Wake (74 page)

“Frank?”

Frank turns to head upstairs, but he spares me a short explanation as he goes: “Luke denied the whole thing.” That bastard. “The bruise on his jaw is still fading. It came from a low angle—from a shorter person. Luke’s friends are tall boys.”

Frank pauses on the stairs and looks at me over his shoulder. He knows the bruise came from my strike.

“If he touches you again you have my full permission to hit him.”

I love my brother.

“Are you okay?”

Frank pauses and gives me a strange look. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“What did Doug say?”

Frank just rubs his hand restlessly over his mouth and doesn’t answer my question. “Don’t think this gets you off the hook about dating that Harper kid,” he says.

“You can’t dictate who I date.”

Frank steps off the stairs and stands in the doorway, haggard and hands open in pleading. “What am I supposed to tell Mom and Dad? I’m supposed to be taking care of you and you go and date a cancer patient.”

“Don’t tell them anything. That’s worked well for both of us over the years.”

Frank’s eyes narrow. “Nice try.”

“Is the issue really that he’s a cancer patient? You know he’s in remission.”

“Yes, that’s the issue. Remission today isn’t any guarantee about tomorrow, Will . Furthermore, I don’t need to come home and find you two making out on my couch.”

“It offends your fag sensibilities to see a guy getting some action from a girl, huh?”

One look at Frank’s face, and I regret making that comment while sitting down. It’s been a long day, and he’s in the perfect position to descend and beat the living shit out of me. And from the look of him, he wants to. Frank is red all the way down his neck. His thin lips are pressed together so tightly that his long, slow breath whistles through his nose.

“Don’t use that word in my house,” he says quietly.

I get off the couch and head for the stairs. “I knew it.”

“Shut up.”

“I don’t care who you fuck, just don’t give me shit about Jem.”

“I will give you shit, because this is my house and you are a guest here. I could have let Mom and Dad toss you out on your ass when you turned eighteen, but I did you a favor.”

I turn on the third stair to face him. “So do Mom and Dad know you’re queer?” Frank’s tense silence answers my question. “They probably already know by now anyway. You’re kind of obvious.”

I turn to go and Frank calls me back. “Get your ass back here, we’re not finished yet.”

“We are.” I keep walking up.

“You’re not dating that boy!” he yells after me.

“I won’t tell Mom and Dad if you won’t.”

“That does
not
fly, Will .” I can hear his work boots on the stairs behind me. “I’m a grown man, not some teenage delinquent.”

“A grown man who can’t admit to mommy that he likes to suck cock.” I slam my bedroom door behind me, and surprisingly, Frank doesn’t try to open it. I stand there listening to him fume out in the hall way, and after a few minutes of murmured curses he heads back downstairs.

It doesn’t take long for me to regret picking that fight. I should have pretended to value Frank’s input on my love life and carried on with my own business behind his back. And the stupid thing is, I’m not even that mad at him. He was kind of good to me tonight, but I had to make a big deal out of his prejudice against Jem.

I give Frank an hour to cool down and then go downstairs. Frank is sitting at the dining table, shirt undone, with a beer in his hand and two empties nearby. He gives me a look I’ve seen on Dad so many times: wounded disappointment.

“I’m sorry.”

Frank just shakes his head. I clear away the empty bottles and take a seat across the tiny table.

“I only said that stuff because I knew it would bother you. I didn’t mean any of it.”

“You’re too old to be running your mouth like that.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” My brother doesn’t accept the apology, but that’s understandable. “You and Doug are together?”

Frank manages a sad smile that slowly turns into a grimace. “For a while now.”

“How long?”

He rolls his shoulders uncomfortably. “Since high school.”

“That long? You know if Doug was a chick Mom would be on you to get married by now.”

Frank sort of chuckles at that. “It’s simpler when no one knows. People can’t interfere with a relationship they don’t know exists.”

“Privacy’s a nice luxury,” I agree. I nod to the couch and promise that Jem and I won’t screw around in the living room. “We’ll keep that stuff upstairs.”

Frank groans and scrubs both hands over his face. “Why couldn’t you have let me believe that you’re still a virgin? For Christ’s sake, you’re my baby sister.”

“Please; you knew.”

“Why can’t you at least date someone…” Frank tries and fails to find the appropriate word.

“Why can’t you date girls?”

“Don’t.”

“You give me a hard time about dating Jem and I’ll give you a hard time about Doug.”

Frank just looks away and sips the last of his beer. He’s cutting his losses—for now. I have a feeling that this is an argument we’re going to have many times over.

“What the hell happened with Luke?” Frank says suddenly. “He’s a good kid. He’s fond of you. A little young, maybe, but no life-threatening illnesses.”

I snort at Frank’s sales pitch. “I gave him that fat black eye, remember?”

“You said no more fighting.”

“He started it.”

“Luke started a fight with a girl.” Frank’s incredulity doesn’t surprise me. “He probably just came on too strong. He’s sixteen, he doesn’t know these subtleties. You could have let him down gently instead of picking a fight.”

“That’s bullshit. Luke started it when he humped my leg, stuck his hand down my pants, and offered to fuck me bareback. The black eye was the only mark that was
visible.
”

Frank looks a little sick. “Did he hit you back?”

“Tried to choke me. I didn’t let him.”

Frank blows out a long breath. “Briana’s not the only kid that’s in trouble.”

“Luke hides it well.” I know Luke’s motive, even if it disgusts me. He was trying to replace sex with intimacy, the kind he doesn’t get at home with his mother gone and his dad so busy with Briana. Luke was just trying to fill a void that he didn’t want anyone to know existed. I know the feeling, and I know how it feels to use people to fill the gaps. I’m not interested in being used anymore.

“He gets by on charm, you know. Acts all nice to get close to people, and then takes advantage.”

“He’s not that kind of kid,” Frank argues.

I shake my head. “You don’t know who people really are until you’ve seen them at their worst and weakest.”

Frank and I share a look across the table. At his worst he’s a coward, and I’m a murderer.

Tuesday I haven’t heard from Jem since he was asked to leave, and if I know Jem, I know he’s worrying. When I wake up I send him a text:
You awake?

It takes less than a minute to get a response. “Pick up, it’s me.” Jem skips the hello and opens with a frantic, “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Did he give you a lot of trouble? I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s fine. He’s not keen on you, but I diverted that conversation. I told him about beating the shit out of Luke.”

Jem swears softly. “What happened?”

“He didn’t even yell at me. He went to Port Elmsley for a few hours and when he got back he said I could hit Luke again if there’s a next time.” I chuckle at the absurdity of those words. There’s a lot Frank can’t protect me from, but when he can he spares no effort. I can appreciate that as long as Frank can be convinced that Jem isn’t bad for me.

“We should talk to him,” Jem says. “About us.”

“Sure.”

“I mean it. Soon.”

“Let me soften him up with a nice meal first.”

“Tonight?”

“Maybe. We’ll play it by ear.”

*

Frank beats Jem and I to the punch when it comes to discussion. I come downstairs for breakfast to find him waiting for me, and he’s clearly been thinking quite a bit.

“There are gonna be rules,” he says firmly.

“Good morning to you too.”

“One: he’s not all owed in your room.”

I head for the coffee maker. It’s too early to do this without a stimulant.

“Two: you have an eleven o’clock curfew.”

I suppress the urge to groan. My curfew was fluid before I was dating Jem, as long as Frank knew where I was.

“Three: your grades better not suffer.”

“Do you want some oatmeal?”

Frank barely loses steam. “Yes. Four: no
romance
around the house.” That makes me snort. I ask what falls under the category of romance, just to make him say it. Frank gets all flustered and says, “You know…kissing, cuddling…CPR.” I laugh and he barks at me to be serious.

“Sure.”

“Good.” Frank clears his throat. “As long as we’re on the same page.”

“Jem thinks you hate him, you know.”

Frank makes this awkward motion that is somewhere in between a nod and a shrug. “I don’t dislike him,” he says vaguely.

“Fair enough.” If only he’d met my other boyfriends—then he’d be welcoming Jem with open arms.

*

Diane is more of a bitch than usual today. She’s bent on sharing her misery with everyone else, and has come to school with the plague. Or at least it sounds like it, the way she sniffles and coughs all through lunch. She can’t take a hint, either, and whenever someone inches their chair and food away from her colony of bacteria, she adjusts her chair to be part of the group again.

“Will you cover your damn mouth?”

Diane glares at me through puffy eyes. Screw it; she already hates me so I’m not fussed with being nice to her. And she is disgusting—we’re trying to eat here, and her cold has relegated Jem to the distant end of the table, as far away from her as possible because the last thing he needs right now is an infection.

“Maybe you should go home,” Paige says in that ‘friendly’ voice that borders on bossy.

“I’m fine.”

“Your nose is running.” Cody points. We’re treated the squelching sound of snot as she blows her nose at the table. She sets the used tissue on her lunch tray, right next to her peas.

Her passive-aggressive stunt doesn’t last much longer, though. Mrs. Hudson takes one look at Diane when she walks into Social Studies and tells her to go home. Thank God.

*

Frank calls to tell me he’ll be working late tonight. “You call and tell me if you’re going anywhere,” he says sternly. He means if I’m going to see Jem.

“I have to work tonight.” I conveniently forget to mention that Jem is here at the house with me, hanging out before I go to work at five. I tell Frank that there are leftover fish and scal oped potatoes in the fridge, and spend five minutes convincing him that reheating it in the oven is better than the microwave. He thinks mushiness is a fair price to pay for quick food. Men.

When I go upstairs I find Jem studying my bookshelf, reading the backs of novels and judging the covers. I col ect books like he col ects music.

“See anything that interests you?” Jem shakes his head, and I’m not surprised. He’s more interested in concrete sciences than he is in literature and art.

He asks if he can have a picture of me. What a strange question.

“Like, you want to take one?” Most people wouldn’t ask. They’d just whip out their cell phone and snap a few shots in the spirit of self-entitlement.

Jem shakes his head; he doesn’t want to take a photo. He wants to know if I brought any pictures here from St. John’s, family photos and the like.

I take my photo album out of my closet and hand it over. “Take what you want.” Mom has all the negatives saved, anyway.

Jem looks through that damn album for a whole hour, even though it’s only thirty pages thick. He doesn’t ask questions either, which is very un-Jem. He ends up taking two photos to keep. One was taken by Mom as I was waiting to pull out of the driveway for school. I’m looking to the side, watching for traffic, but my face is obscured by my helmet. I think Jem just likes the image of me on a motorcycle.

The other picture was taken a year ago, at the red center. I was sitting on the floor of the gymnasium, eating a cupcake. We had snacks for Parents Day at Group. Steve is visible behind me in the photo, but his face is out of frame. His service dog, a black lab that always had a soft spot for me, rests his chin on my shoulder and eyes my cupcake.

I’m not sure why Jem chose that photo. I didn’t think he would want evidence of my long and convoluted history with therapy groups, or of Steve. I don’t want to ask him about his reasoning.

I expected him to get weird after I told him about the guys I dated in St. John’s. I thought that little tale would be the final straw for Jem, since assisted suicide and emotional ineptitude didn’t do the trick. But he’s still here, reaching for my hand and fishing for kisses. There are times, though, when I swear he’s thinking about it. I keep waiting for him to change his mind and pull the rug out from under my feet. I suppose I should just enjoy him while the moment lasts.

*

I wonder if it’s by design or accident that Chris and I always have matching shifts. At least he isn’t in a talkative mood tonight. We spend the early part of our shift cleaning the suites of today’s check-outs, and every time I look over, I see him texting. It’s not until the end of the night that I learn that he’s trying to secure a prom date, now that he and Paige aren’t an item anymore.

“Anyone I know?”

“Heidi Hal onquist.” I vaguely remember the name. I’m pretty sure she’s on the track team or the field hockey team or something… I hope Heidi doesn’t own a car, because Paige is probably going to key it when she finds out she can’t crawl back to Chris as a last-ditch prom date.

“Have you gone in with anyone to pool the cost of a limo?” he asks.

“I’m not going to prom.”

“Harper isn’t taking you?”

“Nope.”

Chris gives me a sympathetic smile. “You can come with the group if you want. We wouldn’t make you feel like an extra wheel.”