me.
Good ol’ Sam has left the can of soup out for me, along with two water bottles. There’s a note, too, on the back of a grocery store receipt dated three years ago: If something happens, take Lucas and go. I’ll find you. xx S
It chills something inside me, giving it real, tangible weight. What does she think is going to happen? She’d looked reluctant to go this morning, but I’d thought it was just because she didn’t want to leave me to take care of Lucas….
I find the can opener in a nearby drawer, and a pot to heat the soup with—but there’s no gas, apparently, to light the stove. So, cold soup it is.
My stomach feels like it’s eating itself, I’m so hungry. I don’t bother with a spoon, just tip the contents back into my mouth and drink it down before I can think about how weird it tastes without the usual warmth. I need a second to force a smile on my face before I walk back into the small living room. I don’t know what he can hear, if he can understand what’s happening, but I want him to know that I’m not scared, and that I love him no matter what.
“Hey, Luc,” I say, making sure to keep my voice even and quiet. I claim Sam’s seat, my toe brushing against another uneaten sandwich half. “You gonna finish that?”
He stares over my head, chest slowly rising and falling.
“You should, you know,” I add. “Sam’s going to worry, and you have to make sure you keep your strength up.”
Inhale, exhale.
I don’t want to do it, but…“Eat. Eat.”
I get nothing, even from that order. Just a flutter of the fingers on his left hand, the one half trapped under him.
Is it possible to be too tired and hungry to find—muster—the energy to move? I lean forward slowly, carefully picking up the sandwich. Lucas might be still, but leaning in close to him actually makes his whole body go stiff, like he’s…
Like he’s bracing for some kind of a hit.
I bring the peanut butter sandwich up to his lips. Press it there. He turns his head into the pillowed armrest.
It’s not what I want, but it’s something. It’s a reaction. Sam said he doesn’t have many of those, not anymore.
“Come on, Lucas,” I say, pressing it against his lips again. His leg straightens, but his lips are pressed in a hard, tight line. My brother is doing the exact opposite thing I want him to be doing, but at least he is fighting back—in this small way, he’s pushing back against what I want him to do. I try to focus on that, not the idea that he’s willfully starving himself in the process.
“Okay, then we’ll talk instead.” I sit back down, putting his sandwich on a plate in my lap. If he’s pulling away from us, I need to find some kind of hook to lure him back out. The more I roll this plan over, tossing it around inside of my mind, the more it feels like he is the only one that can really break this spell that they cast on him. Lucas has to be his own hero.
“After…after they took me away, they brought me to a facility in—I didn’t know it at the time, but it was in South Dakota. We’re in Iowa now, if you didn’t know. Never thought I’d ever go to Iowa, but I also never thought I’d have real powers, so…” I clear my throat. Ten seconds in, already rambling. “Because I hadn’t gone through the change yet, they couldn’t classify me. They had a whole bunch of other kids like me. A lot of them were orphans. Some said they were taken from their parents while they were out shopping or at parks—how sick is that? Anyway, it was almost like going to preschool. There weren’t soldiers watching us, just these women who used to be teachers. I’m a Blue, did you know that?”
Lucas blinks. Keeps staring at that painting
“Do you remember Mom and Dad? Anything about them? I wish I had pictures of them….I wish that more than anything. Sometimes it takes me longer than it should to remember what they looked like—what they sounded like. Melissa and Peter Orfeo—do you remember, Lucas?”
He does not like those names. He does not like the words “mom” and “dad” and he lets me know the only way he knows how. Lucas manages to get his left arm free