Charade

Vic

The door swung open and yellow light filled the apartment. Benjamin, hunched over a sketch book at the kitchen table, looked up at me.

"Hey Vic," he said, pencil in hand.

"Benjamin," I sighed, shrugging off my jacket. "I thought we discussed the issue of your trial this morning."

Benjamin's eyed flicked up at me, a switch flipping in his brain, and he immediately knew what I was talking about. Then his eyes fell back to his drawing.

"If this is about my dad, can we just drop it?"

"No, we can't just 'drop it'. Benjamin, you need this man's help."

"Well, I don't want it."

I sat down beside him, watching him try to avoid my eyes.

"You're being prideful," I said. "Do you know what will happen if you don't accept his help?"

"Juvie. I get it."

"If you really understood, you would've begged for an offer like this. I've researched your father. I have faith he could get you out of this."

"Maybe I don't want to get out of this!" He yelled, eyes locked with mine.

I paused, considering his response.

"You want to be placed in a juvenile centre?"

"No," he said, composing himself. "But I would rather go to juvie then owe him anything."

"Benjamin," I said, "this isn't about pride anymore. It's about freedom. If you get locked up in a place like that, you're not getting out. You hate being confined to this apartment? Wait until you're confined to a room. Wait until you don't get to make any decisions. Wait until they strip you of your identity, telling you what to wear and what to eat and when to shower. You can tend to your hurt pride later. But right now, you need to call your father and apologise. Beg him to help you. Tell him you'll do anything."

"He wants me to come home," he said, eyes so big and scared, innocent like a child.

"Then tell him you will. Tell him whatever he wants to hear. But do it fast, because your trial is tomorrow afternoon. You don't have time to wait."

Benjamin looked away from me, eyes twitching while his mind was somewhere else.

"Before he left," Benjamin said softly, "it got a bit heated. I said some things, and so did he. He won't come back. Not now, not after what I said."

I frowned.

"And what did you say?" I asked warily.

"The truth. About everything. And he didn't like it."

"Well, the truth hurts." I said. "But you've seen my daughter. She's said some terrible things over the years, things that still haunt me to this day. But none of them ever made me stop loving her."

"Yeah, but you're not like my dad. You're this, I dunno, big hard-shelled guy who loves his kid more than anything and would do anything to save her. You accept her, just as she is. My dad hates everything I am." He whispered, eyes dropping back to the page.

"He doesn't hate you," I told him. "He can't."

"Oh, really?" He snapped, tears welling in his eyes. "When I was twelve, I told my parents I wanted to be an artist. I had dozens of drawings of motorbikes and skulls, pages and pages of comic strips, paintings and charcoal drawings and all sorts. I spent months making them, perfecting them, so when I told Dad he would see that I was good enough to do it. When I finished off my last sketch, I put it in a folder, and took them all down to my parents. I told them I wanted to make art more than anything and I would work every day to get better, so I could do it when I left school. My brother laughed at me, made fun of me. My mother, well, she cried. She always cries. But my dad... he was so mad at me, so disgusted because I didn't want to be a doctor or lawyer or something, that he took my sketches, all of them, and made me watch as he burned them in our fireplace." Benjamin bit back tears. "I watched them all burn," he whispered. "The pages curling and turning black. This is the first time I've picked up a pencil since that night."

Benjamin slid his arms away from his sketch and for the first time, I saw it. I was in it, smiling, with Lily's tiny six-year-old body sitting on my shoulders, wrapped around my head. It was a copy of the photo in the frame he broke the first night we met, the only reason I found him in my closet that day. It was so detailed, so well-crafted. It looked professional.

Then Benjamin crunched it up in his fist.

"Doesn't matter now. He won't help me. I'm going to juvie whether I like it or not." Benjamin said, getting up from the table.

I paused, analysing the situation. There needed to be a solution to this.

"Wait," I said.

Benjamin paused and I sat still, the silence weighing between us. The idea was stupid, destined to fail, and still... I couldn't give up without a fight.

"I'll defend you," I said quietly. "I'll be your lawyer."

Benjamin's eyebrows furrowed.

"Did you even study law?" He asked.

"Some. Not really. But I've always been good at being right."

"And you're telling me that I'm prideful," he scoffed.

"You did this for me," I said, getting up to look him in the eye. "You're in this situation because of me. It seems only right that I get you out of it."

"And you really think you can do this? You think you can get me community service?"

"I can try," I told him.

"How reassuring," he smiled, sauntering over to the couch. "But thanks."

I stood still, trying to figure out if I'd even read a law book in my whole life, and felt a weight come crashing down on me. Everybody was relying on me now. Lily, for her life. Benjamin, for his freedom. I felt it all, the crushing weight of it, pushing me into the ground. I wasn't a lawyer. I'd never studied law in my life.

How could I save him when I didn't even know what I was doing?

© A.G. Travers 2015