Caleb
Standingthere,staringat Lizzie, I can’t help but be transported back in time. To Ricky Michaels. A kid in eighth grade who thought it would make him feel big to kick a kid when they were down. Taunts about my father’s drinking and his absence had sparked more fights than I can now remember. I’d been a known hothead until Matty’s death some years later. When I’d become the only man of the house.
Once Mom had needed me, there had been no going back.
But instincts like that don’t just disappear.
Since Matty’s death, I’ve rarely lost my cool. But my control had come at a cost. My anger, my emotions. It all stays bottled up inside, behind a solid wall of detachment. Decades have gone into it, forming the barrier brick by brick and keeping everyone around me at bay. Now, when someone makes a comment or passes judgment, it doesn’t hurt. Now, when someone leaves, like mom does little by little, it doesn’t feel quite so much like the world is ending. Because the wall protects me.
But today it’s not working.
Standing here, in my own hallway, in the home that should feel like the safest place in the world to me, I’m practically shaking.
Just the reminder of Matty has set off a stabbing pain in my chest. Worst still, I’ve spent the entire day trying to remind myself of Lizzie’s inevitable departure and what a waste it would be to fall for her any more than I foolishly have already.
Hell, when she hadn’t turned up at the usual time for dinner, the irrational part of my mind had already pictured her on a plane and across state lines. Returning home with David.
The combination of someone who has already been taken from me and the woman I never want to see leave sends me into a confusing spin.
And I react the only way I knew how to back in school.
I lash out.
“What do you know about my brother?” I snarl. She doesn’t know much because you don’t open up about him. That’s not her fault. “What makes you think you have the right to talk to Jace about him?” Again, is it so secret? She wasn’t doing any harm.
The little rational voice in my head is no help. If anything, my guilty conscience just makes my fury burn hotter, self-hatred and shame fueling it.
“I’m not looking to become Matty!” I snap for good measure.
“I didn’t say that you were!” Lizzie defends, taking advantage of my need to breathe and easing another step closer to me. Her eyes are round with affront and practically bleeding their apology. The corners of her mouth have turned gray, the lines at the edges of her lips more distinct. It’s clear that she feels guilty for bringing up a subject when she’d meant no harm.
And yet, I can’t just let her off the hook. I have to take a step backward, my shoulders drawing in. My hands itch to touch her, to reach for her and draw her in tight enough that everything between us melts away, but my hurt is a red mist descending over everything. I can’t be close to her. Not right now.
Something deep inside is clinging to my anger like it’s my last defense. It’s saying that, if I’m not angry, if I have nothing to cling to, my heart is going to cleave to Lizzie instead. Mold itself to hers until there’s no sense of where one ends and the other begins. So when she leaves, as everyone eventually does… I won’t recover.
The anger is all I have. The wall I’ve so diligently built since I was thirteen has not only cracked but broken into a thousand pieces and turned to ash at my feet.
And I hadn’t even noticed it happening.
Now, I have only my rage. And it’s telling me that if I yield, I’ll break.
“I suppose you’d prefer it if I were?” I accuse, my insecurities bubbling to the surface. “If I were more like my brother?”
“What?” Lizzie’s nose wrinkles at the idea. “Why would I think that? I didn’t know him.”
“Everyone liked him.” I say it like it’s an obvious fact. I rub at the back of my head and tug at my hair. “Everyone still likes him. I walk down the damn street sometimes and someone’s got a story or a comment to make. Shame what happened to Matty. Good boy. Good man. Always friendly. Always there whenever you needed a hand.”
“You’re always there for people.” Lizzie’s words are spoken so softly that they hardly register.
“It’s always about Matty. And it should be. He was the best. I can’t be angry that people like him for being the best. That you would have liked him.” I rub at my face, nodding the more I think about it. “Yeah, Jace was right. You’d have an easier time of it if I were more like my brother.”
“Caleb, that’s not what he—”
“Ma, of course, would have a harder time picking me out of a line-up, but maybe I’d upset her less if I was more like Matty.”
Lizzie has had enough. I don’t know much about women but I know when one has reached her limit of stupid, and my uncontrollable pity party has tipped her over the edge. She stands just a foot from me now, feet braced, hands on hips and a look of disapproval stamped across her face.
“Caleb Walker, stop it. Your mother loves you. I—Uh. You are loved. She would know you no matter how you—”