Supernovas & Escapism

Chapter Twenty-Nine

     I pointed out towards the bottle. "A bit early to be drinking, don't you think?" I didn't mean for it to come off as condescending, but as her face scrunched up slightly, I could tell that maybe I'd said the wrong thing. "Sorry. Bad habit."

     "I can tell," she said sardonically, nodding her head towards me, probably wanting to point out the bruises covering me.

     A fake smile appeared on my face for only a brief moment before fading away. I pulled in closer to the room, pointing out at one of the other chairs around the table. "Mind if I sit?"

     The question seemed to bewilder the both of us. Probably the last thing that I wanted was to have this sort of conversation. It was probably the last thing she wanted too, judging from her expression. After a moment, her features softened somewhat as she threw out her arm, gesturing for me to take a seat.

     Slowly, I pulled out the seat closest to her. It scraped against the floor sharply. Taking the seat, I began to feel probably a little more self-conscious of the environment. This is where Xavier ate dinner. These are the walls where he would talk to his family about the troubles he's been having. This probably might have been the table where he had eaten countless Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.

     Turning to Glory before I could get even more caught up in my own thoughts, I smiled weakly. Really, I wanted to say something. I wanted to ask a million different things, but none of it ever seemed right.

     "Did Xavier do that to you?" she finally asked. That. It was the best way to address my various ailments right now. Long sender fingers danced around the neck of the bottle, teasing the idea of bringing it to her lips.

     I looked down. "No, he would never do this to me."

     Her own eyes were skeptical. She took a small drink from the bottle, the liquid just reaching the top of the label. It was something that seemed almost ritualistic for her, as if it were something she had grown accustomed too. I knew the dangers of this ritual, but I'd already said too much on that for today.

     "He's just so angry right now, that I don't know what to expect from him," she comes out. "Like it's sick of me to think about it, but I couldn't say for certain that he didn't leave you like that."

     "It wasn't him," I repeated, feeling just a bit numb.

     She looks at me for a second before turning away. "Are you his friend?" Glory doesn't ask this in the way that I think she might. She doesn't ask in trying to find out what we are. The way she asks feels like she's trying to decide whether or not I can actually be trusted.

     Not that I can really blame her. Trust, I've found, is a very hard thing for the Sutton family to give.

     "I am," comes a meek reply.

     "Good," she responds, with a half-broken smile. "Right now he could use all the friends he can get."

     It strikes me in a way that I can't even begin to comprehend. This boy, her brother, is struggling, and all she can do is look on. She's definitely still trying to cope too, but chooses to do it in other ways. Anger makes up less of her grief, but it doesn't mean to say that she's any less jaded by the world and the people inhabiting it.

     "Listen..." She pauses, obviously blanking on my name. Though it's not through forgetting, and more so because I am not exactly wearing a name tag.

     "Garth."

     Glory nods. "Garth, right." She silently plays this name in her mind over and over again, trying to etch it to memory. "Garth, I need you to look out for him." Her words come fast, and are laced with an appropriate amount of worry. It's something that makes me feel more worried for even hearing the words. "Putting on a brave face, it's just what he does. But he's spiraling." She brings the bottle back up to her lips once again.

     My shoulders shrug. "Maybe he's just grieving."

     "Just shut up, and listen to me," she says, bringing the bottle slamming back onto the table. It's not enough to shatter it, but it's enough to stop my mind. It's almost like a sadistic 'Pavlov's Bell.' The sound itself has a visceral reaction in me, so much so that I'm staring at the bottle for a few minutes longer before drawing my eyes back up to meet Glory again. "Xavier is not like most people."

     The fact is that I already knew this, but hearing the words just makes me shiver a little. It's the nagging feeling that I don't know who he is at all brewing in me.

     "Has he told you what happened?" Her words seem to hang in the air. "The last week of his junior year?"

     I want to say yes, but the answer is no. Because whilst I've told Xavier more than my fair share of problems, he's never once confided in me about his own pain. He can't lie and say there is none hiding in the crevices of his mind, because it's clear just by looking at him that he's struggling. There's something gnawing at him and making him worse, but I think he tried to downplay it.

     For a boy like Xavier, feeling powerless is just the same as accepting defeat. With everyone else he knows how to bluff, but with me it always feels like avoidance. Very rarely does he accept someone in on that intimate of a level.

     "We've tried," she continues. "We've tried to get him to talk to us. To see a counsellor. To speak with someone about what happened..."

     "But he avoids the issue."

     She stares back at me. It's a knowing look, and a look I've seen too many times before. Pity.

     I want this, whatever it is, to work, but more and more I find myself asking if I can get him to trust me.

     "I'll talk to him." There's determination in these words. Glory believes in them, and for a moment, I begin to believe in them too. Maybe I can make a difference.