6-Inside

He sits on the back porch, back turned to where Shane had taken off from, staring at the slightly open door. Shane had taken off right past him, into the back yard and them apparently further out than that. Shay doesn’t really care, he’s staring holes into the slender rectangle of darkness created by the slightly ajar door. Shay is fighting not to panic when the realization hits him that he has nowhere else to go when Shane’s head suddenly pops out from behind the door. Shay had been so intent on controlling his panic that he didn’t hear or smell her coming and now it’s his turn to stare in shock and bewilderment.

Shay doesn’t like the awkward silence. He hates awkward silences in general, they mean something bad is probably going to happen soon and the people involved are just delaying the inevitable. He can hear her heart pound and his sharp eyes pick up the tiniest changes in her facial expression as it sinks in. As the shock and dismay arrive on her face.

“Shit.”

She says aloud what he’s been thinking to himself for a few weeks now and with that same devastated cadence too. He imagines what her life was like before he got dumped into it. She ran a skateboard shop, she’s living in LA, her breath and her clothes stink of alcohol. Partying all night and sleeping all day (She certainly looks like she’s ready to sleep the rest of rapidly oncoming day away) and generally just having a really cool time. She might even have a boyfriend, one she’s really into. Shay’s twelve-year-old mind comes to the very wrong conclusion that his sister is living an awesome and care free life and that she‘s happy just where she is. Why would she want some punk kid she barely knows crashing her party? They may share the same father, but what does that matter to her? Why should she care about him? Why should she take him in-

She opens the door wider and steps aside. She scratches the side of her nose and if Shay didn’t know any better he’d think that she looked a bit sheepish and ashamed of herself when she tells him to come in. 

Shay stands, maybe a little to slowly, like he’s afraid if he moves to quickly he’ll spook her again and she’ll run like a startled deer. As he walks past her, he looks up at her, and the light from inside the house casts him in her shadow.

Somehow, being there, looking up at her, feels like the most natural thing in the world.

And for a split second, Shay thinks that maybe things are going to be alright.