The Boy Who Steals Houses

by C. G. Drews

  She’s right, isn’t she? No one will recognise him. His old school was across the town and full of kids who don’t host beach parties. They’d smoke in battered parks and pay homeless guys to buy them vodka.

  ‘So … I could sit in the car,’ he starts, only half joking.

  She smacks his chest. ‘Never. Will you wear the waistcoat we’re making?’

  It’s a crazy waistcoat. Because, for starters, it’s a waistcoat.

  ‘Obviously,’ he says.

  She tips her head up and he looks down and her smile is so full of undiluted delight that he realises no one’s ever taken her outfit-designing seriously before.

  ‘I’ll finish my dress,’ she says. ‘This will be my debut display.’

  ‘And then …’ Sam reaches up to twist a finger around one of her curls. ‘And then you go back to school.’

  And he goes back to nowhere.

  To being

  utterly

  invisible.

  A shutter tips over her eyes. ‘Can we talk about it later? We’ll work it out. I’m not going to say goodbye.’ Her voice is fierce. ‘I promise.’

  She’s so close to his face now that his world is just caramel eyes and lips and the fierce fire that burns through this girl for ever and always. He wants to tell her everything.

  That he steals keys because he’s desperate to belong.

  That he ran away because he had to, because of what he did at his old school.

  That he wants to catch her a bouquet of stars and kiss her under the moon.

  Her forehead presses against his for a moment and his thoughts melt and Moxie’s world wraps threads around his chest till he can barely breathe.

  She kisses him.

  He tips his head up to catch it.

  She’s soft and warm, summer nights and sugar. His brain shuts off. His hands circle her back.

  Then she pulls away – quickly – and the catastrophe of stars exploding in Sam’s chest cuts off. He did something wrong. Of course he did. He screwed it—

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he’s saying, breathless and panicked. ‘I haven’t ever kissed—’

  She puts a hand over his mouth. ‘Well, that I can tell. But wait.’ She adjusts herself, scooting up higher on the sofa. ‘There’s something in your pocket digging into my hip.’

  The key.

  Sam’s hands start to shake.

  Moxie doesn’t notice as she rearranges herself beside him and then rolls so she’s lying half on his chest. She tilts his chin up. ‘You have a lot of practice to do. It’s OK to move your face, you know. And your mouth.’ She punctuates this by kissing the very corner of his lips. ‘I’m very, very happy to teach.’

  His heart threatens to explode and his lips part to tell her so.

  ‘Perfect,’ she says. Then kisses him again.

  And he thinks there is nothing in the world so beautiful as kissing Moxie and please let this never end, this one good and sweet thing—

  until

  a fist pounds at the front door of the butter-yellow house,

  and a voice shouts, ‘Sammy Lou? You need to come get your psycho brother.’

  Sam’s perfect world turns to rust.

  Sam and Moxie trip over each other as they scramble for the door. Tight fear spirals down Sam’s spine, cuts through skin and bites bone. Pleasepleaseplease don’t let—

  He rips open the door while Moxie says, ‘Wait, don’t open it! Who the—’

  Vin stands in the thin light whispering out of the De Lainey house. Vin, in a tight black lace dress, with a red leather jacket falling off her shoulders. It matches her hair. Blood and fire.

  Her lips curl with disapproval.

  ‘Who—’ Moxie starts again, but Sam jumps in front of her, not sure if he wants to protect her. Or hide her.

  It tumbles out in anguish. ‘Where’s Avery?’

  ‘Currently embarrassing the hell out of me,’ Vin says.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  ‘It’s not like I can call the cops,’ Vin says, her tone acidic. ‘But I figure you know how to stop an overgrown tantrum?’

  It’s not a tantrum. It’s never a tantrum.

  Moxie’s fingers curl over Sam’s arm. ‘Who is she? What-what’s going on?’

  Vin’s already turned on excruciatingly high heels, stabbing back down the path to her white sports car. Engine still running. Lights blazing.

  She’s going to wake up the whole house.

  ‘I have to go.’ Sam turns to Moxie, desperate now. ‘Please, just …’ Just what, Sam? Just what the hell will you tell her? He can’t fit his world with Avery into a single sentence and Avery needs him. Now.

  So his fingers just slip through hers and he bolts after Vin.

  ‘Tell me what’s going on!’ Moxie cries from the doorway.

  He gets into Vin’s car. She rips into gear and on to the road in a howl of mufflers and rage before he’s even shut his door.

  The soft kisses, the key, the warmth, his stolen family – is crammed out of mind. All he has is a desperate need for Avery.

  ‘Tell me what happened.’ Sam’s voice is too high. ‘Where is he? At your place? H-how did you even know where I was?’

  ‘Avery never shuts up about you. If you tell him something,’ she rolls her eyes, ‘then I hear it fifty times a day. I could say your bloody house address in my sleep by now.’

  He feels sick that someone like Vin knows where the De Laineys are.

  Why would she even bother to fetch Sam to help after he hit her? Probably because Avery being taken by cops would put her shady businesses at risk. Since he can’t shut up. Vin’s only kindness is truly selfishness.

  The car spins downtown. ‘We were at a club and—’

  ‘The hell?’ Sam wrenches to face her. ‘Do you even know him?’

  ‘I thought he was getting over his pedantic sensitive stuff.’

  He wants to hit.

  He lays his fingers, flat and sweaty, on his jeans and forces them still. Breathe.

  ‘He’s autistic.’ Sam grinds each word like crushed glass. ‘If he was deaf, you wouldn’t expect him to get over it.’

  ‘Whatever. I’m not here for lectures—’

  ‘You know what’s too much for him? Lights, noise, tons of people, trying to figure out what you want all the time – goddamn alcohol. And you threw it all at him? Do you know what happened when he was nine and went into a club?’ She starts to answer, but he cuts her off, almost shouting, ‘He nearly died, OK?’

  She gives an unfunny breath of a laugh. ‘Kid, if you’re about to flip out, I’ll just dump you on the side of the road. I can only take one Lou tantrum per night.’

  He knots his fists. ‘Drive faster.’

  They speed until they pull into the car park of a club, lights and pounding bass shuddering out the brick walls. It’s like being hit in the stomach. It’s like eight years ago and being strapped inside the car while his father thrashed pieces off his brother’s fragile, fluttering soul. Sam rips out of his seat before they even stop. Cars pack the small space so tight it’s hard to move, to see.

  But there’s a small cluster of people by a slick wall. Talking. Looking.

  A scream, a wail, like someone’s dying, pierces the night air.

  Sam runs.

  He doesn’t hear Vin follow.

  Don’t don’t don’t let him be too late—

  Sam slams through the thin wall of elbows and silk jackets and perfumed skin – and sees his brother.

  Avery’s tucked tight to the brick wall, black button-down shirt ripped open at the collar and long scratch marks cutting from throat down his chest. His own work. His fingers scrabble in loose gravel, open and close, open and close, like he’s trying to hold on, before he flings his hands up to hit his head, his ears.
His world is spinning out from under him.

  He screams and screams.

  They’ve pushed him too much.

  The world has always been a hot coal on Avery’s skin. He is made of raw nerves that touch and feel and see everything too hard and too fast, and if you burn him too much – you get this. Overload. Catastrophe. Drowning.

  Sam shoves people back, yelling even though he doesn’t mean to. ‘He’s fine! He’s fine! Just go away.’

  ‘Is it some kind of fit?’

  ‘Get the cops.’

  ‘I can call an ambulance—’

  ‘No!’ It’s nearly a scream now. Sam wants to slam the phone out of the do-gooder’s hand. ‘No, just leave him alone. I’ve got him. I’ve got him.’ He drops to his knees, reaching slowly for Avery. ‘I’ve got you.’

  He should never have let it get this far.

  Sam’s selfish fault.

  Then Avery slams his body against the wall, head cracking with a sick wet thwump against the bricks. His screams pitch higher. Sam explodes forward, snatching Avery’s head before he can bang it again. He wraps his arms around Avery, hard and fast and suffocating, and as Avery swings out with fists and teeth – Sam holds tighter. Tighter.

  Tighter.

  Pressure.

  Calm him down with pressure.

  Avery’s fist connects with Sam’s stomach.

  Again.

  again

  Sam takes it all with the smallest grunt. He crushes Avery’s head to his chest and rocks, just keeps rocking, until Avery’s thrashing arms suddenly go limp and he slumps into Sam.

  ‘Sammy?’ He looks up with frantic, damp eyes and blood pours from his lips.

  Sam turns Avery’s head so it fits against his T-shirt, blocks out the world. The lights. The people. Everyone’s drifted away, muttering about fits and crazy kids on drugs. Sam doesn’t care. He’s just glad they’re alone and Avery has space to breathe between cars and walls and the black star-bitten sky.

  ‘I’m here.’ Sam puts his cheek on the top of Avery’s head. ‘You’re OK.’

  ‘I c-c-c-can’t—’

  ‘You don’t have to,’ Sam whispers. ‘I got you. I’ll fix it.’ He keeps rocking as Avery’s bunched muscles uncoil, terror draining from his brother’s trembling limbs. ‘I’ll get you someplace safe.’

  He looks up, trying to find Vin so they can get Avery out of there. But all he sees are the taillights of a white sports car as it peels away and roars into the street. Without them.

  … embarrassing me, she’d said.

  Sam closes his eyes tight for a second, shoving back the haze of red and fear and panic. How’s he going to move Avery? They have nowhere to go.

  Life is always so sickeningly cruel.

  He blinks fast and then looks down at the exhausted, bloody boy in his arms, torn to pieces and sick with sobs.

  Sam holds him tighter.

  He knows where to go.

  Sam slips the key out of his pocket while crazed panic burns through his skull. He can’t be doing this. He’ll ruin everything.

  He’s doing this.

  He unlocks the door quietly, props it open with a knee, and then grabs a fistful of Avery’s shirt to pull him inside the warm butter-yellow house.

  Getting him this far, with midnight buses and begging, no forcing, him to walk, nearly didn’t happen. Sam is the monster right now, the monster who knows the world has cut his brother to splinters but forces him to walk through the pain. He hates being this cruel.

  Avery’s soul is bleeding out. He’s on the slim edge between catatonic stillness and falling back into screams.

  But they made it.

  Sam knows tomorrow will be the end of his stolen home, the beginning of retribution. But right now all that matters is that his brother is safe.

  Sam locks them inside and whisks across the room to be sure everyone’s upstairs and asleep. Part of him longs to slip to Moxie’s room, for her to be awake so he can fall into her arms and explain. She’ll be furious he ran out like that.

  Their kiss, so sweet before, feels like memories of ash.

  Instead, he drags Avery to the sofa and pushes him down, stripping off his tight, expensive-looking button-down and snatching a T-shirt that smells of soft eucalyptus soap from the eternal washing pile. He slides it over Avery’s shivering shoulders, doing all the work because Avery just can’t right now. The shirt is probably Jeremy’s. Sam has so much stealing to apologise for.

  Later.

  Sam tugs off Avery’s shoes and clears space so he can lie down.

  Avery’s chest moves in ragged lunges and his hands flap in front of his face. ‘I c-c-c-can’t …’ He stops. A sob tears free. Too loud.

  Sam snatches a quilt and covers him and then, carefully – like when they were kids – he climbs on top of his brother. A blanket. A barrier. Pressure to calm him.

  They lie there for a minute, still in the soft honeyed darkness. Avery’s breathing slows as Sam holds him tight. A sandwich of Lou boys in a stolen house.

  ‘We have to be quiet,’ Sam whispers. ‘But tomorrow I … I’m going to fix it. Explain everything to the De Laineys.’

  They’ll cut him to his knees and beat him to death.

  No.

  No, the De Laineys are not like that.

  ‘I think they can help us.’ Sam scoots a little, checking that he’s not crushing Avery too much. He used to research ways to help Avery at the school computers, reading about why some things destroy him and how weighted blankets help meltdowns. Failing owning one, Sam decided to be one. ‘I’m … I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I should’ve been there.’

  Avery rubs a palm up and down his cheek – where he used to drive a small toy car – and says nothing. Silence is usual for him after he’s fallen on the world’s barbed edges.

  Then he goes completely still.

  A small sigh escapes.

  Sam closes his eyes for a second in relief and then carefully peels off. Avery’s asleep in a flood of silver moonlight, his hair nearly white and his cheeks lit with spiderwebs of tear stains.

  Sam would save him a million times. He’d never hesitate.

  But you can’t hide Avery.

  Sam’s perfect summer is a hot slap against his cheek.

  He wakes to a toe in his ribs.

  Sam snaps his head up with half a snort, backhanding drool off his cheek. He fell asleep with his head tipped backwards against the sofa, arms crooked awkwardly, and butt numb from sitting on the hard ground all night. He blinks up at Moxie, who wears a breezy navy swing top and embroidered shorts, her arms folded, her scowl a line of demands.

  Oh no.

  Avery.

  Sam jerks toward the sofa but it’s empty.

  ‘I need explanations,’ she says. ‘Many of them. And the fact that you slept through the screamfest that is our breakfast is disturbing.’ She taps fingers against her folded arms and then her voice drops. ‘What the hell, Sam?’

  He kneads his eyes.

  The front door bangs and Jeremy strolls out with one baby on each hip, belting out a Disney song at the top of his lungs. The crash is a momentary distraction for Sam to collect thoughts.

  Explanations.

  But his words have fallen out of moth-eaten holes in his pockets again.

  He pushes his aching body to his feet, feeling the bruises now where Avery panicked and hit him last night. ‘My … my brother needed help.’ Where is he? Please please don’t let him be lost—

  ‘Did you bring your brother here?’ Moxie hisses. ‘Look, I haven’t asked for every detail because I can see it hurts. But I have to ask now, Sam. I really, really have to ask what’s going on?’ She catches the corner of his T-shirt, like she thinks he might run, and her voice softens. ‘Is this your autistic brother? Is he safe right now?’ />
  ‘I don’t know,’ Sam whispers.

  Their eyes meet, hers chips of steel and his crumbling seas.

  ‘We need to tell my dad,’ she says.

  He opens his mouth to – what? Plead? Argue? Maybe just agree? But Jeremy sticks his head back through the open door and hollers, ‘Sammy? Do you have an extremely cute and slightly taller doppelgänger? Because one is currently abusing our poor gate. Also, I think he’s wearing my shirt?’

  Sam springs for the door, Moxie hot on his heels.

  He fairly falls down the veranda and crosses the grass, bypassing Jeremy who’s pushing the babies around on their trikes. Sam left his heartbeat inside.

  But Avery’s OK.

  He grips the worn gate, knuckles white, foot hammering the rhythm of his frustration. There’s a fence between them, but it feels like a gulf.

  ‘Where’d you go?’ Sam says softly. ‘Come back inside. I know this is … I know it’s a mess, but I’m going to ask them for help. We … we have to.’

  Avery looks away, hair falling over his cheek to cover the mottled bruise where he smashed his head last night. His eyes are smudged with exhaustion, his lips bitten bloody.

  ‘If you tell, they’ll s-send you to jail,’ he says. ‘All … this? You c-can’t keep this.’

  He probably doesn’t have a word for ‘this’. Friends. Sunday night waffles. Falling asleep with his head on Moxie’s lap during a movie. Lying on the grass with mango pips. Hiding behind freshly washed sheets on the line outside to tell silly secrets.

  Avery couldn’t possibly comprehend what it is to have a home.

  Sam leans across the gate. ‘I’ll risk it for you. I’ll come clean and they’ll help you and you won’t have to go back to Vin.’

  ‘I fit with Vin.’ Avery’s voice strains. ‘Stealing stuff. Running away. I rebuilt her car.’ His split lips tip downwards. ‘I’m not … I’m not your pet, Sammy.’

  A lump forms in Sam’s throat. He glances over his shoulder where Jeremy is pretending not to stare and Moxie is openly listening, arms folded, eyes shrewd.

  ‘Don’t be like that.’ Sam’s voice stays low. ‘I’m just taking care of—’