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Peter woke up at midnight, his mouth dry and his throat aching. He turned over, running his tongue around his gummy mouth, trying to ignore the sensation and go back to sleep. After a few minutes of stubborn resistance, a cough drove him up out of his warm cocoon of blankets, muttering, fumbling for his glasses and the lamp switch at the same time. He slid on a pair of slippers and went downstairs with the empty cup from his nightstand.
When he got to the bottom step he paused. There were low voices coming from the kitchen, and the door was partially shut, as if to give whoever was inside some privacy. He crept closer, feet silent in their plush insulation, and peered inside.
Uncle Ben leaned his arms against the counter as he talked. Across from him on a bar stool, clutching a steaming mug of hot chocolate, was Eddie. He wore his letterman jacket and a pair of jeans, with boots planted firmly on the bottom rung of the stool. Drops of melted snow gleamed in his hair.
Peter could barely see their faces. The only light on in the kitchen was the one above the sink, so they were half in, half out of shadow. Eddie shifted his position on the stool, turning a little, and Peter inhaled sharply through his nose. His lip was split and covered in crusted blood, with a sheen of ointment on top. Ben’s first aid kit lay open on the counter nearby.
The floor tilted. Peter felt his throat tighten with anger, confusion. He couldn’t move.
“You have to talk to them, Eddie," Ben was saying.
Eddie shook his head.
“I can’t. I’m running out of options around here. If I leave this one, they might move me somewhere far away.”
“You don’t know that, son. Nothing’s certain.”
Eddie turned away, into the shadow.
“Please don’t call me that,” he said, quietly. “I’m not your son.”
Ben pushed back from the counter. They were silent for a while. Eddie sipped his hot chocolate, looking anywhere but Ben’s face. Ben ran a hand through his gray hair, frowning, the wrinkles on his forehead deepening with worry.
Eddie licked cocoa off his lips, careful to avoid brushing the cut, and cleared his throat.
“Anyway, this is the first time she’s done this, and I don’t think she’ll do it again.”
He glanced up at Ben’s skeptical face.
“She said she was sorry afterward. She said that she loved me, and she meant it. Not many of them mean it.”
“Why did you come here tonight, then, if you think she’s not going to do it again?”
Eddie stared into his mug. He shrugged.
“I’m not trying to scare you. I just don’t want you to get hurt even more.”
“I’d rather be hurt and loved than not loved at all.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that. It shouldn't be like that.”
Eddie shrugged again, as if to say, but it is like that, whether you like it or not. Ben parted his lips, closed them again. He turned to the window and in the dim reflection Peter saw his eyes searching, as if he would find the answers to their problems in the flakes of snow that drifted down through the night wind.
“Eddie, I swear that we would adopt you if we could. We don’t love you any less because you’re not ours. I need you to know that.”
“Yeah,” Eddie said, his voice hard, bitter. “I know.”
More silence. Eddie’s hands were tight around the mug. He had bulked up a lot since joining the football team a couple years ago, and as he sat, hunched, the broad muscles of his back reminded Peter of a shield, one more thing that he could put between himself and the rest of the world.
“Go to bed, Eddie,” Ben said, at last. “You’ve had a long day.”
“Okay.” Eddie bent low over the counter. His next words were so quiet that Peter had to inch forward to hear. “And--thank you.”
Ben put a hand on his shoulder.
“Anytime,” he said.
Eddie swallowed hard, nodding. He moved to stand and Peter quickly slipped up the stairs, flipped off his lamp, and slid under the covers. A minute later his door opened. A rectangle of light flowed across him and Eddie’s shadow stood in it as he peered across the room, trying to see if Peter was asleep. Then it was dark again. There was a quiet rumble as the doors of his closet rolled open, and a swish as he undid the ties on Peter’s sleeping bag.
“Eddie,” Peter whispered. “Is that you?”
“Yeah. My mom needed some space, so I’m crashing here tonight.”
“Oh.”
There were two thuds as Eddie wrestled his boots off and dropped them to the floor. He unzipped the sleeping bag and climbed inside.
“Do you want to talk?”
“Sorry, Pete, I’m wiped. Let’s wait until morning.”
“Okay. Good night.”
“’Night.”
*
Peter woke again a few hours later. Eddie was sitting cross-legged on the sleeping bag, staring up at him, his face unreadable in the dark.
“What is it?” Peter whispered.
“Nothing. Go back to sleep.”
His voice was rough, Peter thought, with the sort of rawness that came from crying.
“Are you sure?”
Eddie dragged a hand across his eyes.
“Yeah. Sorry for waking you up.”
He laid back down. Peter watched the still outline of his back, looking for any strange movement, any sign of pain, and turned away, disquieted. For a long time he listened to Eddie breathe and twitch in the dark until he, too, drifted off into uneasy dreams.
*
He slept through his alarm. In the morning light Eddie was gone, the sleeping bag tucked neatly into its place in the closet, as if he had never been there at all.
At school he was laughing, smiling.
The cut on his lip stretched wide.