Wyatt swallowed. “Just a walk.”
“Just a walk,” Dad repeated. “Not to see Izzy?”
Wyatt shook his head.
Dad looked at him, his face etched with worry. “And you’ll be back soon from this walk?”
Wyatt wrinkled his nose. What did Dad think he was going to do? A mountain trek or something? “What?”
“You’re coming home soon from this walk, aren’t you?” Dad asked him, stepping closer. “You’re not running away, and you’re not planning on hurting yourself, are you?”
Wyatt felt a rush of dizziness. “What? No!”
Dad closed his eyes briefly, as though in relief. “Because when you don’t talk to me, Wy, when you don’t tell me what’s going on in your head, I worry, okay? I think the worst, and I worry.”
“I’m not running away,” Wyatt said. He didn’t even have his backpack. “And I’m not…I’m not going tohurtmyself!”
There was something a little humiliating about Dad even asking that question, even though he knew it came from a place of love, and Wyatt squirmed under Dad’s careful scrutiny.
“I’m not,” he repeated. “I wouldn’t do that, Dad.”
“You’d tell me if you ever felt like that?” Dad asked him gently.
Wyatt nodded, his eyes stinging.
“Okay,” Dad said, and opened his arms. Wyatt stepped into the hug without even thinking about it. Dad’s arms had always been the safest place in the world. “Okay. Love you, Wy.”
“Love you too,” Wyatt mumbled into his shirt.
“And…” Dad leaned back to look at him. “And Justin loves you too.”
Wyatt bristled, even though he knew it was the truth. He nodded and scowled, and felt like the bratty little kid he never had been. “I just…” He sighed. “I just wish he’d listen, Dad. He’s only treating Izzy like this because of me! If it was anyone else—”
“Kiddo, if it was anyone else Justin would have made him leave the second he saw he was high,” Dad said. “Yeah, he’s treating Izzy differently because you were involved with him, but he’s also given him leeway he wouldn’t have given anyone else. It’s complicated, Wy. Justin’s doing his best, but he’s struggling here too. Can you try to be patient with him while he works through this?”
“But it’s not fair,” Wyatt whispered. “Izzy’s not a bad guy.”
“Can you be patient?” Dad asked.
Wyatt thought of how Dad was somehow stuck in the middle here, and how it wasn’t fair on him either. He swallowed and then nodded. “Yeah.”
“Thank you,” Dad said. “We’ll figure something out, kiddo, once everyone can move without stepping all over each other’s feelings.”
When will that be?Wyatt wanted to ask, but he kept his mouth shut again, because he knew Dad wouldn’t be able to answer that.
* * * *
It was late afternoon when Wyatt made his way to the small rocky outcrop that was his special place. He sat on the same wide rock he always did, and soaked in the warmth. Maybe if he sat here long enough, it’d seep into his bones and kill the sick, cold feeling that had been festering inside him since Izzy had walked out the door.
He stared down the tree-covered hillside, past the dirt road, and his gaze settled on the roof of the neighbor’s shed. There was a bird perched on the roof. It was too far away for Wyatt to make out more than a hint of movement as it bobbed along the edge of the roof, but he thought that maybe it was some kind of pigeon or dove. He wondered if it was nesting there, and hoped, if it was, that it was building a sturdy one.
His thoughts flew back to Oregon, to the family they’d been before Justin came back, and before they met Dad. When it was just him and Harper and Lettie and Mom. And whatever guy Mom was seeing at the time. She’d had a string of boyfriends. Most of them had been dealers too, Wyatt figured now, though he hadn’t known any different then. Lots of Mom’s friends were dealers or users of some sort. Wyatt couldn’t remember their faces. He only knew that it hadn’t been strange at all to climb out of bed in the morning and find a house full of people sleeping last night off.
And then Mom had died, and Justin had come back. Wyatt didn’t remember that much either. Justin had been just another stranger to him back then. It was Dad he remembered, because Dad had been different. Dad had been warm and kind, and he’d got down on Wyatt’s level to talk to him, and he hadn’t minded when Wyatt hadn’t talked back. He’d taught Wyatt to cook, and the rattle of pans was one of the most comforting sounds in Wyatt’s world, then and now.
But Justin…Justin had been nineteen, the same age Wyatt was now, and he must have been terrified. Maybe not in the same way that Wyatt was, but nineteen years old and suddenly having three kids to look after? Wyatt couldn’t have done that. And Justin had always filled this strange place in Wyatt’s life—part brother, part parent—and maybe Wyatt had never quite realized the weight of the parent part. He knew Justin loved him—he’d never doubted that for a second—but he’d never seen Justin and Dad at odds before when it came to protecting him. They’d always been a united front, right up until now. Dad had always been more likely to go into what Harper called ‘protective papa bear mode’ than Justin, and maybe Wyatt had mistaken that for thinking it was because Justin was his brother, when really he was just as much his parent as Dad was.
Wyatt sat on the rock as the sun dipper lower in the sky and the shadows lengthened into dusk.
He just wished Justin could see Izzy the same way that he did.
“I’m stupid, everyone knows I’m stupid. I’ve been told that all my life.”
Wyatt’s chest felt tight, and his throat ached with tears. Izzy wasn’t stupid. He’d made some bad decisions, made some mistakes, but who hadn’t? And he was trying so hard to turn his life around. And Justin saw that in every other one of his workers, so why couldn’t he see it in Izzy?
He hoped that Dad was right and Justin just needed time. But what was Wyatt supposed to do in the meantime, when all he wanted to do was be with Izzy and his heart was breaking?
He bowed his head as tears slid down his cheeks.
And then he heard boots crunching on the ground behind him.
