The Language of Silence (11 page)

Chapter
Twenty-One

Brett
:

Tonight, I had my first kiss. I almost fought a boy. And everyone at school thinks I’m a lesbian. High school parties suck.

Sophia wasn’t having such a hot time at the party. To be honest, neither was I. It just wasn’t the same without Tristan. With him there, we could discreetly mock everything we saw. On the way home, we would fight over who got to tell what to Ed. Those were my favorite kind of nights. It allowed me some time with just my brother. I liked Ed. I loved Ed. But there was something about just hanging with my brother that felt sacred. He got me in a way no one would. He understood my mom without me having to explain anything. He knew what it was like to live in my household.

I never understood why siblings fought so much. You have to go through the war together. You might as well be allies instead of enemies.

I felt his death amidst the music and dancing more so than ever.

I also had spied Ed and Evelyn. I watched as she whispered something in his ear and slipped her hand into his pocket. I knew what he was doing. I knew it meant nothing, but it was getting a lot harder to ignore it. So, when Sophia suggested we find a room to talk, I didn’t hesitate. This had been my goal all along. Maybe if I got her talking, I could get some answers. It was easier than I expected it to be. 

“I think I might have made him gay,” she confessed, sitting next to me on the bed in Kevin’s room.

I shook my head. “I don’t think you can make someone gay.”

“Maybe if I would have, you know, did
it
…maybe he wouldn’t have had to find it somewhere else,” she replied, beginning to sniffle.

I took her hand in mine. God, he really screwed her over. “I think one of the reasons he liked you so much was because you didn’t want to have sex,” I joked lamely.

She didn’t laugh.

“I mean
, we did things, Brett. Maybe I was so bad at those things that he was just repelled,” she whispered.

We were on dangerous territory. No one wants to hear these things about
herbrother. Gay or not. I took a deep breath. “It wasn’t anything you did. It wasn’t anything anyone did. It was just who he was. No. That’s not right. It was just part of who he was. He still cared for you and loved you, Sophia.”

Sophia shook her head. “He used me.” He did, but that didn’t mean he didn’t like her. I think maybe we treat the people we love the worst of all.

“Did he tell you how I found out?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“I stopped by your house. Your mom let me in. I got an A on this government paper I had been worrying about, and I wanted to tell him. I caught him…he was…looking at stuff on the computer. Boy stuff. I mean boy and boy stuff, and he was…you know.”

I nodded.

“The next day, he came over. He apologized and apologized, and I held him. He was so unhappy, Brett. I couldn’t stay mad at him. I loved him. I love him. How can I love him? Maybe I’m gay?”

“What?”

“Maybe that’s what drew me to him,” she replied. She stood up and began to pace around the room. She was focused now. Sophia had found her excuse, and she was latching onto it. “Maybe I’m gay. Maybe I sensed he was. Some part of me knew the relationship would never have reached the point of having sex. I didn’t want to have sex with him. What teenager doesn’t want to have sex? Subconsciously, I wanted him because I was afraid of what I really want…”

She had to be taking Advanced Placement Psychology. Or maybe she was a huge Dr. Drew fan.

“Girls?”

She swallowed and nodded her head.

I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “You are not gay.”

“How do you know?”

“How do you know you are?” I countered. “Have you ever thought about being with a girl, kissing a girl?”

“No. But I don’t really think about sex at all. The whole thing kind of makes me nervous. Maybe I haven’t wanted to have sex because I haven’t kissed a girl.”

“You’re being silly, Sophia.”

She fell silent. Sophia took a deep breath and looked down at me. “No. I’m not. You should let me kiss you.”

“Wait. What? No. I’m not gay.”

Sophia sat back down on the bed. “You owe me,” she charged, determined.

“This is ridiculous.” I did owe her. I owed her anything she wanted.

“No. I need to do this. I mean
, you’re pretty. I can see that. Why not you? It doesn’t matter if you’re gay or not, right? I’ll still feel something if I am. Besides, I just need to see. I need to understand how I could love something like that.”

I cringed. I wanted to leave the room right there and then.

“I’m sorry. That came out wrong.”

She was desperate. I could see it. I could feel it. Darn it. “Ok
ay,” I muttered.

Sophia closed her eyes and began to count to ten, willing herself to kiss me. The whole thing was beyond idiotic. I didn’t wait for her to make her move. I took her face in my hands and pressed my lips against hers.

She froze. I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the awkwardness of it all. But then my lips were moving against hers. Somehow, I convinced myself that it wasn’t Sophia I was kissing. I convinced myself it wasn’t a girl. I just wanted to be kissed. I wanted to be touched. I wanted someone to reach for me and comfort me. I wanted someone to sacrifice some part of his or her dignity so I felt better.

The door to the room opened and Kevin stumbled in. Sophia pushed me away, wiped her hand across her mouth, and began to cry. “What the hell is this?” asked a stunned Kevin.

“Get out,” I mumbled.

“This is my room,” he said, shutting the door behind him, a lopsided grin taking over his face.

“Not going to happen,” I yelled, grabbing Sophia’s hand and pushing past him.

All the way down the stairs
, all I could think was how f-ing crazy my life was. I just shared my first kiss with my dead, gay brother’s girlfriend.

***
*

             
I manage to get Ed back to his car. I open the driver’s side door and help him in. As I take a step back, he leans over and spits blood onto the pavement. He takes a deep breath before looking up at me.

He looks like Hades.

And I am to blame.

No.

He is.

If he was with me like he wants to be, neither of us would be in this mess. He’s scared, and I’m tired of it. “I assume you can get yourself home?” I snap. I don’t wait for his answer before turning and wal
king away. I’m not sure how I’m going to get home. I rode here with Sophia, but I can’t stand to look at him for a second longer.

The door to Ed’s car slams shut.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he yells after me.

I can hear his footsteps echoing mine. The music from the party taunts us in the background. “Go home, Ed,” I yell back, refusing to face him.

“You are unbelievable. What? No thanks?”

I stop and turn on him. I turn so fast I feel dizzy. “Am I supposed to thank you for getting your tail whooped and bleeding all over me? Really? I’ve had it, Ed.”

“You’ve had it? You’ve had it! You’re out of your freakin’ mind!”

“Leave me alone,” I say through my teeth. He’s been trying to leave me alone since day one. Why care now?

He pushes his hands through his hair and clenches his jaw. “Get in the car, Brett.”

“No.”

He laughs, sounding a little crazy. “Really? We’re having this fight? God, I’m getting the complete high school party experience now, ain’t I? Fight. Girl refusing to get into the car…”

“Don’t forget the dry humping the prom queen part,” I reply. I don’t want to be anywhere near him. Kevin’s an a-hole, but he’s harmless. He could never hurt me like the boy in front of me. The boy who won’t acknowledge what I’m going through.

The self-centered prick.

The tears begin to fall, and I feel ashamed that I’ve cried so much in a short amount of time. Which only makes them fall more. Something changes in Ed’s expression. He takes a step closer to me. His bloodied hand reaches for me, and I smack it away. “Now? Really? Do you know what it’s been like for me the past couple weeks? Do you even care?”

He closes his eyes. “Please. Just get in the car,” he begs.

I’m tired of people asking so much from me. “I kissed Sophia,” I blurt out.

“What?”

“I f-ing kissed Sophia. My first kiss and it’s with a girl. A girl!”

“I don’t understand.”

We’re not yelling anymore, and for some reason
, it makes everything worse.

“She wanted to see something, so we kissed. Want to know the real messed up thing about it? I liked it. Not because she was a girl. I just liked being kissed. I’ve been dying here waiting for you.”

“I didn’t ask you to wait,” he mumbles.

I laugh. I’m almost sobbing now. “No. You’re right. You are too busy fucking anything with a vagina that would let you. Not caring that I have to sit back and watch.”
It might be the first cuss word I have said in my entire life.

“I don’t owe you anything.”

“Yes, yes, you do,” I say, shoving him further away from me. I want to hit him. I want to punch him right in his mangled face. “Just keep on pretending, Ed. Keep pretending till you can’t even recognize yourself anymore. Pretend you don’t feel his death. Pretend you aren’t sickened by the way you keep giving yourself away to those vultures time and time again. Pretend you don’t feel anything for me. Soon, you’ll be nothing. You’ll just have yourself, and by then you won’t be able to stand to look at yourself in the mirror.”

We’re so wrapped up in each other, screaming at each other in the middle of the road, that we don’t see them. Kevin and a bunch of his goons attack before we can even open our mouths to object.

We’ve been Wendalled.

It happens sometimes at these parties. Some jerk does something stupid, something to kill the buzz at the party, and they get Wendalled. Basically, the guy gets cornered and all the party’s trash
—food, cigarette butts, half-filled beer cups, and sometimes puke—gets thrown at the poor kid.

We’re just lucky it
’s sans puke. Kevin high fives his friends and they run off laughing. Neither Ed nor I have the energy to go after them and fight back. We walk silently back to his car. We get in and drive away. We don’t say a single word to each other.

Chapter
Twenty-Two

Ed
:

I don’t bother to see if Brett has followed me in the house. In fact, if I don’t see her again for days it might be a good thing. I silently thank my mom for kicking out Mr. Yates the morning after the first night Brett crashed at my house. She’s been sleeping on the couch ever since.

Thank God.

I’m so beyond pissed at her that it’s not even funny. Though what’s so funny about being pissed, I simply don’t know.

In the morning, I plan on demanding Brett go back to her own home. I just can’t look at her anymore tonight. How dare she? I got my face pounded in for her! And for what? Her experimenting with Tristan’s girlfriend? And that whole diatribe outside my car!

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

I slam open the bathroom door and begin to bandage my crazy ass face. I take a shower and still find myself cussing out Brett Jensen.

Have I really ever been this mad?

I know I’m a dick. She’s always known that too. She can’t be mad about it. What? She thinks because her brother died that she has the right to change me? She couldn’t change him! She couldn’t convince him that this life was worth a damn. He ran his car into a damn
treerather than deal with her for one more second.

I stop. I tuck my head between my knees. I feel like I am going to vomit. I can’t breathe. Am I having a panic attack? There’s too much going on inside me. I can’t stop moving. I hop up from my bed and head into my mother’s room. I know where she keeps her Valium. I pop two of the pills. I hope it sets in soon.
I’ve never taken her pills before, and I’m not sure how to tell if they’re working. For someone who never really touched drugs before, I’m becoming a real public service announcement.

I hear the shower turn on and assume Brett is cleaning off.

I could kill Kevin. Not with my fist. Of course not. I think I proved that tonight.

I try reading to calm my nerves, b
ut it doesn’t work. The shower’s still running, and I wonder if Brett plans on using up all the hot water.

I try watching television, but still
, I want to punch something.

She’s still in that damn shower.

What? Now she can run up the water bill?

Enough.

I march to the bathroom and pull open the door. I don’t care about being polite. I want her out of this house. I need her out of my life.

She’s not even in the shower. She’s standing in the middle of the bathroom, looking at herself in the mirror. She reeks of trash. She hasn’t even bothered to pull the lettuce out of her hair. Her eyes are red from crying, but she’s not crying now. She’s just staring forward. She doesn’t even notice I’m here.