Page 9 of Indigo Sky

"What happened?" she asked, concerned and confused. "Nathan stormed through the house and left. He got water all over my floor."

"I dunno," I mumbled, just as clueless. "We were talking, and he blew up."

It hadn’t been the first time. Nate was notorious for flying off the handle over seemingly trivial things. Like, one time, this kid behind the counter at McDonald’s had accidentally given him small fries instead of a large, and Nate threw his entire bag of food at him. It didn't take much to set him off, and his outbursts were often unpredictable. I'd grown used to it though, and luckily, so had my parents.

Mom sighed. "That poor kid needs help," she said quietly, as if I could do something about it.

"Yeah."

"Maybe I should talk to the school guidance counselor."

I scoffed at that. "Oh, he'd love that."

She sniffed a gentle laugh, kicked off her flip-flops, and sat down beside me, dunking her legs into the pool. She wrapped her arm around my shoulders and touched her temple to mine.

"Yeah, I know," she replied. "It's just hard, being a mom and seeing a kid in trouble, knowing there's not much you can do for him but give him food and shelter when he needs it."

"You could call the cops," I suggested almost sarcastically, but, no, I meant it.

Mom was quiet for a moment, her legs stilling in the water. Her feet were smaller than mine at that point, and that weirded me out a little.

Then, she admitted, "I have, Rev."

Well, that was news to me.

"What?" I asked, turning to face her.

Mom deflated with a heavy sigh and nodded. "I call every couple of months, especially when I see a really ugly bruise or something. The cops are aware; they know something's wrong over there, but there isn't enough to get him taken out of there, I guess. I dunno. The system is weird, and I don’t entirely understand it."

"What does his mom have to do?" I spat, hardly believing what I was hearing. "Kill him?"

Maybe Nate was right.

Maybe people were allowed to get away with too much.

Mom hung her head and shrugged a limp shoulder. "I don't know. Perhaps I'm not trying hard enough. I should call more often."

"One time should have been enough."

"The thing is, Revan, we don't really know what's happening over there," Mom said, and I had to admit, she’d made a point. "We've never even been inside his mother's house. God, I can count on one hand the number of times I've had a conversation with the woman, and, no, I didn't think she was aparticularly stellar mother, but I didn't immediately take from it that she was beating the crap out of her son either. For all we know, he really is having accidents—"

"Oh, shut up, Mom." I shook her arm off my shoulders. "Accidents?If you believe that, you're as stupid as the freakin' cops."

Mom slumped forward, defeated, and pursed her lips. "No, I didn't say I believed it. What I'm saying is, I don'tknow. The cops have a file, and they know about the situation, but if there isn't enough proof to make an arrest or pull him out of there, there's not much I can do about it."

"He wants to drop out of school," I blurted out before I could stop myself. "I don't know what's gonna happen to him if he actually does it. I don't know what they'd …" I shook my head, a thousand scenarios barreling through my mind. "I dunno what they'd do."

Mom's eyes searched mine, and they filled with a mutual understanding as she nodded. "I wish I knew what else to do, hon. But you know if he needs somewhere to go, I'd never turn him away. I hope he knows that too."

***

We had the summer, and it was mostly good. Nate came camping with us at the end of June, and in July, we headed down to Jersey Shore for an entire week with my parents. We spent our days on the beach and our nights on the boardwalk. We hung out with kids who didn't know us enough to hate us, and I evenscored a number from a girl I knew I’d never see again … but shelikedme.

Honestly, at that point in my young life, it was the best week I could remember having.

But then came August.

It was hot, and Long Island was dry. Dad complained daily that he couldn't seem to drench the lawn enough before the sun came to soak it up again. Mom talked about brush fires out east, near Montauk, and about how badly we needed a solid month of downpours to get ourselves back to a good place, as if we could wish it to happen and have it come true.

---