“What?” I say. “Opiates? What are you talking about?” I wonder for a moment if we’re talking about the same person, if there’s another Evie who goes to North Berkeley High who has a sister named Jenica.
“She had a problem with pain pills after she got out of the hospital the last time, but we thought she was over it. She promised. God, we were so stupid.”
I’m trying to wrap my head around this timeline. Evie was on pills after she got out of the hospital, before she met me. That means she must have been on pills the whole time we were together.
I cannot feel my body. I am incapable of feeling. If I feel just a little, the floodgates will open and I’ll be destroyed. Did Evie tell me the truth about anything?
“Wow, you really didn’t know,” Jenica says. “I actually feel sorry for you. Well, get in line. Yours is not the first heart she’s broken. You know Evie had a boyfriend when she started seeing you, right? And she was stringing you both along?”
I don’t say anything. My mind is stopped, frozen. It cannot process this nightmare of information.
“His name is Will. They’d been together for two years. He stayed by her side the whole time she had cancer. He came to visit her in the hospital almost every day.” Jenica is agitated, angry. Her voice is shaking. “What’d you do? Get her high? Share some of your drugs with her?”
I don’t want to hear this. I can’t. “I need to talk to her,” I say.
“She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
She’s lying. She has to be lying. “There has to be a way for her to call me.”
“Dude, I’m serious. She doesn’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to talk to you. It’s over. Give up. Leave us alone.”
I grab her arm as she starts walking away. I need something, anything, solid in my hand. “Don’t touch me!” she snaps, and pulls away. I let her go, and I wonder if that’s the last piece of Evie I will ever touch.
you.
I KNEW SOMETHING WAS WRONG THAT NIGHT WE SLEPT on the beach. Part of you was gone, replaced by a stranger who only cared about getting high. I tried to get you to talk—about your family, your friends, the cancer, anything—but you were closed up so tight I felt like I was scraping at concrete with my fingernails. You finally gave a little, but you stayed so vague, giving me tears but no details. And then you kissed me, as if a kiss would wipe away your sadness, as if it would distract me from my mission to discover the source of it. And it did. And that shames me.
The next night, you were even worse. It’s like you were becoming transparent, threadbare. I had the feeling you were going to disappear any second. I didn’t want to get high, didn’t want that to be the only thing that brought us together, but I smoked with you anyway because I knew you’d do it without me, even as I sat there next to you, and I couldn’t bear to see you getting high alone.
Had we ever been sober together? I can’t even remember.
It felt so familiar. Your distance and my desperate yearning to reach you. The feeling of running and running and never getting any closer. You were so much like David, so lost to me. I could feel you going down the same road as he did. I could feel myself following you. And even though you were there with me, even though our bodies were touching, I suddenly felt so alone. And being lonely when you’re with someone is the worst kind of loneliness.
I was so torn when you threw yourself at me. My body wanted you. God, how it wanted you. But my heart wanted something else, wanted the part of you that hid inside your body. I could tell you weren’t really there. The light was gone in your eyes, replaced by something dark, frantic, terrified. I know it wasn’t me you wanted in that moment. You wanted the distraction of my body. You wanted to use me like a drug. You wanted my body to get you high.
As hard as it was, I managed to say no. I know you were hurt by my refusal. You thought it meant I didn’t want you. How could I possibly explain how untrue that is? How could you not see that my stopping was proof of how much I love you?
there.
“DOES THIS LOOK OKAY?” I SAY. I AM ON MY FOURTH OUTFIT. I am going to my first Templeton party with David. There will be girls there. They are the only thing I think about. “Do I look old enough?”
“Old enough for what?” David says as he reaches behind his dresser and pulls out a hidden pack of cigarettes and a small bottle of vodka. It doesn’t surprise me anymore when he does things like this. In the last few months, we’ve gotten drunk and smoked pot together plenty of times. I don’t know how long he’s been doing this or how much he does it without me. I don’t know if he’s doing anything stronger. All I know is how I feel when he shares it with me, like I am part of his world, like he wants me in it, like he is not drifting away and becoming someone I don’t know.
I unbutton my plaid flannel shirt for the second time. “Old enough for a girl to want to kiss me.”
David laughs and hands me the bottle. “Here, drink some of this. Liquid courage.”
It burns and tastes like poison, but I swallow because David is always right.
“Are the girls from Saint Catherine’s hot?”
“The hottest,” David says. “You know what they say about Catholic school girls.”
I don’t, but I nod anyway. “Do you think any of them will make out with me?”
“Not if you say dumb shit like that.”
I button the shirt back up. “Which way looks better?”
“Dude,” David says. “You look fine. If you take any longer, I’m going to change my mind about letting you come with me.”
“Wait,” I say.
“Jesus, Marcus. What?”
My face burns with my question. I look at my feet, at the wall, at the bed, anywhere besides in my brother’s eyes.
“Marcus, I am this close to leaving without you. Spit it out.”
“How do you make a girl have sex with you?”
I expect him to laugh his ass off, but he doesn’t. He’s quiet for a long time. He’s thinking way too hard.
“Never mind,” I say. “Let’s go.”
“No,” he says. “Sit down for a second.”
I sit on David’s bed and he sits next to me. I expect a lecture about not saying the first thing I think of, of having a better filter. We’ve had this talk before.
“Marcus, listen to me,” he says. “You know you can’t make a girl have sex with you. It’s not like that.”
“I know,” I said, but I don’t. I have no idea what he’s talking about. I have no idea why he’s so serious.
“You know that’s not all they’re for, right? Being hot and having sex with?”
I roll my eyes. The longer we sit here, the more I feel like a little, stupid kid.
“I’m serious,” David says. “I know what it’s like going to all-boys schools your whole life. It fucks with your head. It’s not natural.”
“I’m not an idiot, David.”
“I know,” he says. He’s quiet for a minute. “It’s not just that.”
“What?”
He hands me the bottle and I hold my breath as I take another swig, as I feel the fire burn down my throat. David takes a huge swig and doesn’t even flinch.
“Don’t ever treat a girl the way Dad treats Mom,” he says. “Don’t let them love you and not love them back.”
I want to think I don’t know what he’s talking about. In that moment, I want to be young for a change. I want to be innocent and dumb and clueless. I want girls to remain soft, pretty, untouchable things. Not future women, not mothers and wives. Not people who can get hurt.
I am not as excited about the party as I was before. The night is still full of possibility, but now also danger. Also things that cannot be undone.
“No, Marcus,” David says as he pulls a black sweatshirt over his head. “I told you already. You can’t come.”
Not even a year has passed, and David has turned into someone different. Not even a year, and I am turning into nothing.
“Why not?”
&nb
sp; He doesn’t answer. He’s looking in his wallet, frowning. “Hey, do you have a twenty I can borrow?”
“If you let me come with you.”
He sighs and shakes his head. He starts opening the drawers of his dresser, searching behind socks and T-shirts for forgotten stashes of money. It’s Friday night and I don’t want to spend it alone. Besides David, there’s no one else I hang out with.
I pull out my wallet and hand him a twenty-dollar bill. He doesn’t even meet my eyes as he takes it and crams it into his pocket.
“So can I come with you now?” I say.
He looks at me in a way that makes me shrivel. He starts walking out his bedroom door.
“Why not? You have to at least give me a reason.”
David sighs and faces me, irritated, like I’m a waste of his time. “Things are different now. I’m doing different things.”
“But I’m different. I can be different.”
“I don’t want you to be different.” What he means is, I’m leaving you behind.
“Just give me a chance, okay? I won’t embarrass you or anything, I promise.”
“Dammit, Marcus. I said no. What part of no don’t you fucking understand? You’re not coming with me.”
I am no one.
He’s a shadow. That’s what he is. Not David. Not my brother. Just a shadow as he walks out the door.
I wake to Mom shaking me.
“Marcus,” she says through the clouds. “Come on. Get dressed. We have to go.”
“Why?” I mumble.
“David was in an accident.” Her voice breaks. My eyes burst open and let in way too much light. “He’s in the hospital. We have to go.”
When we get to the hospital, David is barely awake. He got lucky with just a broken rib and a few stitches. He stares out at me through the haze of painkillers and tries to smile. Something is missing behind his eyes. But his face is relaxed, serene. He looks the calmest I’ve seen him in years.
“Little brother,” he mumbles. “Your turn.”
“What are you talking about? My turn for what?”
But he is gone, sucked into oblivion. And somewhere, deep down, I know he’s never coming back.
I wanted to go with him tonight. I was supposed to be with him.
I am in the kitchen, searching for food. Mom hasn’t gone grocery shopping in days. She hasn’t bothered to pay someone else to do it for her. There is one frostbitten egg roll in the freezer. I throw it in the microwave. I listen to the soft buzz as it cooks. I bet David could explain the science about how exactly microwaves work if he wasn’t so busy fighting with Dad.
The house is big and the walls are thick, but I can still hear them screaming at each other. I don’t know what the fight is about this time. They all melt into each other. Maybe it’s the DUI. Or the getting caught with cocaine at school. Or the possibility of Yale taking back his acceptance. Or getting that girl pregnant and asking Dad for money for the abortion. The fight could be about anything and everything David does these days, his senior year of high school, when his life was supposed to look so different.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Dad screams.
“Why is my life any of your business?” David screams back.
“You call this a life?”
Over and over, around and around, these demands and questions that neither ever answers.
I wrap the egg roll in a paper towel and walk out of the kitchen. Mom is sitting in her favorite chair in the living room, a book in one hand, a giant glass of wine in the other. Her face is pointed in the direction of the book, but she’s not actually reading. Her eyes are glazed over, focused on nothing.
“Mom,” I say. She says nothing. She doesn’t move. “Mom!” I say again, louder. Her eyelids flicker, she blinks, and she’s back, but just barely.
“Yeah, honey?” she says distractedly, like she expects me to ask her a question about the laundry.
“Is Dad really going to kick David out this time?”
She shrugs. Her eyes are pointed somewhere on the carpet. She takes a sip of her wine, and it leaves a sloppy red stain around her mouth, like a kid slurping Kool-Aid.
“Do something!” I demand. “You can’t let this happen. You can’t give up.” But I know, as soon as it comes out of my mouth, that it isn’t true. I know that’s exactly what she’s done. I know she did it a long time ago.
“Do what, Marcus?” she says, finally managing to look me in the eyes. She’s folded over herself, as if she can no longer find the motivation to stay upright. “What can I do?”
“Do something,” I say. “Do anything.” Anything is better than nothing.
But she shakes her head and takes another sip of wine. She looks at her book and sinks farther into the chair.
here.
IF GOD EXISTS, I’M PRETTY SURE HE’S LAUGHING HIS ASS off right now. He’s sitting up there in his cloud recliner with a beer in his hand, elbowing his angel friend and congratulating himself about the epic joke he’s playing on me. “What a chump!” they’re saying.
It’s one hour after being told by my girlfriend’s sister that she’s in rehab and never wants to see me again, one day after finding out she had a secret life and identity she told me nothing about, and now I’m standing in my living room looking at my mother who I haven’t seen in almost two years since she ran off and abandoned us. She’s sitting on the couch across from my father, and they’re drinking coffee like she’s any old guest, as if that is a place where guests sit, as if this is a house that is used to having guests. That must be her car with the Washington plates in the driveway.
“Hi, Marcus,” she says, and the sound of her voice sends dull knives through my rib cage.
“What the fuck is going on?” I say.
“Marcus,” Dad says. “Why don’t you sit down.” He is too calm. I don’t understand how he can just sit there with the woman who left him and took half his money and destroyed his family.
“No,” I say. “This is bullshit. What the hell is she doing here?”
“Marcus,” she says, her voice too calm, too controlled. She’s sitting so still, so upright. “I know this must be difficult for you. It’s understandable that you’re upset.” She should have fallen into her usual histrionics by now. She should be spewing indecipherable tear-drenched words. This is some weird, restrained version of my mother, with a simple chin-length haircut instead of the long blond I remember. Her face is clean and without makeup. A sweater, jeans, and clogs have replaced the kind of outfits that used to embarrass me, the low-cut blouses and too-tight pants that screamed Look at me! How perverse that she finally looks like someone’s mother now that she isn’t.
“Why are you here?” I growl. “I thought I made it clear that I never wanted to talk to you again when I didn’t return any of your calls.”
She nods and looks down at her lap. “Yes, of course,” she says. “That was absolutely your right. I knew it would take you a long time to forgive me.”
“Well, keep waiting. It’s never going to happen.”
“Marcus, will you please sit down?” Dad says. “Your mother’s here because I invited her.”
“What?”
“I think it’s time for you to let her back into your life.”
“How are you the one who gets to decide that? Oh wait, I forgot. You’re the boss of everything.”
“You sound like a child,” he says.
“Why are you on her side? She left you too, you know.”
Dad sighs. He should be yelling. Mom should either be curled into herself while he rages, or drunk and raging right back. But they’re both so . . . relaxed. This isn’t my life. These aren’t my parents.
He stands up. “I’m going to leave you two to talk. I’m sure you have a lot of catching up to do.” Really, Dad? What a fucking coward. “Do you need anything, Renae?” he says. “More coffee?”
“No, thank you, Bill,” she says. “I’m fine.”
Who are these people?
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“I’ve been living in Seattle, you know. Where your aunt Katy is?” Mom says after Dad leaves the room to go hide in the kitchen. “Your father and I have been in contact.”
“I know.”
“I respected the fact that you weren’t ready to talk to me, but I still wanted to know what was going on with you. If you weren’t going to talk to me, I could at least talk to him.”
Like he has any idea, is what I want to say. Like he even cares. But I know that would open more floodgates I don’t want opened.
“He’s worried about you.”
“So he calls you here to talk to me about it? He’s that much of a chicken he has to call his ex-wife to talk to his son?”
“He said he’s been trying to talk to you, but you keep pushing him away. He thought I’d have more luck.”
“Yeah? What do you think? Do you feel lucky?”
“Can we try this without the sarcasm?”
“I don’t know. Can we?” I’m even annoying myself.
“Come on, Marcus. Talk to me. What’s going on? Your dad says you’re seeing someone. What’s she like?”
“No,” I say. “We’re not going to do this. You can’t come walking back into my life after two years and expect to have some heart-to-heart about my girlfriend. We’re not going to sit here bonding over a bottle or two or five of wine. We’re not friends. I’m not David.”
She flinches at the sound of his name. I hurt her and it feels good.
“I know that,” she whispers. “Of course I know that.”
Silence. Silence so loud my ears burn.
“That’s one of the reasons why I’ve come now,” she says. “I know it’s just a few days until the anniversary of his death. Your father and I thought this might be an especially difficult time for you.” She pauses for a moment, her face contorted in fake sympathy. “Marcus, do you want to talk about David?”
“Fuck no,” I say. “Fuck you.”
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Your sorry isn’t worth shit.”
Dad appears in the doorway. “Is everything okay in here?”