A List of Cages(40)

He opens the passenger door, spilling light onto us both. “Jesus,” he gasps. “What happened to you?” He looks from my face down to my T-shirt. I follow his gaze and see that it’s splattered with blood. “What happened?” he asks again, but I’m still staring at the blackish-red droplets on my chest.

Adam raises both hands like a criminal proving he’s holding no weapons. Then, slow and cautious, he touches my shoulder, maneuvering me off my bike and into the car. I stretch my cold fingers, realizing I never released my tight grip on the handlebars, not the whole time I was standing there.

Adam moves quickly like he always does to toss my bike in the trunk, then he hops into the car. He pulls my seat belt across my chest, and turns up the heater. A circle of red light appears like a glowing robot mouth, one that’s open wide in shocked horror. Adam is making the exact same face.

Instead of going to my house, or even to his, we pull into Emerald’s driveway. Like before, he opens the passenger door as if I can’t do it myself, and he guides me inside.

Emerald is dressed for bed and sitting on a chair in the living room. She leaps up, eyes filling with alarm, and suddenly she’s standing right in front of me, asking the same thing Adam did.

“What happened?”

I feel like I’ve been caught standing in a roomful of clothed people, only I’m completely naked and completely flawed. Adam takes me by the shoulders and pushes me onto the couch. He kneels to peer at my face, but I’m too ashamed to look him in the eye.

“Did your uncle do this?”

Adam’s question catches me off guard. Why would he think it was Russell? Anything could have happened. I could have fallen. I could have been burglarized. Some kids from school could have done it. But he sounds so sure, as if he knows it was Russell.

Without deciding to nod, I nod.

Adam bolts to his feet, yanks his phone from his pocket, and starts punching numbers.

I panic. “W-who are you calling?”

“The police.”

“No, don’t!” I plead.

“I’m reporting this.” All the muscles in his face are tightly coiled. “That asshole is going to jail.”

“No!”

“What do you mean, no?” he yells back. “We have to!”

He’s angry, I realize, a little stunned. I didn’t know he was capable of getting angry.

Emerald is still standing, troubled eyes flashing from Adam to me. Then she walks to the couch and sits down beside me. She squeezes my hand and says, “Calm down.”

I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or to Adam, but neither one of us calms down. I begin to shake, and he looks even angrier.

Ignoring Emerald, he demands, “Why? Why don’t you want me to call?”

“Because I don’t want you to.” Which isn’t really a reason at all, but I don’t know how to explain. Yes, Russell got angry, but that doesn’t mean I hate him. Just the idea of him in jail is making me feel sick. “You don’t know how much he’s done for me,” I finally say, hoping that maybe Adam will understand, even though he probably can’t. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be raised by someone who doesn’t have to do it. “He’s not good with kids, but he still let me live there even though it’s hard for him to have a kid in the house. Especially one like me.”

“One like you,” Adam repeats coldly.

“Yeah. I’m not…You know how I am.”

“How are you?”

“You know. I’m hard to be around. You know!”

“He told you that?” His facial muscles twitch as if they aren’t used to forming frowns.

“Adam…” Emerald’s voice is coaxing. “If he doesn’t want you to call, you can’t call. It should be his choice.”

For a moment he just looks at her, then he wheels around to rip open the door that leads to the backyard. He goes out, leaving it open and letting freezing wind into the room. A minute later, he reenters and starts pacing.

“Adam, stop,” she orders, sharply. “You’re scaring him.”

He goes completely still, face twisting in guilt. He rakes his hands through his hair, then kneels in front of me and taps my bouncing leg. “Hey, I’m not mad at you.”

I nod. I know.

“But we have to report it.”

There’s so much that Adam can’t understand. He told me once that he never met his dad, so he can’t possibly understand that fathers do things differently. Most of all, he can’t understand what it’s like to have nowhere else to go. But instead of trying to explain all that, I just say, “Please.”

He takes a deep breath. “Okay. Okay.”

He rises and walks away long enough for me to wonder if he’s coming back. Then he reappears, this time kneeling in front of me with a wet cloth. He wraps one hand around the back of my head, and with the other he dabs my lip with the cloth. Warm water spills down my chin, and my eyes sting with tears.

“Am I hurting you?”

I shake my head, blink, and the tears spill over my cheeks. I feel Emerald’s hand begin to rub small circles on my shoulders while Adam continues to gently scrub the blood from my face.

Nothing they’re doing hurts, but it feels as if something is tearing away the center of my chest. The cold is dissolving. Their hands are soft. Everything is quiet except the tears that are climbing from somewhere beneath my ribs. I’ve cried in pain and I’ve cried in fear, but these tears are different, deeper, like I’m breaking apart.