Dark Child (Wild Men 5)

“Oh for God’s sake,” Gigi mutters.

“That boy is troubled,” Mom puts in.

“What troubles him is that he’s a douchebag. What right does he have to expect anything from us? He bullied us for most of his life, so—”

A crash makes us all jump.

“Holy shit,” Jarett breathes, twisting around to see, starting to rise from his chair.

JC mutters something and starts picking shards of ceramic off the kitchen floor. “Sorry.”

“You okay, JC?” I start to get up, too, but h

e lifts a hand to stop me.

“I got this,” he says, and won’t look at me. I can see the strip of his neck above his T-shirt, and it looks red.

What’s going on with him? Wait a minute… I stare at him. What the hell, was JC bullied? That would sure explain the whole “I need a roommate I can trust” thing and the sleepless nights. Does JC have nightmares, like me?

Now is not the time to ask, though. We all go back to drinking coffee and eating donuts, licking sugar off our fingers and pretending nothing happened.

“You can’t judge Ross,” Octavia says, returning to her favorite topic, ever the stubborn, lovable sister. “You can’t, because you’re holding him to your standards as someone who grew up in a loving family.”

“Good people often come from bad families,” Gigi interjects. “And vice-versa. You’re oversimplifying this and giving him a way out when he doesn’t deserve one.”

“How do you know that?”

“Jesus, Tati, you’re the one he was after the most. How can you say that?”

“I…” She looks away, lashes lowering. “I forgive him.”

I expect Matt to grumble about this, but he seems strangely accepting of Octavia’s position. Jarett’s eyes are narrowed. Mom looks moved, for some reason.

So I almost miss the white-faced look JC gives us.

Okay what is going on with him today? If it’s the bullying thing, then we need to talk. Later, when the world stops spinning off its axis.

Because this is all confusing. Not by Octavia’s stand on Ross. I’ve known how she feels about this for a while. But I’m damn confused about why I felt the need to talk to him, why lately he’s assumed a role in my nightmares.

“I dreamed that the body had Ross’s face,” I mumble.

It doesn’t matter that I said it under my breath, the words caught between my teeth. Another hush falls over the table, an incredulous one.

“Wasn’t the body a woman’s?” Cos asks.

“It was.”

Mom frowns. “Ross is trans?”

“No, Mom. It’s a dream.”

“I thought you said it was memories.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem.” I look into my mug, searching the dark depths for answers. “Gigi thinks it’s memories. But they are dreams. They change every night. They don’t make much sense.”

“The core details repeat themselves,” she says mulishly.

“She’s right,” I admit. I lean back and steeple my fingers. “Question is, which details, if any, are based on a real event?”