Chris ignored my question, like he always did. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest again, looking like he was about to work out rather than help students who showed up to his office for medical reasons.
“Sunday,” he said shortly. “It’s a deal.”
Grumbling all the way back to my class, I walked into familiar chaos and got back to work. At least with the twenty sixth graders, I knew I had the illusion of control. Until that afternoon when I finally dragged myself out of the school and ended up in line at Taco Bell again.
Tacos were the only cure for the Monday blues. Tacos and tequila, really. Only since I wasn’t sitting in my living room wrapped in a blanket, tequila unfortunately was out of the question. For now, at least. Once I got home, all bets were off.
“Hey, Miss James.” Of course Henley would be the one manning the drive-thru. After all, that was just my luck.
He stared at me with a smile on his face and his hand held out expectantly for my card again after I ordered and made it to the window.
“Fancy seeing you here,” he laughed.
The glare on my face must have been harsher than I thought, though. Almost immediately the cheerful smile faded from his face. As quick as he could, he leaned out the drive-thru window and looked behind my car before pulling himself back in.
“No one’s behind you. What’s wrong, Miss James?” Genuine concern laced his voice and the sad expression I’d earned hit me square in the chest.
“Nothing,” I said quickly. At the same time I put on my best and fakest smile. “Just stress from the day.”
My lie wasn’t good enough, clearly, when Henley raised his eyebrows expectantly. “Don’t make me hold your food hostage.”
The way he said it, there was no doubt in my mind that he’d do it too. He’d always been spunky, even when he sat in my sixth grade class.
With a huff, I rolled my eyes. “I’m hungry, Henley. We had a fire drill at school today, which I’m sure you know how much fun those are.”
He seemed satisfied with my answer. I sat there wondering why in the actual hell I cared what a teenager thought about me, but, just as I opened my mouth to tell him not to be so nosey, he handed me a bag full of tacos.
“I put some extra fire sauce in there for you, Miss James.”
Just like that, he dismissed me. Surprisingly, my irrational upset at it vanished just as quickly as it appeared when I saw the car pull up behind me.
Trying to remember that not everyone was out to get me, I went home to eat tacos in bed. Everything went smoothly, too. Chris wasn’t home from the gym yet, and I practically sprinted to my room in my excitement to change into pajamas and crawl under the sheets. Armed with extra napkins and my bag of food by my side, I turned on a movie and settled in.
Full, sleepy, and ready to forget about everything except sleep, I didn’t even care when Chris walked into my room like he owned the place. He took one look at the leftover taco mess, me buried in blankets, and shook his head sullenly. “This isn’t a good coping mechanism.”
The exorcist had nothing on me with the way I slowly turned my head to glare at him. “Mind your own business,” I told him. “This is the perfect coping mechanism. Especially after the week I’ve had.”
“It’s Monday, Avery.” Chris climbed into bed with me, moving the taco mess out of his way, and pulled me into a hug.
Well, something like a weird hug. My head ended up on his chest and I had to drag my arm out from between our bodies so we’d both be comfortable. I had pretty much adopted the belief, a long time ago, that if he wanted to cuddle, he could do all the work.
“If you ever get married, he’s gonna have to understand that I’m coming too.” I grumbled a few minutes later when he started to rub my back. “Anyone you’re with is gonna have to be with me, too.”
Chris chortled, and I felt the laughter in his chest right against my head. “Good luck with that, Avery. I’m never going to get married. I don’t think it’s in the cards.”
“For you, yeah it is. You’re good, Chris. All the good in the world.” He kept rubbing my back softly while I spoke. “You deserve all the good things, and I’ll hurt anyone who makes you think otherwise.”
He paused, not sure what to make of me, I was sure. It wasn’t often I got sentimental. The fact that I’d been nothing short of maudlin for the last few weeks had thrown a wrench into our usual dynamic.
“You deserve all the good too, Avery.” He coughed, clearing his throat. “I hate that you think so poorly of yourself. Everything you’ve gone through, it was only a test. You won. You came out on the other side, and you’re stronger than anyone else I’ve ever met.”
Choked up, I didn’t respond. I tried to keep it all bottled up, I really did. But then my sniffle gave me away.
“Don’t cry,” Chris whispered.
Needing an escape, a way to run away from my feelings, I said the first thing that came to mind. “I need to get laid.”
Chris nodded against the top of my head. “You and me, both. Dating sucks.”
“Yeah, it does.”
Chris didn’t call me out on the abrupt change of subject. Then again, he was my best friend for a reason.
“You know, the whole Malone family is coming to town for Keegan’s funeral,” Chris said a few minutes later, right as I was starting to fall asleep. “All of them.”
His words sunk in, and I groaned. “You’re kidding me. There’s no way Bria’s going to be okay with Casey Malone being home. He broke her heart.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Chris muttered darkly. “She’s my little sister, Avery. I was there, holding her every night after he left.”
“Shit’s about to get real, that’s for sure.”
5
Carter
No amount of scrubbing my skin under burning hot water would take away the red that stained my skin or the feeling of my brother’s blood. That didn’t stop me from trying though.
Soft knocking on the door cut through the melancholy, at least momentarily. “Get out of the bathroom, Carter.”
Casey sounded just like the rest of us. Broken.
“Mom said we need to be there by noon.”
There.
St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. Where we’d say goodbye to Keegan. Even thinking about it stole my breath and made it hard for me to concentrate.
I looked down at the uniform I’d put on that morning in a haze.
“Fuck,” I whispered. The telltale hitch in my voice made it clear I wouldn’t get through anything today without crying.
I wiped my eyes without looking back in the mirror. Instead, I straightened the collar to my blues, and stood up straight.
“You can do this.”
I opened the door to my brother’s pale face. Red-rimmed eyes were the only sign of color, and I knew I wasn’t alone in my pain.
I did my best to push back the misery. “Don’t you have your own house to stay in?”
He quirked an eyebrow at me, rising to the bait I’d laid out perfectly.
“Yeah,” Casey snapped. “But my wife is currently living in it and she had the locks changed. I have to call a locksmith.”