Page 76 of Just a Footnote

“You called the cops!” She shouts at the doorman in sheer terror. “I’m their mother!”

“You arenotour mother,” Archer snaps, face flushed with anger. “Fuck off, seriously. You have some fucking nerve showing up here.”

“Watch your mouth when you talk to me.” And that’s the mother that Aiden remembers.

Archer laughs. The sound is awful to Aiden’s ears. “What are you going to do? Break my arm? I’m bigger than you now. I’m not afraid of you anymore.”

Aiden looks up to see raw fury etched across Archer’s face. He steels himself before glancing at their mother. She’s so mucholder. More gray hair than blond now, wrinkles fill her face, and he knows with every ounce of his body that she lied a moment ago. She’s not clean. She’s high as a kite. He can see it in the shake of her hands, the flighty look on her face, the desperate look in her eyes.

“You want money,” Aiden says evenly.

Her gaze snaps to Aiden. “Well, Archer has it now. Right?”

“Go to hell,” Aiden spits out. “I should’ve let you overdose all those years ago.”

The victory is momentary. He feels good when he says it. But it feels rotten when it makes absolutely nothing but rage cross his mother’s face. She doesn’t care. All she wants is money and more drugs. None of it matters. She doesn’t love them, she never did. Everything goes syrupy slow, his tongue thick in his mouth, the sound of sirens breaks him from his brief dissociation. The cops show up, and when Archer provides them a copy of the restraining order against her, they haul her off in the cop car kicking and screaming. He forgot about the restraining order, he hasn’t even carried a copy for years but of course Archer would carry a copy. Archer is always thinking ahead.

Sudden exhaustion settles over every inch of Aiden’s body.

Archer leads him back into the apartment, guides him to the couch, forcing Aiden to sit by a firm grip on his shoulders. A cold glass of water is shoved into his hand, but he doesn’t drink it. He just holds it. The condensation on the glass makes it slippery in his grasp. He isn’t sure how long he sits there in silence. No panic attack comes, just the awful feeling of disassociation. Nothing can reach him there. The apartment disappears around him as his breathing slows, his hand loosening on the glass enough that it almost slips out of his grasp.

“Aiden.” Archer squats down to look at him. He takes the cold cup from Aiden’s grasp, placing it on the table behind him, before turning back to stare deeply into Aiden’s eyes. “I talked toLiam. We got you a ticket for a flight to Seattle this afternoon. You can go stay with him for the rest of the year and come back in early January. Before the semester starts. Do you want to help me pack?”

None of the words make sense to him.

“Liam?”

Archer looks at him, eyes soft. “Yes, Liam. You can go stay with him. Miles is going to come stay with me.”

“You want to be apart?” Aiden asks quietly, feeling a little sick.

“Aiden. Don’t you want to see Liam?”

Of course, he does. “Yes.”

“Help me pack your bags then.”

He doesn’t know what to pack. Archer grabs his spare duffle bag from his own closet, then returns to Aiden’s room. Together they pack him a bag of a week's worth of clothes. Aiden’s hungry, but his stomach feels like molten lava. Even if he tried to eat, he’d throw it right back up. Archer drives him to JFK an hour later with a determined look on his face. When they pull up to the curb at departures, Aiden still feels like he’s having an out of body experience.

“I love you,” Archer says, voice thick and full of emotion. “Let Liam take care of you.”

“Okay.” He doesn’t know if he’s responding to theI love youor the Liam part.

“I’ll get an attorney while you’re there. We’ll deal with this.”

“Okay,” Aiden says again.

Archer nods towards the airport doors. “Go.”

Aiden starts to open the door, but pauses. He turns back, leans over the console, crushing Archer in a tight hug. He buries his face in his brother's long hair, holding him close like maybe they could become one person if they really tried.

“Arch.”

“I know. We’re okay.”

Aiden hugs Archer a little tighter.

He doesn’t look back. The airport is the same as always; smelling like stale air, fast food, but with Christmas decorations around now. Why is Christmas always such bad luck for him? At least this time it was the day after Christmas instead of the actual day. He glides through check-in and meanders to his gate. His flight will board soon since the flight leaves in an hour. The flight to Seattle is nonstop which means he’ll be arriving in the early evening thanks to the time difference.

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