Back to You (16 page)

He licked his lips as he lifted the phone, hitting a button to wake it. His head screamed at him not to make the call. She wasn’t even a decent human being, so what would make him think she would ever be a suitable source of guidance and support for Erin?

The problem was he never knew if he was doing the right thing by keeping his mother out of Erin’s life. In his mind, it made perfect sense for him to do it, but throughout his life, he had screwed up so many things, on so many occasions, that he wasn’t sure he could trust his own judgment anymore. Granted, some of those times he purposefully made the wrong decision, chose a path he knew would be destructive. But then there were those times that he actually believed he had been doing the right thing, making the smart choice, and it still blew up in his face.

He couldn’t be sure which category this particular circumstance would fall into.

He swallowed slowly as he lifted the phone and scrolled through his contacts, choosing her number and hitting send before he could talk himself out of it. As the phone began to ring in his ear, he felt his heart speed in his chest, and he closed his eyes and clenched his jaw.

“Yeah?” a voice rasped into the phone after the third ring, and Michael opened his eyes.

“
Hello
?” the woman said after another second, her voice growing a bit louder with irritation.

He opened his mouth, but no words would come.

“
Hello
!” she nearly shouted. “Who the hell is this?”

Michael’s eyes fell closed again as the familiar slur rang out in that last sentence. Without opening them, he moved his thumb and hit the button to end the call.

He sat there for a second, staring at the table before he exhaled heavily and tossed the phone onto it with a soft thud. He pushed his chair back and stood, running a hand through his hair as he walked toward the sink to load the dinner dishes into the dishwasher.

When he was through, he wiped down all the counters. He straightened the living room. He put away Erin’s toys. Then he went into the bathroom and wiped it down with cleaner. And when that was done, and he had nothing else to clean or neaten, he found himself walking aimlessly around the house.

The feeling of restlessness in him was unsettling, and after a few minutes he finally willed himself to go sit on the couch and calm down. He didn’t understand why he felt so antsy. Sure, it was only nine o’clock on a Saturday night, but he could hardly attribute it to that; Michael hadn’t been out on a Saturday night in years.

And suddenly, like a smack to the face, he understood why he was so edgy.

Lauren was out on her date tonight. It was the reason she had turned down his second dinner invitation.

He inhaled slowly through his nose as he lay back on the couch and closed his eyes, running both hands down his face.

As soon as he closed his eyes, he was assaulted with a memory of her, one that made him smile but at the same time caused his heart to clench.

It had been his junior year of high school; he was sitting in his living room, watching a football game, when there was a timid knock on his door.

He opened it, and the first thing he saw was her red nose, followed by her bloodshot eyes, and finally her tear-streaked face. He could remember the dichotomy of his emotions in that moment: the desire to pull her protectively into his arms battling against his innate desire to murder someone.

“What happened?” he asked, trying to remain composed for her.

“I need your help,” she said, her voice quivering slightly, and she held out her hand.

He took it without hesitation, his jaw tightening with rage as she guided him down the driveway to where her car was parked. The entire time, he ran his thumb soothingly over the back of her hand as he envisioned making whoever did this to her bleed.

As they reached her car, Lauren had let go of his hand and opened the passenger door, and as Michael bent to get into the car, he froze.

He blinked a few times before leaning closer to the car, not sure what he was seeing.

“What…” he asked, looking over to where she stood, fighting tears. “What the
hell
is that?”

“Triple chocolate cake,” she said softly. He closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to make sense of what was going on.

“For your birthday,” she added, her voice so small it sounded like a child’s, and his expression softened as he looked back at her. “I made it for you, and when I was driving it over here, this cat,” she gestured wildly at nothing, her voice breaking on the last word, “bolted out in front of me…and I tried to swerve, but it darted back and forth, and I slammed on the brakes, and then…”

She motioned pathetically at the car, and Michael looked back inside, at the brown goop and chunks that were smeared and splattered all over the interior of the vehicle.

He pressed his lips together as he raised his eyes back to her, and she sniffled and hiccupped as she wiped her nose on her sleeve. He had been so overcome with relief in that moment that she was okay, and she had looked so adorably pathetic, that he burst out laughing.

When she heard him, she dropped her face into her hands as her shoulders shook with silent sobs, and he immediately straightened and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his chest.

“Come on, Red,” he said through a smile. “Let’s go get some rags and a bucket.”

They spent the next two hours cleaning and scraping what had once been chocolate cake out of her car, and every so often, Michael would look over at her to find her eyes shining with tears again.

“Would you cut it out?” he said with a laugh. “This will all come out. You can have it detailed.”

“I don’t care about the stupid car,” she mumbled as she dunked her chocolate-soaked rag into the bucket. 

“Then why are you crying?”

“Because your cake is ruined,” she said through a barely contained sob. She took a steadying breath to calm herself before she added, “I know this used to be your favorite thing about your birthday, and I really wanted you to have it again.” Her chin trembled pathetically when she spoke, and Michael watched as two large tears welled along her lash line and spilled over her cheeks as she scrubbed the mat in front of her.

He stopped cleaning, the rag he was using dropping slowly to his side as he stared at her. He hadn’t even remembered telling her that—the tradition of his mother making him a triple chocolate cake for his birthday—but obviously he must have.

And she had remembered. She had tried to recreate it.

It was one of the few times he remembered feeling like something happened to his heart, almost as if he could feel it swelling in his chest as he looked at her.

With a sigh, Michael shook the memory from his head as he sat up on the couch, looking around the room.

What he really wanted was a drink.

He had done that often when he was younger, drink until he felt like he had stepped out of his life for a while, but the older he got, the less he relied on it. And as soon as Erin had come into his life, he had nearly stopped drinking altogether. He had seen too much of what using alcohol as a coping mechanism did for people in his own house, and he’d be damned if he became his mother, if Erin had to watch.

He wished he had some other, safer vice. Ice cream. Reading. Playing video games. Anything he could use to escape the feeling he had tonight.

Michael inhaled slowly, pushing off his knees as he stood and walked to Erin’s door. He cracked it open slightly, watching the rise and fall of her chest under the blanket. Just as he was about to close the door, he noticed the little red photo album on the foot of her bed.

He gently pushed the door open and walked over to her, sliding the book off her bed before exiting the room just as quietly as he’d entered.

He returned to his spot on the couch, opening the book and flipping ahead a few pages to the one he wanted.

His graduation photo.

He stared at the smiling, beautiful girl by his side, and he couldn’t help but ask himself the question he’d been asking himself for the past eight years: if he could go back and do it all differently, would he? In all the time the question tortured him, he had never been able to come up with a definite answer.

But that was before she had come back into his life. And seeing her again, being near her again, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if he could go back, if he knew then what he knew now, he’d never have made the decision he did. He’d do it all differently.

Michael ran his finger down the edge of the photo, and it lifted slightly, revealing the image on the next page. He turned it slowly, staring down at the picture of his brother, and at that moment, he realized just how bad of a fuck-up he truly was.

Because there were so many things he should have done differently.

M
ichael tiptoed out of the strange bedroom, his pillow and his stuffed turtle clutched to his chest. The old lady was sitting in the chair in front of the TV, her head lolled to the side and her eyes closed. He froze for a moment, waiting, and the slow, rasping sound of her breath was enough to convince him that she was fully asleep.

He shuffled slowly into the kitchen, glancing over his shoulder every few seconds, careful not to wake the strange woman. She seemed nice enough when his mother brought him there earlier, but he didn’t know her. He didn’t know if she could be mean, if she would yell.

If she would do worse if he made her mad.

He didn’t want to be in this strange place anymore. He just wanted his own bed. He just wanted his own house. He just wanted his brother.

Michael placed his pillow and turtle on the kitchen table, slowly and quietly dragging one of the chairs over to where a phone was mounted on the wall. At one point he stumbled, and the chair screeched against the linoleum; he froze, cringing as he turned toward the door. When a few moments passed, and he could hear nothing but the low murmur of the television and the soft breathing in the other room, he pulled the chair the rest of the way over and climbed on top of it.

He dialed the number, the one his brother made him memorize if he ever needed to speak to him when he wasn’t home. It was Aaron’s girlfriend’s house, the place he spent basically all of his time if he wasn’t spending it with Michael.

After a few rings, it sounded as if someone picked up the phone, but all Michael could hear was laughing and music. There were a couple of shouts in the background, but he couldn’t understand what anyone was saying.

“Hello?” Michael said softly into the phone.

“Yo, who’s this?” a strange voice said.

“Hi. My name is Michael. I’m looking for my brother Aaron.” He glanced at the kitchen doorway every few seconds, trying to keep his voice down.

There was a clatter, like someone dropped the phone, and then he heard a deep voice call, “Yo! Delaney! Phone!”

There were a few more yells and laughter, and then the music changed to something that thumped so loud, Michael couldn’t hear the voices anymore. Just before he was about to hang up and try again, he heard shuffling on the other end of the phone, and then finally, his brother’s voice.

“Yeah?”

“Aaron,” he said, his heart filling with relief. “I need you to get me.”

“Mike? Where are you?”

“I don’t know. The blue house across from the grocery store.”

“What?” Aaron said, sounding confused. “Why are you there?”

“Mommy made me come here. She said she had things to do and I couldn’t stay home tonight. I need you to come get me. I don’t want to be here.”

“Oh, buddy,” Aaron said, his voice sounding strange. “I can’t.”

“Please?” Michael said, trying to keep his voice calm as he glanced toward the kitchen doorway.

“Mike, I’m with my friends…I can’t…”

“Please?” he said again, and this time his voice cracked, much to his embarrassment. “I don’t like it here. I’m scared. I want to sleep in your bed.”

In the three years since his father had left, sometimes he would sleep with his brother when he felt scared, or sad, or when his mother was on the rampage. And even though Aaron was sixteen now, he never objected.

“Mike,” Aaron said, his voice almost pleading, and then he took a breath. “Shit. Okay. Shit…alright. I’ll be there in a little bit.” Aaron exhaled heavily and mumbled another curse.

“Thank you,” Michael said, blinking back tears. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, don’t you be sorry. Don’t you be sorry,” he said, his voice taking on that strange quality again. “Love you, Mike. I’m coming.” And then he hung up.

Michael hung up quickly and slid down off the chair, struggling to bring it back to the table without making noise. As soon as he did, he grabbed a napkin off the counter and wrote a note to the old woman, telling her he went home. And then he grabbed his pillow and his turtle and tiptoed through the living room to the front door.

He turned the knob slowly, his eyes on the sleeping woman the entire time, and gently squeezed out onto the porch, shutting the door softly behind him.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there on the porch in the dark, hugging his pillow and stuffed animal, but eventually he saw a pair of headlights coming down the road, and he smiled widely, walking down the steps and onto the sidewalk. As soon as he reached the bottom step, his smile fell slightly. The car had stopped a few houses down, and Michael realized with dismay that maybe it wasn’t Aaron. Just before he could step back up onto the porch, the car lurched forward, coming to a sudden stop again, and then it swerved slightly to one side before righting itself and continuing slowly up the street.

Michael stood there, his hand clutching the banister, the fear growing in his stomach. He should have waited inside the house.

Just as he was about to turn back, the car passed below a streetlight, and he recognized it as Aaron’s. Michael grinned and ran down the walkway just as Aaron’s car pulled slowly up against the curb and the passenger door opened from the inside.

Michael climbed in hurriedly, smiling over at his brother.

“Hey buddy,” Aaron said, his voice still sounding strange, and Michael stopped smiling.