Page 7 of Limbo

She nods, and I head toward the door. I answer the call to keep it from going to voicemail but don’t talk until I make it outside, away from the noise.

“Connor, everything okay?”

“Yeah, sorry,” he says, sensing my unease. “Can I vent?”

I sit down on the side steps off the porch, out of the way and quiet, and switch from school to home mode. “Let’s hear it, kid.”

“They turned who pays for new basketball shoes into a huge fucking fight.”

“Please tell me it was over the phone.”

“Yeah, she called him on speakerphone so I could ‘hear how he talks’ to her. It started with her screaming that he never buys us anything. Then he said she just wants more money to spend on herself. He ruined her life. She wasn’t worth it. He’s a prick. She’s a slut. A broken chair and shattered phone screen later, and I’m supposed to make the shoes I have work. No big deal, right? I can easily make my feet smaller.”

Just for once, I want my fifteen-year-old brother’s problems to consist of a girl not liking him or a teacher giving him a bad grade. Instead, they always involve Graham and Lauren’s never-ending struggle for control. The two of us and our six-year-old sister, Cate, are the most used pieces in a game to see who can out-selfish the other.

As much of a fucking nightmare as it was growing up with my parents in the same house, their divorce a few years ago managed to make everything even more destructive, but in different, unexpected ways. Not for them of course. Just us.

“Maybe it’s time I drop the sports,” he says. “I probably won’t get a scholarship anyway. I can get a job and start saving to move out of this hellhole when I turn nineteen.”

More than anything I want to tell him,Eighteen, Connor. You can leave when the custody agreement ends at eighteen.

Except, since I turned eighteen in July and still drive back every weekend because of our manipulative, sorry excuse of a father and piece-of-work-in-her-own-right mother, he would reply,You know that’s not true, Cal.

And he’d be right, so why bother?

I go with the old fallback—anger and resentment. “Fuck them, Con. Where are you right now?”

“My room.”

“Go to mine and look on the far-right side of the closet.” I wait, listening to the creak of my closet door and clothes hangers dragging across the wooden bar. “You see the garment bags?”

“Four of them,” he says.

“They contain my formal dresses. Eight all together. Sell them for fifty dollars each and buy the shoes. The extra we’ll use for baseball cleats this summer or Cate’s swim lessons.”

“But Cal, I…” His voice cracks as he trails off. “I can’t.”

“I won’t be wearing them, and I’m certainly not letting you give up basketball.”

“You already—”

“Sell the dresses, Connor. Don’t you dare let them make you miserable.”

He stops arguing, and a silence settles between us as he sorts through whatever he needs to in his head. I just sit here and let him because nothing in my world can hold any significance again until my little brother feels a little less alone in his.

Eventually, he sighs. “Thanks, Cal.”

“Goodnight, little brother.”

When I end the call, my eyes burn, but as always, the tears never come. Instead, I shiver, feeling all the hurt dive back below the surface where it lurks. I stay on the steps a little longer, letting the freezing night air numb the rest. Physical pain is easier to handle than emotional torment. I’ll choose it every day of the fucking week.

Felicia’s flirting with another contender for the love of her life when I go inside. Not wanting to interrupt them, I wander through the house to Becca, who is schooling a frat brother at beer pong. The game holds my attention for a few minutes before I go for a refill. On my way to the kitchen, Jordan catches my eye from the stage and nods. As smooth as the move is, he probably practices it on plenty of girls.

Everyone around me laughs and enjoys themselves, but I can’t shake my call with Connor. I feel three hours away and stuck a few years in the past. A prime example of why I keep everything else separate from school.

Until my head clears, I find my coat in the pile upstairs and decide to seek refuge on the porch. The fresh air helps as I lean against the banister. I empty my beer cup and consider relaxing my two-drink rule for the night. A tempting idea after the reminder of exactly how much I hate Graham and Lauren. Also not the best one due to the reminder of exactly how much I hate Graham and Lauren.

A vicious circle, my life.

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