The Rebel of Raleigh High (Raleigh Rebels #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,31
the weight of the heavy clouds overhead is pressing down on top of the house and the walls are about to buckle under the strain. “I’m sorry to hear that, Dr. Coombes.”
He waves me off with a flick of his wrist. “You can call me David now, Silver. You’re, what? Sixteen?”
“Seventeen.”
He nods. “Seventeen. Okay. Wow. Time seems to be speeding up every goddamn day.”
“Yeah. My Nona keeps warning me that it only gets quicker, too. She keeps on telling me, Appreciate your youth, Silver.” I imitate Nona’s heavily accented, raspy voice. “Appreciate your figure. Appreciate your health—”
“Forget that shit,” Dr. Coombes says. “The thing you really need to treasure, the only thing you should value above anything else at your age is the complete and utter lack of responsibility. No mortgage. No bills. No taxes. No impossible decisions, or people looking to you for comfort. Shit gets real, Silver, and it gets real fast. Nothing in here really changes.” He taps the side of his head. “You start finding grey hairs. You notice a few more lines on your face. Your back starts to ache when you sit down for too long. But everything else…the whole ‘older and wiser’ line they spin you in high school. Don’t believe a fucking word of it. It doesn’t matter how old any of us get. We’re all still fumbling around in the dark, pretending like we know what the fuck is going on. What the fuck we’re supposed to do. But when we climb into bed at night, we’re still gripped by the same sense of panic we felt when we were teenagers. Believe me. We are all just making this shit up as we go along.”
“Well. That’s one way to make a girl feel optimistic for the future.” I take a sip of my own coffee, wanting to hide my entire face inside the mug.
“God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be such a downer. I’m just…I’m so fucking tired.” He looks it, too. The large, puffy bags under his eyes have aged him at least ten years. He lifts his head, watching his sons out of the kitchen window as they follow my brother into the copse of trees that marks the boundary of our yard and the beginning of the Walker Forest. Max’s yellow rain jacket is easy enough to spot through the bare, spindly trunks of the trees. Gregory and Lou’s matching green jackets are a little harder to see, though. I go to the back door and yell their names into the impending dusk.
When I turn around, Dr. Coombes is on his feet, putting his own coat on. Out of nowhere, he pulls me into a quick, tight hug and then releases me just as quickly. “Thank you for listening, Silver. It’s nice to be heard for a couple of minutes.”
The boys barrel into the kitchen, whooping, full of energy, tracking mud all over the tiles. “Oh, Jesus, I’m sorry. Where are your paper towels?” Dr. Coombes scans the kitchen counters, but I stop him before he can get carried away.
“It’s fine. Please. Get on the road before the rain worsens. I’ve got this. It’s no problem.”
He sags with relief, as if I’ve just told him I’ve seen the future and his wife is going to wake up, happy and healthy next Tuesday, and his life is going to go back to normal really, really soon. “Thanks again, Silver. You’re a good girl.”
Absently, he places down three twenty-dollar bills on the kitchen table, and it feels as though he isn’t paying for the guitar lesson I just gave to the twins. It’s as though he’s paying me for something else: the moment of peace and quiet I gave to him, while I let him sit in the kitchen and stare into an untouched cup of coffee.
Later, I sit with Max on the couch, watching Jeopardy, thankful that he’s oblivious to most of the shit that’s going on around him. He’s small for his age—almost the shortest kid in his class. He’s still obsessed with comics and loves animals. If Max could have a dog, his life would basically be fucking made. His hair is fine like Mom’s but dark like Dad’s. There’s something delicate about him. He isn’t rough and tumble like other boys. I worry sometimes that something hard will happen to him one day, the same as something happened to me, but it won’t galvanize him. It will break him instead, and I will have gone