Soundtrack: 'Please be my strength' - Gungor
{Jon}
Jon was nauseous like the couch was rolling back and forth on ocean waves instead of standing solidly on the floor of the farmhouse. It was more than withdrawal sickness: the woman's memories drew a picture of Cary's childhood that he could painfully relate to, but hadn't thought of in years. When his brother had died, Pete had stuck by him every moment, picking him up from school, eating supper with him, taking him to the playground or watching kids' shows with him, then finally tucking Jon into his own big bed at night, in the empty spot his mother used to occupy. They never talked about Judah, but Jon had never felt alone—even though the hole of his brother's absence had left him feeling as if he'd been torn in two and half of himself had been buried in the ground. His father had been there to hold him up.
This woman had left Cary alone with a dangerously unstable parent when he had been as small and soft as Bea. In his mind's eye, Jon saw the map of scars on Cary's skin and it wrecked him. He had been so quick to blame Cary for his sister's death, shoving his face in it more than once this summer, like he, Jon, was so superior. Deep down, he had welcomed the news that someone was more fucked up than he was. Cutting Cary down, loudly and righteously, drowned out the noise of his own self-loathing.
That noise was back now with a vengeance.
Tru's footsteps came into the living room following the slam of the door and stopped beside him. He made an effort to push himself into a sitting position and meet her gaze. His throat was closed like a fist, and his eyes were burning.
"What's ailing you boy—something catching? I got too much to do around here to come down sick."
His swallow pushed against the fist in his throat, and he couldn't quite meet her eyes. "Not catching," he said hoarsely.
"You hung over? The two of you been drinking?"
Jon put the back of his hand to his mouth, shaking his head. "Cary's clean. He's not into that stuff. You should be—you would be proud of him, if you knew him."
She raked him up and down with her hard, direct look, taking in his ill-fitting clothes and cut-up arms. Jon bent his head and let her look shred him to pieces. Whatever she was thinking, the truth was worse.
"The two of you planning to head back today?"
He shook his head. He thought Cary might not tell her, and he wanted his friend to have a chance at something with her. "Cary doesn't have a home to go back to. He was living with us because he went to the police with all his bruises and scars and told them what his dad had been doing—so it wouldn't happen to his brother. There's a trial and a restraining order. That's why they aren't together. His mother kicked him out. He needs a place—to be for a bit."
Her blunt face was hard to read. "He was staying with your family? What happened there?"
Jon clasped his fingers around his upper arm. He didn't even know. He'd been so absorbed in his own bullshit that he had no idea what had happened between Cary and his parents over the summer. He lifted his shoulders and let them slump. "You have to ask him. I haven't been on great terms with them lately."
She let up on him, going to the window to look out at the yard. Jon tightened his fingers around his arm, shivering, and so sick of himself he thought he might throw up.
Jon was locked in the bathroom, bleeding, when hoarse, terrible cries pressed through the wall into the room with him. He lifted his head and let his shirt fall, instinctively climbing onto the edge of the tub as if he could exit through the narrow window to go to the noise. Dark shapes of branches and trees moved against the frosted glass, and he caught himself with his hand wrapped around the crank-handle. The window was too small, and even if he could have fit through, he couldn't stretch himself big enough to hold the hurt and rage that was battering against the house with those cries.
He backed away and sank on the edge of the tub, bowing his head to listen until Cary was done.
{Cary}
Cary tipped back onto the grass, tugging open his buttoned collar and letting his arms fall loose at his sides. He was still leaking. The blue chips of sky blurred and cleared through the moving leaves. He felt as if he'd been torn open, with all his organs dragged out and spread on the grass, and he could hardly sort out where everything was supposed to go.
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to pull himself back together. This was no place to fall apart, with charges against him and Jon on a knife-edge and a woman he hardly knew and couldn't yet trust. Painstakingly, he reassembled his insides with the hurting parts hidden down deep and stapled himself securely closed.
{Jon}
Jon's cuts had clotted by the time Cary was done. Jon unfolded from the side of the tub, his head aching. He went out to the front steps to wait, sinking to sit with his arms wrapped against his body and his knees drawn up.
A few minutes passed before Cary appeared around the house. When he noticed Jon, he slowed to a stop. His shoulders were straight and pulled back, and Jon was struck by how tall he was. Cary didn't usually stand tall.
"I heard everything." There was a crack in Jon's voice.
Cary lifted his chin and stillness settled over his body like ice.
"I judged you so wrong, Cary. I'm so—"
"I'm not fucking talking about this with you." Cary cut him off, his voice rubbed raw.
Jon shut his mouth, swallowing. The sting of the cuts he'd made didn't come close to what he deserved for the way he'd treated his friend. He bent his head, hugging his stomach more tightly. "I get that," he said. "I wouldn't be feeling too forgiving if I was you right now either."
Cary turned his face aside, the flat panes of ice shifting so Jon could see the cracks. "Fuck you." It was scraped to a whisper.
Jon got to his feet, trying to find a way to be that didn't hurt Cary more. "Lunch is on the table."
Cary touched the back of his hand to his mouth in a gesture Jon knew well. Jon attempted to lighten the moment. "My mom always says you'll feel better after you've eaten something." Cary made a harsh noise that Jon guessed was as close to a laugh as he was going to get.
Tru was setting the table when they came in, and the air was fragrant with the smell of frying onions. She glanced up, checking the boys over, then went back to laying out mismatched forks. "Made enough for the two of you. You had a long drive here."
"Thank you," Jon said.
Cary went to the sink and washed his hands, leaning down to splash water on his puffy eyes. He dried his face on his shirt without looking at either of them and pulled up a chair.
Jon didn't feel much like speaking, but he did for Cary what he had done during the first weeks of Cary's stay with his family—carried the conversation around his silence. Tru said more to the dogs, who were sitting attentively next to her and accepting scraps from her plate, than she did to either of her guests.
When the meal was over, Cary muttered something about a smoke and went outside. When Jon joined him on the front step, he silently offered him the lit smoke in his fingers. Jon took it gratefully, and Cary bent his head to light another. They didn't speak, but Cary didn't tell him to fuck off again either. Jon wrapped his free arm against his body, wiping his mind blank with each inhale, watching the wind moving in the field of wildflowers beyond the mown path.
The ring of Cary's phone made them both jump. He fumbled it out of his pocket to look at it, then was still. He handed it to Jon and got up, walking away. The phone vibrated and rang in Jon's hand—the word under the green phone symbol said PETE. He breathed a swear, picking up. "Hello, Cary's phone."
His dad drew in his breath. "Jon."
"Yeah, it's me." His voice was flat, as he watched Cary kick the toe of his shoe into the stubby mown grass.
"Is Cary with you?" He couldn't tell without seeing Pete's face, but his voice sounded stressed.
He pulled on the lead armour of his good deeds, like he had a hundred times before, without thinking whether he could still stand up under it. "He's here. We're at his aunt's farm—we're okay; you don't have to worry. He wanted to make things simpler for you."
Pete made a soft, incredulous noise. "Jon—you and Cary have made our life infinitely more complicated by leaving. I'm fielding phone calls from Social Services, the police, and the treatment house trying to explain why I don't know where you are or when you're coming back. You have made a whole series of harmful choices without a thought of how that would impact our family, or the consequences to yourself. I thought you'd finally turned a corner and were making a choice for recovery. I thought you understood that your treatment is the priority."
Jon hunched like those words were blows. "I do," he said thickly. "I understand that. I just...it wasn't working, at the house." He couldn't breathe—he needed some cover, something else for his dad to focus on. "Cary really needs a friend right now. He just found out some stuff about his family that really sucks."
In the silence, he felt his dad easing up the pressure, and he got a breath in. He'd guessed right: Pete never missed a chance to be a good pastor. "What stuff?" Pete asked gruffly.
Jon's cheeks burned, looking across the distance at Cary, who had rambled to the yard between the outbuildings and was chucking a ball for the two dogs to chase. "Tru told him today that his father made all that shit up about how his sister died. It was never Cary—she had a heart condition. He just couldn't handle it, so he took it out on Cary instead."
In the tight silence, Jon watched Cary haul his arm back and hurl the ball so hard and far that the bounding dogs couldn't keep up.
"It was never Cary," Pete repeated softly. "You were right about him—the first time."
The unspoken rebuke rang in his head, echoing Jon's own thoughts completely. Jon kneaded his hand against his stomach, barely able to find the energy for anger. "Yeah, I fucked that up too." The words just sounded heavy. "Big surprise."
His father's sigh went on so long Jon that thought it might never end. "What happened to you, Jon?" Pete's voice was low and rough with what could have been anger or heartbreak. Either were terrible. "I feel like I don't recognize my own son."
Jon turned his face aside and took the phone off his ear, so close to hanging up. His throat ached, thinking about the boy in his clean pants and his glowing skin—the Jon he'd been so good at pretending to be. This summer had exposed so much of the Jon he'd been hiding, the Jon he really was—and he honestly didn't know if his dad was ever going to love him again. He gently brought the phone back to his cheek. "I'm sorry, Dad." The words were thin and felt like goodbye.
"Just get better," Pete's voice broke, and Jon knew he was crying. Goddamn him for making his dad cry. "Please. We need you home."
"Got it," Jon managed. "Love to Mom and the girls."
He heard his father's intake of breath, like he was about to speak, and Jon stabbed the phone screen to hang up. His fingers were shaking so he had to do it twice, and then he turned the phone off completely.
He sagged, drawing his arms up over his head. The scabbed cuts scratched against the side of his face and his breath hitched. Get better. We need you. The inside of his skull felt like a gutted house with broken shit everywhere and wires hanging out of the walls. Even if anything still worked, where would he find a light switch?
He crossed the yard to where Cary was kicking through the tall prairie grass, looking for the ball with the dogs loping around him. He chucked the phone at his friend, who caught it clumsily, his eyebrows lowering. "Thanks so fucking much for that heartwarming chat with my dad," Jon said.
"Did he lose his job because of us?" Cary asked, flat.
"I don't know," Jon said. "Cops have been calling. Social Services. The treatment house. He's pissed." He felt the wall of Cary's own anger, barely contained beside him, and his shoulders slumped. The feeling that both Cary and his dad were angry with him made his stomach ache. The worst part was, he only had himself to blame. He hated who he'd become. He reached for the words that a normal person would say. "So is there a plan? Are we staying the night?"
"Don't think we have a better option," Cary said. The dogs bumped his hand with their smiling muzzles—one dropped the ball at his feet, waving its plume of a tail. Cary picked it up. "These guys like us better than she does, though." Cary drew back his arm and the dogs barked joyfully, then bounded after the ball.
Jon watched the dogs leaping, their tails flying, against the vast prairie sky. All the light made his head ache, and he shut his eyes, feeling as scraped and bare as the prairie around them. He had made his choices, and there wasn't a soul who cared about them for a hundred miles. "Feels like nobody would give a shit if we lived or died out here."
Cary knocked his shoulder. "I would give a shit."
Jon met his eyes. "You're on a short list," he said flatly. "I don't even like me."
Cary caught his shoulder and shook it, glaring at him. "Stop that. You got people. So do I. You're going to heal and feel good again—that's what bodies do."
Jon hunched under his grip, closing his stinging eyes. "Doesn't feel true."
"I know it is," Cary growled. "I need you to believe me. Just do today. Okay?"
His hand was hard on Jon's shoulder, and Jon leaned into the pressure. Wind whipped his tears back into his ears. God, he missed everything—this friendship and his home and his family and being a normal kid with nothing wrong with him. His father's words were a painful reminder that he wasn't that kid anymore, and he was never getting him back. All he had was this former friend leaving bruises on his shoulder, this aching, rickety body, and this unfamiliar dirt under his feet. It was barely enough to keep the darkness from swallowing him whole. "Okay," he whispered.
///
Tru stumped out in a pair of rubber boots as they re-entered the yard. She put a hand on her hip, surveying the sky. "There's some jobs I need doing around here if you're staying the night."
She and Cary locked eyes, neither face shifting a muscle as they sized each other up. "You know anything about swinging a hammer, boy?"
Cary lidded his eyes, turning away.
"You hear me?" Tru asked a little more loudly.
Cary turned back, and Jon realized he was taller than her. "I don't answer to boy," he said in a soft, flat voice. "Anymore."
Her thick eyebrows shot up, leaving a deep groove in her forehead. "Well, then, you know anything about swinging a hammer...sweetheart?"
Jon choked on a laugh and covered his mouth with his hand. Cary relaxed slowly, easing back on his heels. He nodded.
"You got things that need doing around here—I could do them."
"I'll take you to the barn—there's a stall to mend and some pens to bed. After supper I'll make up the spare room. Ain't been slept in for a while."
Cary lowered his eyes. "Thank you."
Her look skewered Jon. "Someone know you're here? You're not causing your parents to worry now, are you?"
Cary's eyes went to Jon and he lifted his shoulders, his head aching. "My dad knows. I guess he'll tell whoever else needs to know."
The air in the barn was thick with the smell of manure and buzzing with flies, and the row of stalls mounded with used straw bedding seemed endless. Jon tried to keep up with Cary, who was silently pitching forkful after forkful of dirty straw into the wheelbarrow. His headache felt like someone bashing pots and pans together inside his skull. Cary remained silent when Jon started to sweat, staggering to the corner of a stall to throw up.
Jon leaned there, trembling, too weak to lift his pitchfork, the pounding in his head matching the thud of his heart. "Almost done this part, yeah?" he asked weakly.
"Yuh," Cary said. "Should be drinking more water than you are."
"Stay hydrated. Got it." Jon moved unsteadily across the lumpy straw to pick up his pitchfork again. He couldn't remember what it felt like to have a body that was easy or to have skin that he was comfortable in. His cuts stung and burned as he sweated and moved his arms, doing more physical activity in two hours than he'd done in the past two months.
The sun was low on the horizon, yellow beams of light cutting through the spaces in the trees, when the boys emerged from the barn. Jon took a gulp of cool air to clear the heavy smell of manure from his mouth.
Tru had supper waiting: chili from a can hot on the stove and a pile of sliced cucumbers and carrots that looked bumpy and imperfect, like they'd come from her garden. She looked them over sternly. "Shower, then eat."
Jon went to the sink to wash his hands and take a long drink of water.
"Is there someplace I can do our laundry?" Cary asked.
This question seemed to take the edge off her stern manner. "The back room. Leave your things in the basket in the hall for now."
When Jon emerged from the single bathroom, his hair damp and wearing another set of Cary's clothes, Tru was already eating. He served himself, since she didn't get up or look at him. He was too exhausted to think of things to say to carry the conversation, so they ate in silence.
Tru did look up when Cary came in, her eyes narrowing as she watched him dish up at the stove. Cary touched her with his look for a second.
"Thanks for the food."
She nodded shortly. "Left you spare blankets and pillows. There's only one bed. We'll sort out what to do with you in the morning."
"Better than sleeping in the car," Jon said into his bowl, and Cary snorted his soft agreement.
It was a quiet meal. Tru got up and washed her single bowl and spoon when she was finished and left the room. Jon said wryly, "I see the family resemblance."
Cary shot him a look from under his eyebrows, saying nothing.
Jon's mouth twisted. "Do you want me to go?"
"No." Cary got to his feet, taking his bowl to the sink to do the same as Tru had. He left without another word.
Jon shoved his half-eaten bowl of chili away. He felt too sick to eat anyway. He went down the dark hallway and crawled into the bed in the spare room, not caring that it wasn't even Bea's bedtime yet. He couldn't pray, but he tried to imagine his mom doing the girls' bedtime routine, as if her prayer could be for him tonight.
Instead, his own thoughts whispered to him in the dark. You're hanging by a thread, Jon White. A thin, thin thread.
Jon put his hands against his face, taking a shuddering breath. He had worked so hard to be the good son his parents needed and the good friend Cary needed. Years of being careful and doing the right thing, of swallowing his own feelings, of smoothing things over for his mom to be okay and his dad to be happy—all that hard work had collapsed in a heap of rubble because of one stupid summer. Any hope he might have had that he could get his shit together and be part of his family again stretched dangerously thin, dangling him over a pit of hungry blackness. He curled into a ball under the covers, holding his aching stomach. He'd made his choices, and now he had to live with the consequences.