A few days later, after school, Miles was at the grocery store, buying food for the week. He had managed to wrangle a bit of money from his mother, that she would not be able to spend on booze, to pay for groceries. But there was not much, and he had to be picky about what he bought. Miles could not buy much produce or meat. He always bought a lot of pasta and noodles because they were cheap and filling.
Miles enjoyed grocery-shopping. He found it relaxing, walking around pushing his cart. However, he disliked calculating what he could afford. He often had to put back items that could not fit in the budget anymore. Later in the evening, the store was quiet with few other patrons, and all he could hear was the buzzing of the fluorescent lighting.
Miles tried to buy things that were on sale. He found a box of his favorite cookies for cheap and added it to his cart. As he was shopping, the other shoppers were eyeing him curiously. They were surprised to see a teen grocery-shopping all alone.
When he arrived at the checkout, Miles panicked quietly. Had he calculated correctly? As the cashier scanned his few items, Miles counted his money frantically. He found a bit of unexpected change in his pocket and added it to his total. He looked on at his total purchase as it rose slowly. Finally, it crossed the line. Miles cringed.
The cashier announced the total.
“I have to put some things back,” Miles explained, giving the cashier a pained smile.
“Sure, no problem,” the cashier smiled, too, a compassionate smile.
Miles started scouring his groceries, most of them already in bags.
“I need that,” he spoke to himself, “I need that, too.” Miles hesitated. He could not find a single item that was extraneous, except for the cookies. He sighed painfully.
“How much are you missing?” The man in line behind him asked. The man had a bushy mustache, a ball cap and a beer belly.
Miles turned around. “A couple dollars,” he responded. “I’ll just put something back.” Miles waved his hand, trying to politely dismiss the man.
“I got it,” the customer continued. He looked through his own wallet and found some change he handed directly to the cashier. Maybe he was paying because it was faster than wait for Miles to decide, and he was tired of waiting.
Miles handed all his money to the cashier, who completed the transaction. Miles turned to the man behind him. “Thank you,” he said sheepishly, embarrassed.
“No problem,” the man answered. His reply was not warm, but matter-of-fact, impatient.
Miles grabbed his bags of groceries and walked away, looking down ahead of him. The bags were heavy, but he was used to lugging groceries around. He almost wanted to cry. It was not the first time that somebody paid for the rest of his groceries, and every time it embarrassed him to no end. He was not sure what it was about him that attracted people’s pity. Maybe it was his plain clothes, or his messy blond hair, or his big, bright blue eyes. Maybe it was because he was just a kid, shopping for groceries alone. Maybe it was all of it.
Miles walked home, through the crisp, fall air. The sky was filled with grey clouds threatening to unleash a cleansing rain. Miles walked with a rushed step, looking forward to dropping the grocery bags on the floor of his home, and trying to avoid any rain that might fall.
He managed to stay dry, thankfully. When he arrived home, Miles was greeted by Mortimer rushing to meet him at the door, and by a familiar crash, coming from her bedroom. His mother had fallen. He put down the groceries in the kitchen.
“Mother?” he asked.
“In my bedroom!” Mallory yelled.
Miles rushed to help her. He found her sprawled on the ground near her unkempt bed. She must have tried to roll out of bed and fell onto the floor. He helped her up, struggling to lift the heavy woman. When she was upright, Mallory pushed her son off her. He noticed that she was shaking. She must have slept all day and not drank.
“Did you get groceries?” She asked.
“Yes, Mother, I did,” Miles replied. He knew what was coming.
“Did you get me something to drink?”
“I’m a minor, Mother, I can’t buy alcohol,” he tried to explain.
“You could have swiped it,” Mallory criticized. Her tone was angry and resentful.
“I’m not going to steal liquor for you,” Miles continued. He held back a sigh, trying to contain her anger.
“You better hope I have some left,” Mallory growled. If she had no liquor left, she had plenty of empty bottles to throw at Miles.
***
Miles and Sam met at their tree a couple of times a week, at night, when their families had gone to bed. As he continued to practice with Sam’s help, Miles had much fewer nose bleeds, and could bind objects easily. They began, too, to practice levitating objects. Sam often brought a basketball along as a target for Miles to practice on.
“How about this?” Sam started one night, holding up his basketball. “I throw the ball at you, and you stop it in mid-air.”
“Okay, let’s try,” Miles responded.
The boys stood a few feet apart. Miles adopted a ready stance to receive the ball. Sam threw the ball straight at his friend, who simply caught it in his open hands.
“The ball is too fast,” Miles commented. “I’m not fast enough to stop it.”
“Try focusing on the ball before I throw it,” Sam suggested. “I’ll throw the ball in an arch, so you have a bit more time.”
“Sounds good,” Miles smiled. He threw the ball back at Sam who caught it with ease, though Miles was not a very good thrower.
Sam prepared himself, bending his knees a little bit. As Miles focused, Sam threw the ball up as if shooting it at a basket. Miles raised his hands, but was unable to stop the ball, which instead landed right on his face, before falling and rolling on the ground. Miles reached for his face and held onto it.
“Ouch,” he let out.
“Are you okay?” Sam stepped up to his friend, catching the ball on the way.
“Yes, I’m fine,” Miles answered, before letting out a laugh.
Sam laughed, too. “That didn’t work.”
“I need a break. Can we sit down?” Miles asked, suddenly tired.
“Of course.”
The boys walked up to a tree and sat down at its base. Sam held on the basketball as he sat. They were quiet for a moment, just enjoying each other’s company. They had grown much more comfortable with each other since Sam first discovered Miles’ secret. They were turning into good friends.
“How’s your sister?” Miles asked, a question he frequently asked since the bus accident.
“She’s doing well,” Sam replied. “She’s seeing a therapist regularly to deal with the trauma of the accident. She’s a tough cookie. I’m confident she’ll be alright.”
“I’m happy to hear that,” Miles continued.
“How’s your mother?” Sam asked in turn. He worried a lot about his friend and his home life.
“Same old, same old. She hasn’t thrown a bottle a me in a while, so that’s nice.” Miles tried to chuckle, to lighten the situation. But Sam wasn’t laughing.
“Tell me about your dad,” Sam asked, curious.
Miles was taken aback by Sam’s question. Though they were becoming good friends, he did not expect Sam to care. He looked down for a moment before starting. “My dad was the nicest man, and very handsome, quite the catch. His name was Timothy. My mother allured him into a relationship... He was never a willing participant. But he loved me, very much. When my mother’s powers started to wane a few years ago, her hold on him went, too. My dad realized how abusive she was... He wanted to take me and leave. Instead of letting that happen, my mother killed him.” Miles’ words got stuck in his throat as tears built up and threatened to unleash.
“Did she drink then?”
“No,” Miles managed to continue. “She started after Dad died. But she’s always been abusive. She used to belittle him, insult him and hit him. But because he was under her spell, he never did anything about it.”
“I’m so sorry all that happened to you,” Sam replied. “And is still happening.”
Sam placed his hand on Miles’ shoulder and squeezed it just a little. Miles figured that, if there had been other people around, Sam would never try to comfort him like this. But he figured, too, that he might as well enjoy the comforting while he could.
“Do you think it would have been different?” Miles started, his voice cracking. “If I had had my powers then. If I had saved him.”
“I don’t know, Miles,” Sam replied, squeezing his shoulder more. “But you can’t think like that. The past is the past. You can only focus on now.”
Miles nodded silently, looking down at his lap.
“What are you going to do about your mother?” Sam finally asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Like, are you going to report her to the authorities? For abusing you and neglecting you?”
Miles hesitated for a moment, looking away. “She’s not a bad person, she’s just sick.”
“Sure, but you can’t live like that,” Sam replied, insisting.
“Yes, I can. I’ve been living like that for years.” Miles was a little irritated with Sam’s insistence, but he tried to hide it. If it were up to him, his mother would stop drinking and they would have a normal mother-son relationship. That was what he would want.
“You know what I mean.”
There was a moment of silence where Miles pondered Sam’s words.
“I think it’s time for me to go home,” Miles said, moving his shoulder out of Sam’s hold. He stood up, under Sam’s gaze.
“I didn’t mean to insult you, or anything,” Sam tried to apologize. He stood, too, still holding on to the ball, and followed Miles.
“No, it’s fine,” Miles replied. “I’m just tired.” Miles started walking away, still followed by Sam’s wistful eyes.
“I’ll see you at school,” Sam shot from his spot by the tree.
“Sure,” Miles answered. But he knew that Sam was a different person at school. He was someone on whom Miles could not count. At school, he was always devastatingly alone, just like at home. As he walked home, Miles held back tears.
Miles returned home to his mother passed out on the couch, snoring away. Sam’s words resonated in his mind. Was there really a better option, a better life?
***
The next day, at school, Miles was still torn. His teachers noticed his absentmindedness, and picked on him with questions, which brought about more comments and jeers from his peers.
At lunch, Miles walked into the cafeteria with his tray of food, looking for a place to sit away from everybody else, as usual. As he walked towards a table in the corner, he crossed the basketball players’ table. He and Sam exchanged a quiet look, and in that moment of distraction, another boy at the table tripped him. Miles fell to the ground, dropping his tray onto the ground.
“Good job, Miles!” One of the boys spat sarcastically.
“Yeah, you need to watch your step,” another boy added.
The boys at the table exchanged a lively laugh, as Miles tried to pick himself up and the now empty dishes from the floor back onto his tray. Sam was not laughing.
“You know, that’s really not funny,” Sam spoke up. “Could you not do that?” He looked straight into the eyes of the boy who had tripped Miles. “Would you like it if somebody did that to you?”
“What crawled up your ass?” The boy turned on Sam.
“I don’t know,” Sam replied with the same attitude. “I guess I just thought we could be better than that.” He stood from his seat and walked over to Miles, careful not to step on any spaghetti on the floor, leaned down and helped Miles up. The smaller boy looked up to his friend with hope. “I suppose that was wishful thinking," Sam added towards his athlete friends.
Sam walked away with Miles, under critical comments from his friends. He paid for Miles to have another lunch, and then sat down with him at a table, away from the basketball players. Miles was filled with a warmth he had never experienced before and could not help but smile at his friend. Behind the tough exterior, he could tell Sam was nervous. This showing required a lot of courage on his part. But Miles was so thankful that alone Sam made an appearance that day, even at school.