Summer Sons(115)

WHY Y’ALL NOT TELL US YOU ALMOST GOT ACTUALLY MURDERED

WHAT IS GODDAMN WRONG WITH YOU

“That’s not good,” Riley murmured. He tapped his screen. Andrew muted his phone. “The article has details leaked from police reports, it’s salacious as hell, and it names you. Eddie, too.”

Mom lit up the incoming call alert. He answered without preamble, “I guess the news got there.”

“Oh my god,” she said. Those three words held an operatic implication. “Andrew Thomas Blur, I can’t believe it, you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, Mom,” he said.

“You’re not fine,” she said. “And Eddie, my god. Oh my god.”

“I gotta go, I’m in the hospital,” he said—too tired for this. “Sorry, Mom.”

“Baby, don’t hang up on me, please,” she said.

Riley set his book facedown, split open, on his vacated seat. He left the room with his phone in hand, grimacing as he texted with manic energy. As Andrew listened to his mother cry on the other end of the line, he realized that neither of the cousins had told the group without asking him. The world where he was some sort of living ghoul, where he carried a curse that allowed him to murder with a thought, felt impossible juxtaposed against a sterile Nashville hospital room, a roommate doing homework during his visiting hours, and a sobbing parent.

Dislocation threw him so badly that he repeated, “Please, I swear I’ll call. I have to go.”

She let him hang up with an outpouring of relief and affection. Once he tapped the END CALL button, he squeezed his phone until it hurt his stitched wrists. At least he’d finished Eddie’s work. He’d solved their decade-long riddle, uncovered a generational legacy of violence and terror. That, and scattered remains, were all he had left. Riley knocked, slipping inside after a beat of silence. He thumped his forehead onto Andrew’s gown-clad shoulder as he heaved a sigh, then stood straight.

“You need to get some rest. I’ll come tomorrow. Also, I’m sure those calls are reporters, so turn your phone off,” he said.

Andrew did as he was told.

Riley continued to visit, but Sam never did. Three afternoons later Andrew allowed himself to be wheeled out of the hospital in the change of clothes Riley brought him and driven to Capitol in the Mazda, his stitches itching fiercely. The specter kept him from scratching at the knitting skin, though he tried with increasing frustration, trapped in the passenger seat of his own body. He could tell Riley felt the struggle. He avoided looking Andrew in the face, as if he were afraid of seeing a different person there. Given the shock of surviving the reprisal of all his worst dreams, he felt ungrateful for wishing that he’d died.

What now? he thought.



* * *



“Holy shit,” Riley said from the living room.

Andrew carried their mugs of coffee around the corner from the kitchen. Riley turned his laptop and pointed at the screen. The headline read, Local Graduate Student Sues for Misconduct.

“I never thought I’d be glad to read about West,” Riley said. “But given how Troth got outed as a spooky goddamn murderer, he’s taking the university to court over their handling of his and Troth’s research dispute. God bless that bastard, he deserves some recompense.”

“I’m going to go to Sam’s,” Andrew said.

Dumb consternation colored Riley’s tiny “Oh.”

“It’s been enough time,” Andrew said.

Riley sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t stop you. I can tell you it hasn’t been enough time, and he’s not okay right now, and you’re half the reason he isn’t.”

“It wasn’t—I didn’t do anything to him,” Andrew said.

“He murdered a man with his hands after watching that dude’s wife slit your wrists, and then”—he gestured sidelong at the mess that was Andrew, encompassing the broken remainder of his haunting, feral and barely controlled and part of him—“the ghost shit happened. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Sam gives and gives all the time, and he doesn’t get much in return. Have some patience if he’s being selfish. He seems tough as nails, but he almost died.”

“So did I,” he said.

“Funny how different y’all feel about that.”

The specter lifted their hand to hold the mug for warmth. Color drained from Riley’s face. The other boy’s laptop suddenly merited his dedicated attention. Instead of saying but I miss him, Andrew bolted the hot coffee in three gulping swallows, grabbed the Supra’s key ring from the table, and left.

The comfortable embrace of fall was working on the trees in the neighborhood, orange and red creeping in from the edges of leaves, a carpet of discarded foliage on lawns and porches. Time soldiered on without his agreement. The drive to the ranch house in the hills reminded him of childhood field trips. His revenant offered him a burst of twinned recognition and delight at the crisp breeze.

The WRX sat parked in the drive. Andrew carried himself and his passenger up the steps, listening with half an ear to the impression of missing–welcome–fun–irritation it offered at the sight of Sam’s place. He knocked on the frame of the storm door, then waited. Without much ado the main door opened. The sight of Halse standing barefoot, with bandages bright white against his tan face, settled and unsettled him at the same time.