Arcadia's Gift(22)

Bryan relieved me of the broken backpack without a word, took my hand. “Ignore him. Come on.” He steered me toward the doors.
I felt Cane’s glare on my back the whole way down the hall and out the front doors.

Bryan offered to stay with me, but I made him go back to school. I spent the rest of the day in my pj's huddled in bed with the covers over my head.
The doorbell rang around 3:00, but neither my mother nor I made a move to answer it. Just after dark, I woke from a nap to someone knocking on my bedroom door.
"Can I come in?" Aaron's guff voice called from the hall outside.
I yanked the covers down from the tent I had made with my pillows to block out the harsh afternoon sunlight.
"Yeah,” I croaked. “Come in."
Aaron stepped into the room and glanced around. It had been a long time since he had been in my bedroom. My brother and I have never been very close. He was only fourteen months older, but he’d always held himself apart from us. I'm not sure if that was because we were girls or because he felt excluded by our twin-ness.
He didn't turn on the light, just wandered over and sat down by my feet.
"I heard what happened this morning."
"I don't know why I freaked out like that,” I groaned.
Aaron nodded in sympathy. In the light emanating from the hallway, I could see dark smudges under his lower lashes and hollowness in his cheeks. All at once I felt guilty for not being there more for him. I hadn't given much thought to the fact that he also lost a sister. My hand snaked out from beneath my peppermint-colored comforter and squeezed his. After a moment, he squeezed back.
"I would have warned you about the locker if I'd known you were going to go to school this morning. I couldn't look at it either."
"I shouldn't have flipped out like that. Lony had tons of friends. They have a right to mourn her the way they need to."
Aaron just bobbed his head and mashed his lips together.
"How are you, Aaron? Do you want to talk about it?"
He let out a whoosh of air. "Oh, I don't know, Cady. I imagine I'm feeling about like you are right now; sadness, anger —mostly at myself for not spending more time with her —with you both. And then this house... I’ve been kind of thinking about going to stay with Dad for a while."#p#分页标题#e#
“Have you told Mom yet?"
“Are you kidding?” He said with a raised eye brow, the metal bar through it glinting in the low light. “She's so doped up there’s no talking to her. I don't think she's taken a shower since the funeral. Besides, she probably wouldn’t even notice if I left."
I didn't know what to say. In the space of only a few weeks, our family as we knew it changed into something from a bad after-school special.
"I'd like to go see Dad tomorrow," I said. "Think you want to come with me?"
"Sure," he replied.
We lapsed into silence, nothing more to say. He clung to me with one hand and picked at the cuticle of his thumb with the other. Eventually, he stood up and shuffled toward the door.
Just before entering the hallway, Aaron turned back to me, his face framed in the backlight. "Think you want to try school again tomorrow?"
I shook my head. "I don't think I'm ready yet."
He nodded once in agreement. "Okay. I'll pick you up when I’m done and we can go to Dad's. Want the door closed?"
"Yeah."
Aaron left, pulling the door shut behind him. I flopped back onto my mattress. My down pillow had grown flat over the two weeks of near constant use. I yanked it out from beneath me to fluff it up. The phone started ringing. I checked the caller ID before answering. It was Bryan.
"So..." he hedged, "I’ve been sitting here for an hour debating with myself over whether I should call or not. If you don’t want to talk, that’s cool, but I at least need to know you are not sitting in the dark listening to Leonard Cohen music and contemplating banishing yourself to a European boarding school."
I grinned for the first time all day. It felt good.
"In the dark yes, but no Cohen.”
“And you’re not going to runaway to Switzerland, because right now, you are like the only friend I have here. Selfish, I know, but I am a teenager after all.”
“No Switzerland, I promise. It gets really cold there, and I don’t ski.”
We talked for a while about nothing. He never mentioned how my flip-out was talked about at school, but I'm sure even a boy with no friends would have heard the gossip bantered around. Before we hung up, I’d decided to work from home for the rest of the week and I’d start back to school fresh on Monday.






 
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