard to make a thousand dollars last all month, so we skip breakfast. Those noodles are really good, though. They’re always on sale at the Gas-n-Go by the highway, two-for-a-dollar, and they fill you up. We go and buy all they have twice a month. It really stretches our budget.” He turned to look at me and said, “Do you think that SUV could go off-roading? Maybe we can drive after them. I’d take the truck, but the engine wouldn’t turn over when I tried to drive it yesterday.”
“The ground’s way too rocky, we’d break the SUV is a matter of minutes. Just trust that Finn will handle it. There’s no way he’d let anything happen to Elijah.”
Colt glanced at me again and asked, “How long has he been your boyfriend?”
“Not long. We’d been seeing each other all summer, but things got serious between us this past week. I kind of fell apart after my car got stolen with all my stuff in it, and he dropped everything and came to help me.”
My brother considered that for a minute, then turned back to the window. “He sounds like a good guy.”
“He really is.”
We were quiet for a while, before Colt said, “What are you going to do now that you know Mama’s gone? I meant what I said about not going into the system. I’ll run away before I let that happen, and I’ll take Elijah with me.”
“Why would you think that’s even an option? You’re my family, Colt, and I’m going to take care of you.”
“You’re not going to let me stay here and keep doing what I’ve been doing though, are you?”
“Definitely not. All of this would be too much responsibility for an adult, let alone a teenager.”
“I really hate it when people treat me like a kid,” he grumbled.
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
I got up and went out the back door, then just stood outside for a while, staring into the distance. Tears spilled down my cheeks, but I quickly brushed them away. There would be time to mourn later. For now I needed to hold it together. There was so much to figure out.
A gentle touch on my shoulder startled me, and I turned to look at my brother. He had tears in his eyes, too. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you right when it happened,” he said. I pulled him into a hug and his thin body shook as the crying started up again. “I miss her so much,” he whispered. “I was so scared when Mama died. I didn’t know what to do.”
“I wish you’d called me right away. But at least I know now, and I’m going to help you, Colt. Do you want to come to San Francisco with me, you and Elijah?”
He let go and took a step back so he could look at me. “Are you actually giving me a choice?”
I nodded. “I’m not going to try to tell you what to do. It’s your life. But the only other option I can see is me moving back here, and I really don’t want to do that. I have no idea how I’d support us in Simone. I’d move back anyway and we’d figure things out, but it would be a lot harder, so I really hope you’ll consider coming to California with me.”
Colt wiped his eyes with both hands and said, “I hate Simone. I hate it so fucking much. Sorry about the bad language. I’ll have to talk to Elijah and see what he thinks, but I’d love to get out of here. Isn’t it going to be weird for you, though? You and I barely know each other. Do you really want me living in your apartment?”
I had no idea how we’d all fit in my tiny st
udio until I could afford something bigger, but that didn’t matter. I nodded and said, “I’m glad I’ll finally have a chance to get to know you, Colt. I’ve missed out on so much of your life.”
He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and said, “I can help pay rent and stuff. I’ll get a job at McDonald’s or something. I bet if I do that I’ll even get a discount on the food, so that’ll help, too.”
“I just want you to concentrate on school. You just finished your sophomore year, right?” Colt looked away, and I said, “Shit. Please tell me you didn’t drop out.”
“I had to. It was just too much after Mama died. I was all alone at first, before I met Elijah, and I kinda fell apart for a while there.”
“So, the first thing we’ll do when we get to San Francisco is enroll you in school for this fall, both you and Elijah. What grade is he in?”
“He’d be going into his junior year, too,” Colt said. “We’re the same age. We both missed most of our sophomore year though. Do you think they’ll make us do it over?”
“I think they’ll probably give you some tests to see which grade you belong in, since you’re moving to a new state and a whole new school system.”
Colt considered that and said, “Elijah needs to go back to school. He’s really smart. I’m just gonna try to find a job though, so I can help us make ends meet.”
“No way. You’re getting your high school diploma, Colt. That’s not negotiable.”
He frowned at me. “It’s just a piece of paper. No one cares. You were just talking about how it’s gonna be hard for you to afford a bigger place, but if I’m workin’ full time, I can help out financially.”
“Let me worry about the money, Colt. That’s my job. Yours is getting an education.”
His frown deepened. “You’re treatin’ me like a kid again.”
“No I’m not. I’m just saying you need to go to school.”
“But you dropped out your freshman year and it didn’t affect you any. You still got a job that pays enough for you to send a thousand bucks home every month! Why can’t I do the same thing?”
“No way, Colt,” I exclaimed. “That is not happening! You’re going to finish high school, and then I’m going to figure out how to pay for college. I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you have a good life and that you don’t end up like me!”
“What does that mean? How did you end up? It looks like you’re doin’ pretty good from where I’m sitting.”
“I’m not. I had to do some awful things to survive, things I’m not proud of. Almost twelve years later, I’m still doing them because I have almost no options. Getting your diploma will open doors, and getting a college education will open even more. You’re going to do better than me, Colt. You just are. And there’s no point in arguing with me, because I’m never, ever going to change my mind about you going to school.”
My brother watched me for a long moment, and then he asked, “How’d you survive, Chance? You left home at fourteen. You already told me the Taco Bell job was bullshit. Tell me the truth.” I looked away, and he said softly, “Are you a prostitute? I can see why you wouldn’t want to tell me that, but it’s the only thing I can think of. I know what happens to runaways, I’m not totally ignorant. Is that what happened to you?”
I couldn’t look at my brother, but I gave him a single nod. As much as I’d always wanted to shelter him from the truth, I also needed him to understand the reality. “Now do you see why you need to go back to school? It’s so damn hard to get by in this world, and an education can be your ticket to a better life. I need that for you, Colt.”
He flung his skinny arms around me and hugged me tightly. “I’m so damn sorry, Chance,” he choked out.
“What are you apologizing for?”
“For taking your money all these years. Now that I know what you had to do for it, I feel terrible.”
“No. Don’t go there,” I said. “The things I did were my choice, and I would have done them even without sending money home. I needed to survive and that was the only way I could do it.”
He pulled back to look at me. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll go back to school with no arguments if you do, too. I don’t know how people get those high school equivalency diplomas, but I want you to find out.”
I grinned a little. “You’re negotiating with me? Really?”
Colt grinned too and nodded. “You just got done telling me how important it is to get an education. You don’t want to be a hypocrite, do ya?”
“I’m already going to have a hell of a lot on my plate when we get back to San Francisco. I don’t know if I can handle any more.”
“You’re making excuses.”
“How about if I promise to look into it? That’s the best I can do right now.”
“Fine. I’m gonna make sure you follow through, though,” Colt said.
“All of a sudden, I feel like I’m taking in a parent, not a sibling,” I told him with a smile.
“I keep tellin’ ya I’m not a kid. I’m gonna be seventeen in a few months! I didn’t think I needed you to take care of me, but really, maybe we both need to take care of each other. I think that could work out real good.”
“You’re right.” I glanced over his shoulder and said, “We also need to take care of those two.”
Colt turned his head and yelled, “Elijah!” when he spotted his boyfriend, then took off running with a limping gait. He’d put on sneakers before he came outside, and since they were absolutely filthy, I made a mental note to check his cut later.
I followed my brother at a brisk walk, picking my way around the rough terrain, and he reached Elijah a minute before I reached Finn and grabbed him in an embrace. I too took my boyfriend in my arms, and Finn said, “I’m really gross and sweaty.”
“I don’t care.” I kissed him and said, “Thank you for doing that.”
“Of course.”
As we walked back to the house, the boys fell in step beside us and Colt told Finn, “Dude, you can really haul ass for a big guy.”
I looked up at my boyfriend and said, “He’s not wrong.”
“I stay in shape by training and competing in triathlons,” Finn told me.
“Explains a lot,” I said with a smile.
“I’m sorry I ran off like that,” Elijah softly said as we neared the house. He was hugging Colt’s arm with both of his and told him, “I really didn’t mean to leave you behind. I just kinda panicked.”
“Did everything get straightened out?” I asked.
Elijah shrugged, looking at the ground, and Finn said, “We had a good talk once he ran out of steam. I promised him that no one’s getting put in the system. I think we reached an understanding.”
When we got inside, Finn and I went upstairs so he could get cleaned up. He pulled me into another embrace once we were in my room, kissed my forehead and said, “I’m so incredibly sorry about your mom, Chance.”
“Thanks. It still doesn’t feel real.” I buried my face in his chest and whispered, “What the hell am I going to do, Finn? How am I going to take care of those two boys? I’m barely keeping my head above water.”
“You’re not going to take care of them, we are. You aren’t in this alone.”
I looked up at him and said, “You and I just started going out. There’s no way you should have to take on that kind of responsibility.”
“You’ve meant everything to me for months, so it’s a technicality to say we’ve just begun going out. Besides, I love kids and want to help those boys. I know we can really turn things around for them.” I wished I shared his optimism.
Chapter Sixteen
Colt looked at me uncertainly. “Do you think we’ll ever come back here?”
“Sure,” I told him, “if you want to.”
We’d spent a day and a half going through the house and packing up what we wanted to take with us. The Honda was full of boxes, and so was the trunk of the SUV. Mostly, we’d packed Colt’s belongings, b
ut I brought along some keepsakes from my room, the photo albums, and a few things that had sentimental value for my brother and me. On a more practical note, Colt also loaded the trunk of the Civic with his stash of ramen noodles and canned goods. He really was a survivor.
We’d also packed two big file boxes stuffed with papers that had been in our mom’s closet, so I could somehow begin the process of closing out her estate. I had no idea what needed to be done when someone died, but I could learn. We didn’t know what to do with our mom’s clothes and the rest of her things, so we’d just left them in place.
The four of us finished off by cleaning the house. We got rid of all the trash to try to avoid a rodent invasion while the house stood empty. I really didn’t know when or if we’d ever come back here, but I wanted to leave it in good condition.
The last thing I did was pick up the cardboard box with my mother’s remains. I carried it to the Civic and set it in the driver’s seat, then put on the seatbelt to keep it safe. A lump formed in my throat, and I swallowed hard as I closed and locked the door of my beat-up little car.
Colt had followed me out of the house, locking up behind me, and we stood out front looking at the only home he’d ever known. He put the keys in his pocket, then turned to me and asked, “What about Colt, Junior?”
“The coyote?”
My brother nodded, his eyes full of grief. “We’re leaving him all alone. Do you think he’s going to be alright?”
“He’ll be fine. He’s a survivor, just like the guy he’s named for. You really don’t need to worry about him.”
My brother chewed his lower lip for a moment, then mumbled, “Okay,” and crossed the grassless front yard. He went to take Elijah’s hand, but his boyfriend put his arms around him instead, holding my brother tight and looking up at him for reassurance. Colt put on a show of confidence and said, “This is going to be such a good thing, Eli, just you wait and see. Remember how you told me you always wanted to see California and the Pacific Ocean? You’re finally going to get that chance.” Elijah nodded and hugged him tighter.