Goodnight Moon

12- Are We Back To Normal

“Ariel, I have some bad news,” The person on the other end says.

“Oh, my God,” I breathe as my whole body is racked with relief. “Adan, you’re okay? Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” He sighs. “I’m fine. I’m technically not allowed to have a phone so we have to make this quick but I just wanted to let you know that I’m alive.”

“I mean, you’re not like, hurt or anything? I’ve been so worried. I’m going to freaking kill you when you get back here though,” I inform him, placing a hand on my head to try and get my headache to soothe. Even though I’m so relieved that I’m on the phone with my brother right now, I’m still really hungover right now and my head hurts.

“Well, I’m concussed but it’s not bad,” Adan says. “I didn’t mean to worry you, Ari.”

“You did,” I huff. “You worried everyone. I just saw this explosion on the news and I was so scared.”

“I know,” He sighs, not sounding nearly as happy as I feel. It suddenly occurs to me that just because Adan is alive, sixty or more of his friends are not. Sixty families that don’t get this phone call. They get one that’s a lot sadder than this. Sixty families that are still probably worried, wishing that their family member will survive the explosion when they actually won’t come home at all. Sixty families. “Well, I won’t be coming home as soon as I’d hoped.”

“Why not?” I ask him.

“I’ll still make your graduation,” He assures me. “But I won’t be back until like, the middle of May now. There’s a lot to take care of around here right now.”

“Okay,” I mutter, lifting my hand to see that I’m shaking really bad because of how relieved I am that my brother’s alive and that I’ve been worrying my head off for these past few days for nothing. “How are you doing? Other than the concussion?”

“Rex is dead, Ari,” Adan informs me with a quivering sigh. “I saw him blow to chunks so I’m not doing so great right now but I don’t want you to worry, I’ll be fine.”

Oh no. I start to remember that nice yet slightly creepy guy that I’d talked to just two times but he was still really funny and he seemed sweet and I don’t want him to be dead. I don’t want any of those soldiers to be dead. I want to cry for Rex even though I barely knew him and maybe I will cry later but right now, I can’t because I’m on the phone with Adan and I have to keep it together for him. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. Does he have any family members? A girlfriend? Do they know?

“Me too,” He sighs. “I have to go now but can you call Dad and let him know that I’m okay? I could only get one call so just make sure that you call him.”

“Yeah, I will,” I assure my brother. “Just come home and never scare me like that again or I will be one extremely unhappy camper with angina.”

“Sure, Ariel,” He says with a half-hearted laugh and it’s so sad to hear him all sad like this.

“I love you, big brother,” I tell him as Max comes into the room from his closet and jumps onto the bed from his doggy steps.

“I love you too, baby sister,” Adan says to me just before he hangs up. I put my phone on the nightstand beside my bed and lay back down with Max nuzzling my shoulder. It’s around five in the evening and I’m in bed so I can imagine that Max is concerned for me and slightly hungry because it’s dinner time so I need to go feed him and probably take him outside because I haven’t done that since this morning either.

I’m still so tired and hungover but I’d rather get up now and deal with my hangover than go back to sleep and have to clean pee out of my carpet. With a loud sigh, I get out of my bed and press a hand to my head as if that’s going to help with the pain at all. I go to the bathroom myself before going downstairs with Max. I push some toast into the toaster before I take Max out into the backyard so that he can go to the bathroom and after he’s done, we go back inside together. My toast is already popped so I fill Max’s dog dishes and then grab the butter from the fridge.