At twelve years old, Kaleb’s the most mature out of his circle of friends- or so he likes to think. They’re all growing up in weird ways that no one really understands but Kaleb’s already done his fair share of growing.
He hasn’t felt like a child in ages but the rest of them are just desperate to hold onto their youth.
They’re still young but Kaleb’s got a soul of a forty five year old in him somewhere and it’s sad but nice at the same time. He doesn’t know if he likes it or not so he tries not to think about it.
It almost never works out. He always thinks about it. He’s always done the most thinking out of the six of them and he’s always felt like he’s older than he actually is.
He doesn’t tell anyone that though.
Most days he tries to stay that twelve year old his age tells him to be. He smiles and laughs and runs around in the dirt playing with his friends as they trek mud into each other’s houses and smiles into each other’s hearts. Most days it works.
Most days is enough.
He watches them as he smiles along side them and it’s an act he knows they don’t reciprocate. He watches all of them almost equally-of course, he watches one more than the others but the rest have their fair share of his attention.
He watches because he worries. He watches because he’s afraid of what will happen to them if he doesn’t.
He pretends he’s not the person gluing the cracks together.
A year later, his dad gets sick and no one has any idea. It’s partly because his mom chants the “he’s going to get better, he’s going to get better, he’s going to get better” mantra to sleep every night, partly because his sisters are too young to understand, and mostly because he doesn’t breathe a word of it to a soul.
His friends are dealing with their own share of problems. Between the six of them there’s the occasional talk of divorce, money, family, death, puberty, boyfriends, girlfriends, love and so on.
He tries not to join in too much on those conversations, only inserting what he believes are words of wisdom here and there. Instead, he still prefers to keeps watch as they all help each other grow and break apart all at the same time. They’re at the age where everything is just so volatile and no one knows what side is up anymore and they have more existential crisises than they ever would. He thinks it’s because the six of them tip over the scale of issues to a whole new realm but that’s mostly because he’s thirteen and he’s being a selfish and self centered kid but he’s not old or mature enough to really recognize that yet.
He also doesn’t realize that he’s the most static person in the group.
Kaleb doesn’t cry in front of people. It was the only thing his dad ever taught him that stuck. “Men don’t cry” He had said with a firm look, but then he followed it with a whispered, “At least not where anyone can see.”
That was when he could still speak.
When his dad dies Kaleb is sixteen and everyone is surprised. He hears whispers of “It was so sudden!” and “He was so young!” followed by the occasional “Those Poor kids”
What they don’t know is that his dad has been fighting this illness for three years and the man was just too stubborn to give in till now.
His mom doesn’t stop crying for three days and three nights except when she has exhausted herself to sleep. The youngest one still doesn’t quite understand that daddy is never coming back and the slightly older one only remembers daddy as a weak man who was trying to make amends for not being a better father to their first child.
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Short Story"A year later, his dad gets sick, and no one has any idea. It’s partly because his mom chants the “he’s going to get better, he’s going to get better, he’s going to get better” mantra to sleep every night, partly because his sisters are too young t...
