“I worry that we’re losing focus on the real issue, Travis.”
This is Dr. Baker’s fourth favorite thing to say to me. As far as I can tell, the real issue is always guaranteed to be my medication (or lack thereof) and its effects on my happiness (or lack thereof). In the nearly two years I have been seeing Dr. Baker, this hasn’t changed.
“I’m not losing focus,” I say, “I just don’t know how to answer your question. I can’t tell you what it’s like to live with mom’s new boyfriend and his son, because I don’t know. Mom and Bree are moving everything into the new house right now, but I haven’t even seen the place yet. I’ve only spoken to Bill a couple times, and I’ve never met his kid.” Kid is the wrong word; Mom tells me that Bill’s son is older than me by nearly a year. Without Dr. Baker’s prompting, I amend, “I’ve never met Garen. They only dragged him back from boarding school yesterday. I guess our parents didn’t think we needed to meet before becoming housemates.”
“Does that make you angry?” he asks. This is his third favorite thing to say to me, mostly because I think he enjoys asking questions he already knows the answer to. Truthfully, a lot of things make me angry these days. Most things, even.
Instead of saying this aloud, I smile my best golden boy smile and say, “I just want my mom to be happy.”
It isn’t a lie, not at all. I do want my mom to be happy, even if it means having to live with total strangers. Dr. Baker must not be buying it, though, because he makes a vague humming noise, flips through some of the paperwork on his desk, and says, “Seems like the fluoxetine is working nicely for you. How do you feel?”
This is his second favorite thing to say, but his least favorite thing to get a legitimate answer to. I have a sneaking suspicion that Dr. Baker might go into cardiac arrest if I actually felt anything. This is because, as I’ve already proven once before, feelings are dangerous. Feelings mean honesty. Feelings mean conflict. And sometimes, feelings mean me overdosing on a full bottle of Mom’s sleeping pills, getting my stomach pumped, and spending a month “resting” at an adolescent psych ward in Utah.
See? Dangerous.
Not that the medication is any better. The past two years have been a revolving door of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and every kind has given me the same shit-storm of side effects. Nausea, headaches, dizziness, weight loss—and, to my unending joy, a serious case of limp dick, despite the fact that I’m a sixteen-year-old virgin, so I should be trying to mount anything that will stay still long enough. The constant state of drowsiness had been a killer, too, but that pendulum has swung right to insomnia, now that I’ve switched from Paxil to Prozac. It’s probably my favorite side effect; I’ve been able to double the amount of time I spend studying every night before scraping together a few hours of unconsciousness before school in the mosrning. I might feel like a zombie most days due to lack of sleep, but at least I’m a zombie who’s a shoe-in for valedictorian next year.
“Better,” I eventually decide on. “Not perfect, but better than the last kind we tried.”
Dr. Baker scribbles a note on his paper and smiles. “Better is good. Nobody’s asking for perfection, Travis.”
Bullshit. Everyone is asking for perfection; they just don’t have the decency to ask for it out loud.
The clock on the wall chimes, and I stand on reflex. Dr. Baker stands as well, shakes my hand, and guides me to the door. “I think we’ve made a fair bit of progress today, wouldn’t you say?”
No. “Yes.”
“Excellent. I’ll see you at our next session. Oh, and please, pass this along to your mother,” he says, passing me a folded slip of paper. “It’s the invoice for this season’s sessions.”
And that? That is Dr. Baker’s favorite thing to say to me.
When I escape the confines of the office building where I have my therapy sessions, I find my older sister’s white Subaru Impreza idling in the parking lot. I slip into the passenger seat and am greeted with a pinch. I bat her hand away and say, “Jesus, Bree. What the hell was that for?”
“For not pulling your weight on the unpacking today,” she says, flicking her turn signal and peeling out of the parking lot. “God, I’m sweating like a pig. I’ve been lugging boxes inside all day, and Mom’s being totally useless. I’m pretty sure she and Bill keep sneaking off to make out in the kitchen.”
“Gross,” I say, wrinkling my nose. “Can’t his son help you?”
“Oh, Garen? Yeah. I mean, he offered, and I didn’t really want him to have to carry all my stuff in, but he brought in most of the boxes that belong downstairs. And let me tell you, I’m kind of disappointed that I didn’t get to just hang out and watch, because the arms on that guy are insane—”
“Gross,” I repeat. Bree just hums and turns onto the street our new house is on. We drive for a minute in silence before I can work up the nerve to add, “Sorry you had to come pick me up.”
She steers around the moving van and pulls into the driveway. Once the car is in park, she reaches over and tousles my hair. “Don’t worry about it, Travie. It’s not a big deal.”
It is a big deal, but I’m thankful that she’s willing to pretend it’s not. There’s nothing normal about a sixteen-year-old who needs to be driven everywhere because his mom is afraid he’ll drive himself off a bridge if she lets him get his license.
There are still a dozen boxes in the truck, only a few of which are mine. I grab one at random and haul it inside with me. Bree holds the door open and nudges me into the entryway. My first impression of the interior of the new house is that it’s too big. Empty and impersonal, with off-white walls, off-white carpets, off-white everything.
My first impression of Garen is that he’s in my way. He’s sitting on the floor in the middle of the entryway, his back propped up against the wall and his legs kicked out in the middle of my path to the stairs.
“Travis, this is Garen Anderson, Bill’s son,” Bree announces, gesturing to him like she’s presenting a car on a game show. “Garen, this is my little brother, Travis McCall.”
“Hi,” I say a bit awkwardly. I’m still clutching a gigantic cardboard box, so it’s not like I can shake his hand.
“Hey—oh,” he says, finally looking up from his cell phone and freezing the moment he sets eyes on me. “Wow. Shit. Hi.”
I blink at him, then at Bree, who snorts. There isn’t much else I can think to say, so I tighten my grip on the box and head for the stairs. Halfway up, I hear Bree whisper, “Wow, can you not?”
“Uh, honest answer?” Garen whispers back. I frown over my shoulder at them, and Garen’s eyes snap back to his phone screen, though I don’t miss the fact that he’d been looking at me.
Unpacking is slow-going from there. Bree disappears to her new room, and Mom and Bill really are too busy kissing in the dining room (and, more likely than not, trying to make the rest of us ill). Garen doesn’t seem to have any intention of helping unless he’s given the go-ahead. He watches me carry box after box into the house, all without comment. On my fifth trip inside, he has retrieved a cherry-red electric guitar and is lying on his back in the middle of the entryway floor, tuning it.
“Do you want help?” he asks after I trip on the stairs for the second time. I look over my shoulder. He’s staring at a spot on the floor, but he glances over at me after a few seconds of silence. His eyes are such a dark shade of green that they look almost black. I turn back around and keep lugging the box upstairs.
“No, I’ve got it,” I say. I drop the box off in my room and go back out to the moving van to drag in one of the boxes of china for the dining room.
“You’re going to break something,” Garen observes. “Probably something glass, and then probably your back.”
I step over him, resisting the oh-so-tempting urge to crush his skull under fifty pounds of porcelain, and say through gritted teeth, “I’m not going to break anything.”
“You’re being a dumbass,” he replies calmly. I stop in my tracks and glare down at him.
“Remind me of the part where I ask for the commentary,” I demand. He smirks and looks down at the guitar again.
The kitchen door bursts open, and my mom sails out in a cloud of nauseating domestic bliss. “Travis, you met Garen!”
The gleeful enthusiasm in her voice is enough to make me gag. I look back down at Garen, who is still lying on the linoleum between my feet. He looks up at me and winks.
“It’s kind of hard to miss him,” I point out.
“Why don’t you ask him to help you?” Mom suggests.
“I offered,” Garen says. I can’t tell if he’s trying to remind me, or suck up to my mom. Either way, I roll my eyes. The action is somewhat ruined by the fact that I have to adjust my hold on the box in order to avoid making a Garen-shaped pancake. He must notice my struggles against gravity, because he warns, “If you crush my guitar, I’ll kill you in your sleep.”
“I was actually planning to aim for your face,” I explain.
Mom frowns and says slowly, “It’s nice to see that you’re already so… comfortable with one another. The, uh… openness is nice.”
“If that’s the word you want to use, sure. The openness is just great,” I say. I readjust my hold again and bring the box over to the kitchen. Bill grins at me as I pass, but the last thing I want right now is for him to think that I’m going to fall so easily into the role of youngest child in our big, happy family. I thrust the box into his arms and mutter, “Here, take this.”
“I’m writing a song about you,” Garen calls after me as I make my way back to the front door. Next out of the truck is a box of clothes for my room. When I return, Garen continues, “It’s called ‘Travis is a Stubborn Asshole.’”
I continue onward to my bedroom without comment. On my way back outside, he starts to play the guitar; without the amp, it’s softer and more raw than I’d expected, but I can still tell that he’s talented. That doesn’t make it better.
“Well, actually, it’s not about you. It’s about this awesome guy named Garen who’s got this kid living with him—you know, a future stepbrother sort of character—who starts breaking boxes full of stuff because he won’t ask for help carrying them.”
His words are enough to bring me stumbling to a stop just inside the door. I turn around and say, “I am not your brother.”
“Did I say you were?” Garen asks sharply. “I said ‘stepbrother.’ Not even that—‘future stepbrother.’”
“They’re not married,” I say.
He shrugs. “They will be, eventually. You think Evelyn would’ve agreed to move you guys in here if she didn’t think she’d get a rock out of it?”
“Shut up,” I snap, striding back out of the house to retrieve the next box. I suspect it’s my sister’s television, since it’s nearly twice the weight of any before it. My struggle must be obvious, because Garen abandons his guitar on the floor and darts outside to help me. He braces the box with his knee while I fix my grip, then takes hold of the box, hands brushing right up against mine.
Once we’re back in the house and halfway up the stairs, I grumble, “They’re not going to get married.”
“So? They might as well, since they’re already playing house. I know that’s true, your sister knows that’s true. You’re so deep in denial that it’s actually sort of cute,” Garen says.
“And you’re cool with that?” I ask.
“Finding you cute? Absolutely. I mean, I’ll admit that those funny, tingly feelings in my stomach are kind of creepy, given that they’re in relation to my pseudo-stepbrother, but I’m willing to move past that if you are,” he says.
I shove the box hard against his chest, but he barely seems to feel it. Not surprising, given that he’s built like an MMA fighter. “Fuck off. You know what I’m talking about.”
“You’re not talking about anything—you’re whining. And I really don’t care what Dad does. He and my mom got divorced when I was fourteen, right after they sent me to Patton, so it’s not like I’ve got big issues about him moving on too fast.”
“What’s Patton?” I ask.
The very front section of Garen’s weird, spiked faux-hawk has broken free of its mess of hair product and is flopping down in front of his face. He shakes it back impatiently, then leans against the banister for a second while trying to tighten his hold on the box. There isn’t enough room for us to both hold the box from different positions, so I give up and lace my fingers through his. It takes him a moment to adjust to that, I guess, because he lingers on the stairs for a beat too long before continuing to walk backwards up them.
“Patton’s, uh… Patton Military Academy. All-boys military boarding school. I went there for three years, only got pulled last week,” he finally answers.
“Sounds… fun,” I say as we maneuver awkwardly through Bree’s doorway. She pokes her head out of the walk-in closet—guess that tells me why she claimed this room as her own—and points us towards the sideboard where she wants the television set up. Instead, we dump it on the floor, and she huffs at us as we step back into the hall.
“Bet Patton was more fun than Lakewood High,” Garen says, wrinkling his nose.
I shrug. “It’s not so bad.”
He leans against the closed door of his bedroom and says, “For you, maybe. Dad told me you do cross-country.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m the only junior on the varsity team.”
Garen smirks at me. “Star player. Well, aren’t you adorable?”
I can’t tell whether he’s making fun of me or flirting with me, and the thought of either makes my face heat up. It’s nearly impossible for me to hide when a blush rises under my freckles; I rub the inside of my wrist across my forehead and turn to face my own bedroom, right across the hall from his. “Can you stop doing that?”
“Stop doing what?”
“Calling me cute. Or adorable, whatever,” I say, only turning back to face him when I’m sure I’ve returned to my normal color. “That’s twice in ten minutes.”
Garen’s eyes drop to the floor, then flicker back up to my face. “And it bothers you, I take it?”
“I didn’t say that,” I say, taking to the stairs.
Garen edges past me and throws a leg over the banister, settling himself onto it and digging the heels of his combat boots into the top of the railing to keep the speed at which he’s sliding down it equal with the speed at which I’m walking. “Then what’s the problem?”
I glance at him. He props his chin up on his fist and widens those bright green eyes at me, like whatever response I come up with will be the most interesting thing he’s ever heard. I consider pushing his sarcastic ass over the railing entirely, but I suspect Bill might object to me murdering his only child on our first day in the house together.
“I don’t know,” I say before I can come up with anything better. Garen’s eyebrows shoot up, and I snap my mouth shut so fast that my teeth click together audibly.
“But you seem like the kind of guy who knows everything,” he says. “So, why’s that? Other than because, you know, you don’t actually mind me calling you cute. Maybe you even like it. Maybe you’re madly, desperately hot for my body—which is understandable, it’s an excellent body—and you’re tormented by this sudden discovery of your latent homosexuality.”
“Shut up before I push you off the banister,” I mutter.
He grins and jumps off the end of the rail, reaching out to grip my shoulder in a falsely comforting way. “It’s okay, Trav, you don’t have to pretend. I know that behind that nice, jockish exterior, there’s got to be a sad, scared little boy just waiting for a chance to get nasty with his new housemate.”
“Garen,” Bill says warningly from the doorway of the kitchen. I jump; I hadn’t noticed him standing there. “We had this conversation at least once already before we got here. I told you to behave yourself. They didn’t let you act like this at Patton, so don’t expect to act like this here.”
The hand clutching my shoulder glides to the other side so that the length of his arm is curled over me. He uses that grip to steer us both around to properly face his father. “Actually, they did let me act like this at Patton, as long as I was doing push-ups while I was hitting on my squad sergeant.”
Bill’s eyes narrow, and he repeats, “Garen.”
“You’re right,” Garen says apologetically. “Sergeant Smitth was hideous, I’d never hit on him. I’ve got standards.” He spins back around, still dragging me with him.
“Dinner’s ready,” Bill adds. “I was asked to call you in to eat.”
He moves past us to retrieve my sister from upstairs, and Garen steers me right towards the kitchen. I try to shrug him off. “You’re going to snap my neck, if you don’t stop that.”
“Not a chance, dude. If I have to sit through this horror show of a dinner, so do you,” he says, finally releasing me. I follow him into the kitchen, where Mom is already sitting down. A minute of awkward silence passes before Bill returns with Bree. He sits down at the head of the table, and the rest of us fill in around him.
Mom takes Bill’s hand and extends her other one to Garen, saying, “Shall we start by saying Grace?”
Next to me, Bree glances over to meet my bewildered stare. We never say Grace at dinner, unless we’re having a holiday meal with Mom’s parents or her sister’s family. It’s clear that she’s only doing this to impress her boyfriend, but far be it from me to interfere with her image as the mother of a happy Christian household. Bree takes Bill’s hand and mine, and I slowly slide my other hand across the table towards Garen, who still hasn’t moved. He stares at my hand for a long moment, then turns to Mom. For the first time all evening, he looks uncertain.
“Uh… thanks?” he says. “For, you know, including me, or whatever. But I’m pretty sure I’ll sit this one out, on account of how I’m Jewish.”
Mom’s brow creases in confusion. “Your father never told me you’re Jewish.” She turns to Bill in thinly veiled horror. “Why didn’t you tell me your son is Jewish? I can’t believe I tried to get him to say Grace, I’m so embarrassed.”
No, she isn’t. I stare at her. It’s easy to tell, just from the look on her face, that her real issue is with the fact that Garen’s not a Christian, not with her own manners. And from the look on his face, Garen realizes this, too. His eyes snap to his empty plate and he says flatly, “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
Mom’s hand twitches towards me, like she’s going to reach over and go ahead with Grace anyway, but it’s too awkward for me to even consider participating. I drop my sister’s hand. “Does this mean we can stop pretending we’re not like, the worst lapsed Catholics in the entire state of Connecticut?” I say, picking up the serving dish of spaghetti even though I haven’t been able to make myself look away from the tightness of Garen’s jaw. He meets my eyes, and I offer a brief half smile and add, “It’s been so long since we actually said Grace before a meal, I’m not sure I even remember it anymore. Sorry, Mom. Guess the charade is up.”
Bree snickers and accepts the dish from me once I’ve finished filling my plate. It’s enough to break the tension, but only for a moment. Obviously unimpressed with my comments, Mom asks, “Travis, did you take your medication yet?”
I’m already halfway through the act of raising the pills to my mouth, but I pause long enough to say, “Mom, I’ve been taking them for two years. I’m pretty sure I’ve got this under control.”
Bree snorts, and I toss her a grin before dry-swallowing the pills. I can feel Garen watching me as they slide down my throat, but I ignore him and reach for the bread basket. Unable to mind his own business for even a second, Garen asks, “What are you being medicated for?”
“Nothing I plan to talk about,” I say. It’s the sort of trained response I use for people I don’t know or like. Bree’s friends, Mom’s coworkers. It’s short, rude, to the point. I’ve only known Garen for an hour, and I don’t intend to lay myself bare for him here at the dinner table.
“They’re antidepressants,” Bree supplies.
I give a sharp kick to her shin and order, “Shut up.”
“Ow! Mom, Travis just kicked me,” Bree whines.
I’m certain that Mom won’t take her side, not about this, but she says, “Travis, don’t kick your sister.”
I’ve only taken a single bite of food so far, but I’ve lost what little appetite I had. My stomach is knotting up on itself, and my throat is, too. I manage to force out, “She deserved it. When I said I didn’t want to talk about it, she should have—”
“Travie, it’s not like he’s not going to find out sooner or later,” Bree says. I think she’s trying to comfort me, but it’s not working at all. “I mean, he’s starting at LHS with you tomorrow, and you know the second he tells anyone he lives with you, they’re going to bring up the overdose.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Garen lean back a little in his chair, like he can’t help but try to get further away from me just for hearing that. My face starts to burn, and I know it must be showing. I can’t sit here anymore. The legs of my chair screech against the floor as I push away from the table. I mumble something about excusing myself, and then I make a beeline for the stairs. Storming up to my bedroom is a pointless, overly dramatic display of teen angst, but I do it anyway. I slam the door shut behind me and stare at the floor. I can’t throw myself onto my bed and cry my eyes out, because my bed is propped up against the wall, waiting to be taken down and positioned. I wouldn’t do that even if my bed was ready, considering I’m not an eight-year-old girl. Besides, I don’t need to cry; I need to breathe.
I yank open the window and twist sideways to sit, one foot balanced on the sill, the other bracing myself on the floor. I stare down at the front lawn for something like twenty minutes before I hear the click of the door opening.
“Can I come in?” Garen asks cautiously from the doorway. I nod without looking at him. The door clicks shut again, and a moment later, he appears at the edge of my vision, joining me at the window. He sits down on the sill, mirroring my position. There isn’t really enough room for both of us; his calf is crossed over mine, nearly touching it. He clears his throat and tips his head towards the lawn. “You going to jump?”
I laugh, mostly at the utter indifference in his tone. There’s silence for a minute before I realize that I have to tell him the truth now, or risk him thinking I’m a complete psycho for the rest of the time we’re living in this house together. I start with a shrug.
“It was a drug overdose, but not… not like that. Not street drugs. My mom has insomnia sometimes, and her doctor has her on these prescription sleeping pills. During my freshman year, a few days before my fifteenth birthday, I took the whole bottle. Things were tough at home, and I couldn’t handle it then. But I’m fine now. I’ve been on medication ever since, and I’m not—I don’t feel suicidal anymore. I don’t feel depressed anymore.”
I don’t feel anything anymore.
“I’m not going to jump, either,” I add, as my last-ditch effort. That at least has the desired effect and earns me a huff of laughter.
“Good. ‘Cause if I’m here when you throw yourself to your death, they’ll probably think I pushed you. Lovers’ spat or something,” he says.
“Are you ever going to stop hitting on me?” I ask.
“Probably not,” he admits. He raises his hips off the sill so that he can fish around in the pocket of his jeans. “I’m still exploring the joys of my brand new housemates, and no offense to her, but your mom’s not really my type.”
“Oh, and I am?” I question. He looks me up and down, then focuses his gaze on the toe of my sneaker.
“You might be. Wanna?” he asks. For one second that sends my heart stuttering, I have no idea what he means by that. Then, I see his extended hand and the gummy bears on the center of his palm.
“You’re a seventeen-year-old guy who carries around candy in his pockets?” I say in disbelief. He frowns and tears a green bear in half with his teeth.
“Shut up, they’re delicious,” he says. He drops the rest of the bears onto my lap, and a few of them tumble out the window before I can grab them. I pop a few of the remaining ones into my mouth. He asks, “So, things were tough at home, and you couldn’t handle it. You wanna give me the details?”
I choke on the bears. When I’m finally no longer in danger of suffocation, I gasp out, “No.”
“Why not?” he presses. I pitch a gummy bear at him.
“Because. I just met you.”
“So, what, I have to wait a month or something before I find out why you tried to off yourself when you were a freshman?”
I nod. “I’m breaking you in. If I tell you all my dirty little secrets tonight, there won’t be any fun left for the rest of the time our parents spend playing house.”
“You still think that’s what they’re doing?” he asks. I reach over and steal another handful of gummy bears from the package in his hand.
“Uh huh. I’m telling you, they won’t last a year. My money’s on three months,” I say.
Garen shrugs. “Hope you’re not putting too much money on that, because after fifteen years of fighting with my mom, I’m pretty sure my dad is looking for somebody with that sickly sweetness your mom keeps pouring out all over the place. I’m betting on them long-hauling it.”
I toss another bear into my mouth and suck on it until it loses all its flavor. Finally, I chew, swallow, and decide, “If they get engaged, I’m gonna blow up the house.”
Garen’s laughter comes out like an explosion, loud and bright. “Do I get some sort of warning before that happens?”
“This is your warning.”
“Guess I can work with that,” he agrees. He drops both boots to the floor and stands. “Are you okay now?”
I nod and look back out at the lawn. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Say it like you mean it, McCall,” he orders. When I don’t reply, he shoves the remainder of the bag of gummy bears into my hand. “Think of these as a consolation prize to dinner. I’ve got about a billion bags in my room at all times.”
“Is that how you won over all your friends at military school?” I ask.
“Nope. Mostly I just sucked their dicks and gave ‘em a bunch of drugs,” he replies. I can’t tell if he’s joking or not, especially when he tosses me a wink and heads for the door. I stay on the window sill and eat the rest of the gummy bears one by one.
This is Dr. Baker’s fourth favorite thing to say to me. As far as I can tell, the real issue is always guaranteed to be my medication (or lack thereof) and its effects on my happiness (or lack thereof). In the nearly two years I have been seeing Dr. Baker, this hasn’t changed.
“I’m not losing focus,” I say, “I just don’t know how to answer your question. I can’t tell you what it’s like to live with mom’s new boyfriend and his son, because I don’t know. Mom and Bree are moving everything into the new house right now, but I haven’t even seen the place yet. I’ve only spoken to Bill a couple times, and I’ve never met his kid.” Kid is the wrong word; Mom tells me that Bill’s son is older than me by nearly a year. Without Dr. Baker’s prompting, I amend, “I’ve never met Garen. They only dragged him back from boarding school yesterday. I guess our parents didn’t think we needed to meet before becoming housemates.”
“Does that make you angry?” he asks. This is his third favorite thing to say to me, mostly because I think he enjoys asking questions he already knows the answer to. Truthfully, a lot of things make me angry these days. Most things, even.
Instead of saying this aloud, I smile my best golden boy smile and say, “I just want my mom to be happy.”
It isn’t a lie, not at all. I do want my mom to be happy, even if it means having to live with total strangers. Dr. Baker must not be buying it, though, because he makes a vague humming noise, flips through some of the paperwork on his desk, and says, “Seems like the fluoxetine is working nicely for you. How do you feel?”
This is his second favorite thing to say, but his least favorite thing to get a legitimate answer to. I have a sneaking suspicion that Dr. Baker might go into cardiac arrest if I actually felt anything. This is because, as I’ve already proven once before, feelings are dangerous. Feelings mean honesty. Feelings mean conflict. And sometimes, feelings mean me overdosing on a full bottle of Mom’s sleeping pills, getting my stomach pumped, and spending a month “resting” at an adolescent psych ward in Utah.
See? Dangerous.
Not that the medication is any better. The past two years have been a revolving door of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and every kind has given me the same shit-storm of side effects. Nausea, headaches, dizziness, weight loss—and, to my unending joy, a serious case of limp dick, despite the fact that I’m a sixteen-year-old virgin, so I should be trying to mount anything that will stay still long enough. The constant state of drowsiness had been a killer, too, but that pendulum has swung right to insomnia, now that I’ve switched from Paxil to Prozac. It’s probably my favorite side effect; I’ve been able to double the amount of time I spend studying every night before scraping together a few hours of unconsciousness before school in the mosrning. I might feel like a zombie most days due to lack of sleep, but at least I’m a zombie who’s a shoe-in for valedictorian next year.
“Better,” I eventually decide on. “Not perfect, but better than the last kind we tried.”
Dr. Baker scribbles a note on his paper and smiles. “Better is good. Nobody’s asking for perfection, Travis.”
Bullshit. Everyone is asking for perfection; they just don’t have the decency to ask for it out loud.
The clock on the wall chimes, and I stand on reflex. Dr. Baker stands as well, shakes my hand, and guides me to the door. “I think we’ve made a fair bit of progress today, wouldn’t you say?”
No. “Yes.”
“Excellent. I’ll see you at our next session. Oh, and please, pass this along to your mother,” he says, passing me a folded slip of paper. “It’s the invoice for this season’s sessions.”
And that? That is Dr. Baker’s favorite thing to say to me.
When I escape the confines of the office building where I have my therapy sessions, I find my older sister’s white Subaru Impreza idling in the parking lot. I slip into the passenger seat and am greeted with a pinch. I bat her hand away and say, “Jesus, Bree. What the hell was that for?”
“For not pulling your weight on the unpacking today,” she says, flicking her turn signal and peeling out of the parking lot. “God, I’m sweating like a pig. I’ve been lugging boxes inside all day, and Mom’s being totally useless. I’m pretty sure she and Bill keep sneaking off to make out in the kitchen.”
“Gross,” I say, wrinkling my nose. “Can’t his son help you?”
“Oh, Garen? Yeah. I mean, he offered, and I didn’t really want him to have to carry all my stuff in, but he brought in most of the boxes that belong downstairs. And let me tell you, I’m kind of disappointed that I didn’t get to just hang out and watch, because the arms on that guy are insane—”
“Gross,” I repeat. Bree just hums and turns onto the street our new house is on. We drive for a minute in silence before I can work up the nerve to add, “Sorry you had to come pick me up.”
She steers around the moving van and pulls into the driveway. Once the car is in park, she reaches over and tousles my hair. “Don’t worry about it, Travie. It’s not a big deal.”
It is a big deal, but I’m thankful that she’s willing to pretend it’s not. There’s nothing normal about a sixteen-year-old who needs to be driven everywhere because his mom is afraid he’ll drive himself off a bridge if she lets him get his license.
There are still a dozen boxes in the truck, only a few of which are mine. I grab one at random and haul it inside with me. Bree holds the door open and nudges me into the entryway. My first impression of the interior of the new house is that it’s too big. Empty and impersonal, with off-white walls, off-white carpets, off-white everything.
My first impression of Garen is that he’s in my way. He’s sitting on the floor in the middle of the entryway, his back propped up against the wall and his legs kicked out in the middle of my path to the stairs.
“Travis, this is Garen Anderson, Bill’s son,” Bree announces, gesturing to him like she’s presenting a car on a game show. “Garen, this is my little brother, Travis McCall.”
“Hi,” I say a bit awkwardly. I’m still clutching a gigantic cardboard box, so it’s not like I can shake his hand.
“Hey—oh,” he says, finally looking up from his cell phone and freezing the moment he sets eyes on me. “Wow. Shit. Hi.”
I blink at him, then at Bree, who snorts. There isn’t much else I can think to say, so I tighten my grip on the box and head for the stairs. Halfway up, I hear Bree whisper, “Wow, can you not?”
“Uh, honest answer?” Garen whispers back. I frown over my shoulder at them, and Garen’s eyes snap back to his phone screen, though I don’t miss the fact that he’d been looking at me.
Unpacking is slow-going from there. Bree disappears to her new room, and Mom and Bill really are too busy kissing in the dining room (and, more likely than not, trying to make the rest of us ill). Garen doesn’t seem to have any intention of helping unless he’s given the go-ahead. He watches me carry box after box into the house, all without comment. On my fifth trip inside, he has retrieved a cherry-red electric guitar and is lying on his back in the middle of the entryway floor, tuning it.
“Do you want help?” he asks after I trip on the stairs for the second time. I look over my shoulder. He’s staring at a spot on the floor, but he glances over at me after a few seconds of silence. His eyes are such a dark shade of green that they look almost black. I turn back around and keep lugging the box upstairs.
“No, I’ve got it,” I say. I drop the box off in my room and go back out to the moving van to drag in one of the boxes of china for the dining room.
“You’re going to break something,” Garen observes. “Probably something glass, and then probably your back.”
I step over him, resisting the oh-so-tempting urge to crush his skull under fifty pounds of porcelain, and say through gritted teeth, “I’m not going to break anything.”
“You’re being a dumbass,” he replies calmly. I stop in my tracks and glare down at him.
“Remind me of the part where I ask for the commentary,” I demand. He smirks and looks down at the guitar again.
The kitchen door bursts open, and my mom sails out in a cloud of nauseating domestic bliss. “Travis, you met Garen!”
The gleeful enthusiasm in her voice is enough to make me gag. I look back down at Garen, who is still lying on the linoleum between my feet. He looks up at me and winks.
“It’s kind of hard to miss him,” I point out.
“Why don’t you ask him to help you?” Mom suggests.
“I offered,” Garen says. I can’t tell if he’s trying to remind me, or suck up to my mom. Either way, I roll my eyes. The action is somewhat ruined by the fact that I have to adjust my hold on the box in order to avoid making a Garen-shaped pancake. He must notice my struggles against gravity, because he warns, “If you crush my guitar, I’ll kill you in your sleep.”
“I was actually planning to aim for your face,” I explain.
Mom frowns and says slowly, “It’s nice to see that you’re already so… comfortable with one another. The, uh… openness is nice.”
“If that’s the word you want to use, sure. The openness is just great,” I say. I readjust my hold again and bring the box over to the kitchen. Bill grins at me as I pass, but the last thing I want right now is for him to think that I’m going to fall so easily into the role of youngest child in our big, happy family. I thrust the box into his arms and mutter, “Here, take this.”
“I’m writing a song about you,” Garen calls after me as I make my way back to the front door. Next out of the truck is a box of clothes for my room. When I return, Garen continues, “It’s called ‘Travis is a Stubborn Asshole.’”
I continue onward to my bedroom without comment. On my way back outside, he starts to play the guitar; without the amp, it’s softer and more raw than I’d expected, but I can still tell that he’s talented. That doesn’t make it better.
“Well, actually, it’s not about you. It’s about this awesome guy named Garen who’s got this kid living with him—you know, a future stepbrother sort of character—who starts breaking boxes full of stuff because he won’t ask for help carrying them.”
His words are enough to bring me stumbling to a stop just inside the door. I turn around and say, “I am not your brother.”
“Did I say you were?” Garen asks sharply. “I said ‘stepbrother.’ Not even that—‘future stepbrother.’”
“They’re not married,” I say.
He shrugs. “They will be, eventually. You think Evelyn would’ve agreed to move you guys in here if she didn’t think she’d get a rock out of it?”
“Shut up,” I snap, striding back out of the house to retrieve the next box. I suspect it’s my sister’s television, since it’s nearly twice the weight of any before it. My struggle must be obvious, because Garen abandons his guitar on the floor and darts outside to help me. He braces the box with his knee while I fix my grip, then takes hold of the box, hands brushing right up against mine.
Once we’re back in the house and halfway up the stairs, I grumble, “They’re not going to get married.”
“So? They might as well, since they’re already playing house. I know that’s true, your sister knows that’s true. You’re so deep in denial that it’s actually sort of cute,” Garen says.
“And you’re cool with that?” I ask.
“Finding you cute? Absolutely. I mean, I’ll admit that those funny, tingly feelings in my stomach are kind of creepy, given that they’re in relation to my pseudo-stepbrother, but I’m willing to move past that if you are,” he says.
I shove the box hard against his chest, but he barely seems to feel it. Not surprising, given that he’s built like an MMA fighter. “Fuck off. You know what I’m talking about.”
“You’re not talking about anything—you’re whining. And I really don’t care what Dad does. He and my mom got divorced when I was fourteen, right after they sent me to Patton, so it’s not like I’ve got big issues about him moving on too fast.”
“What’s Patton?” I ask.
The very front section of Garen’s weird, spiked faux-hawk has broken free of its mess of hair product and is flopping down in front of his face. He shakes it back impatiently, then leans against the banister for a second while trying to tighten his hold on the box. There isn’t enough room for us to both hold the box from different positions, so I give up and lace my fingers through his. It takes him a moment to adjust to that, I guess, because he lingers on the stairs for a beat too long before continuing to walk backwards up them.
“Patton’s, uh… Patton Military Academy. All-boys military boarding school. I went there for three years, only got pulled last week,” he finally answers.
“Sounds… fun,” I say as we maneuver awkwardly through Bree’s doorway. She pokes her head out of the walk-in closet—guess that tells me why she claimed this room as her own—and points us towards the sideboard where she wants the television set up. Instead, we dump it on the floor, and she huffs at us as we step back into the hall.
“Bet Patton was more fun than Lakewood High,” Garen says, wrinkling his nose.
I shrug. “It’s not so bad.”
He leans against the closed door of his bedroom and says, “For you, maybe. Dad told me you do cross-country.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m the only junior on the varsity team.”
Garen smirks at me. “Star player. Well, aren’t you adorable?”
I can’t tell whether he’s making fun of me or flirting with me, and the thought of either makes my face heat up. It’s nearly impossible for me to hide when a blush rises under my freckles; I rub the inside of my wrist across my forehead and turn to face my own bedroom, right across the hall from his. “Can you stop doing that?”
“Stop doing what?”
“Calling me cute. Or adorable, whatever,” I say, only turning back to face him when I’m sure I’ve returned to my normal color. “That’s twice in ten minutes.”
Garen’s eyes drop to the floor, then flicker back up to my face. “And it bothers you, I take it?”
“I didn’t say that,” I say, taking to the stairs.
Garen edges past me and throws a leg over the banister, settling himself onto it and digging the heels of his combat boots into the top of the railing to keep the speed at which he’s sliding down it equal with the speed at which I’m walking. “Then what’s the problem?”
I glance at him. He props his chin up on his fist and widens those bright green eyes at me, like whatever response I come up with will be the most interesting thing he’s ever heard. I consider pushing his sarcastic ass over the railing entirely, but I suspect Bill might object to me murdering his only child on our first day in the house together.
“I don’t know,” I say before I can come up with anything better. Garen’s eyebrows shoot up, and I snap my mouth shut so fast that my teeth click together audibly.
“But you seem like the kind of guy who knows everything,” he says. “So, why’s that? Other than because, you know, you don’t actually mind me calling you cute. Maybe you even like it. Maybe you’re madly, desperately hot for my body—which is understandable, it’s an excellent body—and you’re tormented by this sudden discovery of your latent homosexuality.”
“Shut up before I push you off the banister,” I mutter.
He grins and jumps off the end of the rail, reaching out to grip my shoulder in a falsely comforting way. “It’s okay, Trav, you don’t have to pretend. I know that behind that nice, jockish exterior, there’s got to be a sad, scared little boy just waiting for a chance to get nasty with his new housemate.”
“Garen,” Bill says warningly from the doorway of the kitchen. I jump; I hadn’t noticed him standing there. “We had this conversation at least once already before we got here. I told you to behave yourself. They didn’t let you act like this at Patton, so don’t expect to act like this here.”
The hand clutching my shoulder glides to the other side so that the length of his arm is curled over me. He uses that grip to steer us both around to properly face his father. “Actually, they did let me act like this at Patton, as long as I was doing push-ups while I was hitting on my squad sergeant.”
Bill’s eyes narrow, and he repeats, “Garen.”
“You’re right,” Garen says apologetically. “Sergeant Smitth was hideous, I’d never hit on him. I’ve got standards.” He spins back around, still dragging me with him.
“Dinner’s ready,” Bill adds. “I was asked to call you in to eat.”
He moves past us to retrieve my sister from upstairs, and Garen steers me right towards the kitchen. I try to shrug him off. “You’re going to snap my neck, if you don’t stop that.”
“Not a chance, dude. If I have to sit through this horror show of a dinner, so do you,” he says, finally releasing me. I follow him into the kitchen, where Mom is already sitting down. A minute of awkward silence passes before Bill returns with Bree. He sits down at the head of the table, and the rest of us fill in around him.
Mom takes Bill’s hand and extends her other one to Garen, saying, “Shall we start by saying Grace?”
Next to me, Bree glances over to meet my bewildered stare. We never say Grace at dinner, unless we’re having a holiday meal with Mom’s parents or her sister’s family. It’s clear that she’s only doing this to impress her boyfriend, but far be it from me to interfere with her image as the mother of a happy Christian household. Bree takes Bill’s hand and mine, and I slowly slide my other hand across the table towards Garen, who still hasn’t moved. He stares at my hand for a long moment, then turns to Mom. For the first time all evening, he looks uncertain.
“Uh… thanks?” he says. “For, you know, including me, or whatever. But I’m pretty sure I’ll sit this one out, on account of how I’m Jewish.”
Mom’s brow creases in confusion. “Your father never told me you’re Jewish.” She turns to Bill in thinly veiled horror. “Why didn’t you tell me your son is Jewish? I can’t believe I tried to get him to say Grace, I’m so embarrassed.”
No, she isn’t. I stare at her. It’s easy to tell, just from the look on her face, that her real issue is with the fact that Garen’s not a Christian, not with her own manners. And from the look on his face, Garen realizes this, too. His eyes snap to his empty plate and he says flatly, “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
Mom’s hand twitches towards me, like she’s going to reach over and go ahead with Grace anyway, but it’s too awkward for me to even consider participating. I drop my sister’s hand. “Does this mean we can stop pretending we’re not like, the worst lapsed Catholics in the entire state of Connecticut?” I say, picking up the serving dish of spaghetti even though I haven’t been able to make myself look away from the tightness of Garen’s jaw. He meets my eyes, and I offer a brief half smile and add, “It’s been so long since we actually said Grace before a meal, I’m not sure I even remember it anymore. Sorry, Mom. Guess the charade is up.”
Bree snickers and accepts the dish from me once I’ve finished filling my plate. It’s enough to break the tension, but only for a moment. Obviously unimpressed with my comments, Mom asks, “Travis, did you take your medication yet?”
I’m already halfway through the act of raising the pills to my mouth, but I pause long enough to say, “Mom, I’ve been taking them for two years. I’m pretty sure I’ve got this under control.”
Bree snorts, and I toss her a grin before dry-swallowing the pills. I can feel Garen watching me as they slide down my throat, but I ignore him and reach for the bread basket. Unable to mind his own business for even a second, Garen asks, “What are you being medicated for?”
“Nothing I plan to talk about,” I say. It’s the sort of trained response I use for people I don’t know or like. Bree’s friends, Mom’s coworkers. It’s short, rude, to the point. I’ve only known Garen for an hour, and I don’t intend to lay myself bare for him here at the dinner table.
“They’re antidepressants,” Bree supplies.
I give a sharp kick to her shin and order, “Shut up.”
“Ow! Mom, Travis just kicked me,” Bree whines.
I’m certain that Mom won’t take her side, not about this, but she says, “Travis, don’t kick your sister.”
I’ve only taken a single bite of food so far, but I’ve lost what little appetite I had. My stomach is knotting up on itself, and my throat is, too. I manage to force out, “She deserved it. When I said I didn’t want to talk about it, she should have—”
“Travie, it’s not like he’s not going to find out sooner or later,” Bree says. I think she’s trying to comfort me, but it’s not working at all. “I mean, he’s starting at LHS with you tomorrow, and you know the second he tells anyone he lives with you, they’re going to bring up the overdose.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Garen lean back a little in his chair, like he can’t help but try to get further away from me just for hearing that. My face starts to burn, and I know it must be showing. I can’t sit here anymore. The legs of my chair screech against the floor as I push away from the table. I mumble something about excusing myself, and then I make a beeline for the stairs. Storming up to my bedroom is a pointless, overly dramatic display of teen angst, but I do it anyway. I slam the door shut behind me and stare at the floor. I can’t throw myself onto my bed and cry my eyes out, because my bed is propped up against the wall, waiting to be taken down and positioned. I wouldn’t do that even if my bed was ready, considering I’m not an eight-year-old girl. Besides, I don’t need to cry; I need to breathe.
I yank open the window and twist sideways to sit, one foot balanced on the sill, the other bracing myself on the floor. I stare down at the front lawn for something like twenty minutes before I hear the click of the door opening.
“Can I come in?” Garen asks cautiously from the doorway. I nod without looking at him. The door clicks shut again, and a moment later, he appears at the edge of my vision, joining me at the window. He sits down on the sill, mirroring my position. There isn’t really enough room for both of us; his calf is crossed over mine, nearly touching it. He clears his throat and tips his head towards the lawn. “You going to jump?”
I laugh, mostly at the utter indifference in his tone. There’s silence for a minute before I realize that I have to tell him the truth now, or risk him thinking I’m a complete psycho for the rest of the time we’re living in this house together. I start with a shrug.
“It was a drug overdose, but not… not like that. Not street drugs. My mom has insomnia sometimes, and her doctor has her on these prescription sleeping pills. During my freshman year, a few days before my fifteenth birthday, I took the whole bottle. Things were tough at home, and I couldn’t handle it then. But I’m fine now. I’ve been on medication ever since, and I’m not—I don’t feel suicidal anymore. I don’t feel depressed anymore.”
I don’t feel anything anymore.
“I’m not going to jump, either,” I add, as my last-ditch effort. That at least has the desired effect and earns me a huff of laughter.
“Good. ‘Cause if I’m here when you throw yourself to your death, they’ll probably think I pushed you. Lovers’ spat or something,” he says.
“Are you ever going to stop hitting on me?” I ask.
“Probably not,” he admits. He raises his hips off the sill so that he can fish around in the pocket of his jeans. “I’m still exploring the joys of my brand new housemates, and no offense to her, but your mom’s not really my type.”
“Oh, and I am?” I question. He looks me up and down, then focuses his gaze on the toe of my sneaker.
“You might be. Wanna?” he asks. For one second that sends my heart stuttering, I have no idea what he means by that. Then, I see his extended hand and the gummy bears on the center of his palm.
“You’re a seventeen-year-old guy who carries around candy in his pockets?” I say in disbelief. He frowns and tears a green bear in half with his teeth.
“Shut up, they’re delicious,” he says. He drops the rest of the bears onto my lap, and a few of them tumble out the window before I can grab them. I pop a few of the remaining ones into my mouth. He asks, “So, things were tough at home, and you couldn’t handle it. You wanna give me the details?”
I choke on the bears. When I’m finally no longer in danger of suffocation, I gasp out, “No.”
“Why not?” he presses. I pitch a gummy bear at him.
“Because. I just met you.”
“So, what, I have to wait a month or something before I find out why you tried to off yourself when you were a freshman?”
I nod. “I’m breaking you in. If I tell you all my dirty little secrets tonight, there won’t be any fun left for the rest of the time our parents spend playing house.”
“You still think that’s what they’re doing?” he asks. I reach over and steal another handful of gummy bears from the package in his hand.
“Uh huh. I’m telling you, they won’t last a year. My money’s on three months,” I say.
Garen shrugs. “Hope you’re not putting too much money on that, because after fifteen years of fighting with my mom, I’m pretty sure my dad is looking for somebody with that sickly sweetness your mom keeps pouring out all over the place. I’m betting on them long-hauling it.”
I toss another bear into my mouth and suck on it until it loses all its flavor. Finally, I chew, swallow, and decide, “If they get engaged, I’m gonna blow up the house.”
Garen’s laughter comes out like an explosion, loud and bright. “Do I get some sort of warning before that happens?”
“This is your warning.”
“Guess I can work with that,” he agrees. He drops both boots to the floor and stands. “Are you okay now?”
I nod and look back out at the lawn. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Say it like you mean it, McCall,” he orders. When I don’t reply, he shoves the remainder of the bag of gummy bears into my hand. “Think of these as a consolation prize to dinner. I’ve got about a billion bags in my room at all times.”
“Is that how you won over all your friends at military school?” I ask.
“Nope. Mostly I just sucked their dicks and gave ‘em a bunch of drugs,” he replies. I can’t tell if he’s joking or not, especially when he tosses me a wink and heads for the door. I stay on the window sill and eat the rest of the gummy bears one by one.