Page 6 of Last Slice of Pie

If you walked directly behind the house, the motion lights would kick on, so instead I ran around the edge of the backyard, up against the edge of the tall grass, which lead to the path to the tree.

Standing at the base of the ladder, I heard sniffing, like someone was crying, and immediately my anger slipped to concern. Whenever he was mad or upset, my brother always hid in the tree house to have time to himself.

“James, are you okay?” I asked.

The sniffing stopped, and I heard some shuffling over into the far corner. No one responded.

“All right, be that way, but I’m coming up.”

One by one I climbed the rungs up into the tree house. There isn’t a door to enter, just a hole cut out of the middle of the floor that wraps all the way around the tree, and once you climb up the trunk, you step out onto the floor.

As soon as I entered the tree house, I turned on my flashlight and waved it toward the corner where I’d heard the noise. Startling me, there curled up in the corner was a boy I’d never seen before, a boy I instantly knew went by the name Bryan, a boy I somehow knew was going to change my world.

Bryan and his stepfather had moved to our farm the week before. I had overheard GiGi talking on the phone, and she was saying how sad it was that the poor man’s wife had died in a car accident, leaving him all alone with his stepson. This man wanted to start over, making a new life for him and the boy, so GiGi agreed and hired him as our new property manager. With the care of the property came room and board in a separate house on the edge of the land. It wasn’t big, but it was big enough for the two of them.

“Hey, Bryan,” I said apprehensively, keeping my distance from him.

“Hey, yourself.” His sarcastic tone came across clear as a bell.

“What are you doing up here?” I raised the flashlight from the ground to his chest, and he flinched at the brightness, looking away and cloaking his face in shadows.

“Nothing.” He resituated himself to attempt to hide from me and the light.

“You’re lying. I heard you crying.”

“Just leave me alone. I want to be alone.” As much as he wanted to sound forceful, what I heard was desperation and loneliness. Neither of us moved, so I raised the light higher to see his face for the very first time.

He heard me gasp, so he tucked his face under his arm.

Walking over to him, I dropped to my knees and placed the flashlight on the ground, light up so it would reflect off the ceiling and we could see.

“What happened to you?” I asked quietly. He was very dirty, and he didn’t answer. I reached over to finger the edge of his dirty shirt and he jerked away from me.

“Please leave me alone.” The tears were back, and I could see the dirt smudged all over his face as he tried to wipe them away.

“No. If you’re hurt, we need to tell someone.”

“I’m not hurt. I just want to be left alone.” He wrapped his arms tighter around his drawn-up knees and lifted his head to pin me with a sad, angry glare.

“But, I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to,” he said harshly through clenched teeth.

I didn’t know what to do or say. Something was clearly wrong with him if he was up there crying and hiding, and we continued to stare at each other until he eventually let out a long sigh and dropped his head.

“Fine, I won’t ask you to leave again. Just please don’t say anything about me being up here. I just wanted some space and time to myself.”

“Okay, stay here. I’ll be right back.”

With that I climbed down and ran back to main the house. I had a feeling he was going to sleep in the tree house that night, so I wanted to grab a few things to make him more comfortable.

I snuck in quietly, knowing GiGi had already gone to bed. I packed up a few things from the hall bathroom then grabbed a snack from the kitchen, a clean T-shirt for him to wear, and a pillow and blanket.

When I got back to the tree house, Bryan was still there, and he was still crying. Neither of us said anything to each other. He watched me warily, and I just went about as if I knew exactly what I was doing.

Reluctantly and slowly, he let me take his shirt off of him, and I cringed when I saw the scrape across his back. I moved the flashlight over to get a better look, retrieved the wet washcloth I’d brought, and very carefully cleaned up his back. The skin was irritated and split open in a couple of places. Gently, I applied some cream, just like GiGi would do, and I covered the largest spots with Band-Aids.

“I scraped it climbing out the window. I couldn’t get it up all the way and I just wanted out of that house.”