Between the Stacks

Chapter 9

I rushed out of the lobby of Melissa's apartment building, fumbling my phone as I wrestled with the door. Matteo and Rob were right behind me. I didn't want them to sense my panic; I offered an overly-cheery goodbye as they walked together in the opposite direction. I ended up in the park across the street, the one sandwiched between the row of apartments and the library. The bench was sturdy under my fingers. I desperately hoped the call wouldn't be about Alex, my brother.

The phone only rang twice before Mom picked up. "Emma! Thank goodness."

"What's wrong?" I asked, frantic. "Is Dad okay?"

"No, that's why I'm calling."

Images flashed through my mind. Hospital bleach. Fluorescent lights. Linoleum floors. Doctors speaking too quietly, too slowly. I knew it wasn't medically possible, but it felt like my heart would burst out of my chest. Who knew? Perhaps I would be some sort of medical freak, the girl without a heart. It would certainly make things easier.

I couldn't live through that all again.

"What's wrong?" I managed to croak.

"Your father has picked up knitting as a hobby," she said. She paused.

"And?" I prompted. "Did he poke out an eye? Stab himself?"

"What? No. He's knitting a scarf with two colors, and he chose green and orange. Green and orange! Can you believe it? It's like he's never heard of color theory. A cool and a warm color don't go together–"

"Hi, honey." Dad's voice came through the background.

"So everything's fine?" I said weakly. "There's no emergency?"

"Emergency? Of course this is an emergency!" Mom said, shouting into the phone. "I'm the one that's going to have to wear this monstrosity."

The emergency was about the color of a scarf. I wanted to laugh. To scream. To cry.

And instead of doing any of that, I said, "You can rock anything you wear."

I've always been a non-confrontational person. Even when I was younger, if Alex was arguing with our parents, I would run to my room and shove my head under the pillow. I didn't want to deal with the messiness of life.

The problem is that I've never really learned to deal with conflict. And, sitting there in the park, I didn't even have a handy pillow.

The last time I had confronted a problem, I had been drunk and had rudely yelled at Wesley in the bar. I knew this wasn't healthy. The last thing I wanted was a strawberry daiquiri-fueled rant. I cringed when I thought about how I had my nacho-y hands in his hair, making the world's worst unicorn horn.

And now I wanted to explain to my Mom how much she had scared me, how worried I had been. But those emotions weren't things we ever talked about. At least, we hadn't talked about them in the past decade or so.

"Are you there?" Mom said.

"Sorry?" I had spaced out for a moment. When I unwrapped my hand from the edge of the bench, I could see deep grooves that lined my fingers.

"Have you spoken to Alex lately?" she asked.

There it was. The question I dreaded most.

"No," I said. "I haven't. Look, Mom, I see the bus coming, I need to run."

There was no bus. Just me, the bench, and a lonely Tim Hortons coffee cup rolling across the path.

"Okay, honey. Make sure you talk to him. I don't want him to get lonely."