Living in this place is worse than the group home where I had to sleep with one eye open in case the older kids tried to play pranks or molest me.
I should start a log like on Star Trek. Something like: Z’s Log, Stardate five. It’s been five days since I moved to this new planet. The creature inhabiting this place continues to be quiet, hostile, and restless. The prime directive (that’d be Kade) said that my emancipation would take at least six months. I’m currently in bed, listening to the creature scream. I thought about placing a pillow over his head and pressing hard until the sound is gone. Since the directive might frown upon that, I desist from acting.
My other options are to head to the music room or wake him up so he can call me an asshole and one of those people. My arms are too tired to practice for the rest of the night. I choose confrontation. If I don’t do that now, I’m never going to sleep. I turn on all the lights. This time I’m going to be the asshole he swears I am because being nice didn’t work with him.
“Dude, wake the fuck up,” I say, shaking him hard.
The time to be gentle is over. I’m not going to coddle him when he’s a prick with me.
He gasps, his eyes open wide, and he starts coughing. For fuck’s sake, doesn’t he know how to breathe?
I help him sit up and pat his back. He’s shaking, sweating, and gasping for air. I touch his forehead because maybe he’s sick and running a high fever. He’s not. Even when he’s soaking wet, he’s as cold as a popsicle.
“What is going on with you?” I ask, concerned. “Maybe we should call Tristan. This isn’t just a bad dream.”
“No,” he says. “I don’t want to burden them with my problems.”
“This isn’t normal. Aside from the sleepless nights, you’re screaming. I don’t know shit, but Google says it can be PTSD. Did you go through some traumatic experience I should know about?”
He sighs.
“I know you hate me, but—"
“I don’t hate you,” he interrupts me. “Guys like you—”
“Fuck, we’re back to ‘guys like me,’” I groan. “Are you talking about orphans who can’t stay longer than a few months in a foster home because they’re annoying as fuck?”
“No, jocks,” he mumbles.
I try not to laugh, but come on. Is he for real? “So, I’m a jock who’s going to give you a wedgie, huh?”
He shrugs. “In my experience, that’s how it goes.”
“Well, I’m the kid who learned how to run fast to avoid the wedgies,” I clarify. “Since we have something in common, maybe you can tell me what is happening to you. I’m guessing that, like me, you lost your parents. Unlike me, it happened recently.”
He finally looks at me. His eyes are a beautiful blue-gray tone. They’re the color of the ocean. Something makes me want to stare at them forever. I don’t, though. For the first time, his gaze softens. “Your parents died?”
Ah, pity. It’s worse than being compared to a jock.
“It was long ago. It doesn’t matter,” I say defensively. “I take it yours are alive.”
He shrugs. “I’m not sure about my father. I never met him. My mother hates me.”
“Did you try to have a conversation with her?”
His eyes narrow. “Should I have done it while she tried to kill me, or wait until she put a bullet through me?”
I reach for his hand and squeeze it, just the way Sadie and Hannah do when they comfort me. “I’m sorry.”
He closes his eyes.
Chapter Nine
Ethan
Why am I telling him this?
I swore that in this new life, I’d be normal. Not the kid my mother hates so much she wanted to kill him.
Zeke holds my hands as the memories of my last day in Texas replay. Who am I kidding? That’s all I think about night and day.
Nights are the worst. The darkness makes everything more vivid. In my dreams, everything feels real, and sometimes I can’t escape Mom, or I watch that asshole trying to touch…I don’t want to think about what could’ve happened to Tucker that night.
Just before Zeke woke me up, I was dreaming that I was at home.
This time when my mother waved the gun, she yelled, “I should’ve aborted you!” She didn’t just point at my chest. She shot me and I was on the floor bleeding, dying.
It felt just as real as the last time I saw her. The time when the words, “You’re not worth keeping around. You never were,” did as much damage as a bullet in the chest.
I hold my head because I can’t escape those memories. The words, the sound of the gunshot. Thankfully, I ran fast enough that she missed. I never stopped running until I arrived at Tucker’s place. I shouldn’t have, but it seemed like the only alternative at the time. He is my best friend and the only person who, at the time, knew that my mother was treating me like a criminal.
I wanted to escape my life, leave everything behind, and never look back. Tucker did too. Things with his mother were almost as bad for him. That evening, we hung out in the back of the apartment complex where he lived. We passed a joint while we complained about our shitty luck and our mothers. His biological mother abandoned him when he was a baby. His adoptive parents didn’t care for him anymore.
Sadly, I couldn’t talk him into coming with me.
When it was time for me to leave, I kissed his cheek. It was a goodbye. I was either going to escape, or my mother would kill me. Those were the only outcomes.
“I love you,” I told him.
He let me down gently like he did every time I mentioned my feelings for him. I knew he didn’t love me, but I needed to say it one more time in case I didn’t see him again.
I was walking away when I heard Tucker’s mother’s boyfriend yelling.
“Breathe, Ethan,” I hear Zeke’s voice breaking through Tucker’s grunts while the boyfriend was punching and kicking him.
“No,” I yell when I watch him kneel.
“You’re okay,” Zeke repeats.
Am I? because all I see is Tucker’s mother’s boyfriend, kneeling in front of Tucker, unzipping his pants. He’s yelling, “I’m going to make you a man. You want cock? You’re going to take a real man’s dick.”
It was my fault for kissing him on the cheek and telling him I loved him. He doesn’t love me that way, but I wanted him to know.
My good intentions almost got him raped, if not killed.
“Stay with me. Breathe in and out.”
Zeke’s voice is desperate. Almost as desperate as my voice, begging Tucker to wake up while the boyfriend lay on the ground unconscious after I hit him on the head with a rock.
“Count with me,” Zeke continues. “One. Just fucking say one and take a long deep breath.”
“One,” I finally speak.
“Good, you’re coming back. Say two,” he orders. “And exhale all the air out along with those toxic thoughts.”
I continue the breathing exercise until I open my eyes. Zeke kneels right in front of me. His phone is on top of the bed.