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“Uhhhhh,” Aubrey says, squinting down at the piece of paper in her hands. Her expression screws up. “Oh my god, Kim, gross. Why—”
Kim is already cackling, like she knows exactly what Aubrey is reading. She probably does. Each of them put only a few questions in the box, and there’s only one that could have drawn that kind of reaction out of Aubrey. “Ask the question, Aubs,” she says, snickering.
“Ugh, fine.” Aubrey’s nose is wrinkled, but she flaps her hand vaguely in Kel’s direction. “Areyouavirgin.”
“What?” Kel asks, mildly. He’s sitting on the side of Aubrey’s bed, leaning his weight back on his hands, while Kim and Aubrey lounge on the floor. The others hadn’t been able to come that day, so it’s just the three of them, chilling in Aubrey’s bedroom, playing a few rounds of Truth or Dare. One of the many hangouts they’ve had, after everything, to figure out how to navigate this new normalcy.
“Are you a virgin,” Aubrey repeats through clenched teeth.
Kel snorts. “Like, have I had sex with anyone? No.”
All in all, the answer is unsurprising. Aubrey relaxes, flicking her eyes over the bed, the light that spirals in lazily from the cracks in the ceiling. Kel’s been helping her fix her room, but it’s a work in progress. And it isn’t so bad when she has company.
But Kel pauses, and the laughter in his voice fades, and it’s like the light does too. He stops tapping his foot. “Um. Does it count if someone’s had sex with me?”
Aubrey’s expression scrunches. “Wh—duh,” she says. “That doesn’t even make sense. How can you not have had sex with someone if someone’s had sex with you—”
“Nuh, da da da da da,” Kim interrupts, slapping a hand over Aubrey’s mouth. She’s leaning toward Kel, grinning like a shark. “Give us the deets, man. Who’s the lucky gal?”
“Uh.” Kel’s hands tighten around the bedsheets. He sits straighter, slowly. “I don’t—it’s not…”
“Not a gal, that’s cool,” Kim says, smoothly. Aubrey finally succeeds in ripping her face out of her grasp and wipes her mouth, glaring. “Who’s the guy then? Let me guess, is it flower boy? Is it that guy on the football team you’re always talking to? Is it”—her eyebrows waggle—“that knife dude? Sunny?”
“No,” Kel says, tightly, and it prickles over Aubrey’s skin, suddenly, the tension in the air like humidity, her mother’s breath, alcohol-heavy. “That’s not—”
Her mouth says, “Kim, wait—”
And Kim says, her voice still prodding, teasing, “Oh, god, don’t tell me it was the Maverick—”
“It was my brother,” Kel says, sharp and hard and hurting. “It was Hero. My brother.” Kim and Aubrey fall silent. The ceiling fan spins around and around, wheezily. Kel’s voice cracks when he adds, “Are you happy?”
“What the fuck,” Kim whispers. But the storm bursts from beside her just as abruptly.
“Don’t you dare fucking lie about that,” Aubrey snarls. Paper slips scatter everywhere like dust from the ceiling; the box has upended from her lap onto the floor, and she is standing. She is grabbing Kel by the shirt, hauling him onto his feet, seething.
“I’m—I’m not lying.” Kel’s hand shudders, reaching for Aubrey’s, but she shakes him and it falls back to his side before he can reach.
“Liar!” Aubrey shouts. Kim stands up, too, with immediate awareness of how short she is compared to both of them, how useless it is to pull on Aubrey’s arm. “Hero wouldn’t do that! Hero wouldn’t do—he—”
“Aubrey, come on,” Kim says, a little desperate. Aubrey lets go. Then she headbutts Kel, hard; Kel falls back onto the bed and doesn’t react, except to sit up and curl an arm over his stomach.
“F-fuck!” Aubrey says, breathing heavily. She wheels and stomps to the other side of her room, dislodging Kim’s grip. Kicks the wall, enraged, and puts a new dent in it. “Fuck!”
“Aubs, hey, come on,” Kim says, swallowing the helplessness that keeps growing. She glances back at Kel, who’s just sort of sitting there, starting to bleed from his nose where Aubrey hit him. “Kel, just—stay there for a second, okay?” she says, with no idea what she’s doing. “Aubs, can I—can I talk to you for a sec? Let’s go downstairs. Just for a minute?”
Aubrey squeezes her eyes shut, still facing the wall. Her shoulders rise and fall as she takes a breath, furious. Finally, she nods, a jerky motion. Kim goes to guide her by the arm, but Aubrey marches past, knocking her aside and not acknowledging it. Kim shoots Kel one last powerless look before she hurries to follow Aubrey.
Aubrey doesn’t wait for her at the foot of the ladder; by the time Kim’s caught up to her, she’s halfway down the street. Making a beeline for the church, her last resort at calming herself, probably. Kim darts a look back at the house, then speeds up to match Aubrey’s pace until they’re walking side by side—well, stalking in Aubrey’s case, and Kim is on the verge of jogging.
Aubrey shrugs off her hand when she attempts to place it on her shoulder. Kim tries not to take it personally.
“Aubs,” she tries, “I know it’s hard, but—”
But with the silence now broken, Aubrey isn’t listening.
“I can’t believe he would say that!” she shouts, like she’s been waiting to do it. It’s loud, definitely loud enough to carry; Kim winces, glancing down the thankfully empty street. “I can’t believe he—Hero’s like a brother to me! Or—whatever! Was, at least.”
“I—I know,” Kim says, even though she doesn’t. Aubrey doesn’t talk much about what things were like, before the pink hair, before Mari. “But, uh, he actually is Kel’s brother. So it’s gotta be just as hard, right—”
“No! You don’t get it!” Aubrey shoves the heels of her palms against her eyes. Her voice takes on a rough, wobbly quality that Kim knows she’ll deny after the end of this. “Hero was like a brother to me. And Mari”—an unsteadiness, a sort of haunting—“was like a sister. And then after—after she—”
Audrey stumbles, but she keeps moving, like she can’t bear to stop and look at what she’s spilling all over the street.
“It’s—it’s always Kel! He’s always the one doing this! Ruining things, ruining—ruining the fact that we were friends. All of us. That we were happy.”
“Aubrey.” Kim stops, in front of the church gates. Aubrey stops too, and for a moment they just look at each other, nails stuck between their feet. And, look, Kim loves Aubrey. Would do anything for her, really. But—“I don’t want to hear you saying that shit again.”
Aubrey jerks back. Her eyes are startled and wet when she takes her hands off them.
“I’m serious,” Kim says, even though she already wants to backtrack, even though her stomach twists a little seeing that look on Aubrey’s face. She doesn’t like being the reason. But she knows some things have to happen. “Like, I get why you’re angry. I really do, I promise.”
She waits a minute, letting that settle. She thinks of her own brother, takes a breath and feels it.
“But you can’t be saying that kind of thing. Especially not to Kel. Got it?”
Aubrey seems to have lost her momentum. She’s staring at Kim like she doesn’t recognize her; the bridge of Kim’s nose is sweaty, but she doesn’t adjust her glasses when they slip.
“Got it, Aubs?” she prompts, when there’s been a minute of silence.
“Y-yeah… I… yeah. I got it.” Aubrey stares for another second, and then the line of her mouth starts to wobble. Kim barely gets an instant to process this before Aubrey is turning her back and bursting into tears.
“Ohhhhh, no,” Kim says, to herself, mostly. “Oh, no. Aw, shit…”
She lunges to take Aubrey by the arm, rubbing up and down, hoping to calm her down a little. Like before, she’s kind of useless.
“I just—!” Aubrey exclaims. “I just—I don’t—I wish—”
“It’s okay, it’s okay…” Kim soothes. “Just, uh, just take a deep breath. Uh… there, there?” She nudges her glasses up and pats Aubrey’s shoulder awkwardly.
As ineffectual as her attempts feel like they are, Aubrey does eventually stop crying so hard. She wipes her eyes, her breaths steadying. She doesn’t shrug Kim’s hand off again, but her shoulders slump and she looks away, clearly not eager to talk about it.
“So… wanna talk about it?” Kim asks, because she takes pride in her ability not to pick up on social hints.
“No,” Aubrey says, a little roughly, and then, “I don’t know,” immediately following. “I don’t know what to talk about. I don’t even know if I have the right to feel like this when it’s…” Her eyes widen. “Shit!”
“What??”
Aubrey wheels around and starts running. “Kel!” she casts over her shoulder. “We just left him!”
Caught off guard, it takes Kim a few seconds to sprint after her. It isn’t even that far back to the house, but she’s winded quickly. Man, she hates sprinting.
Aubrey leaves the front door swinging behind her. She’s already speaking to Kel in a low tone by the time Kim is hauling herself up the ladder, panting.
“…wasn’t trying to…” She turns her head at the sound of Kim’s entrance. “Hey, Kim. Can you get us a towel or something? A wet one? He’s… bleeding.”
Grumbling, Kim pops her head back down. She’s itching to know what Aubrey is saying to Kel, but fine, she respects her enough to back out of it. She grabs a towel from the bathroom and runs it under cold water, trying to avoid the grimy stuff coating the edges of the sink. She doesn’t know what it is, but someone’s going to have to find out if they want to clean it.
Kim wrings some of the water out and heads back to Aubrey’s room in silence.
It’s quiet in there, too; Kel and Aubrey are both sitting on the floor, not talking. Aubrey takes the towel from Kim, hands it to Kel like a gift of peace. Or she tries to, anyway. Kel just sort of looks at it, until the wetness is gathered in the bottom corner and starting to drip.
Aubrey compresses her lips and leans forward after a second. Kel lets her wipe the red from his nose without reaction.
“Are you okay?” Aubrey asks, when she’s finished. Her hand clenches around the now bloodied towel, which continues weeping onto the wooden slats of the floor. Drip, drip, drip.
Kel nods.
Aubrey says, “I think he’s dissociating.”
“I’m not dissociating,” Kel says, after a beat. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It’s what that friend of yours does,” Kim says, helpfully. “Sunny? Aubrey told me.”
“Okay…” Kel closes his eyes, like he has a headache. “Well, then Sunny is the one with the problem, not me.”
“You can both have problems,” Aubrey says irritably. “No one has a problem monopoly.”
Kim saws her hand over her neck. “Aubrey.”
Aubrey shuts her eyes, too, and summons patience. It’s easy to stop being angry and harder not to go back to crying. How is she supposed to help Kel? She can’t even help herself, most days. She’s so bad at helping.
“It’s fine.” A rustle of movement; Kel is getting to his feet. He wobbles a little and steadies himself on the bedpost, ignores Kim’s not-concerned hey. “I should probably be getting home anyway.”
He sounds blank, isn’t really looking at either of them. Kim goes to trade a look with Aubrey, but Aubrey is rising with him already.
“You’re staying,” she snaps. Steps forward, and light trails from the ceiling cracks onto her face. Her voice softens on its own before Kim can say anything. “Kel, we’re just… worried about you, okay?”
The phrase, directed at herself, always makes Aubrey bare her teeth. Kel doesn’t get mad, but he shuts it down just the same. “There’s nothing to be worried about.”
Aubrey hesitates. “What you said—”
“It was nothing,” Kel says, and he sounds less out of it now, but it’s worse, something tight and awful and compressed so that she can’t see its shape. “You were right, I was lying. It wasn’t anything. I just wanted attention. Isn’t that just like me?”
Aubrey’s mouth opens and closes. She looks to Kim for help, somewhat desperately.
“Uh,” Kim says, stupidly.
Kel casts his eyes to the ground. The entire room dims with him.
“Can I just go home now?”
“Yeah,” Kim says, stumbling a bit. “Of course, uh, I mean, we can’t keep you or anything. But”—Aubrey shoots her a betrayed look, but Kim is getting to it—“come back tomorrow, okay? You have to talk to us tomorrow. Or one of us. Or just anyone. Okay?”
The heat in Aubrey’s eyes lessens. She flicks her eyes to Kel, waiting.
Kel shuffles his feet. His fingers worry at the hem of his shirt.
“Kel?” Kim asks. Gentle like Charlie, firm like Vance, and they’ve all been making friends, haven’t they? “Promise, we just wanna talk. It doesn’t even have to be about that, if you don’t want.” She pauses, then ventures again, “Okay?”
Finally, quietly, Kel says, “Okay.”
The two of them watch him leave. The front door opens and shuts, faintly; neither Kim nor Aubrey speak. The only sounds are the occasional drones of passing cars and the ceiling fan creaking in perpetuity.
“What do we do?” Aubrey says, eventually.
“I dunno,” Kim admits. “Listen? Tell an adult, maybe?”
Aubrey makes a face. Kim doesn’t blame her. She loves her mom and dad, but the track record of adults who are good at fixing things remains pretty shitty.
“Thanks for… getting my head on straight, earlier,” Aubrey says, after some silence.
Kim isn’t expecting it, and her surprise turns warm and sweet. “Yeah, of course,” she says. “I know it’s just because you care. A lot. And, you know.”
She wiggles her fingers meaninglessly until Aubrey laughs and pushes her hand away.
Seconds pass, and the laughter dissipates. The atmosphere gets heavy again. Aubrey’s eyes move to the bulletin board on the wall and linger there, the Polaroids pinned on its surface, meticulous photocopies Sunny had sent her from the city.
“I still can’t believe…” she mutters, before swiping a hand over her face, not finishing the sentence. “I just… I don’t understand. When. How. Why did this happen?”
“We just gotta wait for him to talk to us,” Kim says, even though she doesn’t like the thought of that either. She never knew Kel’s brother, not like Aubrey did, but everyone knows Hero’s name. Talented, star student, off to medical school now; a shining model of brilliance for all parents to compare against their lousy kids.
Everyone’s got a different side to them, I guess.
And Kel can get kind of down on himself sometimes, casual and off-hand in a way that means no one ever actually mentions it, and sure, he might laugh awkwardly when someone gets too touchy or the conversation gets too bawdy, but… if not for this, Kim would never think…
“Why didn’t he tell us?” Aubrey says, voice rising somewhat plaintively.
Kim grimaces. She’d been veering into the same thing. “I mean, to be fair,” she says weakly, “we were kinda trying to beat him up until pretty recently…”
Bad joke. Not funny. Aubrey’s expression tightens, and Kim starts to trip over herself to take it back, but Aubrey just says, “Still. Even if we were—he knew I still… cared about him. It’s not like I would have beaten him up if he’d told me. I would have—I would have helped. I would have done something.”
Would you? Kim very forcefully keeps to herself. Would you even have believed him?
Aubrey’s fists clench and she stares down at her feet. She hears it anyway.
“Whatever,” she growls, and turns to climb onto her bed, hugging her ratty old eggplant pillow. She won’t look at Kim, and Kim is pretty sure it’s because she’s getting teary again.
“No—no, wait, Aubs,” Kim says, reaching for her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I know it’s hard, this just—everything about this sucks, seriously. Yeah, you fucked up a little, but that’s—that’s okay, you know? We just have to… figure out how to be good friends now.”
Aubrey doesn’t respond to the touch or the words for a good while, so Kim just keeps standing there, hand placed clumsily on her shoulder. She’s immensely relieved when Aubrey finally uncurls slightly.
“You’re sure?” she asks, and it’s only a little watery.
“I’m sure,” Kim affirms, and is rewarded when Aubrey sits up, her mouth pulled into a line that’s stronger, more determined. There’s Aubrey.
“Okay,” she says, and touches Kim’s hand. “Then let’s think about what to say tomorrow. Maybe we can get him some of that disgusting coffee.”