Chapter 31 #2
Things were really startin’ to make a lot of sense.
I walked into his bedroom—the only clean area in the house, but there was only so much he could do with what he had.
His arms were bruised with bed bug bites, and an occasional roach scurried across the floor before disappearing into another crack in the wall.
“Hey, little Cody,” I said as a loud thud hit the wall in the living room. I shut the door all the way. “Happy birthday buddy.”
He didn’t look at me. He didn’t say nothin’. He just stared at the door as if he was waiting for something, and that something came barreling in screaming at him.
Before I could react, I ended up outside watchin’ two boys sit under a run-down shed in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, looking out across the ugliest plains I’d ever seen. There weren’t hardly no trees, just some nasty-looking storm clouds in the distance.
“I’m not allowed to hang out with you anymore,” a boy said to the older kid who looked like Cody. He was taller with black hair and a jock-like physique. “It was fun though.”
Cody didn’t say nothin’.
“We knew this wasn’t going to work, and we told each other that if one of us got found out, we’d stop.”
“Things change. All those things you said. I actually believed them. You were never going to run away with me.”
“And do what? Drop out of school and give up my scholarship? Hitchhike and be homeless?”
Cody looked at the gravel, his eyes almost empty.
“I’m not ruining my life just to have a fling with some guy from high school.
” He stood up from the bench and took a few steps outta the shelter into the sun.
“I shouldn’t even be here, but I wanted to make sure you understood that this is it.
I don’t even want you looking at me when we’re in school. ”
Cody took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” the other kid added.
“Just go away.”
The other boy cleared his throat and turned, hopping into an old pickup truck before speeding off.
Cody stayed on the bench, watching the truck disappear over a hill.
As devastated as he looked, he didn’t cry.
He picked his backpack off the ground and set it next to him before giving the zipper a tug.
He reached inside and grabbed a flimsy plastic bakery container.
It held a colorful birthday cake with a candle and the number seventeen on it, and it was small enough for two people.
Watching him hold onto it while lookin’ like he’d lost everything nearly broke me.
“I’m not going to make it one more year if I stay,” Cody whispered before opening the container and lighting the candle. “I wish… I hope I never have to spend another birthday alone.” He blew out the flame and threw the cake in the trashcan next to him. That was when everything went black.
“You won’t,” I whispered, reaching for the place Cody was sitting as I wiped my eyes. Why hadn’t he ever told me about any of this? “You just wait, little Cody. I’m gonna make you the best birthday cake you ever had, and you won’t ever be alone again.”
Austin
My little blue box disappeared right as I was about to take a nap. I heard something I didn’t want to hear. Someone else’s voice.
“Mom! Adam won’t play with me,” shouted a little girl materializing inside of a huge house.
A lean, black woman in a gray fitted business dress pulled her cell phone away from her ear before shouting up the stairs.
“Adam, play with your sister.”
“She’s not my sister! She keeps dressing me in girly stuff.”
The woman put the phone back up to her ear and sighed.
“The sitter’s running late. Can you have them postpone the board meeting until I get there?
” The voice on the other end was barely audible.
“Stephen’s already gone. I need you—” The voice interrupted her as a little boy stomped down the stairs.
He was a puny little shit, skinny with a high-pitched voice and short cornrows held in place by rubber bands.
They had little yellow butterflies at the end.
I could barely hold back a chuckle at the bright pink Barbie T-shirt he had slightly covered with the top half of his denim overalls.
“I don’t wanna play with her,” the boy said. “I want Dad.”
“Hold on a moment,” she pulled the phone away from her ear again. “I am on the phone. Go back upstairs.”
No one seemed to care that I was there, like they didn’t notice me. Why was I having a dream about Adam being a kid? I ran over to the stairs, and lifted my arms over my head, making sure my claws were visible. Adam liked bears, so I tried to roar like one.
“You’re a cute little shit,” I said as Adam huffed and stomped back up the stairs, but he stopped and slowly turned his head—like he suddenly realized I was there.
“Look at the bear,” he said, pointing at me.
The people in the room disappeared, and the house decor turned festive.
Gold and silver garland wrapped the beams holding the stair rails, cotton towns lit up tables and hutches, and Christmas lights of all colors had been hung along the ceilings.
A giant twelve-foot Christmas tree stood in the large living room, casting a warm, incandescent glow that beamed through the frosted windows to the darkened snow-covered deck outside behind it.
Despite its size, there weren’t many presents under it.
A teenaged Adam sat alone, cross-legged on the floor, staring at his cell phone.
This place was a mansion. Why in the world did we never have any money when his parents were this loaded?
I crept through the house until I was standing next to him.
Kid Adam didn’t seem to notice my presence this time, so I took the opportunity to sneak a peek at his texts.
He was wearing normal boy clothes, and the cornrows he’d had as a child had been shaved into a shorter, faded style that made him seem older.
As a teenager, he had a very distinct appearance about him, and anyone could have probably figured him out.
He wore a stylish tight black shirt with that stupid Pawlibear character on it and black track pants with two white stripes on both legs.
He sat there, staring at the message he sent, waiting for something to happen.
U said you’d be home. Where r u?
His cell phone vibrated, and a soft Christmas carol hummed through the speaker. Adam put the phone to his ear and answered.
“You were supposed to be here.”
A soft, male voice spoke through the phone, and I could hear it clearly with my sensitive ears.
“My flight got canceled. I’m sorry, Adam. I’m not going to make it home for Christmas.”
“Maya and Alyssa aren’t here. No one’s here.”
“I can’t control the weather, and I wish you’d stop calling her Maya.”
“Why? She’s not my mother. She hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you.”
“Bullshit. Even you don’t care. Every time you’re here, you’re always comparing me to Alyssa.
” He lowered his voice. “‘Alyssa’s on the honor roll, why aren’t you?
Alyssa has friends to hang out with, why don’t you have any?
Alyssa got accepted to Yale, and you haven’t even considered community college.
’” His voice went back to normal. “Every time I’ve tried to talk to you, you always brush me off and tell me to be more like her. ”
“That’s because you’re not taking your future seriously. You’re not getting good grades—”
“That’s because I’m always looking over my shoulder. The teachers don’t like me, and everyone makes fun of me.”
“That’s high school. It may be hard, but you’re pretty lucky. I grew up—”
“In the hood, yeah I’ve heard the story,” Adam interrupted. “And with all that rags-to-riches success, you can’t even come home for Christmas.”
The phone went silent for a moment. “I’ll do what I can to get home, I promise.”
“You shouldn’t have left. It’s the last three years all over again.”
“I’m a bad father, I know. Sometimes you have to take opportunities when they’re presented, and I couldn’t pass up this client. You’ll understand when you’re older.”
“I’ll see you whenever you get here,” Adam said, defeated as he ended the call. He crawled over to the tree and picked through the presents until he saw one with his name on it from his dad. He pulled it to the front and rested the package against another before scooting away.
The scene unfolded like a tragedy as Adam sat next to the tree clutching the unopened present, sobbing alone in the living room. It was daylight, but there was no one else around.
“Dad,” he sobbed. “You should have been here.”
Before he could finish, an all-too-familiar school bell rang, and I found myself in a colonial-looking hallway with pillars and tall ceilings, windows overhead casting natural sunlight on tall, red lockers.
A commotion echoed through the empty building, just around the corner.
I walked along the waxed, tile flooring, approaching a rattling, standing locker.
“Let me out!”
That was Adam’s voice. I tried to pull the combination padlock, but my hand went through it. These visions were strange. Sometimes I could touch things, but other times I couldn’t. I stuck my head through the solid metal like a ghost until I could see Adam fumbling with his phone in the darkness.
Over-and-over again, he tried calling multiple people, but no one answered. Eventually he stopped trying and slid down against the back of the locker, folding his knees. He was small enough not to get stuck like that, but just sticking my head in there made me claustrophobic.
“Guess I’m spending the night here,” he squeaked out with a sniffle, laying his head against his knees.
Then his eyes glowed yellow and he let out an angry shriek, pounding his fist against the steel so hard, it dented.
With another growled scream, he stood and shoved both fists into the door, bending it with a groan before it exploded open.