Chapter 2

“I’ve been trying to call you for so damn long now Mariam; why the hell haven’t you picked up? Your son was in an accident and you couldn’t even bring your a*s down here to at least pay him one f*****g visit? What kind of mother are you?” My dad’s tense voice travelled through the house into Jacob’s bedroom.

Jacob was sitting in his wheel chair staring blankly out of his window and I was sitting on his bed, flipping through one of the issues from his collection of Time magazines.

“Are you going to call her?” He asked me suddenly. The wheels on his chair squeaked as he shifted his weight in the seat.

I turned a page. “I don’t need to, I’m fine.” I lifted my head when I heard him start laughing. “What?”

He swiveled around to face me. “You do realize I’ve known you for fifteen years right?”

“Yeah, so what?” I asked with clear un-interest.

His smile disappeared then. “What I’m trying to say is; you’re not fine Logan. I know you, and this, how you’re acting right now, isn’t you.”

            I looked past him at the stack of notebooks on his desk that sat below the window. “Well how do you want me to act? Nothing is the same anymore. You can’t walk, mom isn’t in our lives,” I trail off.

“Call her Logan; I’m sure she’ll understand.” He rubbed his eyes tiredly.

“She isn’t going through what I’m going through Jacob,”

He started gripping the arm rest of his chair tightly. “Her brother’s dead Logan, if anything she’s got it worse.”

            I stopped talking then because I didn’t want to upset him anymore. I climbed off of the bed and left the room, closing the door softly behind me. My stomach twisted as I heard his cries once again. It had been almost a week since the crash and he still hadn’t stopped crying.

**

“Hello?” Her voice was like a breath of fresh air in a world full of suffocation.

My cell phone felt hot in the palm of my hand as I cleared my voice to reply. “Uh, hi, its Jacob’s brother; Logan.”

“Oh!” She sounded like she was smiling; it gave my heart an unexpected warmth. “Hi, um, h-how are you doing?”

            I lay back in bed, allowing my body to sink into the sheets. “I’m good, I guess. Except my brother, he won’t stop crying, I don’t really know what to do,” I squeezed my eyes tightly together feeling stupid for bringing that up so quickly.

            “It’s alright,” She replied back almost immediately, “he’s still having trouble dealing with the accident. I’ve been crying a lot lately too, as a matter of fact I was just crying a few hours ago. I don’t tell my parents about it though, I don’t like when they worry about me, and they already have a lot on their minds since they’re still planning Jay’s funeral and all,” She replied back so simply, as if what I said hadn’t fazed her at all.

I scratched the back of my neck nervously. “I only really have my dad; my mom doesn’t exactly like us right now, best way to put it really.”

“What? Why? What happened?” She fired back quickly.

I stayed silent for a bit, not really sure if I should tell or not.

“Um, I’m sorry, that was a bit too forward. You don’t have to tell me, I’m really sorry about that.” She apologized before I could respond.

            “I-It’s alright, um, my mom, she was having an affair with some guy and she just randomly left us one night to go be with him. She pretty much just abandoned us I guess you could say.” I thought back to how she hadn’t even made an effort to visit Jacob in the hospital. She didn’t care about him; she didn’t care about any of us.

“Wow, I’m sorry.” She responded back awkwardly.

“Its fine,” I shrugged. There wasn’t really much I could do about it and neither could she.

The line stayed silent for a bit until she said something that would impact me forever.

“Do you hate my brother?”

I stared blankly up at the ceiling. “Kind of,”

She sniffed.

“I’m not going to lie to you, I’m sorry.” I rolled over to face the wall beside my bed.

“No, no, I’m happy that you were honest.” She said softly.

“Oh,”

It fell silent again, but the silence wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable; it was a nice silence.

“Um, I didn’t catch your name the last time we saw each other.” I piped up after the silence strung out for too long.

I heard muffled noises in the background of her call, it sounded like she was moving around or something. “Oh yeah, sorry about that, my name is Lily.” She sounded far away from the phone.

“Lily,” The name rolled off of my tongue so easily, I liked it.

“Yeah, Lily Maia Romera, you gotta roll the r’s in my last name though,” She chuckled to herself.

“Yeah,” I replied back distractedly. I climbed out of my bed and pulled my blinds open, realizing it was actually a really nice day outside.

            The cherry blossom tree my dad had planted when we came back from our vacation in Japan was blowing beautiful pink petals across our quiet street. The sun was shining down on the jade leaves of the trees lining the road and illuminated the colourful flowers planted in the many gardens, making our neighbourhood look more like a wonderland than a living complex. “Um, I was wondering, do you want to meet up maybe? It’s a pretty nice day outside,” I asked with all caution implied since I wasn’t really sure as to how she would answer back.

“Yeah, that would be really nice.” She sounded like she was smiling really widely.

“O-OK, uh, where do you want to go?” I frantically searched my mind for the perfect meeting place but of course it was blank.

“What about that nice lake by Mill Park?” She suggested immediately.

I nodded. “Yeah, OK, I’ll ask my dad to drive me.”

“Alright, I’ll ask my bro-no, uh, I-I mean my dad, or my mom, I don’t know I’ll ask one of them,” She giggled in embarrassment.

“OK, see you then.” I hung up the phone and stared down at the screen for a while. Suddenly it no longer felt so hard to breathe. 

Author's Note

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