7 Days in November, part 10 (Sunday)

Bourbon found himself in Bryan’s bathroom. He rested on his knees, holding himself up against the toilet. His eyes puffed out in his head and his face was burning. His head was heavy; he felt dead. He rolled his head on to his shoulder and winced at whatever was trying to claw its way out of his skull. There was a terrible taste in his mouth and, judging by where he was, he had a pretty good idea he didn’t want to look in the toilet. He reached up, clumsily found the handle, and flushed.

He tried to stand. His whole body ached. The sun outside hurt his eyes and the thing in his head clawed faster. Bourbon stumbled into Bryan’s room from the connected bathroom. He discovered he was still fully clothed. Everything was still in his pockets from the night before, except the nineteen dollars in his wallet. He decided he probably deserved that.

On Bryan’s door was a note: “At Ty’s.” Bourbon suddenly realized he was in Bryan’s room, two blocks from where he moved in yesterday. He couldn’t remember how he had gotten there.

He did remember the party.

Bourbon felt sick again. He briefly debated whether or not to go back to the Unix’s, but remembered all his stuff was there, and he’d better deal with this now. Pulling himself together the best he could, shoulders back, fists clenched, he set out for home.

—

It was unusually warm for November, and the people in the Feldman neighborhood escaped their houses to enjoy the weather before it disappeared again. Bryan, Furball, and Farly sat in the grass in front of Furball’s house, watching Ty skate around the street. Farly picked at the grass underneath him, tearing it up and dropping it back to the ground. Furball and Bryan watched Ty kick off the curb and flip her board underneath her. Midway through, she realized she wasn’t going to land it, and kick the board out from under her. She ran off the momentum. Her board landed in the street and slip upside down into the grass.

Farly stopped picking at the grass and opened his mouth to say something, but stopped, and frowned at the street. He looked at Bryan. “Why your house?”

Bryan shrugged. “No idea. Guess he didn’t want you to see him like that.” He paused, his ears twitching, following Ty as she walked back to her board. “Are you mad?”

“I don’t want to be, but… I mean, he broke his promise.”

Ty picked up her board by the trucks and threw it out in front of her. She got back on and started to make her run again.

“What promise?” Furball asked, looking up at Bryan.

“Bourbon promised Farly he was going to go straight from then on.”

“He wasn’t going to smoke or drink or do drugs any more,” Farly clarified.

Furball fidgeted. “Bourbon does drugs?”

“Used to,” Farly mumbled. “Or, at least, that was the promise.”

Ty glided over to them, kicked up her board, and sat down next to Furball.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Furball asked.

“Tell you what, kid?” Ty nudged him with her elbow.

“The promise,” Farly said.

“I dunno,” Bryan said. “I guess it just didn’t occur to us.”

Furball sat up and brought his knees to his chest. His ears flattened. He squinted, staring at a point just over the curve of the earth. “Do you think you need to protect me? ‘Cause you don’t.”

“It’s not like that,” Ty said, placing her hand on his shoulder. He brushed it off.

“What’s it like, then?”

“We didn’t want you to lose respect for him,” Bryan said.

Furball rested his chin on his arms. “You didn’t?”

“We did,” Farly conceded. “A little. But he promised and we respected that.”

“And I would have, too.”

Bryan focused on the street out in front of him. The bridge of his muzzle had gone pink, his ears pressed down against his head, and he suddenly got very small. Farly, too, seemed to disappear behind Bryan. He didn’t look at Furball. Ty sighed, running her fingers through her headfur.

“Furball,” Ty said, “we didn’t mean to-”

“But you did anyway.” His ears turned down, his tail curled tightly against him, and he watched nothing in particular. “You tell me I act older than I am, but you still treat me like I’m in seventh grade. What else are you hiding from me? I can handle it.”

Bryan thought a moment. “Nothing really. Nothing that’s important.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

“We don’t want you to become as cynical as we are,” Ty said, matter-of-fact.

“We’re sorry, Furball,” Farly said, reappearing from behind Bryan. “We really do want the best for you.”

Furball slumped down and folded his arms over his chest. “I just want to be treated the way you say I should be treated.”

“OK,” Ty said. “We’ll try harder.”

Furball sulked. Then, straightening up, he asked, “so what happened last night?”

“Bourbon ditched us and got wasted,” Farly mumbled.

“Ditched you? Like, disappeared?”

“Like sold us out,” Bryan said.

“For people that don’t care about him,” Ty added. She studied her board, checking the street-scarred bottom over carefully.

“Why?” Furball asked.

He got silence in return. A car rolled past.

“Oh,” Bryan said.

“You haven’t asked him?”

“I’m not sure he’s awake yet,” Bryan mumbled.

“Somebody should talk to him,” Furball said, looking at Bryan and Farly. Bryan and Farly did not look at the calico.

“I dunno,” Ty said. “It may take us a while. We’re still busy being pissed at him.”

“I’m not,” Furball said thoughtfully.

“No?”

“I bet he’s terrified of what you guys think.”

Ty nodded. “Why don’t you go talk to him and find out what the hell he was thinking last night?”

“Sure,” Furball said. He stood and stretched, and looked around the street.

“You’re a good kid,” Ty said, looking up at him. “We don’t want to see that spoiled. You know we care about you, right?”

He nodded. “Anyone else coming?”

Thing other than him had become more interesting again. He waited a moment. “‘k,” he said, his voice faltering. He shoved his hands into his pockets and started towards the Unix’s house.