Growing Pains

Chapter 49 - Life had a way of making me lose my footing

C A I T L Y N

Nobody asked, but if someone did, I would say without hesitating that Ethan should be getting paid good money for his work at the daycare. Every day he went around giving the kids at recess what was very likely to be the best time of their lives. I was sure he would get tired of it after a few weeks, but it had been months now, and he was still at it. It was exhausting to watch, but I kept on watching.

I couldn't help myself. I sat down on the same bench every time, tried very hard not to light up a cigarette and smoke it, and watched him run around the kids, picking them up, and throwing them around.

At school, I found myself watching him too. He arrived on his skateboard every day and everyday he fell on it, either jumping a flight of stairs, or sliding through a railing, or just sprinting down a hallway full of students. Every time he fell, he got up and laughed it off, as though he hadn't very possibly broken something, and needed to be taken to the nurse's office as soon as possible.

He paid attention in class, but never did his homework. More than once, I had seen him copy the answers off his friend before class started. He was always with this friend, to the point where it was hard to see where one begun and the other ended. Tristan said they were probably gay for each other. I thought so too, but I had asked Ethan about it one day on the ride home and he had laughed and said yes like he was lying.

Every day, Ethan offered me a ride home on his bicycle, and every day I accepted, mostly because it was better than taking the bus, and sometimes because I wanted to ask him something about what I had noticed during the day.

Like today. He had skipped school but shown up to the daycare. I had been sitting cross-legged on my good old bench when he showed up. He was late, but just barely, and he was very sorry about it. Mrs. Johnson told him not to worry even though she had wanted call him as soon as she had realized he wasn't here on time.

I had wanted to get up and go ask him where he had been, but he had been swarmed by a bunch of kids as soon as Mrs. Johnson walked away, and I refused to go anywhere with that many kids with that much energy.

The only kid I didn't mind having around me was Sade, who often came to sit next to me, never without asking if she could first, even after I told her she didn't have to. I didn't know why she wanted to sit with me, since I didn't really do anything other than just sit there, and Sade didn't tell me either. It seemed it was enough for her to just stay there with me, playing with one of those toys that came with any children's meal at any fast-food restaurant. Occasionally she would lay her head on my shoulder or hold my hand in hers. She did it without realizing it and regretted it as soon as she did. I let her get away with it every time. I didn't mind. She reminded me of myself when I was younger, always ashamed to have been caught in the act of wanting something. I would have let Sade get away with anything, she just didn't know it yet.

I asked Ethan why he had skipped school while he unlocked his bike later that day. He seemed surprised that I did, stopping to scratch the back of his head, an ugly cut bruising on his forehead from hitting a rock surfing a few days ago. Apparently, he went surfing every morning at the crack of dawn. He couldn't be very good at it if he was hitting his head on the rocks of a beach that barely had any.

"I had to help my mom with something," he said, finally. 

"Your dad couldn't do it?" I asked. I was being bitch, but I couldn't help myself. I had been trying to make sense of him for weeks and come up with nothing. His righteousness seemed to come with no ulterior motives, or at least not any that I knew of yet.

"He's been dead for years, so no," he said.

"Oh," I said. "So Ron's not your brother. Is he your –"