The Primes Reckoning

HOMECOMING

Vera

I stand on the cracked sidewalk three houses down my mother’s house, my fingers had turned white, holding the strap of my backpack. From here, I can see the peeling gray paint, the screen door hanging crooked on its hinges, the overgrown lawn that died sometime last summer and never got the memo to decompose with dignity.

My lungs feel too small. Like someone has wrapped a belt around my chest and is slowly, slowly tightening it.

Turn around, my brain whispers. Just turn around.

I could go back to campus and spend the night in the library, curled up in one of those uncomfortable chairs that smell like desperation. I could tell her... what? That I have a study group? That I'm sick? That I died?

She wouldn't care. She might even prefer it.

My breathing turns shallow and fast. The edges of my vision blurred, and I squeeze my eyes shut and try to remember.

“In through your nose. Four counts. Hold. Out through your mouth. Four counts. Good girl.”

Drake's voice, low and rough, from last night. His hand on my lower back, steady and warm. The way he'd looked at me like I was worth the effort of slowing down for.

I mimic the pattern. Nose. One, two, three, four. Hold. Mouth. One, two, three.

The static recedes. Not completely but enough that I can unglue my boots from the pavement.

This morning feels like it happened to someone else. Someone who didn't run away from a boy's bedroom like the building was on fire.

The fight had been intense.

I'd been half-dressed, fumbling with my shirt, when the shouting started. Drake's father, though I'd never met him before, then had stormed into the hallway outside Drake's room. His voice was a blade, cutting through the door, through the air, through something deeper I couldn't name.

"You will not disrespect me in my own territory."

"Then stop acting like I need your permission to breathe."

The anger between them had weight. It pressed against my eardrums, made my teeth ache, turned the room too hot and too sharp all at once. I'd frozen with my top half worn, one arm still in the sleeve, paralyzed by the violence humming in the walls.

And then, I swear it happened. I saw their eyes.

Both of them. Drake and his father. Flashing gold in the shadows of the hallway.

I blinked. The color vanished and turned to normal, grey eyes.

You're exhausted, I'd told myself, yanking my shirt the rest of the way on. You're stressed. You're hallucinating demons because your brain is broken, and you can't even have a normal morning after without inventing supernatural nonsense.

I'd stumbled out of Drake's room muttering apologies to no one in particular, my face burning, my coordination shot. I'd nearly left my jacket tangled in his sofa, had to lunge back to grab it like some comedy sketch of a walk of shame. My hands shook so badly I couldn't button it right. I gave up and held it closed.

I was at the front door, my fingers on the handle, when Drake appeared beside me and caught my wrist.

He'd been on the bed, but suddenly he was right beside me, so fast I never saw him move.

I didn't hear him move.

He turned me with hands that were gentle despite everything. Turned me, so his body was between me and the rest of the world. Between me and his father's voice, still snarling from behind me.

He pulled me into a hug that felt like being captured and protected at the same time. His heart hammered against my cheek.

Then he kissed me.

Not on the mouth. On the cheek, but fierce. Desperate. His stubble scraped my skin, and his fingers dug into my back like he was memorizing the shape of me, or trying to convince himself I was real.

I went rigid. Shocked stupid.

He pulled back just enough to see my face, and his expression crumpled. He pressed a second kiss to the same spot, softer this time like a promise I didn't understand.

"Call me when you get home," he whispered.

My hands were still shaking when I reached the door.

A door slammed up the street.

I flinched so hard I nearly dropped my bag. A woman emerged from the house two doors down from Drake's house.

She was stunning.

Tall, athletic, her dark hair pulled back in a severe ponytail that showed off cheekbones that could cut glass. Even in leggings and a hoodie, she looked elegant. Expensive and dangerous.

She noticed me starring

Her dark eyes sweep over me once, and I feel every inch of my secondhand jacket, my faded jeans, my hair that I didn't have time to wash this morning. The backpack with the broken zipper. The shoes I've had since high school.

She looked unimpressed.

The corner of her mouth twitches, and she turns away, dismissing me entirely. Going into Drakes' apartment like I'm not even worth the energy of contempt.

I shrink into myself, suddenly aware of every flaw, every inadequacy, every reason why someone like Drake Blackwood might have kissed me out of pity or confusion or temporary insanity.

She's probably his friend. My brain supplies helpfully. Or his sister.

Whomever she might be, he doesn't owe me an explanation. He never promised me anything.

My mother’s doorstep is exactly as I remember it: splintered wood, a welcome mat that says "GO AWAY" in faded letters my mother thinks is hilarious. I should knock.

Instead, I pull out my phone.

My thumb hovers over Drake's name. I don't need anything. I don't have anything to say. I just... I want to stay outside a little longer. I want to hear his voice say my name like it means something. I want to pretend I'm the kind of person who gets to want things.

I press call.

It rings once. Twice. Three times.

Voicemail.

I try again. The call drops simultaneously as the front door swings open.

"Sis is back! Sis is back!"

Jamie launches himself at me with the force of a small, enthusiastic missile. I barely catch him, staggering back a step, and then his arms are around my neck and his legs are around my waist, and he's singing. Off-key, loud, joyful noise. Some nonsense chant he made up that mostly involves rhyming "Vera" with "era" and "Terra" and occasionally "pizza."

"Hey, bug." My voice cracks. I squeeze him until he squeaks, breathing in the smell of peanut butter, grass. That particular little-boy musk that means he hasn't taken a bath in at least two days. "Missed you."

"Missed you more! The triplets aren't home yet, and I'm bored and Mom won't play Uno with me because she says it's a stupid game for stupid people and I said," I'm not stupid, and she said."

"Jamie." I press my face into his hair, cutting off the flow of information. "Breathe, buddy."

He pulls back to beam at me, all gaps and dimples. Four years old and still believe I'm coming home because I want to, not because guilt and obligation have carved a groove in my chest so deep I can't climb out.

"Are you staying? You can have my bed. I'll sleep on the floor. Or we can share. I don't kick. Much."

"Let's see how the night goes, okay?"

I carry him inside. The living room hits me like a physical blow. Stale air, thick with smoke and unwashed dishes and something rotting in the kitchen. The blinds are drawn against the afternoon light, casting everything in gray-brown shadow. The coffee table is buried under empty bottles, old magazines, and what looks like a half-finished jigsaw puzzle of a lighthouse that's missing most of its sky pieces.

My mother sits in her armchair, the one with the broken spring that no one else sits in because it's hers. A joint burns between her fingers, the sweet-sour smell of weed mixing with the deeper, sourer smell of the house itself.

She looks at me. I look at her.

"Hmph."

She stands, joints popping, and walks past me without a word. Out the back door. It slams.

Jamie tenses in my arms. I squeeze him tighter.

"She's just... getting air," I lie. "Hey, you want to help me make this place less of a disaster? Triplets will be home soon, and you know how Josh gets when he can't find his cleats."

Jamie nods solemnly, sliding down my body, "Josh yells. He says bad words. Then Collin tells Mom and Mom says boys will be boys and Ben cries because he hates yelling."

"That sounds about right."

I open the blinds first. Light floods in, harsh and revealing, every layer of dust, every evidence of neglect. I don't let myself stop to feel it. I just move.

Dishes in the sink. Trash in bags. I find a dead plant on the windowsill that I swear used to be a succulent, now just a pot of dried dirt and regret. Jamie follows me like a duckling, chattering about his day, his cartoons, the frog he found in the backyard that he named Sir Hops-a-Lot until Sir Hops-a-Lot escaped and broke his heart.