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Cody

I couldn’t breathe. Mom’s news hit me like a gut punch. “Where will he even stay?” I paced about the kitchen, scrubbing my hands over my face. I wasn’t dumb; I knew he’d stay in the guestroom, but I was grasping at straws—searching for any possible reason to stop the nightmare that was unfolding.

I caught sight of the sweat on my forehead in the kitchen window’s reflection. My sallow skin matched the shade of yellow covering the walls. Everything about Rafael made my insides twist into painful knots. Just uttering his name made my throat turn dry and clog with anxiety. I met him once, and that was enough. I’d spent approximately a day and a half with that rich little shit, and, in that time, I witnessed him cause more destruction than a fucking bomb. He couldn’t be a permanent fixture in my life. He just couldn’t. I’d waited so long for a typical, predictable life, and Rafael possessed the predictability of a rabid raccoon.

My mother sipped her coffee, and a slight tremor was visible in her hand as she lifted the cup. I knew she dreaded his arrival, too. That fucker ruined what was supposed to be the best day of her life. I wanted to kill him that day. The reddish hue of the church’s cherry wood morphed into an inferno of scarlet fury as Rafael berated his father and slandered my mother in front of the entire congregation. You didn’t fuck with my mother and live to tell the tale.

Mom sighed as she set her cup down on the kitchen island. “He’ll stay in the guestroom. Hank told me he’ll do his best to talk to him during the car ride home.”

If all the pricks in the world decided to pick up and live in one place and form their own little prick society, Rafael Sinclair would be crowned king. That dude was a fucking menace—a spoiled, little brat who thought the world owed him something.

My thoughts raced back to the day he arrived for the wedding. He hated us at first sight. The transformation of his expression from haughty appraisal to dark contempt haunted my dreams for weeks after that dreadful day. I witnessed the shift, and guilt clawed at my heart for not doing something to prevent what he did. I sensed he’d do something, but I bit my tongue because I didn’t want to worry Mom.

And to top it off, I’d been excited to meet him. Hank placed a picture of his boys flanking his sides on the mantle right after we moved in, and, for whatever reason, I couldn’t stop looking at it. Rafael’s olive skin glistened under a sunny sky, highlighting his jet-black hair and piercing blue eyes, which looked like they’d been chipped off a glacier.

I knew he played hockey, a sport I’d been obsessed with since I was five. We could never afford to sign up for an actual hockey league—I’d spent my youth playing street hockey—but that changed when Mom met Hank. I couldn’t wait to talk to Rafael about it. Hank described him as a force of nature on the ice.

They’d taken the picture a year before Mattie passed. I felt for Rafael. How it all went down had to be traumatizing, and Rafael was there when it happened. I wanted to be his friend.

On the wedding day, I could smell the liquor on him, but I still didn’t want to say anything. I thought if I even mentioned it, Mom might collapse.

Her first marriage was an elopement with my Dad at the courthouse downtown. They were both nineteen when they found out Mom was pregnant, and marrying that fucker was the worst decision she ever made. Her parents disowned her, and my Dad turned out to be a scumbag. Everything in her life after that elopement was a chaotic firestorm of secrets and pain.

Dad hid an alcohol problem for years and gambled away our entire life. My mother’s face the day the bank loaded everything we owned onto a truck, leaving us homeless, will forever be seared in my memory. Dad ran off like a coward. I don’t know where he is—don’t care either—and Mom and I moved into affordable housing.

Mom took it hard. Really hard .

I’m pretty sure she had a nervous breakdown because she didn’t get out of bed for two whole weeks. I was six and tried to make her eat the ridiculous breakfasts a six-year-old would make: toast with chocolate syrup, Fruity Pebbles with heaping spoonfuls of sugar added, the good stuff for a kid who could barely reach the freezer door. I took the reins and became the parent for close to two months, while my poor Mom ambled about the tiny apartment in a stupor. The school kept calling home because I smelled. I hadn’t bathed in weeks because nobody made me wash, and six-year-old me didn’t like taking baths anyway. Eventually, I stopped going because I was so worried about Mom. I later had to repeat first grade because of my truancy. The school finally called our emergency contact, Aunt Sue, who arrived at the apartment to find my Mom slumped in her bed with a Camel Light dangling between her lips and me making grilled cheese with a clothing iron because the fire on the stove scared me.

Aunt Sue packed us up that night and took us to her place, and we lived in her basement for four years. I don’t know what we would have done without her. We would have stayed longer, but a pipe burst one winter, flooding our home . After that, we’d bounced around from one crappy place to another for six whole years until Mom met Hank. Six years of never knowing what tomorrow might bring. Six years of clenching my body in anticipation of the inevitable dropping of the shoe. And it always managed to drop.

After the breakdown, my Mom just couldn’t handle any amount of stress. If the slightest thing happened, she shut down. She fell apart on every holiday and birthday—anything could trigger her. It broke my heart, but I eventually grew accustomed to it. I got good at sensing the impending collapse and swooped in when my spidey sense warned me that shit was about to hit the fan.

I could teach a whole class on crisis avoidance. Then the wedding happened. The look on Mom’s face when Rafael went on his rampage mirrored the expression she had the day they took our whole life away on a truck. Her eyes became glassy, and her body trembled. My mother was already a pale person, but her breakdowns drained her face of the usual rosy undertones, transforming her into a walking ghost. Multiple people tried to stop Rafael. Even the priest attempted to grab that little prick and slap his hand over his mouth. Rafael wriggled away and ran like a maniac around the church, his screaming echoing off the walls. He finally started bolting down the aisle, running straight for my mother and Hank, when I stuck out my arm and clotheslined him. I’ll be honest: I never felt more satisfied than when his lower body swung like a bell in the air, lining up parallel to the floor and clattering to the ground.

For a moment, he just lay there, and I could sense the entire congregation fearing I killed the motherfucker. I didn’t. Unfortunately.

Now he was moving in.

Mom approached and rested a hand on my shoulder, snapping me out of my thoughts. “I know you’re still angry about the wedding—”

“Understatement,” I interjected.

“—but there’s nothing we can do about this,” she added.

I threw my hands up in the air in exasperation. “That’s bullshit! Of course, there’s something we can do. We can say ‘no.’ Tell Rita to deal with him, or she can kick him out and let him fend for himself!”

Mom held up her hand, signaling that I needed to cool it, then added, “Rita has dealt with him for the last four years. Alone. Hank hasn’t been present in Rafael’s life since he moved out, and that’s probably one reason Rafael acts out like he does,” Mom explained.

Of course, Mom was empathizing with that little fucker. She was always the sweetest.

I, on the other hand, was not feeling quite so empathetic. My feet couldn’t stay still. I would have slammed a fist into the marble countertop if I hadn’t moved. I took deep breaths as I spoke. “He’s not acting out. That’s what you say about a twelve-year-old who steals a kid’s lunch money. He’s committing crimes! He drove drunk and wrecked his car. He doesn’t need a father figure; he’s eighteen! He needs an ass-kicking! Or to go to jail or something.”

“ Please!” A raspy desperation laced Mom’s words. She closed her eyes and took a breath. I could see her counting in her head. I need to shut up . She opened her eyes again and begged, “Please, try. That’s all I’m asking for, Cody. I’m sorry this is happening, but I’m asking that you try. If it’s a complete disaster, we’ll figure something out.”

I hated this. I hated him. If I never saw Rafael again, it’d be too soon, but I also wasn’t about to put Mom through more pain.

I hugged her and whispered, “Okay. I’ll try.” I’ll try not to kill him.