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“He has a photo of you on his bedroom wall. He sits and stares at it sometimes, and looks sad. I’ve seen him. Not that,” he hurries to add, “that I…”
“That you spy on him?” I supply, stunned at what he’s telling me. Dylan has a photo of me on his wall? And he sits and stares at it?
“Yeah, not that.” Miles still isn’t looking at me. “But I pass outside his door sometimes. You know.”
I nod. This kid sounds like a grown-up. How is that possible? Is this what happens when your parents leave and your older brother raises you?
But then he goes and spoils the illusion when he says, “Can we get chocolate ice cream before we go home?”
How can I say no? So I drive Miles to an ice cream parlor—he gives me directions—and we settle back into the jeep as he licks his towering cone. Suddenly I wonder if he’ll get stomachache from this much ice cream, or…
“Have you had lunch?”
He shrugs. “Not yet.”
Shit. “You tricked me, didn’t you?”
“You’re an adult. You should know better.” He winks, and again he’s so much like Dylan my chest aches.
“Fool me once…” I mutter as I start the engine.
“Does that mean you’ll be picking me up from school again?” he asks, trying to sound nonchalant.
I freeze. Does it? “I don’t know. Maybe until your brother gets better, and Dylan has time.”
“Dylan doesn’t have a car. I ride home on the bus.”
“And why not today?”
He says nothing for a while, eating his ice cream, and I think he won’t answer. But then he says, “There are these kids from a few streets up who like to beat me up sometimes.”
“Why?”
“They called me an orphan once, and I beat them up. So they brought their friends, and now they wait for me.”
Jesus.
“Dylan wants to be there, but he has to work, so…” He shrugs again, and my chest now aches for a whole new different reason.
“I’m sorry, Miles.”
“It’s not so bad,” he says, and I clench my teeth.
“Dylan wouldn’t be worried if it wasn’t bad.”
He says nothing.
We reach the house and stop at the gate. God, the place looks terrible, run-down, the yard taken over my tall weeds. I haven’t been here in years.
Miles glances at me, then starts working on his cone. It doesn’t look like he wants to get out. “It’s not so bad,” he says after a moment.
“No?”
“Dylan does all he can.” His face is serious when he says this. “Sometimes I’m mad with him. I think he forgets about me. But I think he’s just tired.”
Tired. Taking care of two kids with problems and working would do that to anyone. No wonder he dropped out of college. “And your dad?”
“He’s never here anymore.”
