Page 30 of Twisted Knight

She busies herself and just as I’m getting fully back into my riveting chapter on the Articles of Confederation, Mason’s laugh causes me to look up.

I’m met with my mom’s wide smile and face illuminated by the candles burning on the small cake she’s holding as she walks toward me.

She and Mason start in on singing “Happy Birthday.”

Emotion swells in my throat and I blink back tears that threaten to spill over. I thought she’d forgotten. Hell, I’d even forgotten most of the day, but when your mother constantly burns the candle at both ends to provide everything she can for you, the last thing you do is expect more from her.

And this? Her finding time to make me a cake at some point in her crazy day is that more.

The song finishes. “Happy seventeenth, Holden. Make your wish.”

I look from her to Mase, close my eyes, and make my wish. I wish that someday I will get us out and to a place where sirens mean ambulances and not crime. Where we can leave windows open to sleep. Where we can have our own bedrooms. Where laundry is dried in a machine and not on a line. Where Mom can sit in the sun while I provide all the things she deserves.

When I open them and blow the candles out, my mom claps her hands, nothing but love reflected in her eyes when she looks at me. “Let me go get some plates,” she says.

“What did you wish for?” Mason asks, the promise of cake way more important than homework.

“I can’t tell you or else it won’t come true,” I say and knock my knee against his.

“I know what I’d wish for,” he says as dishes clatter in the kitchen.

“What’s that?” I expect the twelve-year-old in him to say a PlayStation or an iPhone. Things his peers have that we don’t.

“For us to have the same last name,” he says, eyes down, voice hushed.

I open my mouth to say something and then close it. How did I not know this bugged him? “Mase. Dude. Just because you’re a Simpson and I’m a Knight doesn’t mean anything. We’re still brothers. Still best friends.”

He nods. “I know, but Mom’s a Simpson too.”

I wrap my arm around his shoulder and pull him against my side. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ll be a Simpson from here on out.” What the fuck, right? It’s not like my deadbeat of a father’s name means anything to me. “Who’s going to know any different?”

“How could you do that?”

“Simple. Just say that’s my last name. It’s not like people check. Would that make you feel better?” I remember what it felt like at that age to be lost and confused. To not have a dad and to need more of an identity. But I thought I was doing that for him. Clearly, I’m not. If doing this is all it takes to give him that security, that identity, not a problem.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Before we have cake, there’s one more thing,” Mom says, moving back across the small space with her hands behind her back.

“Holden said he’s a Simpson now,” Mase blurts out.

My mom eyes me and raises an eyebrow. “He did, did he?”

“I did.” I nod, leaving no room for interpretation. Mase sits a bit taller beside me. “What do you mean there’s one more thing? The cake is more than enough.”

Her eyes well with pride as she holds out a present to me. “Happy birthday.”

“Mom. We can’t aff—”

“Hush.” Her smile is as sentimental as her voice. “Open it.”

It takes me a few seconds to remove the paper and open the generic brown box, but when I do, it doesn’t matter how hard I try to act cool, the tears fucking come. Especially when I’m looking at something I’ve wanted desperately for years but have never asked for.

Our money is meant to go to bills.

It’s for saving for a car so my mom doesn’t have to get on the bus after work in the middle of the night when it’s not exactly safe.