Page 84 of Icarus

Then, he clung to the side of the building, brick cutting into his hands, and cried like a child.

House

Icarus didn’t have his keys so he was forced to knock.

It took almost twenty minutes, but eventually Angus came to the door. He took in Icarus’s tear-stained face, his bare feet, and the way his arms shook, and guided him into the house with a palm on the back of his head.

“Why are you home so early? Where are your things?” Angus asked, gently. He didn’t ask if Icarus was all right, but Icarus didn’t expect him to.

“I left them there,” Icarus said.

Angus shook his head. “Are you hungry? Have you eaten?”

“I’m not. I don’t think I can.”

Angus pulled out a kitchen chair. “Come and sit. I’ll be back.”

Icarus settled down, wrapping his arms around himself, and waited. Angus came back with a large wooden basin filled with steaming water and their medical box. He knelt on the floor in front of his son and began peeling his socks off.

Angus dipped Icarus’s feet in the bath, and with the very soft cloths he mostly used for smudging charcoal, he began to rub the dirt from his feet.

Icarus looked down at the top of his father’s head and thought about the drawings hidden in his pocket.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“No.”

“Are you safe, are there people chasing you?” Angus pulled up Icarus’s foot to see if there were any cuts.

“No. I . . . I have a girlfriend. I was staying with her while her dad was out of town, but he came back unexpectedly,” Icarus lied.

Angus paused.

“I won’t be bringing her here or telling her about any of this.”

Angus sighed and continued to wash. He patted Icarus’s feet with a small hand towel, then rubbed the tops with linseed oil. He daubed Neosporin into the many small injuries Icarus had picked up and covered them with Band-Aids.

“If you love her, don’t be a coward. Introduce yourself to him,” Angus said, and it was all Icarus could do to not begin hysterically laughing. What an awful idea.

“I have to go back and get my things. Maybe I’ll do it then.” Icarus gave his father a smile. Like he would have done in a normal situation.

To his surprise, Angus returned it.

Gut

Icarus had never wished so badly that Helios had access to a phone.

Long after Angus had gone to bed, Icarus got up and walked to the police station. He asked the receptionist about what he would need to do to report a domestic abuse situation.

They wanted more information about him than he felt comfortable giving and told him that after he filed a report, they would send a social worker to investigate. But since they were so rural and caseloads were backed up, it might be a month or so before anything happened.

That was far too late. Icarus was going to get Helios out of there as soon as humanly possible.

Before they could ask him to fill out any paperwork, he backed out, thanked them for their time, and left.

Icarus wondered if you could hear the screams from the street.

Icarus wondered if, because he’d come here tonight, police would give the Black house a visit whether he made a formal complaint or not.