Chapter Text
Matt gets the call a few minutes before his alarm is set to go off. The ringing isn’t coming from the phone charging on his bedside table, but from deep in his closet, inside a shoebox tucked carefully within a series of increasingly bigger boxes. For a moment, the sound makes him believe he’s back in high school, when calls like this usually meant nothing good.
He rises from bed to realize it’s nearly a decade later, and he’s no longer restrained by the leash his parents kept him on. He takes a deep breath and cautiously begins to unpack the boxes one by one, until finding the source of the ringing. It’s shaped like a brick and not much lighter than one either. There aren’t many functions on this phone—really, just two—calling and texting. He can’t say why he’s kept it after all these years, considering the fact that the last time he received a call on this thing was when Wyatt passed away two years ago. The call ended with his mother in hysterics, accusing him of straying from the path of light, of good. With her words barely intelligible through her tears of rage, she demanded that he change his ways before he ended up in the fiery pits of—Matt ended the call to spare himself the oncoming anxiety attack.
He intended to just see who was calling and let it pass. But when he raises the screen to his face and sees that it’s displaying an unknown caller ID, his curiosity gets the best of him, and he picks it up without a second thought.
“Hello?” he asks, his voice thickly coated in sleep.
“Hey.”
“Who is this?”
“Joseph.”
Matt blinks, feeling an invisible force puncture his chest. “You—Joseph—?”
“I got your number from Dad's desk. Listen—”
“Are you okay?”
“Uh, sort of.”
“Why? What happened? Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m not hurt. I’m… fine. Can you pick me up?”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t really…” His voice becomes distant as he asks where he is. Matt can just barely hear the muffled voice of a woman in the same room. “Missoula.”
“Do you have an address?”
Joseph turns away from the phone again, echoing the words the woman is saying.
Matt springs up and types out the address on his phone’s map. It’s a nearly 9-hour drive away. He begins the route. “I’ll be there late afternoon.”
“Okay,” Joseph says. A little reluctantly, he adds, “Thanks.”
“Stay safe. Call me if anything happens.”
“I will. Bye.”
“See you.”
Matt pulls on his glasses and changes out of his shorts at the speed of light. He snatches his coat from his dirty laundry hamper and rushes out of his apartment.
On his way out of Merrick’s city limits, he dials Alex from his regular phone. When she picks up, he can hear the early morning bustle of nurses and crabby patients in the background.
“Alex. Sorry for the late notice, but I won’t be able to make my shift today. Family emergency.”
He’d thought about calling in sick, but he wasn’t the type to fake a cold to get out of work. She must’ve heard something in his voice, teetering between desperation and guilt, because she doesn’t wait for him to explain.
“Yeah, sure, no problem.”
Matt’s gratitude is difficult to convey in words. “Thank you so much. Sorry, again.”
“No worries. I hope everything is alright.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
He drops his phone on the passenger seat next to his old phone. He cracks open his window, breathing in the cool November air. That feature phone was given to him shortly after a CPS visit turned into a court order requiring that he and his siblings were enrolled in public school, or be taken from their parents’ custody. With no other options, his parents gave in, and Matt was the first in his family to begin high school as a freshman. That phone would ring almost every hour of every day, so his parents could scoff at the subjects he was being taught and remind him that his education would be useless in the long run.
At that time, Joseph was still too young to be enrolled in school, but Matt was envious that he wouldn’t have to make that transition from home school to public school. The bullying was relentless. Back home, little Joseph was lauded as their parents’ miracle baby ever since his mother found out she was pregnant with him well into her fifties. Matt would be lying if he said there wasn’t a rift between them because Joseph usurped his throne as the youngest after his decade-long reign. The attention was stolen from Matt, and he could only find solace in his studies, in his teachers’ approval, which led to their encouraging him to apply to college in the first place. But no matter how much he succeeded in school, he couldn’t quite forgive Joseph for estranging him from his parents, even though he knew it wasn't really his fault. On top of that, their age gap was too great to form a solid connection.
He tightens his grip around the wheel and drives in silence until he thinks he’ll lose sanity if he doesn’t distract himself from the whirl of thoughts in his head. He turns the volume dial just high enough to hear the podcasters’ voices, but not discern what they’re talking about. He wouldn’t be able to focus if he tried anyway.
All he can hear is Joseph’s voice, much deeper than the last time he heard it. Still young, but less innocent now, more mature. He tries to picture Joseph on the other end of the line, taller, maybe lankier than the seven year old boy who had watched him drive off to nursing school after that fateful argument with his parents, which had resulted in his exile from their home, their community.
Joseph would be fifteen years old now. The dust had settled since then, and Matt and his parents were on speaking terms now, even if those terms were contingent on a death in the family or rare moments when they were compelled to shame him for turning away from “the truth.” Matt hasn’t been allowed near his siblings since he left, since he was now marked as an outsider, one whose influence wasn’t to be trusted. To hear from Joseph all these years later was like having his ceiling fan squash him in his sleep. Those fears of his family he thought he had overcome, the dread of returning home, consumed him completely. The road stretched out like a death sentence before him, and he couldn’t seem to shoulder it and continue on like nothing, as he had spent so much time training himself to do.
The city soon transforms into farmland. He stops only for gas and a bag of Bugles at a roadside 7/11. The aluminum bag sits in the cupholder and the Bugles are only half gone when Matt arrives just after dusk. He couldn’t bring himself to eat beyond necessity until this whole thing was settled.
The house is small, placed in a rundown looking neighborhood. He knocks on the door, the cracks in the paint marked by age. A woman answers it. Her hair is thin and brown, and her faded T-shirt is stained with slobber where she cradles the baby in her arms.
“Hi, I’m Matt. Is my brother here?”
“Joe, there’s someone—”
A boy steps out from the other end of the short hallway, and Matt is hit with a wall of emotions, not all of them positive. Joseph is carrying a small leather satchel. Despite the freezing tempertaure, he's only wearing jeans and a plaid work shirt. His clothes are in tatters, his boots caked with mud. He’s not in the worst shape, but he’s skinny. His mouth is a long line stretched across his thin face. But there’s a strength in the set of his shoulders, a determination in his eye. It’s encouraging.
When Joseph meets him at the door, Matt pulls him into a hug. Joseph allows it, but he doesn’t make an effort to return the embrace.
“How are you, bud?”
“I’m fine. Like I said. Can we go now?”
“Sure.” He turns to the woman, gripping Joseph’s shoulder almost to make sure it’s really him, in the flesh. “Thank you for looking after him.”
The woman blows out a breath. “I would’ve called the cops, but he asked me not to. I hope you get him the help he needs.”
“Yes, I will. Thanks, again.”
“Thanks,” Joseph murmurs beside him.
“My pleasure,” she says, shutting the door behind her.
Seeing Joseph puts Matt at ease, and his appetite returns as soon as they’re in his car. Before finishing off his Bugles, however, he offers it to his younger brother.
“No, thanks. I ate a bunch of that lady’s casserole. I don’t know why. It wasn’t even that good. Not as good as Mom’s.”
Matt scarfs down the rest of the chips while Joseph warms his fingers close to the air vents. Matt had decided on the way here that he wouldn’t press Joseph for answers. He’d let him share however much he wanted to, if he ever wanted to.
“It’s really nice to see you, Joseph. I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Can you call me Joe?”
“Yeah,” Matt says, cracking a small smile. “Joe. When did that become a thing?”
Joe’s answer is curt, devoid of humor. “Just now.”
Matt’s smile fades. “Well,” he says, nudging Joe’s arm, “I like it. It’s a nice change.”
They spend the night at a hotel in town. The next morning, Matt has only one question for Joe.
“Did you want me to take you back home, or…?”
“No?” Joe’s face contorts with disgust, disbelief. “Why would I go back there?”
Matt doesn’t quite appreciate his tone, so his response is somewhat accusatory. “Well, to be fair, bud, you haven’t explained much.”
Joe’s eyes flare with anger. “Don’t call me bud!”
Matt takes a deep breath to prevent this conversation from escalating. “Fine. Just tell me what you want.”
The boy’s brow creases. He looks out the window, conflicted. “I don’t know.” It’s not hard to see that he’s not used to making his own decisions. Matt remembers feeling as lost as him when he left home. Joe’s building frustration is written in the deepening red across his face. “Turn me in if you want to. Or put me in a home. Just don’t take me back there.”
“I’m not going to do any of that.” Matt sighs, expecting to be turned down immediately. “Did you want to stay with me for a bit?”
“Sure.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, why not?”
Matt meets his eyes, realizing this is what Joe wanted all along.
“Um, okay. We can arrange this.”