Kicking Eternity (7 page)

“Who’s this?” Eddie’s voice demanded in her ear.

She dropped her arms, stepped back. “A friend. Drew. I needed a ride.”

They spoke at the same time. “I said I’d meet you at camp,” Eddie said.

“I sold my car to help pay for my ticket to Africa.”

Eddie’s gaze darted around the parking lot, then settled on Drew.

Drew held out his hand. “Hey, man.”

Eddie looked at Drew’s hand.

“Come on. Let’s get something to eat,” Raine blurted into Eddie’s rudeness.

Drew dropped his hand.

Eddie looked at her. “I don’t want to go in. Lights bother me.”

Lights? Or did the police or loan sharks want him? “Fine, I’ll go buy something.” She strode toward the double glass. She didn’t trust Eddie to buy food with the money she gave him. She heard Drew’s footsteps close behind her.

The line was three deep. Raine peered through the glass trying to see Eddie.

“Do you want me to go keep an eye on him?” Drew’s arm brushed hers as they moved up in line.

She glanced at him, but he’d stepped out of her personal space.

Raine blew out her breath. “No. He’s not going anywhere till I give him the money.” She was too stressed to worry about what Drew thought. He locked his eyes on the illuminated yellow menu behind the counter.

“I’ll get you something for giving me a ride—” and protection.

Drew shot her a look.

“Or not.”

As she stepped out of the air-conditioned restaurant into the muggy night, relief shot through her. Eddie still stood in the shadows where she had left him. He could have been shot, frightened away, anything.

“Here.” She shoved the bag into Eddie’s hands.

“Thanks.” Eddie’s gaze darted from her empty hands all around her. He was looking for her purse. He wanted money, not food. She knew him too well.
Let him sweat.

“You’re not going to eat?”

“I’ll eat.”

“You’re thinner than last time I saw you. You look bad, Eddie. You need help. I met some guys fundraising for Teen Challenge. They’re guys who were just like you. But they got help. They have a life now.”

Eddie peered at her from hooded eyes. She could feel the resentment radiating from him. She heard the scuff of Drew’s flip-flop against the asphalt beside her.

“Let us run you to Orlando to Teen Challenge right now.” She shot Drew a pleading look and got his nod of agreement.

“I’ve got a job lined up, a place to stay—”

“There’s nothing going on in your life right now that’s more important than getting clean.” She reached out grasping for the Eddie she knew was buried deep inside. “I love you. I always think this will be the last time I see you.” She squeezed her eyes shut and felt the tears run down her face.

Eddie let out a brittle laugh. “You’re always so melodramatic, Rainey! I’m fine. Fine. Getting better. Really. Don’t worry.” He gave her a small grin, a tattered remnant of the brother she used to have. “I love you, too. But I’m not ready for Teen Challenge.”

“Please! I’m begging you.” The words came out in a cry.

“Give me the summer. If I can’t pull my life together by then, I’ll go in.”

“September First?”

Eddie blew out a breath. “September First.”

She pulled the wad of bills out of her pocket and put them in his hand.

“Thanks. I’ll pay you back in a couple of weeks.” Now his smile was wide, but she knew better than to buy it.

“It’s not a loan.” Somehow, she was less angry when she chose to give him money instead of his siphoning it from her.

“Thanks, sis.” He looked like he’d say more, but glanced at Drew. “I gotta run.”

She grabbed hold of him one last time. She said the words into his ear willing them to penetrate his heart—as though the words alone could rescue him. “I love you.”

#

Raine and Drew rumbled along in silence. Drew’s dash lights bored holes into Raine’s taut nerves. Wasn’t Drew going to say anything? The car cover cloaking her whole sordid life had just been ripped off. She felt exposed.

“You can do things to help.” Drew’s voice pierced the darkness.

“Like?”

“Don’t give him money.”

“Let my brother starve to death.”

“He’s not going to spend that money on food.”

“How do you know?”

Drew braked to a stop at a red light. “Eddie’s an addict.”

“Says who?”

“Rainey.” His voice was gentle. “His pupils are enlarged–”

“It’s dark out. All our pupils are enlarged.”

“He’s twitchy, underweight, paranoid.”

“Eddie’s not an addict.
He just uses dangerous drugs more than he should.
” She could feel the tears bunching in her eyes. If she could convince Drew it wasn’t true, maybe it wouldn’t be.

“Is it meth?” Drew’s voice was soft.

“Now you’re an expert?” She could hear the sharpness in her voice, but she fought for Eddie.

“I’ve worked with the drug awareness program at school since I started teaching.” He tilted her chin up to force her to look at him. “Why are you trying to hide the truth from me?”

She could feel the tears
sliding
down her face as she stared at Drew. There was only caring in his eyes. “I’ve never told anyone.” Her cheeks tickled from the tears. She scrubbed them dry with her hands and looked out the window at the stubby palmetto bushes on the side of the road. “Eddie’s Eddie. He’s not an addict. He’s trapped
in a bad circle of friends
.”

Drew pulled through the intersection. “Make it as hard as possible for him to keep using. Let him take the consequences of using. He’s not going to quit until he hits bottom.”

The emotions inside her collided and fused to a r
ed-hot
poker of anger
. “What else did you learn in a text book?”

“Rainey, that’s not fair. I’m only trying to help.”

“Stop it! Did you hear Eddie call me, ‘Rainey?’ That’s why I hate it when you call me that!”

Silence filled the truck cab the rest of the way back to camp. Drew pulled into the grassy lot behind the Canteen and killed the engine.

Neither of them moved to get out of the truck. Raine looked sideways at Drew. He stared at the croton hedge as he chewed on the inside of his cheek. Her
jab
hit bull’s eye, and now she regretted it.

“Don’t you think I know this stuff? I did my senior research paper on meth addiction. My parents thought it was altruistic. They didn’t have a clue Eddie was doing drugs.” She turned toward him, wanting to make him understand.

“But when I look my brother in the eye, I can’t not-help him. He’s the person I’m closest to in the world. I’m the only one he confides in. I have to be there for him. Or there’s no one.”

“You’re enabling him. C
an’t you see it?” Drew’s eyes pleaded with her to accept what she
would never
accept.

The anger came flooding back. She slid out of the truck to the ground. “Don’t give me advice till you’ve lived my life.” She slammed the door.

A blue jay twittered outside the window. Cal heard voices and the scuff of shoes on the dirt as the stragglers headed toward the dining hall for lunch. He stepped into the classroom, inhaling the lingering scent of paint and turpentine that marked the room as his.

Raine stood facing
Day at the Beach
with her back to him. Maybe she regretted
freezing him out
yesterday and came to apologize.

A board groaned under the weight of his foot and she spun around. Tears slicked down her cheeks and she wiped them away. “What does this painting mean?”

He braced himself against her tears and shrugged one shoulder as if she wasn’t getting to him. Raine wouldn’t like his telling her what the painting meant. But maybe he should. It would give her a glimpse of how people think who aren’t like her. But he wasn’t into baring his soul. Ever.

His usual response slid out. “The important thing is what it means to you.”

“What if I’m wrong?”

“You can’t be wrong. Everyone is entitled to his own interpretation.” He pulled a chair out and straddled it. Of course, sometimes people came up with certifiably crazy interpretations of his work.

Raine looked back at the painting and sank to the tabletop
,
still entranced. Cal’s gaze followed hers though he knew the painting, probably one of his best, without looking.

A figure with no distinguishing male or female characteristics walked on the beach casting a long shadow. Three boys and a girl strung out behind the figure. One of the boys was out in the sun, running for the water, hope etched on his face. One tennis-shoe-clad foot remained in the figure’s shadow. The faces of the children in the shadow couldn’t be seen. They
appeared
hunched. One carried a toy bucket and shovel. One wore an inflatable inner tube around his waist.

“It makes me think about my family.” Raine didn’t take her eyes off the picture. “Three boys and a girl. One child sees his dad casting an oppressive shadow over all their lives.”

Cal
wanted her to say more. His gaze welded to
the play of emotion on her face.

She turned to him. “I don’t think I ever realized how wrong a child’s view can be.” She looked back at the painting. “You make me see that the best place for the children is out in the sunshine—maybe holding the dad’s hand, looking up at him expectantly. Or dancing around him with expressions that say, ‘Look at me, look at me, aren’t I something special!’
”

Cal was thrown off balance. He had painted God’s oppression of man, his mother’s oppression of the family. That was Cal, almost out of God’s shadow and into the sunshine, poised to run into the water. He didn’t want to hear this wasn’t how
life
should
be.

Raine had unknowingly pictured a relationship with God, one where the children got to play in the sunshine, interact with God, probably even swim in the ocean. But, for him, it was too hard to imagine.

Raine fixed her eyes on him. “You disagree.” She tilted her head to one side. “So, tell me what you were thinking when you painted the picture.”

“We’re oppressed, and our only hope is to make a break for it.”

“Oppressed by what?”

“Doesn’t matter.” He stood and shoved the chair under the table. He wasn’t having this conversation.

“Where did you get such a bleak take on life?”

“Not everyone swallows the home-school
-PC
version of life. Look, I’m out of here. Enjoy the painting. Make it mean whatever you want.”

He turned and walked out.
Part of him wanted to believe Raine. Part of him wanted to yank his foot out of the shadow, run into the ocean, and never look back.

#

Drew finished his stretches under the light of the moon. He looked around one last time for Jesse. Something must have come up. He had a lot on his mind. It was probably better for him to run alone tonight anyway.

He replayed Monday night’s argument with Rainey. Wow! Was he going to have to quit calling her Rainey? She knifed him on that one. He understood her protectiveness of Eddie, but it hurt when she came out snapping like a crawfish.

He ran hard, pounding out his frustration against the sand. At the jetty, he slowed his pace.

This shouldn’t be about him and his hurt. This was about Rainey. Eddie was tearing her up inside. Anyone who’d watched her at
Lost Lagoon
would have seen it.
Lord, rescue Rainey from the co-dependent mess she has going with Eddie. Get that kid help. Throw his butt in rehab, jail, something. Pry him off Rainey’s back.

He ran back down the beach at half speed, thinking about Rainey’s plan to teach in Africa. She’d lifted her chin just a little when she told him that first night at orientation—like she dared him to challenge her. There had been steel in her voice. Was she trying to escape Eddie? At least she was committed to doing something for God. What about him?

He was twenty-five and still lived in the apartment over his folks’ garage. He doubted that was God’s grand plan for his life. But he never thought about it till Kurt left. He didn’t do separation from family—especially Kurt—well. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate little brother tag along if he followed Kurt to Japan. He couldn’t even choke down sushi.

He slipped into a jog thinking about the
Africa Cries
kids he hooked up with last winter when they were in town for concerts. He’d been captivated by the lanky, black-skinned boys, the girls with nubby hair as short as the boys’, the joy
radiating from
their faces when they told their harrowing stories.