Page 15 of Just for Him
He paused, putting the pieces together. “And you having to come to the police station yesterday gave him that excuse.”
I said nothing. I didn’t have to.
“Fuck, Haven!” he cursed. “I knew I shouldn’t have come here. I should have let them put me in foster care. I’ll be eighteen soon, and then I won’t be a burden on anyone.”
“First of all, watch your language, or I’ll be putting dish soap in your next cup of coffee. And secondly, I don’t ever want to hear you say that again. You’re my brother.”
“Half-brother.”
“Brother. We’re family, and family needs to stick together when things get rough.”
He laughed, but it was a sharp, cold laugh, far too jaded for a seventeen-year-old with his whole life ahead of him and so much potential. “Do you believe in Santa Claus, too?”
“Stop it.”
“Or what? You’ll kick me out?”
We both knew I wouldn’t do that. I had fought too hard to get him with me. I had known going in that there would be rough patches. I had also known he deserved a chance. What he made out of it was ultimately up to him, but I was going to make sure he got one.
“I’m not giving up that easily.”
“You wouldn’t be the first. Maybe you should. If I wasn’t around, you could go back to school, get a decent job, and make time for your cop boyfriend.”
“Joel!” I called after him as he stormed back into his bedroom and slammed the door.
I sank down at the table and put my head in my hands. Joel tended to put the blame for anything that went wrong on his own shoulders. No matter how many times we talked about it, we always came back to the same thing. Joel felt like everything was somehow his fault.
I blamed his mother. Once our father had left her, there was no one to keep Jolene in line, and she had blamed Joel for everything. He had grown up hearing how he was the reason Jolene couldn’t get a decent job and the reason she lost the jobs she did manage to get. That because of him, they couldn’t afford to live in a decent place or have nice things.
None of that, of course, was because she was a lying, stealing crack addict.
I wished I’d known what was going on earlier, but as it was, I hadn’t, not until the social worker called me at the beginning of summer. If Ihadknown, I would have gotten him out of there a whole lot sooner.
Our father had left my mother, too, but our situations were totally different. My mother had moved us back in with my grandmother so she could go back to work and I had someone around to take care of me. Things hadn’t always been easy, but there had never been a moment in my life when I hadn’t felt wanted or loved. I learned from them. They wouldn’t have thought twice about picking up a second job or postponing night school to help me out, and neither had I. When you cared about someone, that was just what you did.
It was a shame I couldn’t make Joel see that.
He stayed in his room most of the afternoon. Not even freshly baked chocolate chip cookies drew him out for more than a few minutes. I took advantage of the unexpected day off by tidying up the place, catching up on the laundry, picking up some groceries, and making a few meals that would freeze well, not that they would last long with a teenaged human Hoover around.
Dinner was a subdued affair. We talked about his schoolwork and a history project he was working on, as well as a book he needed to read for English class. Neither one of us brought up the suspension. We had heard nothing from the school or the police.
Joel insisted he didn’t steal those things, and I believed him. He also told me that he didn’t know how they got into his locker, and that Ididn’tbelieve, because he hadn’t been able to look me in the eye when he had said so. There was more to that story, I was sure of it, but for some reason, he wouldn’t tell me.
After dinner, he helped me with the dishes, then disappeared back into his room. I caught another couple hours of shut-eye.
When I knocked on his door at ten-thirty to let him know I was going to work, he surprised me by coming out fully dressed and informing me that he was going to start walking me to Lindelman’s at night.
I didn’t know what to think of this new development. Was he being considerate and protective? Was he just bored and needed an excuse to get out of the apartment? Or was there an ulterior motive?
Even more surprising than his impromptu escort, he took a seat at the counter once we got there, pulled out his school books, and started working on his math homework. He was just finishing up a piece of apple pie when Officer Vinnie walked in.
As relieved and happy as I was to see Vinnie looking safe and as handsome as ever, I held my breath when he sat next to Joel at the counter. Joel gave him a sideways glance, then began gathering up his things and stuffing them into his backpack.
“I’m heading back,” Joel told me. “Don’t want to be busted for breaking curfew.”
Rather than be offended, I could have sworn I saw Vinnie’s lips twitch.
“Sorry I didn’t make it in last night,” Vinnie said, turning those glistening dark eyes my way. “Something came up.”
