For the next two hours I go about my business. Pretend it matters that I’m sweeping the floor, filling the sugar containers. Adrian eats, pushes his plate away, and then alternates between The Count and scribbling in his notebook. I wonder what he’s writing but know I don’t have a right.
I came here for him, but I don’t have a plan. For some reason, I don’t think it would work to sit down and tell him I’m sorry. That I hate what my father did and I hate what Adrian’s family lost and that I would do anything, anything to make it go away.
I did it before with his sister, but that was different. One look at me and she’d known. She’d known who I was and we sat down and cried as I told her I was sorry.
She said she didn’t hate me, that it wasn’t my fault. I told her she lost more than I ever did, so she asked what I lost too. We talked about my mom and the gambling debts, which led to depression and suicide attempts.
And that’s when she told me about her brother. That she hadn’t just lost Ashton, this beautiful little boy, but two members of her family. Adrian too. He’d never been able to handle things well, and he’d disappeared right after Ashton died.
The private investigator found him only a couple hours away in Brenton, she’d said offhandedly. The pain in her eyes when she told me she couldn’t go to him ripped me apart. But she knew him and said you couldn’t push Adrian; otherwise he’d run again. At least this way she knew he was safe.
And here I am, trying to push him. Trying to dig up his past just so I can try and give myself a better future. I’ve never felt so selfish in my life. I want to vomit. Tears sting my eyes and I remember how Mom used to tell me a good cry could be cathartic. Now she just takes pills or puts a razor to her wrists.
Suddenly, I don’t know if I can do this. Don’t know if I can do any of it. What was I thinking, coming here? Trying to dredge up his past the way I want to. It’s not okay. Not fair. Maddox was right.
I think about how small Mom looked in that hospital bed. Maybe we deserve it. Maddox seems to think he does. Maybe it’s all our faults for trusting in Dad or sticking by his side before we knew how bad things were. For not looking into his lies and treasuring the time he was home.
Maybe we’re supposed to continue living with it.
Adrian stands but doesn’t look at me. I never gave him his ticket, but right now, I don’t care. I’ll cover it and pretend he paid. Whatever I have to do to make this right.
He stuffs his book in the pocket of his black hoodie. The other pocket belongs to his spiral notebook. Without a glance in my direction, he walks out. I wait until the headlights swing across the wall before I walk to his table.
There’s a twenty-dollar bill and a single piece of paper. The paper trembles, an extension of my hand.
Space,
I asked.
She agreed.
It wasn’t what caught my attention.
Her eyes.
Me too,
They seemed to say,
I need space too
Thank you
I fall into his seat. Clutch the paper to my chest. And cry.
* * *
I get off work at 6:00 a.m. and head to the little apartment my brother and I are sharing. I guess that’s the good thing about not having many ties anymore. We can pack up and move at any second. Maddox hates that part because it made it easier for me to come here. He’ll be glad when he finds out I don’t think I should go through with it.
Maddox is passed out on the couch when I get home. We could only afford a one-bedroom place and it’s just like him to give the room to me. I guess it’s just like me to take it too.
After the fastest shower in history, I throw on my sweats and a sweatshirt. I climb into bed, my body tired. Even my mind is, but it’s not shutting off enough to get any downtime.
I read Adrian’s poem what feels like five million times. It’s so strange how you get it in your head who someone is before you meet them. Or even after you meet them, you get that one look and know how they are. It’s bullshit ninety-nine percent of the time, but that doesn’t stop people from doing it.
The words on this paper aren’t who I saw when I thought of the boy who’s tied into my life so much, yet doesn’t know it. Questions rain down on me in a powerful thunderstorm: Does he write often? Does it help him deal? Is this something he shares with everyone?
Curiosity swims inside me, filling up every nook and cranny it can find. I shouldn’t be curious about him. It almost feels morbid in a way, but I can’t help but wish that maybe knowing each other would be a step toward healing us all.
“Stupid.”
I look over at the clock. It’s one of the only things unpacked in my room. Bringing in money is much more important than making the place homey.
It’s 10:00 a.m. and I haven’t slept a wink yet. I roll out of bed. My brother’s out on the tiny patio smoking a cigarette. It takes two tries to get the glass door to slide open right. “Hey,” I say, tucking my hands into the sleeves of my sweatshirt and leaning against the wall.
“You’re up early.” I can tell by the scratchiness in Maddox’s voice that he just woke up too.
“Couldn’t sleep… Have you called to check on Mom today?” I know the answer to that question before I asked it.
“Did she worry about us when things got bad?”
“Mad—”
“Laney.”
“Stop it.”
“You stop it.”
I swat him on the back of the head. “I’m not twelve. It’s not going to help to mimic me.”
He takes a drag from his cigarette and lets the smoke out slowly. “Think we’ll be here long enough for you to register for a class or something? You should.”
“So should you. I don’t have the money or the time right now.”
“I’d make it happen.”
I sigh, hating the fact that my brother feels the weight of our family on his shoulders. That he would do anything for me but nothing for himself. That he blames himself so much for everything falling apart that it’s the real reason he struggles with Mom. It hurts too much to see her. And… well, I think it’s the way she treats me, too, that makes me feel like crap. He shouldn’t lose his only parent because she can’t seem to stand the sight of me. “I know you would… I met Adrian last night.”
At that he whips around to face me. “That fast? What happened?” His voice is a mixture of concern and annoyance.
I shrug. “He was the guy who tried to… help me with the boxes yesterday. I didn’t know it, though. Then he happened to show up at the diner last night and I figured out who he was.”
“Fuck,” Maddox groans.
I’m pretty sure there’s a small tint of curiosity in his gray eyes. He’ll never ask, though. Not Maddox.
“He of course doesn’t know who I am.” I pause for a second, trying to build a coherent thought from all the bits and pieces and fragments in my mind. “He’s broken, Maddy. I don’t know how I know it, but I do.” I kneel next to him. Drop my head on his shoulder. I hear the deep breath he inhales and exhales, knowing I’m hurting and hating it.
“Do you think it’s our fault, somehow? I know that sounds stupid, but did we do something? Wrong someone? Should we have known what Dad was doing earlier? Are we being punished because we were blind?”
Another curse. Maddox doesn’t move, doesn’t wrap an arm around me. “None of it’s your fault, Laney. You were just a kid.”
“You too,” I point out, but he chooses to ignore that.
After a pause, he asks, “Did meeting him make you realize this is a shitty idea? That it’s not going to change anything?”
“I don’t know… maybe… probably… I don’t know.”
He chuckles. “Typical woman. Doesn’t know what she wants.”
That makes me hit him again before I stand up. “Who knows? I don’t know what I want, remember? I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but… we’re all tied in this together. Maybe there’s a way we can help each other? I keep thinking of his sister. How much she misses him. What if there’s a way we can help? What if we can bring them back together?” The truth is, I couldn’t imagine being in this without Maddox. Adrian and Angel need each other like we do.
“You can help, Laney. Not me. My only concern is my family.” His cigarette has almost burned to the end now, but he takes a drag anyway before stubbing it out.
I want to tell him Mom’s family also, not just me, but I don’t. I’m not in the mood to fight with him today. “I’m not sure what to do, but I’m not ready to leave.” And then I add, “I just want everything to be okay.”
Maddox stands and shakes his head at me. “You’re too much of an optimistic, little sister. We’ve gone too far for everything to be okay.” He walks into the apartment, leaving me to stand there alone.
Chapter Five
~Adrian~
I have no idea what the hell I was thinking when I left my poem at the table. It feels like a slipup. No, more like I took a razor to my skin, like I cut myself open and left a small piece of myself behind for her. I don’t do shit like that, but seeing Angel at Ashton’s grave not long before that, plus the girl at the party with his nickname—maybe I hadn’t needed to cut myself open at all. Maybe they’d already done it for me and I was open and raw when I went in.
Maybe I had no choice but to leave that piece of me there.
Or it might be the ghosts in her eyes. The dark shadows that lurk there and make me wonder what’s chasing her when the lights go out.
Hell, I might just need to let laid. No matter how I look at it, she’s gorgeous and I want her.
Whatever the reason is, I don’t like it. Don’t like giving people a glimpse inside me to see what lives there.
Even when it was Angel who found some of my shit and read it, I felt under the microscope. Like a rat that people study. When I was young, I was the quiet kid who didn’t talk but left his heart on paper. Now she’ll see me as the flirtatious, f**ked-up guy with a hidden depth that’s not really there. It’s nothing but an optical illusion.