The House Above the Sea

16.

Neo takes the next day to make his preparations.

    He gets up early, endures an impromptu workout with Joey and Uncle Duke (try as he might to explain the whole point of getting a summer body is to do so before summer, Neo's uncle would not listen), and devours the breakfast Aunt Vivian makes for him. After work, he comes straight home, not allowing himself a glance in the house's direction. Not until tonight. He'll be back there tonight.

    Through dinner, he is the perfect house guest. He laughs at all of Uncle Duke's jokes, even the ones that aren't funny, which is all of them. He answers Aunt Viv's questions about how his day went and if working with Bernie was fun (sometimes) and if he'd met anyone interesting in town (maybe). Olivia starts to cry and Neo's the first one on his feet, distracting her with a brief game of peek-a-boo. Besides the somewhat awkward silence that stretches between Neo and Joey, it's perfect. Spotless. The guy who'd run off in the middle of the storm and come home too many hours later was gone, corrected, complacent. The once watchful eyes on him turned their gazes away.

    It's Joey's night to do the dishes, so Neo flees to the basement to gather a few things: a folded air mattress and a portable pump, a dusty, ragged quilt, the unicorn pillow pet Joey carried everywhere as a kid. It takes him thirty minutes to stuff it all in his backpack, but he does it. Glancing cautiously over his shoulder, he swings the basement window open and slips the bag outside.

    All that's left to do is wait.

    It's not that Neo hasn't snuck out before. He has multiple times, even, waiting until the little gold sliver under his parents' bedroom door went dark to slip down the fire escape and out to one of his friends' parties. It's just that something about this time feels different, imperative, as if screwing this up will be the final and definite end.

    The stars are high and the street is quiet when the house finally settles into stillness. Neo sits up in bed, blinking into the black shadows of the bedroom, and makes out the immobile lump that is Joey.

    With a sigh, Neo sits on the edge of the bed, tugging on his shoes. He throws his comforter over his pillows and meticulously climbs onto the roof, cringing when the window squeaks as it opens.

    The night air hugs him like a warm blanket as he tiptoes to the roof's lip, daring a glimpse at the bushes below. It isn't that high of a drop, really, but without the organized system of steps and platforms he's used to, it still breathes butterflies alive in his stomach.

    Neo closes his eyes, listening to the distant crash of the waves, the rustle of tree limbs in the breeze.

    He jumps.

    Besides a sharp, shocking twang in his ankle he is whole. He slips around back to retrieve the backpack, drags his bike from where it rests against the side of the house, and he's off.

    Kit probably thinks I'm still mad at him, Neo thinks as he rides along, the wind pushing his curls back from his face, the crisp air freshening his lungs. Maybe he's mad at me, even. But I have to try.

    I have to try.

    The old house is eerie and different at night, cast in a perpetual blue-black gloom, the shattered windows like gaping sockets and the overgrown vines like spindly veins. The hair on the back of Neo's neck pricks up as he parks his bike at the sagging porch, trekking through the yellowing, knee-high grass until he reaches the back door.

    Behind him sits the cliff's edge, a sharp drop to a craggy, stone shore, and in front of him is the only place Kit has known for the last eight years. Neo marvels for a second at the closeness of it all, but shakes his head, his heart pounding. Focus.