Chapter 38 #2
I used to think he was the coolest person ever. I loved him so much, so quickly. He got in trouble a lot at first, which made me scared of him, but not really. I was scared of how my father was acting, not what Anthony was doing. Scared of all the yelling and slamming doors.
Then he started getting me out of the house when our parents were fighting, and it was like I could breathe for the first time in my whole life.
He took me to the beach, showed me how to look for shark teeth, and didn’t care that I didn’t speak much.
He didn’t mind my cold-reddened cheeks or my runny nose or my too-quiet voice that he probably couldn’t even hear above the surf.
I loved being around him. I idolized him.
This trailer only had two bedrooms, so we had to build a shitty wall in the middle of mine to separate a space for him.
I remembered going over to his side whenever there was a thunderstorm, not because they scared me, but because they scared him.
In my ten year old brain, it made sense to try and comfort him. He’d just lost his mom, in a way.
Now he’d lost her for real.
I didn’t like thinking about that.
I hated him more than I had words to explain, but I’d never be able to erase all the love that I’d had for him.
It’d stained the walls of my heart, solidified into the foundation on which I built my eventual hatred.
But I could never get rid of it. I covered it with layers and layers of traumatized animosity, but I could never forget it’d been there, and still was. At the very core of me.
Every once in a while, when I was doing really bad, when my loneliness and my sadness were too overwhelming, I wanted him to come back.
I started convincing myself it hadn’t been so bad.
It might be nice to have a relationship with my brother again—a normal one this time. We could do that, couldn’t we?
No.
We couldn’t do that because he’d fucking ruined me forever.
He’d reshaped my brain into something backwards and terrible. And I could never shape it back, no matter how bad I wanted to.
I’d already been in the bathroom too long. I needed to go back out there.
After a few deep breaths and with my heart in my throat, I managed to force myself out of the bathroom and towards where my mother was beginning to put food on the table. I helped her move dishes and fill up cups of water, then eventually sat down with everyone else.
Conversation had already begun at the table.
It was bizarre, the way my father was acting around Anthony’s fiancee. He was trying to be sociable. Friendly, or something. I’d never once in my life see him try and make conversation with anyone the way he was with Samantha right now.
It made me wonder about a lot of things.
Anthony used to hate our father just as much as I did, but maybe something had changed in his adulthood.
My father noticed me watching the exchange, pinning me with a glare, but I didn’t back down.
I stared at him, really looking at him in the eyes for once in my life, and understood that he didn’t know a single thing about me. Gun to his head, he wouldn’t know my age, my birthday, my major, what college I went to, probably anything about my life.
I didn’t know anything about him, either.
All I knew was that he hated me.
I looked away too late.
“You got something to say?” he snapped.
“No, sir.”
“That’s fuckin’ right. Staring is impolite. You should know that.”
My eyes stayed fixed on my lap. I hadn’t missed this at all.
The fucking constant eggshells I walked on here.
The endless task of trying to stay out of his field of vision to avoid his anger.
The tension always in my shoulders from being hiked up to my ears every time he shattered a glass or shouted loud or slammed his hand on the counter.
Without thinking, I looked over at Anthony. My shield.
I guessed I wanted to see if he was angry or not. If he cared about me being scolded in front of him anymore. If he still wanted to protect me at all.
He wasn’t paying any attention to me, though. Just sawing his knife through the meat without a care in the world. I’d been entirely discarded by him, in every way.
He’d moved on, in the exact way I’d never be able to.
The rest of the meal was as torturous as I’d expected, but I began to dissociate halfway through, staring at nothing and listening to nothing. Only moving the fork from my plate to my mouth in a loop. It was enough to keep myself from having a full-on meltdown like I had last night.
People were talking, sharing things, and I didn’t give a single fuck about any of them.
Samantha showed everyone a picture of some wedding bullshit on her phone, but my eyes were too glazed over to notice exactly what it was. Something white and tacky and stupid. Decorations.
Do you know what he did to me?
Dinner ended and Samantha got a pie out of the fridge, which she’d apparently brought here. I hadn’t noticed when she first arrived. I also hated pumpkin pie, but I had a feeling my father would be pissed if I didn’t have a slice. He didn’t want me being rude to his new favorite daughter in law.
I needed to know what happened between him and Anthony to cause my brother to stop hating him. Had he completely forgotten about the literal horror movie that was this trailer when we were growing up?
The pie was cold and gross to me, but everyone else appeared to love it.
Great.
I didn’t want to hate Samantha, though. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She probably had no clue what sort of man Anthony really was—maybe it was my duty to warn her. But I knew I’d never actually say anything to anyone. It was too late now.
That was, if she actually believed me.
It was more likely that Anthony would call me a liar, and everyone would accept that as the truth.
Anxiety began to jam itself back into my veins at lightning speed, overcoming the numb state I’d slipped into during the meal. No longer was my mind tucked safely below the cold water, but battling massive swells above the surface.
Nobody would believe me.
I knew I didn’t need to worry about that because I was going to keep my mouth shut, but the threat of impending doom still crashed over me in foamy rivulets, sucking me down and tumbling me in its waves. As if this potential future was inevitable and it was already hurting me.
My brain got like this sometimes. It latched onto something horrible and convinced me that it was imminent. I hated how real it felt to me.
I squeezed my hands into fists below the table, my jaw clenched tight. Everyone was getting up and clearing their plates now, but all I could do was keep picturing what would happen if I told. The disgust and judgment. Crushing me into a tiny, minuscule, outcast thing.
Somehow, I was able to stand up from the table and bring my dish to the sink.
My father had returned to the couch—with Anthony and Samantha this time. The TV was too loud. My mother was rinsing dishes and not looking at me.
What am I supposed to do now?
I left and went down the hallway to my bedroom, unsure of where else to go. As I walked in, I glanced over at the makeshift wall still splitting the room in half. My side of the room was the side with the exit door. Anthony always had to go through my space to leave.
My bed was untouched. I sat down on the edge, hanging my heavy head forward.
Everything about this trailer felt loopy and dreamlike, but in the nightmare way.
Like I couldn’t tell how long I’d been here, or what I’d even been doing half the time.
My memories were eroding—or maybe they never existed in the first place.
All my thoughts made no sense, jumping from anxiety to anxiety, cycling through all the things that made me miserable.
The smell of the air was sticking to my clothes, my hair. Voices from the TV carried down the hall to my bedroom, punctuated by sharp whistle blows and marching band music, but I couldn’t make out a single one of the words. It was all bullshit.
And on top of everything else, I was exhausted.
Already drained from a night of restless, feverish sleep, and now drained further by the torments of my lucid brain.
I stared at my dresser, at the bottom drawer.