STATIC; JR [2]

7.2

I wasn't at home very long before I got the call from Felix — an odd and uncomfortable three minute conversation with very minimal dialogue; things between us were growing more and more unaccommodating, but with Andy always lingering in the back of my mind I did my best to not overthink the situation. 

He had spoken with such slight words, his voice like a trembling sheet of laminated paper as it wobbled through the receiver and into my ear — I could hear Oscar in the midst of his ask and grew confused at the request. 

"Can you... come?" He seemed to have cut himself off mid sentence and I pulled the phone away from my ear to check if he was actually still on the line — he was. 

My eyebrows rose as I listened to the way his brother's strict exclamation tormented him for the way he'd spoken and so I recalculated. "To your house?" I replied, my pitch high — he murmured in the base of his throat; a cautious affirmation. "You're angry with me." I said surely, still not understanding what he wanted. 

He gasped —it was loud and unexpected. "What? No!" He stated, and there were clear apologetic twinges to his tone. "Edith, please just come." 

I left right after, quickly swiping my set of keys from the edge of my desk and scurrying out the front door. I jogged there, only slowing when I lunged up his driveway and around to the back yard, finally arriving at the side of his room.  

I heard the two brothers speaking and the worry that laced their tones; it was hard to bring my hand up to knock on the door when I noticed Andy's name get thrown around. 

"Andy has to be there — the tracking spell said so!" Oscar projected, the desire to be right overpowering the fear in his voice. 

They were so open about all the facts; I wondered why he couldn't have these kinds of conversations with the Sam and Jake, but then I remembered all the times they'd fought simply because they were too scared to understand — it wasn't their fault though, there was just something so intimate about the way Felix and I got each other. 

"The tracking spell showed he wasn't here — it's different." Felix replied, his slightly clipped tone interjecting Oscar's thoughtful notion. He began to rant, stating how he was on the cusp of believing we might never be able to get Andy home even if we could find him and that was the scariest part of all this; we'd find him eventually, but we couldn't bring him home. 

I winced on his doorstep, my eyes coming together harshly as I scrunched my fists at my sides —it didn't help me block out the terrifying thoughts and when I felt a slight tickle to my fingertips, I called his name in protest. "Felix." I said, quite blunt and yet very emotional through the wood of his closed door — it was loud, bargaining, and when he pulled it open there was pain there. 

"I'm sorry." 

His voice cracked through the apology and then Oscar wheeled in behind him, the rubber on them grinding to a halt on the carpet when he saw me stood there with my hands balled up — obvious discomfort residing in the tension between myself and his brother. It was thick and I could feel it in the air, like there was nothing more important than the conversation we were about to have. 

"I guess I'll just... leave you guys alone to—to talk, or whatever." Oscar mumbled, his eyes darting between us and then to the only exit he was desperate to scurry out of. Felix moved aside to let him out and when he rolled over the concrete next to my shoes he offered me quite a tiny smirk; the smallest hint of encouragement that I would direct toward our next plan. 

Once Felix shut the door on Oscar, and we could no longer hear his wheels scrape across the concrete path towards the house itself, his words were fair game. He ushered me to sit down on his bed, which was something I had never done before; in the small handful of times I had been in his room, I had always sat on the old couch he kept beneath the window.