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He’s burning hot with anger and frustration, his vision blurs and each tear that spills sets him off even more. Mom had promised, and here he was again, completely alone. Theresa was not Mom, therefore Theresa was not much of a person. It wasn’t right, Boone sniffled, how Theresa was always there when Mom wasn’t. She didn’t even want to be there, like Mom did. He’d told Mom, Theresa doesn’t like me much, Theresa would rather hang around the poolhouse than play with me, Theresa doesn’t like me, and he’d said that one already.
Boone gets his kicks calling her to his room, that pissed-off look on her face as she stormed up the stairs to give him the attention he’d wanted so badly. When she gets there, it never feels as good as he wants, her face red with agitation. If she didn’t want the money so badly, she wouldn’t even be here, wouldn’t even yell at Boone if she wasn’t mentally counting each dime she gets to do it. He long presses the buzzer because she hates that most of all, and he waits. He waits and he waits and he waits. Boone can’t tell time yet, but he sees the Mickey Mouse clock on his wall has already moved all the way around and Theresa isn’t here yet.
He pokes his head out the door and Theresa must be really mad this time because she’s completely still on the stairs. She’s spilled Mom’s cranberry juice all over her face and it drips down the side of her head into her open eyes and past her neck. He feels scared when he pokes and prods her, and he’s never felt scared of Theresa before, only of the thing under his bed that he makes Theresa spray with the stuff he can’t touch under the sink. Her neck’s all weirdly shaped and the juice is really red and smells warm and strange under his fingers.
Boone starts crying, and not even the money makes Theresa get up to attempt to comfort him. He shakes her, getting desperate, and she must be so so so mad because she lays there and takes it. Boone sits and cries until Theresa feels cold to the touch, and he’s so hungry but there’s the lock on the fridge and Theresa was supposed to give him his snack before the sunset. Boone thinks he’s supposed to call someone but he can’t remember the phone number and Theresa won’t tell him what it is.
His stomach growls and when Mom comes home she screams and runs to the phone. She stares at him and he really wishes she’d pick him up and hold him. He asks her why Theresa won’t move and she looks at him like he’s stupid. “She’s dead, Boone.” He doesn’t ask her what that means, just like he doesn’t ask her for something to eat. Lots of people come, but not as nicely dressed as the people Mom invites for parties. They take Theresa away and look at Boone like he’s done something wrong. “How long was he unattended?” one man asked Mom, “Maybe fifteen hours,” she’d said. “It’s not like I could have prevented it, I was out of town and she was meant to watch him, he’s too young to be left alone.” The man nodded, “He’s six years old, have you taught him how to dial 911 in case of an emergency?” Mom played with her necklace, “Of course I have. I don’t know why he didn’t.”
Boone’s stomach growls again and he pulls on her dress when the man walks away, “Mom?” She looks down to see the dried blood staining her silk and she tells him to go upstairs and go to bed. There’s an awful color where Theresa was today and Boone doesn’t feel hungry when he pulls the covers up over his head and cries.
*
Boone likes feeling needed. His teacher always chooses the stronger kids to help set things up, chooses the smarter kids to answer questions, and chooses the louder kids to pay more attention to. Boone’s waiting at the door for everyone else to leave before he wishes Mr. Rosenbaum a Merry Christmas. Mr. Rosenbaum smiles at him as he walks out, “If you’re looking for the science class it’s the next hall over.”
He gets home and Mom’s laughing with Mr. Rutherford again, he’s nicer to Boone than Mr. Daniels was. There’s a girl sitting where Theresa was, looking like she has better things to do at eight years old. “This is my daughter, Shannon,” Mr. Rutherford says. Boone smiles at her, and she gives him a smile back he couldn’t tell was fake. “She’s going to be your step-sister,” Mr. Rutherford beamed, ruffling Boone’s hair. Shannon leans behind Boone, like a shield from the watchful gaze of his Mom. Shannon needs him, and Boone thinks he loves her.
*
Shannon’s smart, smarter than most of the adults here, though Boone’s not sure they’re worthy opponents. Shan always knew what to say, when she’d chased Boone in the reception hall and broken a vase, she’d said he’d fallen over. Boone had to hold a pack of ice against his left cheek while Mom got married, but Shannon had this sparkle in her eyes and Boone was the only person who got to see it.
Mom’s wedding was perfect, it had to be, of course. Boone held one of the cheap fuji films one of the guests had given him, he’d called and called for her to turn around and look at him. She didn’t spare him a glance, Shannon poked his rib and when he’d spun around she stuck her tongue out and pressed her finger down on his to snap the picture. Mom crinkled her nose when the pictures were printed, but Shannon’s dad simply laughed until he was light pink like Shannon’s ballet shoes. He’d slipped it into the wedding album and Boone watched his Mom’s smile waver when the pictures had him or Shannon in them.
*
Teenage rebellion sneaks around, or as Shannon had said, “came as quietly as the French Revolution.” Boone’s painting his anti-gun protest sign and Mom walks in with a disapproving look on her face she usually gears up for Shan. “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she sighed. He looked down at the cardboard, mostly dry. He shoved it under his bed and Mom smiled and kissed his temple, “C’mon let’s go have lunch.”
Boone ends up driving his new BMW to get his lifeguard certification. Shannon doesn’t glance up from her new manicure to look at it. “Who gave it to you? Guy or girl?” Boone’s nose crinkles, “Huh?” He thinks back, remembering a pretty redhead who’d complimented his eyes non-stop. “Uh, girl, my age.” Shannon scoffs and Boone never gets what is so funny. She’s far from perfect, and Boone loves her so much he picks at these things until he’s played out every scenario between them. Shan’s in junior high, and Boone remembers eating a lot more than she does at that age.
He catches her, yes, catches, one night as she raids the fridge. “Where do you put all that?” he asks her because she’s thirteen and gangly in all the wrong places. She tells him to leave her alone and he waits until she throws up to quietly open the bathroom door and shut it behind him. Holds her hair back and tells her he really wanted that last piece of cake. She tells him to shut up and he wipes at her mouth. He wants to be with her forever, but he hopes they don’t always have to do this.
*
Shannon’s sixteen and it’s sick, sick how he can’t imagine it being anyone else but them. He brings his girlfriend Holly over and she’s got the same sense of humor as him, but she doesn’t notice things the way Shan does. Holly couldn’t tell a lie to save her life, Holly’s never eaten the Thai leftovers Boone wanted just to go throw it up out of spite, Holly doesn’t need saving, instead, she wants to save Boone.
Boone doesn’t need saving. That’s what he tells himself when Holly’s down in the pool without her bikini and he’s upstairs with Shannon trying to mask the smell of vomit before anyone notices. Not that they ever do. Shannon never says thank you, Shannon never asks for help, and Shannon never listens when he begs her to stop. Shannon just asks him to help her zip up her new Prada dress in a double zero, and Boone doesn’t remember to look away when she smiles because it fits.
He goes downstairs and loses his virginity to Holly in the pool. That summer she dyes her hair from blonde to brown and he breaks up with her because she’s going off to CalTech. She asks him if there’s someone else and he says yes. She asks him if she knows her and he says no, because nobody knows Shannon besides him.
Shannon calls her a skank and Boone shouldn’t stifle a laugh because it isn’t funny.
*
He’s nineteen when he almost doesn’t leave. Shannon’s standing on the stairs where Theresa was and asks him to stay for her high school graduation. He freezes on his feet, and he only starts to move because Mom drags him away, “I really need your help in New York, I don’t have anyone else up there.” He thinks she could probably find somebody else, could probably make someone else. She gently holds his face between her hands, and he feels sick because she always knows what to do, what to say. Shannon pulls him over and uses the tears he can never tell are real or fake. He says sorry, and he rolls his bag out the door. Her tears dry fast, and when she doesn’t say goodbye he figures out he’s more like a pawn than a brother.
Mom ends up using a driver instead of taking him herself. He digs through his bag, looking for Shannon’s compact he’d swiped off her dresser. Mom’s handwriting is sharp and thin on the note carefully folded and tucked inside, “Find someone else.” She’s just jealous it isn’t her anymore. Boone doesn’t know in what ways, or if it’s all of them. He’s too busy figuring out where to get on and off the subway to figure it out.
He flies home September tenth, because Shannon calls, torn to bits, and he’s on his way to her in basic economy with his trusty sewing needle and thick black thread. He doesn’t turn the TV on the next morning because Shannon hasn’t let go of the bottle of rum since last night. He’s here on watch duty to make sure her head still bobs up out of the water at the end of the day. He tells her she can live with him in New York, and he sees his mother out of the corner of his eye like a rattlesnake, the warning look in her eyes harsher than a rattle.
*
Mom tells him the convertible wasn’t something she’d bought Shannon. Even though he’d figured as much, it still made his stomach churn. Shannon shows up for brunch with a guy glued to her side and her lips and Boone orders something on the menu he usually wouldn’t glance at . Mom leaves for a business meeting, not all that enthused about the family outing, to begin with. Boone’s breath catches in his throat when Shannon opens her eyes mid-kiss with her boyfriend and looks at her brother. He’s written a fifty-thousand dollar check by the end of the day. When Shannon’s finally home with him, head tilted over the toilet, he pulls her hair back and refrains from asking if anyone else would ever do this because he already knows the answer. “I’m really glad you’ll always be here,” she whispers, and Boone wonders if he heard her right before she’s pouting up at him with that doe-eyed look. She’s more hunter than deer.
She’s an awful, awful person. The worst part, Boone thinks, is he’s not really any better.
*
They go out for lunch, a double date. Boone with his brunette girlfriend, and Shannon with her blonde fiance. Their not-so-significant others get up, probably to go to the bathroom or to go fuck each other thinking no one will ever know. Their waitress comes around and whispers in Boone’s ear how beautiful his girlfriend is. He doesn’t correct her, even though he should probably ask how she knows when his girlfriend has been in the bathroom for fifteen minutes.
Shannon twirls her short hair between her hot pink fingernails, “What’re you ordering, honey?”
If he didn’t love her he wouldn’t hate her so much.
*
Bryan should be the last straw, in most ways, he is. Shannon shows up, drunk, saying he took the money. She’s probably lying, she’s good at that, you know. But she isn’t lying when she says she knows. Boone’s big secret, not so in the bag. It crumbles around his feet and rises up his throat when he looks at her. Dares her to do something about it, find someone else. But Shannon finds lots of people, so that doesn’t mean much. He’s not sure what’s at stake, maybe everything, maybe nothing.
He’d never figured her to be good at playing her cards, but then, he’d never figured he was getting scammed either. Boone knew all of her secrets, which somehow found themselves mangled into his, the way everything of theirs usually did. She kisses him, and it feels wrong wrong wrong, so maybe it’s right. Maybe this is what fixes it, fixes everything, maybe Shannon needs him to do this for her, with her. Mom had said to find someone else, but Shannon’s not like anyone else, and he seemed to only stumble into things no matter how hard he looked.
It’s not as good as he thought it would be, her skin is too soft and she never kisses him, never tells him she needs him, never tells him she loves him, though he never tells her either. She rolls over at the end, tucking herself behind sheets instead of him, and maybe he’s lost that privilege, maybe she’s taken it. He never told her he loved her, never expected her to say it, because he thought they both already knew. Some things are better left unsaid. “I want things to go back to normal,” She’d said, and all things considered, this was normal. Shan throws up and Boone knows she didn’t eat anything.
He goes to sleep wishing he would wake up as someone else. He gets up that morning and packs an extra inhaler for her in his bag.
*
Her dead body feels heavy in his arms, and Boone feels six years old and useless again. He runs into Locke later, who’s got this ridiculously sick grin on his face that Boone hasn’t gotten sick of. Relief, he’d told Locke, and even though he shouldn’t, he found whatever he was looking for in Locke’s approving gaze.
Oh.
Oh no.
*
Boone’s no good at expressing affection, so he follows Locke around and does what Locke wants him to. None of it makes much sense, but Boone’s used to that. Jack’s chosen Kate, and Boone’s pretty sure he could gather a dozen more pens and Jack would still pick her over him.
There’s no reason it should be these two, maybe more reason for Jack. Boone’s never had much of a thing for older men, much less bald ones with knives who talk in riddles. He doesn’t want to chalk it up to feeling useful, but when Locke asked for help he asked for Boone. Jack’s in the back of his mind, he’d gotten a “be careful,” wish as he walked into the jungle. Boone glances back, just for a moment, and Jack’s expression morphs into something all too familiar as Sawyer stalks up. They’ll probably eat each other alive without knowing it. Boone should probably feel more grateful his sister’s involved with Sayid rather than Sawyer.
Grateful never crosses his mind when Locke asks him about Theresa.
*
He feels around his own body and it feels like someone else’s. There’s that iron smell that reminds him of Theresa and that awful buzzing sound. He can’t place the pain, whether it’s dull, burning, or sharp. He feels just as scared and alone, just as useless because he can’t tell Jack. Even though he wants to. Locke hadn’t promised him anything, but Boone feels just as abandoned.
Locke leaves him, just like everyone does, everyone but Jack. Nobody can find Shannon, and there’s still that sick disappointment in him because he thinks he could feel better if she was here. Wishes she would hold his hand and say she’d stay here with him, like he’d done for her. Boone knows he’s going to die, human beings shouldn’t be in this amount of pain. Bodies can only go through so much. Hurley won’t look at him, Sun’s hovering with more concern than actual care, and Jack’s too busy trying to fix him that he won’t stop and talk.
Boone lays there and waits to die.
Jack’s bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired. Boone feels Jack’s blood pumping in his veins, and he should probably be mad at Sun for telling Jack to stop. Telling him to give up on Boone. It’s a weird feeling, to agree with her. Jack drags him around, and Boone feels more like a body than a person. “I’m all messed up inside,” he rasps out, “you know it.”
Jack shatters before his eyes and Boone’s lost his sewing kit, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
Jack lays him down gently, and Boone wishes he’d looked a little harder, found him a little sooner. He feels useless again, and he’s too tired and worn down from life at twenty-two that he’s pissed off at himself for not trying harder. “Tell Shannon—tell her—” and he tries to finish it, really he does, he can’t pick between “I’m sorry” and “I love you.” He never gets the chance.