Rye opened his eyes again just as his mom and Jake stopped a couple of feet away. His mom’s hands were clasped together tightly in front of her, but she still wore a smile. She glanced from Jake back to Rye, and then her smile softened.
“I’ve gotta go, sweetie.” She took a step closer and then stopped again. “I’ll see you on my lunch break, okay? You have a good day with Jake. And—and Jake, you’ll call me if anything...” She shook her head and trailed off, and Rye frowned, pushed himself up to his feet, and pulled her in for a quick hug.
“I’ll... be okay, mama,” he said quietly into her hair.
Her breath caught, and she wrapped her arms around his waist, returning the hug. “I know you’ll be okay, sweetie. I’ll just miss you.”
“Me too.” He closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, trying to ignore the deep shame that surrounded him as he felt her shaking.
Her pain was his eight-year-old self’s fault. He wasn’t that child anymore, and he couldn’t change things. But he could keep fighting to be better and do better, so he’d never cause her pain again. He scrunched his eyes shut tighter and squeezed her gently. “I’ll see you... at lunch,” he said, making the words happen somehow.
And he felt her smile against him. “Okay, sweetie.” She seemed to want to say more, but she couldn’t, and so she just backed away and let her arms drop from around him. Then, with a final smile—one in which Rye wanted to imagine he saw some hope rather than some sadness—she grabbed her coat and purse from the hooks near the door, gave him a little wave, and headed out.
Rye watched the door close behind her and then turned to Jake, who stood a few feet away, leaning slightly on his cane. And for a moment, Rye stared at it, frowning. Then he shoved his hands into the pockets of his new-to-him jeans and lifted his eyes to Jake. “How is... um...”
So much for his words working. Rye shook his head as though that might somehow shake away his inability to speak, and he tried again. “How is your leg? It still... hurts?”
Jake smiled softly, his brown eyes warm. “It’s not so bad. Definitely nothing like it was. But it helps if I use my cane, even if it’s not hurting too much,” Jake explained. Then he seemed to laugh a little, and he glanced out the window. “I still haven’t been brave enough to try to head down the stairs to the beach at my place. I miss it, though.”
Rye heard a longing in Jake’s voice, maybe, and he followed Jake’s gaze out the window. If he looked exactly from the right angle, he could just barely see a tiny glint of blue from the ocean through a hole in the trees. It was nothing like the view Jake had of the ocean from his own patio, and even if they walked all the way down to the end of the street, Rye still didn’t know if they’d have a better view. He tried to remember, but nothing came, like always.
“We could, um...” He looked over at Jake and bit his lower lip. Then he shook his head. It was a dumb idea anyway.
“We could, what?” Jake asked gently.
But Rye shook his head again and turned away from Jake to look back outside. He saw that same little yellow bird sitting on a branch, still chirping away.
We could drive to the beach in town. I think there’s a beach in town. And there wouldn’t be stairs there, so it wouldn’t hurt for you to walk. And then maybe we could also stop at the bookstore. Is there a bookstore? If there is, we could stop there, and I could get... a book on birds. Maybe...
He closed his eyes. He needed to say the words out loud, not just in his head. At least some of them. His chest ached suddenly, but he turned back to Jake, his eyes still squeezed shut, and he tried.
“Is there a beach... with no stairs?” Gosh, that was only slightly better than not finishing his previous sentence. He shook his head again, trying not to feel too frustrated with himself. “In t-town. Or... nearby?We could... go?”
He hadn’t mentioned the birds or the bookstore. And he wasn’t sure he was really ready to go into town or if Jake would want to go. So, really, he shouldn’t have said anything at all. He should have just kept his fucking mouth shut, like he was supposed to, and—
“That’s a wonderful idea, Rye.”
The air left his lungs in a big whoosh, and then he sucked in a breath and opened his eyes slowly. Darkness blinked away to light as the room came back into focus. Jake watched him, his expression so gentle and kind, and Rye grabbed onto that, using it to help remind him of where he was and who he was with.
“Yeah?”
“I think so. There’s a beach right near the marina in town, and I think there’s just a few steps from the boardwalk to the sand. And if you’re up for it, we can grab breakfast, too. Silas’s café is right on the waterfront. They’ve got pastries and breakfast sandwiches, and I could go for a coffee.” Jake paused and glanced at Rye’s tea on the coffee table. “Did you eat already?”
Rye shook his head, and Jake smiled at him again.
“Great. What do you think then? We could drive down there? It’s only a few minutes.”
This time, Rye started to nod but then stopped himself and frowned, the thick chill of doubt creeping in. He’d only been out of the house two more times since he’d gotten home: once to go with his mom to the store to buy him a few things—a razor and some shampoo and something called deodorant—and then once to go back to the police station. He hadn’t been anywhere else otherwise. And on both of those trips, he and his mom had been with either Rachel or Wayne the whole time.
It felt scary, to think about going into town, to a café and to the beach. And hestillhadn’t even managed to ask about the yellow bird or about going to the bookstore. If there evenwasa bookstore in town.
“I... don’t...” he mumbled, unable to finish his sentence, and he immediately felt awful, his head swimming and his heart fumbling for its rhythm. He hated it. He hated the fear making his stomach sick and the voice in his head screaming at him to keep his mouth shut. And he didn’twantto. He didn’t want to keep his mouth shut anymore.
“Ahh, that’s okay. We can stay here, really. Or, um, if you want, we can just go to the beach and skip the café since—”
“Do you know the yellow bird?” Rye blurted out, his eyes darting back up to meet Jake’s. He swallowed back his fear, and he forced out a few more words. Because he was going to beat it. He was going to beat that voice. Hecould. “I want to know... what it is. The yellow bird.”
Jake looked confused, which of course made sense, and so Rye turned back to the window and pointed across the street, where the little yellow bird still sat in the tree, now with a nearly identical partner sitting next to it. It sang, but he couldn’t really hear it over the sound of his heart hammering in his chest.
