He nods quietly. “I told you. I’ve done my grieving already.”
“If you say so, Mr Bottle.”
“Mr Bottle?”
I tap his chest. It’s too close, too solid, too warm. I feel the slight shift of his breath and the faintest flex of muscle beneath my fingertips. I pull away. “Sooner or later, brother, you’re going to shatter.”
I walk out, and Trent watches me leave.
I’m only gone a couple of hours before I decide to return to Grandpa’s, but in those hours, the sky has brewed more andmore clouds until suddenly it’s a torrential downpour. And I’m stuck on a large field under it.
My hair is matted and my T-shirt clings like a second skin, translucent, the scar etched too obviously beneath the fabric. My jandals slip with every step until I give up and go barefoot, muddy puddles sucking at my feet.
My phone, sheltered in my shoulder bag, won’t stop ringing. It vibrates like a heartbeat, relentless.
BROTHER.
I hunch over, shielding the screen from the rain. Grimace, hesitate. Then, like a good little brother, I answer.
At least it’ll keep him from pacing the path in front of the house, jaw locked, becoming equally drenched in his over-protective wait.
“Trenty.”
A sigh rumbles down the line, low and resigned. “Let me give you a ride home.”
I close my eyes, rain pressing against my lashes like the weight of all the things I can’t say.
And so I laugh. Lightly, distantly. “You’re becoming predictable.”
“You’re looking like a tragic haunting. Great look on you.”
I grip the phone hard, and a sharp shiver steals through me.
The rain comes down harder, like blunt nails.
Where—
“Look in the other direction,” Trent murmurs down the line.
Trent and his umbrella descend the sloped grass near the road and come towards me. A glorious sight that’s making my mind sin.
The rain keeps falling. Ika’s soaked fish-band has swollen, biting into my wrist. My skin stings beneath it, but I don’t take it off.
I keep standing there. Breathing heavily into the phone.
“A hot shower when we’re home,” he murmurs.
I take a breath I don’t need. “A cold one, you mean!”
There’s a crackle down the line, like a hitched breath, or possibly... could he have laughed?
And then suddenly, my knight in shining armour slips.
He goes down to the grass with a wet smack. I drop my jandals and bound over to him; he’s pressing a muddy palm to his forehead, his eyes shut, the umbrella forgotten and dancing away across the field. I drop to his side, knees squelching in the mud. And for the second time today I dare to ask, “Are you okay?”
He keeps his hand planted at his brow, but opens his eyes, staring sideways to me. His gaze flickers over me and then he lets go of his head and holds out his arm.
I pull him into a sitting position. He rolls his shoulders and eyes me again before flicking away his gaze. “Thank you,” he murmurs.
