You don't have to read it to understand, but this is a part of a series! The first work is The Kid's Aren't Alright.
Warnings for Child Neglect.
...
Lafayette is twelve when it happens.
Piers comes by on a Wednesday, which is wrong for two reasons. It's wrong because he's already dropped off the next three weeks of food, and because the delivery service is only supposed to run on Saturdays anyways. The man's not wearing his usual work outfit, either, which makes Lafayette a little nervous and apprehensive.
It's different. It's worrying. It's new.
(It's a little exciting.)
Piers knocks on the door, looking a little guilty and a little determined, face drawn serious and pitched in a frown. He asks if he can come in, and he's the first person besides Lafayette to enter the front door in a long, long time.
His parents have been away for six months, twenty two days, and almost thirteen hours. It's been the longest amount of time they have been away in a single trip, and the house really has been very lonely and very quiet, and no matter how loudly Lafayette plays his music the walls seem to creep in ever closer, the air becoming so thick he can hardly breathe, the loneliness so oppressive Lafayette's begun talking to himself and all the non animate objects just to hear someone's voice, even if its his own.
So he lets Piers in, throws the doors wide open and chatters away about everything he can think of. It feels so good to talk to somebody, to talk to an actual, real live person who responds to what he's saying and asks questions and is there, is real real real. It makes Lafayette feel a little more real too, a little less like a doll stuck in its very own doll house, abandoned in a closet after the child who owned it got too big to care.
At one point, the delivery man puts a hand on Lafayette's shoulder, and he can't help but lean into the touch. It's been so long since he engaged in physical contact, so long since the last shoulder pat and hair ruffle. He can't remember the last time someone's hugged him, doesn't think anyone ever has.
The man withdraws his hand too soon. Lafayette has to resist the urge to reach out and grab it back, has to resist the urge to cry. He wonders if it would be appropriate to hug Piers for no reason at all, decides that it wouldn't be.
Desperately, desperately wishes that he could anyways.
( But no, can't scare him off, can't disobey, can't make him leave, can't- can't- can't- )
Piers lets him talk for awhile, taking part in more idle conversation in one sitting than Lafayette thinks he's done in his entire life. It's fantastic and amazing and wonderful, and if he wasn't so busy trying to be a good host he might have been clapping and cheering and dancing for happiness.
As it is, he puts out a plate of Oreos and offers a glass of water to the man. Maybe, if he's polite and nice enough, if he's good enough, Piers will want to come and visit him again someday, like when he next delivered groceries or next time he's free. Even if he doesn't though, he's made Lafayette's week. His month. Heck, Piers has made Lafayette's year.
They sit on the nice guest couch and they talk and they eat Oreos and after half an hour of conversation Piers finally seems to work up the courage to ask him about his parents.
Lafayette shuts down, looks down and starts fiddling with the edge of his sleeve, mumbles, " Out… "
Doesn't know why he does it. Doesn't know why his stomach turns sour and heavy with shame whenever the question comes up. Maybe it's because he knows that his parents never take him anywhere because they're embarrassed of him, their failure son, their screw up.
Maybe he's hoping that if Piers never finds out, the man will never feel the need to leave him, too. That his presence won't make the other embarrassed, that the presence of the child who is such a mistake that his own parents can't love him won't make him back out and back away.
The delivery man doesn't let up, asks him when they'll be back.
Lafayette shrugs. The carpet suddenly looks very interesting: he's never realized the particular shade of cream it becomes in the evening sun.
Piers takes a breath, tentatively asks when he last saw them.
Lafayette doesn't want to tell him. Doesn't want to reveal his shortcomings, that he's so awful that even his parents can't stand his presence. He doesn't want to be left alone, not again, not when the man's company has been so nice, has driven away the looming walls for a while.
But he has to. Lying is bad, and Lafayette doesn't need another reason to drive other people away.
Besides, it's his fault he is left alone. It is his fault that no one can love him. It is his fault, and if Piers leaves because of it, Lafayette can't blame him.
So he tells him, nonchalant and just a little quiet, and waits for the ensuing reaction.
He's not surprised when Piers quickly makes his excuses and hurries out the door, a frown marring his features and a hand fishing in his pocket to retrieve his phone and car keys.
He is surprised by how much it hurts.
Lafayette watches the man drive away, the small blue car getting smaller and smaller as it travels down the winding roads and disappears into the horizon.
He stands on the front step long after the car is out of sight, and long after the sun goes down.
A cold wind blows, and he wraps his arms around himself, and imagines the phantom touch of Pier's hand on his shoulder.
It really has been a very, very long time.
Look at what you did, he thinks to himself, now you've made it even longer.
No one responds. He supposes that's the problem with talking to yourself.
He walks inside, and pretends that closing the front door doesn't feel like the house is swallowing him whole.
The next day, just as Lafayette is finishing up his online assignments, the doorbell rings.
He freezes.
Perhaps , he thinks, pencil gripped tight in hand, it is simply my imagination, hoping to hear something that is not there.
He doesn't want to get his hopes up, doesn't want to go racing downstairs to fling open a door and reveal an empty landscape.
But the bell rings again and Lafayette can feel the grin climb up his features, can feel he hope bubble up in his chest.
Piers! He's come back!
He practically flies downstairs and to the front door, swinging it wide open in his enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm that quickly drops when he realizes that, no, Piers hasn't come back, that there are three finely dressed police officers waiting on the other side.
Lafayette blinks up at them.
They blink back.
Finally, after a minute of silence, the young female cop of the trio leans forwards and asks if they can come in, asks if they can look around and ask a few questions.
Lafayette steps aside, fiddling with the sleeve of his shirt. He doesn't know what to do, doesn't know what to say. The walls are closing in awfully fast suddenly, something cold and hard lumping in his throat, and he wonders if you can go to jail for simply being an embarrassment to society.
What he does know is that his parents would be disappointed, and maybe that's the worst bit of all.
Two of the police officers sit down with him on the couch, while the third one goes to tour around the house. Lafayette wishes he would have known that there were people coming over, so that he could have cleaned everything better.
He wishes he would have known so that he could get dressed properly. He's in his pajamas still. He feels naked.
He feels scared.
It's not a very pleasant feeling.
" How long has it been since you last saw your parents? "
Lafayette blinks, looking up tentatively at the bushy bearded male police officer to his left. His facial hair is thick, the texture like Lafayette would imagine a bear, and it's not helping him feel any better.
"Six months, twenty three days, and… nine hours? It may be ten…"
The man instantly looks aghast, and the lady cop's lips purse.
" Do you have any caretakers?" she asks.
" Caretakers?" and although the word is in his own language, it sounds foreign.
" Adults," says the man, his voice sounding a little pleading and very worried, " people to take care of you."
Lafayette scratches his head. He doesn't understand what they're asking, doesn't understand what they want him to say….
" Piers stops by with food every three weeks, and there's a gardener who comes once a month. Is that what you mean?"
The officers trade looks, matching frowns on their faces, and Lafayette huddles in on himself. He's messed up, he's given the wrong answer and he's messed up and they won'tlike him now, they're gonna leave him too, or maybe they'll lock him up.
They ask him more and more questions, questions about how he makes his meals and how he does his school work and what his entertainment looks like and how he contacts his parents. Lafayette answers them, answers one question after another, and despairs as the male police officer looks more and more distressed and the female police officer looks more and more angry.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm sorry 'msorry'msorry'msorry-
He wishes the floor would open up beneath his feet and swallow him whole. He wishes he could simply cease to exist. He wishes, for the first time in forever, that things could be quiet and still again.
The third police officer comes back from his search, and he's shaking his head. Lafayette wonders why, doesn't have enough time to ask because he's being loaded up into a police car and driven to the station.
The car feels weird, because it's been so long since he's last ridden in one. He grips onto the seat cushions tight, wishes that someone would talk to him, wishes he could understand what was going on.
The unpopulated hills give way to buildings and highways and small shops and restaurants. Lafayette cranes his neck, tries to look past the figures surrounding him, tries to take it all in. There are so many people, all wandering and meandering about, living there lives, and it makes him feel small and inconsequential, makes him want to jump out the window and hug every single one, or talk to them, or something. Something to prove that they're real and there and close.
But they also make him want to hide. Make him want to duck his head and curl under his covers and block the whole wide world out, make him want to scream and cry andshake, because there are so many of them, everywhere, and after so long where there was nothing, just four heavy walls pressing in on him, pressing down on him and drowning him and choking him with their silence, the sudden liberation makes him realize that he's forgotten how to breathe without their weight.
He does neither of these things, but he watches. He watches, wide eyed and quiet, and the unfamiliar world he could never quite reach for all his gazing of windows and trekking of trees forgets to look back.
The police station is cold and plain, and there are many questions and many people, everywhere and all at once. Lafayette does his best, sits at desks with a kind old lady in a wrinkled grey suit who talks to him about many things and asks him all the same questions of the officers before.
Lafayette answers, and his tongue feels thick and his tongue feels like sand.
He wonders if there's a jail for people who commit the crime of being unlovable. He wonders if he finally became such a failure that his parents felt the need to have him removed from the world all together.
He sits back straight and legs crossed, trying to avoid fumbling with his words, trying to avoid spilling the small plastic cup of water they give him, trying to avoid getting little crumbs on the couch from the bag of peanuts he's offered. His hands are trembling slightly, and everything just this side of too much, and a headache has begun to pound loud and hard in his ears.
More people come in. There are more questions. Before the walls had been quiet, but now they are screaming, and Lafayette just wants to close his eyes and cover his ears, squeeze everything tight and small until no one can see him, no one can touch him, no one can realize he exists at all.
It's so much, and it's everywhere, and there's no escape.
He's tired. It's late. He wants his bed. He wants his house. He wants his quiet routine.
He wants his parents, desperately, wants them to come and somehow make everything okay.
Idiot, a voice says, and the voice is cruel and cold, you're only here because they don't want you in the first place.
His fingers start shaking in his lap, and he clenches them into fists. The bright lights makes his eyes water, and he blinks them fast and hard and clears them. The constant questions make his head pound, and he smiles and he talks and he ignores it.
Finally, finally, the conversation ceases, and Lafayette is lead to a small side office where the original lady officer sets him up on a small cot. He lays down, wonders when he gets to go home, doesn't dare ask.
The officer gives him her jacket. He wraps it around himself and closes his eyes, pretends that the soft tap tap tapping of the computer keys filling the dimmed room doesn't make him want to flinch.
Sleep does not find him easy, and he wonders if it's because hes so far away from where he's supposed to be, where dreams of brighter things usually find him.
The next few weeks pass in a blur of unfamiliar sights and sounds and dizzying, rapid changes that make Lafayette's head hurt. He gets to go back to his house and pack up a bag full of clothes and necessities and well worn loved objects under the watchful eyes of an elderly officer. He moves in with an estranged uncle he didn't even know existed, who is loud and eccentric and in and out as he signs papers and speaks to officers and testifies in court.
Testifies in court. Because there is a trial.
Lafayette doesn't understand what's going on, doesn't understand anything at all, and no one seems to want to explain to him.
They tell him that his parents weren't doing their job right. They tell him that they were leaving him alone too long.
He wants to scream. Because it's his fault, his failures, it's him who pushes them away. They haven't done anything wrong, he has, and what they're doing is fair.
It's what they've always done. It's how the world works. When you're naughty you get punished, when you commit a crime justice is sought. Children shouldn't be seen, shouldn't be heard, time and companionship is a gift not an expectation.
That's how this works. Why do none of them understand that?
But the words clog weirdly in his throat, and everything is too fast and too much, and all the world seems to spin around him and beyond him while he is left behind and gathering dust.
He sees them, he sees them just once, and they come up to him and they hold him and they tell him they love him so much, and he soaks it up like a wilted flower finally placed in the light of the sun. He clings to them, wishes they would never let go, and they cajole him and they remind him to tell the court about how good they are, about how happy he is.
And he nods and he nods and he nods, because he would give anything, give anything to have this just a few minutes longer, anything to make them proud.
But the officers see, and they get separated, and he doesn't understand as he reaches out to them, tentative and unsure, doesn't understand why their welcoming arms have suddenly returned close to their sides, why their faces have suddenly gone so cold and hard.
(He's done something wrong, what did he do wrong- please just tell him, he didn't mean to, he didn't, he didn't, please-)
The court doesn't end in their favour.
( "Why!?" he wants to scream, but his throat is clenched tight and there isn't any air, and he is surrounded by people who don't even feel real, not really, like the pretend phantoms he used to dance around with in empty kitchens and empty ballrooms and empty floors.)
He gets placed with the uncle, a kind, jolly man who has never had kids and never planned on having any, but is trying all the same. Lafayette has met him once, maybe twice and the memories are blurred and fuzzy around the man is not around much, working most of the day and only arriving home late at night, but Lafayette keeps quiet and is very, very good, and he hopes that it is enough.
(He won't drive this person away. He'll be good. He'll be good.)
The house is smaller than he is used to, and Lafayette does his work under the couch and pretends that he is not preparing for everything to fall down around him.
He doesn't prepare well enough. Only a week passes with his new guardian, a tentative week where a few measly hours is spent in the same room with one another, and there is a car crash and there is a coma, and Lafayette watches time zoom past in a dizzying blur of dry eyes- he didn't know this man, couldn't know this man, why is he visiting the hospital, why are people touching him, why are people pitying him with their eyes, he doesn't understand, what is going on- and police officers and concerned professional looking men and women talking to him, saying things that he can't hear, every word sounding as if it is coming through a heavy sheet of glass.
(It's too much, his mind whispers. It's too much, I don't- I can't- Slow down-)
They ask him things, and Lafayette, not daring to turn them against him, nods and doesn't question it. He'll do what they want him to. He'll do anything. This, at least, is familiar.
Time slips through his fingers like sand. He gets told to pack his bags and he does so. They guide him to a plane and he gets on. The world passes by, and Lafayette watches, and his ears feel as if they are stuffed in cotton and his own life feels like he is seeing it through a movie screen.
They arrive at an airport in Virginia, U.S.A, and Lafayette follows the social worker through security and customs and baggage claim, hundreds of people shuffling and moving around him, and he is numb.
The people don't feel real. He doesn't feel real. There are ants in his skin. He wants his parents. (His parents don't want him.) He wants to go home. (He's not allowed there anymore.)
Distantly, he remembers that he's going to be staying in the house of his godparents, old family friends. The Washington's.
They're not related to him. They have no obligations. Lafayette knows that it is only a matter of time till the penny drops, knows it's only a matter of time until he pushes them away, until he messes up and they hate him.
He knows.
He can't bring himself to care. Lafayette is fine on his own. That's how it's supposed to be. You can't embarrass anyone if there's no one around.
They stumble out of the airport and into the arrivals section. English is everywhere, streaming out of people's mouths and written on signs and menus. Lafayette could understand it, he thinks, if everything wasn't so far away.
(It's close. It's too close. It's pressing in, everything, everything is pressing in and Lafayette is drowning- )
He expects there to be a car, for the social worker to drop him off at the house and leave him, job done and dusted. He expects to meet the Washington's in passing, maybe when they're coming back from a trip or while they're giving him instructions on how to order food deliveries.
They defy his expectations.
They're standing at the terminal, right outside the gate. They have a sign with his name on it, they have smiles on their faces. (Mrs. Washington is beaming, Mr. Washington is giving a small kind grin. They feel real.)
Lafayette steps forwards. He has a suitcase full of things and clothes and a pile of paperwork. He is a burden and a waste of space, and he knows that this is just temporary, knows that he should keep quiet and still, that the less attention he brings unto himself the better, for children shouldn't be seen or heard, shouldn't be noticed at all. He knows that he is already messing up, knows that what he's about to do is wrong.
But for the first time in weeks the fog surrounding him is lighter, and the Washington's are smiling at him, and Lafayette looks up at them and their strange homemade sign and their strange sincere grins, and he feels just a little real himself.
And so the Washington's are smiling at him, and Lafayette finds himself smiling tentatively back.
...
Hope you enjoyed!