Chapter 5
NATHAN
“I thought you said your uncle’s place was close by?” Eli says with a glare.
He’d stopped scowling at me for all of ten minutes before his glowering had returned. I’m so used to his surly attitude toward me that it’s almost comforting now.
I shake my head at the ridiculous thought.
“We’re almost there,” I reply.
“You said that ten minutes ago.”
I don’t mention that if we’d been walking at a normal speed, we would have arrived by now. He’s already in a touchy mood, and I worry that if I work him up even more, he’ll really fall and get himself hurt.
It’ll be a shame if his pretty face gets injured.
I don’t know where that thought comes from. Eli, pretty? I never considered a guy pretty before, but then again, most guys I’m around are like me. Giants, roughed up, and the typical bro type.
Eli is more…delicate with his pouty lips and doe eyes that tilt slightly downward at the edges. Even when he’s glaring at me, it comes off as more of a cute tantrum than anything else. There’s almost something sexy about him despite his not even trying.
I shift my eyes away from him and force myself to stop that train of thought. I shouldn’t be thinking about him this way. He’s a guy, for one, and he’s my stepbrother, though I bet he wishes he wasn’t.
He hates my guts, and if he found me bleeding on the side of the road, he’d probably laugh with glee.
I chuckle because I know he’s actually a huge softie inside. He’ll definitely laugh with glee, but he’ll still help me out while doing so. Or at least help me enough so that I won’t die.
“What’s so funny?” Eli grumbles, with annoyance clear on his face.
I calculate how pissed off he’ll be if I tell him the truth. That beneath his spiny exterior, I know he’s not actually as mean as he tries to portray.
On a scale of one to ten, he’ll definitely be an easy hundred. It’ll probably piss him off so much that he’ll run back to the car just to get away from me. I can’t have him freezing to death out here, so I keep my thoughts to myself.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to answer his question since I can finally make out my uncle’s property.
“Look, we’re here,” I tell Eli and point to the fish-shaped mailbox that’s currently covered in a pile of snow.
Uncle Anthony is obsessed with fishing, which is why he purchased this cabin in the first place.
There’s a giant lake on the property where he spends his summers fishing, then during the winter, he travels somewhere warm to do more fishing and lets our family use the place.
We used to come here often…at least until Mom passed.
“Finally!” Eli mutters and speeds up his pace.
I catch up to him just in case he slips. The roads aren’t too icy, but the snow has piled up, probably because of the lack of activity on this road. We haven’t seen a single car pass the entire time.
The cabin key is under the fish statue by the door, just as it always is. My fingers turn red from digging through the snow to get to it, but I manage to get the key and unlock the front door quickly enough.
We both breathe an audible sigh of relief as soon as we’re out of the elements. Eli’s eyes catch mine for a brief second before he’s huffing and looking anywhere but at me.
I can’t keep the smile off my face. I bet he hates the fact that we shared a common emotion. He hates anything that has to do with me.
I shake my head and find the breaker to turn on the power. There’s still a while before nightfall, but it’s already dark outside, so I turn on the light to chase away some of the gloom.
The space heaters are in the upstairs closet as always. I grab the largest one and return to the living room to find that Eli has left his bag and pillow on the couch. My scarf and beanie are there too, but he kept his jacket on.
He’s by the front door now, looking at the wall of photos. I plug in the heater to start warming the place up, then walk to Eli’s side.
Uncle Anthony never replaced all the pictures Mom put up. Most were of the four of us—Mom, Dad, Uncle Anthony, and me—here at the cabin. Photos capturing memories starting from when I was a baby, all the way until our last vacation at the cabin when I was eleven.
The picture frames are dust-free, telling me Uncle Anthony cleans them often. It makes sense. He and my mom were close. Their parents passed early, so for a long time, they only had each other.
Uncle Anthony likes to say that he wouldn’t be where he is without my mom. She was quite a few years older than him and supported him and practically raised him through high school and college.
Eli is looking at one of the photos my uncle put up after Mom’s death. It’s a photo of her that was taken the summer before she passed.
She’s in her favorite blue sundress and laughing toward the camera. From what I can recall, she was laughing at something Uncle Anthony was doing behind the camera, and Dad was the one to take the photo.
In my memories, Mom was always laughing. That’s just the type of person she was. Always happy and optimistic. Always believing the best in people.
“She’s really pretty,” Eli says, eyes still focused on the photo.
“Yeah, she really was,” I agree.
“You look a lot like her,” he adds and nods to the photo beside it. It’s another one Uncle Anthony added of me from my high school graduation. I’m beaming at the camera and holding the flowers he gifted me.
“Yeah, everyone says I’m the spitting image of her.”
I have my mom’s black hair and blue eyes. I even inherited the tiny dimples she has on each cheek.
“Well, you’re definitely not pretty like she is,” Eli comments, peering at me.
I laugh. “Thankfully, I took after my dad’s build.”
Eli tries to fight it, but I catch the corners of his lips twitch in a smile.
“What was she like?”
The question surprises me. Well, what really surprises me is the fact he asked anything related to me at all. This is the first time in a while that he’s trying to get to know me.
“You don’t have to talk about her if you don’t want to,” he mutters, as if realizing as well. He looks away as his cheeks pinken.
I grab this chance. Maybe we can get closer and clear up whatever misunderstanding is between us?
“She was the most beautiful person I know, inside and out,” I say and turn to a family photo taken from the same summer as her portrait. She’s laughing in that one, too.
It’s the last photo we have of us at the cabin. Dad hasn’t been back here since Mom’s passing. I get it. Dad was a mess after Mom died, and this cabin is filled with memories of her.
“She was the type of person who loved every little thing and had the most caring heart I’ve known. If you were having a bad day, she’d warm up your pajamas and blankets in the dryer for you because she said nothing cheers you up better than cozying up in bed.”
Eli’s watching me when I turn back to him. He’s startled at being caught and looks away again.
He clears his throat. “She, um, she sounds like a lovely person.”
“She was. She believed the world is a better place if you treat everyone with kindness and respect,” I say.
That earns me a snort. “I guess you don’t follow the same philosophy,” he mutters with bitterness in his tone.
That takes me aback, because I thought we were having…well, not a moment, per se, but getting a better understanding of each other at least. Any potential progress has ended with Eli’s familiar glare toward me.
I have no clue why he has such a low opinion of me, but I’m getting tired of being hated on without even knowing why.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I cross my arms and ask.
He scoffs. “That’s just like you.”
I should be used to this kind of attitude from him, but there’s so much hatred in his voice that it shocks me.
“Eli, whatever you think I did—”
“Think? I don’t think anything. I know exactly what you did. I heard you laughing along with your little friends as they made fun of me,” he spits out.
“What are you talking—”
A memory surfaces, causing a lightbulb moment. Eli notices, too.
“Shocked that I heard you guys? What did you expect when your friends came over to my house just to talk shit about me?”
He’s worked up now, but it’s not just his usual anger that shows up on his face.
There’s hurt there. I can see it in the way his nose wrinkles like he’s trying to keep from crying.
Ava does the nose twitch thing, too, but when she does it, it’s usually because she found something distasteful.
He must have picked it up from her, but I hate that he’s doing it because of me.
“It must be so funny watching your new gay stepbrother circling around you like a puppy,” he bites out. He tries to hide the pain in his voice behind sarcasm, but I still hear it. “Worst of all is that you guys were laughing at me being gay before I even came to terms with my sexuality.”
There’s no hiding his emotions in his voice now. He sounds heartbroken, so small, and I’m the one who caused it. I want to pull him into my arms and comfort him, but I know that’ll only make things worse.
“It’s not what you think,” I try to say, and his head flings up at me.
There are tears in his eyes, but that doesn’t keep him from glaring at me. His hands are fists at his side, and his right heel is bouncing frantically against the hardwood floor.
“So what? You’re going to lie to me now? Gaslight me into thinking I didn’t hear what I heard? That I made it all up in my head?”
“What? No! That’s not—”
“Screw you, Nathan,” he grits out. He wipes at his face, then turns around and escapes through the front door.
“Eli—wait!” I call and follow him.
I contemplate chasing after him, but the last thing he probably wants right now is for me to see him crying. Thankfully, he circles around to the back of the cabin instead of going off to the main road. At least I won’t have to worry about him getting run over by a car or something.
I should give him some time to cool off—for both of us to cool off. Now it all made sense why he started acting so hostile toward me as soon as I moved in. I thought it was because I invaded his space, but no, it’s because of me.
Mom’s portrait smiles at me. She always advocated kindness. She’d be so disappointed if she saw me now. And staring at her photo, I feel so…small.