14. Oh, Brother
FOURTEEN
Cam was sprawledon the couch like usual when Avery approached the lounge, hat pulled down over his face. She’d seen the score and the highlights, and knew why his forearms corded with tension as he fidgeted with imaginary clay.
“Hey.”
He flicked a wave and didn’t lift his hat. “Hi, Avery. I don’t want to draw today. Sorry if you brought the stuff.”
“It’s all right.” She set the papers on the table and walked around him to her couch. “Do you want to talk?”
“Not really. Sorry.”
“No apology necessary.” She stretched on her couch so her head was on the same side as his, separated by cushions. “Do you mind if I talk?”
“Do you want me to talk back, or just listen?”
Avery smiled. “Either. Thank you for asking.”
“I’m good like that.”
“My brother is dating my advisor.”
He sat straight up. “Oh, I’ll talk back about that. What? Who?”
“Melinda Scheer. Mindy. Her office is just down the hall. She’s the drawing instructor who’s got wavy brown hair, and she’s usually got it half up. She’s a little shorter than I am, and?—”
“And she taught me in Drawing 1 and 2 last year.” Cam flopped back on the couch. “How did that happen? She’s about thirty or something, isn’t she? And he’s what?”
“He’s twenty-one and she’s twenty-eight.”
“Did he know?”
“He says he didn’t, but she must have told him she was an instructor. They met on campus. And if she said she teaches, he’d ask what, and so on.” She took a deep breath. “I guess none of that really matters. Here we are, right?”
“Here we are.” He paused. “It’s pretty obvious you aren’t too into the idea. What’s Justin say?”
“We talked about it after the party, and it didn’t go well. I know I was kind of shitty about it. I can admit that. But of course it’s weird because she’s my advisor and I kind of thought we were friends, but when I tried to talk with him a few days later, Justin said he basically he doesn’t care what I think.”
Avery closed her eyes, remembering their dinner the week before. She didn’t like the relationship, but resolved to make it less awkward for everyone. She could avoid Mindy until the middle of the semester when she had to register for spring courses, and when she suggested that to Justin, he responded saying Avery was being childish. When she suggested requesting a new advisor, he said she was running from reality and needed to stay out of his business.
That Justin, of all people, would accuse her of running from reality was laughable. He was the one still running from their brother’s ghost when Avery refused to let her fears linger.
Even a thousand miles apart, they never felt so disconnected. She hadn’t spoken to him for days.
“Did he have girlfriends in high school?” Cam asked.
“He had a girlfriend here his whole freshman year. In high school, he was kind of on-and-off with a girl for two years, but they argued and broke up a lot.”
“He’s never had a serious girlfriend around you.”
Avery kept her eyes closed. “He’s been out with her something like three times. It’s not serious.”
She sighed heavily and folded her hands over her chest. “Justin always made a big point of not getting involved in my love life, and I should have the same respect for his. I don’t know why that’s so hard to do.”
“He’s a pretty protective big brother, or at least he always sounded like it. He’s never gotten in some guy’s face and asked for his intentions?”
She laughed. “Please. Justin stood back and let me make my own choices without comment or complaint since I kicked my first boyfriend in the balls for getting too handsy.”
Cam faked a high squeak. “Yikes. You’re scary.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
She heard his breath hitch.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice a strained whisper. “I did.”
Behind closed lids, Avery’s eyes welled. She moved her lips to ask what happened, but the words didn’t come, and she wondered if Justin, in all his chatter about her, ever mentioned their brother.
What lurked behind Cam’s whisper had never been passed around a locker room. She could hear that in just his breath.
“I’m sorry, Cam.”
“It’s all right. I wasn’t even a year old. I don’t remember.”
His words throbbed like a heartbeat.
“It’s why my parents are really overprotective,” he continued. “Go on and say it. I picked the wrong sport.”
She smiled. “And the wrong position. Long snapper might have been better.”
“I had to fight to play from the beginning. My folks didn’t want me to go anywhere or do anything, but I wanted to throw. Dad thought I could be a pitcher and that would be safer, but I never got into baseball.”
“I don’t know how my parents are still married. They fell apart after my brother died, and they fight and blame each other all the time. They did the opposite of your folks, I guess, and ignored us for a while.”
“You had another brother?” Cam sat up and poked her shoulder until she opened her eyes.
“Justin never talked about him?”
“I had no idea.”
She blew out a long breath. “I’m surprised, but not surprised. Football is Justin’s safe place, even though our brother played, too. Is it yours?”
“It used to be. I guess it still is, kind of, but it’s complicated this year. The studio is my safe place. No one knows or cares in this building.”
“What are you working on?” She pushed herself up on her elbows.
He grinned. “Relief. How appropriate. Just a little garden in soapstone. Did you know the big, tough quarterback likes carving flowers?”
“I didn’t. But I love it.”
“What about you?”
Avery reached for a sketchbook, then stopped. “I started on an idea and scrapped it the other day. Do you ever have one of those brilliant, wake-you-up ideas and a few weeks later you look at it and wonder why you lost sleep over it?”
“I’ve had a few.”
“So to answer your question, nothing outside the basic classwork. But my hands are getting twitchy.”
“Your hands are always twitchy. Did you know that? They’re never still.”
She inspected her fingers. “Seriously? I thought the same about you. You always look like you’re making thumbprint pots.”
“Perfect,” Cam said, snorting a laugh. “What did you scrap?”
“It’s weird.”
“Art is weird.” He folded his arms and leaned over her couch. “Pretty please.”
“It was about Jordan Ackerman.”
Cam sat straighter.
“Justin and I talked this summer about what was going on and what might have happened, and he said that after a point, some rumors just turned funny and escapist. They all had him out living his best life somewhere. At the time, I thought it would be interesting to do a series of those what-ifs, placing him in these scenes people thought up. Almost like a comic book. I could visualize some of them in a kind of pop-art halftone thing.”
“Why did you scrap it?” His voice was strained.
The words rushed out. “I know the police verified he’s alive and well, but it all began to seem really insensitive when I think about making art out of a loss, even if it’s not a death. It’s what some people do, right? To cope, or to honor someone. But it’s so soon, and I didn’t know him, and those what-ifs were just jokes. No one really thinks he’s a tattoo artist on a reservation near the Badlands.”
Cam’s brows shot up. “I hadn’t heard that one.”
“It sounds like something bad happened. And it crossed my mind that I wouldn’t like some random artist turning Isaac’s death into anything even a little funny, so I’m not doing it.”
“Wait. What?”
“My brother.”
“His name was Isaac?”
“Yeah. Weird, huh?”
“You might be surprised how un-weird that really is to me.” Cam re-positioned himself on the couch and lay flat, eyes closed. “I know you said he tries to not get involved, but does Justin think that’s weird? About you and Isaac Fields, I mean.”
“No. You know, maybe I’m not too big a hypocrite, being a little judgmental about Mindy. Justin pushed Isaac at me, big-time.”
“Oh.”
“I pushed back.” Holding her breath, she waited for him to look up.
“Seems to be working out okay for you guys,” he said after a long pause, not stirring.
“I don’t know what’s going on there. I mean, he’s great, right? We’ll see.”
“Avery?”
“Cameron?”
“A little dark humor?”
“Bring it.”
“My twin brother’s name was Jordan.”