The Delinquent - Chapter 15
Chad worked like a horse the next day, raking leaves in the garden, mowing the lawn and anything else he could find outside to do. The sun was already low in the sky, but the brightness still made his eyes hurt, but he kept working. He needed to keep busy and he needed to not be anywhere near Savannah. He'd humiliated himself good and proper and he didn't have the strength or balls to face her any time soon. Striker had called him in to have some breakfast, but he'd opted to eat it outside instead. He couldn't eat more than a few bites between his weak stomach and aching jaw. But he'd tried at least. He'd skipped lunch completely.
He'd said nothing to Savannah when he'd woken up on the couch with a warm blanket draped over him. She had been curled up on the neighbouring couch, fast asleep. She'd cleaned up the mess he'd made, and had even put a glass of water on the coffee table in front of him, with two painkillers for when he'd eventually woken up. He'd been touched by her consideration for his raging hangover, but he'd drank the water only and left the pills. He wanted to feel every aching and throbbing muscle and bone. He needed to feel it and remember it.
If he remembered it, maybe he'd be smart enough to not repeat it, he thought glumly. He knew he was ensnared in a vicious cycle and despite wanting to get out of it, hadn't understood how to do it. He didn't understand why he needed to break free in the first place. Dru knew the cycle well enough and understood his need to drown out the feelings of hopelessness with whatever drugs or drink came along. Dru understood because he was doing it too. It hurt nobody else, so why change it? Why bother to break the cycle?
But yesterday, those damn Striker women had broken it for him. He wasn't even sure how they did it. He'd gone out as normal, but he somehow found his way home to them, instead of back to his apartment where Ed and Spinz would have let him sleep it off, or at worse taken him to the hospital, pleading no knowledge of who he was. But he'd wanted to go home. Not back to his apartment. Home. He didn't even know when it had become 'home' to him but somehow, it was and it had barely been a week.
His head throbbed loudly and he sat down in the shade of the oak tree, trying to will the pain away. It didn't work very well. He didn't remember all the details of what had happened the night before, but he knew he'd made a complete fool of himself and cried like a baby. He couldn't quite tell if his headache was a normal cluster one, a hangover one, or just from crying. Either way, he'd humiliated himself good and proper and it wasn't something he wanted to repeat.
“You planning on avoiding everyone forever, or just until you collapse from exhaustion?” Kat called out from the porch. “I need to know, so I can send out the invites for your pity party.”
Chad grinned and blushed despite his efforts to control it. Damn striker and her uncanny ability to always diffuse a heated situation and make jokes. “Go to hell Striker... Can't you see I'm working here?” He picked up a clump of mud out of the flower bed, pretending to throw it at her. “And it's not a pity party. It's an 'avoid-the-world solo party' and you weren't invited.”
Kat laughed. “Not invited? Damn I shaved my legs for nothing.” He really did throw the mud then, letting it explode on the porch's steps close to her feet. “You're cleaning that up!” She called out, laughing as she went back into the house.
“Yeah, yeah.” He grumbled to himself. “I have a lot of that to do.”
Savannah spent the day in her room, reading her book. She checked on him through the window every now and again, making sure not to disturb him or make it obvious. He needed his space and she understood that, and was happy that he was working through his feelings instead of numbing them with drugs and alcohol.
When she heard him showering, she quickly went downstairs to fetch herself some food whilst he was busy, so she didn't run into him.
“Avoiding him too?” Kat asked when she arrived in the kitchen.
“Just giving him his space.” She replied, shrugging. “He obviously needs it right now. Don't want to make him uncomfortable.”
“Maybe he needs a friend, and not space.”
“He knows where I am. When he wants to talk, he'll find me.”
Kat nodded her head and grinned. “When did you get so smart?”
“Good genes.” Savannah said quickly, giving her mom a kiss on the cheek. “See you later.”
Bill Richardson called an hour later, prompting another emergency call out for Kat. She left quickly and asked Savannah to finish off the kitchen cleaning in her absence. Obliging, Savannah put on her earphones and played music full blast into her ears from her iPod as she worked. She was singing along to Taylor Swift when Chad eventually surfaced, bringing down his empty soup bowl from the dinner Kat had thoughtfully made for him.
He stood by the doorway, watching and listening to her as she washed the dishes. He watched her as she sang song after song, moving her hips or tapping her feet as did. When she had washed the last dish, he snuck up behind her and threw his heavy soup bowl in to the soapy water, causing it to splash her as she squealed in fright. He couldn't help but stand there and laugh at her while she hit him with a tea towel, calling him every name under the sun as she did. As an apology, he dried the dishes for her while she mopped the floor and wiped down the counters. Conversation flowed awkwardly at first, but they soon found their rhythm.
“Do you want some cream for the bruising or anything?” She asked when they were done and sitting in front of the TV. His eye was nearly swollen closed and most of the left hand side of his face had turned various shades of purple. His lip had split and his nose was swollen, but he didn't think it was broken.
“Does it heal black eyes and shattered bad boy street cred?” He smirked.
“No,” she said truthfully. “But it'll lessen the sting. On the black eye at least.” She brought the first aid box and sat on the coffee table in front of him, and began rubbing the soothing balm across the darkened skin on the side of his face. He winced at her touch, but she continued as gently as possible. She kept the balm out when she packed the first aid kit away, so that he could apply it himself when needed.
“Are you going to go to school tomorrow?” She asked, concerned.
“That's up to your mom.” He stifled a yawn. “I'd prefer not go looking like this. Bruises and black eyes lead to awkward questions. Speaking of your mom, when is she coming back?”
“Emergency calls can take anything from an hour or two to eighteen hours. Depends on the situation.” She shrugged. “She'll call if it's a bad one. She's only been gone an hour though so I'm not worried.”
“Are you always left home alone?” Chad asked. It seemed to him like a very lonely existence.
“Uh-huh. But I'm OK with it now. It wasn't always like that though.”
Chad noted a sad tone to her voice. “What happened?”
Savannah shifted on the chair, picking at an errant thread on the couch. “Mom kept running off to save the day. Dad thought she should be paying attention to her family first. Eventually he gave her an ultimatum... and she chose her job.” She shrugged. “I was angry at her for a long time.”
“That's pretty messed up. She had a kid at home who needed her, but she chose the other kids over you?” Chad shook his head in disbelief. “Damn messed up.”
“It was. At one point, I think I hated her for it. The custody battle got a bit vicious, but at the end of the day, I decided that I'd prefer to live with my dad. It was better than being bundled into a car at 03h00 because she got a call she had to attend to. I resented her and her job for years.” Savannah sighed, feeling guilt over saying the words out loud that she'd never spoken before. She felt lighter for saying them though. “But when I was older, I understood that it wasn't just a job to her.”
“What do you mean?”
“She didn't love me less because she she chose her job over her family. She just, considered them family too.” Savannah smiled at the confused look on Chad's face. She tried to explain herself more clearly. “I have two parents that love me. Three technically, since Dad remarried. I have a roof over my head, food in the fridge, and I'm getting a good education. The kids she helps don't have those basic human needs.”
“Yeah but that's not her problem.”
“She makes it her problem. She goes out of her way to make sure every child has those basic needs fulfilled. She needs to help. It's ingrained in her. So it's not her job, it's her life's calling. It's her passion.” Savannah smiled fondly. “It's one of the things that I admire most about her now, when years ago it was what I hated the most. Took me a couple of years to figure it out though.”
“What changed your mind?” Chad asked curious.
“When I found out that mom was in Juvie.”
Chad sat up straight, eyes wide. “You're joking!”
“Nope. I found out when Gran died a few years back. Mom never told me. I don't even think Dad knew until that point. But when the Gran's will was read out, there was a family fight. My mom's cousin thought he was inheriting the house because he was the only 'blood relative.' So my mom's adoption was all of a sudden out in the open along with her Juvie records.”
“Holy shit! She's been ragging on me all these years and she's a bloody delinquent herself!” Chad laughed. “Ah man that's brilliant!”
Savannah chuckled at his amusement. “And why exactly do you think she rags you?” She threw a pillow at him, which he deftly dodged. “Because she was exactly the same as you. And she got out. In fact she was worse than you and she still came clean and straightened out her life.”
Chad's laughter slowed and he thought over what she was saying. A lot of Striker's persistent nagging and pep talks were suddenly making sense. All those times she told him he could be more, could break free from his situation and make something of his life, was because she really did know it was possible. She'd done it herself. She wasn't just mouthing off lines out of a social worker textbook.
“I have to admit. It makes more sense now. Everything she does.” Chad said thoughtfully. “I asked her yesterday why she goes the extra mile, and she pulled out these files with all her cases in. Pictures, reports, records, you name it. And she said 'these are my kids.' Like they were her family. Then she had this second file with the kids who'd managed to get out. Make lives for themselves. She said she did it because the file was too thin.”
“That's Gran's file. She made it for mom on her first day of work as a social worker. Stuck pictures of mom in it on the first page and apparently told her to make sure she filled up the rest of the pages.”
Chad sat quietly, absorbing the new information. “What changed for your mom?”
“Gran and Gramps. She stole from them and they caught her. Instead of insisting she be arrested and thrown back into Juvie, they helped her work off the debt. She came and worked every day for them, cleaning and doing yard work, and whatever else they could find for her to do. Eventually she ended up living with them and they helped her clean up. They finalised the adoption a week before her eighteenth birthday.” Savannah stretched and yawned. “She doesn't talk about her childhood at all. Says her life started when she met Gran and Gramps and everything before that was a different person.”
“I sometimes feel that way.” Chad admitted. “Some of the stuff I've done, it's like it wasn't me. Or not the me that was supposed to be.” He shook his head. “I dunno how to word it.”
“I get what you're trying to say. It's not who you want to be. You just don't know how to be any other way. I guess maybe that's one of the reasons you're here.”