“God. You can’t even let me feel important for five seconds.” I glance over and Carey gives me a cheeky grin.
“Have you got a praise kink, kid?”
“No,” he shrugs, and we both look forward again. “I like feeling wanted, but I don’t need praise… Eden was always good at that.”
“Yeah,” I agree, because it’s true. He’s not great with words, and there’s not many he’s ever let close. But if you’re his people, he’d throw himself in front of a train for you. It’s why I had to let him go. He’d been there for me, and it took years to pull me back up again.
“It's no secret he did badly in school and didn’t get into any colleges. But what no one knows is that he’d rush home from school just to spend time with me. To make sure I never felt like he did...”
But then your parents moved you away and left him behind.
“...I honestly think they would have left me with him, if they could have. When Dad got the job in California, I mean.”
“I bet that’s not true,” I tell him. Not because I believe it necessarily, but because I think he needs to hear it.
“Thanks,” he says, like he knows my reasoning and doesn’t believe it for shit.
“Had you and Eden spoken about what you were gonna do for Christmas this year?”
“No.”
Jesus Christ, Eden.“Thanksgiving?”
“No.”
For the love of fuck.
Every holiday, every year since he was sixteen, Eden has been at my house, with my family. Was that gonna change, or did he plan on just showing up with Carey in tow to spend eight days drinking on the couch in my parent’s basement with no forewarning? “Maybe you should go back to California for the Holidays.”
“No.”
“Carey. You haven’t been home in three years. I bet your parents would be glad to see you.”
“They never called me, you know.” I quickly glance at him and see his head is down as he weaves his fingers. “I was gone for two Christmases, and three birthdays. And all I ever got was a text from Dad when I turned twenty-one. But it felt more like a final send off, like he was saying,there, you made it all the way to adulthood.Like he was expecting me to say thank you tohim.”
I open my mouth but nothing comes out.
I used to try with Eden, but getting him to talk was like drawing blood from a stone. It’s not healthy, but for him—and me—ignoring our pasts is how we cope.
“It’s kind of pathetic, isn’t it?”
“What is?” I ask, trying to keep my tone as mellow as possible, when I’m itching to tell him that he needs to just find someone to fuck because it’s the only advice I have to give.
“That I came half way around the world. And if I went back to my parent's house I'd still feel more lonely than I do here, where I'm actually alone. I must be pretty fucking awful to be around if my brother would rather isolate himself than ask me to go to that damn cabin with him.”
I pull into a free space by the building's front doors. “It’s not like that.”
“You might have known him longer. You might be closer. But he’s still my brother, and he fucking left me.” Gripping the handle, Carey pushes open the door and has one foot on the ground before I force the words out of my mouth—
“So did mine.”
He swivels back to me.
I can’t look at him. None of this is his fault. But— “You aren’t the only one who had their brother run away. At least yours answers his phone.”
“I… Why didn’t you say anything?”
“We spent the last two days not talking to each other on purpose.”
