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Charles and Bronwyn sat together with their friends around one of the large, round tables that had been set up in the back garden, sneaking sips of champagne when their parents weren’t looking. They all were guaranteed to win something: Nadine the English department’s award, Rob a plaque for student government, Bronwyn for art and science, and Charles, well, Charles was pretty sure he was getting the Academic Achievement of the Year. It was a Renaissanceman award, reserved for the senior who excelled in all areas—academics, community service, and activities. The awards committee allegedly kept the winners secret from the board members, but Charles had a feeling his mother knew something. Why else had she asked his father to come home from the office early so he could catch the entire presentation? Why else had she gazed lovingly at Charles while he put on a jacket and tie, telling him she was so proud of all he’d accomplished?
The headmaster, Jerome, stood in front of the rose trellis—they’d long since replaced the one Scott had burned—calling out the sports awards. When he called Scott’s name for wrestling, Charles thought it was a joke. It was unheard of for underclassmen to be honored. Scott burst through the crowd, wearing a brown suit that seemed like it had been dug out of some seventies time capsule. Everything about the suit was huge, made for a much larger man, and the pants sagged low on Scott’s hips, the same fit as his jeans. He swaggered with irony up to the stage and instead of shaking Jerome’s hand, slapped him high five. Jerome looked startled but then smiled nervously. There was a guffaw from the left—their father. He had materialized at the table next to his mother when Charles wasn’t watching. Charles suddenly felt anxious and sweaty, astonished his father was really here and annoyed Scott had stolen some of his thunder.
Jerome continued with the sports awards and then moved on to academics. One by one Charles’s friends rose to claim plaques. The Academic Achievement of the Year was last, and Jerome took a long time winding up to it. Bronwyn squeezed his hand. Charles glanced at his father. He was still there, listening. When Jerome called out Heather Lawrence’s name, Charles stood halfway anyway. Bronwyn pulled him down.
Heather Lawrence made her way across the grass. She was in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down from a childhood illness. She was a coxswain for the boys’ crew team; the crewmen gently carried her into the boat whenever it was time to practice or race. Charles had a lot of classes with her; Heather diligently turned in papers and gave oral reports from her chair. She’d been accepted to Harvard and Brown, but she was going to Penn to remain close to her family.
Bronwyn dropped Charles’s hand and began to clap. How could she not clap? How could any of them not? When Charles glanced at his parents, his mother looked sheepish. More than likely she’d assumed Charles would win, too, forgetting about Heather entirely. His father clapped tepidly, his expression not wavering. From the back of the garden, someone yelled out, “Yeah!” Charles swore it was Scott’s voice.
After that Jerome thanked everyone for coming, and the crowd began to disperse. Scott approached Charles’s table, his arms across his chest.
“Uh, hi,” Schuyler, one of Charles’s friends, finally said.
“Hey,” Scott answered.
He stared right at Bronwyn, coolly and challengingly. Bronwyn flinched and looked away, and Charles oscillated between the two of them, wondering if he was missing something. Bronwyn ran her tongue over her teeth and stood up. “Excuse me,” she said, walking back into the house.
“Are you all right?” Charles called after her.
“I’m fine,” Bronwyn said over her shoulder, shooting him a smile.
Charles’s other friends, likely sensing the tension, congratulated Scott on his award. Scott blinked, broken from his trance. He stared at the plaque in his right hand. “Right,” he said, indifferently. Scott’s fingerprints were all over the brass plaque. It would languish in some cardboard box under his bed, unappreciated. Ha, he no doubt thought. Dad came home from work just in time to see you lose … again. Why else had Scott stopped at this table? Charles’s gaze slid over to their parents. Their mother was still sitting at the table, but their father was gone. Charles could practically hear Scott’s thoughts as he loomed over them, his suit smelling vaguely of mothballs. You think you’re so great with your fancy friends and your ass-kissing, but I know how it really is.
But when Scott met his eye, his face wasn’t full of nasty smugness but of pity. He lingered on Charles for a moment, and then turned toward the house. Rage flooded Charles’s body. Smugness he could handle, but pity was reprehensible. After a few shallow breaths, Charles stood up roughly, bumping his knees against the bottom of the table, and followed his brother through the side door.
He found Scott standing in the mud room next to the washing machine. The air felt ionized, fraught with another presence, as if someone had just slipped out of the room. “Apologize,” Charles boomed. “Apologize now. ”
Scott gazed at him warily, exasperatedly. “Apologize for what?”
Charles twitched. Scott stared at him, waiting. Pity crossed his face again. He threw his shoulders back, waved his hand, and turned toward the kitchen.
“Come back!” Charles screamed.
He chased Scott into the mud room, spun his brother around, and pinned him against the utility sink. His insides felt black and curdled. Lava rose to his throat and spewed out his mouth. “This is all just a joke to you, isn’t it,” he said through his teeth. “You don’t get what you have. You should be grateful. But instead you act all … entitled. Like you deserve this. But you’re a piece of shit. You came from nothing. And you will be nothing. You’re the joke, don’t you see? You’re going to end up just like where you came from. Nothing but a n-n—”
The word hung on his lips. He reined himself in, holding back, but was still out there, as good as said, radiating out in toxic, concentric waves. All the pain inside him, all the dark, insecure caverns of his mind illuminated.
Scott didn’t flinch. His gaze was eerily neutral. There was a presence behind them, a horrified crowd, a gasp. Charles could smell Bronwyn’s perfume. He heard his father’s signature, guttural cough. His father had heard every uttered, and almost uttered, word.
Scott had the view of whoever was behind them. His gaze wavered from Charles, and his eyes dimmed. When he refocused on Charles again, things got blurry, and in a split second Charles was on the ground, gasping for air. Scott’s face loomed above him, his breath hot on his cheeks. Their father appeared and pulled Scott to his feet. Charles rolled to his side, coughing.
It was amazing how quickly they hushed things up, how Scott was shuttled to one room and Charles to another. He could hear their father shouting and Scott shouting back, but he couldn’t make out the words. Charles’s mother ran into the house, crying, “What happened? What happened?”
Bronwyn volunteered to take him away for a while. She helped Charles into her car and they snaked down the driveway. Charles crumpled against the seat, repentant. He didn’t dare ask Bronwyn if she’d heard what he’d said. The answer, he knew, was yes—she’d been right there.
They drove to the bottom of the hill and parked at the edge of the cornfield. Bronwyn gripped the steering wheel hard. “There’s something I have to tell you,” she whispered.
Charles kept his chin wedged to his chest. His stomach felt slashed open.
It took Bronwyn a long time to speak. “I think it would be best if we spent some time apart. ”
“Okay,” he answered stonily. He wasn’t about to ask why. He didn’t need to hear how disgusted she was that he had the capacity to say such things. He didn’t want to hear her say, You deserved it. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
There were tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry. ” Which made him feel even worse: what the hell did she have to be sorry for?
She offered to drive him back up the hill to the party, but he said that wouldn’t be necessary, he could walk. She took off fast. He never saw her
again.
Did Charles really need to revisit that? Did he really need to face someone who obviously detested him enough to not just cut all ties with him, but every single one of his friends, too? And yet, it was tempting. There would be something both edifying and purifying about seeing Bronwyn now. Having Bronwyn say her piece, once and for all. It could be good to know who Charles had been before in order to know who he had become. It could be good to know the damage he might have done.
It was tempting to see her and know she was real, that it had really happened. Because if it truly was her, what she’d done was the same thing Scott had done—take everything she had been given and cast it aside. Maybe there was something to doing that, something Charles didn’t yet understand. Maybe her decision had been the right one.
Chapter 9
Sylvie didn’t even notice the rain until it turned to hail. It pelted on the roof, making harsh, ugly smacks so forceful she thought it might be taking off whole shingles and layers of paint. Just minutes had passed and there was already a small stream in the front yard. Hail bounced off the roof of Scott’s car in crazy angles, ricocheting off the metal pole of the basketball hoop Scott still used. She ran around shutting all the windows.
She went to the living room and nestled under a blanket. It was almost midnight, but she was too wide-eyed to sleep. Once again, she went over the day.
It astonished her that Christian’s father had been . . . a person?human, capable of complex and contradictory feelings. She often felt this way about people she didn’t know. That it was incredible that their inner lives were as complicated as hers was. It reminded her of when Scott was very young and used to play with Legos, dumping the garbage can of blocks on the living room floor and creating entire towns—houses, doctor’s offices, gas stations, grocery stores, airports. He would leave the backs of the buildings exposed so he could reach inside and move the people around. Once Sylvie noticed him leaning over the blocks, frantically moving a bunch of the tiny Lego people at once—making a woman get into her car, guiding a spaceman from a gas-station parking lot to the mini-mart, then quickly moving a blackhaired man in a fireman suit from the upstairs part of the house to the downstairs to turn on the giant, battery-run windmill. “Why are you moving them all so fast?” Sylvie asked.
“This is how life works,” Scott told her matter-of-factly. That was when he still talked to her. When he still answered her questions. “It all happens at once. But I don’t have enough hands for all of it. I never know what they want to do next. ”
Sylvie didn’t have enough hands for all of it either. She hadn’t expected Christian’s father to have another emotion besides anger. She hadn’t expected him to look at her, recognize her, and not immediately fly into a rage.
There was pounding on the side door. She stood up, shuffled through the kitchen, and squinted. With all the lights on in here, she could only see her reflection in the side door’s window. Her straight, bluntly cut hair was mussed and the corners of her mouth turned down. She looked tired and puffy, a hundred years old.