Chapter 2
DARIEN
Some houses feel like sunlight, even when it’s raining.
Tru’s mom always let me sit in the front seat, even though I wasn’t technically her kid. She’d pass me the bag of Twizzlers with a wink and say, “Don’t eat them all before the trailers.”
We went to the movies almost every weekend—a big old theater with red velvet seats and sticky floors.
We took turns picking the movies. One weekend, Ms. Jameson would choose, and the next, Tru and I would agree on something.
But Tru always left the decision up to me.
I had a thing for action, sci-fi, and dumb horror movies where everyone screamed at shadows.
To me, it wasn’t scary because it was so predictable.
I’d lean over and tell Tru who was going to die next, and he’d roll his eyes but never argue.
We always shared the same jumbo soda and a bucket of popcorn so greasy it turned our fingers orange.
“You sure you wanna see this one?” I asked once, when I picked some alien monster flick.
Tru nodded. “Yeah. It looks... cool.”
But I caught the hesitation in his voice. He didn’t like the movies I picked. Not really. He just liked that I picked him.
And that was enough to keep me choosing the loudest, goriest ones, just to see how long he’d keep choosing me back in his own quiet way.
Apparently, there was no limit to what he'd brave for me. And I loved that about him. That he’d sit through hours of monsters and fake blood just because I asked.
My dad would’ve hated it. He always rolled his eyes when I came back from the movies with Tru. “Why don’t you take a girl like a normal boy?” he’d say, as if going with him was something I should be ashamed of.
When it wasn’t movies, we were swimming in his backyard pool. I’d cannonball off the edge and try to splash him, and he’d pretend to hate it, even though he always laughed. His mom made lemonade and grilled cheese after every single time. I never asked why she didn’t get sick of it.
I just kept showing up.
The best part, though, the part I looked forward to every day, was the field at the end of our street. The one with all the weeds and half-poured sidewalks. Some construction company had run out of money or permits or something, and just left it behind like a forgotten promise.
My older brother and his friends dragged scrap wood out there and built a crooked skateboard ramp. Nails stuck out in places, and it creaked when you walked on it. It was totally unsafe, a tetanus nightmare.
Which made it perfect.
Tru and I would crawl underneath and hide.
The air was always cooler there, even in July.
We thought hiding under there made us invincible, like nobody could touch us if we stayed small enough, quiet enough.
It smelled of dirt and sun-baked wood and secrets.
He brought Sharpies in every color and drew on the support beams—dragons, wolves, spaceships, made-up logos for fake bands he said we were going to start someday.
One time, I asked why he never drew people.
He didn’t answer for a long time. Just kept tracing the curve of a tail on something with wings.
Then he said, “People don’t stay.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. So I picked up a red Sharpie and wrote our names on the lowest beam.
Tru + Dare
NO GIRLS ALLOWED
He smiled at that.
I liked his smile. It was soft, but rusty. He didn’t show it to just anyone. I started trying to earn it every day—a little reward only I got to keep.
And when I crawled under that ramp with Tru—just the two of us, knees tucked close, Sharpie ink on our hands—the world stopped spinning so fast. We could stay there forever, just hiding from everything.
I didn’t know what it meant yet, the way my chest felt full and hollow at the same time when I looked at him.
I just knew that under the ramp, Tru was mine.
Sometimes I’d stay for dinner and never want to leave.
The light in his kitchen was always warm.
His mom played music while she cooked, humming along under her breath.
At the Jameson house, I could be myself.
The loud, uncouth version my mom never approved of.
We told jokes and laughed. Gossiped about our classmates.
Even Ms. Jameson joined in, telling us about some of the gossip from her office.
Nobody yelled.
Nobody hid.
Nobody asked why I wasn’t chasing girls.
It was just the three of us. There was a strange kind of peace in that. Maybe that’s how it was when you didn’t have a dad.
At my house, my dad was always late. My mom slammed cabinet doors like they’d insulted her. I wasn’t allowed to talk back. I wasn’t allowed to talk much at all. But at Tru’s? I could just be.
I think that’s why I started pretending I forgot to ask for a ride. Why I stopped texting my mom to pick me up and told her I was going home with Tru. I learned exactly how long I could stay before Tru’s mom would say, “Honey, you want to just spend the night?”
I always did.
Leaving Tru’s house always felt like stepping out of a dream. By the time I walked through my own front door, the spell was gone, the warmth and peace of his kitchen dissipating like fog over the welcome mat.
The air here was stiff and quiet, the kind of silence that only came after a fight. Not during—during was loud, plates rattling in the sink, voices sharp enough to cut. But afterward? It was as if the whole house held its breath.
I dropped my bag by the stairs and didn’t bother calling out. My older brother’s shoes were gone, which meant he was too. Probably with his friends or his girlfriend or whoever was keeping him sane lately. It was smart of him to stay gone, but it felt as if his friends saw more of him than I did.
I went into the kitchen for a soda and found my mom scrubbing the same spot on the counter, over and over. Her eyes didn’t move from it, even when I walked in.
“You’re late,” she said. Her voice was flat and held no trace of warmth.
“I was at practice,” I muttered, grabbing a can from the fridge. “I told you.”
She didn’t answer, just kept scrubbing, as if she could just clean hard enough, she’d erase whatever made her so angry all the time.
I slipped out before she could think of something to throw at me with her words.
That’s how it was in our house. Nobody hurt you with hands and fists; they used sharp insults and barbed words instead. Silence and isolation were weapons that cut deeper than words ever could, and I’d learned to live with the wounds.
Upstairs, I shut my bedroom door and kicked off my shoes.
My room used to feel protected, the only safe spot in the house.
Now, it had become a holding cell. The lightbulb in the ceiling flickered when I turned it on.
I sat on the edge of my bed and cracked open the soda.
It had no taste, just cold sugar and fizz.
I thought about Tru’s mom humming while she cooked; even the onions sizzling in the pan deserved a soundtrack.
About Tru handing me the controller like it was a coveted treasure, no questions, no conditions—just here, what’s mine is yours.
About that Charizard card in its perfect sleeve, and the way he turned it over carefully and said he liked the art, not the value.
I didn’t know people like that were real.
People who could fill a room without sucking the air out of it.
People who didn’t keep score. Who just..
. let you be near them without asking for anything back.
No proving yourself, no posturing. Just this quiet kind of belonging that felt so rare, I didn’t trust it at first.
It was standing in sunlight after you’ve been cold for so long you forgot what warm felt like. And I didn’t know whether to step closer or run before I ruined it.
I didn’t hear my dad come home until his voice startled me.
“You alive up here?”
I jumped and sat up straighter as the door creaked open. He didn’t knock. He never did. It was my father’s house, and he paid the bills, which meant he owned everything and everyone under his roof, as he liked to remind us.
I thought about whether Ms. Jameson would have knocked first, but thinking back, Tru hadn’t shut his bedroom door. He’d left it wide open, maybe because he had no one to hide from.
My dad leaned against the frame in his white button-down, sleeves rolled up, his tie like a noose half-undone.
“I’ve barely seen you this summer,” he said. “Where’ve you been hiding?”
I shrugged. “Soccer practice. Hanging out.”
“Hanging out with who?”
“Just… a friend down the street.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Isn’t that the boy on your team?” I nodded. “And what are they like? What do his parents do for a living?”
That was always it with him. Job titles. Last names. Country club status.
I swallowed my irritation. “It’s just my buddy Tru,” I said. “And his mom.”
He tilted his head slightly. “Tru? Interesting name.”
I picked at the hangnail on my thumb, avoiding his eyes. “It’s short for Truen.”
“And she lives there alone?”
“Yeah,” I said, the word sticking in my mouth.
“Huh.” He straightened, cracking his neck like he always did before switching gears. “Well, I guess I’ll have to make it a point to introduce myself. It would be strange if my son spent more time there than here, and I don’t even know her name.”
Something twisted in my chest.
I didn’t want him to go over there. I didn’t want him shaking hands with Tru’s mom and smiling that lawyer smile that made people think he was decent. I didn’t want him setting foot in that house, tracking in whatever clung to me from this place.
It was mine.
The only good thing I had that didn’t belong to anyone else.
“I dunno,” I mumbled. “She works a lot. You might miss her.”
He gave me one last look, something unreadable passing across his face.
Then he patted the doorframe. “Just don’t let people get the wrong idea.
Two boys attached at the hip all the time?
Folks start to wonder about things.” He paused, eyes narrowing just a fraction.
“All that time around a woman’s influence will make you soft.
And softness doesn’t do you any favors out on the field, or in life. ”
And then he was gone.
I sat there for a long time in the flickering light, soda can sweating in my palm, wishing I could peel off my skin and leave it behind like a uniform I never chose.
And for the first time, I hated this house for what it wasn’t.
Not because it was loud.
Not because it was broken.
But because it wasn’t his.
Because I didn’t want to go back tomorrow just to visit.
I wanted to stay. To belong.
And I didn’t know how to want something like that without breaking it.