Scar Tissue by William G. Tapply Page B

drive you home,” I said.
    â€œI’m okay.”
    â€œHumor me, okay?”
    She looked up at me and nodded. “What am I thinking? I’m not okay. Actually, I’m a little drunk. You’re right.”
    â€œYou must have a neighbor who’ll bring you back for your car later.”

    â€œSure. I’ve got lots of friends.”
    I unlocked the door to my car for her and held her elbow while she got in. Then I went around to the driver’s side and slid in behind the wheel.
    Sharon huddled against the door with her chin down on her chest. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” she mumbled.
    â€œIt’s going to be okay,” I said.
    She turned her face away and looked out the side window. “You think so?”
    â€œYes,” I lied. “I’m sure of it.”
    I t took about ten minutes to drive from the restaurant to Sharon’s house. I pulled into the driveway, turned off the ignition, and went around to open the door for her. She reached out her arm, and I took it to help her out. She leaned against me. “Don’t let go,” she said. “I’m feeling kinda woozy.”
    I helped her up the sidewalk and into the house. She went into the living room, dropped her jacket on the floor, and flopped onto the sofa. She closed her eyes and sighed deeply.
    â€œI better make some coffee,” I said.
    â€œGood idea.”
    I went into the kitchen and got a pot brewing. Then I went back into the living room. “It’ll be ready in a few minutes,” I said.
    Sharon nodded. She was lying on her back with her arm across her forehead. Her eyes were closed.
    â€œWould you mind if I went up to Brian’s room?” I said.
    She waved her hand, then let it fall. “Go ahead.”
    â€œI’ll be right back,” I said.
    Brian’s bedroom was at the end of a short hallway. I opened the door and stood there in the doorway, overwhelmed for a moment by the realization that the boy who had slept virtually every night of his life in this room would never come back.
    It had a sloping ceiling with two large windows looking out onto the backyard. A desk with a laptop computer and a
printer, a chest of drawers, a wall-size bookcase, a twin bed, a bedside table, and a stereo system on a table against one wall. A collection of CDs was stacked under it. A big steamer trunk sat at the foot of the bed.
    I knew what teenage boys’ bedrooms looked like, and Brian’s would’ve fooled me. No Jockey shorts or athletic socks lying on the floor, no torn posters of Twisted Sister or Michael Jordan or the Patriots cheerleaders on the walls, no baseball gloves or basketballs or skis or hockey sticks strewn around. Brian’s room was neat and uncluttered, almost sterile.
    In fact, the only indication that the room had been lived in was the pillow on the bed, which had a head-shaped dent in the middle of it. The head had been Jake’s.
    I opened the closet. Pairs of shoes, boots, and sneakers were lined up on the floor. Shirts and jackets and pants hung precisely on hangers—jackets on the right, shirts in the middle, pants on the left. Sweaters and sweatshirts, neatly folded, were stacked on the shelf.
    I didn’t know what I was looking for.
    The chest of drawers held boxer shorts and socks and handkerchiefs and T-shirts. There were pencils and paper clips and rubber bands in the single desk drawer.
    Brian’s CD collection featured artists like Smashing Pumpkins, Rage Against the Machine, Jewel, and Janet Jackson, although there were a few by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac, too.
    I studied the books in the bookcase. A completely eclectic collection—paperback mysteries and Westerns and sci-fi, some Hemingway and J. D. Salinger and Stephen King, a set of World Book encyclopedias, an atlas, a dictionary.
    What had Jake seen that sent him off?
    The steamer trunk at the foot of the bed was secured