Chapter 16 Ares
Ares
Ares had naively believed the week couldn’t get any worse.
He thought he’d already hit his lowest point at school, when Chanel had accused him of selling her out. He can see it even
now. The distrust in her eyes, the bitterness in her tone, just when he was starting to believe he meant something to her,
something real. And as if the whiplash from the accusation wasn’t enough, she’d grabbed his arm right over his newest wound,
and he’d felt the hastily done stitches rip, an awful, tearing sensation that made him shudder. Had barely a second’s chance
to react before he hurried out of the room, determined not to let her see the extent of his injuries. He was bleeding through
his school uniform by the time he reached the bathroom, trying to staunch the flow with paper towels.
His arm still burns right now.
But the pain pales in comparison when he remembers what day it is. The day everything went wrong, the day that marks three
years exactly since he last saw Luke.
Three years since they all went out to eat at Luke’s favorite burger restaurant.
It was always Luke who told their father what he craved, and that was always the place they went.
Ares simply followed, like he was doing now, two steps behind his father and his brother as they headed toward the entrance, where the menus were plastered to the glass doors, advertising their newest chicken-salt curly fries and cheeseburgers in several sizes.
The dog had bolted out of nowhere.
That’s how it seemed, anyway. Just a blur of dark and brown fur, a snarl that echoed down the street, and then the dog’s hot
breath on his wrist before the creature sank its fangs in. It happened so fast that he barely had time to register the pain,
only a horrible, bone-crushing pressure.
He didn’t scream.
He was too stunned, almost incredulous—he had just been walking, hadn’t he? He’d been deliberating whether to buy the double or triple cheeseburger. How could he be bleeding because some
wild creature had attacked him? Why hadn’t anyone stopped the dog?
Then his survival instinct kicked in, and he jerked back from the animal, gasping. The animal appeared to have lost interest
anyway; it licked the fresh blood on its chin and sniffed the air, its ears perking up. Then it bounded off in the direction
of the roast-pork store opposite the restaurant.
“Are you hurt? How are you feeling? Look at me.” His father’s voice, trembling with worry.
Ares collected himself, determined to put up a brave front and assure his father he was fine, but when he lifted his head, his father wasn’t even looking his way.
He had pulled Luke to the side to protect him, and was now crouching down in front of his little brother, scanning his perfectly unscathed face while Ares stood there alone, blood trickling down from his fingertips.
“Don’t be scared, erzi. The dog’s gone now,” his father said, squeezing Luke’s shoulder, still without even a glance at Ares.
Now the pain was really here, pulsing like white-hot electric shocks through his arm. He didn’t know if he was supposed to
wrap something around the bite or leave it alone or try to clean it. A lump pushed against his throat. He wanted, embarrassingly,
to burst into tears, but he hadn’t cried since he was a little kid. He wasn’t going to start now.
“I think Gege’s injured,” Luke whispered, and only then did his father turn around.
His father frowned over at him, and Ares strained to detect some glimpse of genuine concern. Pity would be fine too; that
wasn’t asking so much, was it? You could even pity a stranger in pain, or a movie character on a screen. But his father’s
jaw was set, his face hard. “You should go to the hospital to stitch that up,” he said at last. “Wouldn’t want to get rabies.”
“Right. Yes,” Ares said. He felt somewhat lightheaded, like when you were only running on three hours of sleep but pushing
your brain to work anyways.
“You can call yourself a DiDi, can’t you?” his father said. It wasn’t really a question. “We’ll meet you after lunch.”
With his uninjured arm, he fumbled for his phone, and the lump in his throat hardened until he couldn’t even swallow. His
fingers kept slipping over the keyboard, the pain making it hard to focus. Wrong password. Try again. Wrong password. Try again. He hissed under his breath. His father was walking away already, holding Luke’s hand, talking about trying the new curly fries.
Wrong password. Five attempts left. And then the terrifying words circled his mind like a threat: hospital, rabies, stitches. He didn’t want to think about any of that right now. He just wanted to go home.
He did, eventually, after the lonely visit to the hospital, where everything smelled like rubbing alcohol and sickness and
stale final breaths. “Where are your parents?” the nurse had asked him while she stitched him up, and he lied about his father traveling for work. Even at a time like this,
he rushed to his father’s defense.
“Almost done,” the nurse told him. He couldn’t stop staring at the needle threading through his flesh, couldn’t stop thinking about how fragile
humans really were.
It was almost midnight when he staggered down the corridor, his arm throbbing. He passed by Luke’s bedroom—the biggest en
suite, with a wrap-around balcony, the walls covered with science and car posters. The kind of bedroom he would’ve dreamed
of having as a kid, but he’d been forced to squeeze himself into a tiny cot back at his grandparents’ house, which creaked
every time he moved.
Luke was still awake. He was sitting comfortably on the couch, licking a boba ice-cream bar Ares bet he’d stolen from the
fridge when their father wasn’t looking. Not that his father could bear to get mad at Luke for it, even if he found out.
And Ares felt an ugly emotion rising, rising up in him.
Luke lifted his head and spotted him in the doorway. Blinked those innocent eyes at him. “Gege. You’re back—is your arm okay?”
“Yes, it is,” Ares said stiffly. He waited for that resentful, self-pitying feeling to go away, but the longer he stared at Luke—perfect, adored, sheltered, angelic Luke, his half-brother—the stronger it grew, until it was impossible to ignore.
He hadn’t meant to think the words, let alone say them, but suddenly they were stumbling out of his lips.
“You know, it’s funny. Our father really doesn’t give a shit about me. ”
Luke stopped licking the ice cream. His eyes widened. “Yes, he does,” he said, which was somehow more enraging than if he’d
simply agreed.
“No,” Ares snapped. “He doesn’t. He only cares about you—”
“That’s not true,” Luke said. “He loves us equally. All fathers love their sons equally, that’s what my friend said—”
“Not our father.”
Luke’s nose scrunched up in confusion. “But—”
“Jesus, can you just leave me alone for once?”
Shock flashed across Luke’s face, as if Ares had suddenly reached out and struck him.
Ares made himself leave before he could say anything else. He continued on his way to his bedroom at the very end of the corridor,
already regretting the conversation. He should’ve just kept his mouth shut. Luke was still a child, it wasn’t his fault. Tomorrow, he thought, once he had the energy and his arm wasn’t hurting so terribly. Tomorrow, he’d apologize to Luke and tell him he
hadn’t meant it. He’d make blueberry pancakes and draw a smiley face in maple syrup the way Luke liked it, as compensation,
and he’d take Luke to the arcade to play Street Fighter, and things between them would be okay.
But the next morning, Luke was gone.