25. Clayton
Chapter 25
Clayton
I wish I could say that the cast coming off changed everything. My life didn’t miraculously fall back into place the moment my arm was free from the plaster prison. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but I was finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the debt to Shane hanging over my head.
It was an itch under my skin. Something I couldn’t scratch. It kept me up at night and haunted me during the day. That and the fact that despite the cast being off for a week, I still hadn’t picked up a pencil to draw anything. Most of the initial stiffness had been worked out and I faithfully did my daily exercises to build up the strength and improve my dexterity. But I couldn’t bring myself to think about what would happen if I tried to create something and found out that the one good thing about me had been lost.
Kieran was eternally patient. He never pressed, but I could tell he wanted to ask. Sometimes I thought he was seconds away from shoving a pencil in my hand and making me put it to paper. It might be better if he did. At least then I’d know.
Patricia knew about us. There was no way around it considering I spent almost every second night at Kieran’s. He felt like home, but I didn’t want to wear out my welcome. He said he didn’t mind me being there. That he wouldn’t invite me if he did, but I was terrified of losing him. In some ways, he was all I had. I knew that was bad. I knew that I needed other people. I needed a job and a purpose.
In some ways, I was doing better than I’d ever done. Thanks to the therapy I’d been doing, I was more able to cope with my emotions.
Gambling had never been the problem. All my other brief compulsions had never been the problem. The whole time it had been me seeking ways to escape myself because I thought it was easier. Part of me still wondered if the compulsion would rear its head given the chance. I hadn’t wanted to place a bet or pop into a casino. Hell, just thinking about stepping foot in a casino and walking up to a table made me break out in a cold sweat. All I could think of during those moments was the split second of horror when I’d opened my door to leave and two guys stormed into my apartment.
The sound of the doorbell jarred me out of my head. It was still early in the morning, just past six, but I’d been unable to sleep. I got up from the kitchen table where I’d been drinking coffee as Patricia came striding down stairs. She was already dressed and was putting her hair up in a messy bun on the top of her head.
“We’ve got a new girl coming. Along with her son. That’ll be Garrett bringing them over. I know he’s a cop, but he’s otherwise not too bad of a guy.” Patricia flashed me a tight smile and went to answer the door. I didn’t imagine this job got any easier.
Wanting to be useful, I started another pot of coffee and stacked some cookies on a plate like I’d watched Patricia do a million times. I wasn’t sure how old the kid was, but I took a chance that he’d like hot chocolate and started the kettle.
It was just coming to a boil when Patricia came into the room. Behind her stood a kid who couldn’t be more than ten. His hair was long and hung in front of his face .
Patricia turned around and looked at the scared kid. “Michael, this is Clayton. He’s a friend of mine. Can you sit in here with him while I talk to your mom alone for a while?”
Michael nodded, but he didn’t look too happy about it. I didn’t blame him. I didn’t know what his story was, but I felt like I knew what he was going through. Like maybe I was him. I’d felt a bit like a scared kid when I came here too.
Patricia saw the cookies on the table and she gave me a warm look before ducking back out to the living room to talk to Michael’s mom.
“Do you want hot chocolate, Michael? It goes great with snickerdoodles.”
Michael glanced around as though he were waiting for me to say that it was all a joke. It took him a minute to gather himself enough to give me a nod.
I got him to sit at the table and I made him his hot chocolate. I debated offering him breakfast, but burning toast was about the extent of my culinary abilities. The door chimed again and Michael curled in on himself.
Part of me wanted to tell him that he was safe here, but the kid wouldn’t look at me. He stared at his hot chocolate and didn’t say a word. He had no reason to trust me.
Patricia came back into the kitchen carrying a blue backpack. One of the straps was torn off and the zipper looked like it only zipped halfway, but Michael’s eyes lit up when he spotted it.
“Garrett told you he’d make sure you got it back.”
“Thank you,” Michael said. He sounded small and scared, but whatever was in the bag was obviously important to him.
Patricia patted his shoulder gently and went back out to the living room. Michael carefully tugged the zipper open and pulled out a sketchbook and a small, stubby, poor excuse for a pencil. It didn’t even have an eraser.
Envy flared within me at the sight of him sitting there, throwing himself into his drawings, making the rest of the world disappear. It burned through my guts, making them churn. My body went white hot and my hand twitched, wanting to join him. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that, but when Shane and Archer had emptied my apartment, they’d sent my essentials to me. According to Archer, my art supplies were as necessary as my personal hygiene products.
I told Michael I’d be right back and I slipped quietly past him, giving him as wide of a berth as I could. Patricia and Michael’s mom were sitting on the couch talking in hushed voices. Patricia had her arm wrapped around the woman who had the same color hair as Michael.
I slipped into my room and opened the closet. Most of the time, I ignored everything in there. I’d put all my clothes and other necessary things in the dresser and made myself pretend that the stuff in the closet didn’t exist.
No ghosts jumped out at me when I opened the closet door. A suitcase and a backpack sat on the floor where I’d left them and I dragged them both out and put them on the bed.
I transferred everything out of the backpack, and then transferred a blank sketchbook, a set of lightly used drawing pencils, and a couple different erasers into it. I still had my old set of pencils, but I’d bought the new one on a whim during one of my shopping sprees. I’d barely used it because I already had a set. Having no money of my own for the past few months had shown me how much and how little I truly needed.
More than things, I needed people. I’d needed people like Patricia in my life. People like my therapist. Though she was paid to be there for me, she still gave me the tools and the insight to help me do better .
Slipping back into the kitchen, I set the backpack on the floor by Michael’s feet and then went and poured myself a coffee. From the corner of my eye, I watched as Michael looked at the bag with suspicion.
“It’s yours if you want it. The bag and the stuff inside it.”
He didn’t move to touch the bag, but after the third time watching him scribble something out, I had to say something.
“There’s new pencils in the bag. Erasers too. I had extra.”
Michael’s gaze flicked up to mine before darting away. His pencil hovered over his page, then he set it down and grabbed the bag off the floor. The zipper rasped as it slid open and a small sound puffed out of him. He looked at me, then back at the bag, then at me again.
“I promise it’s okay for you to have these.”
Michael pulled out the new sketchbook like it was the most precious thing he’d ever seen. The pencils came next and he furrowed his brow at the sight of the tin they came in.
“They’re artist’s pencils. Each one is numbered and, depending on the number, the pencil will draw darker or lighter.”
Michael set the box of pencils down on the table and reached into the bottom of the bag. Out of everything, it was the erasers that made him smile. He looked at me and shoved the hair out of his face with one hand, clutching the erasers in the other. He’d been drawing with regular pencils and those erasers weren’t big enough to last very long. He probably wore them down in no time.
Michael’s hot chocolate got cold and the cookie he’d started eating sat there half gone, leaving crumbs on the table, but Michael was a million miles away in his own world. He kept shoving the hair out of his face, and after the fourth time, he looked up at me.
“You draw?”
I nodded. Because anything else felt like a lie. “I used to draw all the time.”
“Can you draw Iron Man?”
“I used to be able to.”
“Can you show me?” Michael held out a pencil and waited for me to take it.
I couldn’t say yes.
I couldn’t say no.
Taking the pencil, I motioned to the chair that was next to him. “Can I sit there? It would be easier to show you. But I can’t promise that I’m still any good. I had my arm broken and I just got the cast off so I might be rusty.”
Michael probably didn’t hear anything I said, and if he did, he didn’t care. He was ten. Of course he didn’t care. He wanted one thing and one thing only, and that was to know how to draw his favorite superhero.
I moved to the seat next to him and he flipped open the new sketchbook and set it in front of me.
“Are you sure you want me to use this one?”
“There’s no mistakes in it yet. My other one is just mistakes.”
“It’s okay to make mistakes.” I rolled the pencil in my hand between my fingers. It felt familiar, but frightening all at the same time. “What if I make a mistake? I haven’t drawn in a long time.”
Michael set the eraser down on the table. “It’s okay. I have erasers now.”
“Okay, kid. Here goes nothing.”
My hand shook at first and the first lines I put to paper weren’t as steady as they could have been. Michael didn’t notice that. Or care about it. He followed along in his other book, carefully copying every step I showed him. When he was finished, he set his pencil down on the table and looked at his result.
In one second, he was up and out of his seat, carrying the sketchbook to the living room, triumphantly and excitedly telling his mom all about how he’d learned to draw Iron Man.
And I sat in the kitchen, feeling unmoored. As though my world had tilted on another axis. I was still sitting there, staring at the drawing I’d done. It was basic. Imperfect. But it felt like it was the best thing I’d ever drawn.
“That was a nice thing you did,” Patricia told me later after she’d shown Michael and his mom where they’d be staying and got them settled upstairs.
I shook my head, uncomfortable with the praise. “I didn’t do much.”
“You helped Michael. I don’t think you know just how much.”
I looked up at her. “However much you think I helped him, he helped me ten times more.”
She nodded, a slight smile tugging at her lips. “Michael says his favorite is spaghetti and meatballs. Care to help with dinner tonight?”
I stood and pushed my sleeves up to my elbows. “I’m shit in the kitchen, so you’ll have to tell me what to do. Might have to explain it like I’m five.”
Patricia handed me an apron and smiled knowingly. “All you have to do is try.”