Page 92 of Bobby Green

“Your house has more books,” he said. He was getting used to Reg’s quiet smiles, the ones that told him he’d touched Reg somehow, made him feel special.

Riding that high of helping Reg feel special was not getting old or tarnished in any way.

The next day, after they got to be muscle for evenmoreJohnnies drama, Bobby went back to Reg’s house and flopped exhaustedly on the couch.

“No housework today?” Reg asked, yawning.

Bobby looked over at V, who was doing her usual spacing-out-at-the-television thing. God, he wished he could hold Reg, just in the privacy of Reg’s home. “Nope,” he said, shaking his head. “In fact, I think I’m going to use your room and call my mom.”

“I’ll go get us some dinner,” Reg said. It was already eight o’clock, because they’d gone back to Kelsey’s house and closed it up, then helped her get out of her rental agreement. Bobby thought wistfully that it would be a good place to bring his mom, but he figured he should stick to the plan of the cheap apartment that let him save more money and get her input.

“You have a mom?” Veronica asked unexpectedly, glancing up.

“I do,” Bobby said, keeping his voice pleasant. He’d wondered often how it must feel for someone so small to constantly be surrounded by her brother’s big, bulky friends, so he tried to tone his whole… body down.

“Does she scream at you?” V asked, darting a glance at him.

“No!” Bobby answered, startled. “She misses me. I left her to find a job so I could help her with rent.”

“Did she give you presents?” V asked, sounding wistful. “Our mom didn’t.”

“Yes,” Bobby said, voice soft. “That’s how I knew to leave presents for you and Reg.”

She swallowed and looked away. “Somebody wrecked Reg’s books. That’s too bad.”

Bobby gaped at her. Somebody?Somebody?But then, this was the most contrition he’d seen from her—about anything—since they’d been introduced and he realized she’d stabbed her own brother because he’d been trying to give her the meds that kept her from going off the rails.

“Wasn’t one of our better days, no,” he said, hoping understatement would defuse things. “Hurt Reg real bad.”

V tugged at her cuticle. “Reg takes things too seriously,” she said after a minute. “Always did.”

Bobby squinted at her, unsure of her motivation. “It’s a good thing he does. He’s kept a roof over your head, food in your cupboards, gotten you to your doctor’s appointments—”

“No one asked him to,” she snarled, putting her finger in her mouth and ripping the cuticle off completely until it bled. “Meddling. I’m a grown-up—why’s he need to get in my face about shit? Everybody, trying to keep me in this shitty little house—who the hell are you anyway, you faggot?”

Bobby knew his eyes got big.

“Excuse me,” he said and walked into the kitchen. “Your sister’s off her meds again,” he told Reg.

Reg had been with Bobby over the last two days, picking up broken glass and helping other people manage their messy lives. He was exhausted, and it showed in the droop of his jaw, the quiver of his lower lip.

“I… I got nothing,” he said. He closed his eyes and then opened them again. “Wait! I got something! She’s got a doctor’s appointment tomorrow! They texted me this morning when we were on Kane’s lawn.” His entire body shuddered. “Wait… I don’t have a scene tomorrow, right?”

Bobby frowned. “No—you would have if you’d done your regular schedule, but not now.”

“But… but she has them every two months.” Reg started counting on his fingers. “And then we go get medication. I put it out for her from the bottles, but she should have needed a refill by now.”

“Yes, I know that.” Bobby was intimately aware of V’s medication rituals by now—he’d had to give her the pills on occasion when Reg had been at work.

“No,” Reg muttered. He frowned at Bobby. “You don’t understand. Usually I know there’s an appointment coming because the pill bottle levels go down. But we went to the appointment last time, and they told me her prescription would last as long as it needed to, and she’s got another appointment tomorrow and we have full levels in the bottles and….”

Reg clapped his hand over his face and then went to root through the cupboards. He came out with three full bottles of pills.

When he opened them up and shook one into his hand, it disintegrated. “They been doing that,” he said flatly.

“I don’t understand.” Bobby knew he should be getting this, but it seemed so simple. A child’s gambit, but Reg, trying desperately to keep his sister normal, had missed it.

“She put them in her mouth,” Reg muttered. “And pretended to swallow.”