Blame The Weeds (gxg)

5

May didn't stop the rain—nothing did. Weeks passed like sand through my fingers. At school, I napped in English with two green eyes watching me. At home, I hid under my blankets or stared out my window. It was disturbing. Time ticked away no matter how I felt or how badly I needed it to stop. Maybe this year, May would bring flowers to bloom. Weeds, too; those small yellow ones would pop up on everyone's lawns. Taraxacum officinale. Like each year before, soulless housewives and resentful husbands would attack them with all they had. Pesticides, shovels, screams, and curses. It wouldn't matter. Whether they were pulled out or sprayed away, nothing ever worked. The bright yellow weeds only came back stronger. But for now, it was only May rain.

Freya loved the weather, which I'd known from before. We took many opportunities to study beneath the pattering droplets, safe under overhangs. With all the studying, I finally learned what an adverb was, so when I wrote the test, I passed—but only by the thinnest of margins. In the halls, Freya's eyes still found mine. In class, she shared her pencils when I forgot. Outside by the busses, she lifted a hand in repetitive goodbye.

My father had visited Luke a few times, but they had not spoken. After coming back the first time, dad shut down. He was so quiet that I'd had to press my ear to his door to be sure he was breathing. It'd taken me a few hours to understand that seeing Luke's frail frame, pale eyes, and sharp collar bones must have triggered the most gruesome memories of mom. So, I'd made dad his favourite earl grey tea and brought it to his room. He'd said nothing, but was out not ten minutes later, acting as if nothing had happened. Both Gabrielle and Rue understood. They'd lost Jeremiah Woods. We were a makeshift family of stitched-together widows and orphans.

One week ago, I overheard an argument between Luke's parents from my window. They'd been in the kitchen shouting about medications and trips to visit new professionals and hear new opinions. I kept picturing their son in his room, all alone, hands over his ears to drown out the noises. Because that's all I wanted to do—hide. That night at around four in the morning, I heard Luke's window open. I'd shot out of bed in my pyjamas, panic crawling up my spine. Luke had slipped out his window in black basketball shorts and descended the lattice fixed to the side of the house. As soon as he reached the bottom, he glanced up under his mop of sandy hair, looking for me. We had sat silently in the pitch-black treehouse that night.

Talk about something, he'd said into the darkness.

Remember Freya Cameron? You might have been right about her. And about me, I'd said. After that, we sat in the dark with tired eyes, helpless. We fell asleep on the wooden planks, hands locked together, only to wake when the sun broke the horizon. After that, I'd taken time to prepare. I stole old quilts and pillows from our musty basement and stashed them in the treehouse. Next time, I'd be ready. For a whole week, I'd slept with one ear listening for the sound of his window. When he woke, I did too. We sat up in the tree, unable to sleep until exhaustion overtook us. We slept, curled into balls under blankets smelling of old books and dust. Time with Luke was like stepping around broken glass—one wrong move would cut us both. And I was stepping in the dark. Dad and Gabrielle didn't know about the sneaking out. The Hoffmanns also didn't know how Luke and I met at night, and I'd never tell them.

Often, I overheard passionate conversations between Luke's parents. They argued and fought, yes, but they also apologized and cried. Most of their discussions had to do with their son's future. When will our son go back to school? What if his medication doesn't work? Why won't he talk to us? What if he's never the same? I think they knew, as I was beginning to, that he wouldn't ever be the same again. No more summer fires and walks in the park. No cozy snowed-in winters with hot chocolate and warm socks. It boiled down to the monsters that were to blame in the first place. I knew little of it. I'm not sure I wanted to learn more.