Crew by Tijan

Author:Tijan
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Tijan
Published: 2018-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

It was dawn when I walked back into my house, Cross right behind me.

I was going to get dressed, and then we’d go to his house so he could do the same before school. It felt right having this closeness with him again—not that we hadn’t been close before, but there’d been a brief interval when we hadn’t been himandme, just him and me.

I’d stepped into the hallway, turning toward my bedroom when I heard the floor creak behind me.

I stiffened, knowing it wasn’t Cross. He was just coming through the screen door.

“Why do you do that?”

My brother.

My heart dropped. He sounded mad, and I turned to find that he was. Or he wasn’t. He had bags under his eyes. He seemed to have aged in just the few hours since I last saw him.

He wore a ripped T-shirt and grey sleeping pants.

I took a beat to consider my options.

Technically, I’d fucked up. He had been the nice one, checking on me yesterday, giving me space after the Ryerson fight. And Heather had asked me not to leave, but as I sat in the house yesterday, it had hit me.

If I followed their rules, they would keep piling them on.

If I became the dutiful sister/daughter, their expectations would rise.

I knew the end, because it’s the end most families had in mind for their children: he would want me to be normal.

I couldn’t do normal. That meant leaving the crew, and all the things we did as a crew.

There was no option.

“Just because you got stuck with the guardianship doesn’t mean you get to parent me,” I told him. Pain sliced through me, but I raised my chin defiantly. “You never had that privilege, and you certainly lost it when you were absent from my life for five years.”

“I’ve been here for the last two.”

“Not really,” I shot back. “You’ve been fighting. You’ve been managing a bar and a girlfriend.” I was tempted to name the other thing I knew had happened between him and Heather, but that wasn’t talked about. She’d never said it. He never had either. So I wouldn’t, but I ached inside too.

Cross closed the door quietly, and Channing came forward. When he saw him, he shook his head.

“Fuck. Now I get it.” He looked at me, sorrow in his eyes. “I get why Mom was so frustrated.” He gestured to Cross. “It sucks being on the other side.”

“Bullshit.” I couldn’t hold it in any longer. My voice rose. “You were gone, all the goddamn time—when she had to go to the hospital, when someone had to stay with her in there, when someone had to hold her hand, hold her hair back when she puked. Shit. Do you know how many blankets I got for her? How many times I cleaned her face, or moved her heating pad? Do you know I have vomit permanently burned into my nostrils? And that smell. Cancer has a smell. Did you know that?” No. I shook my head. “You were doing what I’m doing now.

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