Chapter Two
Sean’s arms were shaking with exhaustion as
he wheeled his way up the wooden ramp outside his house. His mother
would have pushed his chair, he knew—she was always at her kindest
and most generous when she was bringing him home from physio—but he
really didn’t think he could stand having her that close to him.
What if she laid her hand on his shoulder, or—
Jesus, there had been that time she’d been
crying as she pushed him and he wouldn’t have known except one of
her fucking tears dropped down and landed on his forehead. Then
they’d both had to pretend it hadn’t happened and it had just been
one more tiny, silent tragedy to add to the fucking pile.
No, there was no way he could handle anything
like that, not after dealing with the goddamn physio.
So he forced his arms to work.
She almost caught up to him at the front door
because he had to pull the storm door open and then hold it while
he pushed the main door, and that didn’t leave him with free hands
to wheel the fucking chair. But he managed it, and ignored his
mother’s “Sean!” as she hurried up behind him.
He didn’t want to talk to her, didn’t want to
dig around, trying to find a single ounce of energy to care about
whatever she wanted him to care about. He just wanted to get to his
tiny room, the one his friend Luke had built out of what used to be
the laundry room and pantry, where he could—
“Sean.” A male voice, familiar but not
recognizable, coming from the living room.
So fucking tempting to just keep going.
Pretend he hadn’t heard, or skip the pretending and just show that
he didn’t care. But his sister Stacey appeared in the kitchen
doorway right in front of him, blocking his path. Times gone by he
could have just shouldered past her and done what he wanted, but
now?
He was trapped.
“Sean,” the male voice said
again, and Sean turned his head. Father David. Father, even though the priest was
only six or seven years older than Sean and had grown up just down
the street. As soon as he’d come home from priest-school and put
that collar on, Sean’s mom had made it crystal clear. David Walsh
was a priest, now, and he would be treated with respect.
Well, fuck it. Fuck David Walsh, fuck Sean’s
mom, fuck it all. “I’m not in the mood,” he growled, and wheeled
toward the kitchen.
And he could add another ‘fuck’ to the list,
because Stacey didn’t move. “Mom asked him here,” Stacey said, her
voice low and pleading. “She needs you to talk to him.”
“About God?” Sean whirled—he was getting
pretty good in the chair, and his anger had given him a burst of
energy. “Fuck that. I’m not interested in your bullshit, buddy, so go peddle it
to someone else.”
“No bullshit,” the priest said, his voice
calm and easy. “And no God, if you’re not interested.”
“Good. I’m not interested.” He turned his
head to Stacey. “So get the fuck out of my way.”
“No God,” the priest said, just a little more
loudly. “But we do need to talk. Things have to change.”
Sean spun the chair so he
was facing the front door, where his mother stood, fucking tears
streaming down her face again, and he knew—he knew—that if he wheeled toward her
she’d step aside and let him leave.
But he had absolutely no place to go.
He was trapped.
This was his fucking life, from now on, and
he’d done it to himself. It was all his fault.
“What do you want?” he said,
and as soon as he heard his voice, he wished he could take it back.
He didn’t want to sound that weak, that childish. He wanted to
be angry, not
defeated.
But the priest was already moving, picking up
the dining room chair he’d been sitting on and carrying it over
closer to Sean. That was probably supposed to be a nice touch. The
bastard probably thought he was being respectful, lowering himself
to speak to Sean eye-to-eye. What an asshole.
“Your mother’s been
suffering,” David said. He looked over Sean’s shoulder toward
Stacey. “Your sister is worried about her, and when I spoke to your
mother, I became
worried about her.”
“What?”
“Not just Mom,” Stacey said
quickly. She moved, now, around in front of Sean, and he thought
briefly about making a break for the door she’d abandoned. But if
he escaped now, it would look too much like running away. So he had
to sit there as his sister said, “Corey and Tina, too. Everyone in
this house. God, Sean. You’ve always been an asshole, but those two
worshipped you anyway. You were their big brother. Their hero. And
now? You’ve gone so far beyond
asshole, Sean. You’re fucking mean, now. Cruel. You’re so wrapped
up in your own shit you can’t see how anyone else is being
affected. But they are being affected. They’re being torn apart. It needs to
stop.”
It felt like the world was spinning. Like the
words were battering into him physically, beating him to dizziness,
battering his ears so there was a dull roar laid over everything.
He fought to keep his face impassive. It didn’t matter. He was
fine. He was tough. It was just words, and words were nothing.
“I’ve been looking into alternative housing,”
David said. For a second, it looked like he was going to reach out
and lay his hand on Sean’s arm, but luckily he came to his senses
and didn’t do it. “Obviously your physical requirements make it
more challenging, and there are budget limitations, but—”
“You’re kicking me out?”
Sean asked, and thank god, his voice didn’t sound weak. He sounded
angry, and he let the emotion flow through him and give him the
strength he needed as he wheeled toward his mother. “You staged
this fucking ambush because you don’t have the guts to do it yourself? You want me
gone?”
“No, baby,” she said, her
whole body shaking with sobs he refused to acknowledge. “That was
just one idea—it’s not the one I like. It’s not. I want you here! But,
Sean—”
The roaring in his ears was
too loud for him to hear any more and his vision was starting to
cloud, dark red pouring in from the edges. If he’d been standing
he’d probably have fallen, but as it was, there was nowhere lower
for him to go. He wanted to run, he fucking needed to run away, but his fucking
legs were gone, he’d never run again and he was trapped, this was
his life, there was no escape from any of it—
Suddenly the air was cooler and everything
was a little darker, a little more peaceful. He was moving,
somehow, the chair being wheeled away from the house as if he’d
been lifted up by an angel, rescued from hell and taken—where?
“Keep breathing, man,” he heard, and this
time the voice was as familiar as his own. Luke had him. Luke had
appeared out of nowhere and he was pushing the chair, getting Sean
out of that mess. Lucas Cain, the only person in the whole world
who’d ever come close to understanding Sean. Maybe Father David
wasn’t quite as full of shit as he seemed, because Lucas showing up
definitely seemed like a miracle.
But there was no such thing.
“Hold on,” Sean managed. “Stop.”
And Luke stopped. Of course he did. He paused
for a second as if waiting for a further order, then stepped around
the side of the chair and crouched down. It had been infuriating
when David did it, but from Lucas, it was just right.
But Sean couldn’t let himself fall into that
trap. “You were part of that? You knew they were going to do
that?”
“What’d they do?” The question sounded
genuine. “Stacey called me about an hour ago and said she thought
you might want to go for a drink tonight. She asked me to come by.
When I got there, I heard your mom kinda—wailing. Is she okay?”
No, she wasn’t okay. Obviously. And it was
all Sean’s fault. “I’m fucked,” he said.
Luke just nodded. “Yeah? You want to get that
drink, tell me what’s going on?”
God, yes, Sean absolutely wanted that. The
drink part, at least, and he was sure once he had a few shots in
him the talking would come more naturally. But he wasn’t even able
to find that one simple pleasure anymore. “I can’t drink with one
of the pills I’m taking. I don’t even know which one, but—it’s
pretty gross. Like, I puke almost right away.” He frowned.
“Besides, I thought you gave up drinking.”
“Yeah, I did.” Lucas shook his head. “Ain’t
we a pair?”
“If us in high school could see us now,
they’d probably kick our asses.”
“Probably. ‘Course, us in high school were
idiots.”
Had they been? Maybe. They’d been bolder,
definitely, more reckless, refusing to back down from any challenge
or any fight. They’d been tough. But where had that gotten
them?
“We could track down some milk and cookies,
if you want,” Lucas suggested. “Or go Christmas-crazy and buy some
of that eggnog crap, the kind with no rum in it.”
“Jesus. Haven’t I suffered enough?”
Lucas grinned and straightened up. “Want to
go up the hill, then?”
The hill. Yeah. It was
exactly where Sean wanted to go. So he nodded, and Lucas shifted
back around and started pushing again, and they proceeded in
silence down the sidewalk. The footing wasn’t great—icy in parts,
slushy in others—and Sean thought briefly about feeling guilty.
Lucas’s shoes were probably soaked. His feet were probably—well.
Fuck. At least the bastard had
feet. Besides, this was Luke. He wasn’t going to
get too worked up about a bit of cold.
It only took about ten minutes to make their
way back through the neighborhood and then along the street that
dead-ended with a graffiti-covered concrete barrier. It hit Lucas
just about mid-thigh, same as it used to for Sean, back when he’d
had legs, and they’d spent countless nights up here when they’d
been kids.
Some of it had been stuff
that made Sean ache for the loss of his legs. The wild paintball
games they’d had, ranging all over the neighborhood, up and down
the steep hill on the far side of the barrier, wrestling in the
undergrowth, enjoying their youth and their strength and their
freedom. But later, when they’d gotten older, they’d come here to
drink and smoke, staring out over the ravine and into the town