“You are. But it’s going to be okay. You went into the deep end of the ocean. I know what that’s like. But now we’re both back.” I cross the room to be by Sabin’s side. “Let him go, Chris.”
Chris looks at me for a moment and then at Sabin. “Are you done?” he asks softly. “Did you get it all out?”
“Yeah.”
Chris continues to keep his voice level, almost like a parent talking to a misbehaving child. “If I let you go, and you make one wrong move, I’ll have to—”
Sabin throws his hands up in surrender. “I swear to God.”
“How about you not mention God again for a few minutes?” Chris says, a touch of a smile on his lips. When Chris releases him and backs off to stand with the others near the door, I wrap my arms around Sabin’s shoulders and hug him. I hold him tightly, wanting nothing more than to take care of this drunk, messed-up boy.
“Don’t hug me,” he says, his arms resting at his side. “I’m a bastard.”
“You’re not a bastard. Look, I know what it’s like to want to lash out. I’ve been there.”
Sabin shrugs.
“So hug me back,” I say.
And then he hugs me back and he feels like Sabin again. He feels like part of me.
I hear Chris talking softly to Estelle, and I look up from Sabin’s embrace. “It’s over,” I hear him say. “Please don’t be upset. Everything is fine; no one got hurt. No one wasgoingto get hurt. I wasn’t going to let that happen. Do you hear me?”
She looks blankly at him, but her eyes are rimmed with tears.
Chris keeps talking. “I wasn’t going to hit him. You know that, right? I would never do that.”
I turn Sabin so that he can see Estelle’s broken expression. “Go tell her it’s over. But just let her have her God. I don’t care if you don’t like it. It’s important to her. Let her have what she needs. Estelle never pushes her beliefs on you. She never tells you that you’re going to hell for not believing in God.”
“I know.”
Sabin is worn out. I can see it in the way he moves to her. She brushes past Chris and flies into Sabin’s arms. “I’m so sorry. This is my fault, Sabe.”
“Never. You didn’t cause this. I’m so sorry, baby girl. With everything that I am—although that may not seem like much now—but with everything that I am, I promise this will never happen again.” Estelle nearly disappears in his big arms. “You keep your faith. Always. I won’t ever try to shoot it down again. On my life.”
“I’m tired now.” She has wilted into him, and he has found the strength to hold her up. “I want to go to sleep. You’ll stay with me?”
“Anything you want.”
“Chris, too,” she adds. “Everyone.”
“Of course,” Chris says.
The six of us leave the battle scene and start to cross the hall into my and Estelle’s room.
“So,” Eric says in an inappropriately casual voice, “we may need to discuss your mattress situation, Chris.”
Chris stops in his tracks. “What?”
“It might be a little… damp.”
“Possibly frozen,” Zach adds.
Chris just shakes his head.
Eric staggers ahead into the room, dragging Zach behind him. “Hey, next time ask someone else to catch the roof surfer.”
“Trayer!” Sabin yells. “I’m a trayer!”
