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“Okay, let’s figure this out. What—”
“Maybe I should just stay.”
Esther was silent for a second, then the mattress dipped, and her comforting and familiar scent filled my nostrils. She put her arm around me.
“No. Toby, come on. You can’t do it anymore.”
“What?”
“You can’t save her. You can’t look after her. You need to get out…now.”
I nodded, because she was right. But all of a sudden, I didn’t have the strength.
“Fuck, I need a cigarette,” I said, looking at the room around me. Those walls I’d stared at for twenty years trying to figure out what to do.
“I wish I had one for you,” Esther said, and I knew she meant it, even if she didn’t approve of the habit any more than Alastair did.
I took a deep breath. “I promised Alastair I wouldn’t smoke today.”
“Huh. That seems…overly ambitious.”
I looked at her. “What?”
“Toby,Iwant a cigarette, and I don’t even smoke.”
“Well, I’m sure we could probably find some…” I said, my gaze frantically sweeping the room.
“No, come on. We’re not wasting time looking for smokes. I’ve got an idea,” she said, covering my eyes with her hand. “Picture your room the way it was, okay? And tell me what you want to bring to Alastair’s.” She put her other hand on my back and rubbed it soothingly. “And just breathe, okay? It’s going to be all right.”
So that’s what we did. I sat on my bed with my eyes closed and told Esther what to get and where she might find it. And somehow, by some miracle, she was able to locate everything I needed. And when I opened my eyes, there was a pile of stuff outside the door to my disaster of a room of the things that meant the most to me.
And the rest could stay. The rest of it could be damned.
“Thank you,” I whispered, wiping a tear from the corner of my eye.
Esther sank to her knees in front of me and kissed my cheek. “It’s going to be okay.”
And that was when I heard voices in the driveway.
“Oh fuck. Oh fuck, fuck,fuck,”I muttered, as one of those voices sent chills down my spine.
Esther and I ran toward the front of the house.
Two cars were in the driveway…and three people.
Alastair’s car was closest, and he and Lev had got out, Lev carrying a tray of drinks and a box of donuts. They stood there as my mom, who had pulled her ratty car in behind Alastair’s, yelled at them from the rolled-down window.
“Who the fuck areyou, and what are you doing inmydriveway?”
Great, Mom. Keeping it classy.
As sad and sorry and embarrassed as I’d been before, watching my mom being a bitch to the best people I knew, made me really fucking angry.
Esther and I charged forward.
“Mom, calm down. This is Alastair and Lev. They’re helping me get some stuff from my room.”
My mom pressed down on the horn, startling everyone. Lev almost dropped the drinks.
