Chapter 11 Dane
Dane
Connor and Thalia are fighting, though I’m not sure why.
I’ve eavesdropped on their spats from time to time, and it’s always a bunch of nonsense.
Out of curiosity, I leave my PC game paused to hang out on the bathroom counter and listen to the latest episode of Connor and Thalia’s boring relationship drama.
Something about Connor not understanding Thalia and Thalia not communicating with Connor.
But then, my name gets tossed into the mix.
“Ever since we got here, you’ve been more interested in hanging out with Dane than with me,” Thalia gripes, spitting my name out like she’d mangled it with her teeth first.
“That’s not true,” Connor argues. “It’s just that he actually wants to hang out with me.”
“He only wants to hang out with you because he knows it annoys me.”
Not true. It’s only an added bonus.
“Why does it annoy you?” Connor asks, voice lifting half a step. “Why is it that now that we’re in San Diego, I’m not allowed to have friends?”
“I never said that. You know I never said that.”
“You don’t want me hanging out with Dane, and you don’t want me hanging out with Margot. So what am I supposed to do?”
Who the hell is Margot?
“I don’t know, Connor. Maybe hang out with any of the other half a million people in this city who aren’t my brother or a hot girl with a nose ring who thinks you’re so talented.”
“At least I tell you who I’m hanging out with. You never tell me anything about the people you meet up with, and I bet they’re not all chicks.”
“You want to meet all my friends now?”
“I’d appreciate it if you wanted me to meet them.”
“They’re not your kind of people!” Thalia exclaims.
“What does that even mean?! If they’re your kind of people, why can’t they be my kind of people? We used to hang out with the same people back in Sacramento.”
“You mean those neanderthal douchebags you call friends? News flash, Connor, I never wanted to hang out with them. I only joined that group because of soccer, and I only stuck around so I could spend time with you.”
“Then why can’t I hang out with your group just to spend time with you?”
There’s a heavy sigh in Thalia’s tone. “I just don’t want to have to mediate the entire time.”
“I don’t know what that means, Thal.”
It means she thinks you’re too simple for her snooty law school friends.
“It means I’ll end up spending the entire time entertaining you so you’re not miserable, and then I’ll just be miserable too,” she answers.
“Fine. If entertaining me makes you so miserable, that’s fine, but don’t get mad at me for making alternate plans with people who actually want me around.”
“That’s not fair. I just don’t—”
The doorknob clicks, and the door swings open.
I flinch, my ass skidding across the counter a couple of inches. Face to face with Connor’s exasperated face, I half expect him to scold me for listening in, but all he does is sidle into the bathroom and shut the door.
Through the panel, Thalia shouts, “You’re such a weasel, Dane! Get a life!”
Connor marches across the floor, sticks his arm in the shower stall and cranks the water on. “I gotta shower,” he says, but I stay planted on the counter, wondering why Connor won’t look at me.
“What was that all about?” I ask.
Side-eyeing the locked door to his room, Connor shakes his head, then sighs. “It’s nothing.”
He looks exhausted, but that could be because he’s still in his sleepy-time shorts and tank top, and his hair is all fluffed up and unstyled. I want to put my arms around him and kiss the stale salt from his neck.
“A friend from school invited me to her Halloween party,” he says. “I asked Thalia if she wanted to come, but I guess she’s already got plans that don’t involve me.”
Something like scorn pangs in my gut, wondering why Connor would rather go to a party with Thalia than with me.
Is it because of what happened at the last party we went to?
I’d never let that happen again. I haven’t even wanted to hook up with another guy since Connor high-tailed it out of that laundry room like I’d broken his heart.
Kaden’s been blowing up my phone, complimenting me in ways he only does when he wants something from me, but I’ve brushed him off every time.
Not only am I uninterested, I know Connor wouldn’t like it, and I’ve been trying to treat him better lately.
“I’ll go with you,” I tell him.
His eyes finally flicker back to me, landing first on my bare chest before trailing up to my face. “Really? You don’t have a rager to go to?”
“I’m sure there’s a couple. I can take you to one if you want, or we can go to your thing.”
Steam filters through the opening in the shower door, fogging the glass and making the room hot. “It’s probably gonna be lame for you. I don’t mind going alone.”
“I don’t mind coming along.”
His gaze travels down, lingering on my chest again. “Maybe. My friend, Margot, is dying to meet you.”
“Nose ring girl?” So he’s been talking about me. “I hear she thinks you’re talented.”
Eyes rolling, Connor shoos me off the counter and tells me we can head out for the party at seven.
Before I slip out of the room, I tell him, “Don’t mope. It’s Halloween.”
In the kitchen, I set about making one of Connor’s magic protein shakes that always leaves me gagging. By now, the recipe is embedded in my muscle memory.
To my displeasure, Thalia is at the island, decimating a blueberry muffin with her painted fingernails, a pronounced scowl on her face. Trouble in paradise? I nearly taunt, but I restrain myself for Connor’s benefit.
I’m on my knees, reaching for the blender from the bottom cabinet, when Thalia asks, “What’re you doing with my boyfriend?”
Bringing the blender up to the counter, I scoff. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“He’s not going to fuck you.”
My sister’s jagged words stop me cold, the life spilling down my spine while my heart kicks up a rapid beat.
“What?”
“You think I don’t know about you? I’ve known since we were kids.
You were always stealing my stuff, which meant I always had to go find them in your room.
Found other things too. Things you kept under your bed, under your pillow, in that shoebox in your closet.
You’re welcome for not telling anyone, by the way. ”
Her bladed tongue drives through, skewering my insides and twisting them up like ramen noodles. As nauseous as I feel, I steel myself and drag my hard stare right at Thalia. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and the only thing I’m doing with Connor is being his friend.”
“You’re not his friend.”
“More of a friend than you are, apparently.”
With a mirthless laugh, Thalia pushes away from the island and grabs her bag from the stool.
Leaving her massacred muffin on the counter, she sneers, “Connor is never going to want you, Dane. Even if he swung that way, you’re too pathetic for anyone to want.
I don’t know what sob stories you’ve been telling him, but the only thing he feels for you is pity.
If I find out you’ve been trying to mess with him, I’ll tell him the truth, and I’ll tell Dad too.
Then, you can have fun sleeping on the beach with the rest of society’s garbage. ”
Showing me her back, she storms out the front door after snatching her keys from the hook.
I’m shaking, and while I wish it was with contempt, it’s mostly panic. My brain buffers, unable to progress past a singular thought: I’ll tell him the truth.
Legs weak, I wobble from the kitchen to my bedroom and fling my closet door open.
Burrowing through my junk, I end up on my ass with my back against the wall, half hidden behind a curtain of clothes on hangers, and I have that old Sketchers box sitting on my lap.
Already a size eight by the time I was eleven-years-old, I had fit a lot in here during those wretched middle school years when Artie and Lori split and Earth started spinning the wrong way.
Behind the lid is the most recent artifact I’d stashed in here—something I found among the boxes of junk Artie tasked Joss with donating to Goodwill.
A Polaroid of Lori and me. Candid. I must have been six or seven, still small enough to sit on her lap, her thin arms cinched around me so I wouldn’t fall, or maybe just to keep me still.
It’s always been hard for me to keep still.
Underneath that are the letters I wrote her and never sent. Letters asking why she left and when she was coming back for me. But these aren’t the letters Thalia would’ve seen. She was already gone by then too.
Digging deeper, I find the other letters.
The ones that began this dumb keepsake box.
Letters to all the other people who would never love me back.
The freckly boy from sleepaway camp. The boy from pee-wee soccer who came over to swim once.
The boy who sat next to me in fourth grade and gave me snacks out of his lunch bag.
The computer lab teacher who’d let me wear his glasses for fun, even after I broke them once.
TV actors I was convinced would love me if only I were older and also famous.
So many letters scribbled for stupid crushes during lonely, sleepless nights. And my sister read them. I bet she laughed too. Bet she thought it was a real riot that her good-for-nothing brother isn’t just a train wreck but a gay one too.
I want to tear these letters apart and set them on fire, but I can barely move, save for the tremor in my hands. Through the wall, I hear the rainfall of Connor’s shower and imagine what sort of letter I’d write to him just to shove in a box in the back of my closet.
Dear Connor,
Why not me?
The misspelled scribbles of my childhood self blur as water floods my vision. I shuffle through the pages, one by one, until the razor edge of a crisp cardstock page slices through the soft side of my thumb.
A blood dome forms over the cut and drips into the box.
It feels like an omen, even though it’s only my carelessness.
I crawl one-handed out of my closet and hurry into the bathroom.
The steam pricks at my skin. The mirror is too foggy to see my reflection.
I have the sink water flowing over my thumb when the shower shuts off and the glass door swings forward.
Careless again, I peek over my shoulder and find a butt-naked Connor tugging a towel off the wall rung. As he turns to face me, I put my eyes back on the sink.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“Fine.”
“What happened?” He’s beside me now, probably confused about why I’m holding my thumb under a steady spray. Or maybe he can tell I’ve been crying. My eyelashes are still sticky with tears. “Did you burn yourself?”
“Just a paper cut.”
“Let me see.”
His hand juts in front of me to crank off the water, then he holds my wrist and draws my hand in close.
I face him and find he’s cinched that bath towel around his waist, tucked into a pleat under his navel.
“Shit, that’s deep,” he says, palpating my thumb with his own. “Nothing to cry about, though.”
Looking up from our hands, I see the teasing half-smile on Connor’s fresh-shaven face, skin tinged pink from the hot shower. To save face, I lie and tell him I don’t like the sight of blood.
“Don’t worry. I got you.” Still holding my wrist with one hand, he uses the other to pop open the medicine cabinet and retrieve a bottle of isopropyl. Over the sink, he dribbles a bit of the alcohol onto my thumb.
I’m staring at Connor the whole time, like he’s made of gemstones, as he dries my thumb with the corner of his towel skirt then fixes me up with a snug Band-Aid.
Spontaneously, I mutter, “I fucking hate your girlfriend.”
Connor looks into my eyes. “What happened?”
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”
“If it upset you, it matters. Did she say something?”
“No.” I shake my head, regretting saying anything. “It was nothing. I’m just being dramatic, like always.”
“You know you can talk to me, right? I’d never tell anyone something you’ve told me in confidence. Not even Thalia.”
“She said I’m, uh, pathetic. Like I said, it doesn’t matter.”
“Well, you’re not pathetic. She’s just in a bad mood because of me.
Don’t listen to her.” Gaining another sly smile, Connor then asks if I want to get Starbucks before the party, and I’m reminded of what a cutie-pie he is that he thinks drinking Frappuccinos instead of protein shakes on a Friday evening is in any way mischievous.
Regardless, I’m not about to pass up the offer.