Chapter 6 Phosphorescence
phosphorescence
A light only seen in darkness. Is it hope? Or another bad decision taking shape?
It’s past eleven when I stumble back to Grandpa’s. The overcast sky presses down, swallowing even the streetlight’s glow. The darkness is thicker than it should be. Maybe because I’ve had just a little too much. Maybe because I’m expecting it.
I feel my way inside. At least the hallway of photos can’t bear down on me. Nor the postcard wall that still gives me daily shudders. I stumble to the bathroom first, then the room of bunk beds and blunders.
Stuffier in here. Smells like the sea.
But . . . hiccup . . . maybe that’s just me.
Ouch.
My toe slams into—squint—a dresser. I hold in a hiss, but my hopping thump is a dead giveaway.
A phone light flares beyond.
Trent is a distorted shimmer of light and shadow on his pillow below it. He doesn’t say anything. Just holds the light up, illuminating the ladder beside him.
I stripped down to my boxer-briefs and singlet in the bathroom. Somewhere in the folds of my bed is a night T-shirt, but between here and there is a problem.
A problem highlighted by the glow of Trent’s damn phone.
The singlet.
It doesn’t hide the scar on my side.
Not that he hasn’t seen plenty already. Just this morning, in fact.
I stifle a hollow laugh and make my move.
Too quick. Too drunk. Too stupid.
I launch myself up the ladder—
Straight onto the fourth rung.
The bung rung.
The bung rung that pops free like a loose tooth, sending my leg sharply through the ladder—
Right towards Trent’s face.
But it doesn’t hit.
Neither does the lower rung ram into my middle bits.
Light tumbles. A sharp breath.
Trent catches me.
One hand braces the sole of my foot, the other firm under my thigh, holding me up.
I grip the top rail, trying to take some of my weight, trying not to think about the warmth of his fingers shifting subtly against my skin, adjusting. Keeping me steady.
I look down.
The phone has fallen, its glow now softer, warmer, over Trent, over us.
He’s swung up into a sitting position, half off his own bed, head tipped slightly as his gaze flickers over my face and down. Like he’s trying to make sense of it all.
I am, too.
My breath snags.
Slowly, he looks up.
Eyes darker in this light.
“Dylan?” he murmurs.
Not Ika. Not his brother’s name. Mine.
Maybe that’s why I blurt it: “I’m staying.”
A pause.
“Here?”
I nod. The heat of his hand burns on my skin.
“For how long?”
He’s holding me up, but the position isn’t stable. His arms tense, a slight shake in his grip.
Then—his thumb shifts, a small adjustment, nothing more, but it—
It slips. Upwards.
Too close to . . . something that can’t happen between ‘brothers’.
Trent’s breath stalls and his fingers tighten, a desperate attempt to stop them slipping further. Do I want them slipping further?
I lurch out of his tingling grip, scrambling the rest of the way up.
“Just staying.”
I shove on my T-shirt, lie on one side. The other. Then stare up vacantly at the ceiling that goes from dim to dark as Trent turns off his phone light.
The bunk jiggles slightly as he settles in, and maybe it’s still the rush of the whiskey, but it echoes in my bones. In my foundations. And settles in the shallow of my scar.
No more running.
I’m staying this time.
Through thick and thin. I’ll be Ika. I’ll give Grandpa his smiles, and Holly her dreams.
A breath.
“What’s that sigh for?” Trent’s voice is a low murmur, a quiet rumble in the dark.
I hesitate.
Then. “I’m doing this. Just . . .”
The bunk shifts again. A breath between us.
I thumb the little fish cord around my wrist and whisper, “Careful you don’t make a mistake that’ll cost you Grandpa.”