Page 42 of Hello Forever
“It’s called an ocular migraine—the edges of your vision go dark. It’s creepy as hell but it alwaysgoesaway.”
Thatdidsound creepy as hell. “Don’t drive like that. I’ll do it. I’ll drive your car.” I climbedoffhim.
Cax let out a sigh. “Would you? I’m not doingsowell.”
I could see that. “Come on. Where areyourkeys?”
* * *
“The school isup here on the right,” Cax said. He covered his eyes with hishands.
“The glare is killing you, isn’t it?” I asked. There was an inch or two of new snow on the ground. It made the town glisten. The sun had come out to sparkle on every whitesurface.
“Yeah. But tomorrow I’ll be fine. Just have to keep telling myself that. It alwaysgoesaway.”
I pulled to a stop behind the line of cars at the curb. “The kids are starting to comeoutnow.”
Cax dragged his hands off his eyes and sat up straighter. He wore an uncomfortable squint that made me acheforhim.
“Here.” I took off my sunglasses and passed them to him. “Puttheseon.”
He accepted them without argument. “Thanks for driving. Some high school kids have been giving Scotty trouble on the bus, and I’ve been picking him up on the days when I’m notteaching.”
“Poor kid.” I’d beenthere.
“My asshole father is no help. He told Scotty to punch somebody and then they’d leave him alone. As if a sixth-grader can clock a high school junior on a crowded bus and live to tell about it. Dad lives in a parallel universe where a real man can take down a bully by merely emitting a bit of testosterone into theatmosphere.”
“Here he comes.” I saw a skinny kid approaching the car, a smile on his face. When he got close enough to see his brother in the passenger’s seat, his expression becamecurious.
“Hey,” the boy said, opening the back door. “Youokay?”
Jeez. Sharp kid. I hated wondering why he’d jump to the conclusion that something was wrongwithCax.
“I’m just having a migraine headache,” he said. “I’ll be fine tomorrow. But my friend Axel offered to drive, so I took him uponit.”
“Hi Scott,”Isaid.
“Hey, Axel. You work at the basketball games,right?”
“Suredo.”
The kid pulled the car door closed. “You keep thestats?”
“Negative,” I said. “Stats would be awesome, but I’m just handling the Twitter feed, and I write articles about the games for thealumni.”
“No way! I liked that thing you did for the Yale game on Instagram. The bulldog rollingdownhill?”
“Thanks!” I said, holding a hand back and over my shoulder, palm towards Scotty. He high-fived it. “Didn’t know I’d meet a followertoday.”
Cax directed me to his father’s house. Even his voice soundedpained.
“Did you take anything?” Scottyasked.
“Sure did, pal,” Cax said, straightening up in his seat. “And when I get home, I’ll take a hot shower. That always helps.” He pointed up the block. “It’s the brick…Oh,shit.”
His father was on the front walk, shovel in hand. I recognized him after all this time—an older and grayer version of the sour man I remembered. He looked up just as Inoticedhim.
Tension radiated from Cax, so I stopped the car a distance away from where his dad stood. Cax clicked open the passenger-side door and got out just as Scotty did. Their dad walked towards us, an unreadable expression on his face. “Who’s drivin’ your car?” heasked.
