Sage
SEVEN
BACK THEN
“So, what are we doing today?” Mac asks, throwing himself down on my bed like he belongs there. I scowl, walking over to him and yanking the book he sprawled out on top of. He smiles, lifting his narrow hips.
“Nothing. Why are you here?” Mac has been showing up daily lately. Ever since that stupid fight with Stephen last week, he’s glued himself to my side. Almost every day, I see new bruises on him. Small marks that show the trouble he has at home. I refuse to ask about them.
I have my own issues. I don’t need to take on his, too. But he keeps coming over, keeps waiting outside for me each morning, smiling as we wait for the bus. He usually talks. I usually glower.
He’s never fazed by my bad moods. He seems determined to make me smile. I hate to admit he usually succeeds. He gloats every time I crack a smile, or god forbid a laugh.
I’m not in the mood for him today, though.
Mom’s drinking is getting out of control again.
Not that she was ever in control. But with Dad gone, she doesn’t even bother trying to hide it anymore.
Like right now. She’s passed out in her room, snoring away.
She couldn’t even meet me at the bus like she started doing when we moved.
Thinking about my dad plummets my mood down further. Dad was always the one I went to when life got hard. He’d tussle my hair and smile indulgently, telling me, “We’ll figure it out together, son,” but where is he now? How are we supposed to figure it out together if he’s gone?
He left, and I was forced to move here. To this terrible trailer that always smells like dirty socks. Forced to change schools and leave all my friends.
The worst part is he left Mom. She always depended on his quiet patience. Always leaned on him when her emotions got too heavy. He’d hold her hand and tell her what he always told me. “We will figure it out together, Lisa.”
But when her drinking got worse, when he stopped being the thing she leaned on, he left her.
It started out small. Long nights at work. Constantly missing things. Little things. But he went from never missing any of my life to always giving me excuses. I should have known something was about to happen. I should have seen the signs.
Maybe if I hadn’t have been so clueless. Maybe I could have prepared.
When he first left, I kept saying he’d come back. That he would never leave us. Not like this. Not like a thief in the night. He wouldn’t pack up his life and leave without even saying goodbye.
“Earth to Sage. You in there?” Mac’s voice draws me back from my growing fury. I blink away the memory of waking up to my dad gone. Mac sits on my bed, looking at me like I’m fragile. Like he needs to save me. I don’t need him to save me.
“What, Mac? Why are you even here?” I cross my arms and glare at him from across the small room. He meets my glare dead on, refusing to look away. An irritating smile growing on his face.
“I have an idea.” He jumps from the bed. His shoes are held together with tape and look too small for his feet. But he doesn’t seem to care. Why doesn’t he care? Does he not realize he’s a poster child of poverty?
“What?” I ask, refusing to drop my scowl.
“I’ll tell you when we get there. Come on!”
“No.” I don’t want to go on whatever half-cocked plan he’s formed. I have homework. If I have any hope of getting far away from here, I have to get good grades.
“Scared?” he taunts. I scoff.
“No.” I’m not scared. I’m not scared of anything. My eyes flick towards the lamp Mom bought me years ago. The one to fight off the dark I was afraid of. No one needs to know I still use it. When I look back over to Mac, he looks psychotic, a wide grin showing off all his teeth.
“Prove it,” he says, dropping the dare down at my feet. He waits, not very patiently while I try to fight the urge to prove him wrong. I don’t have to prove anything. Not to him. Not to Mom. Definitely not to Dad.
But I find myself mumbling, “Fine,” anyway. Find myself following the boy who’s more of a storm than a human out of the crumbling mess I call home.