He’s not sure what that even means, but Avery will never come back without Sam.
‘And you? What have you been doing?’ The words come tight, forced – like she doesn’t really want to ask.
‘Nothing.’ Sam’s mouth is full of cotton. ‘I don’t have anywhere to live.’
‘Oh, so you’re crawling back for help, are you?’ Veins flex purple in her neck. ‘After all you’ve done, you … you despicable little boy.’
Sam’s chest caves in on itself.
‘I’m not taking you back,’ Aunt Karen says. ‘You go inside my house and I’m calling the police. They can figure you out.’
‘I just … I’m sorry—’
She snatches the shopping bag off him. ‘Really? I can see your hands, Sammy. Still fighting? Still hitting people? Do you know what you deserve? To be locked up. No second chances. No sly apologies.’
Sam opens his mouth, but the lump welling in his throat will only release the dam holding back panic and tears. She won’t budge for that either. She’ll say crocodile tears and I know what game you’re playing.
He wouldn’t be here unless his world had crumpled to nothing.
‘Sorry is not enough,’ Aunt Karen says, vicious.
‘But can I just have one night? Please? I’ll go in the morning—’
‘I told you what will happen if you come inside.’
Sam’s voice cracks. ‘It was an accident—’
‘Oh, don’t start.’ She storms towards her front door, swinging the bags so hard they hit her legs.
Sam looks desperately at her back, needing her to understand. He’d do anything to have one person stop and listen to him. See him. Truly stop and see him.
He runs after her, heart falling through his chest. ‘You always gave Avery another chance—’
She spins and drops one of her bags so it spills across the grass. Her hand shoots up and cracks across his face.
It takes a moment for the sting to catch up.
Sam stares, his mouth open, red fingerprints across his cheekbone.
‘Unlike you,’ Aunt Karen’s eyes are pinpricks of venom, ‘Avery never had blood on his hands.’ She catches his wrist then, flipping it over to his scabbed knuckles.
‘I was protecting him,’ Sam whispers.
‘Bullshit.’ Aunt Karen drops his wrist, like she can’t bear to touch him any more than necessary. ‘You like the power you get from hurting people. You’re just like your father.’
Sam can’t speak. He can’t. He’ll cry. That’s not him. That’s never him.
‘I thought Avery would be the death of me, with those insufferable tantrums and flapping.’
Sam digs his fingers into his shirt, trying to anchor himself. Trying to keep himself here. ‘Don’t talk about Avery like that,’ he whispers.
It’s like she doesn’t hear him. ‘But no. It was the little one with his bloodlust who ended up being the devil.’
Sam’s face burns from her slap.
Aunt Karen says, voice suddenly crisp. ‘Are you coming inside? You can sit down while I call you in. You know you deserve it, Sammy Lou.’
A cute name.
Not Samuel. Just Sammy Lou.
The wrong name for a boy who’s all fists and split skin.
Does he deserve it?
you do you do you do you do
He turns.
He walks away.
‘I thought so,’ Aunt Karen calls.
He gets to the end of the street before he stops and looks back. She’s picking tins of tuna off the grass and tucking them back into the plastic bag. Her shoulders stay stiff. Her face sets. She never cried over a Lou boy before, why would she start now?
Sammy is thirteen and this is definitely going to end in tears.
Or broken bones.
But he has to pull Avery out of his shutdown slump.
Sammy pushes the old trampoline with the frayed mat – gifted by the neighbours who were going to dump it before they moved – close to the house and he kicks off his shoes and shouts for Avery to come over. It’s dusk and the world is full of fireflies and sweet-smelling grass and endless possibilities.
‘I’m going to fly,’ Sammy says as Avery slumps over, lost in a gigantic hoodie because he’s having a rough day.
He’s having a rough life.
High school sucks.
He’s aware of how different he is now. He cares. He tries to fit with the kids in their class, but he speaks at the wrong time and flicks his fingers by his ears and they call him crude names and pretend to be nice until they trip him in the halls and laugh. It’s stupid, wanting friends. But Sammy understands. He wouldn’t mind a friend. He also wouldn’t mind not having to spend hours making up rules for Avery.
Like, (1) people don’t mean what they say, and (2) don’t stand so close, and (3) don’t touch anyone ever, and (4) never never never take your toy car out of your pocket. You’re fifteen and they’ll rip you to pieces if they find that out.
Sammy’s worried school will kill Avery.
But he can fix this, right? He fixes everything.
Avery watches from slitted lids as Sammy bolts forward like his heels are on fire and leaps on to the drainpipe. He scales it like Spiderman. Hand over hand, propelled by momentum and sheer will. He snatches at the gutter and then hauls himself up, ripping his shirt on a rusty hook and scraping his ribs. But he’s up. His arms go out for balance, and he stands on the roof, just him and the horizon and the moon already fat against the deepening indigo sky.
Then he backs up – and runs – and leaps – and for a moment he’s
f
l g
y n
i
And as he falls, he cups his hands in the sky and catches the moon for just a heartbeat before his feet hit the trampoline and the rusty springs groan. It throws him back up so high his stomach spins out and he windmills his arms with a shout.
A happy shout.
He slows the bounces and twirls to make a ridiculous bow.
Avery pulls his hood off. ‘You’re going to kill yourself.’
‘At least I caught the moon first.’
‘You can’t catch the moon,’ Avery says, bitter. He shoves his hands deep in his pockets, probably thumbing his toy car. His secret.