Page 93 of Penalty to the Heart

He lifts his head off the floor and nods.

“Yeah. I would really like that.”

“Very well. Shall we head inside then?” I say and smile warmly, doing my best to ignore the racing of my heart.

Caleb silently follows behind and decides to sit on the chair in front of my desk rather than on the couch or the floor as usual.

I remove my coat and store my bag before picking up my yellow pad and the recorder. I place the recorder in front of us and click it on, reciting all the usual verbiage that Caleb knows by heart now.

“I don’t know where to start,” he says nervously, staring at the recorder as if it could grow teeth and bite him.

“How about you tell me why you came here this morning?”

“I… got suspended,” he admits, and when I don’t have a reaction, his shoulders slump. “But you already knew that.”

I nod instead of telling him that you can’t turn on a TV or pick up a newspaper without being aware of the news.

I also don’t tell him that the first thing I did before coming to work today was pay the GM a visit and let him know just how upset I am about his suspension.

“I fucked up, Roxie,” he confesses, his faint voice creating a crack inside my ribcage. “Really fucked up.”

“I know this is all very upsetting for you, but I’m going to need you to clarify how you messed up,” I say patiently while avoiding his terminology of recent events.

“I… I fucking punched Bellamy.”

“And why did you punch him?”

“Because… because I don’t want him on the team.”

“And why is that?” I insist, wanting to push him a little further.

“Fuck, I don’t know,” he says, jumping out of his seat and pacing the room.

“Yes, you do, Caleb. Tell me why you don’t want Bellamy on the team.”

“I… I…”

“Come on, Caleb. Say it. Just say once and for all what you are truly feeling.”

“I’m trying!” he belts out, pulling strands of hair out of his head.

“Try harder!” I yell back, needing him to make sense of his complex feelings.

“Because I don’t want people to forget my brother!” he shouts, going to the crux of his pain.

I lean back in my chair as he assimilates what he just said.

“I don’t want people to forget,” he whispers, walking back to his chair and plopping down on it.

“And you think Bellamy taking your brother’s place on the team will somehow do that? Erase your brother from people’s memories,” I add sympathetically.

“I do,” he says. “And it will.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“Because people are fucking fickle, Roxie. They all say that they care, but they don’t. They cease to care when it no longer suits them. It’s like how people react when a war breaks out in the world, or… fuck… when a school shooting happens,” he adds hesitantly, gauging my reaction, but proceeds when I don’t give him one. “Initially, everyone is in an uproar, eager to express their outrage and make a big deal about it, but after a few weeks, they go back to their lives and just forget it ever happened. So, whenever they’re reminded of it on the news or on their feed, they just change the channel or scroll past the related post, not wanting to constantly dwell on such tragedies,” he laments with a pained breath. “The same goes for Jack. Everyone was ready to send their condolences and prayers in the beginning, but now, with Bellamy here, Jack will become just another afterthought to them. And my brother is no fucking afterthought. Not to me.”

“You’re right. Your brother shouldn’t be so easily forgotten. But who do you think he actually wants to be remembered by? Some stranger he’s never met in his life or the people who actually mean something to him? His family. His friends.”

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