The Long and Winding Road (The Seafare Chronicles 4)

“Can I have some water?” he whispered.

“Yeah,” Otter said. “I’ll get it. Be right back.”

He rubbed the back of my head as he stood and disappeared into the kitchen.

“Shit,” the Kid muttered, rubbing his hands over his face. “Shit. Fuck. God-fucking-dammit.” He knocked his head against the door, hard.

“Hey,” I snapped at him. “Don’t do that. You’re going to make things worse.”

“I thought… dammit. I thought I was getting better. I thought I could—” His voice broke as he shook his head.

“It’s okay. Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out. Okay? I promise you. We’ll figure it out.”

He laughed bitterly, and I tried not to recoil. I’d never heard him make a sound like that before. “We’ve already figured it out,” he said, and it was like he was mocking me. “I’m fucked-up in the head, Papa Bear. Or hadn’t you heard?”

“Don’t say that.”

He snorted. “It’s true.”

“You’re trying to piss me off. It’s not gonna work.”

“Whatever.”

“You know what? Being a dick isn’t going to help you right now. You get me? You’re sixteen, but I’m still your big brother, and I will kick your ass if you try to sling that shit at me.”

He gaped at me, dark hair sticking on his sweaty forehead.

I glared right back.

“That…. I might actually believe that.”

“Good. Because I’m serious.”

“About what?” Otter asked, coming back into the hallway.

The Kid rolled his eyes. “Bear is threatening to abuse me if I don’t stop acting like a dick.”

“Sounds about right,” Otter said as he crouched back down beside us. He tried to put the glass up to the Kid’s lips, but Ty just sighed and took it from him. He drank on his own, grumbling as we made him finish the entire thing.

By the time Otter took the glass away from him, we were all sitting on the floor and the Kid had pulled my hand into his lap, tugging on my fingers, refusing to look at either of us.

We waited, because it was the right thing to do.

Finally, the Kid muttered, “I don’t suppose we can just forget about this.”

“Nope,” Otter said cheerfully. “Not going to happen.”

“It was part of the deal we had,” I reminded the Kid. “Before we came out here. And before we let you cut back on your therapy. Anything like this happens, we talk it out so we can understand what triggered you. And if we can keep that from happening again.”

“Yeah, well. Don’t know what you can do about this. It was stupid.” He groaned. “Jesus.”

Otter glanced at me before looking back at the Kid. “What was it?”

“It’s nothing—”

“Tyson.”

He thumped his head against the door again, but it was just a tap. His eyes were closed, but he didn’t let go of my hand. “It’s not—it wasn’t anything big. It—I don’t even know why it happened. I was walking home and this—this woman was yelling at her kid, and wires got crossed and I thought it was her and—it wasn’t. I know it wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t. But I thought what if it was, and then I just kept spiraling until—”