“What?” my dad said. “Cherri, I know we had to put our feet down, but this is your home. We can see that you’re remorseful, and that’s a difficult thing to go through. We can help you through it.”
“My friends, the ones you do know, we’ve all had a really hard second semester. Now that we’re all graduated, The Royal Court is going to kind of hole up together and spend the summer relaxing. We’ve earned it, I think,” I said.
“The Royal Court?” my dad said. “You’re going back to them? Are you… reuniting with Nathan?”
“No,” I said exasperatedly. “He’s got a new girlfriend. A woman he actually likes. Nikita. We will be at his house, but we’ll all be there. Avery, Alistair, Colette too. Kyle, Brayden probably. Even Jaxon. It’s a recovery for the six months we all lost.”
“Okay, sweetheart,” my mom said. “You go. We trust you.”
My dad scoffed. “Rebeccah. She should be at home.”
“She’s been away from home this long and has done fine,” my mom responded. “It’ll be good for her to be with her friends.” She looked down at me with a hiked eyebrow. “If you’re being honest, that you’re sorry to your father and I, you can prove it by continuing to be responsible. Check in often. Take care of yourself.”
“I will, all of that,” I said, then looked at my dad. He stared back at me, still uncertain, but then he nodded. “Thank you, daddy. I love you.”
“One other thing,” my mom said, bringing my attention back to her. “You need to go make nice with your brother.”
I looked over in the direction of the hallway, which would lead to the staircase to the second floor. “I’m really dreading that.”
“You should be,” my father said. “He’s heartbroken.”
2
Cherri
There was loud, rock music playing from Gus’s room, and I couldn’t help but laugh. It seemed we dealt with our problems in a similar way—if there are longer things around us, we can’t be left alone with our thoughts. I attempted to knock, but it didn’t even sound like there was any shifting inside, so I grabbed the handle and opened the door.
His room still looked mostly the same, and the kid himself was sitting in his haptic gaming chair, staring up at his large 50” television screen, playing a video game. His head sat a little higher against the back of the chair than the last time I’d seen him. Even in just the six months since I’d seen him last, he’d grown at least an inch. He was only nine, but it felt like time was flying by.
I was mad at myself for missing so much.
“I’m not hungry, mom,” Gus called without even looking back. “Dad brought me a breakfast sandwich this morning. I ate most of it, I swear.”
Skipping meals too? This kid was a chip off the ol’ block.
“I know from experience that not eating when you’re sad is bad for you,” I said.
Gus’ head flipped backwards in my direction and his eyes got a little wider. “Cherri.”
“Hey kid,” I greeted. “How’s it going?”
Gus looked at me for a few more minutes and then turned back round to face his game again. “Fine.”
Ouch. No elated hug, not even a smile. My dad didn’t lie; Gus was upset. Instead of pressing, I walked over and sat down next to his chair and sat down on the floor. He didn’t look over from his game, but he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. I waited until it seemed like he was at a safe spot in his game, then I held out my hand for the controller. He looked down at my hand, but then flopped it in, and I took control of the person on the game.
“So, what do I do?” I asked. I’d never been much of a gamer, but it was one of Gus’ favorite things to do and I used to play with him a lot before I moved out.
“That sword in your hand is actually a key,” he said. “Those little black things, you can hit them with it, and you’re trying to find something to unlock with the key.”
“Ah, a key that is functional both as a sword and an actual key, how useful,” I said and then I laughed, but Gus didn’t join me, and eventually my smile faded.
It was so much worse that he was angry. It was like he’d forced himself to write me off and didn’t know what to do now that I was back again. I’d gambled with my very rare and precious relationship with my little brother. I hated that so much.
I followed along the path, striking any of the enemies that I could find, and then in the distance on the level, I saw a keyhole focused in the middle of a fountain. I started to charge forwards, but all of a sudden, the game went into a cutscene, and a much bigger monster than the ones I’d fought came falling from the sky.
“Whoa!” I yelped, then I handed the controller back. “Here. I don’t wanna cost you the game.”
Gus took back over, expertly making short work of the bad guy, then he sweetly offered the controller back to me so I could use the key and unlock the hole I’d found. It sent the game into another cutscene, and at the end of it, it gave me an option to save the game, which I did, then I turned the game off and moved so I was facing Gus instead. He didn’t put up a fight, but wouldn’t look at me, which hurt me more.
“Gus, look at me.” He didn’t look up, so I reached out and grabbed his hands. “Gus. I know you’re upset with me. I want to apologize.”
“You don’t have to say sorry,” he replied with a heartbreaking tone in his voice. “You just went away for awhile, that’s what mom said.”
I ran a hand through my short half-brown and half-blond dyed hair. “Yeah. I was having a hard time and I just needed to deal with it.”
“I hope you found something to help,” he replied. “When I’m sad, you help me, so if I couldn’t help you, I hope someone else could.”
It was like a knife straight to the heart. In his own nine-year-old way, he was asking me why he wasn’t good enough to help me through what I was going through. Thinking of him going to sleep every night wondering why I didn’t come to him when I was sad killed me. He deserved a better explanation than the one I had. He put his faith in me, and I essentially told him he wasn’t worth mine.
“Gus, you are who helps me when I’m sad. I don’t know why I didn’t come to you. I think I was just so confused with how sad I was. Have you ever been so sad that nothing makes sense at all?”
He shrugged. “Just when you left.”
Oh man, the kid was aiming straight for my throat. How was he making me feel so terrible without even trying? “I’m sorry, buddy. I’m so sorry. You know how much I love you, right?”
He nodded, though still sadly. “Yeah.”
I smiled. “Do you know what extortion is?”
He looked up at me with a tilt of his head. “No?”
“Sometimes, people do bad things, like me when I left you and made you sad, and sometimes that means that good people, like you, can hold that over the bad person’s head to get a few things they want,” I explained.
“It sounds like that would make me a bad person too,” Gus replied.