Diplomacy
#2 of Steps
I was in the last week of my high school, my senior year, when Skylar came back with a vengeance. His Dad made the news; they found him face down outside of a small house surrounded by factories. He was unconscious until he died at the hospital. Authorities only found the house because of the black smoke in the sky mixing with the white. They showed scenes of the ashes that the house now was. A skeleton of wood and metal left stretching to the stars. And then they showed Skylar's grinning, six year old, face. The same appearance I had seen when I didn't want to in the same situation under the stairs. It was the only school picture he took. His toothy grin and tongue poking out like, well, a serpent. They spoke of the young Iskar hybrid with their glossed professionalism. They feared that he was still in the house, then poof, his image blurred back to the coverage of the basement while they spoke of the remnants of a lab. They believed that was the cause of the fire. But then the man coughed and warned about the graphic content of what was coming. The awkward pause and the husky's illuminated face returned to a small dark room.
"And, alongside the lab room where the drugs were concocted they found a large cage...with several scorched books and singed blankets."
My heart dropped to my tail, I felt my Mom's paw on my shoulder. Then it came with a shot of the cage, the hinge broken and jarred open, claw marks at the floor. And like that everything was gone. The weather came next with hugs from Mom. She held me too tight. I betrayed myself, I felt anger towards him. I hated it. Why was he alive like that? How, how could he survive like that? I shook, livid, when my Mom released me, her sniffs as weak as mine, I didn't feel her paws attempt to break apart my fists.
*
I got off the bus and went to the doughnut shop for a couple turnovers and waited for enough time to pass before I went back home. Neither of them mentioned anything that would tell me they knew it was senior skip day, but I was lucky enough to stop myself from nearly telling them it was over my orange juice while seeing if anything new had come up about Skylar. My walk back home sucked because I realized that I didn't know what route either mom or dad took to work and had to weave around blocks before I got back to an empty house.
News wouldn't be on until lunch time and that gave me a bit of time to try and breed a better Chandelure.
News came on at 11:30 with a still shot of a backyard had a tree with ropes for a destroyed tire swing lying beside it. A tall fence enclosed the dirt and grass around it before they panned to the reporter. He reported footprints everywhere. Large ones, small ones, large ones with small ones, and in some cases hand prints included. They cut away at the mention of the multiple forms of feet and speculated what horrors took place as the camera focused on the marks in the dirt. I flipped out. My rage uncontrolled, I yelled and punched the couch so hard I got knocked down from the recoil of the cushion. I stayed on the floor. I didn't cry. I didn't whine. I didn't feel anything. I laid there listening, the sports highlights were going for the Phoenix Coyotes, they finally sold the franchise were staying Phoenix. My ears burned and my chest hurt. So much for senior skip day this day fucking sucks.
It took two days before more information came. My parents scolded me for skipping on Monday, so I put the news app on my phone: Friday, the day before graduation, new information comes in on my phone. The text verified the fear throughout the town. It was acknowledged that the cage was Skylar's home. That it was his "living circumstance" as the report called it. The lab next to it was for cocaine, but it was not the cause of the fire.
A text cut out the screen from Mom.
Honey, are you okay? How are you doing? *Love life*
Fine, y?
I slipped onto the bus to take me home. I sat down in a window seat while I waited for my answer. I took out my phone and reopened the news page:
The fire marshal announced that the lab did not start the fire,
"The fire started from under the closet underneath the stairs in between both rooms. The scorch marks on the cement indicated it was a chemical based fire, at least that's how the fire was started. Woodwork and everything else fed it because of how volatile the ingredients reacted...yes, they were chemicals from the lab."
My screen was blipped again and returned back to the home screen. Dad.
It's Skylar! Both of us are here waiting for you. *God Bless*
My composure struggled to look like a teenager on the bus. Everyone else who was on it didn't see the energy in my reflection or the strain on my body trying to will the bus to move faster. The mixture of confusion and impatience glued my butt to the seat. I couldn't have moved if I wanted to. No one saw how weak I was, sitting there alone cursing each stop we made that wasn't mine while looking at myself as the blur of a world passing by outside. The bus finally came to my stop and I lurched with the deceleration. Steve, the driver, we knew each other since I took the bus every day on his shift looked at me in the mirror before I came to his side for the door. I felt something new shoot through me, fear. I thought he saw how weak I was for a split second. Steve knew something was wrong as I passed by, I saw it in his eyes. He saw it in my eyes. His webbed paw caught me before I slipped by.
"Hey, you look like you need someone to talk too." He offered a note into my paw. I nodded at the Otter and got off after I put in my back pocket.
One big breath made everything a little bit easier. I turned to walk towards my block when I saw my dad standing a few feet away. I sprinted to him. I let everything out. Whatever hope I had left, my sorrow, my guilt--everything leaked out. I ruined another one of his pastoral shirts and he just took it. His hands softly wrapped around me, he let me go, sob after sob, as he stood there silent, his snout softly placed against my shoulder.
"I won't let go until you want me to." His hug tightened around me.
I stood there slobbering and sniffing but my legs gave out before I wanted to let go. He moved with me to a bench where I regained my senses. I huffed before I spoke.
"I, I, understand why he did it," I revealed quietly between sniffs, "those nightmares I had, I, they reminded me of what happened and that's what was happening every day since then to him."
"He's an incredible kid." He fixed his glasses, "God gave him strength to put up with so much, and for so long."
"Dad, I." I swallowed a huge knot in my throat and stopped. My mouth went dry at the thought of telling someone else that I loved him.
"Hmm?" I felt an arm go over my shoulders and squeeze me against him.
Silence covered us like a blanket. I couldn't tell him, "I just want this to be over."
We sat there silent for some time. His hand in mine, his other draped around me like a jacket on a cold night rubbing against my arm.
*
I really didn't think that graduation was going to be boring. God I was wrong. Where did all these kids come from in my high school class, I swear that I had never seen half of them. There were so many different breeds too, while teachers and students droned on about whatever, I noticed how different each fur or scale was. Even though all the dogs had similar looks no one was identical in their robes. And on the counter, several of the hybrids and pure scalies stood out with their bright colored skin and or fur. A slight rush of regret ran through me for not knowing almost all of them before I blinked and that feeling disappeared when I heard that we were told to stand.
It felt like a cafeteria line with how everyone slowly walked, stopped, and eventually received their diploma. When I got mine I looked for my parents and saw them wave at me frantically. I smiled and waved back before I got ushered off the stage and practically plowed through them when I stepped off of the platform and turned into them.
"Oh Jesus, hey, mom." Dad put his arm around me and pulled me closer to him while mom swept over to my other side.
"Deacon!" The excitement in my mom's whisper changed the excitement I had within myself. I looked away from dad and felt like we were going into a huddle with how close mom snuck in, "They found Skylar. He's in the hospital!"
My last glance back at the graduation ceremony was dad picking up my diploma off of the gym floor. Our rush to the car wasn't something my body wanted. I needed to sit down. I needed something hit me, pinch me, or just make sure that this wasn't a dream! Dad practically shoved me into the backseat and the car lurched into motion as soon as the other two doors shut.
The car ride chilled me, shivers coaxed back the nerves I felt about seeing the only friend I ever had, the only person I loved outside of my parents. Skylar was alive! It felt like I was in a daze in the backseat, one of those times that I really feel my arms extending into my lap and become consciously aware of it. Nothing ran through me other than the awareness that my arms were heavy and lifeless in my lap. The light beige fur on the underside of my arms sat exposed to me on my thighs while the darker brown and black closed in around it from the shadows of my crotch and just beyond my vision on the outer sides.
"He's in room 418, Deacon."
I hear it but don't show it. 418.
The car comes to a stop and I get out and experience the height of the hospital that towers before me. I stare at all the windows as if they're staring back at me, challenging me to try and get in. Dad's paw on my back gave me a sense of control to not go flying in there. All three of us moved through revolving doors together and entered the lobby next to the gift shop. The hallway on our left showed a sign that pointed us to the elevators.
Room 418.
Room 418. Elevator opens.
Room 418. Elevator opens on floor 4.
Room 418. Left hallway goes up from 422. I look right.
Room 418. I stop when I see it. The door is closed with a note, "NO VISITORS."
A gasp escaped my mouth and I don't know how I kept my manly composure up but I didn't show any emotion when I turned and ran to the elevator lobby and punched the down arrow as hard as I could. I wanted out. If I couldn't see him I didn't want to be so close and torture either of us. Two strong hands yanked me away and off balance. I winced at their strength.
"Deacon, get back here. You're not a visitor here with me." Dad pulled me back to the door and a nurse opened the door to 418 and ushered us in.
I felt worse than going in for a dentist appointment to get a filling worked on.
His powerful hands guided me into the room. I swear I could feel my stomach in my throat; it was like the first day of kindergarten all over again. There wasn't even any type of smell! That was where I met Skylar when he was a young reptile. He couldn't talk since his teeth had not come in yet so sat next to me and watched me try to draw the different types of Pokemon energy cards.
The curtain masked his silhouette.