Page 9 of Second Story

Isaac tenses, and I’ve been around more than my share of violence in and out of boxing rings. This is the first time I’ve seen the potential for it in someone I only ever knew as gentle. Now Isaac’s jaw clenches again, his gaze as stony as this cliff we stand on, and for a long, drawn-out moment, I wonder if he’s about to give me a shove to send me over its edge.

Part of me wouldn’t blame him. Another part of me must be more like my brother than I realised. I spit facts, sounding just as black and white as Josh about piss-poor decisions, only my facts relate to life chances instead of accident statistics. “Kids like Lenny need to be in school. You know how many strikes he already has against him. You promised not to add to those strikes when you became his official guardian.”

“Oh, we’re talking about promises, are we?”

Isaac still whispers, but Lenny stirs, dislodging a book he must have fallen asleep reading. It’s dog-eared, as if well-loved and read often. And fuck me, it’s the exact same book I asked another welfare officer to pass on to Lenny for me.

Every Scar Tells a Story.

My surprise is the only reason Isaac gets close enough to punch me. Only he doesn’t lash out. Instead, he fists the lapels of my suit jacket, and I’m yanked away from the van and hustled back to my car. That’s a sign he’s stronger than when we first met, that he’s worked hard to toughen up. I see it in neat biceps bunching when he resumes knotting his tie.

Isaac loops it around his neck, yet it’s my throat that tightens at this truth bomb exploding. “Because if we’re talking about promises, how about the one you made to Len? You promised him you’d see him again soon. You wrote it inside that book.”

I did. Back then, I honestly thought I would get to see the Webbers again, only not in my support role.

“You know what’s worse?” Isaac sounds cool, calm, and collected even though the way he fucks up knotting that tie suggests he isn’t. So does his audible tremor. “Y-you promised me everything would be okay.”

“I thought it would be. I was told—” I stop myself and swallow. I’m older than Isaac. Not quite daddy material at almost thirty, but I should be mature enough to explain this without stuttering in front of someone younger.

Not by much.

He’ll be twenty-five this summer.

Why the fuck I memorised Isaac Webber’s birthday is a puzzle for future me to piece together. Right now, I need him to hear me. “I truly believed everything would be okay. I got that wrong.” He shakes his head as I keep going. “I had to pass Lenny on to someone else on the welfare team.”

“He’s a kid, not a game of pass the fucking parcel.”

Now isn’t the time to tell Isaac that his protectiveness still blows me away. That him stepping up without hesitation to be a stand-in parent always impressed me, which only makes it all the stranger to find him not taking good care of his little brother.

Here go my welfare officer instincts butting in where they’re not welcome.

“Why isn’t he at school? And why is he asleep now?”

Isaac blinks slowly. “Like I already said. That’s none of your business.” This smile is small and tight instead of the too sweet to survive in Wintergreen version I remember. Isaac whispers again, which should sound equally soft and gentle. It doesn’t. “You got rid of him, remember?”

“I didn’t get rid of either of you.”

“Passed him on, then. Whatever. Lenny isn’t your problem anymore. Hasn’t been for ages. He’s mine. And if you must know, his school is closed today or he’d be there. And I didn’t pick that happening right before a last-chance job interview, or for there to be a fucking train strike. Driving through the night wasn’t ideal, but I’m making it work. For him.”

Isaac drags a hand through hair this sea-salted breeze makes even wilder, a move I’d forgotten until I see him repeat it, and his hand shakes. The last time I saw it do that was after his mother was arrested.

He’s exhausted, like he was then.Wiped out, like those first few weeks when Lenny landed in his lap with no warning and I checked in daily. I didn’t need to keep visiting as often once I saw that protectiveness of his in action, and in any other case, I wouldn’t have. Under normal circumstances, Lenny’s mother would have been bailed and home within days. When that didn’t happen, I ended up having months of contact with someone who could have been a poster boy for caring. Now Isaac’s chin lifts as if he assumes I’m judging.

“He thinks we’re on an adventure. That us driving through the night was all part of a story.”

That’s what I used to find Isaac doing whenever I made welfare visits during those first helter-skelter weeks when he was the only adult left for Lenny to lean on. I heard Isaac spinstories for his little brother. Listened to him turn a nightmare into a crusade for Lenny to play his way through. Looks like that hasn’t changed, given what he next confesses.

“Len fell asleep in the city and woke up as soon as I crossed the Cornish border. He saw the stars, Joe, and his eyes…” His own melt like they used to before he decided I was foe instead of friend, and fuck my life, he’s exactly as filled with magic as I remember. “So many stars. Never gonna forget showing them to him up on the moors, even if I don’t get the job.”

For an all-too-brief second, the Isaac I first knew has stars of his own in his eyes.

He blinks again, those stars winking out, and this is harsher.“Don’t ruin it, Joe. Don’t wake him up and scare him about not being in school today.” He swallows. “Don’t let him see you at all. He’ll only get his hopes up that you’re back to keep your promise.” He just as quickly adds, “The one you made to him. Not the one you made to me that turned out to be bullshit.”

“I didn’t?—”

He yanks at that knot in his tie and curses.

“Here.” I move without thinking, and we’ve only ever been chest-to-chest like this, so close our hips and hearts align, twice before. The last time was on a beach. This repeat is a reminder of the first occasion—the one and only time I almost crossed a line with the guardian of a kid on my watch.

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