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Boyd
Riley groans, tipping her head back to glare at the ceiling from where she’s seated at the dining room table, a piece of Dottie’s lasagna on a plate in front of her.
She’s not supposed to leave until the entire thing is finished.
Bad parenting, according to the forums, but right now I’m too fucking wired to give a shit, still fuming over the fact that Fiona was out with that bastard and waiting to hear back from Kieran on when we can find him.
“I don’t want to hear any sounds from you unless they’re ‘oh, this is delicious,’” I call from my spot on the sofa bed. I’ve been sleeping on it recently because I want to be the first thing someone sees if they break in, and because the mattress is somehow more comfortable than the one on my bed.
Maybe it also makes me nostalgic for the first time Fiona stayed the night, but I won’t admit that.
“This is stupid,” Riley says, poking her fork into the lasagna.
“You know what else is stupid? Starving yourself.”
She snorts. “Who’d you take parenting advice from this time, Casey Anthony?”
“You’re not even old enough to know who that is.”
“I listen to a lot of true crime podcasts, remember?”
“Just eat the fucking lasagna, Riley.”
“I can’t!” she screams, the sound so loud it reverberates off the glass windows. When I sit up and glance over at her through the foyer, there are tears streaming down her face as she glares at the food, the fork in her hand shaking violently. She releases it, and it clatters to the table, a sob wrenching from deep inside her chest as she drops her head into her hands.
Getting up slowly, I grit my teeth, really out of my fucking element now. My hands ball into fists at my sides, anger reigniting in my bones when I think about how normal she was just a few months ago. How bright and sunny, genuinely happy to be alive.
There aren’t a lot of people like that in the world, and maybe that’s part of the reason the human condition sucks so bad.
Guilt stabs at my chest as I approach her, watching the way her shoulders shake as she cries, the first real emotion I’ve seen from her in longer than I care to recount.
She’s rail-thin beneath her baggy clothing, her cheeks so thin that they’re almost translucent, revealing the bone underneath. There’s a knit cap pulled down over her hair, probably to hide the fact that it’s been falling out in droves recently. She always tries to wash the evidence down the drain, but when I snake it out on the weekends, inordinate amounts clog her shower.
My stomach flips violently as I grab the back of my neck, weighing my options. Deciding I don’t want to incite another outburst or make things worse, I grab the plate and dump the lasagna in the trash, a lump lodging at the base of my throat as I set the plate in the sink and walk back over, dropping into the chair beside her.
“Riley,” I say softly, once her wailing has subsided enough that she can hear me.
She moves her hands, wiping her nose, raising her bloodshot eyes to mine. “I’m sorry,” she sniffles, the words causing a black hole of misery to open up inside my chest, sucking in everything until I can’t breathe. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I just…”
Cutting off on a hiccup, she sits up, pulling at her sleeves. I don’t press for more information, afraid that if I do, she’ll spiral.
Or worse, tell me what else she’s been doing to cope.
Swallowing, I tap my finger against the table; she watches it with rapt attention, sucking on her lower lip. “I think you should try talking to someone again.”
“I’m talking to you right now.”
“Okay, let me rephrase.” I inhale, releasing the tension from my shoulders with the exhale. “I think we should talk to someone. Together.”
“You want to go to therapy?” She raises an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t believe in it.”
“It’s not that, I just… haven’t been in a long time.” Sitting back in the chair, I nod to myself, relief flooding through me that I don’t think I’ve ever felt before. It rolls over me in waves, calming and soothing, like the taste of hope.
And as I glance at Riley, who’s watching me closely, studying my every move, I realize she’s waiting for a cue from me. That she needs me to make the first step, to show her it’s okay and that things can get better.
That’s what the both of us need. Hope.
Something to latch onto instead of our pain.
