Cogent

TWENTY-FIVE

They waited in the basement of Lenny's house for three days. Jen started complaining the first day about the dark and the cold. She kept saying she wanted to go home, mumbling to herself, and crawling up the stairs to the basement door. Hours would pass that way, with Kaleb sitting silently underneath the steps and Jen above him on the landing, banging her head on the door. By the second day, Kaleb knew something was wrong. Noah was taking too long, and Jen was acting even crazier than usual. She was sweating and shaking, barely making it to the bathroom upstairs before liquids came pouring out of her. He tried to help her, offering food from the bags Noah had packed. But she wouldn't eat. There was nothing he could do.

"Stay away from me," Jen hissed, her hair in the toilet and her face on the seat. Kaleb stood in the doorway with an old t-shirt, offering it to her like a towel. It was all there was to help her clean herself off.

He glared angrily in her direction, tired of watching her be sick and not being able to help. She wouldn't let him touch her, despite being weak and unbalanced. He needed Noah. They both did.

By the third day, the pain set in. Jen couldn't talk anymore. She was stuck on the couch, holding herself as her body trembled. A sheen of cold sweat glistened on her forehead and she wouldn't stop moaning. She couldn't even get up to go to the bathroom. Kaleb no longer had to wonder what was wrong with her. It was obvious now. It had been too long since her last high and withdrawal symptoms were hitting her hard. It didn't take long before she was begging him to bring her something. "Anything, I don't care, just get me s-something to m-make the pain go a-away," she panted, eyes tightly shut.

Kaleb watched her from under the stairs, his gaze shifting upward at the slightest hint of a noise, hoping that Noah was coming. He would know what to do to help their mom, to keep them safe. Shame lurked in the back of his mind, followed by guilt. He was the oldest, not Noah. Why couldn't he take care of things? Why did he always rely on other people to do things that a normal person should be able to do on their own?

"Why won't you help me?" Jen screamed, sobbing afterward. "You're such a w-waste of space!"

Kaleb's expression hardened at the insult, tired of the abuse. But she's not wrong...he thought. What have I ever done that helped someone?

His thoughts immediately went to Lenny, and the day she picked him up on the road. They were strangers, but she had reached out to him. He thought about the weeks after that, and their meals at the café. And then the months following, when she invited him over for lunch and showed him the basement. "It's your safe place." She'd said. "You can come here whenever you need to get away. I'll leave the back door unlocked when I'm not here." Later, she had placed a key in the bottom of an old clown figurine and left it behind the flowerpot. Only she and Kaleb knew it was there. Sighing, he pulled his knees up to he chest, throwing his arms over them and leaning his chin on his wrist. He wished he had it with him now; something to remember her by.

Jen moaned again, the sound escalating into a strange sort of screech of pain. Kaleb reached up and covered his ears, closing his eyes. He couldn't take this anymore. Not the sounds, or the smells, or the guilt at letting it go on. It was time to do something—anything other than hiding under the stairs like the nine-year-old kid Jen had locked in the shed, or the seventeen-year-old who had walked in on something he was never supposed to see. There had been a worse day than this one. A moment he would never forget. He had been afraid then. Too afraid to do something about the terrible thing that was happening. But he wouldn't be that kid anymore.

Scrambling out from behind the stairs, Kaleb got to his feet and approached the couch, staring down at the writhing skin and bones screaming at him. It was time to grow up. It was time to do something.