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He answers.
“Yeah Jada? What now?”
Great. This is starting off positive…
I gulp. “Hi Dad. Shane is in jail. He went off the deep end and he’s done some stupid stuff, got hooked on some drugs while trying to deal with his mental illness. He is probably going into rehab and maybe in for psychiatric help. I’ll keep you posted on how the case goes. I just-”
“You callin’ for money for a lawyer?” Dad asks.
“No. I wasn’t going to ask for money for a lawyer, he’s got the public defender, but if you want to-”
“Naw. He’s made his bed. He can lie in it. This is why I pay taxes, so my fuckin’ loser of a son can get a shitty lawyer for free.”
I start to seethe. “Dad, you know, your son has a mental illness and now it’s spiraled into a drug dependency, but the mental illness is still there, too.”
“His problem is that the kicks in the ass he got didn’t work. That’s what his problem is.”
I can’t believe this. I should be able to believe it because this is who my father has been my whole life, but I still can’t fathom it.
“Never mind, Dad. Just… never mind.”
“You gonna ask if you can come home now?”
“Why? Would you let me? Knowing a week ago that you were fine for me to be homeless, you think I’m gonna ask again?”
“You wanna come home, you can come home,” he says. “As long as he doesn’t come with you. And watch it with that sass, little girl. Remember who you’re talkin’ to here.”
“No thanks. I’m good,” I hiss.
Silence.
Is my father actually speechless? Or did he hang up on me?
I strain to listen as I get to the bus stop in front of the jail. The bus is coming, I can see it stopped about a block away.
I hear background noise through the phone, so Dad hasn’t hung up. It’s time for me to do that, though.
“Bye Dad.”
“Yeah. Bye.” I hear the click.
I stuff my phone into my bag and get my bus ticket ready.
I feel depleted. Completely.
My belly is still raw from last night’s food poisoning, but I wasn’t about to miss this visit. I even got off the bus on the way here, thinking I was going to have more of what I dealt with last night and spent twenty minutes in a coffee shop bathroom where nothing happened but stomach pain before I walked the rest of the way.
I’m tired.
I’m sad.
I feel… lost. Alone.
I lean my head against the window on my way back home, or – home for now. No, not home, I’m still homeless, I just have a bed temporarily. I feel dizzy, panicked, and then that changes to reflective, about my life, my brother, my upbringing, about losing Joshua three years ago, about what I want from life.
My stomach rumbles again and this time, it feels like it’s hunger. It’s after five o’clock and I haven’t eaten today.
The bus will let me off by the Vietnamese Pho restaurant and then I can walk back to the condo from there.
***
When I get there, Austin’s asleep on the couch. He’s wearing a muscle shirt and basketball shorts and he’s got one knee cocked and an XBOX controller on his chest. There’s a half-drank bottle of Gatorade in front of him on the coffee table.
As quietly as I can, I begin unpacking the food.
He sits up and his eyes are on me.
I wince. “Sorry,” I say.
He scrubs his eyes with his palms and heads toward me, then scratches his belly under his shirt, making it ride up. Oh God, those abs.
I tear my gaze away and go back to pulling containers out of the plastic bag. There’s been a leak and soup is all over the counter now, so I start mopping it up with paper towel, feeling him stand over me, feeling my face get hot as he watches.
He’s close. Really close. The smell of the food mixed with the smell of him has me lightheaded – in a weird way. In a way that’s wrong. Because I’m feeling lust. I really need to stop lusting after this grouchy ogre I’m working for and sharing this apartment with. I don’t even like him. He definitely doesn’t like me.
But I guess you don’t have to like someone to find them physically attractive. At least most people don’t. I usually do. I’m usually way more about substance than this.
Ha. That’s funny, because Joshua was drop-dead gorgeous, too. All sorts of muscles. A great smile. Strong hands.
A lump forms in my throat at the thought of Josh, so I shake it off.
I guess I have a thing for gorgeous plus substance. And I have no idea what substance Austin is made of, other than anger.
Tomorrow is the anniversary of Josh’s death and I’m going to do something I always do. Visit his grave. Walk the park like he and I used to walk when we secretly dated. Have a picnic with a hot dog, orange soda, and warm spiced nuts in our old spot under the tree where he first kissed me after we had that same picnic.
