Coffee, Grit, and my Dad's Best Shoes 2.4

This piece is slightly awkward, dialogue-wise, and I just wanted to throw in really quickly that it was intentional :P Considering the circumstances, it would be unrealistic for it to be anything but.

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It was a good ten minutes before either Parker or I spoke, and when we started, we started at the same time. He with, "I'm sorry for-" and I with, "How was-" and both of us stopped, and chuckled, and I rubbed my face with the heels of my hands. When I looked up again, he was staring at his lap, and I almost commented on the eyeliner, but I noticed something else, too. Something that I'd overlooked the entire week he'd been here without knowing how, and it pulled me into something akin to a distraught stupor.

His cheeks were more hollow than they had been the last time I'd seen him. The dark circles under his eyes were emphasized by a slight discolouration of his cheeks and, now that I looked hard enough, I could see that he was trying to cover it with expertly-applied product. A swift glance at his hands more or less confirmed it. The skin looked like it was stretched taut over the bone, and the knuckle of his left middle finger was a brighter shade of red, and drier than the rest of his hand.

I licked my lips, trying to drag myself out of the pit I'd thrown myself into when Michael closed the door, because this felt more important. I'd see Michael on a computer screen. Hear his voice. Watch his animated hand gestures like he was right there. Parker could take precedence, for now. But I wasn't going to mention the negatives. Not yet, anyway. Not when I knew that he probably just wanted to hear something positive.

I settled on, "The eyeliner suits you," and an affirming smile.

He looked up, a little suddenly, and a smile that made my heart squeeze played his lips. "Yeah?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

There was a brief pause, and he looked down. Sheepishly, almost. "My auntie told me that it did, too." He chuckled. "I'm pretty sure she knows without me saying, by now."

"Still not out to her?" I asked, trying not to sound concerned about it. Casual was key. He'd announce it when he was ready to, if he ever even felt the need, and it was no concern of mine.

He shook his head, eyes falling back to his lap. Or, the coffee that was in it, anyway. "Haven't really given it much thought, y'know? Health things. Trying to help my aunt raise Koby, and help my mom raise herself, and my older brother's-" He sighed. "Things are messy right now, I guess. Too messy to worry about sexuality and who knows and who doesn't, at the very least."

I cringed, a little. I was well-acquainted with what his family life had been, and how many nights he stayed up until three in the morning worrying about it.

"Is she back on drugs?" I asked it quietly, which was my way of saying that he didn't have to answer the question if he didn't want to. Except, deep down, I knew that he probably did. Parker had friends. He had an abundance of them. But there were parts of himself, and parts of his life, that he didn't entrust to his regular crowd. And I knew for a fact that, sometimes, all he needed was to get it all off his chest. That he actively wanted to get it all off his chest.

His nod was all the confirmation I needed, but he went on anyway, and I was more than willing to let him. "Heroin. Again." He sighed. "I think Taylor's on something, too." Taylor was his older brother, and to my understanding, the two had never been particularly close, but they'd never had any pent-up hostilities towards one another, either. They cared about each other, and I could tell from the look in his eyes that this was killing him. "He's still helping her pay the bills. She refuses to go back to rehab." He sighed and pinned up a weary chuckle to the end of it. "Same old story."

"I'm sorry," I murmured, because it was the West's go-to phrase in times of raw emotion and unfortunate circumstances. "Is Koby doing okay, at least?" He'd have to have been what, four? Hopefully not old enough for any of this to weigh on him too heavily.

Parker nodded, and I was abundantly grateful for the smile that quirked on his lips. "Yeah." He paused to throw back some coffee. "He's pretty oblivious to how crappy things are, so that's... good, I guess. I mean, the most drama we've had so far is when one of the kids in his kindergarten class asked him who I was, and he said that I was his brother, and the kid said that I couldn't be because I'm white and he's... lightly creamed coffee-ish." He looked at the ceiling and rubbed his forehead. "Wasn't phrased quite like that, though."

I frowned. "I thought that kids were the ones who didn't give two shakes in either direction." It wasn't the worst thing that could have happen, granted, but there were buttons that I didn't appreciate having pushed all the same.

"So did I." Parker shook his head, hand falling to cover his mouth as he chuckled. "Trying to explain to him that we have different dads was fun. He didn't get out that worked. And then he asked if it made us less-brothers. Didn't seem to think about it too hard when I said no, though, so I guess we're cool."

I laughed a little, gaze drifting back to his hands. If they weren't wrapped around his cup, I would've dropped subtle hints until he instigated. Romantic interest. I could definitely do that. "I really want to be reintroduced to him, you know."

"Oh, you'll have the chance," he said, and I watched his fingers begin to drum against the side of the cup. And there it was again, right in my face. Evidence of a sickness that I'd somehow overlooked for a week, and if I didn't buck up and say something, I never would.

"How fairs the fight with bulimia?" I almost winced at how soft my voice was, and at how blunt and out of place and sudden the question must have sounded, but I looked at him again, anyway.

His eyes snapped up, a flicker of momentarily distressed green, and he paused before he relaxed and shrugged. "It was going pretty well for a while, I guess." Lord, I was glad that he was still willing to talk to me about it- I would've felt like a jackass, otherwise. "It's not... I mean, it's not bad right now, but..." He shrugged one shoulder. "Some days are a lot better than others." I caught his gaze again, and he smiled. "Today's a good one. Yesterday was less so."

I smiled back at him. "Glad to hear it, then. Today, I mean. Not yesterday." 'Some days are better than others' was better than it could have been, and I decided to be grateful for that. I'd been there before.

"What about..." he started after a while, and fumbled with words for a second. I didn't blame him. I never knew how to phrase it, myself. "How's the chest?" I didn't know if I was glad that he'd skirted around the word 'burns,' or if I'd rather he'd have just said it outright, but I was shrugging either way.

"Clean for a month. Relapsed for two before that, but I had a good half a year under my belt." I almost wanted to add that there hadn't been any pills or shoelaces or skyscrapers for a good year and a half, but that felt like pushing it. We'd only been reunited a week, and it wouldn't make me uncomfortable to talk about, but I didn't know about him.

His smile flourished, morphing into a grin that had me beaming a little, myself. A spark of pride in myself that I felt rolling off of him, I would guess. He held up a fist, and I gingerly bumped mine against it. Our fingers slid together somewhere in there, and conversation drifted to more lighthearted things. A lot about Nicky, and what her parents had been up to. Bits and pieces about my sister and my mother, and comments on how much better the former was about being in a hospital room for prolonged periods of time. Michael was avoided altogether, and I wasn't sure if it was because his absence was a raw patch, or if it was because Parker didn't know what to make of us near making out. In his defence, if I'd walked in on myself making out with one of my closest friends, I'd be a little stunned, too. It wasn't the sort of thing that I usually went for.

Nicky was an hour and a half late, which she attributed to an excess amount of chem thirty. She brought up Michael, of course, and neither Parker or myself appeared to be too terribly uncomfortable with the subject.

Francis was in another hour later, followed shortly by my mother who, for once, looked genuinely happy and well-rested. Conversation veered towards my going home, and if I wanted anything special for supper that night, and who would all come. It was decided that Nicky's family, minus her brother (he was studying to be a speech pathologist in the States), Parker and his brothers and possibly his aunt, and select few others would all be there. I was almost crying by the end of visiting hours, I wanted to be back home so badly.