Something Like Winter (2 page)

“
You know what?” Tim
huffed. “It doesn’t matter why. You showed your true colors when we
broke up. You ruined my life!”

Carla rolled her eyes.
“Stop being so dramatic. It’s not like I went to the
police.”

“
You might as well have. I
lost all my friends. The whole freaking school turned against me!
Even Brody won’t talk to me anymore.”

“
Probably because he’s too
busy trying to get into my pants.”

“
Yeah, keep twisting the
knife. Just because it’s true doesn’t mean you have to say
it.”

“
Fine.” Carla took a step
closer and put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, okay? I was mad. But
this is our last day together. Do we really have to
fight?”

Her eyes moved across his
face, flicking down to his neck, shoulders, and chest. This was
something Tim was used to, not just from Carla, but strangers as
well. He owed a lot to his parents for the genes they had given
him. From his mother, he had inherited the Hispanic skin tone—light
enough to be mistaken for a tan—and his silky black hair. The
silver eyes from his father drew the most compliments. The muscular
build also came from him. Tim knew because next to her bed, his
mother kept a photo of Thomas in his college rowing days, pale as
ever and hair starting to gray even then, but his arms rippled with
effort. No doubt those muscles had won over his mother, just as
Tim’s physique had impressed Carla.

Right now Tim would trade
his looks for flab and acne. He couldn’t count the number of times
Carla had spoken about the children they would have, swapping their
traits around to design the perfect child. Her dark eyes, his olive
skin. His nose, her smile. For one chilling moment, he wondered if
that’s why she was here now. One last shot at tiny versions of
Carla and Tim. The hand on his arm was warm, almost hot, so he
pulled away.

“
I won’t look back,” he
said. “As soon as I’m in Texas, I’ll forget you. By this time
tomorrow, you won’t even be a memory.”

“
I don’t believe
you.”

“
No? Why would I remember?
You never meant a thing to me.”

Carla’s face finally
registered anger, making it anything but pretty. He stepped past
her, wanting to get away before whatever venomous words she was
cooking up spewed out. He tried the front door. The stupid thing
was locked, so he jabbed at the doorbell.

“
I guess I’ll just go over
to Brody’s,” Carla said.

She didn’t get a rise out
of him. Tim couldn’t care less who she fucked now. His mom peeked
out the side window, and he mouthed for her to open the door. Hurry
the hell up!

“
Goodbye then,” Carla said.
“I’ll be sure to tell my brother that he was right about
you.”

Tim stiffened. His mom
opened the door and greeted Carla, who replied back in pleasant
tones that belied her serpent’s tongue. Tim was terrified that she
would say more, would drop a bomb that would follow him to Texas,
but he made it inside and shut the door before the worst could
happen.

“
Are you okay,
Gordito?
”

“
Fine,” Tim said. His
mother smiled sympathetically, misinterpreting his distress. He
wanted to get away from her before she said something kind about
the witch outside. “I’m going to make sure everything in my room is
packed.”

Once he was upstairs, Tim
went to his father’s office and peeked through the curtains
overlooking the driveway. Carla had gone. Exhaling in relief, Tim
tried to force her from his thoughts, but those dark eyes came back
to haunt him once more. Then he realized that the penetrating gaze
in his mind didn’t belong to Carla, but to her brother
instead.

* * * * *

“
You can kiss me if you
want.”

Tim paced his near-empty
room, frustrated by the lack of distraction. An inflatable mattress
his mother had bought for this occasion, a blanket, and a pillow
were all that remained. The only signs left of his world were scuff
marks on the blank walls and patches of pressed carpet where
furniture had once stood. He had nothing left to escape into. No
books, music, or TV—not even his studio. His home had been hollowed
out completely, empty now of all but memories.

Except the ghost of the
room Tim found himself in didn’t belong to this house. Memory
brought him to Corey’s room, a place on the brink of
transformation, just like its occupant. Childhood toys competed
with posters of bikini-clad girls on the wall. CDs of Disney
soundtracks were shuffled up with grunge bands. Stuffed animals and
designer clothing shared piles on the floor. Not the coolest place
to hang out, but Tim was happy to escape the party. And
Carla.

“
Go upstairs and check on
my brat of a brother,” she had snapped at him when he offered to
get her a drink.

Tim happily complied,
because that night he felt he could hardly breathe. Her brother’s
room had been the perfect sanctuary. Fourteen years old, Corey and
his world still mostly revolved around video games and cartoons,
but he was changing. Most recently his glasses had been replaced by
contacts, revealing eyes that matched his sister’s, so dark that
the pupils were nearly lost.

With his parents out of
town and none of his friends allowed over, Corey had been glad for
the company. He even shut off his games and focused on Tim,
watching him with transparent admiration as Tim nursed a beer. An
hour passed easily. They bragged, laughed, and talked, Tim
wondering if this was what having a brother was like. Then Corey
spoke those crazy words that haunted him still.

“
You can kiss me if you
want.”

Tim’s grin had abandoned
ship. Maybe the bass thumping from downstairs had affected his
hearing.

“
Why would I?” Tim
replied.

Corey’s face had fallen,
which was enough to make Tim backpedal.

“
I’m almost seventeen,” he
continued lamely, “and you’re— I’m dating your sister!”

“
I won’t tell her.” Hope
lit Corey’s face, as if there was room for negotiation. “I never
tell anyone.”

Corey made it sound like a
game, a secret that guys kept. Like telling your best friend about
the girl you wanted to hook up with, or those shitty moments when
you cry or something vulnerable like that. But kissing each other?
That wasn’t a secret that guys kept. Was it?

Those dark eyes, so like
his sister’s, watched and waited for Tim to give the word. What if
he had said yes? Would Tim have leaned forward, or would Corey have
come to him? He would never know, because Tim had stood and walked
to the door. When he turned around, the hurt had returned to
Corey’s face, and Tim couldn’t leave him like that.

“
Anyone would be lucky to
kiss you, Corey. It’s just… Your sister would never forgive
me.”

When Tim arrived back
downstairs, he nearly wished he had done it, just to spite
her.

“
Where the hell have you
been?” Carla said with a withering glare.

“
I was just upstairs,
trying to figure out if I want to molest your brother or
not.”

Of course Tim hadn’t really
said that. Memory could be toyed with, twisted to suit his needs.
As he flopped down on the inflatable mattress, Tim tinkered with
another memory. What if it had been Corey sitting on the doorstep
today? No parents at home, no ugly relationship with Corey’s
sister, just them alone, the crazy offer repeated one final
time.

“
You can kiss me if you
want.”

Chapter Two

The small sketchbook pages
felt impossible to fill as the Oklahoma scenery whizzed by. Not
that scenery was an apt description, since there wasn’t anything to
see. Tim had grown up in Kansas, accustomed to horizons filled with
farmland, but also housing developments and strip malls. Oklahoma
seemed deserted by comparison, so Tim tried creating more
interesting worlds on paper, but sketching wasn’t his
forte.

When creating art, he found
the pen frustrating, its scratching ugly compared to the silken
motion of a paintbrush. Ink was stationary, permanent, and damning
once on paper. A thick glob of paint could be sculpted, scraped,
and moved. He missed the colors the most, the wet hues. Markers,
chalks, and various inks—Tim had tried them all, but none were
vibrant enough or spoke to his soul like paint did.

The SUV pulled to the
right, slowing as his father guided it down an exit ramp. Tim
tossed aside the sketchbook. He had managed a couple of drawings,
but they would remain chicken scratches until the movers showed up
with his art supplies.

“
Where are we?”

Neither parent responded
from the front seat, so Tim looked out the window until he spotted
stores and car dealerships that incorporated the location’s name:
Oklahoma City. They had returned to civilization.

“
That looks like a nice
restaurant,” his mother said at a stop light.

His father’s eyes met Tim’s
in the rearview mirror. What was he thinking? That they usually
dined out alone? That it would be awkward having Tim along for what
was normally a romantic occasion?

“
Thomas,” Tim’s mother
prompted.

“
We’re making good time,
Ella. After the tank is full, we’ll get some fast food on the way
out of town.”

“
Well, stop there anyway so
I can use the restroom. At least it will be clean.”

Tim turned his attention
back to the outside world. When the car parked and his mother got
out, he found himself more comfortable people-watching than facing
the silence in the car. What would they talk about, anyway? Besides
sports, of course, but Tim wasn’t in the mood for that.

The radio clicked on,
voices babbling back and forth rather than singing. Thomas liked
talk radio, Tim’s mother tiring of it easily, so now was his
father’s only opportunity. The voices were prattling on about some
Defense of Marriage Act, a title that sounded ridiculous, like too
many weddings had been gunned down by mobsters and needed military
protection. Tim paid more attention when the debate became
heated.

“
This isn’t a bipartisan
issue,”
one voice on the radio
argued.
“President Clinton himself said,
when interviewed by gay magazine,
The
Advocate,
‘I remain opposed to same-sex
marriage. I believe marriage is an institution for the union of a
man and a woman. This has been my long-standing position, and it is
not being reviewed or reconsidered.’ So you see—”

Thomas turned down the
radio. “Maybe there’s hope for the Democrats yet,” he said as his
wife reached the car.

Tim didn’t
respond.

Next they cut across the
street to the nearest gas station. Only when Thomas finished
pumping gas and went to pay, did Tim’s mother turn around in the
seat to face him. She was always like that. Her husband was the
focus of her world. Tim admired her devotion, in a way, but it
always came at his expense. The irritation must have shown on his
face, because she responded to it.

“
There will be other
girls,” Ella said. “I know leaving your girlfriend behind can be
hard, but you are young and handsome.”

Could she be more clueless?
Tim was sure he told her that he and Carla had broken up. As soon
as Carla had started spreading the rumors, all Tim had done was
mope around the house. How could his parents have missed that?
Hadn’t they sensed his relief when they announced the move to
Texas?

The timing couldn’t have
been better, not that the two events were related. His father
wanted to sort out the southern division of his company, the
regional manager having been dismissed under allegations of
embezzlement. Ella worked as a translator for a company that had
locations all over the country, so the move wasn’t inconvenient for
her. If his parents had wondered what Tim thought about being
uprooted halfway through high school, they hadn’t bothered to
ask.

“
You know I hate it when
you look sad,
Gordito
.”

Tim sighed, his anger
draining away. His mom
did
hate seeing him unhappy. When she wasn’t
preoccupied with her husband, like when Thomas was out of town for
business, she lavished attention on Tim. Her elegant lashes would
bat in his direction, like they did now, and she would smile until
he couldn’t help joining her. Then she would baby him like he was
still a kid and treat him like the most important person in the
world, Tim forgiving her for all the lonely days when he felt
ignored.

He forced himself to smile.
“I’m all right.”

“
Moving can be hard,” Ella
said. “When I decided to come back here with your father—oh, my
heart nearly broke! You always see Mexicans on television eager to
get into the USA. Not me. It was the most difficult decision I ever
made.”

Tim could sympathize. His
parents visited Mexico City every couple of years, and for those
trips only, they actually brought Tim along. That had everything to
do with his grandmother, a leathery old woman who had spent a
lifetime in the sun. She insisted on seeing her grandson. The one
visit he hadn’t been brought along, his grandma had chewed out “The
American,” as she called his father in sarcastic and heavily
accented English. She was just as feisty and vital as the city she
lived in, and Tim adored them both.