The Weight of the Family

25 (NEW)

ETHAN

There were rules to the game. Rules Father reminded him over and over with a subtle word, a twitch of his unchanging facial features. Cold. Calculating. He scoped out the back roads outside of Roxton's boundary, a pleasant drive of minimal vantage points, though the distant construction zones encroached on the environment and built around quarries — the main forefront of the Azaika's chosen business., with the continuous push into theirs, Ethan drove at the end of the road when it curved into an abandoned house front, to keep the suspicion of anyone nearby lowered. If they were around, he wouldn't take the chance. Gravel roads crunched underneath his wheels, the traffic intensifying the closer he got to Roxton.

Not too out of the city, but still... I'll need to tell Jesti my plan to handle this. Efficient clockwork and knowing their side of the city, he listened to the distant music at the heart of Roxton. The deep longing for the sky swallowed his mind, a metropolis in the clouds. Hand on the wheel, he got past the traffic and to the school. Kids bounded out of the doors, to walk to school or meet up with parents. Family. Fathers, Mothers, Guardians. He rested his chin on his arm to wait for the arrival of Keren. There were no other incidents towards his classmates, a faint relief, but Ethan frowned when Keren sidled past the doors and around the hologram of the school name and mascot.

Keren hooked his fingers through his bag loops and kept his gaze on the ground. Back against his seat, Ethan opened the door for Keren to enter. The quiet rippled through his throat as the door slid closed with Keren safely in the seat. "So." He tapped the driving panel and got them far away from the consuming idealism. "How was school?"

Keren's bag squished between his locked legs, and he sank into his shoulders.

The chains of silence.

"Any trouble?"

"No."

"You sure? Usually I can't get you to shut up." Ethan chewed on his tongue to taste the fatal rust. One last memory, a lie, because Keren hadn't smiled since the funeral, his words measured, uncertain. "Just thought I'd ask, you know? Considering what happened last time."

'I can't control what you do, but he wants to be you.'

And I don't want him to be a monster like you.

Ethan rolled his neck at her distant reprimand. "Well, as long as you keep up with your classwork," he said to an unspoken reply, and the static from the tickled his ears. "Try your best, that sort of thing... Miamta would want that — stay in school."

"You didn't." Keren folded his arms and legs.

'I can't control what you do. You don't care about the consequences. Don't drag Keren into them'. Another snappy reprimand through the mirror, and he rubbed the wheel to feel something else through his skin. "We've already had this argument, Keren. I gave you my reasons as to why I didn't but am asking you to do the same." He tapped to an unheard beat of lies. "Look, as long as you don't start random fights with people where you don't know how they're going to respond in turn—"

"You can't dictate what I do."

'I can't control you.'

Ethan eyed Keren, who returned the stare. "You are thirteen. I think I can," he forced the sludge through his teeth. "Get back to me when you're my age." He lifted one hand to the top of his head and resisted the urge to tear his fingers into his skull. "Any homework?"

Keren refused to blink as he studied him, but he shook his head. "I did it all in class."

This ringing annoys me. He rested his knuckle against his ear and another urge to tear it off to escape the noiseless sounds prickled the edges of his fingertips, so he moved it to the wheel and ignored the pulsating agony of her despair. Stuck on pavement stained red. He sucked in his lips and dragged out a huff.