Page 37 of Borrowed
Only now, it didn’t sing.It just clanked like bones.Mother and Father couldn’t afford a home like before.My stomach flipped, not a happy flip, a ‘sick, too-much-spin’ kind of flip.
“I don’t wanna go back,” I whispered.
Mother didn’t hear.Or maybe she did and just liked pretending she didn’t.
“You could run,” Toby offered sweetly.“Hide under the house and run into the woods.Into the lake.Into the fire again.”
“No,” I whispered.“No more burning.”
We stopped in the driveway.The engine clicked off, and the silence got louder.
Mother turned to me.Finally, her eyes were pale, duller than mine, duller than his.They looked at me but not into me.
“I need you to be good,” she said softly, like a prayer.“No more…episodes.Understand?Later, I’m taking you to church, Tob—Tabby.”
I nodded because I was supposed to.
With a sigh, she looked over at me again.Her face got angry.“I wish you’d give me my fucking son back.I just want Toby.”
She opened the door and walked up the porch without waiting for me.
Toby stayed beside me.
He leaned close, his breath warm and wrong on my neck.“She hates you, Sister.Not because you’re sick.Because you remind her of me…all she can see is me.”
My skin itched.My fingers crawled up my arms, scratching, scratching, like maybe I could peel him off.
“She should’ve burned instead,” he hissed.“She made me bleed and made you beg.And now she wants to tuck you in and pretend?”
“I don’t remember?—”
“But I do.”
I looked at him, really looked.His bandages were darker today.Thicker.Wet around the edges, singed like corn and red in places.I reached for him.
“Don’t,” he snapped, locking my wrists inches from his face.“Not yet.”
“Why not?”I frowned.
“Because if you look,” he said, voice thick like smoke as his hands burned my skin, “When you see me.You won’t ever be able to forget what’s underneath.”
I shivered.
Did I want to remember?
The house looked smaller than I remembered.
That red porch swing still leaned too far to the left, crooked like a mouth mid-sentence.Father never fixed it, he said, ‘It added character.’
I used to think that meant he liked it.
Now, I think he just didn’t care enough to make it right.The only thing saved from the old burning house.Maybe that’s what happened with me and Toby.Our parents’ love gave us character.
The wind moved through the long grass at the edge of the yard, and for a moment, I saw us there in the distance, far away from this fake home…Toby and me.
He had a grass stain on his shirt, and he was shouting about burying treasure, and I was laughing because he used a soup spoon to dig.That moment shimmered like cellophane over the real world.I blinked, and it popped.
Mom’s car door slammed behind me.She was already clutching her purse like it might run off if she let it breathe.
