Chapter 32 #2
“He’s not even that good,” Dominic grumbled, nudging at his glass of untouched orange juice.
His backpack slumped onto its side under the bar, touching mine. I kicked it away, but only after glancing at my mom and Rosie to make sure they wouldn’t see.
“He’s better than you.”
“I’m eleven!” he exclaimed, as though that was the only thing holding him back from outperforming one of the greatest soccer players of all time. “And you know what, I bet he’s gonna be married by the time you buy the team anyway, and then what?”
“Well, then, I guess you really will have to marry me, Dommy.”
Rosie laughed at that, and my mom flicked at her arm, suppressing her own grin. They’d spent the entire time silently conversing with each other, exchanging secret looks and mouthing little words that weren’t meant for our ears.
Watching the two of them made my chest feel tight enough to crack.
“Whatever.” Dominic pushed his glass aside, his baby cheeks turning a bit red. “As long as we don’t have to… kiss and stuff.”
My mother and Rosie, now huddled in a corner, looked ready to pass out from suppressing their laughter.
Neither Dom nor I seemed to notice.
My face had twisted into a grimace, and I was looking at him like he’d just licked a frog. “Ew! Who said anything about kissing?”
“Your mom and dad kiss all the time!” he retorted loudly while one of the accused, unable to breathe, stealthily made her exit from the kitchen. “It’s called learned behavior, so I’m just making sure you don’t want to!”
“Obviously, I don’t want to! Especially not with you!”
“Okay, well, fine, then. I was just making sure!”
My eyes narrowed at him. “Is that why you gave me the Valentine’s card?”
He pointed his bread knife at Rosie. “MOM MADE ME DO IT! I TOLD YOU A MILLIONS TIMES!”
Rosie tutted. “Dominic. Stop shouting.”
“A millions times? And I barely have a grasp on the English language?”
He shoved off the stool and grabbed his backpack, his face blotched an aggressive shade of scarlet. “I’ll wait on the porch. Don’t talk to me at school today.”
“When do I ever talk to you at school?”
“I’M JUST MAKING SURE.”
“Dominic, eat your breakfast first, please,” Rosie tried reasonably, placing two generously portioned plates on the bar.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You want to be better than Ronaldo when you’re his age? Sit down and eat,” she said.
“I am going to marry him,” I told them both as Dom dumped his backpack, picked up his plate, and relocated to the stool farthest away from me. “By twenty-five at the latest.”
Dom made an annoyed sound and started shoveling scrambled eggs into his mouth like it was an eating contest and the timer had just started.
“Well, then, it’s settled,” Rosie said, wiping her hands on her apron. “If you don’t have a ring on your finger by twenty-five, the two of you will get married.”
“You don’t have to worry, Rosie. I know you think Dommy will end up alone because of his drooling problem and overall unlikability, and that’s obviously true, but Ronaldo is kind of rich, I think, and I have my trust fund, so your son will be taken care of. He can live with us and—”
“I’M GONNA HAVE MORE MONEY THAN HIM!” Eggs. Everywhere. He’d spat them all over the place.
“Dominic!” Rosie snapped. “Consider that your last warning.”
“She started it!”
“As I was saying, he can live with us, and we’ll buy him some friends. Goats and pigs to start. They’ll get along since he already smells like a barn—”
“You too, Alice. Enough. Eat your breakfast.” She turned around and started tidying up, managing to bite back her smile until we were too focused on eating to witness it slip.
The screen died for a moment before lighting up again.
“Look how pretty she is,” my mom’s voice cooed as the new scene came into focus. We looked to be the same age here as in the previous video. It must have been taken the same year.
I was grinning at the camera, showcasing my missing premolar as Rosie put the finishing touches on my hair.
“Alice, honey, can you tell us what’s happening tonight?” my mom asked.
This was when I noticed my dad and his old signature beard, a college-aged Adrien, a spry-looking, caneless Gampy, and a very grumpy Dominic all standing in the background, looking comically annoyed.
“Louder, honey, I don’t think the camera caught that.”
“I’m going on a date!” I announced with a wide smile, my chin held up while my fingers fiddled restlessly with my friendship bracelet—a gift from my new best friend, Rachel Jones.
“A date?” Mom gasped with feigned, glee-filled shock. “My little girl? With who?”
Hellraiser grumbled something incoherent in the background, earning himself a hair-ruffle and “shush” from Gampy.
“His name is Finley.”
“And?” Mom pushed.
“And he’s gonna have my foot on his scrawny little chicken neck if he touches—ow!” Gampy wasn’t nearly as gentle with Adrien. Pinched his arm hard enough to draw out a prolonged hiss.
This interaction should have made Dominic snort, especially at that age, but he barely seemed to notice. His eyes were on the floor, fists shoved into his pockets as I prattled on about which Ice Age movie we were going to watch.
The longer I talked, the lower his posture seemed to sink. Rosie threw a couple of glances at him over her shoulder when she thought she was out of the frame, and while she did smile throughout the video, it felt wooden.
I’d had no idea.
After Dad and I made our exit, the camera panned back to Gampy, Adrien, and Dominic. Rosie exchanged a look with my mom, who was still behind the camera, before embracing her son and pressing a warm, comforting kiss to the crown of his head.
Adrien cleared his throat, addressing Dominic. “You want to grab some candy and play FIFA or something?”
I couldn’t make out Dominic’s mumbled response, but it wasn’t the resounding “holy crap, yes” I would’ve expected, given how much he’d idolized my brother back then.
“I was gonna go out, but now I don’t feel like it,” Adrien responded. “I’d kind of rather hang out here with you.”
How did that not make Dominic jump ten feet in the air? Adrien had just offered him everything he could’ve wanted at that age.
“You’re what?” Rosie asked, petting his unruly curls. I didn’t even realize he’d said anything; his head was tucked so low now. “You’re tired? Okay, well, why don’t we put on a…”
The recording cut off.
“To be clear, I did not cry,” Dom jested lightly, bumping my shoulder with his, “regardless of what my mother may claim when you see her.”
Another video started to play.
“Adrien, turn that thing off,” Rosie snapped at the camera before turning her unhappy attention to her son. Judging by the red-coated spatula in her hand and spotty apron, she’d stopped cooking dinner to have this conversation. It must’ve been bad.
The Hellion was in his muddied soccer uniform, looking huffy with frustrated indignation. “It was an accident! How many times do I have to say it!”
“Dom, super quick, can you explain to the camera what happened?” Adrien’s elated voice interjected from the background. Rosie threatened him with a look that would’ve been lethal had she not been trying so hard to swallow her smile.
Dominic, seeing this as the perfect opportunity to redeem himself and set things straight, turned to the camera to plead his case. “I kicked a kid at soccer today, and I’m suspended and grounded, even though I said a thousand times it was an accident!”
“Which kid?”
Dominic’s cheeks turned a deeper shade of pink. “Finley.”
“And who is he? How do we know him?”
Dom glanced sideways. Shrugged.
“Is it the same little shithead that made Alice cry?”
A short pause. Then, “Yes.”
“My maaaan,” Adrien laughed, his fist popping into the frame, making Dominic grin ear to ear.
Sauce splattered everywhere when Rosie smacked my brother’s wrist with her spatula. “We do not encourage violence in this house. Now, turn that thing off!”
“But he deserved it!” Dominic argued as Rosie snatched the camera from Adrien and switched it off.
I was mesmerized, my mouth hanging open as I watched us grow a little bit older, taller with every other video. I’d forgotten about his skateboard phase. And the buzz cut. The big, watery grin he’d worn on his sixteenth birthday when he finally got the keys to his dad’s beat-up red Camry.
My chest caved in on itself as a buried memory resurfaced.
We’d snuck down to the lake with a stolen bottle of Gampy’s whiskey that night, sitting by the water and talking until well past curfew.
He’d wiped his eyes with the collar of his polo at one point and told me about the anger he still felt regarding his dad’s death.
He said he wasn’t sure why it was there or if it would ever go away.
He wanted someone to blame, even though no one was at fault. He’d had a heart attack at work, and everyone—his colleagues, the EMTs, nurses, and doctors—had done everything they could. But sometimes, everything just wasn’t enough.
Three weeks later, Rosie found out she was pregnant.
She always said Dominic was her one perfect miracle—a gift from her late husband, assuring her that everything was going to be okay, even though he’d been forced to leave her so much earlier than they’d agreed on.
I’d cried with him that night, my own biting anger flaring on his behalf.
It was surreal, being confronted with these softer moments I’d worked so hard to suppress—the ones just between us, because remembering them was too excruciating. It was easier to lie to myself and pretend like we’d always been all claws and teeth.
Almost every clip triggered at least one forgotten memory. Some of them were tangible enough to flash through my mind’s eye; others I could only feel in my heart.
Then, it happened.
It was the pattern shift that pulled me from the hypnotic state I’d slipped into. My train of thought came to a halt the second Jaxton Kim’s shit-eating grin appeared on the shaky screen. My stomach dropped.
He was out of breath, jogging down our old school hallway from what I could gather. “We got it,” he whisper-yelled, fumbling with his phone to switch out of selfie mode. “We got it—it’s not her birthday. It’s 8108.”
After an excessive amount of rustling and hushed whispers, the camera finally stopped pointing at the floor.
“You saw it here first, folks!” Arjan said, gesturing at a set of lockers behind him, where Jaxton and Dominic were fumbling with a silver lock. My silver lock. That was my old locker. 8108 was my old combination. “Dominic’s balls have finally dropped.”
Dominic sniped a pen at Arjan’s head, inspiring a round of laughter from the five teenagers gathered around him, all of whom I recognized as members of the senior boys’ soccer team.
Arjan wasn’t deterred. “For all you viewers at home, Dom’s been pining for this chick since he was, what, eight?”
Dominic ignored the question, too busy fussing with the small pile of items he’d slipped into my locker. He angled the roses an inch to the right, two to the left, then stepped back.
One frustrated huff later, he’d picked it back up and started the process over.
“Dude, it’s fine where it is. Leave it—are y’all seeing this shit?” Jaxton said to the camera as he pointed an index finger at Dominic. “Alice, you seeing this?”
My pulse jumped, a cavity forming in my chest as Dom fiddled with the arrangement again. His fingers were trembling.
So much so that not only did the camera manage to capture it, but their unsteadiness snagged my full, breathless attention.
“Man, stop fussing. Bell’s about to go off, it’s fine—” The footage cut off as Arjan turned to pry Dominic away.
I couldn’t breathe.
My head was spinning, shadows creeping over the corners of my vision.
“It wasn’t a prank.”
I turned to him, my heart swooping, falling, flying.
“I was so deeply, unfathomably in love with you that I couldn’t see straight, Alice.” He reached out and gently brushed a stray strand away from my forehead, his warm, nervous gaze latched on to mine. “And I’ve been treading water ever since, with nothing to show for it.”