“Okay-okay-okay, don’t hurt me.” He zips out of reach and down the stairs.
I scramble for my cane. Plummeting down the stairs, I can hear my mom and JP muttering and laughing. Everyone cheered for Jack after he stole all the giant’s stuff and ran back down a beanstalk. No one cares that maybe the giant was trying to get away from little shitstains like Jack.
I hit the first floor and hobble over to them. “I want him gone,” I say.
“Dylan?” Mom cries out. “What are you saying? What happened?”
JP stuffs his arms into his coat. Of course it looks good on him. “No worries,” he says. “I was just leaving.”
My mom rises to stop him. “Wait, what’s going on with you two?”
JP silences her with a look.
“Sorry,” she says.
“Don’t apologize to him,” I say, ready to drop-kick him outside.
JP speeds fast out of the kitchen into the darkness of the hallway, protecting his neck the whole time. “I’m going, I’m going.”
“Get out.” I slam the door in his face.
“Dylan!” Mom charges toward me. “How dare you chase him away like that!”
“News flash, Mom—JP is a piece of human garbage.”
“He was scared of you. Didn’t you see how he was cowering? He thought you were going to hurt him. What’s wrong with you?” She hugs herself instead of me. “I know you two are having a rough patch. And that’s normal. All friendships encounter some rocky times here and there. As long as you guys have open communication, you’ll be fine.”
I want to scream, but I don’t. My pillow’s all the way upstairs. “Mom, he’s using you just like he uses everyone else.”
“He is not. I swear, Dylan, you are so selfish, it’s infuriating. He comes here for a little piece of comfort and security—he’s a very sensitive young man.”
“He’s a manipulative asshole!”
“His mother is a full-blown alcoholic. Where is your compassion?”
“Mom…”
“I’m serious, Dylan, what is up with you these days? Turning your back on your lifelong friend? You two never even play video games anymore.” She pauses. “You know, I blame Jamie.”
“What?”
“I do! Ever since you met her, you’re destructive, you’re moody, you insult your father’s memory, I don’t know what to do with you anymore.” She walks back into the kitchen and flings dirty dishes into the dishwasher. “And I know it’s Jamie because her poor mother told me the same thing. She’s bending over backward for her son, and then once he declares he’s a she, her new ‘daughter’ treats her worse than dirt. Jamie’s a bad influence on you.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I don’t treat you bad.”
Mom wraps her fingers together. “We used to be so close, Dylan.”
“We still are.”
“Do you even want me around anymore?”
“Of course I do. Is this why you can’t get enough of JP? Because he’s a needy prick and I’m not?”
“Enough! That’s Jamie talking; I can hear it.”
I take a breath and hold it, letting it out slower than slug trails. “Mom. I need you in my life. I love you. Everything between you and me has nothing to do with Jamie or JP or anyone else.”
“But we’ve always looked after JP. You two used to call yourselves brothers.”
“Leave him alone!” I slam my hands on the counter.
Looming over her, I can almost see steam flying from my nostrils. Mom looks up at me with wide eyes. “I see.” She picks up her book, steps into her house shoes, and leaves me.
“Mom,” I say, hoping to coax her back. Now is the time, I want to say. Shake the Mom-Poms? and tell me how everything is going to be okay.
“Sleep off your anger, Dylan. Calm yourself. We’ll talk about it again in the morning,” she says with a dull voice from the living room. The TV clicks on so she can double down on ignoring me with her trashy novel and blaring a hideous crime drama with raped-up little kids and murderers, murderers everywhere.
I catch my reflection in the window. My head hangs low. I touch the top of my scalp. My hair’s growing back. Just like the rest of me. Growing, growing, always growing.
I disappear to the basement.
Down in the cool clamminess of the cement walls filled with clumps of pebbles and rocks, I hop across the lost chunks of broken glass still hiding in thin cracks on the floor and make my way over to the trains.
Tiny broken trees and tracks. If Dad was as big as me, it’s strange to think he sank so much time into making something so small. I kneel down and come face to face with the tiny town. Flaps of grass and uneven terrain. Splayed wiring tangled in between bumps of fake moss. I nudge a few tracks into place with my fat finger. I smooth a raggedy row of shingles flat.
When I sit in the corner, my pocket doesn’t yield. My phone. I get it out. No messages. There’s only one person I was hoping to see there anyway. I start a text, but halfway through I stop and make the call. I have to.
“What’s up?” Jamie says.
NINETEEN
“I just wanted to talk to someone who understands,” I say.
“Then I have no idea why you’re calling me.” She pauses. “Are you okay?”
I press my back into the concrete. “No.”