The Truth About You & Me (16 page)

I wanted a lot of things that night, but I would have settled for a kiss.

A day later,
after another two hours of Biology in which I listened to that perfect voice of yours, I floated through the front door and up the stairs, rounding the corner to head down the hall, and that's when I slammed into my brother.

“Oh!” I said, stumbling back as he grabbed my coat to keep me from falling backward down the steps. “Sorry, I was spacing out.”

I started to step past him, then stopped, taking in his sweats and old T-shirt. “Why are you dressed like that? Didn't you go to your fancy internship today?” I narrowed my eyes. “Wait—isn't it in Seattle? How are you home already?”

“Um, no
…
” he said, but the words trailed off, and it was more like he was asking me than telling me.

I pulled off my jacket because up there, next to the vaulted ceiling and overlooking the first floor, the heat from our wood stove was overwhelming. “What aren't you telling me?”

“What makes you think I'm hiding something?” he asked, stepping back and then retreating to his room. I followed him, standing at his doorway while he flopped down on his bed.

“Do you not like it or something?” I asked, my eyes sweeping over his room, taking in the stack of Xbox games that had tipped over and slid all over his floor, the dirty pile of laundry and socks strewn about, and the half-eaten plate of nachos. We'd had nachos two nights before. Ugh.

“Oh, I don't know,” he said, staring at the ceiling.

“Well, if you don't know, shouldn't you, like, be there right now figuring out what you think of it? Sometimes it's just boring because of orientations and trainings and—”

“There was never an internship,” he interrupted, sitting up on his bed. “I made it up so I could avoid telling Mom and Dad that I was failing Harvard.”

My jaw dropped and I stared at him—my perfect brother with perfect grades, now surrounded by old dinners and dirty clothes and
…
“How is that possible?”

“I'm not smart like you,” he said, his voice both resigned and bitter.

I frowned. “You graduated high school with almost a perfect 4.0 every semester.”

“Yeah, almost perfect, not
actually
perfect like you, and my classes weren't even AP. And do you have any idea how hard I had to work to get what I did? To prove I could? It's not easy for me like it is for you. It's like I'm a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, every second of every day. And it worked in high school, but Harvard is different. I bet I wouldn't even have gotten in if Mom wasn't an alum. I mean, when you're there, you can't fake your way through. You either have it or you don't. And I don't.”

“So, what, you're just not going back?”

He shrugged, staring up at me with eyes so lost
that
I suddenly felt like I was the older sister, not four years his junior. “You've been there for two years already. Surely you've got what it takes,” I added.

He lay back on the bed again, his legs dangling over the edge. Long moments floated by, but neither of us spoke. I didn't know what to say, and he didn't
want
to say anything.

A car rolled by outside, the muffler banging and sputtering.

“Why do you do it?” I asked.

“Do what?”

“Keep trying to be someone you're not.” I leaned against the door frame, waiting.

“Because it's who I
want
to be.” He interlaced his fingers on his chest, his elbows resting on the bed beside him. “You know, successful, like Mom. I like math and engineering. It's fascinating. I just can't keep up with it.”

His words rang in my ears, and the horrible irony of everything crept up around me. And then I laughed, a little chuckle at first, and then long and loud, leaning over to clutch my sides. He lifted his head and gave me an odd look, then rolled his eyes and laid his head back down.

I slid down the wall, kicking a plastic 7-Eleven cup out of my way, and sat there until I regained my breath.

“So, let me get this straight. You want to be smart like me, so that you can become Mom.”

“Yeah. I never could have done Running Start like you are. You're so far ahead of where I was.”

“And I don't even want it,” I said, shocked by my own honesty.

He picked up his head again and stared, bewilderment laced into his features. “What? Why not?”

“I hate it. Remember that part in
Titanic
where Kate Winslet says she could see her whole life ahead of her, one boring party after another? It's like that. Except swap party with test, with reports, designs, drawings. Math, long commutes … ”

“She designs freaking
airplanes.
There's nothing cooler than that.”

“There has to be,” I said with conviction.

“Then what do you want?”

“Not a clue. I don't get why everyone thinks a sixteen-year-old is supposed to have it all figured out. All I know is … something else. Something beyond this. Something that's not been mapped out for a thousand years. A trail that wasn't blazed by Mom, or … ”

“By me,” he said.

I nodded. “Stupid, right? I don't even know which way to blaze. I just don't want to follow you.”

“That's not stupid,” he said, surprising me.

“It feels like it. A couple weeks ago, Dad wanted me to figure out what my major will be so that I can map out my coursework for upcoming years.
Now
.”

“And you said?”

“Nothing.”

“Jeez, Madd, we don't live in the 1950s. You have choices. Tell him what you want.”

“I don't know what I want,” I said, my frustration boiling. “That's the whole point. It's just like when I told Mom I wanted to quit ballet, and she told me if it wasn't ballet it had to be something else. Except I had no other ideas. So I did ballet for three more years before I decided violin sounded more fun.”

“And when you quit violin … ”

“She made me take up soccer even though I'm not at all athletic. You know her. The default setting has to be
something
, never
nothing.
So if I can't decide what to do, why not just coast along with the status quo?”

“The status quo is high school. You're in college.”

I rested the back of my head against the drywall, then stared at a broken Dorito on the carpet. “I know, but it's all part of the master plan. Graduate with an associate's degree, hit up the Ivy League for two years, have a bachelor's by twenty and a master's by twenty-two. Score an awesome job. Make Mom proud. It's like watching paint dry. And not even an original painting, but a paint-by-number painting.”

“You're really complaining that you have every option in the world at your feet and you want none of them,” he said, his voice suddenly changing.

I looked up, surprised, and saw he was sitting up again, no longer looking relaxed or distressed, just looking … annoyed.

“Well, I mean, it's not really like that. I'm not trying to complain … ”

“You always were the chosen one,” he said, standing up so fast his bed creaked.

And then he was out the door and bounding down the stairs before I could figure out what had just happened, what I said to tick him off.

I spent four
hours working on your birthday cake, and it was perfect.

I stood there and iced it with homemade buttercream frosting. I hadn't known how to make it a mere six hours earlier, but I did then, thanks to Google and a few recipe sites.

It scared me, celebrating your twenty-sixth birthday. Before then, we'd had nine years between us.

Nine.

But that day—in just one day—it became ten. Ten years separated us. It might as well have been a hundred, for all the fear streaking through me that afternoon as I poured and mixed and baked.

As I turned the oven off, Mom walked in.

Mom.

Walked in.

Panic clenched me like a vise grip as she click-clacked her way across the tiles, and my mind searched around, desperate for an explanation. Thank God I'd already decided not to add the decorations until I got to your house—the final touches that would spell out
Happy Birthday, Bennett.

So it didn't say that when Mom walked in, smiling in that vaguely fake way of hers, that way that says she's going through the actions more than feeling the emotions.

“Hey,” she said as she rounded the corner, hanging up her purse, hardly looking at me. “How's it going?”

“Good,” I said, rinsing out the bowl, the one that was still covered in batter.

“Something smells good,” she said, fluffing her hair up as if to reclaim the helmet-hair look she'd left the house with. She looked tired, in that moment. Her hair reminded me of a turtle's shell, meant to protect her, meant to put on a strong, resilient front.

But it didn't work and she just looked tired.

It was weird how in that moment, as I stared, I realized that my mom's perfection wasn't so glossy, so shiny, so perfect. Maybe she thought she knew what she wanted, but maybe sometimes it changed.

Maybe she didn't have every single piece of her life figured out.

As she smiled at me with smudged lipstick I couldn't help but wonder if maybe we were all faking it. If maybe me, my brother, you, her—if we were all just doing our best, figuring it out as we went along.

“Cake sounds awesome,” she finally said as she started to leave the room.

And then I wished I'd kept that last bit of batter, made some cupcakes for my family.

“It's for Katie,” I said, lying. Again. As always. Somehow it had become such a norm. I lied to them, I lied to you … maybe sometimes I lied to myself.

“Oh.” She paused, glancing back at me, her overly mascaraed eyes looking … tired. Overworked.

“You okay?” I asked, surprising not just me, but her. She hesitated at the base of the stairs, caught off-guard that I'd asked.

“Yeah. Tired, you know? We're working on a deadline. But it's good … ” Her voice trailed off and then the moment lasted longer. “You? Classes and everything are good?”

I nodded, feeling strangely … relieved. That she'd asked. That she'd taken that one single moment. “I'm doing all right.”

“Great. Because … I know I'm busy,
really
busy, but … ”

I wanted to reply, wanted to fill in the blank … but I didn't offer. I just stared.

“Well, you know,” she finished, lamely.

“Mhmmm,” I said, turning to the oven.

“Okay, well, I'll be down in a bit,” she said, disappearing up the stairs.

“Yep,” I whispered to her non-existent face.

Of course. I knew where to find her. I always did.

Maybe someday she'd find me.