Thin Bones

27

"Drake has already hit me with parties," Gaige shook his head with a dumbfound smile on his face, as he looked down at the cracked screen of his phone. He cracked it last week when he passed out in his room from lack of food, making him drop his phone. He lied to his parents and said he tripped in the parking lot at school.

Maddie scuffed next to him and snatched the phone right out of his hand, "You're kidding? Ew, doesn't he know you're over that?" Gaige's face didn't change, but his mind couldn't help but question his friend. Was he over that? "I'm going to tell him to fuck off and go get some other unfortunate soul in trouble-"

"No-" Gaige snatched back his phone, Leon glanced at the two before turning back to the bowl of ice cream he had -that Gaige had politely declined, "Just...ignore him. If we go off on him then you two may get trouble at school for all we know," Gaige was desperately searching for excuses not to get rid of the invite and it was painfully clear, "Anyway, how it school?" 

Leon laughs, more like a gurgle as he swallows chocolate ice cream, "School, school, school, you sound like Grandma," Gaige shoulder bumps his brother, "Aw, it's alright. Only a few D's. I've even got a B," Leon's face lights up when he brings up that grade.

"Really? In what period? Lunch?" 

"No, asshat!" Leon laughs, Maddie smiles, and Leon sets down his empty bowl, "No, I'm actually doing decent in a business management class. Yeah, turns out it ain't too hard. And Mrs. Cranker? She's actually pretty cool," Leon nodded and Gaige couldn't help but stare in admiration at his brother.

All their schooling, Leon struggled. With dyslexia, ADD, and an overall lack of determination left Leon behind while Gaige sailed through his grades with no problems. So to hear his brother be happy about doing good in class, it made Gaige happy to be sitting next to his equally ecstatic brother. 

"Well, I'm glad you're doing good. Without me here to do all your assignments and all..." Gaige grinned at his brother who scuffed but didn't deny the fact he did get Gaige to quite a lot of his homework, "And then maybe you'll get good grades and get into a college to get out of here."

Maybe it's because Maddie was leaned over picking dandelions in the yard, making her most visible, but Gaige could see her stiffen. Like he had said something wrong. Leon's face screwed up, giving his brother a funny look, with head tilted to the side, an eyebrow cocked. 

"What do you mean? Boy, we're never gettn' out of here. Our best is a community college in Tallahassee and then straight back here afterward," Leon shook his head, and went back to watching his girlfriend pick dandelions in the overgrown grass.

"You don't want to get out? Come on, we've lived here our whole lives, and you're fine with just...staying put forever? Never getting something new, something better?" Maddie and Leon shared a look, Gaige's unsteadiness growled inside him, "Are you two really okay with becoming your parents? Content with the very least? Never exploring or experiencing. How can you not have cabin fever?"

The birds and crickets echoed ten times louder in Gaige's ears after practically begging his best friends please have the same itching desire to live and to please have the same itching hope that maybe life would be good somewhere else. Gaige pulled his knees closer to his empty ribs, toes of his Nikes hanging over the edge of the wood porch. Which wood panel opened and had his jack daniels?

"Why do you want to get out so bad, Gaige?" Maddie furrowed her eyebrows with a funny, questioning smile, "What do you have out in the world for you, you know? You've already been to juvie, you're not exactly a people person, and you've never talked about going somewhere before. And the one time you do have to leave, you practically throw a fit despite the fact it's your rich dad's house? I mean, come on, Gaige, we all know none of us are leaving Flordia any time soon."

His head hurt. His ribs hurt. His stomach and chest hurt. He felt like he had just thrown up all the food he had ever ate in his entire life. He felt scorn and scraped and betrayed by the two people he thought he would always be able to connect with. The scars on his hips itched, the acid burns stung in his throat, fingers danced across his skinny thighs, legs ready to bouncy and run back to Michigan. Back to fucking Michigan of all the places he could run. 

"Oh," But he didn't run. He never did. Instead, Gaige nodded, wiped a hand across his dry lips, and nodded, staring straight at the hedge that separated the yards.

Maddie and Leon kept watching Gaige, watching for him to say or do something more but he didn't do that either. No, he just sat with his knees to his chest, arms wrapped firmly around his legs, staring dead-eyed at a wall of leaves.

"You okay, Gaige?" Gaige didn't like hearing his brothers voice soft and serious. But he sucked it in, placing it in the back of his head for the next week when he'd half to set his life long best friend down and tell him that his brother was starving to death slowly but surely. 

Gaige snapped out of the staring spell, let his arm release his legs, and stood up, "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just, worn out. I think I'm going to bed. I finally get to sleep in, you know?" He tried giving out a little chuckle to bring humor but no one really took it. 

Gaige let the other two watching him walk through the sliding door, escaping past his parents, and locking the door of his old bedroom.

There was so much...Gaige in the room. So much past Gaige. Not the one that was avoiding meals, or watching his wounds bleed, or floats in a world of undecided. Childhood toys, torn comics, smelly shoes. Nothing was familiar, nothing felt the like the home Gaige wanted to be in right now. Not that he knew which home he wanted to be in. 

Gaige spun in a circle before sitting down on his bed, head in his hands, breathing so loud in his own ears. Sticky sweat on the back of his neck. Regret always there. Food already flushed down the toilet. 

 He still knew where his other hidden things were. The razors under his robots foot. The camera in his backpack. The coke in the inside of the closet. The contacts on his phone. The weed in the piggy bank. 

Which one does he choose first?