Right To Be Heard: Chapter 11
Kris wasn’t kidding around about coming to see Adam. He called Jack right after he hung up with Leila and told him a situation had come up. All he needed was a day, he said. And because he was willing to stay on for tonight’s show and be back before tomorrow’s, Jack gave the okay.
--
He caught the latest flight ever, and got seated in coach next to a woman with really strong body odor and an unquenchable desire to make conversation about nothing Kris was remotely interested in.
For three hours, including a layover, Kris listened politely as she detailed her recent, and very personal problems. Then she shared about her subsequent colonoscopy in excruciating detail.
When she offered him half the cheese sandwich from her purse, Kris shook his head and promptly feigned sleep, grateful when the nameless woman finally shut up.
He was going to kill Adam, Kris decided, trying to keep the contents of his own stomach in check as he listened to the woman smack obnoxiously, and was tortured by her smell. He would hug him first, and make sure he was okay. Then, he would kill him.
--
Adam was awake at 3 AM when a strange car pulled into their drive. He’d been looking out the window at the stars, never expecting late-night visitors. Usually, this wouldn’t have concerned him. Neil was known to stop by at all hours and completely randomly. He could be living on the other coast and he would come by Mom’s some weekend, randomly needing a place to crash.
But this wasn’t Neil’s car, and it made Adam’s heart stutter in his chest. Glancing around quickly, Adam reached up and grabbed the canoe paddle his mom insisted he hang over the door as a decoration. Adam held it in his hand like a weapon and walked outside, trying to be brave. Voice or not, he wasn’t about to let some psycho in his mom’s house at night.
“Adam?” Kris asked, watching him jump a little at the sound of his own name. Adam was in his boxers and a tee shirt so old and ragged Kris was sure it had been his dad's. His hair was flat on one side, and sticking up in the back. It would have been normal except that Adam was carrying a canoe paddle in front of him like a jousting stick. Kris the briefest thought that getting his head knocked off would be the perfect end to a disgusting night.
“Hey, it’s Kris, and if you hit me with that thing, you’re gonna really piss me off,” he warned.
Adam blinked. What the hell was Kris doing here in the middle of the night?
Kris read the question on his face. “It was the only time I could get away, and you’re not answering your phone, so…” he trailed off, shrugging.
Abandoning the canoe paddle, along with all his hurt feelings, Adam pulled Kris in for a hug, and held on.
Kris wrinkled his nose. “Dude, you stink almost as bad as the lady I sat by on the flight… Oh, and remind me to kill you later. Once I know you’re okay and everything.”
Adam kept a hand on Kris’ back and led him inside, deciding right away that his room was too rank at the moment to keep a guest. He set to work making the couch up, as Kris sat in an easy chair, going through his carry-on.
“Oh, here. Picked this up for you,” he said, tossing a fresh white board and dry-erase marker on the couch.
Adam felt his breath catch. Slowly, he picked it up and uncapped the marker.
“Why would you do that?” His writing looked small and tentative.
“’Cause I heard you weren’t saying much these days,” Kris shrugged. “Thought it might help. So, what’s up with the silent treatment?” he asked.
Now it was Adam’s turn to shrug.
Kris tapped the board impatiently.
“Just sick of it,” Adam wrote, sitting down on the couch, with the board propped against one leg. “I can’t do this anymore, Kris. No one treats me like a person anymore. It’s like I don’t even exist.”
The pain in Adam’s eyes was raw, and Kris answered him quietly. “Well, you are doing this, and you’re gonna have to,” he said matter-of-factly. “And people might react weird but that doesn’t mean they don’t see you as a person. It means you’re seeing yourself as less, and you need to stop it.”
Adam sighed and flashed a brief thumbs-up, acknowledging that Kris had a point.
“Even if people are nice to me or whatever, it almost doesn’t matter. Like, you’ve been great, and I do appreciate it so much, but then Megan drew that picture of you all at the beach without me… I just hate being forgotten.” The paragraph was messy, written in tiny, tired script.
“Adam,” Kris said patiently. “I never forgot about you. I know this sucks and I can’t imagine how crappy it is, but it’s what’s best. You know? Sometimes the best thing looks like the worst, when you’re living in it. But you get through it. I have, and you will, too.”
Nodding, Adam wiped his eyes, hoping Kris would mistake it for tiredness and not the tears he was trying to hide.
“You’ll make it,” Kris repeated softly, and with all the confidence in the world. He rested a hand on Adam’s back. “Hey. You’ll never guess what I had to listen to on the way here,” Kris said, smiling a little.
Adam glanced up, raising his eyebrows.
“The lady on the plane? She told me all about her colonoscopy.”
Horrified, Adam grimaced.
“I know! And she told me about what she ate that backed her up for a month!” Kris exclaimed softly.
Because Adam didn’t have words for how revolting that was, he snagged a pillow beside him and hit Kris in the face with it.
Kris laughed. “She wouldn’t leave me alone until I fell asleep,” he emphasized, placing finger quotes around the last two words. That was after she offered me half of her cheese sandwich from her purse.”
Adam pressed a finger to his own lips to keep his laugher in check, and in hopes that Kris would get that he couldn’t take much more of his nasty travel stories.
Instead, he picked up his board and scrawled a message.
“Glad you came.”
--
Leila woke up too early for her own good the next morning. When she went out to get the paper, she noticed the front door left unlocked and her decorative canoe paddle in the yard. An unfamiliar gray car was in the driveway.
Panicked, Leila picked up the paddle and rushed in the house, locking the door behind her. In the living room she stopped short.
On either end of her long leather couch, a man slept. Adam on one end, and Kris on the other. Kris curled up while Adam sprawled. Both looked equally comfortable and at home.
Smiling, Leila took the throw blanket from the back of the couch and draped it over both boys, then she went back to bed.