Slammed

It feels like he somehow just won our fight.
     
    ***
     
    The Avett Brothers are still strumming away in the background when I finish my chocolate milk. I walk to the living room and put the song on repeat. I lie on the floor and stare up at the ceiling with my hands stretched out above my head. It's relaxing.
     
    "Turn the lights off," I tell him. "I just want to listen for a while."
     
    He turns the lights off and I sense him lie down beside me on the floor. A dancing green glow from the sound waves on the stereo illuminate the walls as The Avett Brothers put on a color show.
     
    My thoughts drift with the music as we lay there motionless. After the song ends and loops around again, I tell him what's really on my mind.
     
    “ She doesn’t want me to raise Kel. She wants to give him to Brenda.”
     
    It’s the only thing spoken during the hour that we lay in the floor. He finds my hand in the dark and holds it. He holds it; and I let him just be my friend.
     
    ***
     
    The lights flick on and I immediately cover my eyes. We’re still lying in the middle of the floor. I sit up and see Will next to me, sound asleep.
     
    "Hey," Eddie whispers. "I knocked, nobody answered.” She walks through the front door and sits on the couch. She watches Will as he snores, sprawled out in the living room floor.
     
    “ It's Saturday night," she says as she rolls her eyes. "Told you he was a bore.”
     
    I laugh. “What are you doing here?”
     
    “ Checking on you. You haven’t answered your phone or texted me back at all today. Your mom has cancer so you decide to swear off technology? Doesn’t make sense.”
     
    “ I don’t know where my phone is.”
     
    We both stare at Will for a moment. He's snoring really loud. The boys must have worn him out today.
     
    “ So, I assume things didn’t go well with your mom? Since you’re here, sleeping in the damn floor.” She looks annoyed that we weren’t doing anything more than just sleeping.
     
    “ No, we talked.”
     
    “ And?”
     
    I get up and stretch before I sit on the sofa beside her. She’s already got her boots off. I guess going so long without a permanent home makes you feel like you’re at home anywhere you go. I pull my feet up and lay back on the arm of the couch, facing her.
     
    “ Last week in the courtyard when you were telling me about your mom and what happened when you were nine-"
     
    “ What about it?”
     
    “ Well, I was grateful. I was so grateful that nothing like that would ever happen to Kel. I was grateful that he was able to live a normal nine-year-old life. But now-it's like God has it out for us. Why both of them? Wasn't my dad enough? It’s like death came and punched us square in the face.”
     
    Eddie turns her gaze away from Will and looks at me.
     
    “ It wasn’t death that punched you, Layken. It was life . Life happens. Shit happens. And it happens a lot . To a lot of people."
     
    I don’t even bother with the worst of the details. I’m too embarrassed to admit to her that my own mother doesn’t even want me raising her child.
     
    Will rustles in the floor.
     
    Eddie leans over and gives me a squeeze and grabs her boots. “Teacher's waking up, I better get outta here. I just wanted to check on you. Oh, and go find your phone,” she says as she walks toward the door.
     
    I watch her as she leaves. She’s in a room for three minutes and her energy is infectious. I turn back around to see Will sitting up in the floor. He’s looking at me like he’s about to give me detention.
     
    “ What the hell was she doing here?”
     
    He can be really intimidating when he wants to be.
     
    “ Visiting,” I mutter. “Checking on me.” If I don’t make it sound like a big deal, maybe he won’t either.
     
    “ Dammit, Layken!”
     
    Nope. He thinks it’s a big deal.
     
    He pushes himself up off the floor and throws his hands up in the air. “Are you trying to get me fired? Are you that selfish that you don’t give a crap about anyone else’s problems? Do you know what would happen if she let it get out that you spent the night here?” A light bulb goes off in his head and he takes a step toward me. “Does she know you spent the night here?”
     
    I press my lips into a tight, thin line and look down at my lap, avoiding his eyes.
     
    "Layken, what does she know?" he says, his voice getting lower. He can see by my body language that I've told her everything.
     
    “ Christ, Layken. Go