Little & Lion

by Brandy Colbert

  “Maybe he went for a walk and lost track of time.” She chews on her thumbnail.

  “Maybe,” I say, but it’s obvious neither of us believes that.

  Emil finally glances over, but he remains silent.

  By the time the credits begin to roll and people are packing up their things, I’m worried. Rafaela and I haven’t stopped staring at our phones. Emil reluctantly asks what’s going on without quite looking at either of us.

  “Lionel’s gone,” she says.

  “Well, he drove,” Emil replies, “so as long as his car is still here, we know he hasn’t gotten too far.”

  The three of us begin haphazardly shoving the remains of our feast back into the bags. Rafaela barely shakes out the blankets before sloppily throwing them over her arm.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I say, though I’m not sure if it’s more for my benefit or hers. “We’ll find him.”

  “Yeah,” she says as we march along through the departing crowd. “He’s almost eighteen, not a little kid.”

  But of course what none of us says out loud is that he’s off his meds, which changes everything.

  We cross Santa Monica Boulevard, walking as fast as we can without running and stepping on the heels of people ahead of us. Emil still says nothing, but I see the concern on his face when I look at him.

  “Shit.” Rafaela stops when we get halfway down the street she says they parked on. “We were right there, under that tree.”

  There’s an empty spot where she points, the pavement and curb illuminated by the streetlamp above.

  “Are you sure it was this street?” Emil says.

  “I’m positive. We were on Tamarind, because then we started talking about tamarind trees and how most people don’t even know any other trees but, like, the really obvious ones.… Shit,” she says again, closing her eyes for a moment.

  “Let’s take a look around, just to make sure he didn’t move the car,” Emil says, already walking.

  “He wouldn’t move the car,” I say. “This is Hollywood. If you find a spot, you keep it.”

  “Suzette, I’m trying to be practical.” He turns to look at me. “We need to go through this step by step because if we don’t find him here, we have to tell your parents. And I think you know how well that’s going to go over.”

  We look for Lionel on every side street around the cemetery, but he and his sedan are nowhere to be found. We loop back to the cemetery grounds to take one last look, but the security guards are kicking everyone out and say we can wait by the entrance for stragglers. We stand around for another twenty minutes, but no Lionel.

  Emil looks at me. “What do you want to do?”

  Rafaela is looking at me, too. I hate this. I shouldn’t be the one in charge. Lionel is the older one. He should be looking out for me.

  But he’s sick, and that illness is currently untreated and I knew that. So this is partly, if not mostly, my fault. I pull out my phone and try him again; it goes straight to voice mail this time.

  “Go home and tell my parents he’s missing.”

  twenty-two.

  Emil stops at every place I suggest on the way home, just in case we happen to find Lionel at one of his old haunts.

  None of the bookstores or libraries he’d visit are open, so that knocks out three-quarters of his life right there. We check the school grounds and the taco truck. Live music makes him anxious, so that rules out any of the shows tonight. We take a lap around the reservoir, the same at the lake. Rafaela wants us to check the area around Castillo Flowers, just in case, and she calls Ora to see if he’s at her house. The last stop before home is the Brite Spot. I’m hoping he’ll be sitting in a huge booth by himself, surrounded by platters of pancakes and bacon and sausage and eggs. He’s not there.

  Emil shuts off the Jeep and jumps out when he pulls up to my house.

  “You don’t have to walk me up,” I say. “I mean, that’s nice, but—”

  “I’m going in with you.” He slams the Jeep’s door.

  I stare at him. He was so upset that he barely spoke for over an hour, but he’s willing to take the fall with me?

  He shrugs like it’s no big deal. “You shouldn’t have to do this by yourself.” He looks at Rafaela in the backseat. “You coming?”

  She gazes up at the house with wonder as we walk to the porch. “Holy shit. This is your home? You guys never said you live in a fucking fairy-tale house.”

  Emil shoots her a look, like maybe this isn’t the time, and she keeps her mouth closed for the rest of our walk to the door.

  Mom and Saul are sitting in the living room, curled up together on the couch. They’re watching something on TV, a fast-moving scene that sends white light flashing across their faces.

  “How was the movie?” Mom asks, wiggling her toes. She’s relaxed into Saul, her knees tucked in so she’s almost curled in a ball.

  I don’t say anything. I’m standing in front of Emil and Rafaela, but my mouth won’t open. I look at Emil, who frowns a little but says, “Pretty good. Lot of people…”

  “And who’s with you?” Saul asks, trying to see behind me.

  “Remember me? I’m Rafaela.” She steps forward. “I met you at my aunt’s flower shop.”

  “Of course,” says Saul, and his face is so warm it makes me look away. I have a feeling I won’t be seeing that grin much longer.

  “We’ve heard so much about you, Rafaela,” Mom says, smiling. “It’s really nice to meet you.”

  “Did you ditch my son?” Saul glances toward the windows that overlook the front yard.

  Emil nudges me into speaking.

  “We, um… we sort of lost him at the movie,” I finally say, my voice creaky.

  Saul gives me a funny look. “You lost him?”

  “He went to the bathroom and never came back,” Rafaela says, and I want to squeeze her in gratitude for helping me out. “He drove the two of us, and when we went to look for the car after the movie, it was gone.”

  “He’s not answering his phone,” I say when Saul immediately pulls his out. “And we stopped by a few of the places we thought he might be, but…”

  Saul is calling, and it must go straight to voice mail for him, too, because he hangs up without saying anything. Mom is sitting up now, checking her phone on the coffee table.

  “Maybe he went for a drive. It’s just barely past curfew, so he’ll probably turn up soon.” But her voice doesn’t sound as confident as her words. “You kids are welcome to wait here until he does.”

  “Is anyone hungry? I can make us some sandwiches,” Saul says, getting up from the couch.

  There’s another silence, and now is the moment I should say something, but I’ve forgotten how to open my mouth.

  Emil clears his throat just as Saul is almost out of the room. “You guys need to know something.”

  I know he will say it if I don’t, and I think that’s the moment I truly understand how difficult it is to stop caring for someone. My conversation with Emil was so painful, but here he is standing by me, willing to do the one thing I’ve been avoiding all summer, one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to tell my parents. But I can’t let him, as much as I’d like to. I’ve been so busy trying not to betray Lion that I didn’t realize I’m exactly the one who has to do it.

  “Lionel is off his meds.”

  It is the longest sentence in the world and my voice shakes the whole way through, but I get it out.

  Saul whips around so quickly it scares me. But not as much as the look on his face. “What did you say?”

  I breathe out through my nose. “He’s off his meds. He has been for a while.”

  Mom is standing now, too. My underarms are drenched in sweat. I’ve never wanted to avoid my mother’s gaze more than at this moment.

  “He told me he was going to stop taking them, and he tried to get rid of them, but I convinced him to give me the bottles.” My voice is raspy, as if my throat is resisting the words. “I thought he would real
ize he was better off with them and he’d want to take them again. I thought…”

  It doesn’t matter what I thought. I fucked up.

  “How long has he been off them?” Mom’s voice is so sharp that I flinch.

  “I don’t know. It’s hard to keep track of days during the summer…” I think back to our walk on the trail. “He told me a couple of days after Saul and I went to Ora’s shop. But he’d already stopped taking them before then. I don’t know how long…”

  “He has it written down,” Rafaela says, and her voice sounds too loud. Like she’s standing too close to me, even though none of us has moved since I told them.

  We all stare at her until she goes on, but I’m staring because I wasn’t aware he’d told her about the meds.

  “He’s been journaling… about being off the meds and how it makes him feel. He called it a mood journal. So that might be in there, exactly when he stopped.”

  “I’ll go look in his room,” I say at the same time Mom grabs her phone and says she’s going to call Dr. Tarrasch.

  Saul starts dialing the police.

  Emil and Rafaela thunder up the stairs after me. I throw open Lionel’s bedroom door, hoping, like I did at the Brite Spot, that the last place we look will be where he’s been hiding the whole time. That there’s some way he could have slipped past Mom and Saul without them knowing. But his room is empty. It smells mostly of books and a little like unwashed sheets. His computer hums on the desk and I look at the spot where I was standing when we had our last fight.

  I feel guilty going through Lionel’s things but we tear the room apart, leave nothing untouched. The mood journal never turns up—it’s not in his nightstand or tucked under his mattress or squeezed between the spines in his bookshelves.

  “Did you find it?” Mom asks as soon as she hears us coming down the stairs.

  “He must have taken it with him,” I reply, shaking my head.

  “Dr. Tarrasch wants us to call her as soon as we hear something,” she says.

  “The police said there’s not much we can do, but they’ve filed a report,” Saul offers and then pauses. “He’s still considered a child.”

  “Is there anything we can do?” Rafaela looks back and forth between my parents.

  “Just keep our phones charged and on,” Mom says. “And we need to make a list of his friends and start calling them.”

  “We are his friends,” I say softly.

  “I’ll call Justin and Catie,” Emil says.

  I call DeeDee and Tommy, and Rafaela gets on the phone with Alicia and then Grace, trying to cover all our bases.

  Eventually, we’ve gone through everyone he could possibly be with, even people he hasn’t spoken to in years. Nobody has seen Lionel.

  For a while, no one stops moving. Lists and calls are being made, and Mom jots down a time next to each person we call. Saul puts on a pot of coffee and makes sandwiches that nobody eats.

  We take turns charging our phones, and everyone jumps when someone so much as receives a text, but it’s a false alarm every time. And every time, my heart sinks further as I realize how very badly this could go.

  “You kids should go home and get some rest,” Mom says around two a.m., looking over at Emil and Rafaela.

  She’s been quiet for some time now. Same as Saul. I haven’t said anything to either of them unless they speak first. And I don’t want Emil and Rafaela to leave because I don’t want to hear what my parents will have to say when we’re alone.

  “I don’t need to go home,” Emil says, scratching his arm.

  Rafaela nods blearily. “Me either. I want to stay here until we find out something.”

  “Well, you should try to get some rest here, then,” Mom says. “Call home to let them know you’re staying here. Emil, the couch pulls out, and Rafaela, you can take the guest room.…”

  I go to the linen closet upstairs without being asked and stuff my arms with a pile of sheets, blankets, and pillows. We didn’t shut Lionel’s door after we searched his room. I pull it closed and pass Saul on my way down, but he retreats to his and Mom’s bedroom across the hall without another word. I can’t tell how angry he is with me, but I know he’ll have plenty of time to think about it. He won’t be sleeping tonight.

  Emil and Rafaela have pulled out the sofa bed and we all go to work, putting the sheets on the mattress and slipping the pillows into fresh cases. We don’t talk but I’m sure they feel the same way, like it’s good to have something to do, even for a couple of minutes.

  When we’re done I shift my weight, trying to figure out what to say before I leave the room. Apologizing for what I’ve put Emil through tonight doesn’t seem like enough, and thanking Rafaela for sticking around seems like too much. I decide brevity is best and simply say good night.

  Mom is in the kitchen, refilling her mug of coffee before she goes up to join Saul. She doesn’t smile or frown. She just looks at me.

  “I’m sorry.” I look right at her as I say it, as much as I don’t want to. “I know it’s not enough, but I am.”

  She takes a sip of coffee, gives a brief nod. “I know.”

  “Should I go talk to Saul?”

  “I think you should try to get some rest. He’s not going to be up for talking much right now.”

  I remember the way he silently passed me on the stairs.

  “Come here.” She sets her mug on the counter next to the sandwiches nobody ate.

  I walk across the room until I’m standing in front of her. Up close I see all the emotions her eyes convey, none of which I like: sadness, irritation, and a little bit of fear.

  “I’m very unhappy with you for not telling us about Lionel,” she says evenly. “It was beyond irresponsible and foolish. You know better than to keep something like that from us. Your brother’s mental health is nothing to play around with, and I thought you understood that.”

  I feel tears rising up, but I know I don’t deserve sympathy or even the release that comes with those tears, so I hold them in. Blink and blink and blink so they won’t come.

  “But you are not responsible for your brother, and we never expected you to be. This isn’t your fault.” She takes my cold hands in her warm ones and holds them. “I love you, okay? No matter what happens, I love you, Suz.”

  I’m lying in bed, not sleeping, when the door to my room opens.

  I look at the clock. Four a.m.

  The house is too still for this to be good news, but I’m hopeful. And if it’s not good news, then I at least hope it’s Emil, coming up to say that he doesn’t hate me.

  “You live in an actual princess tower,” Rafaela stage-whispers once she’s reached the top of the stairs.

  I sit up. “It seemed a lot cooler when I was younger.”

  “It is still plenty cool.” All I can see is the outline of her tiny figure and her curls. “The houses where I grew up look nothing like this, trust me.”

  She moves to the empty side of the bed, kicks off her shoes, and gets in under the covers without asking. A week ago, my heart would’ve been racing from her being so close to me, lying in bed with me like Iris and I did. But it’s not the same as Iris and me. What Emil and I have—had?—is closer to what I had with Iris. When I think about being with Rafaela, I’ve never thought of anything deeper than how we would connect physically. I need more than that, I think—someone I can trust.

  She shivers and moves closer. “I’m freezing.”

  I lie down again because it is cold, too cold to not have the blankets wrapped around me. But I look at her and say, “You should probably go back downstairs.”

  I can’t see her face but I can feel her smiling when she says, “Would your parents freak out if they walked in right now?”

  I’m not thinking about my parents, though. I’m thinking about Lionel’s accusation, that I’d be with Rafaela if I could get away with it. I’m thinking about Emil, and what he would think if he saw us in my bed.

  “I just really don’t need anyt
hing else to go wrong right now, okay?”

  “I don’t like being in the guest room alone. It’s too quiet. And I’m scared.” She pauses. “What if we don’t find him?”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “He didn’t seem sick to me. If he had…”

  “That’s the thing. By the time we notice, he’s usually already in the middle of an episode.”

  “He told me himself about the meds.… He told me everything, the day after you did. I didn’t say I already knew. And he said he doesn’t become totally manic.”

  “But it’s still hypomania, and with him… he can get overly angry about things. And sometimes that’s followed by really bad depression. We don’t really know his patterns because he started taking meds as soon as he was diagnosed.”

  She sighs. “I hated being told what to do with my body and I thought it was the same with him and his meds. Like he should have the choice, you know? But I guess it’s not the same.”

  “No, it’s not. Not really.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “If I made things worse for him.”

  “Lionel was going to do what he wanted no matter who was around.” I don’t say that maybe we wouldn’t be lying here worrying about him if she’d used her powers for good and convinced him to get back on track with his treatment. Because that’s not something she would have had to think about at all if I’d gone to Mom and Saul from the start. “He doesn’t let himself get close to a lot of people. There was a girl before you—”

  “Grayson?”

  “Yeah,” I say, surprised that they’ve talked about her. “And he liked her a lot… but not as much as you.”

  “Really?” Even through the exhaustion and concern, happiness comes through in her voice.

  “Really.”

  “Emil is one of the good ones, too,” she says after a pause.

  “The best,” I say without having to think about it.

  She reaches out to touch me, but I lean away from her until she gets the hint and slowly slides her hand back to her side of the bed. I don’t know what she was going to do—touch my hair, touch me, try to kiss me. I don’t know if it was an innocent gesture or if she was testing my loyalty to Emil.