“I don’t, really,” I tell him, and the tightness inside me begins to ease as warmth buzzes through my body. I shouldn’t usedrinking as an escape, but I can’t deny it’s a fucking relief to feel a little bit lighter. The dark thoughts float to the ceiling of my brain, out of reach for a little while, at least.
“You mean you made an exception for me? How thoughtful.” Noah drags my shot glass across the table and pours us another round. He slides it back before raising his own. “To cleaning out the basement. What a goddamn nightmare that was, especially hungover.”
“Here, here,” I cheers and throw back the liquor. I wince at the burn but welcome the effect, my limbs already looser. “So. Excited for graduation? Only a couple months away.”
He snorts. “Fuck no. I have no clue what I’m gonna do with my life.”
My brows raise. This is news to me. “What about your business degree?”
“I don’t want to sit in some stuffy office all day every day for the rest of my existence.” He shudders. “I might just move to the beach and work at a restaurant or something.”
My brows hike even higher because I can hardly believe the words coming out of my brother’s mouth. “Mom would have a conniption.”
“She’d deal,” he says with a shrug.
“She’d blame me.”
He frowns at me, confused. “What? Why would she blameyou?”
“You know,” I prompt. “The whole baseball debacle.” I expect Noah’s face to dawn with understanding, but he only stares at me with a blank look, as though he doesn’t have the slightest idea what I’m talking about. I blink at him. “Remember how they missed your College World Series game and then you quit baseball forever? Well, Mom will never forgive me. I think she blames me for every wrong decision you’ve made since then.Like them missing that game was some formative experience that shaped your entire future.”
He looks dumbstruck by my statement. “That’s…are youserious?”
I stare at him, feeling suddenly off-balance in a way that has nothing to do with alcohol. Does he really have no idea what I’m talking about? “Yeah,” I say slowly. “Of course I am.”
His brow furrows, and for a moment, it appears as though he’s deep in thought. “You knowIdon’t blame you, right? I’m not mad at you. I’ve never been mad at you for that. And Mom’s delusional, by the way. That game did nothing to shape shit.”
I blink at him, caught off guard. “W-wait. What?”
“Whatever weird feelings they have about baseball and that game—that’s their problem. I honestly didn’t care whether they were there or not.”
“You…” I trail off, trying to wrap my head around Noah’s admission. “You didn’t?”
“Nah.”
“But baseball was yourlife.”
He snorts. “Yeah, but I started hating it. When I finally quit Mom and Dad acted like the world was coming to an end. You know they had a literal interventionfor me? I quit a sport and switched my major like every other normal, indecisive college student and suddenly I was ‘mentally unstable.’”
“I heard something about that,” I mutter, the sting of not being invited still smarting a bit.
“All because I didn’t want baseball to rule my life. I gave it fifteen years. Fifteenyears.Do you realize how crazy that is?For once I just wanted to party and drink and not give a shit. Too much fucking pressure, man. Un-fucking-sustainable.”
I let out a dry laugh and pour myself more liquor. “At least they have expectations for you. I doubt they’d be surprised if I killed myself.”
I down another shot, wincing as it burns going down, but when my gaze settles back on Noah, he’s not laughing. He’s staring at me seriously—too seriously for Noah, my very unserious older brother—and a laugh bubbles up in my throat. It comes out as a cough, though, and maybe I’m drunker than I thought.
He clears his throat. “I know we’re not the kind of family that, like, talks through our shit, but have you ever tried talking through yours?”
I stiffen, his question sobering me right up. “What are you talking about?”
“The hospital. That night. I mean, I’m the last person to judge anyone for drinking too much, but that seemed kind of different.” His eyes search my face, but I keep my expression carefully blank. When I don’t say a word, he asks, “You ever talk to someone about that?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “No. Who would I talk to?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. A friend? A therapist, maybe?”
I bite the inside of my cheek, considering. “I don’t think it’s that simple.”
