Free Aaron by J.P. Barnaby

up next to him at the light wasn’t the boy and his mother. Please God. It wasn’t. Malibu Barbie pulled up next to him in a Jetta and smiled over at him. Normally, he’d have the patience to flirt back. Even if he wasn’t interested, he liked being wanted. Right then, he couldn’t be bothered. He just wanted to get home and talk to his father about what happened in the quad.
    The next light turned yellow, and the car in front of him stopped, forcing him to stop as well. Jesus, it was a conspiracy. The boy’s face swam in front of his eyes again, terrified and lost. Spencer didn’t think he could pull himself into a ball as tight as the guy did. His knees had been practically behind his head in some sort of defensive position that someone who did yoga couldn’t have gotten into. Did he really think Spencer was going to hurt him?
    The light on his console flashed, indicating a loud sound, and he looked up to see that the light had turned green and the car in front of him had moved. He looked around, ever cautious, and then stepped on the gas. His pulse pounded in his head, and he couldn’t stop the adrenaline coursing through his body. It was almost like he was the one who’d been scared.
    Finally, he caught a green light and sped up. He drove a little faster than he normally did in an effort to outrun the images in his head, to leave them at the college.
    Spencer gave a silent prayer of thanks to see his father’s BMW in the garage when he pulled in. After grabbing the bag from the bookstore out of his back seat, he ran to the back door. It slammed behind him, getting the attention of his father, who stood in the kitchen with one hand on his head and the other around a tall glass of something. Damn it, he’d started already.
    With one look at his father’s bloodshot eyes and hunched shoulders, Spencer walked right past and up to his room. He wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to lose himself in the fog of alcohol like his father. Would it help get the boy’s ruined face out of his head?
Chapter Five
     
    T
WO more days of freedom left to him before he started classes on Monday, and Aaron had an idea for how he wanted to spend one of them. He just hoped his mother agreed. It was important for him to do this, no matter what the cost to his own psyche.
    “Mom,” Aaron said, and his mother stopped in the doorway, turning to look at her son curiously. He rarely, if ever, initiated a conversation with her, so she looked fairly surprised. “Would you mind taking me to visit… Juliette tomorrow?” It took her a minute to respond. Aaron had never visited Juliette’s grave, not once in almost two years. He had still been in the hospital when her parents held her funeral. Michelle stood in the doorway while she appeared to consider it. The silence between them hung heavy in the air while she no doubt thought about the damage that visit could do to her son, or maybe the way it might help his recovery. After several long and tense moments, she spoke.
“Sure, honey. We can stop by the florist on the way.”
    The next morning, after making pancakes and sausage for all her boys, Michelle tapped into that strength that seemed to remain somewhere inside of her, and asked Aaron if he still wanted to visit Juliette. He said that he did, and went upstairs to change.
    Neither of them spoke as they made their way to the commercial area of town. When they arrived at the small brick building with the displays of flowers exploding with late summer color, Aaron stayed in the car. His mother would pick out the flowers that she thought were best. What the hell did he know about buying gravesite flowers? It was all he could do to focus on something other than why the flowers were necessary in the first place.
    “I decided to go with a mixed bouquet of pink roses, lilies, and daisies,” his mother said when she returned to the car with a subtly colored mix of flowers, which she handed to Aaron. Holding them on