“Apart from a suitcase I keep by the couch, everything I own is in the garage right now, piled up in boxes next to I don’t even know what—back issues of magazines, old Christmas decorations, clothes that fit no one and so many photo albums.”
My blood pressure spiked at the mention of more photo albums, maybe photos from when Brandon was born, from the hospital, but I didn’t have to fight myself to stay focused on Chase and the sadness in his voice. “That’s why you needed to revisit your old apartment.”
“I love my mom, but she can’t let go of anything. She hid how bad it had gotten from me, but when I moved home and tried to get into my old room…yeah. I needed to break something, and it was the closest I could get to him.”
I’d kept my hand stretched toward him, and at this I inched it the rest of the way to his. There was no joking lilt or smile from Chase. Like everything else he said, he laid it bare. My hand tightened around his, another ache joining the one already in my chest.
“Chase, I’m sorry.”
“Me too. She’s willing to let me help her. She doesn’t like seeing me squeeze onto the couch each night any more than I like doing it. If I could clear out the garage, I could relocate everything in my old room out there.”
“And she’d be okay with that?”
“She wants to be, but I need to do it when she’s not home—otherwise she’ll have a harder time with it than she already will.”
“That’s good,” I said. “I mean, it’s a start, right?”
“It is.” He started in on the burrito he’d also ordered. “It’s just hard right now between work and school, and wanting to see this girl I can’t stop thinking about.”
Not even a blink of hesitation at the last remark. I smiled and picked up my taco. I so didn’t need the hot sauce I’d dumped on it. Chase was making me feel more than warm. “Maybe that girl would understand and be happy to get you off the couch as soon as possible. Maybe she’d even be willing to help with the garage.”
“Yeah?” His smile grew.
“Yeah.” But then a thought brought me up short. “Unless you already asked other people for help? What about your cousin?”
Chase took another big bite, swallowing before he answered. “Brandon is…” He paused. “I’m trying to find the right way to say this, since you don’t actually know him yet. Honestly, lately it feels like I don’t know him.”
I forced the bite of taco I’d taken down my suddenly too-tight throat. “What do you mean?”
Chase shook his head. “He’s been off for a while. He doesn’t want to talk to me or his dad. He barely even talks to my mom, and he’s usually really open with her.” Chase pulled his mouth to the side. “The only person I’ve even seen him smile at for weeks is the girl we work with. You met her—Ariel?”
I nodded, not trusting my voice to speak.
“He’s been into her for months and he was this close to asking her out, and then something happened—I don’t know what. He can’t get it together. At all. With any of us. And it’s not like he’s shy or anything. He’s got tons of friends, he plays the guitar, he—”
“He plays the guitar?”
“Yeah, and he’s not bad.”
My heart had wings for a moment, soaring at the thought of Selena and her newfound musical aspirations, the two of them playing together, only to crash again as Chase went on.
“But it’s been weeks since I’ve heard him play.”
Weeks since I showed up and he found out about our dad.
“He came to dinner last month and spent the whole meal staring at this picture my mom has up of his mom. He finally got up and took it right off the wall. Wouldn’t say why or anything. He went home and hasn’t come back since.”
With a finger I nudged my plate away. I thought about Brandon’s reaction to me the one and only time we’d met. His life was a complete lie and like me, one of his parents wasn’t what he’d thought. I couldn’t begin to relate to how that would affect him, knowing the one parent who’d undeniably betrayed him was dead. How would that anger morph when it collided with a lifetime of sorrow? My anger at Dad was still molten more often than not, but he was alive, a living person for me to direct all that unadulterated pain and confusion toward. If he were gone, and I had only a memory—less than a memory—I couldn’t begin to guess what I’d feel or what I’d do.
I didn’t want to cause Brandon more pain than I already had. I would have walked away that day without telling him the truth. I’d have gone back home, curled up on my bed and died a little and maybe a lot, thinking about him and our dad and clueless as to how I could make any of it hurt less. But I wouldn’t have dragged him down with me, him or Selena.
Only.
I still would have found that picture, that one that might or might not mean Dad knew, that he’d betrayed Mom not just with his body but with his heart too. And not just her.
And I’d have gone back to Jungle Juice, watched my brother, learned what little I could about him from Chase while discovering another guy I didn’t want to hurt, even as he told me I should. And it wouldn’t have been enough. It still wasn’t.
A small part of me had been holding out hope that Brandon would get past his initial anger and seek me out the way I had him. That his insatiable need to know would be just as strong as mine, despite the consequences and increased pain that knowledge could bring. Because it didn’t come alone; it came with a sibling. But I was learning things about him, about my brother, that told me we were very different people. We had shared DNA, but our lives had been drastically different. If Chase was right about his cousin—and he would be—Brandon wasn’t going to change his mind; he wasn’t going to take the risk I had. Unless, like with Ariel, somebody grabbed him and made him—and that couldn’t be me.
