Page 15 of Reasons We Break
Sukha’s barely fourteen, but Rajan’s surprised by the force with which he shoves him away. “This asshole finished my last box of Oreos!”
“So? Let go of Yash right now.” This time Rajan hauls him away like he means it, catching a few elbows in the process.
Sukha staggers back, dark eyes flashing. As usual, Rajan is startled each time they make eye contact; he came back home and suddenly his brother was the spitting image of him at that age. Stockier, maybe, but the same straight nose, heavy brows, wavy hair, and sharply angled face. Not to mention the constant anger in his eyes.
Sukha’s voice is just as venomous. “This is none of your fucking business.”
“Stop fucking swearing so much,” Rajan snaps. “You’re fighting your eleven-year-old brother in your pajamas. Go cool off and get ready for school.”
Sukha looks half ready to fight him, too. Rajan braces himself. It wouldn’t be their first physical altercation recently. But Sukha storms off, knocking into him as he goes. Rajan watches him slam his bedroom door hard enough to make the frame rattle, before squatting next to his youngest brother, Yash.
Yash is also in his pajamas, breathing hard. Rajan studies him. The fringe of his hair is plastered to his forehead. He doesn’t look like Rajan much at all. More like their mother: softer features, wide eyes, a rounder chin. He’s pale, holding his arm awkwardly.
“What’s wrong? Does it hurt?”
“No,” Yash whispers. His lower lip is trembling, though. “I’m okay.”
“Then why do you look like you’re gonna cry?”
Yash blinks rapidly. “I’m not.”
Yash used to cry freely around him all the time. He used to say a lot in general. Sukha might be angry all the time now, but Yash is just quiet. Has a year changed that much?
Rajan flounders for words in the silence that stretches between them. He has a feeling Yash wouldn’t let him look at his arm, and he’s too much of a coward to find out. “Why’d you eat his cookies, anyway?”
That gets a reaction. “He doesn’t own them,” Yash says hotly. “Besides, I was hungry.”
And there wasn’t any food, is the unsaid part. “I’ll make something. Get ready for school.” With a last pat to Yash’s hair, Rajan ducks under the doorframe to the kitchen, kicking the crate of glass bottles in the corner as he goes. Their father must still be asleep. A small mercy on mornings like these.
Rajan pops bread into the toaster, then leans against the grimy counter, staring out the window at the decrepit swing set next door. It’s been five days since Nick’s visit. Five quiet days. But he’s hyperaware he has forty-eight hours left. Less, actually, because he’s spending the next couple with Hillway.
He’s gone over his options countless times. None are good, although he knows what his probation officer would say. That he should tell her. Or the cops. He laughs under his breath at that thought. As if half the department hasn’t picked him up in a cruiser at some point. They’d probably say he breached probation just getting in the truck with Nick. And what’s Kat gonna do, anyway? Smile the Lions into submission?
Yeah, no. As always, he’s on his own.
Rajan cracks open the Hillway pamphlet on his bus over. Hillway has apparently partnered with several local organizations in the last year to provide “more rewarding community service opportunities” for juvenile offenders. It was, of course, Simran Kaur Aujla’s idea. The only catch is the volunteers have to be on their best behaviour. One strike, and he’ll be out with a garbage-picker-upper instead.
Today’s location is a breakfast kitchen downtown; it was founded by a local gurdwara, funded collectively by the Sikh community. Rajan feels odd taking off his cap and donning a rumal, tying it bandana-style over his hair. He hasn’t put one on since he was a kid.
When he enters the kitchen, an elderly Punjabi auntie in a white salwar kameez spots him and lights up. She ushers him over to write name plates for the dining tables. While Rajan helps her decorate the cards for their sponsors, she engages him in conversation about his parents’ ancestral villages. Someone’s grandma clearly didn’t get the message about Rajan Randhawa, but he’s relieved to be spoken to normally for once. And she’s clearly just happy to find a volunteer who speaks Punjabi.
Their conversation is interrupted by a young woman with curly hair under her chunni and an amused smile. “Okay, Nani ji. I have to actually give him a task now. I’m Neetu,” she introduces herself. “You must be...Rajan?” He nods, and Neetu checks something off on her clipboard, the big-ass rock on her finger catching the light and practically blinding him. “You can help bring groceries from the truck.”
Ah, manual labour. His usual job. Rajan drops his Sharpie and turns to the exit door, just in time to see Simran emerge from the management office, a rumal tied over her head. And he can’t help himself—he veers in her direction instead.
“Kiddan, Simran Sahiba?” He jokingly reaches to touch her feet like she’s a respected elder.
However, Simran doesn’t do her usual funny dance-away-from-his-hands routine. In fact, she doesn’t even look at him, but rather off behind him. “Did Neetu assign you yet?”
“Yeah. But don’t worry, I’ll still do whatever you tell me to.”
He grins at her, but she doesn’t return it. “No, that’s fine.”
And she brushes by him to the kitchen.
Rajan stares after her. What was that? Was she irritated by him acting familiar? But she seemed sonormalduring that conversation at the bus stop a few days ago.
Confused, he joins the chain of people hauling supplies into the building. During one of his many trips back and forth, he notices someone in the management office watching him from the doorway.