AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“On a scale of one to devastating,” TJ was saying.
I used the back of my hand to rub my nose. Noah’s scent still lingered there, too sugary and gentle.
“It’s a six,” he finished.
“Tell him he has till the end of the day,” I said.
TJ whistled. “You know good and well you’re asking too much.”
“Guess I’ll be seeing you guys after work then.” It’s supposed to be a punishment for them but it sounded like a punishment for me too.
“We’ll see about that.” TJ’s never been the most brilliant person in the room, but he possessed enough emotional intelligence to know it’d be too much emotional labor for me to drive across town.
“How are they?” I asked, trying to sway the conversation away from my potential visit.
“Mom misses you. Dad does too.” There’s a scrape of a fork against glass on his end. “She started using her cane, by the way. Pretty decent progress. She can get to the end of the driveway and back on her own. I tail her though, just in case.”
I smiled and ignored the sting in my eyes. The idea of my mom, who’d spent months in the hospital after her accident, walking with minimum help should be joyful.
I took a deep breath. “That’s good.”
“One step closer to her being able to spend a few hours on her own. She’s tired of us always “in her business.”” TJ stressed every word in his air quotations.
I laughed at the thought of her bitching about them. If my mom was anything, she was a world-class complainer.
“Like mother, like daughter.”
My smile disappeared. “I’ve been working. Got a lot on my plate this year.”
“Yeah, you say that every year,” he mumbled.
“Because it’s true.” I have to pause to avoid my tone going on an uphill climb. My patience thinned by the day. I’d gone to yoga classes, started new workout routines, and spoken with therapists, but nothing helped with my short fuse and shitty temper. Nothing except being alone. So, I made it my mission, and soon enough, it became my talent. I was so good at being alone, it almost scared me some days.
“It would be nice to see you now and then,” he said. “You know, because they miss you.”
There was an unspoken ‘I miss you, too’ in there. If I hadn’t felt guilty before, I sure as hell felt guilty now, but I couldn’t go. Not yet. Not until I figured out what dug its way into my heart and made me feel like I was rotting from the inside out. I couldn’t let them see me like this, because if I slipped up and said any of the cruel things I thought the past few months, they’d never forgive me. I’d never forgive myself. No matter how much they got on my nerves, I knew deep down, they were doing the best they could with the hand they were drawn. At least, I wanted to believe that.
“Dad?” I asked, needing an update on him, even though I knew if there was something to be worried about, T would have brought it up first thing.
“Got his chip for four years,” he said. “And started painting on every surface we have. Says it reminds him of you.”
Another bittersweet thing to be happy about. “Good. I’m glad you guys are good, for the most part.”
“Ash is going to put it back.” TJ sounded less defensive and more understanding.
“We’ll see,” I said with little to no hope. “What about you? How’s the night shift?”
The silence is enough of an answer.
“I’ll come up with rent,” he promised.
“Uh-huh.” There went the sweetness in bittersweet. “Take it out of the savings this time. I’m not splitting my paycheck up anymore.”
“Don’t even worry about that. I got it. We got it. We always do.”
I swallowed, and with all my might held onto the words: No, you guys don’t. I always do.
When I ruined the line work on a filler comic for the fifth time, I finally decided my brother's issues wouldn't be easily swept under the rug. I'd never been a natural when it came to compartmentalizing. My go-to method had always been to put the stress in the art, but I couldn’t give the polar bears I was working on family issues when their story was a light-hearted tale about going to the beach in Malibu.
