WHO: Kaden and Tragos WHEN: Monday, late, and just after they leave Marcie's WHERE: On a bus heading into the Hole WHAT: Brothers talking WARNINGS: Looming domestic violence, but nothing explicit
Tragos and Kaden took the seats near the back of the bus, one behind the other.
“She’s nice,” Kaden said, he was in front, sitting sideways. “And rich. But nice. How’d you get a nice one?”
“Shut up.” Tragos was sideways too, his back against the window, feet stretched out into the aisle. “What did you do at school?”
Kaden looked up at him, but mostly looked past him, to the group of girl sitting at the back of the bus. Loud girls, every now and then exploding in probably drunk laughter. “What d’you want me to do, shut up or talk?”
Tragos exhaled in frustration. “I want you to talk. Why the fuck are you suspended?”
Kaden made a face. The face said, I don’t want to do this yet. The face said, we have more than twenty minutes on this bus. The face just said just let me have a few more minutes of pretending I haven't ruined my life.
Tragos sighed and leaned his head back against the bus window. It rattled so hard it shook down his bones, and he had to lift his head before long. He could see his reflection in the window on the other side of the aisle, and let his thoughts drift, wondering how he’d looked, standing up against Apollo. He’d seemed, tonight, like nothing more than a frat boy, though one that spoke the same language as Melpomene. One that listened to her. He’d fought harder than anyone Tragos had ever seen, he’d gotten hits in against Ares no one else had ever managed to, and he could have wiped Tragos out tonight, but he’d seemed to think Tragos’ presence there, and his name, was funny. A joke in a language Tragos was trying to learn.
“Anyway, I like her,” Kaden was saying, playing with the zip in his new jacket. “She thinks I’m hilarious. Does she think you’re hilarious?” He laughed at the idea. It had a wildness to it, Kaden’s laugh. Like if he laughed loud enough the rest of the world didn’t exist outside the bus.
Hermes, thought Tragos. Clio. Will Stutely. Then there’d been other names he didn’t recognise, it couldn’t have been syphilis. Prometheus at least sounded familiar – that shit Alien movie of the same name. They’d mentioned the Merry Men – so, Much’s gang. And Melpomene had stabbed the Sheriff. Fuck, what a babe.
“-don’t know what you two even talk about,” Kaden was saying.
“Who says we talk much,” Tragos said, with a tight smile.
“Gross.”
The bus slowed and the group of girls at the back of the bus started to moved past them, both boys watching the long bare legs, fabric stretched tight over the curves of hips, soft bellies, softer breasts, long straight dark hair and or lighter waves. “Have a good night ladies,” Kaden grinned at them, leaning over the seat in front of him to be closer. One of them told him to suck a dick and her friend told her to stop being such a bitch. Once they were gone, the boys took the back seat, stretching out to fill the space.
“You better let me what happened before we get home,” Tragos said, knowing that what was coming depended on Barak’s mood but however it went, Barak wasn’t going to sit Kaden down and ask for an explanation.
Kaden made that face again, but this version was harder, it had an edge of self loathing to it now.
He told Tragos what he’d told Marcie; the police had bought in drugs dogs to sweep over the school and they’d taken an interest in Kaden’s clothes. And he told him what he hadn’t told Marcie, that he’d pulled on that hoodie from the back of the couch this morning after Cy had dumped it there.
There were things he didn’t need to tell Tragos: the headmaster of the school hadn’t changed since Tragos had been expelled, Tragos remembered him, a man who drew hard lines in the sand. A man who didn’t have any faith in Tragos after dealing with Barak and Cy before him and obviously had no faith in Kaden either, not after he’d crossed the line once.
Never mind that Kaden had managed, miraculously, to avoid detention so far. Never mind that at school Kaden stuck his head down and worked hard.
And when Kaden told Tragos “And then the cops wanted to talk to me,” that was the death knell. No Murphy boy could talk reasonably to cops, not even Kaden. There’d never been anything by virulent dislike for police in their family, both parents had raised the boys with the distrust embedded into them.
And police hadn’t found their mother, even when they’d turned to them for help.
And police had taken their father, dragged him right out of the house in front of them.
Their parents may be gone, but they all carried the internalised voices and opinions of both mother and father with them. One of the only things all four of them could agree on: fuck cops.
“D’you tell them anything?”
“No. Nothing. Cept where to stick their accusations.”
Kaden dug his thumb into a loose bit of rubber on the back of the bus seat. “And I threw Mallard’s snow globe at one of the cops head.”
Tragos barely suppressed a smirk. Reminded himself of the suspension. Stopped smirking. “So, three days.”
“Three days,” said Kaden, slumping.
He wanted someone to tell him it was going to be alright. That if he didn’t do anything else to mess up, colleges might not look at a suspension in his freshmen year, not if he packed the next three years full of astonishing test scores, extracurricular activities, and a perfect attendance. He wanted someone to give him a hug. Kaden wrapped his arms around the back of the bus seat in front of him, it was the closest thing to hug he was going to get.
At least Ronan was here though, Kaden thought, falling back to his brother’s old name in his head because he needed it. Like, Ronan was here without questioning it. He could have stayed with his hot, way-too-good-for-him girlfriend, could have sent Kaden back home on his own, but he hadn’t even considered it. Ronan probably couldn’t stop Barak being as … Barak as he was going to get, but he was sitting at his side on this rattly old bus, all the same.
He just wanted it to be over. His confrontation with Barak to be over. Suspension to be over. School to be over. He wanted to be lying on the grass in some college green, his head on a backpack, lying next to friends he hadn’t met yet, half a country away from here.