Page 20 of Tripped By Love
Marco
WHISKEY SUNRISE
“I'm lost and I’m lonesome when I look in the mirror,
I don’t like the man that I see.”
Performed by Chris Stapleton
Written by Stapleton / Krekel
I shook Jonas’s shoulder gently, andhe sprang to his feet, alert, as if he was warding off an attack, before his shoulders slumped, realizing it was just me.
Before today, I hadn’t seen Maliyah or Jonas since right after Thanksgiving. Six months. Too long. In that time,Jonas had grown another two inches, so he was now six feet tall. His once scrawny shoulders had started to fill out as if he’d been lifting weights, but there was still an awkwardness to him because he hadn’t finished growing into his size thirteen feet yet. His soft-brown hair needed a cut, and the edges were curling over his ears in a gentle wave that some teenage girl was sure to find as swoony as the dark-green depths of his eyes.
“Let’s go back to the house,” I told him quietly.
He glanced to where Maliyah was sleeping, her wrinkled face slouched in a slumber that actually made her look older rather than younger. When she was awake, she was almost always smiling. Add that to the ever-present twinkle in her hazel eyes, and it usually cut a decade off of her. Now, it was clear gravity and life had taken their toll. The gray was showing at her roots she normally kept dyed a brilliant chestnut, and her lean body seemed to have less muscle than I was used to seeing her with. She’d always been fit and thin, but now she just looked frail.
Jonas and I made our way out of the hospital, leaving behind the antiseptic smell and beeping machines to be thrust into the heat, humidity, and noise of a city that had come alive on a Saturday night. We weren’t that far away from the music clubs that would be swarming with people ready to get their fill of drinks and dancing. I could almost feel the bass of the music drifting through the cement and over the air to us.
We crammed our tall frames into the subcompact rental car I’d picked up at the airport. It felt like a piece of shit after driving the Escalades and Cadillacs that littered Brady’s detail, but it was enough to get us from the hospital to Maliyah’s home that sat just past the old district and the freeway. It was an area of town filled with the community Maliyah loved. The people who were like family.
To some, her house might have looked rundown. It needed a paint job, and the grass was practically dead, but I knew the inside would be spick and span. It would smell like the Pine-Sol she cleaned with as well as the sea of spices she used when cooking.
“Want to tell me why you think she was stressed enough to cause another cardiomyopathy episode?” I asked as I dumped my duffel at the foot of the stairs. I wanted to hear it from him and not just Maliyah. I wanted him to get the weight off his chest so I could reassure him that the blame wasn’t his.
Jonas ran a hand through his shaggy waves, looked down and then out, and finally, with shoulders sagging, said, “She was upset with some of the people I’ve been hanging out with.” He sank onto the steps. “I… This is my fault.”
I sat down next to him. “I’m the one who broke her heart first, Jonas. You being a normal teen, getting up to normal mischief…that isn’t what did it.”
He looked up at me, wide-eyed, and we bonded over shared guilt and grief.
“She wants you to come to Grand Orchard with me for the summer,” I told him, and his face shuttered like blinds being drawn to hide the fear he felt at being sent away. Afraid of being passed once again from home to home. “It’s not because she doesn’t want you. But she’s going to a rehab clinic for a few weeks, and then she’s going to live with Maria Carmen for a few more. I think knowing you’re with someone who will care about you will make her feel better. Will allow her to concentrate on getting stronger so you can be together again when the school year starts.”
We’d sent Jonas out to get food for us while Maliyah and I had talked. She needed to get her full range of motion back on her left side and needed to make sure her heart was back in line before she’d be able to come home. Even then, we were both worried that Child Protective Services might flip out about her health and take Jonas away completely. It would be the worst thing possible for him, especially if, like she and he had both told me, he’d already gotten in with the wrong crowd.
“I can help her here. I can cook and clean. Hell, I’ll even mow the goddamn lawn. She’s been asking me to. I just got caught up with the end-of-the-year stuff,” he said, bargaining to stay, his fears from his childhood coming back to haunt him.
I brushed his shoulder.
“This isn’t because of anything you did or didn’t do, Jo-Jo.”
He grimaced at the nickname. My guess was he thought he was too old for it. What I wouldn’t give to have my mom call mepequeone more time. At fifteen, I’d always turned a famous shade of red when she said it anywhere outside the confines of our house.
“What the hell would I do in Grand Orchard?” he scoffed.
“I have a TV and a game box, just like you do here,” I teased, bumping his shoulder. “I’m sure Brady could find something to keep you busy at the studio.”
His eyes lit up at the idea, but he tried not to show it. He’d been messing around with a guitar on his own for a while now. He’d had a few private lessons and had been playing in the school band up until Christmas. Maliyah said he’d dropped it in order to pick up an art class instead. Either way, Brady and Tristan would likely be a good influence on him in a way I’d never be. Knowing both of them, they’d let Jonas into their studio with open arms because they loved talking about the art they created.
Jonas’s phone buzzed for the millionth time since I’d arrived this morning with little sleep and a heart full of anguish. He glanced down at it. I was pretty sure it was someone he liked in the want-to-kiss-you kind of way, because he had that look on his face. Enthralled. Anxious.
“I can’t leave,” he said, shaking his head.
“Someone counting on you?” I asked, shifting my head toward the phone.
His eyes hit the door and then the ground before he shrugged. “She’d say no if you asked her. She’s got a boyfriend…but he’s no good, Marco. I know he’ll talk her into…” He trailed off, eyes pained, heart on his sleeve.
