Page 121 of The Story of You

Done with his meal, he pushed it away and reached for me, demanding his usual taxi service. He sat on my lap while I finished my half of a sandwich and Darius and I finished off what he left—otherwise, it was just going to be wasted.

“Get some sleep, Sye. Jesus. And you know, I could kill him. I could kill him for doing this to you both—I won’t, but I’ll be dreaming of it every night.”

* * *

Silas ~ August 1988

No one wants to hire teenagers. Even fewer people want to rent an apartment to them.

The best I could get was a night job as a janitor. It was a large building. I fucking hated it. But it paid decent money, and it could get us out of Motels and into an apartment sooner. Once I had a boss to use as a reference, someone might actually rent an apartment to us. I grew my beard out to look older.

The worst part of it was having to leave Oliver.

To that point, we’d rarely slept apart. Plus, his fear that I would leave him wasn’t gone, not even soothed. He would have to stay with Darius, whom he was just getting to know again. They were making friends—it’s hard not to make friends with Darius unless he’s showing his nasty side—but it wasn’t enough for Oliver to be cool with it.

“No, Baba. I will come with you.” His face pouted. His eyes pleaded.

Until that point, I’d given Oliver whatever he wanted with the only exception being anything dangerous. When we lived at home, I had Aleksander’s credit card with an unlimited budget. If he saw something in the store he liked, it was his. If he wanted to play ballerinas, I danced with him. If Oliver wanted to tag along to the store with me rather than staying with Mrs. Brandywine, he came.

For a moment, I considered how I might hide him somewhere while I worked. It’s not like I hadn’t been doing just that for the past three years—I graduated high school, took care of a house and sick parents, all with Oliver on my hip. But places of work didn’t like that, and I couldn’t risk losing the only place that would take me without references. I picked up my boy and bounced him. I kissed his head a whole bunch while I broke apart inside. I was going to have to tell him no. I made my voice as firm as I did when I had to tell him not to eat his food too fast or he’d choke.

“Oliver. Baba must go to work. I’ll be home in the morning and then we can play.” I didn’t know if that was going to be true. Would there be anything left of me in the morning? I would try.

His little face turned down; tears filled his eyes until they spilled over. We didn’t separate. It just wasn’t done. “Nooooo. Noooo,” he said.

I’d used my stern voice, the one he already knew meant business. “You’re going to have fun with Darry, okay?”

He put his thumb in his mouth and nodded. I pulled his soother out of my pocket and swapped his thumb for it.

“That’s my boy. Play nice until I come home.”

Darius wasn’t looking forward to this, but he was the same age I was when I looked after a newborn. He’d figure it out. He’d be fine. I made the mistake of looking at Oliver again before I left, I almost couldn’t go. Maybe Aleksander would keep his promise. Now that I had Darry, I could convince him to let Darius stay in exchange for my return. That way I could stay home with Oliver. I could handle a few more years until I had a better job, couldn’t I?

Then I remembered Oliver’s little body trembling.

I turned and left for work.

When I called home on my break, Oliver was screaming in the background. It was two am. “Darius? Darius, what the fuck happened?”

“Nothing.” He was pissed. “Nothing happened, okay? He just won’t fucking stop crying.”

He slammed the receiver down, not allowing me any more questions. I had wanted to talk to Oliver. I slammed the phone down too—it was my last quarter. There were no complimentary phones in the building—not for staff anyway—and I’d have to finish the night with the sounds of Oliver’s sobs in my head.

When I returned to the Motel, Oliver’d just passed out. Darius was curled around him, but he wasn’t sleeping. His face was wet with fresh tears. “You must have been so scared,” he said.

Darius, so deeply empathic, while at the same time able to not give a fuck when it’s something he considers trivial. “Who says I’m not still?”

He nods.

“Let me shower quick and I’ll climb in. Maybe this worked out for the best.” I was thinking we could, the three of us, sleep all day and then stay up through the night together. I didn’t know anything about sleep at the time and it seemed convenient. We would be the Randall vampires.

“You’re not the one who heard him scream like that all night.” Darius squeezed him and kissed his head.

“Oh. I have plenty.”

The three of us slept huddled under the blankets, clinging to each other.

* * *