West One
Sarah
(Seventy-two hours ago)
He is life. . . for us. . .
“Johnny!” My arms and legs wrapped around the tight cords of my foster brother’s neck and torso. He lifted me, clutching my body against his own as if it could prevent the inevitable. As if either of us could stop him from leaving.
A man was adopting our Johnny.
Don’t go. Please. We need you…
He held me tight enough for me to understand this goodbye hurt him as deeply as it gutted me.
I felt the stiffness of his muscles as his hands clutched me close.
The sharp intake of breath. The tremble that seemed to take root inside him and flow into me.
He said, “I’ll be okay. You stay strong.
You hear me? You keep being a badass bitch and fight your way back to me. ”
My chest felt too tight for the breath entering and leaving my lungs. Crying so hard that I could hardly talk, I groaned as he squeezed me tighter. My wet cheeks, soaked from my tears, pressed against his face as I promised, “I will, Johnny. I will. I will. I will…”
I’ll never let go.
I couldn’t. I had to hold on because my heart had already endured so much loss. My mind rebelled as viciously as my heart.
Johnny’s body tensed, and I knew the moment he planned to hand me off to one of our fellow fosters. That slight shift in his body language was the only warning. A moment of panic set in as I heard him order, “Take her.”
No! Nonononono!
A warm body pressed to my back, and I knew instantly that it was Gage because I could smell the sporty body wash he always used. He hugged Johnny as his muscled arms wrapped around my body and overlapped Johnny’s. “Love you, man.”
Nooooooo!
I fought like a wild creature, nearly clawing at Johnny, but I wasn’t any match for a young man who had grown up a fighter and trained in the ring since youth. Gage easily overpowered me as I began to thrash, flailing arms and legs in my effort to prevent this separation.
And then Ethan stepped forward, scooped me up, and took me from Gage with a determined set to his jaw.
He hugged my body flush to his, and something about the gentle but firm hold finally reached into the frenzy of my mind.
As I watched Johnny get in the nearby car, he angrily whispered, “I swear to fuck we’ll find him.
I don’t care how. We will. I swear it to you. ”
“I-I—” At first, I stuttered, but then his anger was my strength. I growled with conviction, “I can’t lose him. Not anyone else. I won’t.”
“You won’t,” he promised vehemently. “This is temporary.”
I believed him. None of us would ever purposely betray the other. Not after all we’d been through, but then Johnny’s door shut, shattering my already splintered world.
“Ethan,” I choked, “it hurts.” I tried to explain, already feeling Johnny’s loss as it left a festering, gaping wound.
“Don’t look,” Ethan snarled into my ear. “You look away and fucking hold on to me because I’m not going to let this hurt be only yours, not when I’m right here.”
This hurt. That was what he said. The terrible ache. We all felt it. I knew I wasn’t the only one.
A sob escaped as I buried my head in his neck.
Sniffling against his warm skin, I hardly noticed that my face had pressed to the scarred section, or that he let me.
Ethan wasn’t obeying his steadfast rule: no touching what he considered a deformity—the damage from the fire that nearly took his life as a boy.
But in recent weeks, that slowly began to change, like he finally noticed that holding that part of himself from the rest of us Misfits—what Johnny’s ex-girlfriend called us—wasn’t needed.
We, and especially Johnny, didn’t see those physical battle scars as weakness.
We saw them as strength. Perseverance. Resilience.
The person who helped Ethan most was now in the car that was backing down the driveway.
“Ethan,” I wailed, wrapping my arms around his neck tighter, and nearly cutting off his airway.
A part of me felt so defeated. So battered and bruised by the reality that I was losing someone else that I loved.
That, again, I had to say another goodbye I never saw coming so soon.
Yes, we were foster kids with futures unwritten, but a part of me had believed we had built a little forever family.
And it was killing me to let go of that dream.
At a wicked speed, it was being snatched from me.
First with Baby Blue. Then my Caleb. Now Johnny? All within a month?
“I got you,” he repeated, nearly strangling on the words, as if all this was killing him too.
I wanted to run. I wanted to stay. I wanted this ache to end, but there was no hiding from it. The only thing I could do was share this godawful pain. I needed someone with me in this web of madness.
Refusing to relinquish my hold, he breathed heavily, still promising, “I’ve got you.”
I couldn’t explain it at the time. I was too raw, too exposed to a harsh world, but I believed him.
Better yet, I felt his undeniable commitment to me.
I even imagined hearing a whisper, “Beloved,” something a young man would never say.
That’s how I knew it was from somewhere else or something else.
Even in all my agony, I felt the presence of—Is that you, Baby Blue?
I miss you so much! “I’m going to crack wide open,” I warned, my lips so close to Ethan they touched his scarred skin.
His death grip tightened around me. “Shhh. You won’t. I’ll hold you together.”
My weight shifted as Ethan began to walk toward the house, ignoring everyone else, although no one was speaking.
The silence around me grew deafening. I could no longer hear the engines of the two vehicles that now carried Kristen back to work and Johnny away from his family.
Us. The Misfits. His Sinners. Dale and Harmony and the life we’d trudged through the mud and fire and evil of this life to build.
I didn’t have the energy to look up and see the devastation I felt present on the only Misfits left, so I buried my head in Ethan’s neck.
I knew it would kill me to see Dale and Harmony’s worried faces because they didn’t know who had adopted Johnny.
Styx. A name Johnny knew and would cry for in his nightmares. Please be good to my friend.
Ethan stepped inside, beyond the door that had been a safe haven since my arrival, and straight up the stairs, only pausing once he reached my room. With a gentleness that was in contrast with the pain in his voice, he asked, “What do you need?”
All I could think of was… “For the world to stop. For just a minute to give me a chance to breathe.”
“Look at me.”
I didn’t want to come out of hiding, but I did.
“I can’t stop the world from spinning.” Slowly, Ethan lowered his forehead to mine. “But I’d love to give you a moment to breathe.” His tone softened. “Just like this.”
And he did. For a few minutes, he continued to hold me in his arms, inhaling and exhaling breaths, leading every one of mine.
Being lulled into a moment where I felt more able to express my panic, I finally whispered, “Everything feels too raw. And coming from every direction.”
“It does. I know because I feel it, too, Sarah.” Ethan’s head lifted, and in those piercing green eyes that I had always thought beautiful was a sorrow that matched what I felt.
“It’s overwhelming.” My voice didn’t sound like mine. Too scratchy and hollow.
“We will take it one breath at a time. Okay?”
Held by his eyes and embrace, I vowed, “Okay,” hoping like hell I could stand by this promise.
As if not completely convinced, he nodded, then asked, “How about a shower or a hot bath?”
Even though a shower or bath would maybe soothe the tense muscles in my body, that meant I’d lose Ethan’s comforting touch. I felt too lonely to be alone again, but he couldn’t hold me forever.
I exhaled, nodding, desperate to recover my usual independence. I always craved strength to help others. I took care of Blue. In truth, I took care of Caleb. Only Johnny seemed to recognize my weaker moments. That made him my silent pillar.
After carrying me to the bathroom, Ethan set me down outside the door and turned to leave. Pitifully, I watched my hand lift to touch him again. “Ethan?” Realizing what I was doing, I gasped and jerked my hand back. I couldn’t ask him to carry my weaknesses as Johnny had.
“Yeah?” He turned to face me.
“Umm… Nothing.”
He studied me so hard I had to look away.
I heard him say, “I won’t go far, okay?”
My eyes snapped to his. How’d he know?
Relieved, but not wanting him to know it, I gave him a quick nod and headed inside, closing the door before I leaned against it. I took a long breath, as I told him I would, until I had the will to move again.
Finally able to put one foot in front of the other, habit had me reaching under the bathroom cabinet for the bleach spray. As I sprayed it in the shower, I suddenly remembered Blue being with me after her arrival, asking me why I bleached the bottom of the tub and drain before starting the water.
I chuckled, “Because I suspect the boys, when alone, do things in here. I don’t want to step in their—” I cringed, thinking this sweet little girl was clueless to what I was talking about.
Then I almost vomited when she nodded and said, “God’s seed. Yes. But if it’s okay for my mouth, why is it so bad for your feet?”
I gripped the tub so I wouldn’t crumble to the floor.
The bleach bottle now on its side by my feet, my head hung as I told God, “I may never forgive you for what she went through on earth.” I stood, suddenly angry, pointing to the ceiling and the one I was blaming.
“You better be treating her up there like the angel she was down here!” Disgusted, I wiped at tears I hadn’t realized I was shedding again.
I held up my wet fingers to the Heavens. “Do you have a clue what you’re doing?”
Knock. Knock. “Sarah?” I looked to the door hearing Ethan. “You okay?”