See ya on Wednesday.”
“Wednesday?” I choke out as he walks away.
“Class, Bear. We’ve got class,” he says over his shoulder.
Fuck me.
It’s not until eight that night, when I get home from work, that I get a terse response to another of my texts to Otter.
Be home late. Don’t wait up.
Ow.
The Kid noticed something was up but allowed me to dismiss his question after Mrs. Paquinn had left, telling him that Otter would be home when he could. He asked quietly if Otter would be there in the morning before he went to his first day of fifth grade. I told him of course he would be. Otter wouldn’t miss it. He was just as excited for the Kid as I was.
The Kid almost looked like he believed me.
After he went to bed, I waited and prowled the house, looking through the windows every few minutes or so, sure that the headlights rolling by would be Otter, that he’d be coming home and that he’d open the door, and his eyes would find mine, and I’d say I was sorry, and he’d say the same, that grin on his face lighting up the gold-green, and I’d make him believe that there was no one else, that there never could be anyone else. That it would be okay because it was just me and him, Bear and Otter, the way it was always supposed to be.
I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And eventually ended up in the bathtub because the earthquakes in my heart got too hard to handle outside of this false haven that was our home. I shivered against the cold porcelain and wondered what would happen if Otter didn’t come back. We would have to move, because I couldn’t afford to live in this house by ourselves. I’d have to get the Kid and pack up as quickly as we could because staying here any longer would do nothing but crack my soul. I needed to figure out what I’d say to Tyson, how I would explain that I’d fucked up yet again, that his older brother was a fucking failure at everything he did. I’d have to make sure I wrapped myself around him so that when he broke apart, the pieces wouldn’t fall too far away, and I’d be able to pick them up like I always did. Even if I had to leave pieces of myself behind.
Always with one foot out the door, it whispered in the dark. Always expect the worse because one day, the worst will come.
I lie down in the bathtub, facing away from the door because watching and waiting and hoping for him to walk in is impossible. It’s improbable.
He’s not coming in. He’s not coming home. He came to his senses, I think.
He probably just sent that text that he was going to be home late, that I shouldn’t wait up because no matter how late it got, it would always be too late. I shiver because I’m cold and because of so much more. I ignore the tear that slides from my eye across my nose because if I don’t, not even the bathtub will stop me from breaking. It’s only then that I fall, and I remember—
I REMEMBER once, that my mother came to me with a favor. I was—
thirteen i think i’m thirteen
—older then, and she came to me after I’d gotten home from school. It was in the fall, and I was wishing—
better coat i wish i had a warmer coat
—it was summer again because I couldn’t stand the cold, not with a jacket that was three years old and too small now. Mom said we couldn’t get me a new one because the baby needed diapers. She said it was more important than a coat. If I was cold, she said, just wear two pairs of socks and a hat because heat escapes your feet and head. I told her that it was my arms that were cold, not my feet and head. She’d just laughed and said I was funny, and I—
dumb baby the stupid fucking kid ruins everything
—looked away, muttering that I wasn’t trying to be funny, that it wasn’t meant to be funny. But she’d laughed, a Marlboro Red dangling from her lips, the smoke a blue-gray fog above her head like a storm cloud.
I came in from outside, rubbing my arms, trying to get the gooseflesh to disappear and the hairs on my arms to lie back down. I wondered if I had gloves, if gloves would even help, and I was stuck on that thought, thinking maybe Otter would have some extra in his closet I could use, I could just call and ask him. He was at school, and I didn’t—
want him to be so far away why did he have to leave me
—want to ask his parents or Creed, because I didn’t want to see the look on their faces, that look of pity that I knew they would have. They didn’t mean to do it, and it wasn’t their fault. I just didn’t want it. But if I called Otter, he would tell me if he had some in his room, and maybe a coat, too, that he’d let me borrow, and it would—
smell like him
—be big on me, but that would be okay. It would remind me of him.