Soles of the Survivor
by Balderbody
Virgil Washington woke before the sun with the kind of tired that lived in his bones.
He lay there a moment, staring at the ceiling, letting the memories of last night crawl back over him like cold fingers. Mattie was curled beside him, finally asleep, worn out from checking on Gavin Turlington every time the kid’s breathing hitched or he broke into another drunken crying jag.
Virgil eased himself out of bed. He didn’t want to admit it, but something tugged at him whenever he thought about Gavin — that bright‑eyed blond eighteen year old who’d been punishing himself harder than anyone else ever could. The boy had already carved enough guilt into his own hide; Virgil wasn’t about to add more.
Gavin had been driving the car the night Jaleel died. Driving when he shouldn’t have been, driving tired, driving stupid. He’d nodded off, crossed the divider, and a Geo Prizm had plowed into them. Sixteen year old Jaleel Washington never made it out alive. Gavin did — and he’d been drinking himself toward oblivion ever since.
Every few weeks the kid showed up on the Washingtons’ porch, plastered, swaying, slurring apologies through wine‑stained breath. Mattie would peel off his shoes, tuck him onto their lumpy sofa, and let him ride out the nightmares until dawn.
This morning, the dim light leaking into the dining room revealed Gavin sitting upright on the sofa, staring straight at Virgil with the hollow look of someone still half dead. The kid muttered something, then collapsed backward and started snoring.
Virgil walked over, lifted Gavin’s limp legs, and set them properly on the sofa. He paused — damn fool that he was — noticing the kid’s bare feet. Clean nails. Smooth soles. High arches. Perfect toes. A faint smell of sweat and stale wine. Virgil felt that old, unwelcome pull in his gut, the one he’d spent his whole life pretending wasn’t there. He forced himself to breathe, to calm down, to put the blanket back over the boy and step away before he did something he’d regret.
He retreated to the kitchen, put on coffee, and sat at the table until the smell of brewing grounds dragged him out of a brief doze.
Gavin shuffled in, barefoot, drowning in a robe too big for him. He looked sober enough to stand but sick enough to fall over again. His sky blue eyes darted around like he wasn’t sure whose house he’d woken up in.
“Hope you don’t mind me borrowing this, sir,” Gavin said, tugging at the robe.
“Not at all,” Virgil replied, pouring coffee. The robe had belonged to Kevin Hoffmire, their surrogate son — who’d borrowed it from Jaleel before the boy died.
They sat in silence, two ghosts at a kitchen table. Virgil sipped his coffee. Gavin stared at the window like it might tell him what happened last night.
“I don’t remember much,” Gavin finally said. He touched behind his ear and winced. “Ow. I got a lump back here.”
“You probably fell,” Virgil said.
“Oh. You don’t know what happened either? I thought maybe you brought me here.”
Virgil shook his head. “Naw. Anthony Hill showed up with you slung limp over his shoulder like a corpse. I knew you weren’t dead, though. You smelled like a whole damn winery.”
Color rose from Gavin’s toes all the way up to his cheeks.
“I think I’ll let Mattie sleep,” Virgil said, pushing himself up. “Fix breakfast myself, God help us. You like hotcakes, don’t you, son?”
Gavin nodded, small and ashamed.
“Well, I’m gon’ whip some up,” Virgil said. “I like mine covered in strawberries, whipped cream, drownin’ in thick yellow butter—”
Gavin turned a violent shade of green and bolted for the bathroom.
Virgil stood at the stove, spatula in hand, listening to Gavin retch in the bathroom. The sound was ugly, human, and it twisted something in his chest. He hated that it twisted anything at all.
The boy had killed his son. That was the truth carved into stone. Jaleel was gone because Gavin had closed his eyes behind the wheel. Virgil had buried his child, lowered him into the dirt, and watched the world keep spinning like nothing had happened. And yet here he was, frying hotcakes for the kid who’d been holding the wheel.
It felt like betrayal. It felt like survival.
Every time Gavin showed up on the porch, Virgil told himself he should slam the door in his face. But he never did. Because Gavin wasn’t just the boy who killed Jaleel — he was also the boy Jaleel had loved like a brother. And Virgil couldn’t untangle those threads (and it should have been easy, what with the racial climate in the country and Gavin being white while Jaleel had been black) no matter how hard he tried.
He thought about Mattie, how she wrapped Gavin in blankets like he was one of their own. How she whispered prayers over him when he cried in his sleep. Virgil envied her faith. For him, it wasn’t God softening his heart. It was memory. It was the echo of Jaleel’s laughter when Gavin was around.
The bathroom door creaked open. Gavin shuffled back in, pale, robe hanging off his shoulders, eyes rimmed red. He looked like a ghost wearing borrowed skin. His bare feet caught Virgil’s attention again, the toes and smooth soles on the boy’s feet (size eleven) were so distracting. The middle-aged man knew he had to get himself together.
He set a plate on the table. “Sit,” he said, voice rough.
Gavin obeyed, folding himself into the chair like a child waiting for punishment. He kept his eyes down, hands clenched in his lap.
Virgil stared at him — really stared. At the bruise behind his ear, at the way his shoulders sagged under invisible weight, at the shame that seemed stitched into his skin. And against his will, Virgil felt something dangerous: recognition.
This boy was drowning in guilt. Virgil was drowning in grief. Different waters, same storm.
“You keep showin’ up here like you want me to hate you,” Virgil said finally. “But I don’t. Not the way you think.”
Gavin’s throat worked. He didn’t look up.
“I can’t forgive you,” Virgil continued. “Not yet. Maybe not ever. But I can’t throw you out neither. You’re carryin’ Jaleel with you every time you walk through that door. And I ain’t ready to let go of him.”
Silence stretched between them, heavy and raw. Gavin’s sky blue eyes flicked up, wet and desperate.
“I don’t know how to live with it,” he whispered.
Virgil swallowed hard, spatula trembling in his hand. He wanted to say something cruel, something final. But what came out was softer, broken.
“You don’t live with it,” he said. “You survive it. One day at a time. Same as me.”
The words hung in the kitchen like smoke. Gavin blinked fast, fighting tears. Virgil turned back to the stove, flipping the pancake, pretending his own eyes weren’t burning.
For the first time, he realized they weren’t enemies. They were cellmates. Two men locked in the same prison, bound by the same ghost.
TO BE CONTINUED