by Vera Hollins
He met my gaze. “She’s okay, I guess. I don’t know much about her, because she’s not living in Enfield, and she doesn’t keep in touch with us. I just hope she’s happy.” He whispered those last words as something indescribable took over his features. I felt a pang in my chest.
What kind of mother didn’t keep in touch with her children? Eli was in a wheelchair! He needed his mom. He needed love and support. But here he was, all alone, by himself, so shy and unused to communicating with people that he could barely even look me in the eyes.
“Wanna play Need for Speed?” he asked with a tiny smile.
I recognized his tactic to divert my attention from this painful topic, so, I just nodded in an overly enthusiastic manner and followed him into the house.
Barbie arrived shortly afterward and came to Eli’s room to check on him. Since his hair was intact, I assumed he’d had no trouble getting my gum out of it. Lucky bastard.
He didn’t waste the opportunity to cast the nastiest glare at me, and I flipped him the bird when Eli wasn’t watching. I expected him to resume his mission of “Bully Mel Because She’s More Awesome Than Me,” but he only exchanged a few words with Eli and went to his room, leaving me to wonder what his tactic was now. He wasn’t going to let that gum incident slide, but then again, he must be saving his revenge for later, when Eli wouldn’t be there to witness it.
I refocused on the game and won another race, but then Eli’s left leg started bouncing. I watched it with parted lips because it looked like he could move his leg.
“What’s happening with your leg?”
“It’s spasming.” He hooked his hand under his leg and lifted it, and the spasms stopped.
“Is that a bad thing?”
“It’s a common thing. I get muscle spasms every day.” He chuckled at my confused expression. “It’s because of my spinal cord injury. Don’t worry.”
I scratched my jaw. “Can you do something about it?”
“I’m trying to. I do leg stretches every day and take meds for it.”
“Does it help?”
“Sometimes my legs spasm less often. Sometimes it’s really bad. But I’m not giving up.”
I grinned and nudged his shoulder with my fist. “That’s the spirit!” I stood up. “I’m thirsty, so I’m going to grab some water. Do you want me to get you something too?”
“Sure. You can find some banana smoothie left in the fridge. Banana is good for my muscle spasms, so I drink it often. Pour some for yourself too if you want.”
“Okey-dokey. I’ll be back before you can even blink.” He blinked. “Blink for the thousandth time, I mean.” I winked at him and skipped out of the room.
As I passed by the bathroom, I heard the shower switch on. I stopped and looked at the door across from the bathroom, which was ajar. It had a black-and-yellow sign on it that read “Danger Ahead. Do Not Disturb,” which made it clear whose room that was. I chuckled, but then I stopped abruptly, wanting to slap myself. Did I seriously find his sign amusing? No, sir! Not on my watch!
My feet took a step away, but then my evil, genius brain started to concoct a fabulous new scheme.
I rubbed my hands together. This is going to be good.
Since I was sure Barbie took extra-long showers—that guy loved himself too much to be like an ordinary guy and take a five-minute shower—I had more than enough time to snoop around his room. I took a deep breath and held it, pinching my nose, preparing myself for the stench.
I slid inside and took in the whole space. My brows dipped with a frown, because I’d expected a suite and overpriced furniture that would leave Queen Elizabeth envious, along with heaps of trash and dirty clothes, but the room was spick and span and ridiculously small—half the size of Eli’s—with barely enough space for his single bed, which was squeezed in between his dresser and a small desk with an equally small shelf. The furniture was cheap and simple, and there wasn’t a single gadget. The TV mounted on the wall and the computer on his desk looked ancient.
I put my hands on my hips, mulling over this unexpected piece of information. This room was a far cry from Eli’s, which posed one arguable point: it seemed as though all the money went for making Eli’s life as comfortable and normal as possible, while Barbie himself lived like a down-and-outer in his own house. I didn’t know how to feel about that.
Prepared to pinch my nose again, I chanced taking a breath, but I was surprised once more because there was no bad smell. In fact, his room smelled of my favorite air freshener, and I hated not being able to find another reason to loathe this guy. His room was supposed to be a landfill, not a flowery meadow.
Where were the dirty socks on the floor? Where was the clutter on the desk? Where were the clothes thrown all over his chair and bed? Everything was spotless. The only thing out of order was the unmade bed, but I couldn’t say anything about that, because mine looked even worse.
As much as it pained me to say—my brain hurt just recognizing something like this—Steven could actually take a lesson or two on clean rooms from this guy.
I went around the room in search of anything incriminating, but I found one big, fat nothing. No posters of naked women on the walls and no porn or porn magazines, although his phone had shown he consumed those online.
His closet was half-open, showing the wardrobe of someone who was living a double life. The left side contained the clothing he wore at home; they were cheap and old off-brand pieces that were faded and washed out. The right side contained the overpriced clothing and shoes he wore at school, where each piece served its only purpose—to give him a new identity.
With a frown, I turned to the shelf. There was only one photo in a frame, and I came closer to inspect it. It was of him and Eli giving each other a side hug outside, and judging by their young age and the fact that Eli was standing, it was taken before Eli became quadriplegic.
I took it and studied it closely, my heart clenching for Eli, who couldn’t be more than ten in this photo. He was grinning and full of life, like every other kid out there who looked forward to what the future held for them. He was so unlike the present Eli. On the surface, he was functioning as much as possible, striving for independence and a life free of restrictions, but on the inside . . . didn’t his family see how lonely he felt? Didn’t they see there was no joy in his eyes, which looked as though they had seen more than a kid his age should have?
My eyes went to the younger version of Barbie and lingered on him, an ache of something I couldn’t describe filling my chest. His smile was pure and sincere, and his eyes weren’t the two glaciers of resentment and arrogance that they were nowadays. There was an air of naivety and glee around him that had been lost over time, like something had happened that stole it away from him.
I didn’t hear the shower anymore, and my heart sped up. So, his showers were quicker than my farts. Shit.
This was my cue to run, run like the wind.
I returned the photo to the shelf and slipped out of his room, making sure his door was open just the way it had been—
“What are you doing?” Barbie’s voice snapped from behind me.
I almost jumped out of my skin. Shit, shit, shit. Okay, some serious damage control was in order.
I grinned as I started to turn around. “I’m playing a detective in a super-secret investigation—” I choked on my words when I saw him, going rigid.
He wore only a towel, and I looked down the length of his body despite myself, studying the droplets of water that cascaded down his carved chest and abs to the towel that hung low on his hips. His tan, unblemished skin looked smooth, like if you touched it, it would feel silky and all kinds of perfect, and I swallowed with difficulty.
“Stop ogling me. You’re giving me hives.”
I snapped my gaze up to meet his, disgusted but also confused by my short brain failure. “Ogling you? Ha! I’m just doing a scientific observation as part of my study on apes.”
He frowned and ran his hand through his wet
strands of hair, telling me with his face that he found me unstable. “Do the world a favor and take your meds for once. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but if I catch you near my room one more time, I won’t let it slide. Now, get the fuck out of here.”
Without waiting for me to move, he strode to his room, and I had to jump out of the way so we wouldn’t collide.
“Watch out, you brute!” I raised my fist at him, but he didn’t even turn to look at me. He slammed the door in my face, but not before I caught sight of his upper back.
It was covered in dozens of small scars.
On Friday, I returned home after classes ready to drag Steven over the coals, because he’d ditched school and didn’t answer my texts or calls. Again. I’d predicted another round of disappointments, just not this soon. It was exhausting, and I didn’t know how much more of this I would have to take before it got better.
I went to his room straight away, but it was empty. With a flicker of alarm, I hurried downstairs to the living room, but he wasn’t there either.
I snatched my phone out of my backpack and dialed his number. His ringtone went off somewhere in the house, and I followed the sound to the back hallway, where I found him rummaging through the cabinet drawers frantically. Disappointment lodged in my chest because I knew what he was searching for.
“What are you looking for?” I asked him flatly, gripping the strap of my backpack.
He didn’t even look at me as he snooped around in the drawer. “Just some stuff.”
“You weren’t at school today.”
“Believe it or not, I’m aware of that.”
I grimaced. I so didn’t need his sarcasm right now. “Why?”
He slammed the drawer shut and opened another one, confusion and irritation becoming more prominent on his face. “I’m thinking about quitting school.”
My breathing faltered. “I know you think you’re funny and all, but that wasn’t funny. Not even close.”
“Who says I’m joking?” He finally stopped rifling through the drawers and looked at me. “Say, do you think you can talk to Dad and convince him to allow me access to my trust fund?”
Everything in me turned cold, disappointment swallowing me whole. Dad had created trust funds for me and Steven that we could access when we turned twenty-one, with the option to use it earlier only if it was absolutely necessary. He wanted us to be as independent and responsible as possible on our own, and he’d always told us to look at that money as a last resort.
I didn’t need to look into a crystal ball to know exactly what Steven’s plan was now. “You said you were going to quit using, Steven. You said you were finally going to try changing your life.”
“And I am. It’s just—”
“Then why are you looking for your stash of coke?” I pointed at the cabinet. He grew motionless, slicing me with a glare. “I threw it away last week.”
His face twisted with aggression, his mood doing a complete 180 in a split second. “No! Why did you do that?! You had no right!” He slammed the drawer shut and stomped over to me. He grabbed my upper arms. “You can’t control me, Melissa.”
I’d seen this change in him a hundred times before, but it never ceased to shock me how aggressive he could become when he couldn’t get his fix.
“You’re hurting me,” I said through my teeth.
He shook me, his eyes gaining a wild look. “I need that! I need just a little to get through the day.”
“I said, you’re hurting me!” I shoved him away. “You promised you’d quit!”
“I will! Tomorrow, I swear I will try harder. I just need a little bit now . . . Just a little bit . . .”
I pressed my hand against my mouth, disgusted, the memories of his addiction attacking me all at once.
“I don’t have a problem,” he’d said when I confronted him about his addiction.
“I’m just using it occasionally, when I want to chill,” he’d said when I found his hidden stash of drugs.
“Everyone uses drugs these days, so chillax. It’s not that big of a deal,” he’d said when I begged him to stop.
“You won’t give me money? You fucking bitch,” he’d said when Mom refused to feed his addiction, right before he hit her.
“You and our stupid mother can go straight to goddamn hell and fuck yourselves,” he’d said when I confronted him last week.
So many sinking moments and heart-piercing words. And now this. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. Had he ever even wanted to get clean? Just for a second, had it been real?
I stepped away from him. My chest was aching so much. “And here I thought you were actually serious when you said you wanted to quit.”
“I am serious!”
“Then quit!” I screamed. “Go to a rehab, or group therapy, or whatever. Just stop ruining this family!” He recoiled, his eyes widening, but I continued, “I’m so tired of you! I’m tired of your selfishness. I’m tired of how useless you are. I’m tired of seeing such a waste of sperm in front of me!”
He grew deathly pale, his eyes clouding over with pain stronger than I’d ever seen before, and instantly, I regretted every single word.
I flexed my shaking hands into fists. “Steven, I . . . I’m sorry—”
“Forget it,” he said and snatched my backpack off my shoulder.
“Hey! What are you doing?”
“What I do best—ruining this family.” He pulled my wallet out of my backpack and took all my money, without even looking at me. He dropped my backpack and wallet onto the floor and rushed out of the house.
Over the last few years, I’d gotten so used to putting on a fake smile that faking it once again when I entered the retirement home felt like a breeze. I even added a spring to my step, waving at the residents like I was a queen waving to her subjects—all that so no one would see I was breaking apart at the seams.
When did it all go wrong? Was it that Halloween night? Or the day when Steven met those junkies and started using? Or was it the moment Mom and Dad decided they’d had enough of their constant fighting and took the easy way out of their problems by filing for a divorce? Why was our family falling apart on all fronts?
I had control over nothing. I had no solution. No plan. I didn’t know if tomorrow was going to be better, or if it was going to be a disaster all over again.
I went around doing my usual chores, assisting and talking with the residents, and when they asked me their usual questions about prom, college, and my future, I felt like it was all so far away and unimportant. How could I care about these things when I didn’t know what I was going to do with Steven? He was somewhere out there now, destroying another chance at recovery, and I couldn’t stop thinking about my awful words. I was such a fool. What if he ran away from home again?
Guided by panic, I bolted to a secluded corner and called him, but my call went straight to voicemail. I closed my eyes to compose myself. I went to my messages.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any of that,” I started typing, and then stopped. My thumbs hovered over the keyboard as I thought about the rest of the words I also wanted to include but wasn’t sure about. I sucked my lip between my teeth.
“I love you,” I added, but then I erased the words, my stomach knotting. It had been so long since I’d told him I loved him that it felt unnatural and out of place telling him that now. “I love you,” I retyped and was about to press the “Send” button . . . But I stopped and erased those words again.
Settling on sending only the first part of the message, I hit the “Send” button and stuffed my phone back into my pocket. Okay, it was high time to stop being down in the dumps. What’s done is done. It was pointless to walk around like the Corpse Bride.
I went into the sitting room and headed for the far side of the room where Mr. J. and Mateo were playing chess. Sarah had the day off, so Mateo used this opportunity to come visit his grandpa without the risk of seeing her.
I slumped down into the chair next to them and
studied the board, although I had no clue what was happening there. I didn’t know a thing about chess, except that the goal was to checkmate the opponent’s king. Mr. J. had tried to explain the rules to me one time, but then he started using words like en passant and I got a headache and asked him if he meant croissant.
He never tried teaching me chess again.
“You’ve been playing for a whole hour already.” I took one of the captured black pawns. “I would be bored to death ten times already if I were you.”
Mateo smirked, studying the board. “It’s good we’re not you, then, isn’t it?”
“Haven’t we already talked about this?” Mr. J. asked as he stroked his bushy mustache, his ocean-blue eyes also fixed upon the board. “Chess is not about rushing.”
I tossed the pawn from one hand to the other. “Yeah, yeah. I know. It’s about growing old and still playing that one game of chess you started thirty years ago!”
Mateo chuckled, shaking his head at me. “Only you can say something like that.”
Shreya entered the room, and I waved at her, forming a smile that reached my ears. Right on time! She and Mateo had yet to spend any time together, so I had to use any chance I got to make them realize they were a match made in heaven.
“Shreya, darling! Come here!”
I glanced at Mateo to check his reaction, but other than a slight frown, I didn’t get anything from him. His gaze was firmly on the board, not looking up at Shreya even once.
“Sit down with us.” I patted the chair between me and Mateo. She sat down, glancing shyly at Mateo. “You’re about to experience the greatest moment of your life. This is your exclusive chance to see the chess game not of the month, not of the year, but of the decade!”
“Will you stop babbling so I can focus?” Mr. J. grumbled, frowning at the board.
“Of course!” I saluted him, but that went ignored.
Mateo still hadn’t looked at Shreya. Well, that was about to change. There was nothing better than bonding over a game of chess. Not that I would know that, but still.