Bookshelf Boy

nine.

THE RAIN WAS pelting mercilessly. It was a week before Year 10 started and it was mid-August, but the dark sky made it feel as if we were already deep into autumn.

My mum laughed the second I opened the car door, and she kept laughing as I dumped the groceries to the floor and clambered inside.

I shut the door with a hefty pull and a curse as a sharp gust of wind blew. "Yes, yes, laugh at my misery, go on."

She wiped a tear from her eye, calming herself, and patted my thigh. "I'm sorry love, you just look a bit like a wet dog."

I looked down at my drenched sweatpants and hoodie. "Don't you know? This style's the new trend. I'm bound to get a boyfriend any day now."

"Oh, I have no doubts," she mused. She bent down and mindlessly rummaged through the bags as I squeezed some of the water out of my hoodie. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her pause and frown. "Where are the oranges?"

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Oh, er, I forgot them."

I didn't know why I lied, but I didn't want to tell her about the run-in I'd had with the boy I'd given all the oranges to. I didn't know what made me decide to approach him. He just looked so sad. So sad and defeated and done with the world. I had no idea who he was, but I hated seeing him like that. No one deserved to be alone when they were that miserable.

She shot me a disappointed look. "Nora. Didn't I tell you to make a shopping list?"

"I know, I know. I'm sorry," I say, "We don't need them right now though, I just wanted the stuff to make the cake."

We left the Tesco parking lot. I played with the strings of my hoodie and looked past the dribbles of rain against the window out to the space where the boy had been mere minutes ago, He was gone, whoever he was. There was no way I'd ever see him again—I knew that—but I hoped, wherever he was, that he would be okay soon.

"You don't have to bake me a cake, you know," Mum said as she drove, and I turned to her. She adjusted the windshield wipers as the rain started to slow down. "I'm turning 41, not fifteen."

"So? Everyone deserves to celebrate their birthday," I say, then added with a sly smile, "even if they can't cook for shite."

I was, of course, referring to that morning, when mum had attempted (and failed) to make chocolate chip pancakes for us. I woke to the smell of burning and came downstairs to my mum in a Christmas onesie holding a pan of charred batter.

Mum threw her head back and laughed. "God, your father was always the cook between us."

My heart dropped at the mention of him. I hadn't known him—not really. He and mum got divorced when I was six, and instead of choosing to get bi-weekly custody of me, he decided he wanted a fresh start and moved up to Ireland where he remarried.

In the beginning I'd visit every summer, but when they had Adeline and then later Jack, their new family seemed to take precedence over us, and suddenly planned visits turned into rescheduling then cancellations because Adeline has a recital or Jack is just starting school and finally dwindled into it's just not a good time. I was lucky if I even got a phone call over the holidays.

I tried not to be bitter about it—to stop wondering whether I had done something wrong, if I had some...abnormal deficiency as a child that made me particularly easy to forget and leave behind. I had mum, and that was enough. Most days, I thought that was everything.

"How's he doing?" I asked as nonchalantly as I could.

"Well," she drew out, clicking her tongue, "he's...certainly doing."