Fadeaway by E. Vickers (ebook smartphone TXT) 📗

jokes.

See if I could jump out and scare him

and then do my porg eyes

and my porg squawk

that always make him laugh.

I hid behind the construction dumpster

that looked like a drone barge,

that smelled like sawdust and cigarette butts,

and waited

waited

waited.

The plan was this:

I hide until

Jake gets in his truck, and then

I jump out and scare the crap out of him.

We both laugh like Jabba’s little monkey lizard

(that’s what Jake calls him).

We load my bike into the truck.

We go to the football game together.

And also this:

Jake sees me.

Jake laughs.

We’re together.

Jake sees me.

Instead, he stayed up there on the roof

f o r e v e r

and right when I was about to give up:

He closed his eyes.

He stepped to the edge.

He stepped off the edge.

I ran to him,

saw the bones of his leg

bent all the wrong ways

like the rabbit we hit with his truck last Halloween.

At first, Jake was mad

when I made him stop the truck,

because he was already late to pick up Daphne,

but I could hear the sorry in his voice

when he said to the rabbit,

“I didn’t see you there,”

and to me,

“It’s too late for her.”

I saw his eyes, sad and shining, when

we drove the truck

thump thump

over her small body

so she wouldn’t have to hurt anymore.

And I thought about that rabbit

at the construction site

as I knelt by my brother’s body,

both of us breathing hard,

and whether he was speaking the words

or I was just remembering them,

I heard his voice again.

“It’s too late”

and

“I didn’t see you there.”

But then

“I thought I’d land it better.”

I was crying, screaming

over Jake,

my heart all thump thump,

which made me cry harder,

and I knew it wasn’t helping.

I KNEW,

but it was all I could do.

Then there was a man

with the kind of face that could be

Jake’s age

or twenty years older,

and he was

making sure Jake could breathe,

calling 911,

telling him help was on the way.

All the things I should have been doing

when all I could do was cry.

When the ambulance arrived,

the man touched my arm,

whispered,

“They’ll let you go with him

if you can settle down.”

And because he looked at me

like he knew I could do it,

I could do it.

I buried my crying

and climbed in next to my brother,

and by the time I looked back,

the man was already gone.

When I came up the hill, I had a plan.

The scare part was meant for Jake,

but it was only supposed to last half a second.

Instead, I was the one who was scared

when I saw his body

falling from the roof,

crumpling, crumbling to the ground,

crying out like no animal I ever heard before.

I think I have been scared about my brother ever since.

Because the accident

wasn’t an accident

at all.

When I think about those words

I thought I’d land it better

I see

it wasn’t like the rabbit.

He wasn’t trying to make the hurting end.

He was trying to make it start again.

After they read it,

everyone is quiet for a minute,

and then the tall one asks,

“Are you sure, Luke?

Are you sure it wasn’t an accident?”

“I’m sure,” I say.

“And you said

you know why he did it.

Can you tell us?”

She asks this in a way

I think she might already know the answer,

but I tell her my answer

to see if they match.

“Because the tin was empty,”

I say.

“And after, it was full again.

He needed it to be full again.”

“Was the tin gone when he disappeared?”

the tall one asks.

I nod.

Then we all look to the corner

where Mom is

listening,

crying.

“I didn’t know,” she says

so quietly I almost miss it.

“People get really good at hiding these things,”

says the tall one,

and I wonder if maybe

somebody hid something

from her once.

“You think he robbed the pharmacy?” Mom asks.

The short one folds his arms.

“We think it’s worth looking into.”

Mom nods. “If he did it, he’s alive.

Or he was then, anyway.

If he did it, there’s still hope.”

Then her eyes go bright

and wild.

“Is there security-camera footage?

Can I see it?

Can I see him?”

They shake their heads.

“Cameras were down all week.

Probably because of the remodeling.”

The short one gets up to leave,

but the tall one leans toward me.

“Is there anything else you want to tell us?

About that day?

Or before?

Or after?”

“Only that,” I say,

already breathing easier,

like the story was something

hard

and small

that had been blocking my throat.

The officers leave,

and Mom takes me to the kitchen

for a glass of milk,

and I think about how

it’s easier to tell the hard things

on paper,

not in person.

And then I think about

all that blank paper

that covered this table

the morning Jake went missing.

The mess that really

wasn’t mine.

And I wonder,

Is it important?

But the cops are gone,

and my mom has stopped crying,

and anyway

how could blank pages be trying to tell us

anything at all?

The thing

hard and small

in my throat

is back,

so maybe it wasn’t the secret

after all.

But

I have learned to breathe

and swallow

and live

with it inside me.

Part of me has wanted

to stay home from school

every day since Jake disappeared

and especially

after they searched

and I told my story.

But Mom won’t let me.

Not until I’m

hot as Venus,

cold as Neptune,

aching everywhere,

coughing up chunks,

too sick to enjoy a sick day, even a little.

Then she lets me stay home and promises to check on me at lunch.

I try watching TV, but

all that light plus

all that sound

makes my head hurt.

So I’m lying there,

lights off,

blankets on

(current temperature: Venus),

wondering again

if I should have told the cops

anything after all,

when I hear it:

metal on metal,

key in lock,

soft footsteps crossing the kitchen.

I close my eyes and slow my breathing,

pretend to be asleep so Mom won’t bug me.

But the footsteps pass my door,

keep going down the hall,

and then they stop,

and another door opens.

A creaky one

that we never open anymore.

Jake’s room.

And there’s only one person in the world

besides me and my mom

who would know where the spare key is,

who would walk straight to that bedroom

where Jake belongs.

I’m not sure if it’s a dream

or the fever

or something,

so I tell myself to

wake up,

look for the droid or the Wookiee

that means

this isn’t real.

But it’s still just me,

sick and sweating under all these