Mom, it turns out, is even less fond of Garen’s drastic change of appearance than I am. She is in the bathroom when he makes his grand entrance at dinner that night.
“I didn’t know we were ordering out,” he says, pulling a carton of lo mein towards himself.
“Garen,” Bill says sternly, “you’re supposed to switch to crutches on Friday. You could refracture your ribs.”
I snort. “That’s what I said.”
Bree glances up from her plate and gives a little squeak of horror. “Oh my god, what did you do?”
“Also what I said,” I mutter.
Garen shrugs. “I’ve had the same haircut for ages now. I got bored of it.”
“So… you decided to get Ben’s haircut instead?” Bree asks.
“I don’t look like Ben,” Garen snaps.
“Yes, you do,” I say. “That’s why you did it.”
As though called in to provide evidence of this very statement, Mom chooses that moment to sail back into the room, saying, “Travis, I didn’t realize you invited Ben to—Jesus Christ almighty! Garen, what the hell did you do to yourself?”
“He felt like a change,” Bill supplies, “but really, the wheelchair is the actual issue we should be focusing on here. This could be very detrimental to—”
“Take them out,” Mom says in a low, deadly voice. “I do not approve of facial piercings, especially on my children.”
“Lucky for you, I’m not your child. I’m not anyone’s child, I’m eighteen. If I want to pierce my lip, I can. If I want to get a tattoo, I can. Which, by the way, I did, back in November. So did Travis.”
“Garen!” I hiss, but his name is barely out of my lips before he reaches across the table and yanks up my sleeve, holding his ‘T’ up next to my matching ‘G.’ I wrench my arm away, but it’s too late. Bree is already spluttering on a mouthful of soda, and Bill is already burying his face in his hands. Mom, however, still seems focused on the snakebites.
“Take them out, or I will take them out for you.”
“If your fingers come anywhere near my mouth, I will bite them off your fucking hands,” Garen warns. “It’s my body, I can do what I want with it.”
“Even mutilate it?” Mom counters.
Garen laughs. “Wrong son, Ev. You want to talk self-mutilation, maybe you should direct your attention to Travis.”
The cut under my shirt, still fresh enough to sting, suddenly feels white-hot. I am certain they all know it’s there, like there’s a spotlight on it or something. I can’t believe he’s saying this. He knows that they never knew about the cutting. He knows that my parents, my sister, everyone except Faye and Corey thought that I just up and tried to kill myself one day, without anything leading up to it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Another laugh. “The hell you don’t! Alex told me you started slitting your wrists again after I left. Or, maybe it was dating Ben that got you started again. Birds of a fucking feather, right? Does cutting yourselves mean you two finally have something in common besides my cock?”
“Alex is a liar,” I say. Alex is a traitor.
“Yeah? So, I suppose he lied about blowing you, too, huh?” Garen says, picking at his finger splints and staring at the floor now. “God, Trav. Sex with three dudes since New Year’s. Quite the little slut, aren’t you?”
The laughter comes rushing out then, completely beyond my ability to stop it. “That’s really rich, coming from you. You’ve slept with like, thirty guys.”
“Actually, the real number’s quite a bit higher than that. I downplayed it so you’d stop overreacting,” Garen says, now seeming completely bored with the conversation.
“Classy,” I say, my face burning with either humiliation or rage, I’m not sure which. “Anything else you lied to me about that you’d care to share now, at the worst possible moment, in front of our fucking parents? Since you’re apparently telling all of my secrets, you might as well tell some of your own.”
“Alright,” Garen says, finally meeting my eyes. “I fucked Ben while you and I were dating.”
For several moments, there is nothing but awkward, slightly stunned silence. Finally, I stand and shake my head. “You’re full of shit.”
“No, I’m not,” Garen says, scrambling for his crutches so that he can come limping after me as I head for the front door. “Christmas Eve, when I was over his house. He practically begged me for it, and you know how much self control I have, so I—”
“Garen Michael Anderson!” Mom roars from the kitchen. “Come back here! We are not finished with this discussion.”
“Ben wouldn’t have done that to me,” I say. Garen laughs.
“Are you seriously that stupid? Ben hated you then. Sure, he had some pathetic, stalkery little crush on you, but once I started dating you, you became person number one on his shit list. I think that’s why he was so eager. Letting me screw him was probably the best way he could get revenge on you for not dating him first.”
“Fine!” I burst out, spinning around so quickly that he crashes into me, nearly hitting the floor in a tangle of limbs and crutches. I help him straighten up, despite my better judgement, then step back. “Fine. Maybe Ben would’ve done that then. But would you? I mean, tell me the truth already, for once in your life. Did I really mean that little to you that you didn’t hesitate to cheat on me with the first guy to offer?”
“Yes,” Garen says flatly.
This house is huge, but it’s still too small for me to breathe right now. I back up until I hit the front door, then fumble for the knob behind my back. Garen glances at the door, then back at me, and I say, “Thanks, G. Next time you have one of your ridiculous, bipolar little breakdowns and try to kiss me, or propose to me, or convince me that I should leave Ben for you, I want you to remember this moment. I want you to remember what you just said to me, and why I’m walking out right now.”
I don’t give him time to respond before I bolt. As I’m jogging down the driveway, I pull my phone out of my pocket and dial Ben’s number.
“Hey,” he answers, with a smile in his voice. “How was your last day?”
“Are you home yet?” I ask.
“Yeah. Alex and I just pulled into the driveway like, five minutes ago. What’s up?”
“I’m coming over. Leave the back door unlocked.”
I snap the phone shut before he can reply, and take off down the street at sprint. I should’ve just stolen Garen’s car. It would be faster, and a much, much more satisfying revenge. I’m still not that great at driving a standard; maybe I would’ve wrecked the engine by not shifting properly. Or, that failing, I could’ve crashed it into a tree, or driven it somewhere and slashed the tires, or set it on fire. Taken his guitar with me, put it through the windshield. Wreck everything he loves, since he’s clearly taken it upon himself to wreck everything I love.
I arrive at Ben’s house soaked in sweat and breathing hard. There’s a stitch in my side, but I continue up the driveway at a brisk walk, and circle around the back to push open the sliding glass door. When I slip through the door into Ben’s bedroom, he and Alex, both of them sitting on the bed, look at me.
“What’s going on?” Ben asks.
“Did you and Garen sleep together while I was dating him?” I ask.
“Um,” Alex says, “I should probably go.”
When he stands up, I grab his shoulder and force him back down onto the bed. “No, you can stay. Answer the question, Ben.”
“Why are you asking me this now?” Ben asks. “You and Garen have been broken up since January. If I did sleep with him while you were dating, it was almost half a year ago.”
I snort. “So, that’s pretty much a ‘yes,’ isn’t it?”
“Alex, I’ll talk to you later. I think I need to—”
“Got it,” Alex says. He takes a few steps forwards, then pauses to grab my wrist. “Remember what I keep telling you. You hurt him, I murder you.”
I wait in silence until he has left, then turn my eyes back towards Ben. “Why did you do it?”
“Why are you asking me this?” Ben demands. “Did he tell you to do this?”
“He told me that last Christmas, he slept with you. I know you kissed him, because he told me that the night it happened. But he didn’t mention sex until just now. How could you not tell me about this?”
“I didn’t tell you because it didn’t happen. He’s lying, Travis,” Ben snaps. “Now, do you want to hear the truth, or not?”
I have no idea. I pace back and forth for a few moments, before finally slumping against the wall, waiting. “Fine. Yeah, I do.”
Ben shifts back until he is leaning against his pillows, then opens his mouth to speak in a low monotone I haven’t heard him use in months. “On Christmas Eve, Garen came over sometime around noon. He helped my mom fix the lights on our tree, and he baked gingerbread cookies with my little sisters. He likes kids. Did you know that?” I don’t say anything, so after a moment, he continues. “Around four, we took them sledding. Stayed out until about seven. After that, he and I came back down here. It had been a good day – the best day I’d had in a while – so I kissed him. He was surprised at first, but after about five seconds, when I crawled into his lap, he started to kiss me back. We kissed for a few minutes, and he let me take off the sweater he was wearing. He unzipped my hoodie, he touched my chest. I asked him to fuck me—”
I am going to be sick.
“—and he told me to get off him. I didn’t, so he picked me up and put me down on the bed. I asked what was wrong, even though I knew. He said he was in love with someone else, that he had already crossed the line. And then he went home to you. So, are you satisfied?”
I have no idea what to say anymore. I’d been so prepared for the fight that now, I just feel stupid. “Yeah.”
“Great. I’m not,” Ben says, and suddenly he’s on his feet, in my face. “I can’t believe you had the balls to come into my house and get pissed at me because your exboyfriend told you he cheated on you with me. If you want to get mad at Garen, get mad at Garen. But don’t drag me into it, because I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve been a good boyfriend to you since the first fucking day you—”
“I know,” I say quietly. “I’m sorry.”
Ben’s eyes are still flashing, though he seems to have stilled slightly. We stare at each other for a while, and eventually, he wraps a hand around my arm – right over the cut, though I try to hide my wince – and pulls me down onto his bed. We settle into each others arms, each of us avoiding the other’s eyes. I am the first to speak.
“He told my mom.”
Ben looks up at me through his eyelashes. “Told her what?”
“Everything,” I say hoarsely. “Told her that I’ve slept with you. And that I hooked up with Alex. He… he told her about me cutting, too.”
“Hadn’t she known?” Ben says, frowning. I shake my head.
“No. I only told Corey and Faye, back when it was happening. Garen only knows because Faye told him. And, obviously, you figured it out yourself. I told Alex. So, only a handful of people are supposed to know. But now everyone in the house does. He just announced it at dinner,” I say. “I’m lucky I never told him about the night I tried to kill myself, or else he would’ve just told everyone all the details of that, too.”
Ben makes a small noise of agreement, and suddenly, I feel my face heat up. How could I be stupid enough to bring that up? Note to self: if you’re talking to someone who doesn’t know the details of something, don’t mention said details. As if reading my mind, Ben burrows deeper into my arms and murmurs, “I don’t care if you don’t want to tell me. It’s your story to tell, so don’t think you have to go and bare your soul or whatever.”
“No,” I say slowly, “you probably should know.”
But not without some preparation, first. We head upstairs and sit down at the counter in the kitchen. Ben makes us each a cup of tea, and I manage to scrounge up some biscotti from the cupboard. Once we are both settled, I take a sip of my tea, pause, and say, “I told you about how I started cutting. How it was the only thing I could think to do after my dad left and my mom stopped speaking to me.”
I wait for Ben to say something, but he just nods. I continue, “I tried to kill myself for… pretty much the exact opposite reason. Everyone thinks that it was because I was so lonely, or that I had no one to talk to. But I wasn’t lonely. It’s impossible to feel alone when you have all these people, all these friends, or your mom, or your sister, just constantly wanting to be around you, to talk to you, to find out why you seem so sad all the time. I wasn’t lonely, I was suffocating.”
Being here, sitting here and drinking tea like this is a normal conversation, is making me go insane. I retreat to the basement bedroom again, and begin to pace the room once more. “And the thing is, no one was talking to me, they were talking at me. Telling me what I needed to do, who I needed to be, what I was supposed to be thinking. I mean, my mom was constantly pushing me to get better grades, or help around the house more, or clean my room better. Nothing I did was ever enough, and she kept telling me it, over and over and over. And that just made my friends rag on me all the time, constantly wanting to know why I was bothering to obsess over my homework, why I couldn’t blow off a family function just this once. They didn’t get why I wouldn’t just be normal. They thought I should be hanging out with them, or going out on dates. And I know you understand what it’s like, alright? I know you get how suffocating it feels when everyone wants something from you and they want it right now.”
“Yeah, I know,” Ben says softly, and I feel a sharp rush of shame. Even with his scars all over his wrists, he is so much stronger than I could ever be.
“But I was young, and I was stupid, and I was under so much pressure from every side. I didn’t know what else I could do. I had already started cutting myself, and that helped, at first. It gave me some sort of focus besides what people were telling me to do. But after a while, that became just another thing I had to worry about. I was trying to make myself stop, or I was scared someone would find out. Did you know I actually hadn’t cut myself for over a month before the attempt? But even that became something else. It was just another thing I had to add to my list, another thing I had to make sure I did as expected with. And it was just too much. Too much to deal with, too much to listen to. And I could only think of one way to silence it.”
Before I even realize he has stood up, Ben is in front of me, catching my face between his palms. “For the record? I’m unbelievably glad you didn’t succeed.”
“Sometimes, I’m not,” I mutter. Ben forces me to sit down on the edge of his bed so that, for once, we’re closer to eye level.
“Travis, listen to me,” he says. “Sometimes, you do incredibly stupid shit. You have a one-track mind a good portion of the time, and you can be a little callous when it comes to respecting other people’s feelings. And, obviously, you have this hugely infuriating blindspot when it comes to Garen—”
“So, are you actually trying to talk me into a second suicide attempt right now?”
“—but you are still the smartest, hottest, best-intentioned, most incredible person I have ever met in my life. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, and you make me embarrassingly happy. If you hadn’t come into my life, I would probably not even qualify as a human being anymore. All of the shit I’ve had to put up with, between your homophobic mom, your psychotic ex-boyfriend-slash-stepbrother, your shitty, reputation-obsessed friends? It’s all been worth it. You’re worth anything. So, please. Don’t think that you should ever do anything to hurt yourself.”
I shrug out of my t-shirt and drop it onto the floor. For a moment, Ben just looks bewildered, but then I grab his hand and run it over the cut on my arm. “Too late, I guess.”
“No,” he replies, recovering pretty remarkably. “It’s not too late. Because you’re going to learn and grow from this experience.”
The trite expression is what really gives it away for me. I reach for the zipper of his sweatshirt, and his hand twitches towards it, as if to stop me. I freeze him with a look, then finish unzipping the hoodie and push it off his shoulders. His own wrists are lined with fresh cuts, little barely-scabbed marks that can’t be more than a few days old.
Birds of a fucking feather, right?
“Are you planning to learn and grow, too?” I say.
“Yeah,” Ben says, joining me on the bed and burying us both under a mountain of blankets. “It’s the first thing on my to-do list, I swear.”
I spend the night at Ben’s house. It’s easier than going back home and getting caught in the middle of the inevitable blow-out my mom and Garen are having right now. At the very least, it’s better than having to talk to someone – any of them – about any of the accusations Garen made at dinner. I leave in the morning, sometime around ten. Ben is still asleep, so I scribble a note on a Post-It and stick it to his door. Thank you. I love you. -T.
When I finally stroll back into my house, almost everyone is gone. Bree still has another week of school, and Mom and Bill both have jobs, so it’s not like I’m surprised. Garen is sitting on the couch, his back unnaturally stiff and his eyes fixed on the wall straight ahead of him.
“Are you in a coma or something?” I ask wearily.
In response, he reaches out towards the coffee table and picks up a small glass full of a dark amber liquid. He pauses, takes a sip, then says, “No.”
“Are you drunk?” I ask.
“No.”
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
I sigh and head for the stairs. There is no way I can just sit here and watch him self-destruct all over again. At this point, I am unwilling to even keep him company while he ruins his life. He’ll just use it against me.
“I’m sorry,” he says, when I’m halfway up the stairs. “I know you don’t believe me. I don’t really care that you don’t. But I still feel I should let you know.”
“Apology accepted,” I say, barely able to keep the sarcasm from leaping out of my throat and swallowing him whole.
“Sometimes,” Garen says slowly, “I do things without being able to stop myself. I say things, and even while the words are coming out of my mouth, I don’t know why I’m saying them. Or, I’ll do something, and the whole time, I’ll be thinking to myself, ‘I need to stop this, this isn’t right, what am I doing?’ But it just keeps happening. I let it happen. It’s like I’m stepping outside of my skin, and someone else is doing these things in my place. Someone else is ruining these lives.”
“It’s not someone else,” I say sharply. “It’s you. You’re the one who’s ruining my life. And Ben’s life. And your own.”
“I know,” Garen murmurs, his unblinking eyes still fixed on the wall. “I’m just not sure how to stop it.
I descend the stairs once more, cross the room, and take the glass of alcohol out of his hand. “It’s not like this is going to help, you know. This is only going to make things worse.”
“It’s my only option,” Garen replies. “I’m out of painkillers—”
“You still had some yesterday,” I interrupt.
He smiles, blandly and still without moving his eyes. “Yes, but then I took them. Funny how drugs work. You have some, and then suddenly, you don’t. I’m all out of blow, too. I called Seth. He says he won’t be able to come out to see me until the weekend. And it’s not like I know any dealers in Connecticut. I could always just go try to find one, but they tend to be a little suspicious of white boys with vintage Ferarris and multiple broken bones.”
“Here’s an idea,” I suggest loudly. “Stop doing fucking drugs.”
He pauses for just long enough for me to wonder if he’s actually considering it. Finally, though, he takes the glass from my hand and takes another sip. “I’m not too sure I can do that anymore. But thank you for your concern.”
“Concern doesn’t even begin to cover it anymore,” I say. He shrugs.
“I don’t think you’ll have to be concerned for that much longer, so you shouldn’t worry. Dad and your mom were up all night, screaming at each other. Must’ve been three in the morning before they finally stopped. Being such a good little boy, I tried not to listen, but I couldn’t help overhearing some parts. You know, the usual. ‘That boy is a monster, he has been nothing but trouble since he got back.’ ‘If your son hadn’t broken Travis, if he hadn’t ruined my poor son, none of this would be happening now.’ ‘He should’ve just stayed away, everyone was better off without him.’ That kind of thing. And my dad may hate me sometimes, but he tends to get defensive of me if other people start to express their hatred. I’m fairly certain that one of them will have filed for divorce by the time you start school.”
It has been so long since I let myself believe that there’d be a time when Garen wouldn’t be my stepbrother. The idea is too foreign right now; I’ve got no idea what to do with it. I cough. “So, then what? I mean… you know what I’m saying. What are we supposed to think of each other if they get divorced?”
At last, Garen turns his eyes towards me, and I instantly wish he hadn’t. Looking into his eyes and seeing that cold, dead expression is so much worse than seeing it directly towards the wall. “We’ll be the same thing you think of me as now. Nothing.”
Previous Chapter Next Chapter
“I didn’t know we were ordering out,” he says, pulling a carton of lo mein towards himself.
“Garen,” Bill says sternly, “you’re supposed to switch to crutches on Friday. You could refracture your ribs.”
I snort. “That’s what I said.”
Bree glances up from her plate and gives a little squeak of horror. “Oh my god, what did you do?”
“Also what I said,” I mutter.
Garen shrugs. “I’ve had the same haircut for ages now. I got bored of it.”
“So… you decided to get Ben’s haircut instead?” Bree asks.
“I don’t look like Ben,” Garen snaps.
“Yes, you do,” I say. “That’s why you did it.”
As though called in to provide evidence of this very statement, Mom chooses that moment to sail back into the room, saying, “Travis, I didn’t realize you invited Ben to—Jesus Christ almighty! Garen, what the hell did you do to yourself?”
“He felt like a change,” Bill supplies, “but really, the wheelchair is the actual issue we should be focusing on here. This could be very detrimental to—”
“Take them out,” Mom says in a low, deadly voice. “I do not approve of facial piercings, especially on my children.”
“Lucky for you, I’m not your child. I’m not anyone’s child, I’m eighteen. If I want to pierce my lip, I can. If I want to get a tattoo, I can. Which, by the way, I did, back in November. So did Travis.”
“Garen!” I hiss, but his name is barely out of my lips before he reaches across the table and yanks up my sleeve, holding his ‘T’ up next to my matching ‘G.’ I wrench my arm away, but it’s too late. Bree is already spluttering on a mouthful of soda, and Bill is already burying his face in his hands. Mom, however, still seems focused on the snakebites.
“Take them out, or I will take them out for you.”
“If your fingers come anywhere near my mouth, I will bite them off your fucking hands,” Garen warns. “It’s my body, I can do what I want with it.”
“Even mutilate it?” Mom counters.
Garen laughs. “Wrong son, Ev. You want to talk self-mutilation, maybe you should direct your attention to Travis.”
The cut under my shirt, still fresh enough to sting, suddenly feels white-hot. I am certain they all know it’s there, like there’s a spotlight on it or something. I can’t believe he’s saying this. He knows that they never knew about the cutting. He knows that my parents, my sister, everyone except Faye and Corey thought that I just up and tried to kill myself one day, without anything leading up to it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Another laugh. “The hell you don’t! Alex told me you started slitting your wrists again after I left. Or, maybe it was dating Ben that got you started again. Birds of a fucking feather, right? Does cutting yourselves mean you two finally have something in common besides my cock?”
“Alex is a liar,” I say. Alex is a traitor.
“Yeah? So, I suppose he lied about blowing you, too, huh?” Garen says, picking at his finger splints and staring at the floor now. “God, Trav. Sex with three dudes since New Year’s. Quite the little slut, aren’t you?”
The laughter comes rushing out then, completely beyond my ability to stop it. “That’s really rich, coming from you. You’ve slept with like, thirty guys.”
“Actually, the real number’s quite a bit higher than that. I downplayed it so you’d stop overreacting,” Garen says, now seeming completely bored with the conversation.
“Classy,” I say, my face burning with either humiliation or rage, I’m not sure which. “Anything else you lied to me about that you’d care to share now, at the worst possible moment, in front of our fucking parents? Since you’re apparently telling all of my secrets, you might as well tell some of your own.”
“Alright,” Garen says, finally meeting my eyes. “I fucked Ben while you and I were dating.”
For several moments, there is nothing but awkward, slightly stunned silence. Finally, I stand and shake my head. “You’re full of shit.”
“No, I’m not,” Garen says, scrambling for his crutches so that he can come limping after me as I head for the front door. “Christmas Eve, when I was over his house. He practically begged me for it, and you know how much self control I have, so I—”
“Garen Michael Anderson!” Mom roars from the kitchen. “Come back here! We are not finished with this discussion.”
“Ben wouldn’t have done that to me,” I say. Garen laughs.
“Are you seriously that stupid? Ben hated you then. Sure, he had some pathetic, stalkery little crush on you, but once I started dating you, you became person number one on his shit list. I think that’s why he was so eager. Letting me screw him was probably the best way he could get revenge on you for not dating him first.”
“Fine!” I burst out, spinning around so quickly that he crashes into me, nearly hitting the floor in a tangle of limbs and crutches. I help him straighten up, despite my better judgement, then step back. “Fine. Maybe Ben would’ve done that then. But would you? I mean, tell me the truth already, for once in your life. Did I really mean that little to you that you didn’t hesitate to cheat on me with the first guy to offer?”
“Yes,” Garen says flatly.
This house is huge, but it’s still too small for me to breathe right now. I back up until I hit the front door, then fumble for the knob behind my back. Garen glances at the door, then back at me, and I say, “Thanks, G. Next time you have one of your ridiculous, bipolar little breakdowns and try to kiss me, or propose to me, or convince me that I should leave Ben for you, I want you to remember this moment. I want you to remember what you just said to me, and why I’m walking out right now.”
I don’t give him time to respond before I bolt. As I’m jogging down the driveway, I pull my phone out of my pocket and dial Ben’s number.
“Hey,” he answers, with a smile in his voice. “How was your last day?”
“Are you home yet?” I ask.
“Yeah. Alex and I just pulled into the driveway like, five minutes ago. What’s up?”
“I’m coming over. Leave the back door unlocked.”
I snap the phone shut before he can reply, and take off down the street at sprint. I should’ve just stolen Garen’s car. It would be faster, and a much, much more satisfying revenge. I’m still not that great at driving a standard; maybe I would’ve wrecked the engine by not shifting properly. Or, that failing, I could’ve crashed it into a tree, or driven it somewhere and slashed the tires, or set it on fire. Taken his guitar with me, put it through the windshield. Wreck everything he loves, since he’s clearly taken it upon himself to wreck everything I love.
I arrive at Ben’s house soaked in sweat and breathing hard. There’s a stitch in my side, but I continue up the driveway at a brisk walk, and circle around the back to push open the sliding glass door. When I slip through the door into Ben’s bedroom, he and Alex, both of them sitting on the bed, look at me.
“What’s going on?” Ben asks.
“Did you and Garen sleep together while I was dating him?” I ask.
“Um,” Alex says, “I should probably go.”
When he stands up, I grab his shoulder and force him back down onto the bed. “No, you can stay. Answer the question, Ben.”
“Why are you asking me this now?” Ben asks. “You and Garen have been broken up since January. If I did sleep with him while you were dating, it was almost half a year ago.”
I snort. “So, that’s pretty much a ‘yes,’ isn’t it?”
“Alex, I’ll talk to you later. I think I need to—”
“Got it,” Alex says. He takes a few steps forwards, then pauses to grab my wrist. “Remember what I keep telling you. You hurt him, I murder you.”
I wait in silence until he has left, then turn my eyes back towards Ben. “Why did you do it?”
“Why are you asking me this?” Ben demands. “Did he tell you to do this?”
“He told me that last Christmas, he slept with you. I know you kissed him, because he told me that the night it happened. But he didn’t mention sex until just now. How could you not tell me about this?”
“I didn’t tell you because it didn’t happen. He’s lying, Travis,” Ben snaps. “Now, do you want to hear the truth, or not?”
I have no idea. I pace back and forth for a few moments, before finally slumping against the wall, waiting. “Fine. Yeah, I do.”
Ben shifts back until he is leaning against his pillows, then opens his mouth to speak in a low monotone I haven’t heard him use in months. “On Christmas Eve, Garen came over sometime around noon. He helped my mom fix the lights on our tree, and he baked gingerbread cookies with my little sisters. He likes kids. Did you know that?” I don’t say anything, so after a moment, he continues. “Around four, we took them sledding. Stayed out until about seven. After that, he and I came back down here. It had been a good day – the best day I’d had in a while – so I kissed him. He was surprised at first, but after about five seconds, when I crawled into his lap, he started to kiss me back. We kissed for a few minutes, and he let me take off the sweater he was wearing. He unzipped my hoodie, he touched my chest. I asked him to fuck me—”
I am going to be sick.
“—and he told me to get off him. I didn’t, so he picked me up and put me down on the bed. I asked what was wrong, even though I knew. He said he was in love with someone else, that he had already crossed the line. And then he went home to you. So, are you satisfied?”
I have no idea what to say anymore. I’d been so prepared for the fight that now, I just feel stupid. “Yeah.”
“Great. I’m not,” Ben says, and suddenly he’s on his feet, in my face. “I can’t believe you had the balls to come into my house and get pissed at me because your exboyfriend told you he cheated on you with me. If you want to get mad at Garen, get mad at Garen. But don’t drag me into it, because I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve been a good boyfriend to you since the first fucking day you—”
“I know,” I say quietly. “I’m sorry.”
Ben’s eyes are still flashing, though he seems to have stilled slightly. We stare at each other for a while, and eventually, he wraps a hand around my arm – right over the cut, though I try to hide my wince – and pulls me down onto his bed. We settle into each others arms, each of us avoiding the other’s eyes. I am the first to speak.
“He told my mom.”
Ben looks up at me through his eyelashes. “Told her what?”
“Everything,” I say hoarsely. “Told her that I’ve slept with you. And that I hooked up with Alex. He… he told her about me cutting, too.”
“Hadn’t she known?” Ben says, frowning. I shake my head.
“No. I only told Corey and Faye, back when it was happening. Garen only knows because Faye told him. And, obviously, you figured it out yourself. I told Alex. So, only a handful of people are supposed to know. But now everyone in the house does. He just announced it at dinner,” I say. “I’m lucky I never told him about the night I tried to kill myself, or else he would’ve just told everyone all the details of that, too.”
Ben makes a small noise of agreement, and suddenly, I feel my face heat up. How could I be stupid enough to bring that up? Note to self: if you’re talking to someone who doesn’t know the details of something, don’t mention said details. As if reading my mind, Ben burrows deeper into my arms and murmurs, “I don’t care if you don’t want to tell me. It’s your story to tell, so don’t think you have to go and bare your soul or whatever.”
“No,” I say slowly, “you probably should know.”
But not without some preparation, first. We head upstairs and sit down at the counter in the kitchen. Ben makes us each a cup of tea, and I manage to scrounge up some biscotti from the cupboard. Once we are both settled, I take a sip of my tea, pause, and say, “I told you about how I started cutting. How it was the only thing I could think to do after my dad left and my mom stopped speaking to me.”
I wait for Ben to say something, but he just nods. I continue, “I tried to kill myself for… pretty much the exact opposite reason. Everyone thinks that it was because I was so lonely, or that I had no one to talk to. But I wasn’t lonely. It’s impossible to feel alone when you have all these people, all these friends, or your mom, or your sister, just constantly wanting to be around you, to talk to you, to find out why you seem so sad all the time. I wasn’t lonely, I was suffocating.”
Being here, sitting here and drinking tea like this is a normal conversation, is making me go insane. I retreat to the basement bedroom again, and begin to pace the room once more. “And the thing is, no one was talking to me, they were talking at me. Telling me what I needed to do, who I needed to be, what I was supposed to be thinking. I mean, my mom was constantly pushing me to get better grades, or help around the house more, or clean my room better. Nothing I did was ever enough, and she kept telling me it, over and over and over. And that just made my friends rag on me all the time, constantly wanting to know why I was bothering to obsess over my homework, why I couldn’t blow off a family function just this once. They didn’t get why I wouldn’t just be normal. They thought I should be hanging out with them, or going out on dates. And I know you understand what it’s like, alright? I know you get how suffocating it feels when everyone wants something from you and they want it right now.”
“Yeah, I know,” Ben says softly, and I feel a sharp rush of shame. Even with his scars all over his wrists, he is so much stronger than I could ever be.
“But I was young, and I was stupid, and I was under so much pressure from every side. I didn’t know what else I could do. I had already started cutting myself, and that helped, at first. It gave me some sort of focus besides what people were telling me to do. But after a while, that became just another thing I had to worry about. I was trying to make myself stop, or I was scared someone would find out. Did you know I actually hadn’t cut myself for over a month before the attempt? But even that became something else. It was just another thing I had to add to my list, another thing I had to make sure I did as expected with. And it was just too much. Too much to deal with, too much to listen to. And I could only think of one way to silence it.”
Before I even realize he has stood up, Ben is in front of me, catching my face between his palms. “For the record? I’m unbelievably glad you didn’t succeed.”
“Sometimes, I’m not,” I mutter. Ben forces me to sit down on the edge of his bed so that, for once, we’re closer to eye level.
“Travis, listen to me,” he says. “Sometimes, you do incredibly stupid shit. You have a one-track mind a good portion of the time, and you can be a little callous when it comes to respecting other people’s feelings. And, obviously, you have this hugely infuriating blindspot when it comes to Garen—”
“So, are you actually trying to talk me into a second suicide attempt right now?”
“—but you are still the smartest, hottest, best-intentioned, most incredible person I have ever met in my life. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, and you make me embarrassingly happy. If you hadn’t come into my life, I would probably not even qualify as a human being anymore. All of the shit I’ve had to put up with, between your homophobic mom, your psychotic ex-boyfriend-slash-stepbrother, your shitty, reputation-obsessed friends? It’s all been worth it. You’re worth anything. So, please. Don’t think that you should ever do anything to hurt yourself.”
I shrug out of my t-shirt and drop it onto the floor. For a moment, Ben just looks bewildered, but then I grab his hand and run it over the cut on my arm. “Too late, I guess.”
“No,” he replies, recovering pretty remarkably. “It’s not too late. Because you’re going to learn and grow from this experience.”
The trite expression is what really gives it away for me. I reach for the zipper of his sweatshirt, and his hand twitches towards it, as if to stop me. I freeze him with a look, then finish unzipping the hoodie and push it off his shoulders. His own wrists are lined with fresh cuts, little barely-scabbed marks that can’t be more than a few days old.
Birds of a fucking feather, right?
“Are you planning to learn and grow, too?” I say.
“Yeah,” Ben says, joining me on the bed and burying us both under a mountain of blankets. “It’s the first thing on my to-do list, I swear.”
I spend the night at Ben’s house. It’s easier than going back home and getting caught in the middle of the inevitable blow-out my mom and Garen are having right now. At the very least, it’s better than having to talk to someone – any of them – about any of the accusations Garen made at dinner. I leave in the morning, sometime around ten. Ben is still asleep, so I scribble a note on a Post-It and stick it to his door. Thank you. I love you. -T.
When I finally stroll back into my house, almost everyone is gone. Bree still has another week of school, and Mom and Bill both have jobs, so it’s not like I’m surprised. Garen is sitting on the couch, his back unnaturally stiff and his eyes fixed on the wall straight ahead of him.
“Are you in a coma or something?” I ask wearily.
In response, he reaches out towards the coffee table and picks up a small glass full of a dark amber liquid. He pauses, takes a sip, then says, “No.”
“Are you drunk?” I ask.
“No.”
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
I sigh and head for the stairs. There is no way I can just sit here and watch him self-destruct all over again. At this point, I am unwilling to even keep him company while he ruins his life. He’ll just use it against me.
“I’m sorry,” he says, when I’m halfway up the stairs. “I know you don’t believe me. I don’t really care that you don’t. But I still feel I should let you know.”
“Apology accepted,” I say, barely able to keep the sarcasm from leaping out of my throat and swallowing him whole.
“Sometimes,” Garen says slowly, “I do things without being able to stop myself. I say things, and even while the words are coming out of my mouth, I don’t know why I’m saying them. Or, I’ll do something, and the whole time, I’ll be thinking to myself, ‘I need to stop this, this isn’t right, what am I doing?’ But it just keeps happening. I let it happen. It’s like I’m stepping outside of my skin, and someone else is doing these things in my place. Someone else is ruining these lives.”
“It’s not someone else,” I say sharply. “It’s you. You’re the one who’s ruining my life. And Ben’s life. And your own.”
“I know,” Garen murmurs, his unblinking eyes still fixed on the wall. “I’m just not sure how to stop it.
I descend the stairs once more, cross the room, and take the glass of alcohol out of his hand. “It’s not like this is going to help, you know. This is only going to make things worse.”
“It’s my only option,” Garen replies. “I’m out of painkillers—”
“You still had some yesterday,” I interrupt.
He smiles, blandly and still without moving his eyes. “Yes, but then I took them. Funny how drugs work. You have some, and then suddenly, you don’t. I’m all out of blow, too. I called Seth. He says he won’t be able to come out to see me until the weekend. And it’s not like I know any dealers in Connecticut. I could always just go try to find one, but they tend to be a little suspicious of white boys with vintage Ferarris and multiple broken bones.”
“Here’s an idea,” I suggest loudly. “Stop doing fucking drugs.”
He pauses for just long enough for me to wonder if he’s actually considering it. Finally, though, he takes the glass from my hand and takes another sip. “I’m not too sure I can do that anymore. But thank you for your concern.”
“Concern doesn’t even begin to cover it anymore,” I say. He shrugs.
“I don’t think you’ll have to be concerned for that much longer, so you shouldn’t worry. Dad and your mom were up all night, screaming at each other. Must’ve been three in the morning before they finally stopped. Being such a good little boy, I tried not to listen, but I couldn’t help overhearing some parts. You know, the usual. ‘That boy is a monster, he has been nothing but trouble since he got back.’ ‘If your son hadn’t broken Travis, if he hadn’t ruined my poor son, none of this would be happening now.’ ‘He should’ve just stayed away, everyone was better off without him.’ That kind of thing. And my dad may hate me sometimes, but he tends to get defensive of me if other people start to express their hatred. I’m fairly certain that one of them will have filed for divorce by the time you start school.”
It has been so long since I let myself believe that there’d be a time when Garen wouldn’t be my stepbrother. The idea is too foreign right now; I’ve got no idea what to do with it. I cough. “So, then what? I mean… you know what I’m saying. What are we supposed to think of each other if they get divorced?”
At last, Garen turns his eyes towards me, and I instantly wish he hadn’t. Looking into his eyes and seeing that cold, dead expression is so much worse than seeing it directly towards the wall. “We’ll be the same thing you think of me as now. Nothing.”
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