Almost Perfect - Brian Katcher [96]
That would be a little harder to explain. I considered telling her I ran into a door, but I’d sound like one of those terrified women on COPS.
“That happened later. Some guy took a swing at me. I probably had it coming.”
Mom’s anger returned. In her universe, there was no legitimate reason for someone to hit her son.
“Logan, I called in sick this morning. I could tell Laura was covering for you, and I didn’t know what was really happening. Can’t you see how scared this makes me?”
I touched her shoulder. She was trembling. “I wish I could tell you what’s going on. You just have to believe what I say. This isn’t about me.”
“I’ve heard that lie one too many times.” She pulled away.
I was almost indignant. “I’ve never lied to you!” Well, not about anything like this.
Mom shook her head. When she spoke again, her voice was hoarse. “Not from you, Logan. From your father. He used to get strange phone calls and stay out all night and come home looking like someone had beat him up.”
She rarely talked about her ex-husband. “Mom, I’m not like Dad.”
She faced me and gave a weak smile. “I know you’re not, honey. You’re a wonderful boy, and I have to accept the fact that you’re almost a man now. Almost. But I worry.”
“It’s what moms do.” It occurred to me that, for the first time in my life, I was on my own. Mom couldn’t bail me out of this one. While I hadn’t always turned to Mom when I was in trouble, it was nice to know I had the option. Now I was facing a huge crisis, and it was all down to me. Mom couldn’t help me, and neither could Laura or anyone else.
Mom wasn’t quite ready to end our conversation. “Answer one question. Sage … she’s not pregnant, is she?” Mom braced herself, terrified I was going to say yes.
“No!” I chuckled at how obsessed Mom was over a disaster that could never happen.
Mom glared. “I don’t see what’s so funny, Logan.”
I swallowed my grin. “Nothing, Mom.”
Mom smiled at me, resigned. I think she realized there was no one she could call, no punishment she could hit me with, no advice she could give. Not this time. But she wanted to help, and that made me feel a little better.
Grabbing two sodas, I went to my bedroom to hide. I had to figure out how to get revenge on Sage’s attacker, convince Sage that her life was not as fucked up as it must seem, and show her that I deserved one last, last chance to prove I was worthy to be her friend, if nothing else.
And I was drawing a complete blank. This was one of those situations where there were no answers, no easy (or difficult) solutions. The only thing I could do was wait and pray that when the next bad thing happened, it would be to me and not Sage.
All that Sunday, I mowed: fields of weeds as high as my kneecaps, petite little yards with grass as trim as a golf green, dusty vacant lots overgrown with the dead plants of last summer. Someone even paid me once.
I had to lose myself in the work. If I stopped, even to get a drink, I’d start to think. About Sage, lying there on a plastic hospital mattress with tubes and needles in her body. About how some son of a bitch had punched her until she couldn’t stand up anymore and then left her on the side of the road like … I couldn’t think of an appropriate simile. About how if I had any balls at all, I would have told my sister—the sister who thought the world of me and only wanted me to be happy—how special Sage was. But instead, I told lies.
The most frustrating thing was how helpless I felt. I longed to do something, anything, to help Sage. But I didn’t know who had assaulted her, so I couldn’t go stick his face in the mower blades. I was willing to tell anyone how much I cared for Sage—my Mom, Jack, Tim, whoever—but that was pointless. She probably hated me. The only straw I could grasp at was the hope that, after she’d recovered a bit, she’d need a friend. Even a false friend like me.
When I’d slaughtered every blade of grass in Boyer, when I’d used up every drop of gas in my can, when my hands were cramped into claws from holding down the safety