There was no more room for any other questions. Something was wrong. He was worried. And I was damned if was going to leave him alone to fight whatever the hell he was about toface. As we walked to the car, he punched out a text, the blue light of his phone lighting up his face.
As if the cabin of the car was too small for his anxiety, his legs bounced, nervousness flowing through his body like blood in his veins. “It’s not far,” he explained, keeping his eyes focused on the road ahead of us. “Turn left,” he directed as I stopped at the edge of the parking lot.
Forthe next ten minutes, all he did was call out short directions. Left here. Right there. Two more stop signs. He was texting the rest of the drive, his thumbs flying so fast over the keys that I didn’t bother to interrupt him.
“I’m right there,” he said, directing me to a spot right next to a beat-up old sedan. We both got out of the car and walked to his door. The apartment complex was an oddcolor of mustard yellow and dark brown. It looked like something straight out of the seventies. “I know it’s not as nice as your place,” he said. “But—”
“But nothing. I live there and you live here. There’s nothing to compare. It is what it is. It doesn’t define who you are.” It may have been over the top, but I could hear the shame in his voice. It mixed with his worry, and I hated that he wasworried about what my opinions were.
He didn’t say anything else as he dug his keys out of his pocket. When he opened the door, I was taken back by the overwhelming smell of puke. “Benny,” Chase called out, and hearing another man’s name fall from his lips was a punch to the gut. “Hey, Benny.”
“In here,” an exhausted voice called out from the back of the apartment.
Chase walked down the narrow,wood-paneled hallway while I stayed in the living room. There wasn’t much to the place. The kitchen was connected to the living room and there was a small dining room table separating the two spaces. Everything looked like it was stuck back in time. The appliances were so outdated I wondered if they even worked. And the linoleum floor was so old it was peeling up in the corners of the kitchen.Everything was bare, empty, had no touch of personality or anything. I mean, I don’t know what I expected from a twentysomething bachelor living on his own, but I guess a picture here or there would have been a nice distraction.
“Noah,” Chase’s fevered voice cut through my mindless musings about his apartment. “I need your help.”
Following his voice, I walked down the hall to the bathroom. Huddledon the floor, Chase was squatting, wrapping a blanket around a pale, almost lifeless boy. “He’s been throwing up all night. He’s so pale. And he just threw up blood. I don’t know what to do.” He was panicked, his eyes begging me to make it all better. It was a look with which I was far too familiar—that of a parent pleading with me to make their child better, to do whatever it took to takeaway their pain. Could Chase be old enough to have a teenage son?
“What do I do?” he asked, again panicking.
Quickly sliding into doctor mode, I told him to “Go get me some cool rags and a glass of water.”
A pair of dark brown eyes looked up at me. The boy’s face was almost a mirror image of Chase’s except it was younger and a little thinner. His eyes were bloodshot, and the thin skin underhis eyes was gray, matching the pallid tone of the rest of his face. “I can’t keep it down.”
I knew he meant the water and I wasn’t about to make him try to drink anything. “I know. I just wanted to give him something to do. Make him feel helpful. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
“We had dinner. And then I threw up about a million times.”
“Fever? Blacking out? Heart racing, like it’s poundingout of your chest? Chills?”
“No blacking out, but yes to the rest.” Without warning, he lurched forward, hunching his body over the toilet. Poor kid had nothing left in him and sat there gagging, dry heaving until his body finally gave up what little was in his empty stomach. “And then that. Blood. I got freaked out.”
“It’s okay,” I reassured him. A quick look at the small amount that had justevacuated his stomach eased my worries. No one liked to hear that someone is throwing up blood, but from what I could tell, he had just irritated his throat and probably the lining of his stomach from throwing up so much, and it wasn’t anything more serious than that. “I think it’s just your throat.” He started shivering, his teeth clattering more loudly than I’d ever heard teeth chatter. I squatteddown next to him and pulled the blanket back over his shoulders. “You’re okay,” I comforted, rubbing circles on his back trying to get some warmth back into his shaking body. “I think you just have a really bad stomach bug. At this point, it should be over soon and then you can get some rest.”
“Okay,” he said, collapsing to the floor as he let go of the toilet. “Good, because I don’t think Ican take much more of this.” We sat there together for a few more minutes, and the shivering passed. His body weak, he could barely hold himself up. As I continued rubbing circles on his back, he started to doze off, his head wobbling to the side. Chase stepped into the doorway, a glass of water and rags in his hands, but he didn’t say anything. The concern etched deep into his tired face was allthat needed to be said.
“He’s okay. Stomach bug,” I whispered, trying not to wake him. As I continued telling Chase what I thought of the blood, I stopped rubbing his back, a move that woke him.
He sat back on his calves and looked up at Chase as he leaned against the door frame. “Mom used to do that. Remember?”
“Yep. Would sit on the edge of our beds, rubbing our backs until we fell asleep.I think she liked the quiet,” Chase mused. “How about I’ll get you a bucket just in case you need it. But we can get you out of this bathroom and into your bed.”
The boy nodded. Wobbling to his feet like a newborn giraffe, he used me for support as Chase slid to his other side. Together we walked down the hall into one of the two bedrooms. Just like the rest of the apartment, it was sparselydecorated. There were a few pictures in here though. One of them featured Chase and the boy and an older man who looked just like them. The woman had Chase’s eyes, but if my suspicions were correct, I had a feeling Chase hadhereyes.
Standing on the other side of the room, I watched as Chase tucked him in, putting the bucket right next to the bed like he’d promised. Chase combed his fingersthrough his hair as his head rested on the pillow and whispered something in his ear that I couldn’t hear. As Chase turned away, he pulled the blanket up around his shoulder, tucking it under his chin. He slept just as Chase had the other night in my bed.
Holding the door opened, I let Chase walk past me, back out into the hallway. We made our way into the kitchen slash living room area. Chaseflopped down into a chair. Kicking the other out from under the table, he tipped his head to the now-open seat. “Let me explain,” he said, burying his face in his hands. All too willingly, I lowered myself to the chair, eagerly waiting for whatever he wanted to tell me.
“He’s my brother. Benny. He’s sixteen. He’ll be seventeen this fall. He’s going to be a senior.” It all came out short, abrupt,like some staccato beat played on a drum. There wasn’t any shame in his words, nor should there have been. But therewassomething there. Sadness. Loneliness.
“Okay,” I responded, reaching my hand across the table and pulling his away from his face. “And your parents?” I asked, even though I had an idea of what his answer would be. In the few seconds it took him to provide an answer, I prayedthat I’d somehow be wrong.
“Dead,” he spat.
And with the single word, my heart broke for him.
“How?”
