‘Are they really that wealthy?’ I asked, curious. I didn’t think of myself as some naive country kid, but Oliver had been mixing in circles I had never known.
‘Disgustingly,’ Oliver replied cheerfully. ‘Remember my roommate freshman year?’ He nudged Ethan. ‘The guy was heir to some oil fortune, out in Eastern Europe. I would have hated him for it, except he always picked up the check.’ Oliver grinned.
I laughed. ‘Doesn’t sound too bad to me.’
‘It wasn’t.’
‘So why leave now?’ Annette spoke up. ‘Darling, surely if you just finished out the year and graduated . . . ’
Oliver’s smile slipped. ‘Mom, please, we’ve got company. You’re making Chloe uncomfortable.’
‘I’m fine,’ I said, self-conscious.
‘Look, she’s practically bolting from the table,’ Oliver continued.
Annette looked away. ‘You’re right, I’m sorry.’ She cleared her throat, as if he’d been the one scolding her. ‘Now, who wants pie?’
After dinner was done, Annette and Derek retreated into the den, leaving ‘us kids’ to clean up while they closed the door on fervent whispers.
‘What do you think they’ll try this time?’ Oliver asked Ethan, lounging back against the kitchen counter as we did the dishes with a practised rhythm: him washing, me on drier duty. ‘A new car? Flat-screen TV? My parents are big believers in positive reinforcement,’ he added, explaining to me. ‘They prefer to smother you with bribes until you fold.’
‘Dude, you didn’t have to break it like that,’ Ethan told him, looking up. ‘Out of nowhere, no warning . . . ’
‘What kind of warning do they need?’ Oliver idly picked at the dessert leftovers. ‘I’m twenty-one now; it’s my life, not theirs.’
‘It’s their tuition money,’ Ethan pointed out.
‘Baby brother doesn’t like to disobey,’ Oliver told me, with a wry look. ‘He’s a people pleaser. But then, you probably knew that already.’
Before I could respond, Ethan spoke up. ‘I told you, don’t call me that.’
‘What, baby brother?’ Oliver drawled it with a grin.
‘I’m not a kid any more.’
‘But you’ll always be my baby brother,’ Oliver said, faux-serious. ‘We’ll be drooling old bachelors on our La-Z boy recliners, and you’ll still be younger than me.’
‘You know what I mean.’ Ethan turned, his jaw set with frustration.
I quickly stepped between them. ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ I told Ethan, placing a hand on his arm. ‘Oliver can finish up here.’
‘Can I now?’ Oliver looked amused.
I tugged gently on Ethan’s arm. ‘Coming?’
‘Sure.’ He hurled the wet dishcloth at Oliver, hitting him squarely in the chest. ‘All yours, big brother.’
Ethan took the stairs two at a time up to his room. He closed the door behind us and then flopped down on his bed with a sigh.
‘So that’s Oliver, huh?’ I started cautiously.
‘Yup.’ Ethan rolled over to turn his iPod on. A second later, a familiar indie rock song filled the room.
‘Is he always this . . . ’ I paused, searching for the right word, but Ethan filled in the blank for me.
‘Dramatic? Egotistical? Yup. You’ll get used to it.’ He lay back, folding his arms underneath his head. ‘I’m surprised it took him this long to quit.’
‘What do you mean?’ I kicked off my shoes and joined him on the bed, scooching back against the wall and curling my legs up beneath me on the quilt.
‘Olly can’t stick with one thing for long,’ Ethan explained. ‘He has the attention span of, like, a gnat. He switched schools every other year, he’s always bouncing around the place.’
‘Still, quitting school is a big deal.’ I felt a stab of envy. I could barely afford to take a couple of community college classes for credit, let alone go somewhere as prestigious as Yale. ‘To have that opportunity, and then just walk away?’
My voice must have betrayed me, because Ethan sat up. ‘Hey, don’t let his dumb choices get to you.’ He reached to slide a hand around my waist. ‘Oliver is . . . his own person. Believe me, this isn’t even the craziest stunt he’s pulled.’ There was a note of admiration in his voice, so I didn’t argue. Oliver had seemed so cavalier, just announcing his decision to quit like that, but I didn’t know what was really going on with him. Like he’d said, it was his life.
‘Now, how about we stop talking about my brother?’ Ethan suggested with a familiar smile. He pulled me closer, so I was sitting in his lap, my body pressed against the warmth of his torso.
‘So what should we talk about?’ I smiled, relaxing against him.
‘Talking wasn’t exactly what I had in mind . . . ’ Ethan dipped his head and kissed a light trail along my collarbone. I shivered, pulling his mouth back up to me and kissing him hard until we were tangled and breathless on the bed. With the music playing loud, I didn’t need to talk, or think, I only had to feel the race of my heartbeat and his body cradled, hard between my thighs as his hands hungrily roved across my body.
‘Don’t mind me.’
I snapped up at the sound. Oliver was standing in the open doorway, watching us with a smile.
I yelped, rolling out from under Ethan and grabbing for my sweater. I scrambled to pull it on over my bra as he sauntered into the room.
‘You heard of knocking?’ Ethan complained, breathing heavily.
‘Just be glad I’m not Mom.’ When I turned back, my sweater securely in place, Oliver was regarding me with amusement. ‘Does she know you’re defiling poor Chloe under her roof?’
I flushed.
‘Dude,’ Ethan said, warning in his voice. ‘Be cool.’
‘No judgment.’ Oliver held his hands up. ‘I’m all for young love, flowering ye rosebuds etcetera, etcetera. Just saying, you might want to get a lock on that door before things get real embarrassing.’
As if they weren’t already. I leaped up. ‘I’ll be right back,’ I said quickly, my cheeks burning as I ducked past Oliver and down the hall to the bathroom.
I shut the door and caught my breath. My expression in the mirror was pink-cheeked, guilty; hair in a mess, my shirt askew. I cringed with embarrassment as I ran cold water over my wrists, trying to collect myself. For the first time, I agreed with Ethan: we needed privacy. Annette and Derek left us to our own devices, but Oliver had strolled in as if the closed door meant nothing. If he’d been even a few minutes later . . .
I remembered the feel of Ethan’s hand against my zipper and blushed even harder.
When I got back to Ethan’s room, he was sprawled on the floor beside Oliver, video game consoles in their hands and some kind of violent war scene up on the TV. He was there to stay. I felt a brief stab of annoyance, but then curiosity took over and I scrambled back up on to the bed to watch them.
‘You play?’ Oliver waved his handset at me.
I shook my head. ‘Not my thing.’
‘Shame. It’s great to let off a little steam. But then, you already have your ways.’ Oliver winked.
I hugged my knees to my chest, wishing I could take back the last ten minutes.
‘They give you a hard time about the Yale thing?’ Ethan asked his brother, his eyes on the screen, absorbed.
Oliver shrugged. ‘What can they do?’
‘You really quit?’ I spoke up, watching him. Oliver looked over.
‘Yes ma’am. Walked out of an econ lecture and never looked back.’
I shouldn’t have pressed, but I couldn’t help it. ‘What about a job? Won’t you need a degree? And what will you tell people, when they ask why you didn’t finish?’
Oliver tilted his head at me, assessing. ‘I’ll tell them whatever I want. Maybe I got recruited by a top-secret government agency, or left to start up my own billion-dollar tech firm.’
‘But that’s not true.’
‘Don’t you know? There’s no such thing as the truth.’ Oliver ya
wned. ‘We all walk around trapped in our own subjective consciousness, experiencing the same events through a totally different lens.’
I blinked at him, thrown.
‘Dude, enough of that philosophy bullshit.’ Ethan kicked at Oliver’s outstretched legs. ‘True fact: I’m whipping your ass right now.’
‘Dream on.’
The boys went back to their game, but Oliver’s words lingered. He was right; hadn’t I thought it often enough this year, that me, Mom, and my dad were all living completely different versions of the same events? To Dad, he was the hero in his story, ‘doing the right thing’ despite the wreckage it left in his wake. Wreckage I was left to clear up, every single day.
‘So what’s your story?’ Oliver’s voice came over the din of explosions on-screen, and when I looked up again, he was watching me with that cool blue gaze.
‘What do you mean?’ I avoided his eyes, watching the two fighters moving through a bombed-out village, peppering machine-gun fire through the smoke and fire.
‘Why haven’t you gotthe hell out of this one-horse town? Don’t get me wrong, it’s very charming, in the whole Norman Rockwell picket fence way, but I wouldn’t have thought it was your scene.’ Oliver jerked his console and a line of villagers were mowed down.
‘You’re meant to be saving the civilians, not smoking them.’ Ethan laughed.
‘My bad.’ Oliver glanced up, meeting my eyes with an arch of his eyebrow. ‘Well?’
I rested my cheek against my knees, not sure how to reply. He already thought he knew who I was: he’d put me in a box in his mind, and I couldn’t help but wonder what that was.
‘Chloe’s helping out at home,’ Ethan answered for me, reaching up to pat my legs. ‘Her mom’s sick, so she’s waiting for a while before college.’
I felt a flicker of irritation, like he’d shared a secret he shouldn’t have. But that was wrong. It was hardly a secret if everyone in town knew.
‘Why?’ Oliver asked again.
‘Why what?’ I said slowly.
‘Why should you have to look after her?’
I paused. ‘She’s my mom.’
‘And?’ Oliver prompted.
‘And nothing.’ I clenched my jaw to keep from snapping.
‘Easy there, tiger.’ Oliver’s lips curled in a smile. ‘I’m just saying, our Aunt Glenda broke her leg last year, but that didn’t mean I had to put my whole life on hold to go help her to the bathroom.’
‘That’s different,’ I argued. I felt my irritation growing, an inexplicable burn. ‘She’s my mom. I’m supposed to look out for her.’
‘Only if you choose. Obligation is a two-way street,’ Oliver said, turning back to the game. ‘Doesn’t work unless you agree to play. But hey, leaving home can be a scary thing. Ethan here never managed it. Maybe it’s good you have an excuse to stay.’
‘Bro . . . ’ Ethan warned. ‘Drop it.’
‘No!’ I spoke over him, scrambling to my feet in a flash of anger. A month of stress and constant anxiety suddenly reared up inside me. ‘You don’t get to say that,’ I accused him. ‘You think this my choice, to stay here, instead of starting my actual life? You think I want to be stuck working crappy temp jobs trying to pay the bills?’ My voice came, loud. ‘That I’m using the fact my mom had a nervous breakdown as some kind of excuse?’
Ethan was on his feet in an instant. ‘Hey, it’s OK,’ he tried to calm me. ‘Olly didn’t mean that, did you?’ He turned to Oliver, who was still sprawled on the floor.
Oliver held up his hands, his face innocent. ‘I was just asking.’
‘See?’ Ethan soothed me. ‘You took it wrong.’
It didn’t feel that way to me, but just as soon as it had boiled up, my anger deserted me. I stood there, heart pounding, feeling foolish at my outburst. ‘I think I should go now,’ I muttered.
‘No, stay.’ Oliver put the console aside and got to his feet. ‘I’m leaving. See? You guys can get back to . . . well, whatever you were doing.’ He slapped Ethan on the back, but that was even worse.
‘It’s late.’ I said. ‘I have to get back. Ethan?’
‘Sure, I’ll take you.’ Ethan looked for his shoes, but I was already heading for the door.
‘Nice meeting you, Chloe.’ Oliver’s voice followed me out into the hall. ‘See you soon!’
I headed blindly downstairs, trying to pull myself together. I’d overreacted, I knew that already, but still, I couldn’t help it.
‘Don’t let him push your buttons,’ Ethan said, catching up in the foyer. ‘It’s what he does, you’ll get used to it.’
I turned away. ‘I’m fine.’ I grabbed my coat from the hall and pulled it on. ‘Ready to go?’
‘All set.’ Ethan held the door open, waiting until I’d stepped out into the cold night air before following after me.
We walked slowly away from the house. ‘You didn’t say you were paying the bills,’ Ethan said quietly. ‘I thought you were saving for tuition, travel.’
My stomach lurched. ‘I am.’ I managed a bright reply. ‘I just meant, it’s a lot of responsibility, that’s all.’
‘I know.’ He reached over and took my hand, pulling me to a stop. He looked down at me, reaching to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘I think you’re amazing,’ Ethan said quietly, looking almost shy for a moment. ‘What you’re doing, taking care of her.’
I looked away, self-conscious. ‘It’s not a big deal.’
‘It is.’ Ethan corrected me. ‘I’ll talk to Olly, he shouldn’t have pushed you like that. He’s just making trouble.’
‘Don’t.’ I could see Oliver’s eyes on me, whenever Ethan answered for me or reached to pat my legs. Like I was some kind of helpless girl in need of protection. ‘It’s fine, really. I don’t care,’ I said again. ‘But maybe you should get that lock for the door.’
Ethan chuckled. ‘First thing tomorrow. Anyway, I’m sure he’s got better things to do than hang around here. I’ll make sure he doesn’t bother us again.
I watch him through the window of the ICU, laying so pale and still. My fingers itch to push his hair back out of his eyes, trace the contours of his face the way I used to, late at night.
I swear, I know his body by heart.
It shocked me, just how easily he tore apart under that blade: skin slicing open, the fibres of his form splitting apart, gaping red and angry inside. He was always so solid to me, from the moment he first sauntered into my life: every limb and sinew flowing together in an indivisible whole; the smile and the walk and the absent-minded gestures. He was a presence, complete.
Necessary.
I never thought about the cells and cables strung just below the surface, the clockwork pieces ticking to keep his body in time. The things that could be pulled apart and, in a heartbeat, make him less than the sum total of himself.
There are wires trailing over his body, machines that beep in a low hum. Glass walls divide us, keeping me from him.
I watch, and I wait, and I wonder.
Did they find the other body too soon?
The week passed, day by dreary day. Ethan didn’t mention Oliver again, so I didn’t ask. Instead, I threw myself into applications for classes at Rossmore, navigating the process of getting my transfer approved in between my shifts at the sheriff’s department and late nights working at the diner. I had a glimpse of light, some way to make sure this time wasn’t wasted in vain, and I was determined to make it work. When Mom was better, when I was back in college again . . . The promises I made to myself seemed distant and wispy, but they were all I had.
‘So if I get my credits, I could start as a sophomore next year,’ I explained to Alisha when I called her Friday night, taking a break from my shift at the diner. ‘I wouldn’t miss a thing.’
‘Uh-huh, that’s great.’ Alisha paused. ‘And Ethan’s good?’
‘Yup. Work’s fine too,’ I offered, wishing I had something more exciting to share. ‘Crazy Mrs Wellstone is fighting with her neigh
bour over the land division again; she kept lighting garbage on fire and throwing it over the fence. They had to send two deputies to calm her down.’
‘Wow, scandal in Haverford, it never stops.’ Alisha’s voice was teasing, but it made me regret saying anything at all.
We fell silent. I could hear noise in the background on her side of the call, laughter and loud music. ‘Sounds like a party,’ I offered quietly, feeling a sting of envy as I looked around the diner. It was after ten now, just a few customers lingering over late-night fries and pie.
‘What was that?’ Alisha asked, sounding distracted.
‘I said . . . Never mind,’ I sighed.
‘Oh, wait, did I tell you, I saw Jace Dade the other day?’ Alisha asks, naming a boy who’d been the year above us in school. ‘He’s at college out here too, it was totally random – I bumped into him at this party thing by a guy in my calculus class. We talked about you,’ she added. ‘He couldn’t believe you’re still in town. He said you were like the girl least likely to stay in Haverford.’
She laughed, but I felt the words like a blow.
‘I mean it though, Chloe.’ Alisha’s voice dropped. ‘You need to figure this out; it doesn’t make any sense for you to be stuck back there, not after everything we went through to get into college in the first place.’ There was muffled conversation for a moment, and then Alisha’s voice came again. ‘Look, I’ve got to go. Things are crazy here. Say hi to my dad, OK?’
‘OK,’ I replied, but she’d already hung up; back to the party of her new life, while I wiped down tables and refilled ketchup bottles.
I didn’t know if I could take talking to her any more. Every call reminded me of what I was missing out on, how small and mundane my life had become. She was my last remaining friend, save Ethan – the rest of my high school classmates had drifted away in a clutter of online updates and laughing photos – but I could sense Alisha’s reluctance every time she answered my calls, hear the faked enthusiasm in her voice when she quizzed me about my boring jobs and everyday life.