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On the second day of summer break, Anthony came back. Their mother kept referring to it as coming home, but Nick’s dad had turned Anthony’s room into a home-office and painted over the faded growth-chart in the kitchen. Nick herself had stopped mentioning her deadbeat half-brother when family came up in conversation, so really it was less of a homecoming and more of a strange, stunted return to form.
The thing was, nobody had been expecting him to come back after two years of living with his father out in Nevada. But sure enough, one day he was just there.
Making the most out of her recently acquired summer break freedom, and trying to ignore her brother completely, Nick had decided to hang out with one of her friends from school. However, the hangout had quickly devolved into her supposed friend just talking with her moronic boyfriend on the phone. So Nick had called her mom asking to be picked up from her friend's place because, boring, but when the sound of tires sounded out in the driveway it wasn’t her mom’s camry. It was Anthony in his pick up truck, honking. Nick told her friends concerned parents that it was her brother, and their looks of concern turned into that specific look of light hearted knowing that she hated. Because they, in fact, did not know anything at all.
The truck smelled like cigarette smoke, there was an ever-present weirdly shaped stain on the passenger seat and the tear in the backrest that Nick had put there as an angry thirteen year old was still there, gaping like a fresh wound. It was exactly like it was two years ago, and two nights ago in the nightmare she’d had about Anthony getting married to a nice blonde girl. She’d for some reason been in the passenger seat while he drove to the wedding, his valley girl bride in the middle. She remembered mostly feeling a heavy dread and a vague sort of anger, and then waking up to her dad knocking on her bedroom door and telling her that it was twelve and she better get up if she didn’t want him to get angry. Like he, or mom, had enough anger to give her any real and hurtful punishment. It was like it skipped a generation, the rage simmering in her brother never once having been reflected in their mother.
Anthony wouldn't look her in the eye. “So, where to?”
She frowned and started trying to get the radio working. “Uh, home?”
“You sure, I mean—“
Nick knew what he meant so she cut him off, a familiar habit she’d rather not think about. “Yeah. Home.”
The radio wouldn’t turn on. Anthony pulled out of the driveway and they started cruising down streets lined with the same cookie cutter houses lined up along the burning pavement. Nick opened the glove compartment and stared down at the contents. Gardening gloves colored a faded dark green, three CDs in blank cases with titles scribbled on in sharpie, sunglasses, a bunch of trash, an empty pack of marlboros and one of her own lip glosses. It looked kind of strange in color now, but she remembered the kind of tacky peach hue it had once been. She’d always wondered where it went. Ignoring it, she picked up the sunglasses and put them on.
He glanced at her from the driver's seat then, sighing in that ambiguous way he sometimes did. The last time they saw each other she hadn’t been able to wear sunglasses on account of her thick plastic rimmed prescription glasses, but nowadays they mostly lay abandoned on her nightstand. Contacts were a bitch to use but the mean snobby guys at school left her alone more when she took off her glasses and put on cheap push-up bras.
Anthony took a turn and stopped at a gas station, ignoring her request to just go home. Annoyance like she hadn’t felt in ages overwhelmed her. “The tank is like, half full.”
He swung the door open, letting the hot air and dust in. “Yeah, half empty, too. I’ve got a long drive tomorrow.”
She stared at him in silence from behind orange-stained glass.
“You wanna go in and get some snacks? I’ve seen the pantry dude, mom’s new wallet is a health freak.”
She scoffed and dug her feet into the floor of the car, breaking eye contact. God, she’d forgotten how miserable he was. He shrugged and left a thin wad of cash on his seat before he slammed the door and disappeared from her sight.
Once she’d stared out at the road for a few seconds Nick grabbed the cash and jumped out, deciding that she may as well make use of the free money.
This wasn’t the gas station her parents usually tanked at, so the cashier was a complete stranger. She grabbed the cheapest bag of mixed candy and got a slushy from the loud and dirty machine in the corner. On her way to the counter she pretended to become extremely preoccupied with the tiny makeup aisle, pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head and browsing for long enough that the cashier stopped paying attention to her. She stuffed the most expensive mascara in her bra and then paid for the candy and rapidly melting slushy. She also got a pack of cigarettes because she had money left over and the pack in the glove compartment had been empty, a kind gesture she hoped she wouldn’t regret.
Anthony was already in the car again when she walked out, she could see him restlessly tapping the wheel from a good distance away, a nervous habit. When slid into the passenger seat it almost burned the backs of her thighs, the short amount of time that she’d been in the gas station apparently enough to heat the leather up. She winced and stuck her hand out stiffly, silently offering the cigarettes to Anthony.
He blinked at her for a beat and then threw them onto the headboard. “Thanks, Nick.”
She kind of hated how he’d just continued on calling her by her nickname after he’d returned, as if nothing had changed. Though, it wasn’t like anyone, except maybe their older family members, called her Nicole, so that would have probably felt even weirder, but still. Nothing about his return was uncomplicated. Half of the time she just wanted to strangle him and dump his body in the ocean, and the other half of the time she just wanted to kiss him senseless like in one of those cheesy cliche romance movies she hated. A hundred percent of the time she did neither and treated him like an estranged cousin she only put up with due to forced proximity. She sipped absentmindedly on her slushy and stared ahead at the road again, rubbing her thighs together in an attempt to relieve the burning pain that still lingered.
The engine noisily roared to life and then they were back on the road. Nick really wasn’t in the mood for small talk, but the tense silence wasn’t exactly ideal either, so she resorted to the CDs she’d found earlier. One was titled Trip, the second one 1994 and the third one Freckles with a star.
“What are these?” She ended up saying, forgetting that she was supposed to be stewing in silence.
Anthony glanced over. “If there’s one titled Trip that’s the one I burned for the road trip back here, cause the radio’s a bit bipolar.”
“Yeah, that’s one of them. But there are two more, uhh… 1994 and Freckles.”
His voice got a bit thick then. “Oh. The 1994 one must be dads. The other one is yours. Well, no, it’s a mix I made a few years back… I don’t know why it’s in the truck though.”
When she looked up at him he wouldn’t even glance at her, eyes matte and staring out at the road. She shoved all of the CDs back into the glove compartment and folded her hands together on her thighs like she hadn’t done since the last time she’d been forced to church. Anthony started tapping the wheel again and Nick felt anxious for reasons she wished she didn’t understand. For some reason she suddenly remembered the mascara she’d stolen, and she was grateful for the distraction.
Putting mascara on with only the help of a tiny mirror on a bumpy road wasn’t particularly easy, so she fully immersed herself in the task, pausing now and then to frown at the road when the holes in the hundred degree concrete got too bad to ignore. She didn’t want to accidentally smear mascara across her entire eyelids. “The hell’s that?”
Nick glanced over at Anthony, pausing in her movements, startled that he’d snapped out of his unusually quiet trance. “What?”
“The shit you’re putting on your eyelashes.”
She sighed. “It’s um— makeup. You know, like the stuff your whoreish ex would leave imprints of on the couch?”
Anthony’s face got a hint of color at that, almost unnoticeable, and she carefully inspected his frown and his fingers digging into the steering wheel. Nick felt like provoking him a little more, just cause. “I never understood what she saw in you, anyway. She was really pretty and all, just needed someone to teach her the difference between makeup and grease paint.”
He sighed, and then they both fell into silence again. Heavier this go-around. She didn’t like how calculated he’d become. He used to be the one plucking her emotions like strings, making anger sound out across the streets, making her destroy things and cross wires inside of her head. She used to at least be able to make him yell back, never hit her back, but he would get in her face. Something about his newfound patience sat wrong in her stomach. They turned onto North Rose Street and a clump of mascara ended up on the far end of her eyelid anyway.
She knew they’d be home soon, she knew the godforsaken streets of orange county like the back of her hand, except that wasn’t really sufficient because she couldn’t point out every groove and bump on the sun orange skin of her slender hands, but she could predict every bump on the road that existed in a four mile radius from her house with her eyes closed. So maybe it was the other way around.
As they stepped out of the car and walked up the driveway, she took note of the slight breeze coming in. It was nice, the afternoon sun was punishing enough without the wind at a standstill. Her thoughts having distracted her, she jumped when Anthony was suddenly at her side and grabbed her arm to stop her. “God, don’t scare me like that. What?”
Her arm went slack as she took in the grave expression on his face. She stared, a bit unfocused, at the fading bruise at the bridge of his nose. It hadn’t been that noticeable from the side.
“I think we should. Talk.” He still hadn’t let go of her arm, his grip lax enough to not really be a threat but tight enough to keep her frozen. She waited patiently, and silently, for an elaboration. The stilted tone of his voice made the sparse hairs on her arms stand high.
“I hope you get that I never meant to come back. And that I won’t apologize for that. You know that it was all so— wrong, Nick. I had to leave, for your best as well as mine. Okay?”
His eyes had darkened considerably, despite the almost demeaning and calm nature of his voice and words. Nick yanked her arm free and quickened her pace, reaching the doorway at record speeds and practically flying out of her sneakers and up the stairs. Belatedly, she realized she shouldn’t alarm her parents. “I’m home!”
The muffled “hi, Nick” from downstairs was enough confirmation for her to shut her bedroom door behind her. She’d lock it too, if she could. Stupid house. She fell face down onto the bed, deciding to never ever get up again. What a nightmare. But, like, what had she been expecting? That everything would go back to how it was before he left, and before it happened? That they could just leave it be? It was a stupid, childish, wish… really, she didn’t even want it to be like that, herself. Well, what she truly wanted was to be left the fuck alone for a few weeks, to waste away in her overheated room with the box fan on and an endless supply of mountain dew. But if that couldn’t be done, she at least wanted an apology and maybe a sign that she wasn’t the only one who thought it had meant something. So of course she got just the opposite. She supposed beggars couldn’t be choosers, though, or whatever.
Deep down, she held on to the comfort that he might have just been lying. The alternative was just too much to bear.
When she finally raised herself and decided to just go to bed early, she realized that the pillow her face had been buried in had some faint dark splotches on it. Huh. She hadn’t even felt the tears fall. She wiped at her face and sniffed. God, get it together. Nick wasn’t a child anymore, she could handle one single summer with her brother home. If he even qualified as that, after everything.
Box fan on the highest setting, she eventually shuddered into a dreamless and heavy sleep.
“Nick… Nick, hey, get up.”
“Hmm?”
“Hey, Aiden’s here.”
“What?” She faintly registered a calloused hand on her shoulder, gripping, and as soon as she opened her eyes it was gone. A flushed Anthony was standing over her, mouth in a line. He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “Aiden. Downstairs.”
She dragged her arm back over her eyes, shielding them from what must be the mid-day sun. “Oh. Tell him I’ll be down.”
He nodded and stood there for another second, looking like he wanted to add something else. He didn’t, and she was once again left alone. Once he left the room, she rubbed her eyes blearily and reached blindly for her glasses. Oh. Well… that was it, then, her tank top had twisted to the side in her sleep, revealing much more than intended. She felt a tingling warmth creep up her spine and her face, Christ. Yeah, sure, it’s just one summer, how complicated could it get? Fuck.
She shivered and swore to herself and any God listening that it was because of the fan, still whirring away in the middle of the room.
Moving before her freshly woken up brain could get the chance to reflect, she pulled her pyjama shorts off and replaced them with her jean-shorts from the previous day. It’d do, after all, it was only Aiden. They’d been attached at the hip since forever, so he’d definitely seen her in worse states. There was a time when she had obsessively tried to constantly look pretty around him, but it didn’t last long. She deduced that he had a thing for a classmate of theirs, that being Ludwig, and gave up. After all, it was hard to compete with another guy when you had C-cups and were named Nicole.
Downstairs, Aiden and Anthony were on the couch playing a match. She leaned over the backrest to watch the TV over Aiden’s head. “What’s up?”
He briefly looked up and smiled. “Hey. Sorry if I woke you, but you said one and it’s fifteen past so…”
“No, no, it’s fine man. Sorry you had to wait.” She glanced at Anthony, teeth worrying at his bottom lip and hands tightly wrapped around the controller.
The plan had been to make use of their free time, and the fact that Nick’s parents had to work for almost the entire summer, and just play mario kart for the entire day. But since Aiden was basically playing professionally now, and Nick barely even played, Aiden needed a disadvantage. He had suggested that they get blasted to even the odds, but Nick had obviously denied it. He still wanted to, though, and she didn’t mind. But now they were in a bit of a predicament. She knew Anthony wouldn’t snitch, but he might get annoying. Her long-lasting sobriety was a favorite topic for him to pester her about, as if it was some sort of alien thing to be sixteen and not want to get turnt all of your waking hours.
Actually, the fact that he was present right now was annoying enough. Now that the heat from her awkward awakening had died down, that dull irritation was blooming again. “Didn’t you have… a drive or something today, Anthony?”
His gaze didn’t stray a centimeter from the screen. “Aw, you remembered. Well yeah, but it’s nothing that can’t be postponed.”
Sometimes word choices like that reminded her that her brother had actually majored in journalism, and not in being a fuck-up like one might believe. Well… the overlap was there. “Uh… alright. Whatever that means. Me and Aiden are heading out now, though.”
She put her hands on Aiden’s shoulders for emphasis, and he looked up at her with a questioning look. She glanced at Anthony to make sure that he still wasn’t looking and gave him a look that she hoped conveyed her desperate need to get out of there. Aiden, being the perfect empathetic angel that he was, seemed to catch on. “Yeah– sorry, Slime. I’ll see you around.”
He just glared at them from the corner of his eye as they left, silently pausing the game and heading to the backyard. Nick knew this routine, it was what he did when things didn’t go his way. He chainsmoked in the backyard and sulked around until someone asked him about it, and then he blew up. Strangely, the sight lightened the weight that had been sitting heavy somewhere around her ribcage since the previous day. It was as if her very nervous system eased at the telltale signs of a familiar situation. She shook the thought and joined Aiden in putting shoes on. At the very last second, she brought her skateboard. Might as well, since they didn’t actually have anything to do.
Cruising slowly on the sun-bleached sidewalk, she finally relaxed. Anthony wasn’t an issue for the moment, and her entire world narrowed down to her best friend and the pristine lawns slowly going by. Farther down the street she saw a little girl run around a sprinkler, and she smiled at her when the girl stopped to stare at them as they went by.
Finally, when they reached the end of the street and stopped in the half shade of someone’s white-picket fence, Aiden broke the silence. “So. Anthony’s back.”
She nodded, rolling side to side on her skateboard which she’d turned into a temporary seat. She could sense the expectation in the air between them, but said nothing.
“What’s up with you guys? Are you fighting again?”
Right. She’d told him they’d been on bad terms when he left, which wasn’t entirely a lie. “I don’t know. He’s being weird.” She scowled. “Like, weird in a way he usually isn’t.”
Aiden snorted. “Well, I guess siblings are like that. I wouldn’t know. But you can always talk to me, you know.”
If only that were true. Nick had learned at a young age that some things were best kept secret. In fact, if you dug through her body to her soul you’d find a mausoleum protruding from it, overflowing with secrets she’d take to the grave. She knew Aiden only meant well, though. “Yeah… it’s fine, though. I don’t know.”
She considered ways in which she may be honest without admitting too much. “I’d just rather not think about it. It’s just strange in general— him being back, I mean. And it’s not really the same. You know, my mom didn’t even tell me he was coming back until, like, last week.”
The expectation quickly became a thick tension, and she could tell Aiden didn’t really know what to say. He was sweet and understanding, but she knew putting it into words wasn’t the easiest for him sometimes. To lighten the mood, she rolled her skateboard sideways and right into his ankle. “Ow! You asshole!”
She grinned up at him as he jumped around, and eventually tried to kick back at her. She easily dodged by sliding to the side again. She laughed, and once he finished wincing, he laughed too. “Enough about my stupid brother. I’m bored.”
Aiden sighed and rubbed at his leg. “You know, there’s a party tonight we could go to. If you wanna get distracted, I imagine laughing at drunk people is almost as distracting as being drunk yourself?”
Nick considered it. She sort of hated parties unless she knew most of the people there, and considering it was Aiden inviting her that probably wouldn’t be the case. It’d most likely be some stoner nordics with hard to remember names, or some older college guys really into economics and being politically incorrect. But Aiden was right, going on drunk people safari might get her mind off of things.
“Sure, let’s do it.”
Aiden smiled and helped her stand again. If she were him, she’d have faked out and snatched her hand away to get back at him for the skateboard thing. But Aiden was nice. As they made their way back to the house, she wondered if maybe that was the cause of all of this confusion and heartbreak. Maybe she deserved it, like when the preachers talked about sinners. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death. Five out of eight wasn’t nothing, so maybe hell had come early to make sure she felt the burn. And oh, she felt it alright.
When they returned, the truck was gone and so was Anthony. They spent the rest of the day alternately dozing in front of the TV and sweating side by side in her bed, talking about nothing. Aiden smoked and Nick got paranoid that she might get high purely off the second hand smoke, thick in her isolated bedroom. The day passed in a heat-wave haze and suddenly the evening had come, and she had to get ready.
Her parents had come home, but Anthony was still gone. She could almost convince herself that she didn’t care. As she braided her hair in front of the bathroom mirror, Aiden sat cross legged on the closed toilet-seat and explained who would, and wouldn’t, be coming to the party. To Nick’s surprise there wouldn’t be any nordics, or college business students for that matter, present. It was the girlfriend of one of their classmates who was hosting it, a girl Aiden had gotten to know through.. something. Nick had stopped listening.
“Mmhm. Does my hair look fine?”
He paused his chatter mid sentence, waving a dismissive hand. “Yeah, it’s great. Are you ready to go?”
“I’ve still gotta do some makeup. I’ll be quick, promise."
Aiden sighed. “Sure. How’re we getting there, anyway? I could ask someone to pick us up on the way, but we’d be asking pretty late.”
She pressed her lips together, leaning forward to concentrate on her face. She stared, face blank, at her sun-flushed cheeks, chapped lips and stray locks of tropicana-orange air. Her glasses had left a subtle red line along the bridge of her nose, barely visible with them on, and she mentally chided her past self for not choosing contacts this particular day. Just as she was about to suggest walking across the entire city after nightfall, in other words suicide, she heard the telltale roar of Anthony’s truck pulling up to the house. She could just about see Aiden’s face light up from that close to the mirror. Fine, then.
Best poker face on, she turned to him. “You know, we could just ask Anthony.”
He shrugged, all faux nonchalance. “Yeah, why not, right?”
“Right.” She couldn’t keep herself from grinning, despite the absurdity of her current life— Aiden seemed to always have that effect.
She cornered him on the stairs as he was on the first step. He looked worn down, hands still gripping his keys. She grabbed his shoulders to look over and past him, into the livingroom. Her parents were on the couch, silently watching TV. The close proximity made her realize he reeked more of smoke than usual, and under the cloying scent laid another, more human one. She felt her face heat up and pulled away. His eyebrows were raised now, but the rest of his face remained slack and passive. “What?”
She put her pointer finger to her lips, and his eyes narrowed. “What?” He hissed, quieter.
Despite the fact that her parents almost certainly knew she went out, every sane Orange County teenager did, it still felt wrong to speak about it openly around them. So she spoke so quietly she almost whispered, instinctively leaning towards Anthony’s ear. “Can you give us a ride? Going to a party.”
He rolled his eyes, but nonetheless stayed quiet. “A party? Who’s?”
She could feel her face turning even warmer, and hated herself for it. Why was admitting she had a life outside of him, to his face, always so humiliating? It wasn’t like he couldn’t have guessed, he’d been gone for two entire years. “A friend of Aiden’s… she’s the girlfriend of a guy in our class.”
He looked contemplative, one arm reaching to rest on the wall. In this position, her height matched his, and his hand splayed out beside her neck. She tried in vain to swallow the lump in her throat.
“There’ll be guys there, then?”
“I’d guess so? Why wouldn’t there be.” The last part wasn’t really phrased like a question, even though she meant it that way.
He leaned closer to now fully whisper. “Alright, I’ll drive you. But only if I can come, too.”
She frowned and pulled back. What the fuck was his problem? “It’ll just be a bunch of drunk highschoolers.”
He shrugged. “You won’t be drunk. And that’s my ultimatum, either I come or no ride.”
She scowled, mentally going over forty different ways in which this could cause disaster. She clenched her fists, the urge to put up a fight with him brewing in her veins, all too familiar. “Fine. I’ll ask Aiden if it’s alright.”
He flashed his million dollar smile, so rare nowadays, canines sharp and white and his dark eyes softening. Nick found herself remembering just why she once found herself welcoming the blurring of lines.
She bolted back up the stairs as quickly as she could without alarming her parents, the carpeted floor becoming her best friend. She poked her head into the bathroom, where Aiden looked two seconds away from falling asleep due to pure boredom. “Hey. He said yes, but he has to come along. Do you think she’d mind another plus one?”
“Uhh, I don’t think so.” Nick glared at him, silently demanding a better answer. “Nah, and if she does he can always just ditch us, and we’ll… walk, or something.”
She frowned again, and hoped desperately that this girl would in fact kick him out. It’d be a challenge to distract herself from Anthony… with him present. “Right. Here’s hoping.”
Aiden looked confused, his face scrunching up in that way so distinct to him. She closed the bathroom door again before he could get out a response, and turned to Anthony, who was now rocking back and forth on his feet with his arms crossed at the top of the stairs.
“I can’t promise you won’t get kicked out, but we won’t stop you from trying to come along. Deal?”
“Deal. Be down in five.”
Five minutes?! Whatever. “Fuck you.”
Anthony mocked offense and flipped her off as he walked back down the stairs. Somehow, he seemed to get what her frustration was directed at. “You want a ride or not, shithead?!”
When he was out of sight, she smiled, despite herself. Maybe things could go back to normal after all. She wondered if twin telepathy could apply to half siblings, too… probably not, but it felt like it sometimes. She’d never admit it to his face, but she’d missed that casual understanding.
“Aiden! Let’s go.”
She told her parents that they were going to Aiden’s and that she might sleep over, and they didn’t ask any questions. And it wasn’t a complete lie, they’d probably crash at his afterwards. Aiden’s parents were never home anyway, and if they were they’d most likely be sleeping, completely dead to the world. Nick thought it sounded like heaven, but Aiden didn’t seem to feel that way. Whatever he felt about it, he couldn’t deny that it was awfully convenient sometimes.
Out in the truck the three of them fell into a familiar rhythm, Anthony driving with Aiden in the passenger seat and Nick in between them. Anthony had got the truck when he was the same age as Nick was now, and for a year straight she had forced him to drive her everywhere. And of course, that usually meant driving Aiden around with them too. It was weird to think that she herself was old enough to drive it now… sixteen year old Anthony had seemed a whole lot older than sixteen year old her. She glanced down at his hands and arms, somehow slightly toned despite the fact that she’d never once seen him work out. She stared at the veins cascading down his pale hands, slightly raised and vulnerable. Before he left she could’ve spent hours staring at details like that, hypnotized by the fact that he was flesh and blood just like her. It used to make her feel weird to acknowledge it— that he wouldn’t be forever immortalized as her brother, her role model. But her perspective was different now, crying over someone for months on end will do that to a girl. Seeing proof of his solid existence next to her only filled her with a bitter kind of wonder now, her heart betraying the anger that still simmered in her gut.
She realized dimly that Aiden had been spewing directions for a while, but that he’d gone silent. They were stuck in a traffic jam. Anthony rolled down the window and lit a cigarette. The smell of the ocean mixed with smoke, and Nick was getting to be sort of queasy. She swiped some stray hair away from her face, only for the wind to mess it up again.
“You alright?” Aiden was looking at her with furrowed brows.
“Yeah, it’s nothing.”
She felt the sweat on the back of her neck be cooled in real time by the ocean-wind, and she already kind of regretted even going out at all. She felt eyes burning into the side of her face and looked to find Anthony staring at her with a strange look on his face. When she stared back, he silently turned his eyes back to the road and inhaled what looked to be half of his cigarette in one drag.
After a few minutes of tense silence the traffic suddenly jerked back into motion, and they were once again cruising down the road, Anthony following Aiden’s shaky directions. Nick took a giant gulp of salty air and managed to relax, zoning out as she all but melted into the seat until they finally found their way to the party. Anthony parked in a spot that probably maybe hopefully wasn’t illegal, and then they made their way to the giant villa.
A girl she recognized from school was sitting with a douchey looking boy on the porch, twirling her hair and nursing a cup. Nick waved and got a distracted smile in return. The door was ajar and terrible, corny, pop music soared out of the house. Aiden barged in without knocking, and popped his head into what was probably the living room. “Hey, Kathy!”
Nick heard what sounded like a hey, you made it. Inside of the living room sat a circle of people on a massive couch, and some others in corners and on windowsills, talking. There was an impressive array of spirits on the table, and Nick was sort of relieved. It was strange, but in her experience the drunker people were, the less they cared about how sober she was.
As they crowded onto the already overflowing couch they fit into the conversation pretty seamlessly, Aiden chatted on as she settled for taking on a quieter role this night. She wasn’t really in the mood for pointless niceties with strangers, and enjoyed observing people get increasingly sloshed.
After a while, more people showed up, one of them being Ludwig. That was when the night truly became interesting, as she immersed herself in watching his and Aiden’s chemistry spark, seemingly without either of them recognizing it for what it was. She found herself wanting to turn and snicker to Anthony, and that was when she realized that he’d disappeared. In fact, she had lost him almost immediately when they’d entered. She felt her palms grow clammy, that usual childish panic at his absence rushing to flood her nervous system. She blinked, trying to collect herself. “Um, guys.”
Aiden and Ludwig halted in their bickering to look at her with wide eyes.
“What’s up?” They spoke almost in sync, she would’ve laughed if she wasn’t so anxious all of a sudden.
“I’m gonna go look for Anthony, if that’s alright. I feel like we should know where our ride home is… right?”
Aiden nodded and waved a dismissive hand. “Yeah, totally. I’ll be here, come back if you need me, alright?”
If you need me? What the hell did he think could happen? Whatever. She smiled tightly and stood up from where she’d been sitting cross legged on the couch. Her legs felt kind of sore, but she ignored it as she navigated through clumps of people hanging around and trying to talk louder than the music.
When she reached the kitchen without finding him she resolved herself to actually talking to people. She zeroed in on the most sober looking guy in the room, her talent for finding like-minded people in throngs of others under the influence came in handy now and again.
“Hey, excuse me, I’m looking for my brother. Around yea high, sort of… balding?”
The guy looked at her, and then looked at someone else. The confusion written all over his face made a lump form in her throat, until finally the girl next to him mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like does she mean that fuckin’ Anthony. His eyebrows shot up high on his forehead and he turned back to her. “Yeah, he graduated like… a year ago or something, right? I sorta knew him, tell him I said hello tomorrow cause he’ll probably have forgotten.”
The group collectively snickered before returning to their own conversations. Nick wiped her palms on her shorts and tried for an appropriately friendly smile. “Of course. Do you know where he’s at right now though?”
“Last time I saw him he was headed for the backyard. My opinion, though? You should have a drink before finding him, nobody sober should have to be subjected to that.”
Well. It seemed that she’d misread this guy’s whole deal. And it seemed that the night’s anxieties weren’t leaving anytime soon, because that didn’t sound good. Like at all.
“Thanks, but I’m good. See you around.” It was a total lie, she hoped she would never see him again. His smug face and cliche oversized t-shirt made her unreasonably angry. Not for any particular reason, she just needed someone else to direct her anger at other than Anthony or else she might really kill him tonight.
She made her way out to the backyard, the fresh air was actually kind of nice. The sun had set a while ago now and the evening chill was welcomed too, the house was beginning to get overheated with the overeager bodies of intoxicated teenagers. She scanned the area, more sparse with people than inside but still crowded.
She eventually spotted him, leaning against a tree at the far end of the backyard, talking to a girl. She could only see the back of her head, long strawberry-blonde hair cascading down her back. Her blood froze over in an instant, the whole world growing distant and unimportant. It was like in the movies when the plot twist was revealed and everything else became blurry background noise, only this was real and happening to her. Anthony was holding a beer and gesturing sort of wildly, spilling it on the dead grass. She tried to swallow the (tonight seemingly ever present) lump in her throat, and then marched on over to them. She swore she’d forgotten how to walk normally… did she usually walk so unevenly? Did she look relaxed?
Anthony’s eyes lit up upon seeing her, which was how she knew he was totally wasted. “Hey, it’s Nick! Ahem… Chloe, this is Nick. Nick, Chloe. It was Chloe, right?”
The girl– Chloe nodded and twirled a strand of hair around her finger. She was so obvious it made Nick want to throw up, and not a lot could warrant that.
Nick brought that faux-polite smile back to her lips. “Hi. He hasn’t spiked your drink yet, has he?”
Her lipstick-pink lips curled in confusion and disgust. She doesn't really know what prompted her to say it… just that she felt like being a bitch. And seeing her smooth face twist up like that was very satisfying. “What the hell’s your problem?”
She subtly stepped closer to Anthony, who reciprocated by wrapping his arm around her shoulder. The yeasty smell of beer overwhelmed her senses and she found herself snarling right back at Chloe. Anthony leaned in close, and spoke in mock offense. “Yeah, what the fuck’s your problem, Nicky? Keepin’ me from scoring…”
Despite the whirlwind of emotion raging inside of her she found herself shivering at the closeness and the familiar tone. Chloe scoffed and brought a hand, bordering wrinkly from tanning, up to her tacky necklace in a gesture of offense. “Whatever, weirdos.”
She stomped away and became one with the crowds inside of the house. Nick waited until she was fully out of sight before speaking, and letting her body relax. She hadn’t realized how tense she was until her shoulders dropped. She finally glanced up at Anthony, smiling at her quietly. “How come you have such shitty taste in women?”
She expected a sneer or a retort, but he only laughed. “What? No I don’t. And you owe me, by the way.”
“You’re disgusting. She looked like, sixteen.” She clenched her fists, the pain of her nails digging into her skin serving as a mild distraction from the unwelcome butterflies in her stomach.
He frowned, but kept his arm neatly tucked around her. Now that she’d adjusted to the smell radiating from the beer held beneath her face, she got a whiff of everything underneath that. Smoke, clean sweat and a cheap beachy cologne. “So what? So are you.”
She squirmed in his grasp, like many times before remembering how much stronger he was than her, and that if he didn’t want her to have a choice she wouldn’t have one. Usually it made her angry. Today she didn’t mind. He leaned in again and all but whispered in her ear. “And I said, you owe me.”
She broke free from his grasp and chewed the inside of her cheek. This could not be happening, not again, not like this. “God. You're drunk. Let’s find Aiden and head home, alright?”
He frowned. “Aw, come on. But the fun has just started.”
She unclenched her fists and inspected the little crescent moons left behind on her palms. “No, we’re not doing this. Come on.”
He rolled his eyes, but followed her anyway, grumbling all the way back to the house and occasionally stumbling a little. Nick tried to convince herself that she was being mature and doing the right thing, but that didn’t dampen her want. And it didn’t help that all of the sensory input she was getting now was almost identical to the memory of that day he left, forever burned into every single nerve in her body. The smell of beer and sweat, the rough promise of flirtation that managed to keep an edge of unreality in its humor. Hormones and years of skirting the line between right and wrong. Underneath all of her excuses and explanations, she just missed the feeling of skin against skin so terribly that her entire body felt as if it was on fire.
They finally reached the dim-lit living room where Aiden was still sat on the couch. She watched mutely for a minute as he talked to someone she didn’t know, internally begging the heat in her face to die down.
The spinning in her head stopped for a minute, and Nick realized, in a sudden burst of clarity, that they couldn’t actually just leave; Anthony was in no condition to drive, and neither she nor Aiden had their licenses yet. “Hey, Aiden. I’ve got good news and bad news.”
He snapped out of the conversation, seemingly only now noticing her presence. “Oh, Nick. You found him.” His eyebrows furrowed as he seemed to fully register what she had said. “What’re the news?”
“Well, you’ve already spoiled the good one, that I found Anthony. Bad news is he’s too drunk to get us home.”
Aiden looked over her shoulder, at Anthony looming there like a midday shadow. She’d forgotten that Aiden had like… never seen him drunk before. It was a rare enough occurrence, it just happened that Nick had been witness to more of the sparse moments than Aiden. He raised his eyebrows and laughed. She felt the heat of another body grow closer, and then Anthony was standing beside her and leaning on her, likely overplaying his state of insobriety. She could feel the fuzzy hairs on her neck stand straight, and hoped it was too dark to notice. “Hey, who’s drunk? I’m not.”
She brought a hand around his waist to steady him, a strange move she also hoped went unnoticed. Despite his wiry frame and their manageable height difference, she found it hard to keep him balanced. While they’d been out in the yard someone had apparently found some disco lights, and the shifting color was beginning to get dizzying. She prayed silently that Anthony wouldn’t comment on her clammy skin, the entire evening having left her feeling sort of feverish.
Aiden laughed again, his innocence to the entire situation making Nick sort of jealous. “It’s alright. Ludwig’s ride ditched him, so maybe he could drive the truck and stay with us tonight? It’ll be cramped as hell, but we could make it work.”
She exhaled in relief, at least one of the night's problems would actually be solved. “Yeah, sure. Where’s he at?”
“Umm, I’m not sure actually… but you didn’t want to leave like, right now, right?”
Really, that had been her entire plan. She didn’t trust herself to make smart decisions if they stayed. Aiden really looked like he wanted to stay, though, and she didn’t want to ruin his night. “Nah, we’ll stay a bit.”
She was silent for a bit, trying not to let her dejection show. She felt Anthony lean even heavier on her, their body heat seemingly melting together to produce uncomfortable levels of heat.
“Maybe we should find Ludwig anyway, though. Just to be safe… and all.” The surprisingly sober words tumbled out of Anthony, who she belatedly realized was still gesturing with a, now empty, beer bottle.
Aiden nodded in his usual sage and understanding manner. The heat crawling under her skin got distractedly urgent. Anthony hummed in agreement with the nod and started steering them away, sort of clumsily. “Let’s go find Ludwig, huh?”
She once again tried in vain to swallow the lump stuck in her throat, thick and unwavering. For some reason which she couldn’t, wouldn’t, explain, she followed beside him and helped him stagger up the stairs. The light was off in the stairway, and even though she was the sober one the steps still swam beneath her eyes like ants moving about. Anxiety rose within her alongside that seemingly everpresent want, curling into a warm and thorny feeling, making her nauseous and dizzy all at once.
His arm was back around her, a hand warm and damp on her shoulder. She looked at him, so focused on walking straight, and tentatively reached her own hand up to clasp his. Their joint movements halted for a second, staggering to an unstable stop on the final step. She stared at their intertwined hands for a beat, silent and barely breathing. His pale, slender and rough hands contrasting her short and stubby tan ones. With a childish sort of nervousness, she glanced back at his face. It was blank, dry eyes boring holes into where their hands were clasped together. She could hear him audibly swallow before he looked forward once again. “Come on.”
She couldn’t read him, and it made her jumpy. Snapping out of their bubble, she finally took a good look around. It was much calmer upstairs than downstairs, only a few lone pairs talking in even tones. Down the hall a girl was sprawled out on the floor, most likely too drunk for her own good. The noise from downstairs was dampened, she could now hear each breath he took.
Anthony opened a door, and she was suddenly twisted into a bathroom. Pale fluorescent lights and a slightly worrying chemical smell informed her of as much. The soft comfort of the almost-silence melted into a tenser one, static around the edges and their shared breathing the only sound to cut through the muffled lack of noise.
Everything that happened after that was a blur.
The momentary coldness of losing Anthony’s hand on her was quickly resolved when clammy palms grabbed onto her, one cupping the side of her head and smoothing through her hair, sliding into the tension created by her braid, while the other dipped under her shirt and clung onto her side. Giddiness rose so quickly within her that it almost felt like physical pressure. Mind sort of numb, her first dumb thought was god, my braid’s all messed up now.
He gripped the base of her skull like he might lose it otherwise, bitten fingernails digging into her skin and taking her back to two years ago. Her mind overlapped what was happening now with what almost happened then and the vertigo hit so quick she could almost feel Anthony’s drunkenness bleed onto her. She remembered his breath on her face, cleaner then but the yeasty smell of beer was the same, his dry hands on her like she was a sacred animal. They were slick with sweat now, but still shaking.
His hands stilled for a moment and his head fell to her shoulder, she brought a leg up and cradled his head with a hand, his dark hair thinning but still smooth under her manicured fingers. She realized vaguely that she’d been completely frozen before this. His voice was a low rasp, so shameful it almost made her open the door and just bolt. Fight, flight or freeze— her body resorted to freezing every time. She felt a single drop of chilled sweat run down her neck, unbearably slow. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You should hate me.”
Her hands tightened and tangled in his hair unconsciously. Selfishly, she burned at his stillness. It left too much time for thinking. “What? It’s okay, we’re fine. You’re fine.”
He briefly opened his mouth near her neck and she shivered at the quickly cooled warmth. “I shouldn’t be doing this, Nick. God, you have no idea…”
“No, no. You can’t do this to me again.” She pulled him away by his hair, perhaps more forcefully than she meant to. “We’ve already been over this, you—“ she wanted to say that he broke her heart, but it felt too cliche and shallow. He had left her so utterly alone, ashamed and confused, with feelings she couldn’t name and knew she shouldn’t talk about. He had been her embarrassing secret, her brother, her favorite person in the entire world, her idol in more ways than she would ever admit, for a brief second her lover, and then in the blink of an eye a ghost. “You can’t do that to me again, you can’t. Come on.”
She stared right into his hazy dark eyes, pupils almost indistinguishable from the iris. “If I wasn’t so fucking… drunk right now I’d beat your ass for tempting me like this, you know.”
Oh, she knew. Before she could devolve into begging, he finally, finally, kissed her proper. Her head swam. She’d cried for months. His tongue wandered in a way she was unsure was normal, but she wouldn’t know. He’d been her first and last kiss, not for a lack of others trying. He broke away briefly, a thin obscene line of spit connecting them along with the rest of their bodies pressed tight against the dry wood of the door. She wasn’t sure when that happened, but his legs trapping hers and his wandering hands sure weren’t unwelcome.
“You know,” he repeated, but she just looked at him, unsure of how he meant it. He looked slightly dazed, pupils blown and hair disheveled. She’d missed this, even if she’d only really had it for a moment.
When their mouths locked together again with an uncomfortable clink of the teeth, he reached clumsily for the buttons of her shorts. Uncoordinated hands fumbled for a few seconds before she broke away just long enough to say, under her breath, “Let me.”
Her hands were shaking far more than his, but her practiced soberness meant an advantage. She unbuttoned her shorts and then, slightly wary still, drifted her hands up towards his shoulders and then down his back. She knew his build wasn’t really all that impressive compared to other guys in their grand and vapid city, but it was Anthony, and that was all that mattered to her. Nobody else could ever be to her what he was, for better or for worse, his loyalty to her a poignant mix of selfishness, seemingly endless criticism and a drive to annoy her, and a hormonal fuck-up which screwed both of their minds somewhere along the line. She bit his lip and arched onto his knee, jean meeting jean.
He suddenly seemed to remember what was happening all at once, and reached down to brush a calloused finger against the outside of her plain, worn down cotton panties. At least she could prove that she hadn’t been planning this. She exhaled a clipped sigh, stomach tensing in an undefined feeling— anticipation or something of the sort. She felt her skin flush in real time, a warmth bordering on sickly spreading across her skin.
Eyes closed, she met her forehead with his shoulder, grateful now for the slight height difference which allowed them to fit together like puzzle pieces. He applied the slightest amount of pressure and when she felt her eyes wet she wasn’t quite sure if it was from relief or something else, something more undefined. She softened the grip of her fingers when she realized they’d been clamped around Anthony’s arms, vice grip barely leaving room for blood flow.
When he finally, finally, let a slender, calloused finger press into her, the ache inside of her seemed to expand and dull all at once. She had to restrain herself from biting down on his cotton shirt, the worn-soft material and the muscle underneath just about the only things that felt real in the moment. This couldn’t be happening. She repeated it in her head over and over until the words became hypnotic and unreal themselves, unsure if she wanted it to be a comfort or a celebration.
He added another, clumsily, and it seemed too much and too little all at once. Slightly emboldened, she dared to open her eyes and look at him. He was as red as she guessed she must be as well, but something in his eyes had changed from when they first whirled inside the bathroom. There was something clear and intentional behind that milkiness, eyes fixed unevenly somewhere around her collarbone. She came with a muted Fuck, and suddenly he was a step back and behind that wall again, eyebrows knit and hands lax and awkward like before that confrontation on the driveway, which was only hours ago but already felt lifetimes ago.
Her heavy breathing was the only sound to fill the tiny bathroom, and she felt every part the awkward overgrown girl she’d been when he’d left. For a tense minute they just stared at each other like that, her ribs feeling like cages around her lungs and his eyes so wide she thought they might just take over the entire rest of his face. Dully, she remembered that her shorts were still unzipped and gratefully focused on fixing that.
Eyes downcast, she almost missed his mumbled words. “I should— we should go.”
Her stomach turned again, butterflies churning parallel to bile. We should go, he had said.