Mal
Week One
SUNDAY
I let my feet hit the pavement in a steady rhythm. This was how I worked. Everything was like clockwork in my head. Get up, go, end day, repeat. Nothing new happened to me, but I was okay with that. I had had all the knew I could take when my mom passed away and I had to take on more than my fair share of the house work. It had been a year and a half since mom passed, but it still felt like just yesterday they were knocking on our door to tell us that she wouldn’t be coming home from her shift at the hospital.
“Bad breaks” they had said when the news had come that her car had spun off the road and over the bridge and into the shallow creek bellow. The creek that I now run over as I make my round and started for home. It had taken me three months to be able to run half of my track without crying but now I did it and the spot was just that. A spot.
I run down the street and up to our small house feeling my heart pounding in my throat as I slowed. I looked up at the house and wondered how we came to be so lucky. How even with our losses we were still happy and a family that stuck together. We had each other’s backs at all times and we knew it. I was the only girl but that didn’t mean that I was less than them or always needed protecting and they saw that. They both knew I was the strongest of us all. It was hard to be a boy without a mom yeah, but it was harder being a girl.
I walked through the front door and felt my heart fall. My dad’s bag was by the door again. He’s leaving on another trip; I can just tell by the way his bag is propped up against the doorframe. It’s the detective blood in me. Dad loves his job about as much as he loves us, so that’s a lot. He always said from the moment he entered school he knew he wanted to be a detective, and so he became one.
He had met mom at the hospital when he had a case where the survivor was staying there before being transferred into a safe house. Dad had said he had fallen for the way her long golden brown hair had fallen around her when she turned and slapped him. He would claim that that was the moment he knew he was going to marry her, even though she had slapped him. He waited two years before really tying the knot. He still talks about her like that. Like she was an angle that had fallen but sadly had to return to the heavens. When he talked about mom his eyes shined like a kids at Christmas and a dreamy look came over his face. Lewis and I used to joke that it was how adults looked when they were so deeply in love that they weren’t whole without the other, but now we knew that it was just the look of true love.
“Daddy, are you leaving again?” I can’t help but ask the question as I walked into the kitchen and find him making eggs, just like every Sunday.
“It’s only a short trip Mal… I’ll be back by Wednesday if the weather is good.” He said smiling up at me for a moment before he goes back to making the perfect egg.
“Oh, okay… I’m gonna go grab a quick shower.” I said walking over and kissing his cheek before heading out of the kitchen.
“Mal honey I might be gone by the time you are out.” Dad called after me and I felt a pang in my chest.
“Okay. Love you Daddy! See you Wednesday. I’ll make a special dinner.” I said turning around and going back into the kitchen to give him a bug hug.
He hugs me back, holding onto me like he might not see me again. I guess he might not, a person can never know when they are going to die. Dad knows that better than anyone should. He kissed the top of my head before letting me go get cleaned up from all the sweat. I head up the steps on my journey to my room for clean cloths.
I had to pass my brothers room on my way to mine and noticed the shoes outside the door. I knew the shoes all too well. They had been the shoes I had seen for weeks on end outside of my brother’s room and in the halls of school. I also knew the tall dark handsome boy who went along with those shoes, the one who wasn’t supposed to be at our house. I can’t help but smile and shake my head. I grab the shoes and head for my room, no need for dad to know. Plus that means that he has to come talk to me before he leaves.
I toss them under my bed and grab my clean cloths before heading for the bathroom. Even if dad goes into Lewis’s room to wake him before he leaves he won’t see Ray, because he sleeps in the closet. Lewis had been lucky to have the walk in closet. Being the smartass he was he put a bed in there so anyone could spend the night and no one would know, but I always found out.
I stripped off my cloths and turned on the hot water. It felt good to get cleaned off from the sweat; it made me feel stiff and sticky. I let the hot water run over my skin for a good five minutes before I actually wash myself. I used the last of the vanilla-bean body wash and make a note in my head to go to the store and pick some up. It’s only Sunday so I don’t have to worry about being to camp until tomorrow. I had been selected to be one of the ‘kid’ helpers at the summer camp the school put on. It wasn’t summer school, it was summer fun camp. Lewis had basketball and football camp so he was going to be busy all summer, so I had taken the job.
I climbed out of the shower twenty minutes later and wrap a towel around my body. I looked through the pile of cloths on the counter and sighed. I had forgotten my bra behind my door. I had hung it up last night so it could dry because I had washed it.
I pressed my ear to the door listening for any sounds. I didn’t want anyone seeing me wrapped in a towel with no swimsuit under it. I didn’t hear anything so I grabbed my cloths and opened the bathroom door. I walked out of the bathroom and glanced at Lewis’s room as I walked down the hall. I should have been looking in front of me because I ran into something warm and hard. I let out a small yelp and turned to look at what I had run into.
Ray. Ray stood in front of me his face red as he looked up at the ceiling like it was the most interesting thing in the whole world. I felt my face flame and I clutched my cloths closer to my chest. I wasn’t small chested. I stood at a solid D cup; I was the second biggest in my class at school. Lauran had me beat, double D’s.
“Uh… hi.” Ray said making sure to keep his eyes away from me.
“Hi…” I said trying to cover myself with my cloths as best I could.
“Hey Lewis you gonna come say good-bye?” My dad’s voice echoed down the hall and I heard him coming up the steps.
Ray looked at me and I felt my body move on its own. I grabbed his arm and flung him into my room, fallowing after him. He tumbled onto my bed and I skidded into the room closing the door and catching my foot on my desk chair and tumbling on top of him.