Tisper knew where Olivia Black lived. This wasn’t the first time she’d delivered Jaylin into the roundabout of the filthy Shadow Hill apartment complexes. At one time, Tisper had nearly been booted to the streets, but she still would’ve preferred to sleep under the relentless needling of a Seattle storm than a pest-ridden place like this.
“Be careful, Jay,” Tisper said with a deep worrisome sigh, yanking the gears into park. She watched Jaylin past the smoke of his cigarette, admiring the gentle blue in his eyes. Every time she looked in them, she was young again, sprawled on the floor in front of the television, nodding off next to Philip while they watched Dragon Ball Z reruns and ate sherbet until their tongues went numb.
At some point, she always awoke in the arms of her mother—stuffed against her shoulder, buried in the scent of her skin. It was that she felt when she looked at Jaylin. Safety, innocence—even though they both knew they were anything but. Things like innocence died the day Julia Maxwell was diagnosed, and the night Phillip decided he didn’t want a sister like Tisperella Tatum.
“I’ll be fine,” Jaylin said, but this time with a smile.
He slung his bag over his shoulder and turned to leave, but before she’d let him, Tisper took his face in her long spindly fingers.
She kissed the dimple on his cheek with an audible mwah and released him like a pigeon to the wind. “Okay, go before I change my mind and drag you back into the car.”
He hoisted himself out of his seat and shut the door behind him. Pausing, Jaylin gripped the frame and leaned over it with a smile. “I’ll come over after this, okay? So stop worrying, he’s not going to be home for hours. I checked.”
Tisper looked to the steering wheel, a slight ache in her chest. She worried. She worried so much for him. “Okay,” she said, less than convincing. “Just promise you’ll be careful. I don’t know why you keep coming back here.”
“You do know why.” The tone in Jaylin’s voice nudged her. “I’ll be careful, I promise.” Then he tossed a thumb behind him, towards the towers of shabby apartments. “I have to go, Tis. We’re on a schedule, remember?”
“Alright, okay. Fine.” She tossing a silken sea of dark hair back over her shoulder and breathed in the stink of cheap weed, wafting from an upstairs balcony. “I’ll be back in an hour. Call me if anything happens.”
“I know, I know.”
“Love you.”
Jaylin smiled and cooed, “Love you too, Tis.” Then he swung around and slipped his arm through the strap of his backpack.
Tisper shifted gears, but lingered on the brake as she watched Jaylin leave. The pale blond of his hair caught every bit of light, the way a diamond catches the sun. Everywhere he went, Jaylin stuck out like a sore thumb and the thought made her worry grow. She sat there for ages, long nails tapping against the leather of her steering wheel. Then, with the frustrated lick of her lips, Tisper turned the wheel and pressed her foot to the gas.
Shadow Hill and Jaylin and Olivia Black sunk away in her rear-view mirror.
The entire drive home, guilt gnawed restless and angry at her heart. For the most part, Tisper’s life was a blessed one. Jaylin was a constant reminder of that—a reminder that she couldn’t ask for more than what she had: good friends, a nice car and her affordable apartment, located close enough to the freeway that the commute wasn’t bad if she happened to miss the train to the Seattle campus. More so, she was blessed to have grandparents who favored her over Philip. Ones who saw past what her parents couldn’t.
They paid for it all. Surgeries, education, the down payment on her apartment—even her convertible and every penny that went toward fees and taxes. The guilt gnawed again, this time at the undigested breakfast in her stomach.. She had done so much complaining, only to live a life like this while Jaylin was nearly selling his own soul for his dying mother. The least she could do was chauffeur him around.
But leaving him with Olivia was a whole new guilt. A residual guilt that bruised her, needle deep.
Don’t worry, he won’t be back for hours.
But it didn’t matter what time Tyler Black came home. Worry was a parasitic thing. And Jaylin—that boy was a gift to the world. One the universe seemed to stomp on at every opportunity. That was why she’d always protect him. With everything she had, for as long as she could.
As Tisper climbed the steps to her apartment, she slowed her ascend at the sight of a boot. And then a body connected, slumped against her apartment door like a sack of sagging trash.
Her purse suddenly felt ten pounds heavier. “Get your drunk ass off my welcome mat, Bobby. Go stink of piss on someone else’s doorstep.”
Bobby groaned and wrinkled his nose, the stench of hard liquor on his breath. He cracked one eye open and looked to Tisper, scratching at the patchy repulsive stubble that poked from his cleft chin.
“Tis, baby,” he said, tongue heavy with liquor. “I was wondering when you’d be home.”
“My home, Bobby. Not some back-alley to rot away in.” She stepped over his gangling legs and jiggled her key through the lock on the door. The moment she heard a click, Tisper slipped inside and sealed it shut behind her.
“Hey,” Bobby was moaning. There was a thud, like he was plodding around on the porch or stumbling to his feet. His voice seeped through the door like a smog, and with it came the terrible smell of digested liquor and unbrushed teeth. “Where’s Maxwell? Huh? Where’s he at?”
Her skin prickled at the sound of his name. If Bobby knew just where she’d been—if he knew what Jaylin was doing at Shadow Hill, she’d be fighting a lot more than bad breath.
“It’s none of your business where Jaylin is,” she said, taking a look through the peephole. “What do you want with him?”
“He didn’t tell you?” Bobby guffawed. “Kid bashed in the mirror off my Comaro.”
Tisper cringed. Cringed because it sounded like something Jaylin would do. She turned from the door and ripped open the zipper on her dufflebag.
Bobby went on, “I just… I think that deserves a little compensation, don’t you? That car was an antique.” There was a devious lilt to his voice that made Tisper’s skin itch. She pulled her bow from the bag, an arrow with it. Then she unlocked the door and kicked it open with her foot, drawing the arrow back until it pointed right between Bobby’s eyes.
His hands shot up by his head. “Yo—hey, I was just curious.”
“Get out,” she said, drawing the string back tighter. “Before my fingers slip.”
It probably wouldn’t harm him, they were simple practice arrows. The heads were dulled, and even if she did fire, it wouldn’t deliver more than a bruise But Bobby was too dumb and drunk to know up from down.
“Alright,” Bobby said, dragging back another step. That stupid smile slashed across his face like it’d been put there by a paring knife. Too unusually pointed in certain places. “Alright, but you let him know I’ll be stopping by for a chat.”
Then Bobby turned and slumped down the stairs the same way he moved everywhere; like a plume of smoke in a tempest. Quick one step and slow the next, until he was vanished from her sights. Blown away by the breeze.
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