Brother/Sister (10 page)

“Just because you want to hook up doesn’t mean I do too all the time. And just because I say no, not right now, doesn’t mean I don’t like you anymore. You’ve got to—sometimes I just need some space, you know? I—”

Squeezing my fingers, he cut me off. “I get it Ash. I get it, okay? I’m a dick. It’s all I’ve been able to think about. I’m a total asshole. You’re right. I’m wrong. I know that. You know? I’m a lug head. It’s just . . . you’re so fucking sexy! I don’t know what happens to me. I see you and I just can’t stop myself. I want to start humping your leg or something. Even if I know how wrong it is. I can’t help it. Everything else drops out of my mind and it’s just,
Asheley, Asheley, Asheley
, and your skin and your curves—and you’re right, I should learn to control myself. Kick me a few times. Don’t put up with it. I’ll get the hint eventually. But . . .”

He let go of my hands and dropped his head. He took a deep breath that caught in his throat like a hiccup. Was he crying? It seemed like he was crying. Or about to cry. He was trembling. Doing everything he possibly could to stop the tears from rolling down his face.

He mumbled, “I love you, Asheley.” I could barely hear the words they were so soft.

And I wanted so badly to believe him. Even though I wasn’t sure if I still loved him, or if I loved him enough, or if he was good for me in any way, even though I knew nothing would really change, he’d still run around like a loon, goofing on everything, creating chaos like a kid playing in the mud, even though it was abundantly clear to me that I couldn’t count on him no matter how much I wished I could, even though I knew it was the last thing I should be doing at the moment, I leaned in and kissed him, a soft peck on the lips.

“I think I love you too,” I said.

“You’re not sure?”

“No,” I said.

Then he kissed me again, a little longer this time.

And again. The tips of our tongues touched.

And again.

He had his arms around my waist, pulling me into him, his hands sliding everywhere.

I don’t know if I wanted that. I don’t know. Maybe I wanted it. It freaked me out, I think.

I wanted to kiss him, yeah, but. . .

We toppled off his bike and rolled into the grassy ditch along the side of the road.

His hands slid up under my shirt and played across my stomach, and he pushed me back and rolled on top of me. He caught me in the ribs with his elbow and I let out a yelp of pain. I was struggling, I think. It was hard to breathe under him.

Look, can we stop this? I don’t . . . I, really, I can’t do this.

Fine, okay. At some point, I screamed. There was something rustling in the woods, too. Maybe I was freaked out because Craig was hurting me, or maybe it was the sound. I don’t know. This all happened so fast. It’s all mashed up together.

I pushed at Craig’s chest, tried to push him off me. He was heavy—and strong—and I couldn’t get out from under him.

And then this shadow shot out of the trees and it was Will, and he was shouting, “Get off her, you fuck, get the fuck off her,” and Craig started pulling and yanking at me. To protect me? To stop me from getting away? I don’t know. He was shouting now too, they were both shouting, everyone was shouting, and the more I flailed, the more tightly Craig held me. I pushed and I punched and I clawed at Craig’s face and my finger got twisted in the leather strap that he wore around his neck, the one that held the green-and-black ceramic bead he liked, the one I bought for him—it had a hand-painted infinity sign on it—and as I flailed, the strap snapped and got tangled in my hand and . . . and I was free somehow.

And I ran.

And that’s it. That’s all I remember. Okay? I ran back to the party.

Can you, please, can you stop pushing me on this? It’s horrible enough without you pushing me.

Or, I can just stop talking altogether. We can do that, too.

Okay, thank you.

The sound.
That’s what I remember most. The sound of the driver coming down on his head. Like the popping of a nutshell, but wetter. When I heard that sound, I realized, suddenly, what I’d done. The whole world stopped for a second and a spike of horror plummeted through me. I think I was in shock.

Please. You don’t have to show me the photo again. I already told you I did it. But you have to understand, he was trying to rape her!

I knew he was dead. No way he couldn’t be. It was ugly. Him lying down, now, his legs twisted under him, his neck thrown back like he was about to scream. But he wasn’t screaming. He wasn’t making a sound. Blood seeping into the thick bed of pine needles underneath his skull. Me, standing over him, the driver limp in my hand, its head sticky with blood, twitching with every slight movement of my hand.

I started walking, still in a daze, not sure where I was going. Slowly. Meandering. Like I was drunk. I reached up to swat a mosquito on my forehead and when I looked at my hand, I saw it was smeared with blood. I don’t think I really understood it, that I was capable of this, that it had actually happened, until I saw the blood smeared across my hand like that.

Then things started moving again, real fast. The rage revved up inside my chest again, and I felt justified, righteous, glad that I’d done it. I hadn’t had a choice. He’d been attacking Asheley—mauling her—taking advantage of her weakness and her good heart, her heart that forgives and forgives and accepts the blame no matter who’s wrong. She couldn’t defend herself. No way. Not if she’d wanted to. I saw that. She’d been screaming, pushing to get away, and he’d just kept grunting and forcing himself on her. I had to protect her. I was the only one who’d ever been able to protect her. And if I didn’t do so now. . . . Like I said, I had absolutely no choice. I couldn’t just stand there and watch her get raped. What did she know about sex and love? Nothing. She was still filled with fantasies about princesses and rainbows. A good girl. That’s what she was. Innocent and fragile and beautiful—but naive, trusting, even when she shouldn’t be. And no way could I let Craig take advantage of this. No way. No way could I let him stomp over her body, take it to wear as a pelt on his sword. That kid. He had a rep. He’d done it before. Chelsea Sullivan. Theresa Gomez. He was a virgin slayer. He broke them and left them like roadkill for the coyotes to gnaw on. I couldn’t let that happen. Not to Asheley I couldn’t. I couldn’t let him turn her into our mother.

It was self-defense. That’s how I figured it. What else could it be? Asheley’s my sister, an extension of myself, and he was attacking her. Self-defense.

I shot her a text:
Where are u?! Need to talk! Desperately!

But I got no reply.

In my wandering, I’d ended up landing at the edge of the backyard, at the mouth of the trail, kneeling at the cusp of the light from the house, watching all those fools tromping around the house. The Joiners. They were dancing. Bopping up and down, flailing their arms. Oblivious as ever.

I returned to the road to get Craig’s bike and then snuck it the long way around the house and hid it in the shed—it was dark enough back there for me to do that.

And then I sat there in the shadows for what seemed like forever, watching, waiting for everyone to leave. Once in a while, I saw Asheley flit by, and my heart would jump and I’d pray all over again that she hadn’t told any of them what had happened.’Cause, what would they think? They wouldn’t understand. They didn’t have the capacity in their little brains for the subtleties of the situation. They’d come to a consensus around whatever simple answer came easiest, one that painted me as a monster, a trenchcoat mafia kind of guy, with no friends and no ideals and a heart full of hate, which isn’t true. My heart’s full of love. Everything I’ve ever done wrong or right in this world has been to protect the people I love.

I kept waiting
for Will or Craig—or both of them—to stumble in. Every time the front door opened, or the sliding door out back swooshed, I jumped a little. But I couldn’t show it.

Smile, nod, fake it, pray. That was my mantra throughout the rest of the night.

It took me forever to get everyone out, and the whole time, I kept thinking, they can see through me, they can see the panic spazzing under my smile. Eventually, it was just me and Luke Pfifer—the fast-talking, aviator glasses – wearing runt who somehow had it in his head that he was a superstar—and his two dumpy hangers on, Toby Smith and Ricky Thomson. God knows how they even found out about the party, but they’d showed up early and made a beeline for the Wii. By now it was almost four in the morning and they were still taking turns beating each other’s boxing Mii to a pulp. They didn’t care what was going on around them. They were chortling and flailing and making cat calls at each other in the stupid made-up language they used, and it was pretty obvious they were never going to leave so I walked right over and turned the machine off. I didn’t care. It was just Luke Pfifer.

“See ya, bye,” I said. “Party’s over.”

Finally, once I got them out the door, I collapsed on the couch and let the events of the evening soak in. My eyes trailed up the shiny blond wooden railing that twisted around the edges of the room, following the stairs up along the various levels of platform. I’d been doing this for I don’t know how many years, since I was born practically. But now the room seemed different. Less filled with air.

I panicked. The questions went flying through my head. Where were they? What was that text Will had sent supposed to have meant? What happened to Craig? Why hadn’t he texted me too? And now this silence. It was all too much. Something bad, something so, so, so bad must have gone down.

My mouth started to water and I could feel the acid building in the back of my throat.

I leapt off the couch and raced out of the house.

There, on the porch, I gulped down the piney air and willed my body to stop rebelling against me. It was quiet except for the low hum of crickets. The yard was empty, dark in the weak light bleeding out from the living room.

“Will?” I called, in a hoarse whisper. “Are you there?”

Nothing.

There was a nip in the air. I was shivering. I waited for a couple of seconds more, and then, just as I was going to step back inside to grab a sweatshirt, I heard a scratching, burrowing sound behind the shed.

I waited. I rubbed at my arms to warm them up. Still nothing. Must be a raccoon or a possum, I figured.

But I gave it a minute just to make sure.

The sound came back. Something moved back there. And a shadow started to emerge from the dark, person sized, moving slowly, timidly, into the light.

Will. I recognized his walk, the slight looseness at his elbows every time they swing. He was holding a golf club, resting it on his shoulder. As he came closer, his features started to take shape and then he was fully there, at the edge of the light, and that’s when I saw the blood smeared across his face. He looked like a ghoul. Like one of those creepy guys he was always drawing.

I lost it. Completely. I can’t say for sure if I understood yet what had happened. I was freaking out. I wasn’t thinking anything. Just fear. That’s all I was. Screams. Arms and legs shaking and shooting all over the place like there was something sick, something revolting, stuck to my skin and I had to get it off.

Then he was wrapped around me, pinning my arms to my sides and holding tight. Riding me out until I stopped bucking and heaving and kicking at him, until I gave up. I didn’t exactly hug him back, but I let him contain me. I didn’t have much choice, no way was he going to let me go. My muscles relaxed. I slid to the ground and he slid down with me, and when I leaned my weight into him, I could feel his chest heaving under me. He was crying too. There we were again, knotted together, both of us heaving and bawling our eyes out.

“What happened?” I whispered, once I could talk again. “Did—”

He clung to me tighter. For a second he stopped breathing. Then he let out this howl like something I’d never heard before, like an animal in such excruciating pain that it engulfs and swallows up the whole world. It was harrowing, that sound. I’ll never forget it.

And then, it was like . . . I don’t know . . .

I shuddered. There was, like, a flash, an image flaming through my mind. Of Craig, of. . . There was this sudden surge of emotion, like firecrackers going off in my chest and I shoved Will away from me. I kicked at him. “No. Get away from me. No. No,” I said. I scooted backward across the lawn until I was out of his reach. I didn’t want him to touch me.

And he just took it. He just sat there, crying, letting me kick him and whatever.

I stared at him. I hated him in that moment. But at the same time, I felt like, I don’t know . . . It just. . . I was confused. I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought.

Slowly, shyly, he sat back, Indian style. “Ash,” he said. “Something—”

“Shut up . . . Shut up, shut up!” I said. I didn’t want to hear it. Like, if he didn’t say it out loud, it wouldn’t be real.

He laid back and we both sort of hung out there for a long time. I don’t know how long. Will was staring up at the moon. It was huge, not quite a full moon, but a couple days off one. “That’s a surfer moon,” he said. “That moon means the waves are especially big. What if . . . What if he was surfing?” He fell into thought. “Night surfing. Alone. And . . . Craig could have—”

At the sound of Craig’s name, I freaked out again. “Fuck you!” I shouted. “Don’t say it. You don’t deserve to say his name.”

Will nodded. He rose to his feet and headed toward the shed. Then he stopped. “I’ll need your help,” he said, really quietly.

And I don’t know. I didn’t respond. It’s not like I said, sure, whatever you need. I just kept staring at him. Then I wandered away, I remember wandering away. Somehow I ended up back in the house, wearing my Stanford sweatshirt. My comfort sweatshirt. I don’t even remember putting it on. Thinking . . . I don’t know what I was thinking.