Chapter 21 #2
“Tuck and I don’t have a ton of room, Mom. You know how small our apartment is.” I peer down at the cardboard box in the abandoned living room. My head flops to the side.
“My Pokémon binder?” I withdraw it from the box. “Really?”
Mom laughs, and I can’t help but smile at how full it sounds. “Who knows? Maybe some of those cards are really valuable now!”
“Touching, but I don’t think Charizard is going to be able to help me right now.”
“Help you?” Worry pinches her expression.
All the emotion I’ve been suppressing must have worked its way to my face. She wraps me in a hug, which is almost better than medicine.
“Hon, talk to me. What’s got you so stressed?” She lifts a finger and traces my defeated brow. “I’ve not seen you like this since…”
Since the night she almost died?
Attempting to soothe the knot in my stomach, I force a smile.
I love my mom, but the last thing I need from her is relationship advice.
“It’s nothing. But thanks”—I rattle the box—“for saving this stuff.”
Chaz’s hulking shadow steps into the light at the end of the hallway.
Irritation zaps what little energy I had left. I give Mom a quick goodbye kiss on her cheek and duck out of the party before my worries can drag anyone else down.
I’ll catch up with Tuck at our apartment later.
I steal one more glance at my mom before the door closes. I try to memorize the way she’s standing tall and strong, even with her small frame. A fervent prayer smarts in my chest that her sobriety isn’t tied to the man beside her this time.
Because if Chaz breaks her heart, I’ll kill him.
Julia cackles as she pulls a photo from the cardboard box. “Oh my gosh! No way!”
She is sprawled on Tuck’s and my living floor in purple leggings and a cardigan. Her date with Dallas must have ended earlier than she planned. Tuck still hasn’t made it back to the apartment after the luau.
Julia’s short red hair fans across the living room carpet as she suspends the frame above her face. The photo is of nine-year-old Tuck and me, arms slung around the other, with pairs of underwear jammed over our heads.
I try to grab for the picture, but Julia swats my hand.
“That’s a good look for you guys,” she cackles.
“You’re missing the whole point of the picture.” I point at the impressive—if I do say so myself—blanket fort draped behind us.
“Sorry, I just can’t stop looking at the panties on your head.”
“They weren’t panties,” I huff, then quiet my voice to add, “they were superhero masks.”
The scraping of metal keys inside the door distracts Julia long enough for me to snatch the photo and stuff it back in the box.
Tucker walks in.
“Jules!” Tuck’s eyebrows lift as his hazel eyes soften. His navy chinos are now devoid of the grass skirt Heidi forced him to wear. He lets his backpack thud to the floor before he heaves down onto our second-hand couch.
Tuck lilts his voice in a terrible English accent as he speaks to Julia. “To what do Brandon and I owe the pleasure of this pleasant visit, Ms. Henway?”
Julia responds in an equally terrible accent. “Dallas had to end our date early to help his dad lift a dresser, good sir”—she curtsies from the floor with the hem of her cardigan—“and I fell subject to boredom.”
“Not subject to boredom!” Tuck feigns horror before dropping the act with a tilted grin. “For real, what’ve you and Brandon been up to?”
“Oh, nothing. Brandon’s just been showing me pictures of you in your underwear.”
Tuck’s attention cuts to me. “Bro!”
I roll my eyes, fish the evidence from the box, and toss him the frame.
He catches it and snorts. “Ahhh. I see. Now I can tell why you were so hot and bothered, Jules.”
Julia stops mid-cackle. Two burgundy splotches appear high on her cheekbones. “I wasn’t––”
“The blanket fort.” Tuck’s tone turns salacious. “You like a man who can build you stuff. Like organizational shelves. You do know how you love your shelves.”
“Why would I need someone to build those when I can buy them from Ikea?”
Tuck deadpans. “Have you seen those instructions, Jules? Blind people could build them quicker.”
Julia tips the shoulder of her cream cardigan, growing a touch defiant. “Dallas always builds my stuff anyway. He knows I’d probably get all confused, so he takes care of it…” Her smile returns. “So yeah, Tuck. I guess you’re right. I like a man who can build me stuff.”
Tuck only nods and slides onto the floor beside me.
“What else is in here? And where did all this crap come from, anyway?”
I open my mouth, but Julia pipes up. “I found it shoved behind some coats in Brandon’s closet. Don’t worry, I wasn’t snooping. I needed to measure your closets to see if the baskets I bought for you guys would fit. And I have to say the messes I found were extremely disappointing.”
Tuck puffs a laugh, but Julia snaps a finger and pokes it at his chest. “Don’t get me started on your closet. Have you ever heard of a hanger? Never mind. Gosh, you guys are so lucky to have me.”
“Yeah,” I say dryly. “Who else would color-code our bookshelf?”
“You mean the three books we own?” Tuck says.
“Yup. All color-coded.”
“See?” Julia throws her arms around the two of us. “What would you do without me?”
We bust up laughing at her uptight antics. Tuck and I pat her on the back, then she coils her long limbs into a proud criss-cross applesauce.
She swipes the frame from Tuck’s hand. “Why wasn’t I in this picture?”
Tuck says, “That was taken a few months after my parents bought the house from Brando’s mom. You were still living in Washington.”
“Oh.” Julia tunnels through the box. “What’s this?”
A slow grin forms as I take the book from her.
“My sketchbook. I forgot about this.” I unlatch the braided tie and flip through the pages. They weren’t half bad. I always had a good eye for spatial reasoning and the way the light fell. I can picture my eight-year-old self sitting on my bed, pouring all my feelings into each pencil scratch.
Nostalgia fills me as I land on a sketch. It’s of the big oak tree towering on the edge of my lawn growing up. I broke so many bones climbing that sucker.
The next page features a thick bird’s nest with a tiny bird nestled inside.
I flip the page.
“Awww. That cat is… sorta cute?” Julia peeks over my shoulder at the squashy, ugly cat.
I don’t remember if the cat was actually that ugly or if I was just that angry after being left to my cat-lady neighbor’s care. I had already been there all day and was then forced to stay the night.
But that was only one of the first times Mom didn’t come home.
I still can hear the slurred speech of her friend calling to say she was sleeping off her hangover. That was after the second Chad.
I swallow the familiar churn of anger, reminding myself that she isn’t that person anymore. And I am no longer that young boy, listening through thin walls as my mom gets screamed at by her boyfriend of the week.
My fists clench, a subconscious reminder that I’ve since learned how to box. And if any of them came around again, I could easily knock their lights out.
Julia’s hand softens as it meets my shoulder.
“This wasn’t a good one, huh?” she murmurs.
I meet her sympathetic gaze and shake my head. “Nope. Not a happy sketch.”
Tuck claps me on the back, taking the sketchbook.
“Then let’s find a happier one.” He flips through each page, and I let him. “Man, I forgot how good you were at this stuff.”
I shrug. “We always had pencils, and it was cheaper than therapy.”
We all laugh a sad, collective laugh.
I like that Jules and Tuck were there for me through so much.
“Is that Starved Rock State Park?” Tuck dips his head toward one of my all-time favorite drawings.
“Yeah,” I say. “That was the best trip.”
“Which one?” Tuck snorts.
I chuckle. “Don’t know.”
Only I do know.
That sketch of Starved Rock was the first time Eric Sanderson showed up on my doorstep the same weekend my mom had a particularly bad breakup—and was therefore pretty hammered. With a wink and a nod of that shiny, bald head of his, he whisked me away to my first camping trip.
We ate sticky marshmallows, sang absurd songs around the campfire to Heidi’s mediocre guitar skills, and fell asleep with stars twinkling outside our tent.
It was pure magic.
The escape I never knew I needed.
After that trip, others followed, somehow always coinciding with my mom’s meltdowns. Then came the impromptu barbecues, Thanksgivings, and too many sleepovers to count.
Even though the Sandersons were my saviors, I never could shake the feeling that something was wrong with me. Maybe if I were somebody else, more like Tuck maybe, my anonymous dad would have stuck around long enough to take me on our own camping trip.
And maybe then Mom wouldn’t be so sad all the time.
“Oooh. What’s this?” Julia digs elbow-deep inside the box, then pulls out a shiny arcade token.
At the sight of that little coin, my already aching heart becomes a hot air balloon. It swells in my chest, filled with fire, but forever hollow. No matter how much the meager flame tries to fill the entirety of the aching expanse, it never will.
It never could.
Even though I trust Tuck and Julia with my life, I don’t have the bandwidth to explain the significance of that little token. Or that air-hockey game with Kate. Or my last night I spent with her.
I scrub a hand over my face, blocking out the world.
I wish I had known it would be our last. I would’ve held her tighter, kissed her longer, I don’t know—done anything I could to prevent the onslaught of the next day.
So I swallow, I shrug, and I lie.
“I have no idea.”