I opened the door and my mom was standing there with Shawn.
“Sweetie,” my mom said in a calm voice. “We need to talk to you.” I opened the door wider and my mom entered. Seeing Louis’s football jersey on the floor caused her eyes to tighten, and she glanced at me for a second pleading with her eyes for me to keep quiet. I sat on the bed and my mom sat beside me with Shawn sitting opposite me.
“Bailey, what happened earlier was not acceptable,” my mom began softly, and I glanced at her. She was looking at the bear in my arms and I could see her mind working on how to get it away from me. I clutched it tighter and she glanced over at Shawn.
“Your mom tells me you’ve imagined you had a big brother since you were little, but, honey, you have a family now. You don’t need to imagine one.”
My back stiffened and my eyes narrowed at my mom. “You are saying I imagined Louis? Why, Mom? Why would you do it?” She shrugged and stared away from me as Shawn spoke again.
“You are not to mention this Louis again in my house, it upsets your mom, and if I see any pictures of anyone you claim to be your dead brother in this house, I’ll be putting them in the trash where they belong and you’ll be sent away to a facility that can deal with those outbursts.”
He got up and left, but my mom lingered. “I’m sorry, Bailey, but it’s better this way.” Her tone was brisk and unaffected which left me cold all over.
She kissed me on the forehead and walked after him as I muttered, “Better for you maybe.” She heard me; I knew she did because her back stiffened as she walked out of the room, slamming the door closed behind her.
I reached under the bed and pulled out my photos and scrapbook. I’d made it from the newspaper articles that Leah kept, detailing the crash and how Louis lingered in a coma for two weeks. He began to have seizures and the doctors told my mom that his brain had suffered irreparable damage from a massive seizure. It took a few more days before my mom decided to switch off his life support and, in that time, he had a really bad seizure while I was in the room alone with him, scaring the life out of me.
I’d never really gotten over that; my mom wasn’t there to see as his face turned purple and his body shook with violent tremors. I thought he was getting better, but then his body started to shake. My young mind unable to comprehend what was happening to the brother I’d idolized. The nurses and doctors ignored me as they fought to stabilize him, and I watched in growing horror as they performed CPR on him. I closed my eyes and counted backward from ten to escape the horrors of the memory.
I touched the scrapbook and began to feel calm. There were sympathy cards in the scrapbook and a photo of me and Louis in the hospital before he passed away.
I’d also been given his high school yearbook. My mom hadn’t wanted it and asked the school to take it back, but Leah had taken it, sure my mom would want something to remember her only son by. Eventually, she gave it to me. I pulled it out of the box, and a few more tears fell. I wasn’t allowed to talk about him or have his photos around, but that didn’t mean I’d forget about him.
Someone banged on the door again and before I had a chance to put anything away, Cooper let himself into my room. He had tape in his hands, handing it to me as he took in the scrapbook and Louis’s yearbook. He nodded at me and I knew that was all the acknowledgment and apology I was going to get. I taped the photo back together, ignoring him as he closed the door behind him.
He reopened the door a moment later and motioned to me to follow him. Curious as to what he was doing, he lifted the carpet on the far side of the room and lifted a loose floorboard. He didn’t say anything, but his meaning was clear, he’d given me a hiding place for Louis’s stuff.
“Thank you,” I whispered as he walked out. He didn’t respond and I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me or not, but I didn’t care. I gathered all of Louis’s things and placed them in the hole. I walked over and sat at the window, powering up my new cell as I sat staring at the moon.
As soon as the cell was loaded, I called Wendy’s house and her mom answered, “Lawrence residence, Molly speaking.” My heart sighed at hearing a familiar voice, and I almost sang out.
“Hi, Mrs. Lawrence, is Wendy available?” I heard her call out to Wendy and after a moment, she came back on the line.
“Bailey, it’s almost ten p.m. Why didn’t you call Wendy’s cell?”
I took a breath about to speak again when there was another knock at my door, Zane popped his head in and spoke in bored tones.
“Bailey, come downstairs.” I nodded at him and shooed him away as Mrs. Lawrence spoke with a voice like a whip.
“Who was that, Bailey?” Before I could answer, my cell was snatched out of my hand.
Zane stood over me glaring. “I’m not a maid, but I’ve been sent up here to tell you to come downstairs now.” I nodded at him and held my hand out for my cell wordlessly. He glanced at me and then at my cell. I could see he was itching to throw it at the wall, but after a second, he pocketed it instead. “I’ll give it back later if I feel like it.”
He turned and ran out of my door laughing as I imagined setting him on fire and dancing as he burned. I followed him downstairs and found everyone in the basement, where a theater room was set up with a movie playing on the huge screen. I didn’t care about it and didn’t particularly want to be in the room, but I sat down anyway, spending most of the time staring at my fingers ignoring everyone around me. It was easy because they ignored me right back.
Cooper had his girlfriend sitting on his knee, and she kept glaring at me, which I was unable to miss. I eventually left everyone watching the movie and went back to my room, noticing that my room had been cleaned up while I was downstairs. I’d stuffed Pickles down the back of the cushions on the window seat, and he was still there. I grabbed him and took him to bed, letting the day from hell wash over me.
I closed my eyes and quickly drifted off to sleep.
I was woken up at six a.m. by a weird noise. As I was awake, I decided to go to the bathroom. The bathroom door from Cooper’s room was open, and as I walked in, I saw Cooper’s body moving over his girlfriend.
I couldn’t believe he was having sex with her. My face heated and for a moment I was frozen, unsure what to do or where to look, as an odd feeling rose in my chest and then I turned and ran back into my room. As the house was quiet, I decided to go exploring. I shoved on some gym clothes and sneakers before heading down to the kitchen.
I was looking for a bottle of water when a clatter sounded behind me. I jumped as Cooper slammed his hand on the pantry door rattling it. I glanced around and, judging by the look on his face, he was livid. “What the fuck are you doing?” My whole body shook at his words and at the venomous way he stared at me. His brown and green eyes were fire and ice in one, and he moved closer to me, trapping me in between the pantry door and the inside of the pantry.
I stepped back from him with my glasses slipping down my face. He reached his hand out, snatched my glasses from my face, and promptly broke them in two. “Don’t get too comfortable here; you aren’t welcome here, and if we have anything to say, you’ll go back to the hovel you used to live in before long. And stay the fuck out of my bathroom.”
“No,” I screamed. “No! No! No!”