“Fine,” Micah said, walking past me and down the stairs without another word.
Ada wiped her nose, avoiding looking at me. “He won’t believe me, but I’m so tired of living like this. It’s all-consuming. It ruins everything. And you know what else it is?”
I hummed in question, and Ada looked up at me, her icy blue eyes blurred with tears. “Boring.”
“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean,” I said, rubbing my knuckles over my scarred veins. I jerked my head toward the direction Micah went. “I’ll go with him.”
Ada nodded, lifting her shaky hand up to her lips. “I hate how much I hurt him. He thinks I don’t notice or care, but I do.”
“I know,” I whispered.
She wiped her eyes and rolled her shoulders before turning and heading toward the bathroom.
Micah was sitting on the front porch steps, his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped between his legs, watching a group of kids do drills for one of the football camps.
I leaned against the column on the opposite side and crossed my arms. “She’s worried about you.”
Micah huffed. “That’s a first.” He flipped his hair out of his eyes and adjusted until his back sat against the stairwell. “If you think she’s going into rehab after detox, you’re delusional.”
The bite in his voice stung, and I gritted my teeth to stop myself from wincing. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
I didn’t recognize the toneless chuckle that came out of Micah. It was dark and cold, nothing like the light and warmth he always brought to me. “Which is it, huh? I say I want to help her, and you basically tell me I’m doing it wrong. Now you’re standing there acting like Ada may get clean. I’m trying to pick which way to turn, and you keep running me in circles.”
“Bro, all you’ve been doing is trying to turn back time,” I said, unable to hold back my frustration. “You’ve been shoving your head in the goddamn dirt refusing to believe the person in there is your sister. Well, guess what? She is, and she needs you. I can’t tell you what will happen tomorrow, but I can tell you I’ve been on calls way worse than the one I had with her, and you’re fortunate as hell I didn’t have to tell you what morgue her body was at.”
The front door opened, and Duncan poked his head out. “Hey, Micah, the meeting’s starting back up again, and Ada’s asking for you.”
Micah nodded, pulling himself up. Duncan looked at me and raised an eyebrow in question, clearly asking me if I was coming. I shook my head and said, “I’ma hang here until y’all are finished.”
Duncan didn’t push, which was a holy blessing. He stepped back and left the door open for Micah, leaving us alone. I watched as Micah walked up the steps and inside the house, wondering if he would look back at me, but he didn’t.
The meeting continued for another hour, and I kept an eye out for everyone while I sat at the table under the tree, away from all the summer camps going on. Someone had come up with the brilliant idea of renting two bounce houses, and the kids were jamming like it was New Year’s Eve.
When Duncan came outside with the coordinators, I headed to them and asked, “Everything okay?”
Duncan nodded and poked his tongue against his lip ring. “It went well. She’ll be out in a minute, and we’ll take her to detox.”
Ada came out the front door with her eyes red-rimmed and her cheeks flushed from crying. Micah came out after her looking very much the same. They hugged before they joined the rest of us, and Ada said, “Okay, I’m ready.”
We watched her walk away with the coordinators. Duncan’s gaze darted between me and Micah. Then he nudged my arm and said, “I’m going home to take a nap. Call me later, and we can get dinner. Micah, you got our numbers, so call if you have any questions.”
Micah came down the steps, his hands in his pockets. He waited until Duncan was a healthy distance away before he spoke. “She didn’t want me to go with her,” he said, almost like he was talking to himself. “Said she didn’t want me to watch her walk into places strung-out, that she wanted me to see her walk out of them clean.”
“That’s probably for the best.”
“Probably,” Micah said, his voice wobbly. He blinked several times and sniffled as a tear rolled down his cheek. “I need to get a few things squared away for Ada while she’s in detox, and I gotta make up for work because I had to call out.”
“For sure,” I said, rubbing my arms so I could resist reaching out and brushing his tears away. I wanted to crawl under the blankets with him and hold him while he slept so that when he woke up tomorrow, he wouldn’t have to do it alone. “Do you want me to go with you?”
“I’ll be okay,” Micah said. It wasn’t a real answer, just something in between, and it felt far worse than a flat-out rejection. “All right, I’m gonna go, or else I’m going to fall asleep in my car. I’ll see you.”
I hummed in agreement, my throat too tight to speak. I didn’t know what this meant for us, but he didn’t tell me to get fucked, so that was something. I had to focus every ounce of energy I had to keep myself standing until he walked away.
Before he did, Micah leaned in and brushed a kiss to my cheek. “Thank you,” he whispered.
I closed my eyes at the tickle of his stubble against my skin. When I opened them again, he was gone.
MICAH
Ipushed up the roll-up door of the storage unit, the sound of metal clanking echoing through the hallway. It was one of the four storage units that my parents had, and this one was specifically Ada’s.
It used to have more in it, but that was before she’d got a copy of the key to it and started hocking things from it. Today, I had three more boxes of orphaned belongings to give to it. Among the boxes, one contained the shattered fragments of objects Ada had once cherished, serving as a physical metaphor of my feelings toward our relationship.
Afterward, I drove to the Wright Place to meet Mom and give her back the keys. She was always sat near the windows, and I stopped to look at her through the glass, letting the sun bake into my skin and the sweat dribble down my neck and back.
I’d have to face the realization that everything my mother had been telling me was right. How many visits did I have with Mom that were Ada-centric? I was trying get her to believe in my propaganda, and she couldn’t. She just couldn’t.
Eventually, the heat bested me, and I made my way inside. Mom was on her phone as she always was, and when she looked up at me, her face morphed into concern.
“Love, are you okay? You look flushed.”
I sat down and grabbed several napkins from the napkin holder, patting my face dry. Mom pushed my water toward me, and I took several gulps. “I’m fine.”
It was a lie, and if Mom sensed it, she’d refrained from saying anything about it. I grabbed the key out of my back pocket and slid it across the table. Mom stared at it for a long time before slowly looking up at me.
