Take Me On

Jax shines the flashlight on me and I raise my hand up to keep from becoming blinded. “It’s almost curfew, Haley. Go home.”


“I’m n-n-o-t-t-t g-g-g-oing.” My teeth audibly chatter. The rain hammers the pavement and pools on the street. The three of us of have been searching for hours for my father. He’s been gone for two days. It turns out Dad started staying out all night over the past three months. Mom kept it a secret from us because he showed early the next morning, and she was able to smuggle him in before my uncle woke for work. This was the first time he’s been missing this long.

The spring rain ushers in colder temperatures and with midnight looming, the three of us comb the neighborhood one last time. Jax takes my hand and guides me under the freeway viaduct. A tractor trailer passes overhead and the steel and concrete surrounding us rumbles.

Kaden rips off his soaked sweatshirt to expose a long-sleeve undershirt. He pulls the dry shirt off and hands it to me. I shake my head that I don’t need it as I rub my hands over my arms to fight the chill. “Take it, Hays, or I’ll strip you myself to put it on you.”

Both of them turn as I pry the wet material off and shrug into Kaden’s semidry and warm shirt. I roll the sleeves up and wish I was under a pile of dry blankets. “I’m done.”

They face me again and Kaden yells over the roaring rain. “Now go home!”

I wish I could. “He’s my father, too!”

Jax inches closer. “You’ve never slept on the streets. It’s going to get damned cold soon.”

“Three sets of eyes will find him faster. You’re wasting time! What if he’s out here? What if something happened to him?”

“Go tell Dad what we’re doing,” Jax says. “Maybe he’ll let us in tonight if he knows we’re searching for his brother. You know your mom and Maggie are upset. Be with them. They need you.”

My jaw aches with the constant chattering. “You’re trying to get rid of me.”

Jax’s whitish hair is plastered to his head. “You’re becoming hypothermic and we don’t need a hospital run on top of finding your dad. Go home.”

“What about you guys? Where will you stay if it gets too cold?” The last bus to the gym left a half hour ago.

“When are you going to learn we’re tougher than we look?” Jax flashes a sly grin. “Go on. Get going. There are minutes left until curfew.”

Begrudgingly, I walk into the pounding rain. A car comes up the road and I step into the grass to avoid becoming two points against the driver’s license. The lights hit me and I look away to avoid the brightness and that’s when I spot movement down the freeway ditch.

My heartbeat rushes to my ears as I recognize the tan coat. “Kaden! Jax!”

I race down the gully, fumbling and sliding down the hill, and scream for my family again. They yell back my name and their footsteps pound behind me. Beams of light bounce on the dirt before me. The saturated ground gives and my feet slip out from underneath me. My hands fly back to break the fall, and Jax catches me from behind as Kaden rushes past.

Kaden bends over the form. “It’s him! Jax, I need you!”

I steady my feet and Jax jumps down and helps Kaden draw my father up. Shivers run through me and it’s not from the cold, but from the fear. “Is he okay?” He has to be. My heart can’t take much more loss.

“Fuck!” mutters Jax as he crouches in front of him. “He’s drunk.”

Not caring if the entire hill has dissolved into a mudslide, I collapse back onto my butt. My father, the man who hardly ever drinks, is drunk and there’s no way my uncle will allow anyone who touches alcohol in his house. “We’re all screwed.”





West

I lie in bed and blur my vision so that the ceiling-fan blades merge into one. In my hand, I click the remote to my stereo on and off. Sound to no sound. Haley’s ghost surrounds me here. Her laughter echoes in my head; the memories of her touch whisper against my skin.

The house is too still. Too silent. The impulse is for sound, noise, music, dancing and alcohol, but I can’t live like that anymore. Haley said I was better. I am better. I told her she was worth fighting for and as she was on the verge of believing it—I abandoned her.

The burst of agony through the numbness causes me to roll off the bed and head out the door. Haley said impulse has to do with emotion, with not thinking. The urge is to forget. I bypass the dark stairs and slow when I reach Rachel’s door.

The bottom of the door brushes against the floor as it opens and this time there is no bluish glow. She had physical therapy this evening and her breathing is light. Asleep in a chair across the room with a closed laptop on his lap is her twin, Ethan.

I ease down to the floor with my back against her bed. The silence in here is by far more deafening than my room, but I’m searching to fill the emptiness, the shell that I’ve become.