Page 4 of Wherever You Are

“Just give them a chance,” she says in a pleading whisper.

I want to shake my head, but I can’t. “They’re not going to change.”

She lets out this tiny breath and rubs my arm, and in her pitying gaze, I know that she’s not waiting for them to change. She’s always been waiting formeto change—to grow thicker skin. To be less sensitive.

More of a man, right?

I could make her a PowerPoint with all the evidence of their fucked-up deeds and she’ll still claim I left the majority of their brotherly love off the slides.

I stick my arms back into my jacket sleeves, and once I shake off the snow from my hood, our eyes lock for another beat.Protect me, Mom.

Please.

I drop the car keys in her palm. Giving her my escape.

She has a choice to make, and she doesn’t even hesitate. I watch her leave for the driveway. To shut off my running Mustang.

As soon as I walk into that greenhouse, I know for certain that I’m doomed.

* * *

It hurts to breathe. Pain splinters up my side with each inhale.

How do I reach my apartment? I have no clue—the whole drive is a blur. Like a dusty Sega game, the TV screen crackling with static. But I remember the greenhouse.

I remember pushing Davis so hard that he fell into a stack of ceramic pots. They shattered. Dirt spilled. The door was finally clear.

And I left to the sound of my dad yelling at me. For destroying my mom’s precious basil plants. They could’ve been parsley or spinach for all I know.

I didn’t get a good look.

I didn’t care, and I guess that’s my fault, right?

Stupid, clumsy me.

Once I’m inside my Philly apartment, I hold onto my ribs and search my kitchen cupboards. Banging each one open. Trying to find some pain pills. When I was a teenager, one of my friends in the neighborhood dealt pills and gave me oxy. Her therapist would write her all kinds of prescriptions.

All I have now is ibuprofen.

With one hand, I place the bottle on the counter and twist the cap off, having perfected the one-handed twist on “child-proof” caps years ago. It pops. I purposefully knock the bottle and the pills spill on the granite countertop. I scoop a handful, not even counting and toss them back into my mouth.

As soon as they go down, I cough.

Sharp pain erupts in my ribs. They’re broken.

I know they’re broken.

Sinking onto my desk chair, I try to forget what happened. Maybe I can see the events from Hunter’s fucked-up vantage. He just…he threw a bag of potting soil to me. It was heavy. I didn’t see it coming. The bag slammed into my gut and knocked the wind out of my lungs.

I doubled over. Coughing. And the bag—it landed on a gardening hoe and tore open. Soil littered the floor.

Davis slapped me on the back of the head.

I tried to put distance between us, but I walked closer to Hunter. He shoved another bag at my back. As if I had hands connected to my spine to grab the damn thing.

He knew what he was doing.

The brunt force plowed me into a wooden shelf, and the corner jammed into my ribcage. I can still hear thecrackin my ears. I can still feel my feet slipping beneath me and my legs buckling before I dropped to the ground.