Braver Than I Used to Be

Chapter Twelve

Every muscle in my body ached when I rolled over to snooze my alarm. I sat up and Matthew was still asleep next to me and Ray was looking at his phone in the bed next to us.

"Are we going to school today?" I said.

"Do you want to?"

"Not really, but I don't want Matthew to get in trouble."

"Wake him up and ask him."

I pushed Matthew until he woke up. His hair was a tangled mess and his eyes were barely open when he answered me.

"Are we going to school today?" I said.

He looked around the room and back at me. "I don't know. Should we?"

"Will you get in trouble?"

"Who knows," he turned over and rubbed his eyes. "Fuck it, let's have some fun today. Yesterday was a lot. We can go see my mom, I'm sure she wants to see my face."

I nodded, "I think that is a good idea. She probably will tell you, you can't see me anymore because you keep missing school." I laughed.

"Nah, as long as I pass, she'll be fine. She knows there's a lot of things happening. I just don't give her the details."

I had been thinking about his mom a lot lately. I felt bad that he had been with me all the time and she may not really understand all the reasons behind it. I didn't want her to hate me or feel like I was taking her son away or pulling him into all my drama.

"I think you should tell your mom everything."

They both looked at me. "Are you sure?" Matthew said.

"Yes, I think it is unfair that I just come into your life and suddenly everything is crazy and she doesn't understand why. I don't want to be there when you tell her though. I think you should do it alone, so that way she can speak freely about it."

"Alright, I'll do it. Can I go back to sleep?"

"If you want. But not for long." I laughed. He turned over and fell right back to sleep. Ray was still looking at his phone. "Ray?" He looked over to me, "Do you think she left yet?"

"Probably not yet. Guess it depends on what dad was able to do."

I nodded and looked down at my hands. "Do you think she meant it?"

Ray sighed, knowing this talk would happen eventually. "I don't know. I think part of her did and part of her didn't. I think yesterday was the part that did." He turned to his side to face me.

"Did you know?"

"That she felt that way, no. Well, not entirely. She was always very self-centered about everything, but I didn't think it went that far."

I nodded. "Want to know what I remembered yesterday?"

He laid on his back and took a deep breath. "Go ahead."

"He used to tell me that if I told anyone, no one would believe me. And if I did tell anyone, he would kill you. That's why I never said anything."

Ray was silent for a long time while he processed this. After about ten minutes he shook his head. I decided I wouldn't talk about it for the rest of the day. I know Ray wanted me to talk about it anytime I wanted to, but I didn't really want to. Also, after finding out that he saw what happened, I didn't want to put him through it again either. Yesterday weighed so heavily on all of us and adding to it would only make it harder.

"I don't think we should talk about it today." I said and he shook his head in agreement.

When we spoke to my dad, he said a car took her to the airport that morning. Her family wasn't happy to have her back after my dad told them what happened, but he told them she couldn't be here anymore. I didn't really remember her side of the family or my dad's either, no one really talked about them and I never asked.