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I rushed into the kitchen, slid across our tiled floor, and bumped my shoulder into the corner of the wall as I picked up the phone.
“Hello?” I said, out of breath.Shit, that hurt.I rubbed at the ache pounding in my arm. “Hello?” I repeated for a second time.
“Hey, Olls!”
“Jason?” My heart had already been racing from flying down the stairs and into the kitchen, but it kicked into overdrive when I heard my brother’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Yeah, it’s me,” he replied. I slid down onto the floor, an involuntary breath spilling out of me.
It was weird how the sound of someone’s voice could make the world feel right again. Maybe it made me codependent; I didn’t know. But Jason’s voice immediately set me back on solid ground. “How are you doing, kiddo?” he asked.
“Who cares aboutme?I’m fine. How areyou?How’s infantry training?”
“It hasn’t started yet.” He chuckled softly. “We only just got here. And I care, for the record.”
“Oh, right. Right.” I flicked some lint off of my PJ’s. “It feels like you’ve been gone forever already,for the record.”
His sigh drifted across the line. “I know. I’m glad I got to see you, though. And I’m glad I caught you now. I’ll be pretty busy the next few weeks, but write me, yeah?”
“I already said I would.”
“Just want to make sure, smartass.”
I scoffed through a smile. “It’s your fault; you made me this way.”
“Touché. So… where’s Linda today?”
I rolled my eyes, shrugging. It was a waste of effort because he couldn’t actually see it. “Who knows. I haven’t seen her this morning, but she didn’t leave a note anywhere, so she has to be around here somewhere.”
His grunt rumbled off the phone and into my fingers. “You’re okay, though?” he asked after a beat.
“I’m fine. Totally fine,” I assured him. I’d been fine for the last fourteen weeks; I knew I’d be fine for the next thirty-six more. (That’s how many weeks were left until I graduated and got myself the hell up out of here.)
“Promise?”
“I promise,” I assured him again.
“Alright.” He sighed. “I wish I didn’t have to, but I gotta go now.”
“Okay.” I clutched the phone tighter. “You better write me back, though,” I threw out. My fingertips were on the verge of cramping from my grip on the phone, so I released my grasp.
“I will,” he said.
“Promise?” I tossed back at him.
“Promise.” There was a quiet laughter in his breath, followed by the click of the phone and a dead tone ringing out into my ears.
I hung up, blindly reaching above me to put the phone back on its receiver.
“Who was that?” Linda sang as she bounced into the room—the gym. That’s where she’d been. As if her skintight workout gear and glistening flesh weren’t clue enough, she threw in a whispered, “Eight miles!” for good measure, eyes wide and fingers spread out around her mouth as if this were some great accomplishment I should care about.
“Solicitor,” I lied, answering her previous question.
“Hmm,” she noted absentmindedly. Her back was already turned to me as she scanned over the refrigerator. “I don’t know why we still have that thing, anyway. Who has landlines anymore? No one, really. I should call and cancel it. It’s not like we don’t always have our cell phones on us—gosh, I’m hungry, and there’s next to nothing in this refrigerator. Should we go shopping? Let’s go shopping.”
One of my mother’s greatest talents? Having full-on conversations with herself without looking like a total psycho. Joke was on her, though, because she actually was, at least, half-psycho. There was no official paperwork to back up my analysis, but I had enough first-hand experience to prove otherwise.
I was still sitting on the floor as I looked over at her. “School.” I pointed down at the top of my head. “Minor, remember?”