57
Tennyson booked us two rooms at the Auburn Marriott Opelika Resort and Spa in Opelika, and we arrived just a little before midnight. We slept there and did the rest of the drive late the next morning.
It’s maybe just after 3:00 p.m. on Monday when we pull into our family home, and my stomach lurches at the sight I see.
Sitting on the front porch swing are Oliver and Maryanne, each with a glass of rosé in their hands, and my stomach drops. Not just because Oliver’s so casually drinking, and doing it publicly, but actually that he’s with Maryanne at all.
Tennyson clocks it too, takes a deep breath, and sort of mutters under his breath. He’s better at being composed; he has more patience than I do, always has—but then, none of these people have been the ones dealing with my brother’s alcoholism.
I barrel out of the car and stare over at them. “What are you doing?”
Oliver rolls his eyes. “Like you care.”
I’m confused. “What?”
Oliver turns his head in the other direction. “Go away, Georgia.”
I walk up the porch steps toward them, this horrible pit in my stomach. “Why are you doing this?”
He turns back toward me just to give me a glare. “Because my best friend in the whole world has been boning the guy I’m into since the fucking second she was able to.”
“Oliver.” Tennyson sighs, and at that, at someone defending me, Maryanne jumps in.
She lifts that perfectly manicured brow. “Did he lie?”
Tennyson shakes his head at her. “Don’t you start—”
“Or what?” Maryanne shrugs spitefully. “You’re not going to let me come on your next little adventure?”
Now Tennyson rolls his eyes, and I home in on Oliver. “Can we talk?”
“No,” he says, taking a sip of his rosé. He doesn’t even like rosé. I mean, I personally do as long as it’s not sweet, but he’s always said it tastes like something poor people drink when they’re trying to sound fancy.
“Oliver, please.” I search for his eyes. “I just want to make sure you’re—”
And then he jumps to his feet, a big scowl all over his face. “I don’t need a savior, okay? I get it.” He looks me up and down. “You were a fuck-up and now you’re super therapy put-together girl. I don’t want your fucking help.”
As quietly and as gently as I can, I say to him, “But you need help.”
“Not from you.”
“That’s fine, I don’t care, as long as you’re—”
“As long as I’m okay?” he cuts me off. “That’s what you care about?”
I nod once decisively. “Yes.”
He sniffs. “Really?”
“Yes,” I say again.
“So where was that care when you were fucking the guy I brought here?” he fires.
I sigh at all of it. “Tragically present, Oliver, and haunting my mind, if you must know.”
Oliver crosses his arms over his chest, and that sort of signal-fires for me what’s coming next, because arm-crossing? That’s a physical barrier he’s placing between us. A shield, almost, and you don’t need a shield unless you’re going to battle.
So I’m not surprised when the next thing out of Oliver’s mouth is: “You know you’re a flash in the pan for him, right? He doesn’t do commitment.”
I say nothing back, just trade looks with Tennyson.
That annoys Oliver, who’s absolutely looking for a fight.
“He’s going to get tired of you,” Oliver tells me, and even though they are the words of a drunk and rambling alcoholic, they are also the words of someone I love more than almost anyone, so I swallow them and keep doing my best not to react.
“You’re right,” Maryanne says to Oliver before glancing over at me. “He knows what you’re good for. Everyone in this town does.”
Tennyson moves toward her, a dark look on his face. “And whose fucking fault is that, Maryanne?” She rolls her eyes, and then Tennyson plucks Oliver’s wine from his hands. “And why are you letting him drink?”
Maryanne groans, exasperated. “It’s a glass of wine!”
I stare at her in disbelief. “He’s an alcoholic!”
“And you’re a whore!” She gives me a pleasant smile.
I don’t even react, but Tennyson shakes his head. “It’s getting real old, Mer.”
“Just leave it,” I tell him.
“No. She can’t have done what she did to you for so long and then—”
“Oh my God!” Maryanne groans. “How many times can I say s—”
“Hey,” Sam suddenly says, appearing at my side, hand on my waist. I hadn’t even noticed him coming out of the house.
I smile at him, relieved immediately by his presence, but only for a second, because Oliver grabs him by the arm.
“Sam!” He sighs—and you know what, he has every right to sigh; I’m not saying he shouldn’t be sighing, but I am saying it was a strategic emotional pivot.
Sam does his best to look attentive and caring, not impatient and frustrated, which is what I can tell he really is by the way his nose flares the tiniest bit before he turns to Oliver.
“It’s too much. All their fighting is—” Oliver shakes his head a lot. “Can we go for a walk or something? I need to clear my head.”
Sam looks back at me, silently asking if I want him to stay—he wants to stay—but I flash him a quick smile, barely nod but enough for him to know that’s what I want him to do.
“Yeah, man,” Sam says on an inhale. His reluctance is palpable. To me, at least. “Of course. Let’s go.”
Sam forces a smile for Oliver, then looks at me, his hand still on my waist.
“Are you good?”
“Yeah.” I smile, but it’s evidently unconvincing because he doesn’t believe me.
“Yeah?”
I change my face, try to lighten it up. “Yeah, go.”
“Okay.” He brushes his mouth over my cheeks, and in my periphery, I see Oliver scowl. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
I walk inside, sticking close to Tennyson with a foreboding feeling that Maryanne’s hot on our heels. She won’t like the Tennyson-and-me development; she’ll take his bonding with me as a loss of control, and a loss of control to Maryanne is a threat.
We walk into the kitchen, and—
“You’re back!” our mother says as she looks up from whatever vegetable she’s chopping on the bench. I don’t know why that makes me jump with fright, but it does.
Her eyes round with nervous curiosity. “Did you—?”
I shake my head. “We still have some things to figure out.”
“Wait,” Maryanne says, going and standing with Mom. “So you went all the way to Louisiana and you didn’t even figure it out?” She pulls a face. “What kind of detective are you?”
“…Not a detective.” I shrug, which makes Tennyson laugh and Maryanne roll her eyes, but not before she flashes the tiniest hints of AU9 and AU10—she’s angry.
Mom puts down the knife and walks around the kitchen island toward Tennyson and I. “You didn’t learn anything?”
“No, we did.” I nod. “I just want to make sure what we think we found out is the truth before we report back.”
“Oh,” she says, and I can see her thinking about it—I can see her decide that makes sense. Then she looks back at me, flicking my way either an unimpressed or a maternal look (in my experience, they’re often interchangeable) before she says, “I heard about you and the alcoholic…”
“He’s not an alco—he’s an—never mind.” I shake my head again to correct her. “Yeah.”
“So it’s true?” she asks, eyebrows up. “You’ve stolen your brother’s boyfriend?”
“No,” I say at the same time as Maryanne says, “Kind of.”
“Maryanne,” Tennyson groans.
She shrugs innocently. “I said kind of !”
“So you’re kind of lying,” Tennyson fires back.
“Please!” Our mother covers her eyes. “Please don’t fight—I can’t take it right now.”
The three of us go silent, and then I let out a measured breath as I turn to my mother.
“Sam and I are together now, if that’s what you’re asking.”
She stares at me, and it’s almost blank. I’m not sure whether she heard me or if she’s just having trouble digesting what she heard—then she blinks twice and turns to my brother.
“Tennyson, sweetheart, I missed you.” She reaches for him, and Tenny puts his arm around her with a sweet sort of ease I’ve never felt with either of our parents. “You look tired. How was the drive home?”
Tenny moves her into a different room, so then it’s just me and Maryanne in the kitchen. She stares over at me, eyes pinched. “You’re hiding something.”
Which is astute of her, though not all that surprising. Narcissists are clever. They have to be in order to maintain everything they do. I can’t tell what it was I did just now to give away that I am, in fact, hiding something, but I decide my best foot forward is to be nonchalant.
“Uh, yeah.” I give her a baffled look “I literally just said we found some stuff, and I want to make sure it’s true before we pass it on…”
She crosses her arms. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Okay?” I shrug as I stay the indifferent path and give her a puzzled look. “Or you could just wait and then I’ll tell you, but whatever you want…”
At that, her eyes pinch and she slithers away.
Sam and Oliver are on their walk for hours—no surprises there—Oliver would try to keep Sam away from me for as long as possible under these circumstances. All these different people trying to exert control in all these different ways. It’s enough to drive a person to drink. Which I do.
I climb into bed, have some wine, and watch Arrested Development on my laptop until Sam gets back from the world’s longest walk.
When he walks into my room, he sighs when he sees me. But it’s the best kind of sigh, like a “deep relief” sigh. Like, a “he can breathe again” sigh. He pushes my Macbook off my lap before he throws himself down on top of me.
“Fuck, I missed you.” He grins before he kisses me. “I want to hear everything. What happened? How’d you go with Alexis?”
I update him on all of it, all the things we learned and what those things imply and mean, and sort of where we landed.
I tell him that apparently my dad was proud of me, and Sam replies, “Of course he was.”
I roll my eyes at him. “You love me blindly.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I love you very much with my eyes open. You’re an absolute fucking know it all, but you’re brilliant.” He shrugs. “No way he wasn’t proud.”
I still don’t know how to even process the idea of my father being proud of me, so I change the subject. “How was your walk?”
Sam sniffs a laugh and rubs his tired eyes. “Long.”
“I think that was the point.”
Penny chuckles. “I think so too. Hey, how was he when you got back?”
I open my mouth to say something, then close it and smile instead.
Sam gives me an uneasy look. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Say it.”
“No. You’ll just get cross, because you’re irrational when it comes to me—”
And at that I’m proven right—without even knowing what was said, he straightens up defensively, jaw going tight. “What the fuck did he say?”
I sigh. “Sam—”
But he’s not playing. “Georgia. Now.”
I roll my eyes, like I think it was a silly thing, not a hurtful thing, that my brother said to me. “Just that you’ll get tired of me, because everyone does. And then Maryanne tacked on a little slutty comment too, so—”
“Righteo,” he says, pushing off my bed and standing to his feet. “Where is he?”
“Sam.” I jump up after him. “No.”
“Yes,” he says firmly.
“No—” I shake my head, then pause. “Wait, did you say ‘righteo’?”
“Yeah?” He shrugs. “So?”
“Just, um—” I squint at him, amused. “Is that an expression in Australia?”
He squints back. “Yes.”
“Is it the common tongue amongst the other six-four men over there?”
He puts his arms around my waist, then mimics my tone as he replies, “Yes, actually.”
We stare at each other, and his reactionary frustration has dissipated now, I can tell.
“Please don’t say anything,” I tell him. “It won’t help.”
“Gige.” He sighs. “I’m getting fucking tired of their shit.”
“Me too.” I nod. “But Oliver couldn’t handle you being cross at him right now.”
“I don’t care—”
“Yes, you do,” I tell him, and his head falls back as he breathes out a tired laugh.
“Yes I do, fuck.”
He looks back down at me, touches my face. “They can’t talk to you like that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell him.
“It does matter,” he says back.
“Please—” I give him a look. “I’m asking you, please just leave it.”
Penny’s lips sort of pucker—AU23—he’s angry, but then he nods anyway. “All right.”