Dangerous Liaisons

chapter four: clean slate.

      "Mom?" He clutched the iPhone to his ear. 

      "Baby, how are you? Is everything okay?" 

      He hesitated. "No," and after a bit, he finished. "Dad's gone. He’s just up and left!”

"Left?" Her rich voice, like melted chocolate, questioned. "Oh honey, left to where? How?" 

Clayton felt a burn through his chest, and he bit down on his lip, willing himself to get out the words he would go on to blurt out. "He's gone, he said he needed a break like he's the only one dealing with s**t. Look, can I come stay with you, at least till he's back?"

A silence so loud followed his question and when his mother sighed, Clayton wanted to end the call. What she should have said if she'd let him come was yes, in her upbeat and enthusiastic way. 

"Baby, I hate to do this but you coming right now isn't such a great idea... "

Clayton felt something inside him break. It was the only way he could describe the sensation of his ears hot with embarrassment and his stomach sunk to his core. 

"What? Why? I'm-"

"Things aren't so great with me and Gabe." 

Gabe was the man his mother had married when she'd left them. Things had gotten too much for her too. Olive skin just like his mother's 

"So you don't want me to make things worse between you and your husband?" He spat. "Forget I called," he finished, and their conversation became a figment of the past, the call cut short by his brash thumb. 

Clayton slumped down onto the white tiled floors, resting his palms on the cold surface. He wished it would cool the heat in his chest. 

He leaned his head against the doorpost of his father's room and shut his eyes. He didn't know when he fell asleep, the quiet around him merged with his innate fatigue knocking him out. 

~~••

"Clayton?" 

"Yeah, I've got the house to myself." 

Clayton, his ass crooned in the soft mattress of his father's bed, in a white robe, bit into his second slice of cheese pizza. 

He'd made the grand decision to call his elder sister, Marissa, as he'd been chewing on his first slice. 

"So he just left?" His sister asked yet again, the line shaky as he heard her walking, in her room he assumed. 

"But I'm going to make the best of it. No more moping." 

"And how do you intend to do that? Non-stop video games? Lying in bed all day?" She snorted and Clayton suddenly had the urge to pinch her small, cute-as-a-button nose like he'd do when she still lived at home with him and dad.