Captive - FourTris

Twenty-Five

MARCH 8
6 MONTHS, 8 DAYS

Tobias is driving like an absolute lunatic. The way he snapped like this, the way he went from happy to absolutely crazy, is scaring me.

I skipped track practice today. Tobias seemed to be in one of his moods, and he wanted to spend some time together. I know it makes him feel better to have me around. It's both a blessing and a burden, sometimes, to be needed like that.

When his mum called, we'd been sitting down by the river throwing rocks. She was crying. Something was happening and he couldn't get it out of her, and now here we are racing down these back roads trying to get to her, trying to see what he's done this time.

My heart is beating so hard I think it might jump right out of my chest, and I can't stop this sick feeling weighing down the pit of my stomach. I don't know if it's his driving or my worry, but I'm on the verge of puking. My fingers ache with how hard I'm gripping the door. Tobias rounds the last corner by his house so fast the tires squeal and slide, and then he skids to a stop.

The door is open, the screen flapping in the breeze. It's not really spring yet. Too cold for the door to be open like that. He's out of the truck before I can even get my seat belt undone. It's jammed.

I struggle with it for a moment, wanting to scream the whole time, not knowing what's happening inside, but finally it clicks free and I jump from the truck and sprint across the lawn. When I walk into the house, it's dark and I have to stand at the door and let my eyes adjust.

A hurricane has gone through here. There's nothing on the walls, nothing on the mantle, nothing anywhere but the floor. It's all in pieces and shards all over.

And so is Evelyn. She's sitting on the floor sobbing, and Tobias is next to her, pulling her to her feet.

She's clutching her arm.

"I don't know what I did... I don't know what I did..." She just keeps repeating it and Tobias just keeps saying, "I know, it's okay," and I just keep standing here, wide-eyed, staring.

Their words echo in my ears and yet I feel so far away, like I'm watching a scene on the television and not standing right in the middle of it.

"Can you get the truck door open? We need to take her to the doctor's."

Tobias's voice, so calm and in control, breaks me out of my haze. I nod and spring into action, happy to be doing something, anything. I swing the door open before they're even out the front door, and I hold it as Tobias so carefully helps his mother into the truck, and as she moans when she bumps her arm.

I slide in next to her, so she's in the middle, and try not to look at her black puffy eye as it grows shut. Instead, I just stare straight ahead.

Tobias drives much more carefully to the clinic, as if his mother might finally break altogether if he rounds a corner too quickly or hits a speed bump at more than three miles per hour. It's tortuous, sitting here next to her. She's so silent now. She just holds her wrist and stares at nothing.

Eventually we arrive and Tobias helps his mum out and I just stand there, next to the truck, as they walk away. I don't want to go in and I don't think Tobias has even noticed, because he's concentrating on his mum, on her slow, ginger steps. She's walking like she's eighty.

But then he glances back at me, my hand still on the door, and he smiles just the slightest bit and mouths, "Thank you," as he looks at me.

And I just nod and climb back into the truck, where I wait for the next two hours.

Tobias and I scoop the remains of Evelyn's things into a big plastic bag. She's in her room, knocked out thanks to the concoction of pain killers prescribed to her.

I wish I could glue all this back together. I wish I could make it good as new again. But I can't, so I just shovel more of it into the bags. Tobias takes a full sack out to the curb and then comes back and collapses on the couch and stares at the ceiling, and I can see that he's drained.

"How many times has this happened?" I ask as I put a little angel figurine, missing its wings, into the bag.

"More than I can count. It's easier now, of course. I can drive. And my dad won't touch her if I'm around. If she can get to the phone in time, I can stop him altogether. But she's always in denial. You can see his moods a mile away, but she never calls before it happens. Every time, she thinks it's going to be different."

I swallow and try to pretend that a broken porcelain frog takes all my attention. My mum never needs me and Evelyn always needs him. I wonder what that would be like. I don't think it's any better. I think it's worse. She leans on him and his world weighs too much as it is.

"Where do you think he is?"

Tobias shrugs. "He usually goes to his brother's for a week or so after it happens. He probably knows I'd kill him if I saw him after this."

I nod. I know he cares about his mother. I know he wishes he could save her from Marcus, that he could somehow stop it all from happening ever again.

"I just wish she would leave him. Put out a restraining order. Change the locks. She'd be so much happier."

I think so too. I can't understand how she can put up with this. How she can look at herself and think this is what she deserves.

"Yeah. Probably," I say.

I cram the rest of Evelyn's broken things into the bag and then drag it out front and put it next to Tobias's full one.

Tomorrow a garbage truck will come and take it away, and it will be gone forever, and Evelyn will pretend it was never there at all.

Until the next time. Because if Tobias is right, there will always be a next time.