Page 52 of What You Own
“Maybe it’s for the best.”
“Why?”
“You don’t need to remember that kind of violence, Adam. Violence directed at you because of that boy I told you to stay away from. You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.”
“He was my best friend.” For three years. We shared everything. He told me he was gay first, even before his parents. I didn’t care then, and I don’t care now.
“Your best friend?” Dad makes a weird, snorting noise. “Where is he, then? He hasn’t come to visit you once since that night.”
Something cold skitters down my spine. “He hasn’t?”
“No. Your so-called friendship must not mean as much to him if he can’t be bothered, especially after what you’ve been through. You could have died, son.” Real grief fractures his face. “I almost lost you.”
I hate seeing him like this, so lost and scared. Raymond Langley isn’t scared of anything. He needs to be strong, stoic, in charge. “I’m okay, Dad.”
“I already lost your mother. I cannot lose you too.”
“You didn’t. You won’t.”
He does something he hasn’t done since the day of Mom’s funeral. He leans down and hugs me. It’s awkward because I’m lying down, but I try to hug him back. To show him I’m on his side, that I love him too, even as my heart is breaking over Ryan’s betrayal.
ALOUDpounding near my head jolted me upright. My forehead felt funny from pressing against my knuckles, and my head was swimmy from the weird air. I coughed and blinked. More pounding turned my head toward the car window.
Lucinda made a rolling gesture with her hand, so I hit the window button. “Turn off the engine,idiota. What are you doing?”
I turned the key, surprised I’d let the car idle for so long. Long enough to fill the closed garage with exhaust fumes. Lucinda reached inside and hit the garage door opener clipped to my visor. The door cranked open, letting in fresh air. My head throbbed behind my eyes. How long had I been breathing that mess, totally unaware?
Lucinda yanked open my car door, then squatted down to my eye level. “You could have killed yourself,mijo.”
“Wasn’t trying to.”
Are you sure?
“What happened?”
“I got lost in thought, I guess.”
“With the engine running in a shut up garage?” She was getting higher-pitched, which meant her temper was rising. “People die like that, even by accident.”
“It won’t happen again.”
She looked at me, really looked at me the way only a few people ever did. Lucinda missed nothing, and she read people well. “Did you have a fight with your father?”
“No. Someone else.”
“Someone who means a great deal to you?”
“I love him, Lucy, and he left me.” The words tumbled out without permission.
Lucinda didn’t ask for details. She pulled me out of the car and into her arms, and there I felt safe enough to cry. To let out all of my anger and grief and frustration. She held me through all of it, patient as always, until I had nothing left but a stuffy nose and a headache.
Lucinda put me in a chair at the kitchen table, and I stewed in my own misery while she made me hot cocoa from scratch. Even though it was ninety degrees in July, the cocoa was exactly right. She’d done it often enough over the years. It was her universal “I want to fix this for you, but I don’t know how” maneuver.
“Did he love you too?” she asked as she put the mug down in front of me.
I studied the slowly melting marshmallows, waiting for the lump in my throat to go away before I answered. “Yes.”
“Then perhaps all is not lost. You may yet fix things.”
