Looking for a Home

Chapter 5

"Should I wake him up?"

There's a pause.

"Let him sleep. He's not hurting anything. I'll wake him for breakfast." Roger pauses again. "It's not snowing today."

I've curled my feet up, so I feel it when Kyra sits on the end of the couch. "We were going to go to the comic book store a few towns over."

"I don't think you should. The roads are still pretty bad."

I expect a fight, but she doesn't say anything. I hear Roger's footfalls as he heads into the kitchen. Kyra just sits next to me, watching television. When I wake up finally, it's because Roger calls out for us to come get our food. I get up and pull on my shirt from yesterday before following Kyra into the kitchen.

"Sleep fine?" Roger asks me, to which I nod. "You should probably call your mother; let her know that you're okay."

I shake my head a little. "I'm still making a point."

"You have to go home eventually."

He gets a shrug. Sighing a little bit, he sat down at the table. I sit down next to him and for once, Kyra sits with us. No one speaks much. After we finish eating, Kyra goes to take a shower, leaving me alone with her father for the millionth time.

"I have work today," he tells me. "I'm trusting that you and Kyra can be here alone."

I nod a little. "I have to find a place to stay, anyways, so I probably won't be here long."

Roger shakes his head slightly, taking both of our plates to the sink. After he heads to his bedroom to get ready for work, I go back into the living room, pulling on my discarded jeans. Then I walk to Kyra's room. She was still in the bathroom, so I decide to get on her computer. When I sit down though, I notice that her IM's been left up and at some point last night she was talking to Cal. I read through what she had wrote to him, shocked that she even knew his IM name. Turns out though that she just wanted to tell him about me, about how I needed a place to stay. He told her that it wasn't a good time, that he was grounded currently. Kyra called him a few choice words before ending the conversation.

"Spy on me a lot?

"Only when you're talking to my friends behind my back."

"Why Donnie, I'm shocked. You have friends?" She comes up behind me and looks over my shoulder. "So he's off your list of places to stay. You gonna go home then?"

"I don't think I will."

"Then where will you go, Fanboy? You don't have any other people that will take you in."

"I don't know, okay?" I glance up at her. "New bandana?"

She reaches up, running a hand over her bald head, which is covered by a cloth with skulls on it. "I found it in one of my dresser drawers. You like it?"

I shrug. "Not my style."

"You don't have a style."

"I'm offended."

"Good." She kisses the top of my head before going over to her bed and laying down. "What do you want to do today, Don?"

"Besides getting you to call me something else?"

"Yes."

"I dunno. I need to find a place to stay, I guess." I log onto her internet, planning on emailing Cal. Kyra's cell goes off, but it's just Jecca, so she ignores it.

"Are you guys fighting or something?"

"No," she tells me, shaking her head a little. "She's just been a real bitch to me recently."

"How come?"

"She doesn't like you."

"Oh, wow, way to be blunt, Ky."

"Well, you asked." She sighed a little. "I'm bored. Come over here."

"To do what?"

"I just want you to come over here."

I logged out of my email account, about to do that, when Roger stuck his head in the room.

"I'm leaving," he told us, staring straight at me. "You two will be fine alone?"

And anything I thought might happen just fled my mind.

"Yeah, Roger," Kyra said with an eye roll. "It's not like we'll be screwing the second you walk out the door."

"Ky," I sigh, sitting back down in the desk chair. Roger takes a deep breath, clearly ready to yell at her, but then his cell rang.

"I have to go," he says, walking away. "I mean what I said, Kyra."

After he's left the house, Kyra scoots over on her bed, patting the spot she's made. Slowly, I move to lay down with her.

"Mmmm." Kyra closes her eyes, resting her hand on my chest. "Let's sleep for a little while longer. I feel like shit."

I glance at her head, which is next to mine. When did this become my life? Shifting around on the bed, I turn to face her. Kyra responds by moving her arm to wrap it around me. She gets a kiss from me, though it was very quick. We had a few times of laying together like this under our belts, but not nearly enough for me to not be self-conscious.

Kyra lays her head against mine, closing her eyes. I lay there for awhile, trying to find sleep. Eventually I do. When I wake up, Kyra's rolled in her sleep and has her back to me. Feeling adventurous, I reach forward, pulling her back to me. Kyra rouses a little bit, turning to glance at me before settling out.

"You woke me up."

"Sorry," I mumble, not sure what to do now that I have her in my arms. I settle with running my hand up and down her stomach, which succeeds in making her squirm.

"Stop it, Fanboy."

"I'm just messing with you."

"I know." She settles in my arms, sighing a little. "Let's just sleep."

Kyra was able to fall right back asleep, but I had trouble. So after awhile, I get up to go to the bathroom. Looking in the mirror, I realize that I look like crap. My hair is all messy and I look tired.

When I get back to Kyra, she's rolled over again, now facing the wall. I go over to her desk and pick up her cell phone to call my mother, if only because I didn't want her to be too worried. Just worried enough to get my point.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Mom? I just wanted you to know that I-"

She says my name, "where are you? This isn't funny. You need to come home."

Frowning as I sat down at Kyra's computer, I say, "Mom, I can't. You're the one that's trying to make me move."

"Where are you?"

"I'm with Kyra."

"What?"

"I stayed on her couch."

"You are coming back home, now. What? Did you think that I was just going to let you stay with your girlfriend? And what about her father?"

"He's here. Well, he's at work right now, but he was here." I lean back in the chair, staring up at the ceiling. "He let me stay the night."

"Oh, I see. You think that you've found something better, over there? Huh?"

"No," I tell her slowly. "I'm just trying to make a point."

"And what would that point be," she adds my name.

"That you can live your life and I can live mine. I don't need you."

I say this without thinking, but immediately regret it. For a moment, my mother does not speak. When she does, I can tell that I had neither won nor loss. My mother had just given up.

"You know what? Fine. Stay there. See if I care."

After she hangs up, I lay there for a few minutes, still staring at the ceiling. I had never noticed before, but Kyra had put a little photo up in the top left corner. I can't make out who it is, but can tell that it's a woman.

"So you're in trouble?" Kyra asks, apparently having been awake.

"I dunno."

"Mmm. I'm starting to hate your mother."

Ignoring that, I asks, "Who's in that picture?"

"What picture?"

"In corner, on the ceiling."

She doesn't even turn to look. "My mother."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

She gets up suddenly and comes over to me, sitting in my lap, staring up at the ceiling also. "So you sleep in superhero boxers?"

"Yep." I like the feeling of her in my lap. She warms me.

"That's cute, Fanboy. That name has never fit you more."

"Ha ha." I slowly wrap an arm around her body, holding her to me. "I have work today."

"That's cool."

"Yeah." I sigh a little. "Last night, when you were trying to convince Roger to let me stay, you said he was off."

"He is."

"Then where is he right now?"

Kyra frowns. "Maybe he had to go in because he missed."

"Maybe he has a mistress."

Shaking visibly with disgust, Kyra says, "Then I hope that he keeps it a secret. I do not want to meet the woman that's boning Roger."

"The Jolly Roger," I correct, making her laugh a little. I like that, making Kyra laugh. It's so rare when I get her to do it that I relish in it when it happens.

"He'd be very jolly then," she agrees.

"He'd have to throw down a few arrggs, eh?"

"Mmm." Kyra shifts slightly so that she's curled against me. "I think I might be able to get the Jolly Roger to let you spend the night. Only if I'm on my best behavior though."

"So I'll have to sleep in my truck?"

I get thumped in the head, but I just smile. "I'm not going to ask to stay, Ky. I mean, your dad's been very nice to me so far. It wouldn't be fair to take advantage of that."

"We could always just tell him that you knocked me up and want to stay with the baby," she suggests.

"Sorry, I prefer living. Shocking, I know."

I'm not even there when Roger gets home. I had work that day, so I left Kyra around four to go to the comic book store. When my shift ends, it's nine in the evening and I have nowhere to go. I know they always so that you can go home, but I honestly didn't think that that was an option. My point hadn't even been clear to her the day before, so no way would she understand it yet.

So I only had Kyra's to go back to.

When I get there, I just sit out in the driveway, not sure what to do. I don't want Roger to turn me down, but I honestly have nowhere else to go.

"Fanboy?"

I roll down my window as Kyra comes to it. "Hey, sorry, I just-"

"I saw your car. So did Roger. He made dinner for us."

"For us?"

She nods. "He automatically assumed that you were coming back."

"Really?"

"Yeah. So come on."

I get out of the truck slowly. "Are you sure?"

"Fanboy, trust me, nothing would please me more than to crush your dreams of food and warmth, but he honestly offered you to stay here. Not even offered, just decided. So come inside, eat, and stay. No one wants you to leave."

When I get inside, Roger's in the kitchen, at the table. Kyra leaves to go back to her room, but I go into the kitchen.

"Hungry?" He asks me as I go over to the stove. He's made spaghetti.

"A little," I answer back as I get a bowl before going to sit down next to him. "Kyra's not."

"She'll probably eat Pop-Tarts later," he says with a shrug. "She did, however, say that you went to work."

"Yeah," I say as I slowly begin to eat.

"I want Kyra to get a job, but she has a hard enough time doing as I ask," Roger says with a shake of his head. "Did you call your mother?"

"It…didn't go well."

Roger sighs a little bit. "Then I guess you'll be taking the couch again?"

"That's really not-"

"It's fine," he says with a shrug. "I can't just let you sleep out in your car. It's freezing outside."

After dinner, I get my duffle bag out of my truck before coming back inside. Roger lets me shower, waiting for me in the living room. When I get in there, he's watching HLN. I sit down next to him on the couch, even though I really don't want to watch this. Roger glances at me.

"You know," he says my name, "when I was seventeen, Kyra's mother and I ran off for a little while. We both ended up back at home though."

"Why?"

"Did we go home? We ran out of money."

"No. Why did you leave?"

He laughs at that, turning down the television slightly. "I don't know. Her birthday had just passed, so she had that money and we both had been saving the paychecks from our jobs. Teenagers with too much money is never a good combination."

"Where did you go?"

"Just drove to a hotel a few towns over and...lived together for awhile." He clears his throat. "We, uh, just had to suck it up though, our pride, and go back eventually. I don't know your mother, I don't know your father, and I don't know your stepfather, but I do know that I would want Kyra back. Hell, when she was in that facility or the hospital when she… Did you know? That she slit her wrists before?"

I nod a little, thinking back to that day that I taunted her with the fact that most people think cutting your wrists is just a ploy for attention. Staring at Roger right now, I can tell that he doesn't believe that, that he honestly thinks his daughter wanted to die.

"Yes," I whisper, slightly shamed by the fact that I had been so harsh towards her that day, in my basement bedroom when she showed me her bra. "She's told me. That's why I called you that time, when I thought…yeah, she told me."

Roger nods slightly. "She scares me, how she can have so much self hate. I don't send her away because I hate her, Donald, even though I know she thinks that's the reason. I do it because, even though I have to go without her for that time, it's better than if I never got to be with her again."

I stare at the television hard, not wanting to look at him. It isn't that I feel awkward as much as I feel like this is something personal, something that only family should know.

"That point is that I know that your parents will want you home. Whether it's with your mother or father, they'll want you with family. I know that it's hard to leave town, especially in high school, but they'll want you home. I know that I would want Kyra home."

Neither of us speaks again and, eventually, he heads off to bed. Around eleven, Kyra sneaks into the living room. At that time, I was laying down on the couch, watching TV.

"Pool? You're watching a pool tournament."

"They put it on the channel, clearly it's meant for someone to watch it." I move to sit up, allowing her to sit next to me on the couch. "Your dad's in bed."

"What? Is that an invitation?"

I blush in the darkness. "No. God, Ky."

She leans against my arm, sighing a little bit. "I heard you and the pirate talking."

"You're always eavesdropping, aren't you?"

"Yeah, pretty much." She sighs a little bit. "Were you going to bed?"

"No," I say, stifling a yawn. "Why?"

"I want to stay up and watch TV with you for awhile."

I glance down the hall, trying to judge if Roger was coming back. I figure not; he probably has already gone to bed. "I thought your father was rich?"

"Not rich. Why?"

"You'd figure he could buy you a TV for your bedroom."

She shrugs a little. "I used to have one, but then he took it away. Apparently being disrespectful is a punishable offence. Who knew?"

I smile. "Yeah. You'd think that he'd be grateful for your disrespecting him."

"I know! At least I'm talking to him." She moves one of her hands to cup one of mine. "You like it when I disrespect you, right?"

"Totally."

She just laughs.

There you go, Fan, hope the next one doesn't take as long.