Aftermath(27)

The front door opens. It’s Dr. Mandal, and she doesn’t call me over, just stands and watches, as if to say she’ll understand if I change my mind. I steel myself, and I walk toward her, and she smiles and pushes the door open wide.

I go inside and…

Even the smell is enough to make me swallow hard to keep tears from welling. It doesn’t just remind me of Jesse. It reminds me of myself. Of who I was. What I had. How my life was before.

Once I get past the front hall, though, the house has changed. Completely changed, as much as it could without gutting and rebuilding.

As Dr. Mandal leads me into the living room, I don’t recognize any of the furniture or even the arrangement of it. There are only a few trophies on a bookshelf, far fewer than Jamil earned. There are others, too, bearing Jesse’s name.

When I spot an orange cat on the sofa, I smile and say, “Hey, Phurri,” and he turns, and I see my mistake and say, “Oh.”

“Phurri died a couple of years ago. That’s Fluffy.” She spells it out as Phluphi.

I smile again. “Jasser named him, too, I’m guessing?”

Her own smile falters, and her gaze drops as she takes a chair. “No, I did, following his naming convention.”

I sit on the sofa. “I’m sorry. About Jamil. I didn’t say that earlier, and I should have. I’m sorry for what happened to him, and I’m sorry Luka…” I choke on his name. “I’m sorry my brother…” Tears fill my eyes, and I inhale sharply.

Just get this out. It’s important. Get it out.

“I’m so sorry Luka… Luka…”

“You miss him, don’t you?”

“What?” I look up sharply.

“Your brother.” A wry smile. “Silly question, isn’t it? Of course you do. I know how close you two were. You must miss him so much.”

I try to say sure, I miss him, kind of, but after what he did, that’s all changed, so nope, I don’t really… don’t really…

“It’s okay to say you miss him, Skye.”

I open my mouth to deny it, and I burst into tears.

Jesse

The minute Jesse walks in the door, he knows he’s in trouble. Well, worse trouble than he was when he left, which is saying something.

His parents have always been what one might call average disciplinarians, leaning toward permissive. Since Jamil’s death, that lean has become a dangerous slant. In a heartbeat, Jesse became their only child. He’s struggling, and they want to give him space. He’s only sixteen, a junior, bright enough to turn things around in his senior year, or – if that’s too much to ask – no one would begrudge him a victory lap.

This weekend, though, he is in trouble. The kind he hasn’t been in since before Jamil died. The kind he really can’t remember being in at all.

His parents are disappointed. They don’t say that, of course. They never say that, even when he does disappoint them. At most, he’ll get prods.

Jesse, why don’t you call up Mark, see what he’s doing this weekend?

Jesse, your teacher says you have a biology project – how about we work on that together?

After last night’s track meet, though, they’re pissed. Any pride he bought with his win, he more than canceled out by being an ass to Skye.

An ass. His mom actually said that. Well, she told him he was being “a bit of an ass” but only because she couldn’t quite bring herself to go all the way.

He had been, though. No doubt about it. A complete ass.

“She came to watch you, Jasser.”

“Me? No, she just stopped by —”

“I saw her go to the fence for your race. After you blew her off, she admitted she’d like to talk to you, and then she was embarrassed when she realized she’d said that.”

“You misunderstood.”

“How can we misunderstand ‘I’d like to talk to him’? She made it clear she means when you have time. When you’re up to it. She completely understands this must be hard for you and doesn’t want to do anything to make it harder. Apparently it’s true what they say, about girls maturing faster than boys.”

He flinched at that. Flinched not only at his mother’s disappointment, but at the knowledge that he was being a brat.

Now he comes home after Skye’s visit, and he has only to look at his mother’s face to know he’s sunk even lower.

He tries to avoid the subject of Skye. He shows his mom a couple of shirts he’s bought, and even tells a funny anecdote about some little kids in the food court. But his mom has that look on her face, the one that says she has something to say and he can tell her about his trip to the mall later.

So he braces himself and asks, “What did Skye say about me?”

Not a word. That’s what his mother tells him. His name never came up.

“She’s been through hell, Jasser. Have you even thought about what it was like for her?”

Skye didn’t complain to his mother, of course. His mom says she just cried. Cried and cried, and that hurts more than if she had complained about how badly he’d behaved.

Jesse has never seen Skye cry. She caught him once, just a stupid thing, Jamil being a jerk on a day when Jesse already felt like shit. Skye found him and sat down and said, “Huh, guess Jamil’s been getting the same emails I have,” and he said, “What?” confused enough to forget she’d caught him crying. “Emails for penis enlargement pills,” she said. “He must be buying them, too, because he’s being a bigger dick than ever.” That made him laugh so hard he choked. It was only afterward that he realized he’d never even told her Jamil was the cause of his tears. She’d known, without a word.