Things We Didn't Say_ A Novel - Kristina Riggle [11]
“Not really. I’m in line at the coffee shop.”
Her words are rushed, her voice betraying impatience. It is in fact a bad time, but she’d rather get this over with than have to call me back. I don’t have time to be offended at the slight just now.
“Is everything okay with Jake?”
“Of course. Why?”
“Well, Dylan’s cutting class or something. He’s not at school, though his dad dropped him off.”
“Yes?”
I clench my fist until the nails burn crescents into my palm. “I was just wondering if you’d heard anything similar about Jacob. You know how those two are inseparable!” I laugh, making it light, not accusatory.
“Lately, not so much, actually. Grande nonfat latte please.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean—” She pauses, the noises changing as she shifts the phone, maybe pinning it between shoulder and ear. “I mean that they haven’t been talking much lately. I thought you knew.”
“No, I didn’t have any idea . . . Did they have an argument?”
“Boys don’t have arguments. They beat each other up or just quit talking. It was the latter.”
“What was wrong?”
“Jacob didn’t say. I was just making out the guest list for his birthday party, and he said he didn’t want to include Dylan.”
Jacob’s been his friend since the sandbox. Since Dylan left the public school they hadn’t seen each other daily, but with Facebook and cell phones, I figured they were still in touch.
“You didn’t ask why?”
“He said it was ‘nothing.’ You know how boys are. Well, maybe you don’t. Anyway, you can’t pry things out of them if they’re not ready to tell you. In any case, I wouldn’t have any idea where Dylan is.”
“Please call if you hear something.”
“I’m sure I won’t, but I’ll call if I do. Have to dash now, bye.”
I put my head in my hand and stare at the phone. My laptop, at my elbow, dings for new mail. I’m supposed to be working. I have deadlines for clients. Updates. Proposals. I had planned to be at the library today using the Wi-Fi until Tony got out of work, then I was going to crash on his couch until I found an apartment. That was the plan.
It still could be. I could take for granted Michael is right and Dylan is just misbehaving somewhere. The school has Michael’s cell phone number on file. I could still go.
Except I can’t. I imagine Jewel getting home from Scouts and finding only Angel here, the two of them wondering where their brother is, where I am.
Maybe Angel knows. I sit up straight at the counter.
She’s not supposed to use her phone in class, but she could check it at lunch. I send a text: Seen your brother? School sez not in class.
The silence of the house presses in on me.
I feel achy, uncomfortable, and jittery.
I push away from the counter and start to pace through the first floor, in U-shaped loops through the connected living room, dining room, kitchen, around the curved open staircase and back.
Most days it’s not that hard, not drinking. Michael doesn’t often drink, himself. I don’t go to parties, or restaurants. My old life feels like a dead skin I’ve shed along with the old boozy friends, and the small company where we all worked.
But there are times . . . when my palms start to itch and my heart feels tight and pinched. I can taste the velvety bite of it, and I can feel the uncoiling of my tension and hear my own carefree laughter, and I know that the liquor store is just blocks away and no one will be home for hours yet.
Tony’s always telling me, “One drink is too many and a hundred’s not enough.”
I don’t think it’s like that for me. I bet I could have one, maybe even two. But then I think of all the energy I’d expend wondering, Should I have this one? Is this one too many? But I’m feeling fine and not driving, but maybe I shouldn’t . . . Or the next day, Did I have too many last night? And then guilt would crash over me, I know it would. It was simpler, cleaner, simply to break off that piece of my life and set it adrift.
Then I met Michael, and he was so glad I didn’t drink that I treasured up his gladness and decided