“He has a hard time breathing?”
“Not like you. Not because of asthma. Just because of how much he’s hurting right now. It’s filling up his whole body.”
That sounded bad. I knew what it felt like not to be able to breathe. Sometimes it made me want to curse, too. I knew the words from TV, I just wasn’t allowed to say them.
George didn’t like it. And neither did Ms. Susan, who was my tutor.
George walked to the smaller drink fridge built into the island and pulled out two cans of grape sodas.
“This isn’t going to make him feel better, but at least it will taste good. And he’ll know that no matter how mean he was to you, you understand what he’s going through and you’re there for him. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. In fact, it might be better to wait a few days…”
I hopped off the counter and took the two sodas from his hands.
“I got this.”
George smiled. “I don’t doubt it, Peanut.”
I walked through the house until I came out the back door. I circled the pool, but I didn’t see him. Finally, I spotted him on the other side of the fenced-in tennis courts. He was sitting in the grass in his good pants, which George probably wouldn’t like, but I wasn’t going to say anything about that.
He wasn’t crying but I could see streaks of dirt down his face, evidence that, at some point, he had been.
I popped open the top of one can and sat next to him, setting the soda near his hip. Then I popped mine and took a sip.
“I told you to go away,” he said, but I could tell he was tired. Bone weary, George would say.
“I know. But George says you’re hurting and that you didn’t mean it. So I wanted to bring you a soda in case you were thirsty. And if you still want to be mean to me, it’s okay. I can take it.”
He reached down to pick up the can and when he took a sip of the soda, it made me feel like I’d won something.
I didn’t say anything else. Just leaned my back against the fence and sipped my soda. I didn’t tell him that my mom had died. It didn’t seem fair because I was only three when it happened, and didn’t really remember her enough to miss her. It wasn’t like his mom was even dead, but that might have been worse. That she was still alive but he couldn’t be with her.
Eventually the sun started to go down. George would start looking for us soon. “We should go inside,” I said. “You must be hungry.”
After a second, Marc nodded. He stood and offered me his hand. I took it and he yanked hard enough to help me to my feet.
We ate sandwiches in the kitchen with George at the main house. Then George and I walked with Marc down the path to the carriage house. When we showed him to his room, he collapsed on the bed with his shoes on and everything.
I looked up at George and watched him watch his nephew. There were tears in his eyes, so I reached out to grab his hand and squeezed as hard as I could. George squeezed back.
And that was the first day I met Marc.
Six months later
Marc
I didn’t remember much about the first day I met Ashleigh. I remembered being mad at everyone. I remembered being mean to her. I remembered that my mouth had been so dry because, as much as I hadn’t wanted to cry about leaving my mom, I had.
Then there’d been the taste of grape soda. It’d always been my favorite, and, in that moment with my dry mouth and my head so filled with anger at everyone, it had been cold and sweet.
I’d been grateful. Ash was just a kid, but she’d sat next to me and given me a grape soda even though I’d been mean to her. And she said I could keep being mean to her, which, for the most part, I usually was.
It never seemed to bother her. Even now.
“Stop humming,” I snapped, looking at the back seat. She had buds in her ears, so I shouted it a little louder. “Quit it!”
“Marc, you don’t need to yell at her,” George said as he drove us from Harborview to South Jersey where I was from.
“She’s doing it on purpose,” I accused and gave her my most reviled look so she would know I was mad at her. It was then she took the buds out of her ears.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“You’re humming to the music. Off key. Cut it out.”
“Sorry. I didn’t know. I won’t hum.”
I looked forward out the fancy car window as the scenery of where I now lived flashed by. Big houses, manicured lawns, expensive cars. It was crazy that this was where I’d landed.
About as far away from the twenty-story apartment complex in Heights, New Jersey, as you could get. Ash would see my town for the first time today. She would see how different it was from everything she knew.
“I don’t even know why you came,” I muttered.
We were going to see my mother. This was the third time seeing her since I’d gone to live with George. She was already in her second round of rehab, having gotten out after the first thirty days, only to succumb a month later. Now she was back inside.
It wasn’t working. The therapy, or whatever they were doing to her inside the facility. She wasn’t getting any better. She was just detoxing, only to start using again as soon as she was released.
I knew what this cycle could do to a heroin addict. I’d read the stories about how they would get clean and their bodies would be free of the drugs, only to cave again. Problem was, they would take the amount they used to take to get high and suddenly it was too strong. Their bodies had lost the tolerance.
My mom was going to die of a heroin overdose, and I wasn’t going to be enough to save her. The worst part was, I didn’t know how much I even cared at this point. She’d made her choice.
I felt Ash’s hand on my shoulder. “You always get really sad when you go see her. I wanted to be with you.”
I shrugged my shoulder to remove her hand. I didn’t want her support. No matter what I did, I couldn’t shake her loose either. She was always just there. Always giving me cookies or sandwiches. Always wanting to play even though she wasn’t good at anything athletic.
The last time I came back from visiting my mother, Ash had brought her PlayStation—with a gaming monitor and everything—to the carriage house and set it up in my room.
She’d said she didn’t really use it ever, but then she sat with me and played Call of Duty for hours. The whole time me beating her ass and telling her how much she sucked at it.
Now even that wasn’t good enough. Now she wanted to be with me for the car ride.
“You don’t have to do this, Marc,” George said. “I can go check on Marie and let you wait in the car.”
I’d worn my good pants and sweater. I’d even put stuff in my hair to keep it in place. George said if she had a focus, something that could replace the drugs, it could turn her around.
Like a new addiction. Me.
“You know I need to see her. But you need to wait in the car with Ash. I don’t want her to see this place.”
“I don’t mind,” Ash piped up. “I can see it.”
“It’s just a treatment facility. Not a prison,” George pointed out. “Marie will be clean. She’ll be healthier. You’ll see.”