Chapter 3
THREE
WE WERE FOURTEEN YEARS OLD
My boots crunch up the freshly shovelled steps of the back deck, which is already gathering a new layer.
The snow is steadily coming down, and while the flakes aren’t heavy, they’re persistent.
I know I’ll be back out here again in the morning, so I lean the shovel against the door and glance up at the dark sky.
The moon highlights the white flakes gently falling to cover the earth, and if it wasn’t so pretty, I’d be mad at it.
Warmth hits my cheeks as I step inside and shut the door behind me, and I take a big breath in as I smell supper cooking. But before I can unzip my jacket, my parents’ voices drifting from the kitchen make me pause.
“I can’t keep doing this, Scott.” Mom’s voice sounds teary, with an edge of anger. “I’m tired. And I feel completely useless.”
A heavy sigh from Dad answers her, and I stay as still as I can. They don’t fight in front of me. But I’ve heard enough through closed doors and quiet silences to know they have been. And lately, it’s been a lot.
“You’re not useless,” Dad says, then sighs again. “You know what he needs—”
“Don’t,” Mom cuts him off. “If you’re about to tell me I need to try harder, just stop.”
Heavy silence fills the air, and I hold my breath.
“You have no idea how hard it is,” Mom says so quietly I almost don’t hear her.
“I do,” Dad replies, but the tightness in his voice makes it sound like he’s saying it for the tenth time just today.
“No, you don’t,” Mom snaps. “He got into another fight at school today. And I’m always the one who has to drop everything and go in to handle it. I want to work more than part time. But I can’t. He’s a full-time job.”
My heart thrashes as my muscles tighten, and I try to ignore the hot burn at the back of my eyes.
I didn’t want to get into a fight. I tried to stop it.
But Ashton kept bugging me. Every class, every day, he mutters behind me that I’m stupid, that I only pass because I get help, and that they shouldn’t let me out of the learning centre. I tried to ignore him, like everyone tells me to. But he just. Kept. Going.
Next thing I knew, I had him pinned to the ground with my fists flying. I tried so hard not to… but my body just took over, like it usually does.
“I’m so tired,” Mom says, her voice catching. “I’m always the bad guy. I’m the one picking him up from school after every suspension, explaining things to teachers, arranging therapy, and trying to get ahead of the next blow-up. I just want one normal day. One day with a son who…”
She doesn’t finish the sentence as she trails off with a sniff.
My vision blurs, and I blink hard to clear it.
“And at home, I feel like all of his anger is aimed at me,” she continues. “The second I try to talk to him, he blows up.”
“That’s because you get mad,” Dad says.
“Well, I am mad!” she yells, and I flinch.
“I don’t know what to do anymore!” she continues, and I hear something drop on the counter and footsteps pace the kitchen.
“We got him tested, we got the learning disability diagnosis, we got him trauma therapy and supports in place at school. But it’s still the same.
Every year. It’s like nothing changes. He still lashes out over the smallest things.
He still shuts me out. And it’s always me.
He never hit you when he was little. He never screamed at you, never ran away from you.
I get all of it.” She pulls in a shaky breath.
“I know it’s not his fault. I know he’s hurting…
but I can’t keep being the one who absorbs it.
I was hoping he’d grow out of it, but now it’s just…
different. And in a way, it’s worse. And I can’t do this alone. I need more from you, Scott.”
A tear falls down my cheek, and I quickly lift my hand to wipe it away.
“Lindsay…” Dad sighs, also sounding tired. “I know it’s been harder on you. And I know he only lets me in. But I can’t fix what’s between you two. That’s something you have to build with him. He’s your son. I can’t build it for you.”
I stare down at my boots and the slush puddling on the mat beneath me.
I don’t want her to feel like this. I love her.
But there’s something that holds me back when she gets too close.
Something in me tightens up and pulls me away.
Dad and my therapist say my brain learned that a long time ago, and that it’s trying to protect me from something.
Something about my biological mom, from the time before I was adopted.
But I don’t know what that was. And I don’t want to.
I want to be the son she wants. The one she can love, who doesn’t make her cry. But I don’t know how.
“For fuck’s sake, Scott,” she mutters, and sniffs again. “I know he’s my son.”
There’s silence for a moment, and I try not to move or breathe too loudly.
“I think it’s time,” she says. “This isn’t doing any of us any good to continue like this.”
Ice slides through my veins. Time for what…?
Dad sighs heavily. “Yeah.”
The quiet between them lingers, and my heart starts beating so hard I’m surprised they can’t hear it.
“I can stay with my sister until I find a place,” Mom says. “When you get home tomorrow, we can tell Silas. I don’t think I can do it tonight.”
No. Please, no.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to erase it all from my brain.
But I can’t. Because I knew this was coming. I’ve heard Dad carefully walking down the hall to the spare room every night when he thinks I’m asleep.
And it’s all my fault.
“Alright,” Dad says roughly, then pauses. “And for what it’s worth… I never wanted it to end this way.”
Before I even know what I’m doing, I turn around and open the door. Cold air rushes against my face as I step outside, and my boots crunch down the wooden steps and into the yard.
End.
It’s ending… my family.
Because of me.
I break into a run and follow the curve of the driveway until my boots hit the road.
The snow glows under the moonlight, casting a quiet brightness across the fields and trees.
It’s just enough light to see my breath as it rises in front of me in warm clouds and vanishes into the cold, dark sky.
My lungs burn as I run faster and pull in the cold air, and each step I take lands in a pocket of silence as the snow swallows the crunch.
It should feel peaceful out here. In the stillness of falling snow, where the air is so quiet you can almost hear the world settle. But my chest hurts, and my muscles are tight, and nothing feels calm. Nothing feels settled.
It never has… but it really isn’t now.
By the time I reach Levi’s house, my face is numb, and my hands are shaking. I push the front door open and step inside, pulling in a lungful of warm air.
“Hey, Silas,” Mark says from the kitchen, glancing around the corner with a smile.
“Hi,” I mumble, kicking my boots off and unzipping my jacket with fingers that barely work they’re so cold.
“Did you eat yet?” Corinne asks as I step into the kitchen and see her sliding lids over dishes of leftovers from supper.
I pause as I glance between Levi’s parents, then sweep my eyes around the kitchen where Keigan is doing homework at the table, and the delicious smell of supper lingers in the air.
When I bring my gaze back to Corinne, she tilts her head and points a finger at me. “Don’t you lie to me.”
I shake my head and finally give in to the rumbling in my belly as I try momentarily pushing away the sadness, fear, and guilt of breaking up my parents.
She sighs as she reaches for a clean plate, and Mark chuckles.
“I swear, boy,” Corinne says as she loads up a plate with mashed potatoes, roasted chicken, and veggies, “you’d forget your head if it wasn’t screwed on.”
I take the plate when she holds it out to me and avoid her eyes.
Because if I look into them, I’ll probably cry.
She’s a great mom. Just like mine. So, I don’t know what it says about me that I find it easier to be in this kitchen than my own.
“You can take it upstairs,” Mark says as he slides the leftovers into the fridge. “Levi’s in his room.”
“Thanks,” I say quietly, then carry the plate upstairs.
Music filters out of Levi’s room as I approach his partially closed door. I push it open and step inside, and he looks up from his desk, where he’s typing at his computer, probably working on homework.
Shit. I have homework… I think.
Levi swivels in his chair to face me as I drop onto his bed and take a bite of broccoli. He doesn’t say anything, and I avoid looking at him as I keep my eyes down and on my plate.
A sigh escapes me after I swallow, and I finally lift my eyes to meet his. “My parents are getting a divorce.”
He pushes his chair back and crosses the room to sit next to me. “Yeah,” he nods slowly. “I guess we knew this was coming…”
“Yeah.” I push the food around on my plate. “It’s because of me.”
“No, it’s not,” Levi says immediately.
“It is,” I say. I stare down at my plate, letting my gaze roam over the carrots. “I heard them. Mom doesn’t like me.”
“That’s not true,” Levi says gently.
I nod. “I know she loves me. But she doesn’t like me.”
Levi is quiet as I take a few more bites in silence, then set the plate on the bedside table and lie back against the pillows. He stretches out next to me, but still doesn’t say anything. He’s just here, like he always is when I need him.
“I don’t want to be like this,” I say eventually as I stare up at the ceiling.
“I know.”
The music hums in the background as my thoughts all start swirling, so fast and loud I can’t hear anything else. What happens next? Where is she going to go? Will it be far away? What will Dad do? Is he going to be sad? Will he still want me if I made her leave?
“I’m scared, Vi,” I say quietly. “She’ll leave me.”
Levi turns his head towards me, but I keep my eyes glued to the ceiling as I try to keep my tears from breaking free.
“She’s moving out.” I blink up at the shadows overhead. “The farm belongs to Dad’s family, so she’s leaving. And then she’ll realize she doesn’t have to deal with me anymore. She’ll get a break. And once she knows what that feels like, she won’t come back.”
He nudges my arm, and I blink back my tears with a hard swallow before I turn my head to face him.
“She’s not leaving you, Si,” he says, his brown eyes catching the warm lamplight. “They just can’t be together anymore. She’ll still be your mom.”
A tear slips from the corner of my eye and drops onto the pillow. “But… what if she does?”
Levi presses his lips together as his eyes flick between mine. “Then I’ll be here to help you.”
I nod with a sniff. I know that’s true.
“And Redwave will help, too,” Levi says, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
A small chuckle bubbles out of me as I turn back to the ceiling.
The superhero we made years ago has only evolved.
We still write and draw his comics and have filled many pages of the notebook we keep hidden in the lighthouse.
Redwave takes our problems from us and turns them into something we can be proud of.
When things are bad, we bring them to him, and he shows us what we can do.
Like when we lost the hockey championship, and when I got suspended for the fire alarm thing…
and for getting in a fight, and for hiding in the school.
And when Levi’s cousin died and nobody knew what to say or do.
We make comics so that sadness, anger, and disappointment are put into the panels of a comic strip, where it hurts just a little less. And where Redwave shows us how to be strong and move on.
“What do you think he’d do?” I ask.
Levi laces his fingers behind his head and stares up at the ceiling beside me. “I know what he wouldn’t do.”
I hold my breath as I wait.
“He wouldn’t fly away.”
My breath slowly escapes from my lungs.
“That would be easier,” I say.
“Would it, though?”
I don’t know.
I want to fly away from everything. From the kids at school who mutter things when they think I can’t hear, and when they know I can. From the teachers who expect me to keep up when I’m already behind. From my parents’ arguments and Mom’s crying.
But not from Levi.
Life would be even harder without him.
I turn to look at him, and he turns his head to meet my eyes.
“He’d stay,” I say.
Levi’s lips tilt up slowly. “Stick-it power.”
I nod and smile for the first time all day. “Stick-it power.”