5. Haze
5
HAZE
“Come on, Haze,” Oren says, laughing.
“Why are you spinning in a circle?” Dauntless laughs.
I chuckle. “Dude, I have no idea how I’m even doing that. How do I move forward?”
“W,” OnTheHunt and Dauntless say at the same time.
“Only the W. Stop pressing the D too,” Oren says.
I look down at my keyboard, not realizing I was pressing the D at all. As soon as I pick up my pointer, I’m moving forward again. “I think I’d be better with an actual game controller,” I mutter. I still don’t know how to jump or pick anything up. Which is kind of funny since I’m now a level three orc. Like, how did I even level up?
“They make controllers for your computer,” OnTheHunt says.
I’m playing Second World with my brother and two of my brother’s friends. Honestly, I have no interest in the game, though the vastness of the world and what you can do there are impressive. But I wanted to spend some time with my brother, so when he invited me to play with him and his friends, I agreed.
There’s nothing better than hearing him laugh. I can hear the happiness in his voice. His sense of peace, calmness, and security. I’d never heard that in my entire life. I can’t remember the last time I’d seen him smile growing up. Even when we were kids, I didn’t know what Oren looked like when he smiled.
I pick up my phone to open my text messages so I can send myself a reminder to purchase a game controller that connects to my laptop. Maybe I should have taken the recommendation when I purchased the headphones.
While I’m in my text messages, I open the thread between me and Imry. It’s been five days now, and he hasn’t read my messages in the last three. I’m more than a little hurt. I’m kind of pissed about it, too, as my last few messages have definitely been delivered.
Scowling at my phone, I toss it aside and turn back to the computer. “I made a reminder; I’ll order one.”
“Cool,” Oren says.
“What do you need for level four again?” Dauntless asks. “We need to get you up to fighting level so we can do some fun quests.”
“I don’t even know where to find that information,” I say, laughing.
“I got it,” Oren says. “Uh… Oh, I think I have most of this in my inventory. Not the scales. They’re easy enough to find.”
“Let’s find them,” Dauntless says.
“You still with us, Huntley?” Oren asks.
“Yeah,” OnTheHunt says. Apparently, his name is Huntley. I didn’t think that was a common name, but now I know two Huntleys. “Sorry, just adjusting.”
“Leg still bothers you, huh?” Dauntless asks.
“Eh. Sometimes more than others. Doc says I need to exercise to rebuild the muscles that have been torn through. I’m not sure he’s getting my emails about how much I hate exercise, and I need an alternative to his treatment plan.”
Oren and Dauntless laugh.
“What happened to your leg?” I ask.
“I was shot,” Huntley answers.
“Fuck’s sake. Why were you shot?” I ask.
“Hate crime. I was walking home from work and a gang of bigots had just moved down my street.”
I narrow my eyes because that story sounds all too fucking familiar. “Wait. Are you the same Huntley that’s with Oxley Van Doren?” I ask.
There’s a pause before Dauntless asks, “How did you know that?”
I laugh. “Dude, we met at Uncle Noaz’s wedding a couple of months ago. Briar is one of my best friends. I actually live on the VD Estate.”
“No shit,” Huntley says. “What the fuck?”
“Okay, I’m lost,” Dauntless says.
“Buckle up,” I tell him. “I’m about to namedrop like you know who I’m talking about.”
Oren laughs. The sound makes me smile.
“I have five childhood best friends—Briar, Oakley, Brek, Levis, and Honey Bee. The only two you need right now are Oakley and Briar. The… okay, I suppose not the youngest generation of Van Dorens, since Emerson was born two months ago, but the almost youngest generation is Daddy Jalon’s sons.”
“Daddy Jalon,” Huntley snorts. “Oh my god, Ox is going to love that.”
I smirk. “Myro is the oldest, Loren is the youngest, and there are four between them. Oakley married Loren in April. Daddy Jalon has four younger brothers; Noaz is the youngest and only three years older than Myro. Noaz married Briar in July, and they have a son, Emerson. When Briar and Noaz wanted to move back up here to the VD Estate, the entire family picked up and moved, and because Oakley and Briar were going, I and the rest of our friends decided to follow, and so, here I am.”
“Wow,” Dauntless says.
“Oh. And Honey Bee is seeing Myro,” I added, almost as an afterthought. I’m still expecting them to be sneaking around, so I forget they actually told us shortly after Emerson was born.
“Seems to me like your friend group is being swallowed by the Van Dorens,” Oren says. “There’s three of you left and a boatload of Van Dorens. Who’s yours?”
My heart stutters as I glance at my phone.
“To be fair,” Huntley says, “I think most of the rest of them are straight.”
“Nah. The triplets aren’t,” Dauntless says. “I’m across the ocean and even I know that.”
Once again, my heart gives a painful squeeze. “I’m not interested in the triplets,” I say, hoping it comes out convincingly enough. “And yeah, Voss is straight. I don’t really know about Kairo, but if you’ve ever met him, he’s an absolute asshole so no thank you either way.”
“Don’t forget Jalon,” Huntley says. “Mm mmm mm!”
I laugh. “Daddy Jalon’s had a girlfriend for a while. I think she’s coming for Thanksgiving. Will you and Oxley be here?”
“Yes! I can’t wait to meet this woman.”
“I’m going to be curious to know what you think of her,” I muse.
“Ohhh,” Dauntless says. “Spill!”
“Nope. Not until Huntley meets her. I don’t want to do anything to pre-form his opinion.”
“I’m dying to know what this all means!” Oren says.
“Isn’t there another brother or two?” Dauntless asks.
“Uh… there’s one more that we haven’t mentioned. Arath. But he has a hockey stud boyfriend. I’m a little jealous,” I say, fanning myself, though they can’t see it.
“Why? Who?” Dauntless asks.
“Elgin Bolingbrook of Philly. He’s gorgeous and a really damn good player. I kept wishing he’d get traded to Anaheim.”
“You really do like hockey,” Oren says.
“Yeah. Why?”
“I don’t know. I thought you did as kids, but when we got older, you kind of… shut down while we were at hockey.”
“Ah. I don’t really have a reason except that I hated being there with them,” I admit. “It sorta felt…” I trail off as I search for the word I’m looking for. “I don’t know, like they were winning if I was enjoying myself. I didn’t want to give them that satisfaction.”
Oren sighs. “I know what you mean. I still don’t understand why Dad forced me to go and bought me jerseys. Why would you spend hundreds of dollars on the son you hate? It’s one of those things that’s always confused me.”
“No shit. And that he always made sure you got your food first, like he was afraid no one would leave you enough,” I say.
“Yes!” he exclaims. “Fuck, I thought I was the only one who noticed.”
I shake my head. “I noticed. I can’t tell you how often I tried to solve this puzzle, Oren. Why did he buy you new clothes every year like he did the rest of us? He could just as easily force you to wear hand-me-downs.”
“Ugh, I know! Which I think might have been preferable.”
“You’re not the only one who questioned him,” I assure him. “I was always confused. It almost felt like his instincts were to be a good father. So much of what he did would suggest as much. But then there’s everything he said which pretty much erased all the good things.”
Oren sighs. “You have no idea how much I’ve thought about this,” he says quietly. “Trying to make sense of it. Wondering if maybe I imagined some of the good or the bad things. It’s really confusing.”
“What do you think was behind it?” Huntley asks.
Oren doesn’t answer. So I share my hypothesis. “I think Oren looks like Mom and even though it was complications with my birth that killed her, Oren was a constant reminder that she’s no longer here because he looks just like her. I think that’s why Dad was so conflicted. I think he truly loved Mom, and when she died, a piece of him died with her, and he didn’t know what to do with all that despair and anger. You became the brunt of those fucked up emotions because you are Mom’s child through and through, but you’re also visually a reminder that she’s no longer here.”
Oren sniffs. “I kind of thought something like that, too. I didn’t come to the same conclusion, though that makes a lot of sense in a fucked-up way. I also thought I was the one he picked on because I look like Mom and not him like the rest of you.”
“We’re never going to know the reason,” I say. “But that’s the one I’ve come to believe.”
“What about your brothers?” Dauntless asked.
“I think they were just acting in accordance with Dad,” I say. “They saw Dad doing it. Dad’s their role model. If Dad’s doing it, it must be okay. And when they pushed those boundaries without reprimand, he practically gave them permission.”
“That’s shit,” Huntley says. “I so badly wanted to hide Oren in my closet and not let the police take him back there. God, I hate them. I hope they all die miserable, slow, suffering deaths.”
“Ohhh, right. I forgot you’re the Huntley Oren ran away to.”
Huntley sighs. “I was. Or am, I guess.”
“You think Frankie’s going to get out of jail?” Oren asks.
“I hope not. Admittedly, since neither of us is in California anymore, I don’t keep up with him or Dane,” I say.
“Me either. I think Adak does, though.”
Adak is Oren’s boyfriend. He’s a coach for the Carolina Blue Hawks. I’m also slightly jealous that my boyfriend also has a tie-in to hockey, but I’m also not jealous because Oren deserves a happy ending, more than anyone I know. He deserves to be treated right and the few times I’ve seen him since we left California, the more convinced I am that Adak is the perfect man for him. He truly loves my brother, and I know he’ll give him the world.
My phone pings and I instinctively grab for it. I’m disappointed, though not surprised, when it’s not Imry. It’s Levis asking me if Friday night is a good night to go out.
I smile. I appreciate that I have someone to go out with sometimes. None of our friends are into bars or clubs, which is fine. I’m not entirely sure it’s my scene either. But sometimes, you go out to get out more than for the atmosphere.
I respond with a thumbs up and put the phone to sleep so I don’t obsessively look into the dead chat with Imry.
“I hope he dies in there, too,” Dauntless says.
For a second, I forget what we’re talking about. I look at the screen, expecting to see something in the game. All our avatars are motionless as we focus on the conversation, forgetting about the game. Then I realize what we’re talking about. Frankie. Right.
“Me too. If I’m honest, I’m a little floored that they still haven’t figured out who killed Dad,” I say.
“Oh my god, I know!” Oren says. “I’d like to send them a thank-you card.”
I laugh.
“What do you think happened to Dane?” Huntley asks. “I think it’s equally weird how he kind of vanished.”
“Oh, I know this!” Oren says. “Adak told me. I guess he moved in with friends after Dad died and Frankie went off the deep end. He quit working at the prison. Side note—I kinda wonder if Dad forced him to work there. Like he tried to get me to.”
“He tried to convince me to as well,” I muse.
“Anyway, he’s now living with a married couple and makes wreaths with the woman from scraps on their pine tree farm. I have thoughts on this, but what do you think?”
“That’s… fucking weird,” I say, shaking my head.
“Which part?” Huntley asks.
“All of it.”
“Yes!!” Oren says. “I agree. Get this. Adak showed me the woman’s Spectrum page where she posts all about her family and her business. The page itself is a very wholesome place, like they’re genuinely kind people, right? And now there are lots of sweet, almost hinting photos of both the woman and her husband being affectionate with Dane! Haze, he’s smiling. I didn’t think he knew how to smile.”
“Okay, that’s fucking weird. Send me the link to this business. I need to see it with my own eyes.”
“It’s like, in a way, he was freed from your father’s control, too,” Dauntless says.
“His abuse is not excused,” Huntley demands.
“Oh no,” Dauntless agrees as I scroll through the feed on my screen. I see exactly what Oren’s saying. Fucking weird. “Definitely not excused. But you know… if you look at the psychology of child soldiers, they’re taught that life is kill or be killed. Sometimes you do what you have to in order to survive your environment with the most peace possible.”
His words make me flinch. That’s where I lived. In that compliant zone where I did just enough to escape my father and oldest brothers’ attention, but definitely did not do anything to protect Oren like I should have.
“It doesn’t erase their crimes. It doesn’t wash their hands of blood. But their options were to either live to see the next day or die a miserable death,” Dauntless says. “Not everything, not every reason someone does what they do, is black and white. I’m going to bet Frankie lived very black and white. I think he became what he is because it earned him praise from your father. But I think Dane was probably deeply in that gray area. He wanted to survive and saw no way out. He took the path that required the least fight and had the least resistance. He’s still the abuser, but in a way, he’s probably a victim, too.”
I’m not sure how I feel about that, to be honest. I don’t want to think that Dane is a victim. But… seeing the things I saw… maybe we were all victims in very different and specific ways. None more than Oren, but no one left that house unscathed.