2. Rhodes
2
RHODES
Friday night, I used to race home so I could get ready for a night on the town with friends. My, how things had changed over the years. Now, my packed evening included stopping at the grocery for coffee creamer, grabbing my dry cleaning, and picking up my mail.
“Been a while since we’ve seen you.” The clerk behind the counter snapped his gum… just like always.
I turned the key to open up my mailbox, wondering if I could get away with ignoring him. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with him and his nosiness. Once upon a time, I’d thought maybe he had a crush, and that was why he always had to make a comment when I came in. But over the years, it became clear: he was just nosy, nosy, nosy.
He popped his gum again.
I conceded. “Yeah, I’ve been busy at work.” I didn’t even turn my head, instead opening up my mailbox and pulling out its contents.
He wasn’t wrong—it had been a few weeks since I came here. But really, all my bills were done online now, and most everything else I got was junk mail. The only reason I kept this box was to maintain a uniform address and have a place for packages to go. I should probably let it go, but that meant changing my address for everything, and paying for this place consistently won out over doing all of that.
My new place was pretty safe; I didn’t have to worry about people stealing my stuff. But a few apartments back, that wasn’t the case. Even the newspaper would get stolen. Packages? Those never made it all the way to me. So, this had been my solution, and I’d stuck with it.
“Yeah, work can be a bummer.” He tapped his fingers on the counters. He was always moving. I normally didn’t mind. Heck, I usually shot the shit with him, but not today. Today all I wanted to do was go home, order a pizza, and watch mindless television until my brain settled enough to sleep.
Normally, I’d flip through the mail now and toss the recycling away. Why bring it home to get rid of it, when it was easy enough to do here? They even had a shredder I could use. Today I was taking it all with me. I didn’t want to end up getting into a conversation with him. I was exhausted, and frankly, I was in a really shit mood.
“Have a nice week!” I called as I walked to the door. I needed to make a concerted effort not to be so grumpy next time.
“That long?”
“We’ll see.” I gave him a nod of my head and walked out with all my mail, waiting until I got to my car to look through it.
I soon discovered that there was a local election coming up to replace someone who had resigned for a position I’d never even heard of. I had not one or two flyers about that—no, I had a dozen, and all were from the same candidate. Honestly, I probably wasn’t even going to vote. I didn’t understand what the job entailed, and from the looks of it, there was only one person even running.
I shuffled through the pile to find a paper copy of my electric bill, which was already paid thanks to autopay. I wasn’t sure why they still sent it on paper—local ordinance, I suspected. A few catalogs for places that delivered desserts also showed up, all because I’d sent my mother a birthday cake once from an online store six years ago. The next pile of discards were all fast food coupons. The amount of mail I received that was actually worthy was minuscule.
I whittled away the pile until there were only three things left worth looking at. All three of them had my last name in the return addy, and I didn’t recognize the handwriting. It was far too frilly or nice to belong to either my mom or my brother. But since they were all I had as far as family went, I knew it had to be one of them. My mom would’ve just called, leaving me with one suspect: Seb.
“Okay, let’s see what you’re up to now,” I muttered.
To say my half-brother and I didn’t get along was the understatement of the year. I did not like him, and he did not like me. And I suppose that was fine. Lots of siblings didn’t get along.
Growing up, he was much older than me. He was also an alpha. You’d think that would mean he’d be protective of me, his little omega brother. He wasn’t. If anything, he was king of throwing me under the bus or “teaching me how to be tough.” All of that sucked, but it didn’t get under my skin as much as the way he’d always treated our mom did.
He was that teenager who would simply not come home at night… at all. He’d promise to be back by midnight and stroll in as the sun came up. Our mom? She would spend the entire night worrying about him. And, if he did come home, he’d be drunk or stoned or have friends with him that were. He was also that kid who “borrowed” money from my mom’s purse when he owed money after losing a bet, leaving her without bill money. One time, he even set his mattress on fire, falling asleep smoking inside the house.
I could have pushed all of that aside as teenage rebellion—because it was 100% that—except it didn’t end when he grew up. When my mom got sick, he wasn’t there for her. Not once. He wasn’t the one to send her flowers or visit her in the hospital, check on her houseplants, or even call. He just disappeared. When I asked him why, he told me he was “too busy.”
That one was the worst, in my book. It was one thing being a shitty brother to me, but our mom? She didn’t deserve that. She gave us everything. It was time he grew up and stopped being horrible to her. Although, funny enough, to hear her tell it, you’d think he was the perfect child.
Every family has a golden child, and Seb was ours. If I got an A-minus, I was grounded. If he got a C-plus, he got a prize. If I brought the car back without filling the gas tank up, I had to fill it the next two times if it needed it. If he did, it was, “Oh, don’t worry about it. You’re busy.”
I sounded like a jealous freak. And maybe there was some truth in that. But years of seeing him use her as a doormat and I no longer cared how it looked or what it said about me. Our mom deserved better.
The three cards were all dated a week apart. It had been longer than I realized since I grabbed my mail. I opened the oldest one and pulled out the card, a save-the-date for my brother and his fiancé.
Seb and Kyle were finally getting married. They’d been together forever, and he seemed nice enough. When I first met him, I had a splinter of hope that he’d help my brother see the error of his ways. So far, that has turned out not to be the case.
I’d have felt bad for him, but he knew what he was getting into with Seb. It wasn’t like my brother ever pretended to be anything but what he was. Heck, the first time I’d met Kyle, my brother joked about having a connection to the mob. Who does that? But for whatever reason, Kyle wasn’t fazed by that or anything else my brother did. .
As this was the save-the-date, my guess was there was a wedding invitation in one of these other two envelopes. The third one? That had me curious. Sure enough, the wedding invitation was next. It didn’t even have a plus-one. No, I wasn’t dating anyone, but a plus-one was a common courtesy. The RSVP date was next week.
With such short notice, I could probably get away with saying I was already scheduled for a business trip. I didn’t need to spend my day with people who made me miserable. The only reason they’d invited me with such short notice was so I wouldn’t be able to go. No way they actually got the venue this close to the event.
“What are you?” I tore open the last card, and it was the worst of the lot. I’m so glad you’re Seb’s best man.
“I’m the what?”
At the bottom was a note from his fiancé: Your mom thought this would be a great way for you two to mend some fences.
Fuck.
They brought my mom into it, which meant they’d had a family meeting… without me. And that was... argg . So much for skipping the wedding.
“I can do this. I can suck it up for one day, go to the wedding, stand there, pretend he’s a semi-decent human being and that I’m happy for him, and be done.” I had a friend in town who was overseas for an extended work trip. I could probably even “house-sit” their apartment and not need to be around my family too much. I could do this.
Probably. Maybe.
Please let there be an open bar. At least then, I could drink my way through it. And if that caused a scene, so be it. It wasn’t like he hadn’t done worse over the years to me.