Breakaway (11 page)

Aunt Gladys didn't know, didn't understand what it was like to have someone in your mind all the time, someone you couldn't apologize to or share your regrets with. I figured Mom thought about Sylvia in the same way I did. Like if she ever thought about being able to hug Syl one more time her mind would immediately wander to thinking about Syl's body the way it was now, resting in its coffin in the cemetery, where we had left her to rot.

Mom and Aunt Gladys were still bickering when I banged out of the house and headed for Bad Habits to see if I could beg a free meal for dinner. There was no place else to run.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

When I left my apartment I was headed for Bad Habits but then decided I didn't feel like asking for a free meal and, as payment, having to explain why I couldn't just eat at home. So I decided to stop by Chick's instead and see if he was around.

I walked out to the Pike, only a few blocks from my house, at the intersection where the Goodwill backed up against the Laundromat, and crossed at the light. From there I could cut through the park to a large apartment building that rose up from behind the discount grocery store. It was an older building, in need of paint, and the lobby always smelled like either stale urine or pine cleaner, sometimes the two different smells fighting it out for dominance in the enclosed space.

Chick's dad had been a recovering alcoholic for a long time. When he was still drinking he had a few serious falls, enough that it gave him some brain damage and he wasn't really right in the head. He wasn't mean and, in fact, was always grateful for company if I stopped by to see Chick. Chick's mom had died when Chick was just a baby. I didn't know the whole story but she had been a drinker too, part of the reason why Chick was born with most of his health problems I always assumed, though you would never hear Chick say that. Sometimes Chick's dad would talk about his dead wife, and the way he talked about her it was like he thought Chick and I knew her, would remember what she looked like or how she acted. It was almost as if he didn't realize how long she had been dead, as if she had died just a few months ago instead of when Chick was too small to even remember her.

The two of them, Chick and his dad, lived together in a small apartment. I was never really sure where they got their money since Chick's dad couldn't hold down a job. I guess they survived on the disability check Chick's dad got from the government. Chick had an EBT card he used for groceries. My family had never qualified for food stamps, because my dad sent us money every month, though sometimes I wondered if we would have been better off with government assistance than we were with my dad's check. Sometimes he gave me a little extra money for myself, like for clothes at the beginning of the school year or an envelope of cash at Christmastime.

If I did have extra money, from working over the summer or Christmas money from my dad, I always felt like I had to turn it over to Mom to use for household expenses. It wasn't just because I wanted to help out. When I gave her money it would make her stop complaining about my dad being a deadbeat and an insensitive jerk, if only for a little while. Not that I cared so much about protecting him or his reputation, I just didn't like hearing Mom complain about him. I always felt like I had to choose a side, and to be honest, I thought they were evenly matched in a competition for the shittiest parent award.

When I got to the apartment, Chick was playing video games, his dad working on one of his Civil War models at the kitchen table. He created elaborate battle scenes, each soldier and weapon hand-painted, complete with bridges and trees and other landmarks. Each scene he created was based on a real battle, and his knowledge about troop movements and weather and other details about each battle seemed to be endless. He couldn't get his act together enough to keep groceries in the house or keep the place clean, but he could remember everything he read in one of his history books.

“Hey, Jaz,” Chick's dad said as he opened the door to my knock. He was one of the few adults who used my nickname. Most everyone over the age of eighteen called me Jason. I preferred Jaz since it was one of the only things my dad had ever given me.

“Hey, Mr. G,” I said as I stepped into the apartment. “How've you been?”

“I'm okay. Working on the Second Battle of Bull Run.”

“Cool,” I said, since there was nothing else polite to say about it. I fell into the sagging couch beside Chick, who was intently focused on one of his video games.

“Hey, Jaz,” Chick said without looking away from the screen. “What are you up to?”

“Nothing. I just had to get out of the apartment.”

“Yeah? Why?”

I could tell Mario just about anything, though usually I didn't have to. He just knew everything. Like his mom, he could size up any situation or person with a glance and his first impressions were almost always right. Jordie was too self-interested to be very perceptive about the feelings of other people. There was never much point in telling Jordie anything because he would just find a way to relate the conversation back to his own feelings or problems. Chick genuinely cared about all of us—you can't get handed such a crappy deal for life the way Chick had been and not be sensitive to other people's feelings. But if I tried to explain to him the things I had been thinking or the way my mom was acting, it would just make it worse for me. He would ask impossible questions that I couldn't answer, or make me keep talking about it long after I had gotten tired of the subject.

“No reason,” I said, an easy out. “I just don't feel like being at home. I was thinking about going to get something to eat. Want to roll?”

Chick's dad gave him some money as we were leaving. Twenty bucks. Enough to get us both a chicken-fried steak with potatoes at the diner. My mouth watered just thinking about it.

The diner was a popular after-school hangout. It was open twenty-four hours and was a destination for late-night or early-morning breakfast for just about everyone in town. The club kids came here when they had the munchies at three in the morning, and on Sundays there was a line down the street of people waiting to get into one of the dozen or so booths that lined large plate-glass windows overlooking the busy street.

Stacie was working, serving both the lunch counter and the booths by herself. I knew Stacie because she used to hang around Bad Habits a lot. She and Chris had an on-again, off-again thing. Mostly off. She was crazy beautiful and completely chill. I thought Chris was an idiot for letting her go, but he never asked my opinion. She was at the register when Chick and I walked in and I stopped to say hello. When she saw me she let out a squeal of delight. “Hey, darlin',” she said, giving me half her attention as she counted change from the cash drawer.

She handed the customer his change then came to present her cheek to me for a kiss. Stacie was in her early thirties, tall and statuesque, her hair cut short and dyed a dark purple. She had high, prominent cheekbones and full lips stained ruby red, tattoos on both arms, beautiful images of half-naked women in pinup poses. Her low-rise jeans and cropped shirt revealed a muffin top, and her breasts were large and filled out her T-shirt in an impressive way. I felt how much substance she had when she leaned in to hug me and I couldn't stop my mind from wandering where it shouldn't go.

“I'll bet the girls are falling all over themselves to get with you,” Stacie said. “Please tell me you're at least a gentleman about it. Not breaking hearts all over town.”

“How could I be interested in any girl but you, Stace?” I asked innocently.

Her eyes widened as she said, “You
are
breaking hearts all over town. Speaking of which, how's Chris doing?” Now she was ignoring a customer at the other end of the bar who was trying to get her attention.

I shrugged. “The same. You know how he is.”

“Oh, I know,” she said with a meaningful roll of her eyes. “Tell him I said hi. Or, actually, don't. Tell him you saw me and I looked great but forgot to ask about him.”

“Sure thing,” I said and she waved Chick and me toward an empty booth along the wall.

As we sat waiting for Stacie to come and take our order I glanced around at the crowd of kids hanging at the tables. There was a group of girls sitting in a booth near the jukebox and I gave them only a passing glance at first. Then my heart stuttered and my mouth went dry when I noticed her. Raine was fidgeting with the straw of her drink, laughing at something one of her friends was saying. Her eyes crinkled a little at the corners and there was a dimple in her right cheek. She caught me noticing her and I looked back to Chick quickly, relieved when Stacie stopped at our table to drop us a couple of Cokes and to take our food order.

I was fighting to keep my attention on Chick and what he was saying. He was talking about some video game he liked to play, something completely foreign to me. My mind was distracted as I wanted to look at Raine again, but didn't.

I still didn't believe what Jordie had said about Raine being into me, but you could probably call our interactions lately some kind of flirting. Sometimes when I passed her in the hallway at school I would wink at her and she would roll her eyes in return—not in a way like she was really irritated, but kind of playful. Or in Civics if I turned to look at her she would discreetly flip me the finger. Even if she was in the middle of talking up in class, she would hide her hand under the desk, giving me the finger while the rest of the class was listening to her spout off about land mines in Cambodia or the AIDS epidemic in Africa. Then I would have to fight to keep from laughing out loud.

Just to have something to do I went to use the bathroom and on my way back passed the Internet jukebox hanging on the wall, the same kind Chris had at Bad Habits. Raine was standing at the jukebox tapping on the screen as Radiohead's “There There” started to play from the speakers mounted near the ceiling throughout the room.

“You play this song?” I asked as I stopped by the jukebox.

“Yes,” she said. “Just seemed like the right song for the moment, though I don't love Radiohead.”

“No one should love Radiohead,” I said. “What else are you playing?”

“I haven't decided yet. You want to put in a request for One Direction or something?” I could tell she was trying not to smile as she said it.

“You're hilarious.”

“I know,” she said, deadpan. “So? Request?”

“Haim.”

Her mouth opened as she drew in a breath of surprise. “I love them. Which song?”

“Play ‘Don't Save Me.'”

“Sure,” she said with a nod. “Good song.”

Chick and I ate and I managed to keep my eyes off Raine for the rest of the time we were there. A small miracle. As Chick was paying the check at the register I noticed the people at her table getting up to leave. Since I was unsure if I should wave to her or say good-bye I kept my head down, my eyes fixed on my iPod as I scrolled randomly through the playlists.

When Chick and I left the diner Raine was standing in the parking lot talking to one of her friends. Just the sight of her made me respond physically, the now familiar racing of my heart, my breath hitching in my chest.

She was leaning against the door of her car as Chick and I walked down the steps to the parking lot. We turned onto the sidewalk and started the long trek back home.

As we turned into the alley to take a shortcut, a silver Acura slid up alongside us and the passenger-side window rolled down. The sunroof was open and the strains of Thievery Corporation's “Sound the Alarm” drifted out onto the late afternoon breeze. Raine leaned over from the driver's side and said, “You guys want a ride?”

“How much?” I asked.

She laughed. “No charge.”

“We live all the way down the Pike,” I said, giving her the opportunity to back out. “By the park. You going that far?”

“Whatever,” she said with a shrug.

Chick took the backseat and me the front without consultation or comment. I did it without conscious thought, but the fact that Chick would always defer the front seat without question was just part of who he was, the gesture usually unnoticed.

We were all quiet for the ride to Chick's house except for the occasional directions I gave, telling Raine when to turn. Each of us was lost in our own thoughts and Raine kept the music turned up, her playlist now on the 1975. Chick music, but they had a few catchy songs.

We were only a few blocks from Chick's apartment when Chick spoke up. “Hey, Raine,” he said, “you know that girl Felicia?” asking Raine about a girl who was part of the drama crowd.

“Sure,” Raine said. “We've been in drama together the past couple of years.”

“She seems nice,” Chick said, his head turned to watch the world passing by the window.

Raine was watching his face in the rearview when she said, “Yeah, she is nice.”

“I always see her with that Garrett guy. Are they a couple?” Chick asked.

“Garrett's gay,” Raine said. “They're just good friends.”

“You should ask her out, Chick,” I said. “Just for coffee or something. No big thing.”

“No,” Chick said quickly. “I don't think she would be into me.”

“Some girls are into nice, quiet guys, Chick,” Raine said, and my heart swelled with gratitude that she was being so nice to him.

“You think?” Chick asked. “Most girls only talk to me because they want to ask me about Jaz. You know, since Syl died. Sorry, Jaz,” he added quickly.

“It's okay, Chick,” I said as I raised my hand to rub the hair at the nape of my neck, a nervous habit I had never really noticed until recently, now that I had so much more shit making me nervous.

Raine pulled up outside Chick's building and he climbed out and gave us a wave before trotting away, his shoulders hunched under his oversized hoodie, a hand-me-down from Jordie. Even if my clothes weren't four sizes too big for Chick, they were beyond usefulness by the time I was done with them.