25
We’re at a bar called Cheap Seats and it’s perfect. Exactly what we needed—exactly what I needed.
At first it was just me, Sam, Oliver, Tenny, and Savannah. Then soon after came Clay, but no Violet, which makes me think he’s been sent here to keep an eye on us because Clay would never voluntarily leave Violet on the day of her brother’s funeral.
But it’s fun. It’s actually really fun.
No one’s really talking about Dad. Maybe they’re talking around Dad.
I think it’s the most at ease I’ve seen Tennyson all week… Not feeling the pressure to feel what he should, I suppose, after the loss of a parent.
But you need a break. Your brain needs a break.
And it’s fun.
I had some clothes in my car that I changed into so I wasn’t wearing death clothes in the bar, and Sam’s hovering probably a little closer than he should because Oliver’s right there—but also, Tennyson’s bought me two shots and I’ve had two regular drinks, so I don’t completely care anyway.
I’m not drunk, not even a little, but the part of me that makes me live my whole life so that Oliver’s world is cushioned is a bit drowned out.
Savannah and I are getting on real well, and I never thought I’d like a girl Tennyson likes, but I like her.
We’re playing eight-ball, my brothers and Sam versus me, Savannah, and Clay. And here’s a non–plot twist: Sam Penny is exactly as good at pool as you’d expect him to be.
I don’t know if it’s the bending over (great ass), or his laser-focus, or the way handles the cue, but I am a mess. I’m not normally a totally shit player, but every time I go to shoot, I catch in my periphery something Sam does. Nothing spectacular or noteworthy, either. He could take a sip of water and my heart could stroke out. He’s just doing normal guy things, like shifting his weight between his legs, holding the cue stick against him, tilting his head as he waits for me to shoot—and I love all of it; I want to film it and watch it back again and again, because how can someone be as beautiful as he is without even trying?
I move toward him while Oliver takes his shot.
“Is it bad we’re at a bar and you’re an alcoholic?” I ask him quietly.
“Um.” He laughs, then shakes his head casually. “I’m fine.” He nods over at Oliver. “Probably better places for him to be, generally speaking, but he’s…” He looks over at my brother and smiles with his eyes. He’s proud of him. “He’s doing good.”
Oliver’s making a loud joke to Tenny, who’s doing his best not to laugh, but it’s cracking all over his face.
I truly think Tennyson thought all his life he could maybe, like, “catch the gay.” Like if he was nice to Oliver, it made him gay too. Or if he thought Oliver was funny, it meant he liked gay guys because testosterone, fuck yeah! Or if he shared a drink with Oli, he’d get like, dick juice in his mouth, I don’t know. He was always so weird about him in so many really mundane ways, which killed Oliver.
I don’t actually think Tennyson thinks like that anymore, but some habits are hard to break, like letting yourself smile at things you taught yourself not to. I can see it there, hovering under the surface of him.
“But you’re okay?” I ask Sam, hands behind my back, swinging my torso side to side but keeping my tilted head, eyes fixed on him. It’s blatant seduction and a tacit sign of submission, but I really just want him to kiss me.
He drops his chin a little and peers at me, pressing the tip of his tongue into his top lip.
“Yeah.” He purses his mouth to hide a smile. “Yeah, I’m good.”
And it’s so fun, I’m having so much fun—and then my sister walks in.
Still in her obvious funeral dress. She might as well be wearing torn sackcloth. She leads the way, and following behind her are four other people. Her husband, some guy she was friends with in high school, Tinsley, and Beckett.
“So,” she says coolly, tossing her bag down on a nearby table. “This is where the cool kids hang out on a Friday night?”
I roll my eyes. I don’t know why. Maybe she’s being nice. She could be. Maryanne has a knack for being able to make something sound equal parts warm and disparaging.
Tenny throws his hands, guilty as charged. “Apparently,”
“Do the cool kids skip out on their dead father’s wake?” She gives him a pointed look.
“Do nondead fathers have wakes?” I ask, and from the other side of the table, Sam catches my eye and smirks.
Maryanne makes a sound in the back of her throat and walks over to the bar.
I glance at Oli and he rolls his eyes, and I’m glad we’re on the same page with her bullshit today.
I lean over the pool table and take my shot, and as I do, Beckett’s hand grazes my ass.
“Play nice,” he says quietly, and I freeze.
Everything in the universe comes to a halt, and the sound all sucks dry except for the pounding in my ears as I’m transported back in time to my parents’ house, and I’m fourteen being pulled into dark corners, and his hands are under my top and I’m as still as a statue then as I think I am now—and then I snap and turn on my heel.
“Did you just grab my ass?” I ask loudly.
AU2 and AU58. His left eyebrow cocks up and his head pulls back a little. He wasn’t expecting a response. And why would he? I’ve never responded before.
“Ah.” He sort of scoffs, but inhales too quickly afterward. “No,” he says, but it’s full of gestural slips. For one, his head comes down in a subtle, singular nod, which was paired with a mouth shrug. I think I catch the hint of an AU7 too. His eyelids go tight. He resents me.
Sam hears what I said to him, I know he does, because he walks over and hovers behind me, slinging the cue stick over his shoulders like it’s a yoke.
“Everything okay over here?” Sam asks, glancing at Becks darkly before flicking his eyes over to me.
“Yeah, we’re fine, man,” Becks says, reaching for Sam to touch his arm to assure him. “We’re good.”
“Are you?” Sam asks me, brows a little up. “Good?”
Before I have a chance to answer, Maryanne pokes her head in. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” Beckett rolls his eyes. “Just a misunderstanding.” He gives me a pointed look. “Right, Georgia?”
I say nothing, hold his gaze. Beckett squints again, clicks his tongue twice, and then goes and perches on the table, throwing his arm around Tinsley.
“You should be careful,” my sister leans in and whispers in the same kind of friendly-threatening tone as before. “You have a reputation.”
“Yeah, well, whose fault is that?” I turn away from her.
She sniffs an amused laugh and then says, just quiet enough so only I can hear: “Do you ever think that if you dressed a little bit more—you know—that then…”
I spin around. “Do not”—I point a condemning finger at her—“finish that sentence.”
“Why do you dress like that?” She waves a careless hand at my outfit. “That’s not what clothes are supposed to look like.”
“Yes! They are! These are normal clothes! Completely unaltered.” I gesticulate at myself. I’m in denim shorts and a T-shirt. Same as half the girls in here. “They’re called distressed denim shorts! I’m wearing them exactly as Agolde made them! Do you know how many other people wear ripped denim shorts? Everyone. Everyone in the world, except you apparently, Maryanne! Because you dress like you just stepped off the fucking Mayflower .”
“Screw you,” she spits. Then says under her breath, “Whore.”
Sam shifts closer behind me. The conversation is loud enough now that my brothers are edging in too. I think so is her husband.
“You know what?” I give her a curt smile. “If I’m a whore, then you’re my pimp.”
“Oh yeah?” says Jason, saddling up next to her defensively. “How do you figure?”
Maryanne lifts her eyebrows in defiance, like she’s daring me, but she swallows like she’s nervous.
Our eyes hold, and I tell myself I shouldn’t do it, it’s not worth it—it won’t go how I think it’ll go, it’ll just fuck everything up, Sam might get weird, saying it won’t make what happened any different—and I’m about to leave it, I’m completely about to walk away from this shit, and then I see the corner of my sister’s mouth twitch upward, the tiniest expression dart over her. She’s smug.
I cross my arms over my chest. “Because she prostituted her fourteen-year-old sister for popularity.”
Maryanne freezes. AU1 and AU24. Wide eyes, tight lips, and another nervous swallow.
“What?” Tennyson asks loudly, walking toward us.
Sam’s gone very still behind me. Very still. Cue stick still slung over his shoulders.
“Nothing,” Maryanne says quickly, shaking her head.
Tennyson gets right up in Maryanne’s face but points over to me. “What’s she talking about, Mer?”
Oliver’s watching from the side, head tilted in caution.
And then Beckett stands up.
Sam clocks him, and he’s still not moving a muscle—I’m not even sure that he’s breathing. There’s something threatening in his eyes that I haven’t seen before.
“Nothing.” Maryanne eyes me pointedly, then shakes her head at Tennyson. “That’s not true. It isn’t what happened, she’s just—”
I glare at her, and I can’t believe it when the words tumble from my mouth to interrupt her. “I know you know—”
AU22, AU7. She squints and her mouth pulls in not quite a pout, but as though she’s blowing air out of her mouth while making an O shape. She’s trying to steady herself.
“All I know is that I walked in on you fucking my high school boyfriend.”
“No.” I shake my head once, curtly. “You walked in on fourteen-year-old me being fucked by a seventeen-year-old boy, wrists pinned down on my brother’s bed—”
“WHAT?” Tennyson roars, and both Beckett and Maryanne pull back.
But I ignore him, because I’ve waited for so long to acknowledge the part that killed me the most. “And you did nothing.” I stare over at her, eyes all threadbare. “You went back to your party.”
Maryanne swallows and lets out this breath that sounds somewhere between relief and exasperation. It’s an interesting thing about lying, actually. It takes such a toll on our subconscious to keep it going, I think that there’s some part of us that’s almost relieved when it’s exposed.
Beckett is standing a few feet behind us, arms folded across his chest, brows low and eyes almost closed, tongue pressed against his top lip.
Sam walks over to him. He’s calm still. Posture hasn’t changed. He just watches him, head pulled back, jaw tight.
But Tennyson comes in hot, pushes past Sam to shove Beckett hard as he can. “You raped my sister?”
“No.” Beckett shakes his head. “It wasn’t like that.” He looks over at me. “Tell them it wasn’t like that.”
I just stare at him, sort of in disbelief that this is a conversation that’s actually unfolding outside my head.
“Oh, come on!” Beckett rolls his eyes. “You were begging for it!”
Sam squares his shoulders and takes a deep breath through his nose.
“When?” I ask loudly.
He makes a little scoffing noise and vaguely gestures at me, then whacks Sam jovially in the chest.
“You get it, man—she’s just like that. She’s—”
And I should have seen it. God—it’s literally my job.
People get a look in their eyes when it comes to premeditated aggression. AU7/AU9—their eyes go tight, might even pinch, and their noses wrinkle or flare—but I wasn’t looking for it. I’ve never known it to be on Sam’s face once in my small duration of knowing him—but then, it happens so, so quickly.
Sam makes this little huff from his nose, like a nonlaughing laugh, and then he jerks his shoulder super fast and knocks Beckett in the face with the cue stick that was still yoked over his shoulders, and while Becks is reeling from that, Sam drops the cue and right-hooks him.
Then Tennyson rushes toward them, grabbing and slamming Beckett into a wall, and there’s glass breaking and yelling and the crowd in the bar craters out around us, and I think Becks gets a punch in, but it’s just one before Tenny slugs him again, twice.
Sam grabs Beckett by the collar of his shirt and drags him toward the door—he’s thrashing and kicking and swinging, and Jason tries to charge at him, but Tennyson bats him out of the way how you’d swat at a vine that’s in your path.
Sam Penny pulls Beckett outside, tosses him like a frisbee, and he skids across the ground. Then Tennyson lunges for him, but a security guard grabs him from behind.
My oldest brother bucks in the arm of the security man. “He raped my sister!” he yells, thrashing.
The guard looks at me, hovering by the door like a deer in headlights, Savannah holding onto my arm to steady me, but actually, it’s to steady her because she’s never seen my brother like this. Neither have I, truthfully.
Then the security guard looks at Beckett, whose breathing is haggard as he lies frozen on the ground, Sam Penny standing over him menacingly—then the security guard gives Tennyson a small shove toward them and then all hell breaks loose.
I really mean that.
It’s like Sam and Tenny have been practicing this for weeks on end. They’re flawless and ruthless. Jason runs in, trying to save his friend, and the other guy from their high school runs in and tries to pull Beckett out, and then they’re getting hit and then it’s three on two, but it doesn’t matter because my brother and Sam aren’t slowing down at all.
I don’t know what exactly it is that crossed the line for her—maybe it’s that Beckett is looking less and less like Beckett by the second—but Savannah stands about a meter away from the splash zone and calls out to my brother.
“Tenny!”
He doesn’t hear her.
“Tennyson!” she calls again, firmer now. “That’s enough!”
Tennyson glances up at his girlfriend like the spell’s been broken.
Meanwhile, Oliver grabs Sam, pulling him off Beckett. He takes one look at my assailant lying there on the ground, eyes swollen shut, blood dripping everywhere, and holds his hand firm against Sam’s heaving chest. “He’s had enough, man.”
The guy from high school gets Becks up off the ground and drags him away down the street.
I’m standing there, frozen and wide-eyed, and Sam peers over at me as he swipes his bleeding lip with the back of his hand.
I feel this pull to run to him and wrap myself up in him. I think he feels it too, because I see the beginning of him moving toward me, but then Tenny steps in front of me. One of his eyes is swelling closed and the bridge of his nose is bleeding.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks me, voice ragged.
I blink rapidly. It’s an unconscious rejection of what was just said to me. “Why would I tell you?”
He scoffs like it’s the most ridiculous thing I could ever possibly ask. “Because I’m your big brother!”
I clench my fists. “And you were a piece of shit big brother!”
He pauses, turns his chin to the right, and glares at me out of the corner of his eye. “Not to you.”
I growl at the back of my throat, throwing my hands up wildly. “How many times do I have to tell you? You can’t treat me good”—I thump my chest—“and him bad.” I throw my hand in Oliver’s direction. “It doesn’t work like that! He is my family!”
“Well, so am I!” Tenny yells loud and clear.
“Since when?” I stomp my foot and I don’t mean to. “Thirty seconds ago, when you defended my honor ten years too late?”
“I didn’t know!” His breathing is getting fast again. “How would I have known?”
“You wouldn’t have known!” I shake my head wildly. “That’s the point! I would never have told you, because you were an asshole!”
Tennyson swats his hand at me as though he’s dismissing me, but actually he’s just angry. Not at me, at himself.
I feel alone and exposed, and so I walk toward the only person who’s made me feel okay all my life.
Oliver’s watching me closely as I approach him. His eyes are watery and he looks…something. AU4. Sad. I think he’s sad? His mouth’s not moving. It’s hard to tell.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Oliver asks quietly as I stand in front of him.
I lick my lip. “Because I didn’t.”
“Why?” Oliver asks a little louder, and maybe firmer?
“Because I didn’t!” I overenunciate.
“Well, that’s bullshit!” Oliver yells suddenly. “Bull. Shit. You force me to tell you everything! All the time! And this happened to you, and you don’t tell me?”
“So?” I shake my head, not understanding.
And then Oliver yells how he’s never yelled at me before: “So why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” He punctuates that sentence by hitting his own chest on every syllable.
Sam’s fist clenches in reflex when my brother’s swearing at me, but it’s also a gestural emblem. He wants to hit Oliver.
I shake my head at my younger older brother. “Why are you making this about you?” I blink up at him.
“Because it is about me!” His breathing is picking up pace. “It’s about us! What’s it say about who I am to you and how you see me if you didn’t even think you could come to me when you needed me?”
“I did come to you!” I smack tears away. “The second he touched me, I ran to your bedroom.” I shake my head at the memory. “And it was empty. Window open. Curtains closed. ‘Heartbeats’ blasting. You were with that exchange student from Prague, and I knew that it would have killed you if you knew I came to you and you weren’t there for me, so I let it kill me instead.”
Oliver bats away the wetness on his face, shaking his head. “You still should have told me.”
I cover my face with my hands for a second and then I shove him away from me. “Fuck yourself.”
And then I turn and walk down the street.