Indigo Sky

CHAPTER FOUR

“Do you ever think about dying?”

“What?” Startled, I glanced at Nate to watch his bare feet dragging lazily through the pool water. That wasn’t the kinda question you expected to come from the mouth of a kid your age. “Why would I think about that?”

He had that faraway look on his face he sometimes got. Like he was staring at something that I couldn’t see, a ghost or whatever. My dog, Ralphie, did that sometimes, and it freaked me out, but it freaked me out more when Nate did it.

“Because you’re gonna die one day,” he said, completely void of all emotion.

What the hell was I supposed to say to that?

I swallowed and shifted uncomfortably at the edge of the pool, unsure of myself or my response or if I should even respond at all, even as I replied, “So?”

“We’re all gonna die one day,” he went on, like it wasn’t at all messed up that he was saying it in the first place. “You, me … your mom and dad …”

It bothered me more to think about Mom and Dad gone than ceasing to exist myself, and I swept my hand through the pool to splash him in his stupid face.

“Shut the hell up, okay? I don’t wanna talk about this anymore.”

The corner of his lips twitched, and I thought I might’ve heard him chuckle beneath his breath—the sick bastard—but he nodded.

“Okay.”

Sometimes, Nate would get so fixated on one thing or another, and he struggled to let it go. Like this one time, he’d wanted to see if he could throw an apple hard enough to bust it against a tree. It was stupid as hell, but, hey, kids do stupid stuff, right? And a normal kid might’ve grabbed one apple and given it a shot but, nope, not Nate. He had wasted an entire bag of apples on this one asinine adventure and was later pissed that he didn’t have any apples. That was just how he was though. But this time, with the death talk, he dropped it—thank Christ.

And it wasn't that I didn't understand mortality or that I hadn't experienced death. Two of my grandparents had died by that point. I’d had a brush with death myself when that firework hit me in the face, even if I hadn’t realized it at the time. But that didn't mean I didn't struggle with the concept of it, you know—especially at fifteen. Like the finality of it, or the idea that, one day, I'd be in this world alone, without my mom or dad.

Assuming I didn't die first.

Shaken up by Nate's choice of topic and my own intrusive thoughts, I turned away from my friend and glanced toward the early June sky, streaked with streams of fluffy white clouds. It'd been hot in New York—so hot that Dad had insisted on opening the pool before Memorial Day—and it had been nice, coming home from school and jumping in the water to cool off before drowning in homework. Nate appreciated it, too, I bet, even if he never said it.

"I think I'm gonna drop out next year," he mused casually.

He was full of surprises today, and I turned abruptly. "What? Why?"

He laughed at me. "Come on, dude. I hate school. I suck, teachers suck, the assholes in class suck. Everything sucks. What's the point when I'm failing anyway?"

He wasn't wrong. I didn't care for school either. The past couple of years, I'd barely scraped by with my grades, and that was after hours of studying. I didn't think I was stupid—Mom and Dad insisted I wasn't—but my teachers sure as hell made me feel as though I were. I imagined they didn't make Nate feel much better about himself when his grades were even worse than mine.

"What would you do instead?" I asked, wondering if maybe I should drop out too.

Mom and Dad would probably kill me if I did, but … maybe Nate was right. What was the point?

He shrugged his bare shoulders, golden from the sun. "I dunno. But, like, Jim didn’t graduate high school, and he's doing all right … sort of."

Jim was Nate's mom's boyfriend. The one who had broken Nate's arm years ago, I guessed. Maybe he was the one who had left that ugly-looking bruise over his ribs, too, but I wouldn't dare ask. He'd just shut down and pull his shirt back on anyway. Nate never answered me when I asked about his bruises.

Anyway, Jim worked at an auto repair shop somewhere—a couple of towns over, I thought. I didn't know if you needed a diploma to do that or not, but he worked, so I supposed that was something. Someone needed to fix cars, and if you didn't need high school to do it, then why bother?

"You wanna fix cars?" I asked, the gears in my brain turning.

"I don't know that I wanna do anything," Nate replied, huffing sardonically. "I mean, why the hell bother? We're all gonna die one day, Rev, so who gives a fuck what we spend our time doing?"

There he went again, talking about death. What the hell was that about? I didn't like it; it gave me the fucking creeps, so I ignored the comment altogether, hoping he'd drop it if I didn't say anything at all.

"I could fix cars," I said, choosing to think about that instead. "Or maybe … I dunno. Maybe I'll—"

"You know what you should do? You should be a pirate."

That made me laugh and look at him sidelong. "What?”

“Yeah. Like, a real pirate.”

God, he was such an idiot sometimes.

“I can't be a freakin' pirate . What the hell?"

"No, no, no, hear me out." Nate was excited now, turning to face me as his hands moved animatedly through the air. "You could be, like … like friggin' Robin Hood or something."

"Robin Hood wasn't a pirate."

"No, I get that, but I mean, you could steal shit and—"

I shook my head and waved a dismissive hand in his direction. "Yeah, and have my mom kill me. Right. Good idea."

His lips curled into a mischievous grin. "Who says you have to tell her?"

"I think she'd figure it out when the cops called her," I pointed out. "And you think your mom and Jim wouldn't—"

"I don't give a fuck about them." His eyebrows tipped angrily. "Don't ever think that I give a fuck about them. Got it?"

My lips pressed together tightly, shutting me up.

"Anyway”—the anger was wiped away as quickly as it had come, and he was back to looking excited—"all of those assholes who ever talked shit about you, you could go, and … I dunno … take something from them. Money or food or whatever. Doesn't matter. Just to teach them a lesson, you know? Wouldn't that be awesome?"

I thought about it, and on one hand, in theory, it kinda did sound awesome. The idea of doing something to retaliate after years of being bullied, in a way they wouldn't see coming, was thrilling and tempting. Honestly, it was messed up how much they got away with—the shit they said, the fucked-up things they did. It had lessened over the years, especially as they started spending their time doing other shit, like drinking or sex or whatever, but it hadn't gotten easier, and the thought of getting back at them …

Man, just the thought flooded my veins with a rush of adrenaline and power.

But the problem was, I had a conscience. And I knew enough about morals and the difference between right and wrong to know stealing wasn't right. Those kids might've gotten away with calling me names and writing shit on my locker, but could I get away with, what? Stealing a freakin' wallet? I knew better than to believe I could be good at something like that.

"Yeah, it'd be cool," I said more wistfully than was probably normal. "But … nah, it's fine. In a couple of years, I’ll never have to see them again anyway."

"So, you think it's okay for people to do fucked-up shit and get away with it?"

"No! What?" I shook my head, frowning. "I didn't say that. I—"

"People get away with shit all the time, and it's messed up that guys like you and me can't do anything about it. Don't let them tell you that's okay, Revan. Don't believe that shit. They want you to believe it so they can keep doing it, but it's all BS. Okay? It's all fucking BS."

He stood up before I could reply, propelled by anger, and stormed into my parents' house, slamming the back door behind him. I watched him go, then turned back to the water, shaking my head and feeling like I'd just suffered whiplash.

"What the hell?" I muttered as Mom came outside.

"What happened?" she asked, concerned and confused. "Nathan stormed through the house and left. He got water all over my floor."

"I dunno," I mumbled, just as clueless. "We were talking, and he blew up."

It hadn’t been the first time. Nate was notorious for flying off the handle over seemingly trivial things. Like, one time, this kid behind the counter at McDonald’s had accidentally given him small fries instead of a large, and Nate threw his entire bag of food at him. It didn't take much to set him off, and his outbursts were often unpredictable. I'd grown used to it though, and luckily, so had my parents.

Mom sighed. "That poor kid needs help," she said quietly, as if I could do something about it.

"Yeah."

"Maybe I should talk to the school guidance counselor."

I scoffed at that. "Oh, he'd love that."

She sniffed a gentle laugh, kicked off her flip-flops, and sat down beside me, dunking her legs into the pool. She wrapped her arm around my shoulders and touched her temple to mine.

"Yeah, I know," she replied. "It's just hard, being a mom and seeing a kid in trouble, knowing there's not much you can do for him but give him food and shelter when he needs it."

"You could call the cops," I suggested almost sarcastically, but, no, I meant it.

Mom was quiet for a moment, her legs stilling in the water. Her feet were smaller than mine at that point, and that weirded me out a little.

Then, she admitted, "I have, Rev."

Well, that was news to me.

"What?" I asked, turning to face her.

Mom deflated with a heavy sigh and nodded. "I call every couple of months, especially when I see a really ugly bruise or something. The cops are aware; they know something's wrong over there, but there isn't enough to get him taken out of there, I guess. I dunno. The system is weird, and I don’t entirely understand it."

"What does his mom have to do?" I spat, hardly believing what I was hearing. "Kill him?"

Maybe Nate was right.

Maybe people were allowed to get away with too much.

Mom hung her head and shrugged a limp shoulder. "I don't know. Perhaps I'm not trying hard enough. I should call more often."

"One time should have been enough."

"The thing is, Revan, we don't really know what's happening over there," Mom said, and I had to admit, she’d made a point. "We've never even been inside his mother's house. God, I can count on one hand the number of times I've had a conversation with the woman, and, no, I didn't think she was a particularly stellar mother, but I didn't immediately take from it that she was beating the crap out of her son either. For all we know, he really is having accidents—"

"Oh, shut up, Mom." I shook her arm off my shoulders. " Accidents? If you believe that, you're as stupid as the freakin' cops."

Mom slumped forward, defeated, and pursed her lips. "No, I didn't say I believed it. What I'm saying is, I don't know . The cops have a file, and they know about the situation, but if there isn't enough proof to make an arrest or pull him out of there, there's not much I can do about it."

"He wants to drop out of school," I blurted out before I could stop myself. "I don't know what's gonna happen to him if he actually does it. I don't know what they'd …" I shook my head, a thousand scenarios barreling through my mind. "I dunno what they'd do."

Mom's eyes searched mine, and they filled with a mutual understanding as she nodded. "I wish I knew what else to do, hon. But you know if he needs somewhere to go, I'd never turn him away. I hope he knows that too."

***

We had the summer, and it was mostly good. Nate came camping with us at the end of June, and in July, we headed down to Jersey Shore for an entire week with my parents. We spent our days on the beach and our nights on the boardwalk. We hung out with kids who didn't know us enough to hate us, and I even scored a number from a girl I knew I’d never see again … but she liked me.

Honestly, at that point in my young life, it was the best week I could remember having.

But then came August.

It was hot, and Long Island was dry. Dad complained daily that he couldn't seem to drench the lawn enough before the sun came to soak it up again. Mom talked about brush fires out east, near Montauk, and about how badly we needed a solid month of downpours to get ourselves back to a good place, as if we could wish it to happen and have it come true.

Nate wandered through the back door and dropped onto the lounge chair beside mine. He looked tired and older than fifteen, and he dug his pack of cigarettes and lighter from the pocket of his board shorts.

"Want one?" he asked, plucking one from the pack and putting it between his lips.

I threw a glance over my shoulder toward the house, then glared at him incredulously. "Are you insane? Mom would kill us both."

It was a habit I was ashamed to say we'd picked up a couple of months before, toward the end of the school year, and it was one I hated to admit I liked. It eased my anxiety, unraveled my nerves, and I thought maybe it helped Nate to be less angry all the damn time. But Mom and Dad didn't know about it, and I knew it'd break their hearts to know that all their smoking is bad lectures had done nothing.

"Your parents aren't even home, stupid." He flicked the lighter and put the flame to the cigarette hanging from his mouth. "So, you want one?"

"They're gonna smell it," I hissed through gritted teeth.

"Oh my God," he groaned with aggravation and stood from the chair. "Then, we'll smoke over there, okay? Jesus freakin' Christ."

He headed toward the other side of the pool, farther from the back door, where the lawn was open and the sky was clear. I ran the quick calculations through my head. Mom and Dad had gone out to dinner and a movie about twenty minutes ago. They'd be out for another three hours, maybe four, depending on the length of the movie. That was more than enough time for the air to clear and plenty of time for me to shower and brush my teeth. Since I wasn’t wearing any fabric for the scent to cling to, they'd have no reason to be suspicious.

Seemed good enough to me. So, I followed him over, and he held the pack out to me, a satisfied smile on his lips. I took out a cigarette, put the end in my mouth, and waited for him to light it up.

"What do you wanna do tonight?" he asked, a plume of smoke billowing around his mouth as he spoke.

I shrugged as I inhaled, then held the cigarette between two fingers to exhale. "I told my mom I'd stay here and do a couple of loads of laundry, so I can't, like, go out or anything."

"Yeah, no duh, but do you wanna watch a movie or something?"

"Oh, right, sure," I said, nodding. "We could—"

My voice was cut off by something flying past my blind side, nearly crashing into me. With a gasp and a jump, I got out of the line of fire as a bird flew chaotically through the yard and landed in a heap of erratically flapping wings.

"Holy shit." I caught my breath as the thing flopped around on the ground, just feet from the pool. It was going to fall in, and then it would drown. I wasn't sure I could stomach that. "We gotta help it."

Nate hadn't reacted. He hadn't moved. He stood there, casually smoking and blowing ribbons into the air. "Why?"

I slid my gaze from the injured bird to him. "Look at it," I said. "It's hurt, and it's gonna fall into the pool, and—"

"It's gonna die anyway," he muttered, shrugging.

I lowered my brows at him, sufficiently bothered and disturbed by his couldn't-care-less demeanor. I didn't care if the thing had minutes left to live or not. I wasn't going to just watch it drown in my parents' pool. I wasn't a psychopath .

With the cigarette held tightly between my lips, I carefully approached the panicked bird, hands outstretched, ready to grasp it and find a safer, more comfortable place for it to either mend or die. It didn't see me coming, too frenzied to care, and I struggled to find the right moment to grab its wings and body, not wanting to scare it—or worse, injure it even more.

"Watch out," Nate said, coming up from behind me. "Let me do it."

He had come to his senses, and I breathed out a sigh of relief. I could've maybe handled it well enough, if I’d been alone and had no choice, but I was at a disadvantage, and sometimes, it hindered the speed of my reaction. So, I slowly stood up, retreating back a step or two as I nodded.

Then, Nate swiftly crouched and brought a brick down on the bird's head.

A strangled cry escaped my lips, and the cigarette tumbled out onto the bricks bordering the pool. "What did you do?!" I cried out, my voice breaking, my hands grasping at my chest and throat and hair. "Oh my God, Nate! What did you do ?!”

He left it there as he stood and turned toward me. I couldn't look at him. My eye was trained on the brick, lying on top of the bird’s flattened head. It's lifeless body laid was now nothing but shattered bones and bloodied wings. The pizza I'd eaten earlier churned in my stomach, and I doubled over, heaving and vomiting all over the cigarette I'd forgotten to put out.

"It was already dead," Nate reasoned calmly as I held my knees, trying to regain control over my contracting guts. "I helped it. I put it out of its misery."

"You …" I swallowed another flood of saliva that had filled my slack mouth. "You killed it."

"It was suffering," he pressed. His voice was so gentle and soothing, like he was speaking to a baby. "And what I just did was a lot nicer than letting it drown or have a heart attack. 'Cause that's what would've happened, Rev. It was freaking out, and it would've died from that alone. So, I helped it."

He kept saying that, but all I kept thinking was, He chose to take something's life .

Slowly, I stood and wiped the back of my hand over my mouth. Nate was staring at me, almost to gauge my reaction. I finally looked at him, and for some reason, I was surprised to find he looked the same. He was still Nate, my best friend since I had been eight. He didn't look like a guy who'd just killed a helpless bird. And although I didn’t know why, that made me feel a little better.

"Go inside," he told me, his eyes holding mine with care and concern. "I'll clean this shit up while you find a movie."

And I did what he’d said.

***

"All right, Rev. You just stand right here. I'm gonna light it up, but you stand back, okay?"

"Okay," I say, watching as my father walks toward the other end of the driveway.

But I remember that I want to tell Dad something. What is it? What do I want to say? What—

No, no, no. Stay here. Stay right here. Don't go anywhere , I urge myself, focusing every bit of brainpower on keeping my legs stationary. No! What are you doing?! Stop!

But my legs won't stop moving, walking toward Dad. Panic has a hold of me while fear stills the air in my lungs. My arms flail, my brain screams, and my lips open to warn Dad, to tell him I’m standing right here, right in the line of fire, but I have no voice.

Dad! I scream in my mind. Dad! Don't light it! Don't—

BOOM!

I awoke with a jolt and stared out into my bedroom, blackened in the night. Sweat soaked my sheets and dotted my sticky brow. I wiped a hand over my forehead, acutely aware of the rough, dimpled patch of skin above my right eye. I tried not to shudder, tried to tell myself I was okay with my face being this way, that I'd been okay for years now, and still, I pulled my hand away with a heavy exhale.

It'd been seven whole years, yet I wasn’t completely used to the scars. And if I wasn’t, how was anyone else supposed to?

I swung my feet out of bed and glanced at the clock. It was one o'clock in the morning. Mom and Dad would probably be annoyed that I was awake, but I needed a drink. I needed to settle down before I could attempt to sleep again.

I'll just tell them I had another nightmare. It's not a lie anyway, and they'll understand. They always understand.

I stood and shuffled over my carpeted bedroom floor to the closed door when I began to hear voices in the hallway.

"I don't know what that was. You heard it too, right?"

"Yeah. Shook the whole damn house."

Mom and Dad were right outside my door, whispering loudly in startled voices, like they were trying to keep it down, but I could hear the tremors in their tones. The worry. The fear.

Maybe I wasn't dreaming …

I pulled the door open, surprising both of them. They turned to stare at me, pale and wide-eyed.

I hadn't seen them this afraid since … well, since …

"What's going on?" I asked, looking from Dad to Mom to Dad again.

"Did it wake you up too?" Mom asked, not bothering to keep her voice lowered, now knowing I was already awake.

"I had a nightmare, but …" I dropped my gaze to the hallway floor. "I thought I was just dreaming …"

"It sounded like an explosion outside," Dad said, turning toward the front of the house.

Then, there came the sirens.

It seemed like dozens of them—no, hundreds. Tons and tons of sirens, beginning in the distance and rapidly approaching. My parents and I looked at each other, terrified of something we all now knew to be reality and not just a silly, shared dream. We hurried together to the front door and onto the lawn outside, all of us turning in haphazard circles, searching for something, until Mom gasped and pointed.

"Oh my God," she uttered, laying a hand over her mouth.

Dad spotted what she was referring to. "Holy shit. Oh my … oh my God," he uttered, clapping a hand on top of his head.

I swore I felt the heat before I saw the flickering flames, reaching toward the blackened sky and licking at the stars and clouds with wild brilliance.

Oh my God. Nate.

My best friend came to mind immediately, and I didn't know why. I didn't know that it was his house on fire, surrounded now by flashing lights and emergency vehicles. I had no reason to be terrified for him instead of whoever's house was engulfed in flames, except that I knew his house was in that direction. The house he shared with his mom and her boyfriend, Jim. If I called right now, I knew his mom would be pissed, but she’d probably answer and snap at me for waking them up, if they weren't already awake from the explosion and the sirens. But she would answer. She would be alive, which only meant Nate would be alive, too, and …

"Oh …" Mom gasped as she turned. "Oh, Dave. Oh my God. Oh my God, Nathan! Oh my God!"

She took off running before Dad or I could see what she was looking at, but she had said his name.

Nathan.

Nate .

And then I saw him. I saw Nate walking toward us. Limping. His skin was dark and shiny beneath the streetlights, but I knew it was him, looking like something out of one of those horror movies we'd watched together. Nate always liked the horror movies. I did, too, but not as much as him, and now, he looked like he belonged in one.

Mom ran to him, her hands hovering over his arms and shoulders. Afraid to touch him, I guessed. Afraid to speak. Afraid to do anything but stare and flap her mouth open and closed like a stupid fish. People all around us were staring at the flames and not at the teenaged boy in the street, covered in blood and whatever else, and I felt dizzy, like the world was spinning. The brick and the bird and the movie we’d watched last night and everything else felt like a lifetime ago.

I walked toward Nate, so scared that he would die. He wasn't supposed to die. He was my best friend—he was my only friend—and he couldn't die . Nobody my age had ever died before—nobody I knew anyway—and if he died, who would be my friend then? Nobody wanted to be friends with me.

"Nate …" I wanted to say something else, but I could only whisper his name.

"Nathan, honey, what happened? Oh God, Dave. He needs a hospital. Call 911," Mom said, as if there weren't ambulances and fire trucks two blocks over. "Oh God, someone! Someone, call 911! Nathan, honey, sweetheart, what happened?! Can you tell us? Can you talk?"

Nate didn't answer her though. His eyes—he still had them both, and they were bright white against his blood-soaked face—sought mine.

Then, in a calm, eerie voice, he said, "I didn’t die, Rev. Can I live with you? Your mom can finally be my mom. We can be like real brothers. I’ve always wanted a brother."