“Sure.” It took so much effort to produce the single word from behind the rising emotion choking my throat, I was certain I was breaking into a sweat. Our hands were still piled together on top of the buckle as if it was as natural as breathing. He squeezed my handas he smiled at me. He might not have actually spoken the words, but the light in his eyes was all the thank you I needed.
We walked to the door side by side. I was too afraid he’d collapse or something ridiculous like that. But honestly, I just liked being next to him. After I opened the door, we stepped into the entryway and were greeted by a silent house. “Sarah has drama club after school.My mom is at some volunteer thing and Dad is working,” I explained even though he hadn’t asked.
“Cool,” he answered but stood still like a statue, not moving a muscle.
He followed me as I walked into the kitchen. “Want a snack? Something to drink?” Without even waiting for him to answer, I opened the fridge and pulled out two sodas and the fixings for sandwiches. He moved to help, but I puta stop to that immediately. “No. You sit,” I directed, pointing at him with the business end of the butter knife I was using to spread the mayonnaise. “I nearly killed you,” I joked. “The least I can do is feed you.”
Holding his hands up in mock surrender, he shook his head and pulled up a seat at the island countertop. “Is it always this quiet around here in the afternoon?” he chimed in as Iworked. “Dinner was so—”
“Loud?” I answered for him. He laughed and nodded. “We’ve always done that though, talked through dinner. Everyone updating everyone else on what’s going on. We’re all pulled in so many different directions, Mom and Dad always hammered into us how important it was to have at least one meal a day together as a family.”
“That’s really—”
“Lame, I know.” I tried my bestto deflect my embarrassment over my sitcom-like representation of my family. But the look he gave me suggested he thought it was anything but lame.
Wanting to make him feel more at ease than he seemed to feel right now, I brought the conversation back around to where it started. “Other than dinner though, it’s usually pretty tame around here. For the most part. I mean, Sarah and I haven’t gonerunning through the house screaming at each other since we were kids.”
“You guys didn’t get along?” He took the plate and soda I handed him as I moved into the chair at his side.
Shrugging, I answered around a mouth of food, “Sure, we got along. But I mean what siblings don’t fight? Especially when they’re younger than you and they steal your shit just to piss you off,” I joked.
“You guys stillfight now, though? I mean you two seem really close.”
Pausing, I took a second to think back over our recent history. “Honestly, even when we were younger, we were very close and got along great. Except for the occasional rough and tumble, we were always the best of friends.”
“Wonder what that’s like, having your sibling be your friend.” There was no mistaking the sarcasm in his words.
“I alwaysthought brothers were best friends.”
His responding laughter was so loud, it caught me off guard. “Fuck, no,” he said, once he stopped laughing. “We havealwaysbeen mortal enemies. I mean at least as far back as I can remember.”
“I’m sure you’re exaggerating.Mortal enemies,” I mocked. “And okay, let’s say your earliest memory is like from when you’re three or four years old, what toddler isthat awful that you’d call him an enemy instead of a brother?”
He deliberated for a few seconds, dropped his napkin, then looked at me flush in the eyes, before saying, “Remember that shiner from last week?”
I nodded, trying my best not to convey both my curiosity and my concern. “I had a feeling.”
“That was the only bruise you saw though,” he admitted as he stood from his chair. My stomachtwisted as he raised the hem of his shirt. What had certainly once been varying and dark shades of purple mingled with blue, was now faded to pale violet and a faded yellow mark of a bruise.
Shock washed over me. Sure, Sarah and I had had our fair share of wrestling matches through the years, but they stopped long ago and they never resulted in anything like what he was showing me. Was it becausewe were of the opposite sex? Sure, I was certain that had something to do with it, but his bruises were far more than the mark of the standard sibling rivalry. Highlighting every shadow of his bruises was the mark of maliciousness that was never present where Sarah and I were concerned.
“But why?” was all I could manage to spit out as he lowered his shirt.
Ryan shrugged as if what he’d justshowed me was no big deal at all. “The day ended in Y,” he joked. When he saw I wasn’t taking the easy way out of this conversation, he sighed, adding, “I told him that I’d been looking into other colleges. He wasn’t happy about me jeopardizing his chances at State.”
His words left me utterly speechless. And to think I might have hurt him even more just a half hour ago. That thought alone mademy stomach twist in knots. “So what are you going to do?” I asked, concerned more than ever for his well-being.
“Well, that’s why I was chasing after you. I came across this school.” He pulled a pamphlet out of his backpack. “It’s close to home, which isn’t at all what I thought I would want, but it really seems like it would be a great fit for me.”
Thumbing through the glossy pages, the smilingfaces of undergraduates greeting me on every panel, I was happy for him. He was right. Even at a quick glance, this seemed like the perfect place for him to find himself and his talents. Sure, it was a small, no-name trade school hundreds of miles away, but there was no doubt this was where he belonged.
Which meant—
“Needless to say, Patrick is pissed,” he added, cutting me off midway throughmy thoughts.
“And your parents?”
“Haven’t told them,” he admitted, taking the pamphlet back from me. After a second of consideration, he said, “I’m pretty sure my mom will be fine with it. But my dad, yeah he might need some more work. Especially where the checkbook is concerned. Which is where I was hoping you could help me out.”
