Chapter 8- Empty seat
1370 Words
Shade's POV
The house smells like cigarettes and microwave soup.
Mom’s on the couch. Same spot. Same robe. Same dead eyes watching a talk show where nobody’s actually talking.
“You’re late,” she says without looking at me.
I drop my bag. It hits the floor with a thud. “Hospital had traffic.”
She flinches. Just a little. The word _hospital_ does that to her.
“Is he…” she starts.
“Same,” I cut her off. “Ethan’s the same.” I yelled
"Though I'll be going to see him at the hospital soon". I whispered in tears
Same as last week. Same as last month. Same as six months ago when the car wrapped around a pole and the doctors said _brain damage_ and _we’ll see_.
We haven’t seen yet.
She nods. Takes a drag. The end of her cigarette glows like the ink on Damian’s shirt. Red. Even though it’s not.
“Your brother’s in his room,” she says. “He asked about you.”
Not Ethan. Ethan doesn’t ask. Ethan doesn’t talk.
Mikey.
---
Mikey’s door is cracked. He’s eight. He’s small. He’s got my eyes but none of my sharp edges. Yet.
He’s building something with Legos. A house. No roof.
“Hey,” I say.
He looks up. Grins. Missing tooth. “Did you see Ethan?”
Like it’s a surprise.
Like I go a lot.
I do.
I sit on his floor. Pick up a red brick. “Yeah. I saw him.”
“Did he wake up?”
The brick digs into my palm. “No, bud. Not today.”
Mikey nods. Goes back to his house with no roof. “That’s okay. You came back.”
Like _I’m_ the one in the hospital.
Like _I’m_ the one he’s scared of losing.
“Can I sleep in here tonight?” I ask.
He scoots over. Makes room on a twin mattress that smells like sweat and baby shampoo. “You have to tell me about Ethan first.”
So I do. I lie.
I tell him Ethan laughed at my joke. I tell him Ethan asked about his Legos. I tell him Ethan’s coming home soon.
Mikey falls asleep smiling.
I don’t sleep.
I listen to him breathe. I think about Lukas on the roof. I think about Damian at his locker.
I think about Ethan in that bed, tubes in his arms, and the word _Virelli_ that my father used to scream before he got in the car with Ethan that night.
When the sun comes up, I’m still awake.
I don’t go to school.
---
Damian's POV
Third period. Lab.
Her seat is empty.
It’s not the first time a student’s skipped. It happens. Seniors get senioritis. Freshmen get scared.
But Shade doesn’t get scared.
She gets even.
I call roll. My voice doesn’t shake. Much.
“Isadora vale?”
Silence.
“ Shade?”
A kid in the back — Marcus — snorts. “She’s probably in detention again, Mr. V. Or expelled.”
The class laughs.
I don’t.
I mark her absent. Ink blue. Not red.
I check the door every five minutes.
She doesn’t walk through it.
By sixth period, Lukas isn’t in class either. His seat is empty too.
Two empty seats.
One I expect. One I don’t.
“Anyone seen Lukas?” I ask. My voice comes out wrong. Too tight.
Sarah, front row, shrugs. “He’s always with Shade. If she’s ditching, he’s ditching.”
_Always with Shade._
The words sit wrong in my chest.
After the bell, I go to the office.
“Isadora vale,” I tell Mrs. Landry. “She wasn’t in lab. Has anyone called home?”
Mrs. Landry looks at me over her glasses. “Mr. Virelli, we don’t call home for one absence. Not unless there’s a pattern.”
“There’s a pattern,” I say.
She blinks. “With you?”
I don’t answer.
I go back to my classroom. Sit at my desk. Stare at the attendance sheet.
_Isadora vale - A_
Blue ink.
My hand is shaking.
Because empty seats are normal.
But Shade isn’t.
And if she’s not here, if she’s not throwing ink or saying my name like a threat, then where is she?
And why does it feel like blood?
I don’t call home for one absence. That’s what I tell myself.
Then I do it anyway.
Mrs. Landry watches me dial. Her eyes say _unprofessional_. Her mouth says nothing. Smart woman.
It rings. Four times. Goes to voicemail.
“This is the Vale residence. Leave a message.”
A woman’s voice. Flat. Tired. Smoke in every syllable.
I hang up.
I tell myself it’s because I don’t know what to say. _Hi, your daughter threw ink at me and now she’s missing and I can’t stop thinking about her brother in a hospital?_
Right.
I try Lukas next. He’s in the system. Emergency contact: his dad. I don’t call him. I call Lukas.
Straight to voicemail too.
“Hey. It’s Lukas. You know what to do.”
Beep.
I don’t leave a message for him either.
---
Fourth period prep. I grade papers I’m not reading. Red pen. Not blue. Red looks like grades. Blue looks like her.
Marcus sticks his head in my door. “You okay, Mr. V?”
I look up. “Why?”
“You keep looking at her seat. Like she’s gonna crawl out from under it.”
He’s not wrong.
“Go to class, Marcus.”
He leaves. Door clicks shut.
I look at her seat again.
---
Last bell rings. I should go home. I don’t.
I pull Shade’s file. It’s thin. Too thin for a girl who takes up that much space.
Coz am the class captain
*Isadora Vale *
*Grade: 11*
*GPA: 2.1*
*Disciplinary: Excessive*
*Home: 1428 Mercer St*
*Guardian: ,Anna Vale *
*Siblings: Vale Ethan (17), Vale Michael (8)*
*Notes: Father deceased. Brother Ethan - long-term hospitalization. Recommend counseling. Declined.*
Ethan. 17. Hospital.
Seventeen like the steps she counted on the roof. Seventeen like the years I’ve been teaching and never once had a student get under my skin this bad.
I close the file.
I tell myself I’m not going to Mercer Street. I’m a class captain. There are rules. Boundaries. Lines.
I cross them anyway.
---
1428 Mercer is a house with no roof. Not literally. But the gutters are hanging. The paint is peeling. The porch light is out.
I knock.
No answer.
I knock again. Harder.
The door opens three inches. Chain still on.
It’s a boy. Eight. Big eyes. My eyes, somehow. Not really. But it feels like it.
“Is Shade here?” I ask.
He stares at me. Then at my shirt. Then at my face.
“You’re Mr. Virelli,” he says. Not a question.
My name in his mouth sounds like hers. Like a threat. Like a prayer.
“Is she home, Michael?”
“Mikey,” he corrects. “She’s sleeping.”
It’s 4 PM.
“Can I talk to her?”
He shakes his head. “She said not to wake her up. Not unless it’s Ethan.”
Ethan.
The brother in the hospital.
The brother who’s seventeen.
The brother who’s not coming home.
I stand there on a porch with no light and a kid who looks like grief and realize I’ve made a mistake.
Not coming here. That was inevitable.
The mistake was thinking I could see Shade and not bleed.
“You tell her,” I say, voice rough, “you tell her Damian came by.”
Mikey nods. Serious. Like it’s a message from the front lines.
I turn to leave.
“Mr. Virelli?” he calls.
I stop.
“She was crying,” he says. “In her sleep. She said your name.”
The porch tilts.
I walk to my car.
I don’t drive home.
I sit in the parking lot of a gas station for an hour. Watching the sun go down.
Wondering which one of us is going to ruin the other first.
And wondering why, when Mikey said she cried my name, all I could think was _finally_.
- Writer
