22. A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me
A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More "Touch Me"
Thanksgiving already carried little weight in the Ying household, but this year was proving to be particularly rough.
After the Lotus Garden fiasco, everyone wordlessly, mutually agreed to go their separate ways and just… process. They’d all been through personalized psychological torture chambers, and the last thing any of them needed was to account for anyone’s emotions besides their own.
But unfortunately for Dustin, there was no escape. Him and Chris lived together after all.
Since they’d gotten home, he’d spent the whole night and following morning simply trying to stay out of the way. Sure, he was resorting to his worst habits, but shrinking inward was better than provoking Chris to explode outward. At least for the time being.
But of course… he eventually had to pee. He couldn’t put biology on hold forever.
He peeked through his bedroom door, carefully scanning the hallway for any signs of life.
He could hear football pre-show on the TV downstairs, hyping up the annual Dallas Cowboys vs Washington Redskins game.
Their dad was probably watching it on the big screen in the living room, meaning Chris was likely in his own bedroom.
The coast seemed to be clear.
Dustin speedwalked to the bathroom, trying not to trigger too many floorboard creaks as he went. Just as he made it to the bathroom and reached for the handle however, the door swung open and a wall of steam hit him in the face.
There stood Chris in his towel, with the scent of hair bleach lingering in the air between them.
“Oh… hey,” Dustin said, lowering his gaze to the floor, “sorry I just needed to use the bathroom,”
Chris chuckled.
“Sorry? Fuck are you apologizing for you damn nerd?”
Dustin cringed. Not because of Chris’s words, but because of the affectation. He delivered it in the same nonchalant, casually confident way he would’ve before any of this happened. Before the rings, before Leo, before the garden.
It’d always rang hollow, but now it felt egregious.
So, against his better judgement, Dustin asked the question. Like an idiot throwing a match onto gasoline.
“Bro, are you like… okay? I know everything that happened was a lot and I just…”
“Gonna stop you right there baby brother,” Chris raised his hand, silencing Dustin immediately, “we’ve already been over this. Just because I got out of the garden without having a mental breakdown like the rest of you losers, doesn’t mean I failed,”
“No one’s saying you failed Chris, I’m just…”
“Just what?” Chris narrowed his eyes, “I really don’t need you to play therapist right now. Or ever, really,”
“I’m not trying to be your therapist! I’m just worried about you dude!”
“And that’s exactly your problem! Who asked you to worry? I’ve gotten along just fucking fine by myself, and that’s not changing now,” Chris said, finally stepping past Dustin.
Dustin could’ve let him walk away. He probably should’ve.
But he didn’t. He wouldn’t.
As Chris headed back for his room, Dustin put a hand on his shoulder.
“Ying Ziheng, talk to me. Please. You’re not in this by yourself,”
Chris immediately stopped in his tracks, and Dustin felt his bare skin warming up under his touch.
“Get off me,”
“Chris…”
“Get THE FUCK off me!” Chris whipped around faster than Dustin could anticipate, pinning him to the wall, and shaking the decorative Chinese fans from the force of it.
“Hey! Stop horsing around up there!” their father’s booming voice carried up the stairs, but Chris completely blocked it out, his eyes burning holes into Dustin’s.
“The fuck do you mean I’m not in this by myself? I’ve been in this by myself since day fucking one!”
“W-what are you talking about?” Dustin tried to loosen Chris’s grip on his collar, but it was ironclad.
“You think I don’t know that you’ve only ever seen me as a problem-child?
Just like mom and dad? You think they see me as the golden boy, but they treat me like a living landmine, while you’re the one they pin all their hopes on.
So don’t give me that shit about us being ‘in it together’, when all you’ve ever fucking thought about is yourself! ”
Alright, that was the last straw.
“ME? I’m the one who only thinks about myself? When you’ve been bulldozing your way over me and my feelings for years?! After I took the hit for you so your life would stay on track?!”
“ENOUGH!” the thunderous voice of Elliot Ying rumbled through the hallway as he ascended the stairs, forcing both twins to stop and turn their attention to him, “I don’t know what this is about, and I don’t care. But it ends, now,”
Chris exhaled sharply and let Dustin go, storming off to his room to get dressed.
“I’m going out. Don’t wait up,”
When Chris left the house, he didn’t have anything even resembling a plan. He just needed to drive; velocity always helped. So how he ended up here was honestly a blur.
The tiny little ranch house on the cliffs overlooking the harbor. The same house he and Dustin found themselves at countless times over the years for last minute study sessions.
Bailey’s house.
Her dad’s SUV was gone, but her beat up red pickup was still parked out front. He half-remembered her mentioning something about her parents visiting family in Vancouver, and her opting out.
Chris really didn’t even know if he wanted to knock on the door, or if he just wanted to sit in the car and remember the times the trio spent there before everything went to hell. But the choice was made for him when he saw Bailey struggling to lug two heavy trashcans around from the backyard.
Without even thinking, he hopped out of the car and jogged across the lawn to help her.
“Chris? What are you doing here?” she asked, looking up at him as he took the trash from her grasp, “and your eyes are red. Either you’re high, or you’ve been crying,”
“I’m helping you and the first thing you do is question me?” Chris scoffed and sniffled, “you should be thanking your savior,”
“Savior? More like my headache,” Bailey replied, smiling softly, but Chris recoiled.
“Yeah… yours and everyone else’s,” he muttered, pulling the cans to the curb and heading back to the Cadillac without another word.
“Chris, hey Christian, wait!” Bailey called after him, running ahead and cutting him off, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get under your skin like that. Tell me what’s going on,”
“I’m just gonna go,”
“No, don’t,” Bailey put a hand in the center of his chest, “come inside. I can’t cook for shit, but I’ll make you a turkey sandwich or something? It’s not very festive, but you know I’ve practically reinvented the art of sandwich making,”
Chris couldn’t stifle his chuckle.
“Alright, fine. But only because me and Dustin started fighting before we could order from Wong’s like we usually do. I’m fucking starving,”
As Chris sat at the kitchen table, with only an empty plate left in the space between him and Bailey, he mentally cursed himself for being so easily manipulated by food.
“So Hungry Man, you finally gonna tell me what’s going on with you and Dusty?” Bailey asked, resting her elbows on the table and cocking her head like an adorable puppy.
“It’s just… stuff,” Chris sighed, “you really don’t need to worry about it,”
“God Christian, you’re so stubborn. Why can’t you just talk to me? You’ve known me since we were thirteen!”
“Because you don’t even…” Chris started to shout, but his tone naturally tapered off, like the fuel for his fire was just gone, “you don’t even know what it’s like for me. To live like this,”
“Like every second of every day is a performance for other people, and you get so used to pushing your true self aside that you don’t even remember who you are without the stage?
” Bailey reached across the table, sliding the plate aside and gently taking Chris’s hands, “yeah, I totally don’t know what that’s like,”
That hit Chris like a bullet, and he immediately pulled his hands away as he fought the lump in his throat.
“P-please,” he scoffed, trying desperately to sound detached, “you only care about me because I come as a packaged set with your precious ‘Dusty’,”
“Christian, give it a rest,” Bailey urged, taking his hands again, “you know that’s not true, and we’re not talking about Dustin right now. I wanna talk about you. The same you that I’ve been obsessed with since the first time Dustin invited me over to play Mortal Kombat: Dead or Alive,”
Chris rolled his eyes, forcing back the tears that were building in them.
“Deadly Alliance Bails, jeez,”
“I know, just had to make sure you were hearing me,” Bailey winked at him, “now please, just talk to me alright?”
A tear fell, and Chris immediately rushed to wipe it away.
“I just… don’t really know what to do anymore.
Ever since we were kids, it feels like me and Dustin have been fighting for the spotlight.
Like there’s only enough oxygen for one of us, and when we were younger, he got to use it all up.
He was the one that our parents were counting on to keep up our family image.
But when they looked at me? They saw a problem, an explosive one too.
Like if they didn’t handle me with kid gloves, I’d burn everything down,”
“And that’s why you’re mad at Dustin? Because he thinks you’re the favorite, but in reality you feel like a pet they keep on a leash so it doesn’t bite?”
“No, it’s not… like, I’m not even really mad at him. I’m not even mad at my parents for real,”
“So if it’s not Dustin, and it’s not your parents, then who are you mad at?” Bailey gently massaged Chris’s hands, her voice soft and even.
“I don’t know…”
“You do know. You just need to say it out loud,”
“Bails, I…”
“Come on babe, it’s alright, you’re safe here. It’ll stay just between us if that’s what you need,”