The Language of Silence (10 page)

Chapter
Eighteen

Ed:

I don’t dig sports. Just not my thing. Somehow, that genetic code got left out of my DNA strand. I sat through countless Sundays of football watching for Tristan because he needed me. And maybe ‘cause I liked having somewhere to go. Part of me liked that I was expected to walk through the Jensen doorway every Sunday carrying a plethora of junk food in my arms. Pretending, alongside Tristan, that I understood why these mother fuckas got paid so much money to move a ball down the field.

Don’t get me wrong, I never envied Tristan. Not really. His family is screwed up. Obviously. In comparison,
Mom and I’ve got it pretty good. We’re just not as good at exaggerating our greatness as the Jensens. But it was nice knowing people other than Mom wanted me around.

I never was the most popular kid at Wendall High.

There were many reasons for this:

My family can’t prove if they fought in the War of Northern Aggression.

My mother is not a member of the D.A.R.

My mom does not recall where she was when the world discovered who shot JR. I don’t even know who the hell JR is.

I can’t stand fried chicken.

I absolutely refused to take part in the mock elections at school. It would have been bad enough to vote for Obama, but to refuse to vote at all was the proverbial nail in my social coffin.

We do not attend church every Sunday. Forget mentioning we are Jewish.

My mom works for the local peanut factory and enjoys it.

My dad is gone.

And yet, here I am, attending a damn basketball game with one of the most popular girls in school.

My run-in with Brett has left me pissed off. Weak. I can’t even pretend to enjoy how the cheerleaders have forever ruined Girl Talk for me with their beyond silly dance routine during the half-time show of the basketball game. Next thing you know, they’ll be grinding to Skrillex—once and for all killing dubstep with their mainstream poison.

Evelyn is getting a kick out of my discomfort. She wraps a hand around my arm, snuggling closer to me. “We can go if you like,” she teases.

I know full well she intends for us to stay the entire game and stop by the parties afterwards. “I’m fine,” I reply.

She laughs. “Sure you are. Who’s winning?”

I glance up at the scoreboard and she laughs even louder. Evelyn begins to unzip her sweater, and I notice she’s wearing a Sex Pistols t-shirt. I raise an eyebrow.

“What?” she asks coyly. “I figured you were coming here, so I would give you a little something in return as a reward. Georgina told me about her little run
-in with you and Brett. You should have told me you enjoyed the whole I-just-woke-up look.”

“Who said I did?”

“What? Are you telling me I don’t look cute?”

“You’re trying to bait me, aren’t you?”

“Whatever do you mean?” she asks, batting her eyes.

“That’s the second time you have mentioned Brett.”

“I just want to be clear about something. Do you or do you not have something going on with Brett Jensen? Stealing a dead boy’s sister’s boyfriend, fuck buddy, or whatever you are is a little much. Even for me,” she says, suddenly serious.

My throat feels dry. I actually feel bad. Me. I feel bad for the lie I am going to tell. I also feel bad about liking Evelyn
, for some reason, a little more than yesterday.

“She’s my dead friend’s little sister. I feel bad for the kid. That’s all.”

She shrugs. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

And we’re making out at the basketball game in front of anyone who’s anyone. Just the way she wants it.

****

I feel something begin to slip away from me as we walk into the party. It’s not something I can define. But I know soon it will be gone. I see kids from my school huddled in groups, carelessly holding red solo cups in their hands
—the same kids who were speaking at Tristan’s memorial about the dangers of underage drinking.

Maybe Evelyn senses my unease because she doesn’t reach for one of the mystery drinks. Instead, she grabs us a bottle of water. As we move further into the room, one of the football players, Kevin, punches me playfully on the shoulder. He’s wearing his football helmet as he walks toward the keg
—keg stands.

I fight the urge to scream. I keep hearing Brett’s words in my head about my new Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde personas.
She’s right. She usually is. It’s her most annoying quality. It’s exhausting.

Evelyn and I make the rounds. We talk to everyone who likes to think I’m the poster child for bad breeding. At each stop, people can only talk to me for so long. They are friendly and offer their sympathy, usually relating some story about Trist
an, but it only last for a little while. They don’t want to be reminded about death here. They always find an excuse to end the conversation. They’d much rather wait till we’re at school where there are adults who can take note and praise their willingness to help others.

Tristan and Brett attended these things all the time. They never stayed long
, but always made an appearance. Usually, they would come pick me up afterwards and we would drive around, or hang out and watch a movie. They never asked me to go to the parties. I’m not sure if they did this because they knew I would never be invited to one, or figured I would never want to attend one.

“Can we go?” I yell over the music to Evelyn.

“Come on. Just a little longer. You did so well at the game. This is nothing.” She slides her hand snugly into the front pocket of my jeans in an attempt at encouragement, and pulls me toward the backyard. I welcome the fresh December air that greets me.

Of course the house has a pool. She eyes it suggestively. “What? Did we land in some crappy teen movie all of a sudden,” I joke.

“What? Don’t want to see me all wet?” she counters.

“Of course. Do I feel like taking you to the hospital for hypothermia? No
,” I reply.

“It’s heated. Duh. Just relax. Trust me. You might actually have a good time if you just calm down,” she purrs.

“Doubtful.”

She pulls me toward a lounge chair and we both sit down. “Fine. I guess you have been a pretty good boy tonight.”

We’re making out again. It drives me a little wild how much I like kissing her. I’m not sure how much time passes before I hear it.

“
Fight!”

I pull away from Evelyn. My voice is all breathy and unregulated. “Damn it. Are we already to the part of the night where the party gets interrupted by some stupid fight breaking out over some girl?”

Evelyn just laughs as she stands to look through the glass door, hoping to get a better view of the main event. “Not just some girl.
Your
girl,” she replies

I stand up to see what in the hell
she’s talking about.

Brett.

Kevin’s pointing his finger at her, his face becoming an alarming shade of red. Brett’s hands move to her hips as she rolls her eyes. Sophia, Tristan’s pseudo girlfriend, cowers behind Brett.

“Son of a bitch
.” I sigh, and begin to walk into the house, knowing I don’t have a choice.

Chapter
Nineteen

Brett
:

Tristan had a secret.

I was upset by the secret. Not so much the actual secret. It was more his need to keep such an important part of himself from me. He kept his need to love,
who
he loved, from me. There was no excusing that. I saw it as his unspoken commentary on me—did he think I was unable to accept him? Did he think so lowly of me? The one person I trusted completely, utterly. Or at least the person I trusted the most, trusted as much as I was able to trust.

In retrospect, in the weeks after his death, I understand a little better. I never talked to him about Ed. Somehow, it didn’t feel right to speak of the things I wanted. Intimacy. Sex. Maybe it was because these were the things I wanted most, and I didn’t want his opinion to somehow tarnish them. I didn’t want to hear him tell me it would never happen. I couldn’t bear to hear Tristan tell me Ed was too damaged by the loss of his father to trust that I wouldn’t run from him too.

The minute he would tell me his views would be the moment my own thoughts would become infected.

And so we never talked about love.

My brother always had girlfriends. For a while, it was like we had our own personal parade of Wendall’s finest debutantes walking in and out of our house. I’m not sure exactly how intimate these relationships were. They never lasted long enough for me to form any sort of investigation. Not that I had any intention of knowing anything about my brother’s sex life, or lack thereof.

Sophia was different. He kept her around longer than any of the other girls. I liked her. She was quiet
, and nothing really about her stood out, but she was safe. I guess that’s what my brother needed.

The relationship was beneficial on both ends. It gave my brother a cover, and offered her a position hovering outside of the inner circle. My brother had always been popular, but Sophia wasn’t so lucky. Her family had money
, so she was never completely shunned, but wasn’t completely welcomed either, which is worse than Social Siberia—to know you are that close only to be denied must be a certain kind of Hades. By dating my brother, the rest were forced to accept her.

Things were good for Sophia and Tristan. Except for the cheating and lying.

After my run-in with Ed in the library, I did something I had never done before. I skipped school. I needed to see Sophia, try to find out the answers as to why my life was so messed up. Sitting down with Sophia, talking about my brother, was really uncomfortable at first. I couldn’t pretend like I didn’t notice the smell that wafted from her. She smelled like onions. Crusty old onions left on an abandoned sub. Her hair was carelessly thrown into a ponytail, and she looked tired. Beyond tired. She looked worse than I felt. And that was saying something.

Sophia cried constantly. It was hard to make sense of the puddle of words that fell from her mouth between the sobs. She wanted to talk, needed to talk; she just needed to calm down long enough to make sense.

After getting her a glass of water, Sophia managed to stop crying long enough to speak. “It’s my fault,” she whispered.

“What?”

I wasn’t expecting a confession.

If Sophia had something to do with my brother’s death, it was my fault too. My brother used her. I let him do it. I knew he didn’t love her, not in the way she wanted him to love her.  There was enough blame to consume both me and Ed in this abyss of death and lies. I had come to apologize to her for all that. Well, I came to apologize to her while subtl
y seeing if she knew anything.

“He called me the night of the…”

“Accident,” I offered.

She let free a short, bitter laugh.

“What did he say?” I asked.

“He told me he sent me something in the mail.”

“What?”

Sophia pressed her lips together. The tears continued to roll down her cheeks.

“Well, what did he send you?”

She shook her head.

“Please, Sophia.”

She let out a shaky breath. “It never came. Maybe he lied.”
She didn’t look at me when she said this. If I learned anything from recently watching season 1 of
Veronica Mars
and re-reading my brother’s Sherlock Holmes books, it was that people can’t look at you when they lie.

“You going to the party at Kevin’s house on Friday night?” I asked in an attempt to steer the conversation away from the guilt that seemed to connect us both, strangling us. I didn’t know the source of her guilt, but feeling it, seeing it, caused my own guilt to tremble within me.

“Like anyone wants to see me there,” she replied.

“You could come with me,” I offered.

She shook her head. “You don’t want me to go to that party with you.”

“I don’t want to go to the party at all, so it might be nice to have someone there who is just as miserable as me,” I replied.

She laughed. “Misery loves company?”

“So they say.”

Before I left Sophia’s, standing halfway between the outside world and her self-created jail, I whispered the words, “I’m sorry, Sophia. For so many things.”

“Yeah. Me too. Do
esn’t change how it all ended though, does it?”

“Not at all.”

That was how I got Sophia to shower, dress up, and attend the party with me.

Chapter
Twenty

Ed
:

I push through the crowd of sweaty, drunken excuses for human beings. It’s not hard. Most of them are so wasted or high they’re easy to push out of the way. My heart’s racing. I ball up my fists.

It’s instinct.

Oddly enough, I’ve only ever been in one fight, and that was because of Tristan. Now the other Jensen sibling is luring me into another one, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to get my ass kicked. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna let anyone hurt Brett.

“You’re a fucking tease, that’s what you are,” Kevin yells. Some of the morons in the crowd beg
in to laugh while others join in a chorus of “Ohhhhhhhhhh.” Whoever decided to use that ridiculous sound to communicate anything at all should be shot.

“I said get out of my way, Kevin,” Brett says through her teeth. She reaches behind her and grabs Sophia’s hand. Sophia is crying.

“Did I upset your girlfriend?” he asks with a laugh.

“Witty,” Brett replies, rolling her eyes. She moves to go around Kevin, but he grabs her by the arm.

“Hey!” I finally make my way toward the scene of the crime, stepping up to Kevin. He’s a tall asshole.

“Stay out of this, Ed,” he snarls.

“Can’t.”

“Yes. Stay out of this, Ed,” Brett echoes.

“Shut up, Brett,” I snap.

For a moment, I’m reminded that I don’t belong here. I’m not even worth fighting. I look at Brett. She’s always been good at pretending. Even now she’s dressed to the nines. She’s wearing a cute white cotton, spaghetti strap dress. Her curly black hair is pulled in a side-ponytail. She’s even wearing pearl earrings. Nothing about her appearance would alert anyone to the fact her brother’s body is still decomposing down the street.

Brett and Tristan told me these sort of altercations happened all the time. Two people would get into an argument over some stupid high school drama that no one would even care about the minute they moved the tassel on the graduation caps. In fact, the fights were barely ever even discussed at school the following Monday.

Brett called it the Repressed Housewife Theory. All of Wendall’s finest used these parties to get something out of their system
—whichever of the deadly sins they had to work the hardest to keep at bay. By Monday, according to the Wendall code, most everyone would pretend not to remember anything that happened.

They
all
went back to pretending.

I never really understood what Brett meant. I accused her of overreacting, maybe watching too many episodes of
Mad Men
, but damn if I didn’t see it now.

I move to step in between Brett and Kevin, and he pushes me away without even removing his eyes from her. I stumble into a group of people who push me back up. Brett steps closer to Kevin. The redness of her cheeks has moved down to her neck. I’ve always known Brett to be a pretty passionate person, but I have never seen her like this. She’s usually into the make love not war thing.

“If you do not let me and Sophia leave, I swear to God, Kevin…”

“You’ll do what?” He’s laughing now, and it’s driving me mad that he still has his hands on her. Sophia’s crying even harder.

“Maybe I should tell them? You know, about what happened upstairs? What I caught the ice cold Brett Jensen doing,” Kevin leers.

Sophia makes a run for it and no one stops her. Kevin doesn’t give a damn about embarrassing her. It’s much more fun to bring down someone who actually matters.

“What? That I got more action tonight than you? Not counting the go you probably had with your left hand before we got here,” Brett snarls, pushing herself right up in his face.

I can’t move my feet. What the hell is she talking about? I’m not sure wh
ich emotion is winning right now—the need to protect or jealousy.

“Please. You think I can’t do better than you? You? You fucking dyke!”

That’s it. I shove Brett out of the way, pull back my arm, and punch dickhead Kevin right in the face. My hand feels like it’s broken into a million pieces. Before I can overcome the pain, I’m knocked to the floor. Kevin is on top of my chest and his fist keeps coming down and down on my face. I wonder if it will ever stop.

After a good amount of hooting and hollering, the room goes silent. No one tries to pull Kevin off of me. They all just sit and watch. They’re enjoying this. They have been waiting to see my ass get kicked for years. Only Brett is screaming. She’s crying. She’s pleading.

The room starts to go black before Kevin finally stops. My face feels like it’s burning off of me. Really. My skins feel worn to the bone. Brett helps me up and leads me to the door. I think about telling her I came here with Evelyn, but then I remember I didn’t hear Evelyn asking Kevin to stop either.