Chapter 12 Monster
TWELVE
Monster
My kneecap is broken.
It isn’t bad enough to need a cast, but crutches aren’t negotiable. They recommend Advil for the pain, but they give me an injection of something stronger before I leave the emergency room.
When I wake up the next day, the pain is back along with another healthy dose of uncomfortable clarity—the what-the-fuck-have-I-done kind.
I mean, really—what the fuck was I thinking?
Showing up drunk—in a tree? Who does that?
Did I freak him out so much, he just decided to go along with whatever I asked?
No. He wanted to come with me. He asked to come. Didn’t he? It’s hazy, the sequence of events up until the time I came out of the bathroom and we started talking about Jayne.
Jesus, I am such an asshole. I had sex with two people in two days. Way to give a guy you like a meaningful experience, Archer. Strong work. Fuck, I hate myself.
I was drunk. Drunk on bourbon and then drunk on him.
Now all I feel is wrung-out, hungover, and guilty with a touch of that desperate, clawing craving.
I decide to put off calling him for a day or two.
I’m hoping I’m able to get my thoughts together enough to handle the situation the right way, whatever that looks like.
Part of me wants to set him free—enjoy college, live his life, but the part of me trapped in the memory of last night doesn’t want him to forget either.
That part of me wants to take up all his spare time. It wants to invade every corner of his life.
Connor’s struggle with Tristan’s absence is enough to reassure me that Tristan probably has other priorities right now, and a call from me can wait.
The day after he moves, my brother’s bottom drops out.
Or his rope snaps, or his parachute fails.
Whatever metaphor is best for free fall.
Connor’s insomnia keeps me up at night, too.
He plays music, but I still hear him crying sometimes.
Once, and only once, I try to talk to him.
I knock on his door thinking surely he can use a shoulder—if not a brother.
Maybe now that we’re both alone, we can move forward together.
I am sorely mistaken. My effort is much too little, and I am way too late.
“Get the fuck away from me. I hate you. I hate you.”
Those words and that exact phrasing start repeating themselves in my head like a punk rock refrain.
They have the rhythm of a protest chant.
His misery doesn’t stop or change, so I assume his feelings about my attempts at interference won’t either.
I keep my distance. In truth—in the interest of total transparency—I go on about my life as though he doesn’t exist. It’s a small house, but we are very, very good at avoiding each other in it.
What I cannot avoid, however, is hearing the phone conversations that last for hours.
“He got a tattoo? How? What’s it of? Does it look stupid?
What did your mom say? She hasn’t? Shit.
Have you met anybody? Of course you will, but I swear to God, if you stop calling me, I’m gonna drive up there and burn your house down…
It’s fine. All he does is paint. I never see him…
I wouldn’t know. He doesn’t speak to me…
Ten weeks. That’s what I keep telling myself…
but I don’t know how I’m gonna do school without you. Jesus, I fucking miss you.”
The conclusions of these calls vary only in the relative level of rage contained in the songs Connor blasts after he hangs up.
After a particularly melancholy goodbye, he usually goes for old Coldplay.
After a call when they laugh a lot, it’s something more along the lines of Nine Inch Nails or Drowning Pool.
I prefer the latter. It covers the sounds of crying better than Chris Martin does.
Before I know it, I’ve let nearly a week go by without contacting Tristan, and the expiration date on being a good guy is fast approaching.
On Friday night, while I’m watching a Rangers’ game at West’s house and turning my phone over and over in my hand, I decide tomorrow’s the day.
Either Tristan and I are going to open the door on a future together, or we’re gonna shut the door on the past.
On Saturday I wake to another note from Connor saying he’ll be in Houston for the weekend, which is just fucking great. I’m so happy he and Tristan get to be reunited after five whole days apart. Lucky them.
It means I have to push back my phone call.
It also means I have to picture them going out and getting wasted at fraternity parties or flirting with strangers or whatever best friends do when they’re left to their own devices in a college dorm.
All of that to say, on Saturday, I start drinking early. Again. Jealousy is hell on the liver.
The whiskey doesn’t relax me, though. It agitates me. I get the kind of drunk that makes people start bar fights. Belligerent.
I trip on a pair of Connor’s boots in the bathroom, and in my simmering rage state, I stomp down the hall to his room, open the door and fling them inside. Since he’s moved in, his door is always closed, so I’m surprised it isn’t locked.
I kind of wish it was because the bulletin board over his bed catches my eye. It’s covered in photos. I shouldn’t do this, but I do. I enter the room and walk over to it.
Basically, it’s a photo journal of Connor and Tristan’s friendship.
Aside from that, there’s one photo of Connor with Jayne and another of a little boy in a baseball uniform who looks nothing like me or Connor.
I quickly avert my eyes. I tell myself there’s no point mourning someone I never knew existed.
It’s better this way. Swallowing hard, I skim over to a photo of a thin man with glasses. With a jolt, I recognize my father.
With dark, disheveled hair and a crooked smile, he’s standing on my back porch looking over his shoulder at the person, probably my brother, who took the picture.
He looks worn down. Not just that, but also relieved, like he finally finished a difficult race, and he’s made it to the finish line.
I don’t think I would have recognized him if it hadn’t been for the screened in porch.
I get an uncomfortable feeling in my chest the longer I look at the picture.
Vague memories glance through my brain, but they’re as impossible to touch as smoke.
It’s no longer rage or apathy I’m feeling, but I need it to be apathy.
Abruptly, I focus my attention on the pictures of Tristan.
It’s like watching him grow up. First he’s an adorable little boy with blonde curls, then a skinny preteen who hasn’t grown into his face, and then—puberty.
Braces, pecs, a revolution in hair styling where his hair goes from a short, classic cut to the longer, golden waves I recognize.
I settle on a photo in the top right corner of the bulletin board.
One of the most recent. I pull out the thumbtack and turn it over.
It’s a photo of Connor and Tristan on a couch I don’t recognize dated 5-27.
It was less than two weeks before all our lives got turned upside down.
The two of them are sitting together, shoulders pressed one against the other.
Their smiles are perfect. Connor looks so happy it makes my stomach turn.
It’s horrible to see him how he was once, because the guy living with me is an empty shell of the one in the photograph. He might as well have died in that crash too. Part of him probably did. The other part clearly belongs to Tristan.
The sickening jealousy resurfaces. They’re too close to really believe it’s not more, or wasn’t at some point, aren’t they? And if that’s the case, then who the fuck am I to either of them?
I fold the picture in half so I can look at Tristan alone. I put it in my wallet, because his skin was in my teeth on Saturday. And, despite my best efforts, I think about him all the time.
Monday is the day I plan to finally make the call I’ve been putting off. I almost called him Sunday night but ended up falling asleep waiting for Connor to get off the phone with him, because apparently the twenty-four hours they just spent together wasn’t enough time.
As my brother and I both prepare for our first day of school, we manage to avoid each other like pros. I don’t even see him for half an hour as we wind through the same few rooms, missing run-ins by mere seconds at times. I hear him, though.
“Pulling it off? I don’t know about that. At least I don’t have to use crutches anymore. Watching my brother on them gives me memory burn… No, he’s fine. What did you decide to wear?”
It goes on like this for several more minutes. “Calculus and French. You’re taking Calculus, too, right? You’ll be fine. Yeah, I’ll help, but you won’t need it.”
I emerge from my room, ready to leave, just as Connor’s passing by. He stops and stares up at me.
It’s still summer in Texas, but he’s wearing tight black jeans and combat boots.
Connor never leaves the house in anything but pants because it’s the only way to cover the foot-long, inch-wide scar on his leg.
Here at home, I’ve seen him in shorts a few times, and I got a good look at the scar one afternoon when he was on the porch swing in the sweltering heat. It still looks like it hurts.
Seeing him all fixed up for school takes my breath away.
His beauty makes me nervous. I don’t want to let him out of the house with that glossy raven-black hair, the kohl-lined eyes, the pretty piercings in his lip, making him look both fierce and delicate.
When I look at Connor, I can almost see the twelve-year old I left behind with the messy brown hair wearing jean shorts and Minecraft t-shirts. That’s the boy I want to protect.