Finally, at a little after two o’clock, I get my break. After putting on my jacket, I step out the back door and into the cold. The sky is grey and the snow is refusing to stop or melt, piling up on the roads. I wonder just how intense the winter’s going to be. Usually it doesn’t even start snowing until November, but it’s the end of October and there’s already a shitload.
My phone vibrates again and I cut across the icy parking lot toward my car as I rummage around in my pocket for it. I’m getting ready to dial Callie’s number when I see the screen and realize all the missed calls aren’t from her but from my older brother Dylan.
‘That’s fucking weird,’ I mutter, retrieving the keys from my pocket as I reach my car. Dylan and I talk about once a week, but usually if I miss his call, he doesn’t call back until a few days later. Today, however, he’s tried to call over eight times and sent one text.
Dylan: Call me ASAP.
I dial his number as I hop into my car and turn the engine on, cranking up the heater with the phone pressed to my ear.
‘Hey,’ he answers with an edge to his voice. ‘I was actually going to try to call you again.’
‘Yeah, I was at work,’ I reply, staring out the window. ‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing … well, everything.’ He hesitates then sighs. ‘It’s about Tyler.’
My heart rate quickens at the mention of my other brother’s name. ‘What happened to him?’
Dylan sighs again and it’s more weighted this time. ‘I got a call from him a few days ago, and he said he needed help, that he’s been living on the streets. I could tell he was ripped out of his mind – could barely understand half the words he said.’
‘Living on the streets where exactly?’
‘I’m not sure yet. Haven’t gotten that far with him.’ Dylan sighs for the third time and I know it’s bad. Whatever’s going on, it’s really, really bad. ‘He was actually headed up to Virginia when he called me. I guess he found out where I lived and started hitchhiking to my place. He was strung out and we’re trying to help him detox right now, but I’m not sure how well it’s going to work.’
‘Where was he hitchhiking from?’ I dare ask, wondering if it’s from wherever my parents are. And what if it is? What does that mean? That they’ll be entering Dylan’s life again, too? Will he let them?
A thousand questions race through my mind as Dylan answers, ‘I have no idea. Somewhere down south, I think, but he acts like he can’t remember.’
I grip onto the steering wheel, attempting to control the frustration stirring inside me, but I’ve never been great at controlling my emotions and I start to sweat from the anxiousness I’m feeling. ‘Or maybe he does, but he’s not saying because Mom and Dad told him not to.’
‘Yeah, I kind of wondered the same thing. Been wondering it for the few months after you got ahold of me and told me what’d been going on, but then again, Tyler is, well, Tyler. And he might just have been living on the streets so fucking high he really can’t remember where he was.’
‘Yeah, I guess so.’ Dylan’s right. Tyler could easily have just wandered in from off the streets, but part of me wants it to be the other way around, wants him to know where they are. I don’t know why, though. It’s not like I want them back in my life. I don’t even want to see them again unless it’s seeing my dad behind bars. Just like his father – my grandfather – is now.
‘I know what you’re thinking, Kayden,’ Dylan says interrupting my thoughts. ‘And you need to stop thinking about that. You need to try to let it go. Don’t worry about Mom and Dad anymore.’
‘I’m not worrying about them,’ I lie and well, too. I’ve always been good at lying, which isn’t a good thing, but it’s something I had to learn how to do at an early age when people would ask about my bruises and broken bones.
‘Well, I didn’t really mean worry. More like, letting them get to you.’
‘I’m fine. Really,’ I lie again. I don’t feel fine. I feel angry. All the time.
‘Are you still seeing your therapist?’ he asks cautiously.
‘Yeah.’ I turn down the heater. ‘Once a week, every week.’
‘Good. I think it’s good for you. I still see mine sometimes when things get bad, like the other day when I had to pick Tyler up.’ When I don’t say anything, not sure what to say, he changes the subject. ‘But anyway, I just wanted to call and let you know what’s up. We might check Tyler into a rehab if we can get him to commit, so he might be around for Thanksgiving when you come out.’
I frown. ‘Thanksgiving?’
‘Yeah, you’re coming up, right?’ he asks. ‘I mean, I thought that’s what you said.’
What I said was I’d think about it, but I still mutter, ‘Yeah, I guess.’
My lungs begin to constrict as I think about last Thanksgiving and what happened. It’d started out okay, getting to spend time with Callie, and then we’d had sex for the first time. But things got ugly from then on, a beautiful moment tainted by reality.
‘Look, I got to go. My break’s over,’ I lie to Dylan for the third time during this conversation. ‘But let me know what happens with Tyler.’
‘I will.’ He hesitates as I turn off the engine and get out of the car. ‘And Kayden, just so you know, he’s been asking about you – what you’re doing, if you’re okay. He keeps saying he wants to talk to you, but I’m not going to let him until he sobers, just to make sure he doesn’t say … well, anything that isn’t meant to be said.’ I think he might be trying to protect me, but I’m not sure since no one has ever really done that for me before, at least no one in my family. ‘And you only have to talk to him if you want to.’
I’m unsure how to respond. Dylan and I have been getting along okay, but right now he’s showing a lot of emotion directed toward me. It’s strange and unfamiliar, especially since I spent a lot of time thinking that he hated me when I was a kid, after he took off when he was eighteen and left me with our dad and mom, never so much as even calling to say where he was living. It’s something we haven’t really talked about too much either, although my therapist thinks it might be healthy for us to do so. However, I don’t want to go down that road yet – open up those old scars that are still trying to heal.