He entered a dark hallway and turned around the corner to a well-lit kitchen. A pile of dirty dishes waited in the sinks, and not a single bite of leftover food remained at the tables or in the refrigerator.
Aiden glanced behind him just as his stepmother walked out of another room. She went straight for him.
“Hui Lang, can you clean up for tonight? Also, finish folding the laundry. You know that we can’t risk hiring anyone right now.” She looked around and sighed at the sprawl of clothes left behind on the floor. “Also, if you can just clean everything up. I’m just so tired having to take care of the things that you should be doing. You owe me, right?”
He internally heaved for breaths, but Aiden smiled and said, “Sure.”
The smile dropped when his stepmother returned to her room. He looked at the blinking midnight time and glanced upstairs to see lights still shining from Zhu Zhu and He Bao’s room. Music pounded from one of them, furious and persistent.
With a sigh, Aiden turned on the lights to the living room to see paper shredded across the floor.They were fighting…He bent down to pick up the scraps. He should wonder more, but the chores listed themselves in his head.
Folding the laundry. Taking the jackets left on the ground and putting them in the basket. Moving the shoes from the front door to the shoe racks in the garage.
The image of the corpse weighed heavy on his mind. He turned too quickly and accidentally knocked down a vase with fresh flowers.
The water pooled like blood.
“Slow down,” he murmured to himself. He cleaned up the pieces of the vase to safely discard them. Mopped up the water. Bundled the flowers. Found a cup to temporarily hold them before his stepmother would replace the vase with likely a more expensive one.
His stomach growled, and he checked the refrigerator once more to only see fruit. He grabbed an apple and made quick work with ravenous bites. His stomach grumbled, but the dirty dishes dared him not to waste any more time.
Pumping dishwasher soap onto the sponge, scrubbing, rinsing, drying, and repeating. His hands moved ever slower in the soapy water. The drain burbled in the dim glow of the kitchen light. His eyelids drooped, and his arms hit against the side of the sink. The impact startled him awake as he almost dropped a dish on the floor.
His stomach cried once more.
“I’ll eat tomorrow,” he reassured it.
He placed the last of the dishes away to dry. His slippers shuffled against the floor as he made his way to the basement. He stumbled over the boxes still there. He flopped onto his bed. In the shadows of the basement and the chill of poor insulation, he could still hear the pounding music overhead from one of his stepsiblings’ rooms. The ceiling of the basement shook with every beat that slammed through the house. He wished he could be angry at them, or annoyed with them, or just selfishly fearful for himself, but he wasn’t. There was a strange numbness instead.
I’m doing this for the family.He repeated the thought in his head, succumbing to the emptiness.I’m doing this because it’s my duty.
Chapter Eight
Aiden’s cellphone slipped from his hand and thudded to the ground. Slowly, Aiden opened his eyes, staring at the unpainted ground and his arm swinging over the edge of his bed.I forgot something.Yawning and body creaking, he dragged the phone off of the floor and stared at the notifications.
A string of silenced alarms starting at nine in the morning.
He had slept through his classes.
Aiden blinked, swiping the notifications away one at a time. His heart remained still, and his mind fogged over.What’s the point?With a sigh, he flopped back down on the bed and stared at the light bulb buzzing overhead.I hope she doesn’t lecture me for wasting money on electricity.The light bulb flickered.
The phone buzzed. Wearily, he raised the phone back up to see Javier’s text reminding them of the study group. He glanced at the time.
His eyes snapped open. His heart jumped. He leapt out of bed.
Aiden stumbled as he threw on his clothes, almost tumbling to the ground. He reached into his wallet and pulled out the picture of his brother.I can’t carry this with me anymore,he decided, recalling the inspecting eyes of both Mr. Zhou and Mr. Yang.
He hid the photograph underneath his pile of textbooks, grabbed the backpack, and dashed out of the basement.
“Where are you going?” His stepmother stepped out from the office downstairs with a folder of papers gripped in her hands.
“I have a school thing. I’ll be back after it.”
“Do not stay out longer than necessary. I have important things for you to do when you’re back.”
“I won’t.” He crashed out the door.
Freedom filled the air the minute he stepped foot out of the Uber and onto the crooked sidewalk of the hilly campus road. The sun burned bright against a brilliant blue sky. The bustling of students who spared no glance at him allowed his heart to soar and his body to float.
