7. Fox
FOX
You know how sometimes you wake up hungover, but like, extra?
Like your head hurts and your body kinda hurts and all that, but you also have this weird feeling that you did or said something really stupid the night before?
Well, that’s basically how I wake up.
“Shit.”
And it doesn’t help that I immediately crack my head on a beam.
I rub my temples, which now hurt twice as much. One of these days I’m going to remember that I sleep like two feet below the ceiling, and that I’m six feet four inches tall, and so if half of that is my torso, that’s like…
I don’t know. More than can fit sitting up straight.
“Damn,” I say to myself. My head hurts. My brain hurts. I need food. And I feel…
I feel bad.
What did I do last night?
But I don’t have long to wonder, because somewhere below me I hear rustling, and…and great, now Kit’s awake. Or at least moving. Maybe twin telepathy is real and I summoned him with my mind.
From below, something thumps into my mattress. Kit’s foot.
“Ow!”
“Shut up.”
Or maybe I’m just rolling around too much and I woke him up.
Blue can make fun of our bunk beds all he wants, but the thing is, they’re actually not bunk beds. It’s just that we share a room and my bed is lofted over Kit’s.
I mean, I guess maybe that’s bunk beds. Now that I think about it.
We didn’t even have to share a room. But I can’t sleep if I don’t know Kit’s okay.
And right now he’s definitely alive, alive and breathing and pissed off at me.
Sigh.
I’m a bad person, no question. I’m a bad person, in a lot of ways, with a lot to make up for. But I’m not a dick. Not for no reason.
Especially not to Kit.
I wait another minute or two for Kit to fall back asleep, I hope.
Then I shimmy down the length of my mattress and slide down the ladder.
Our room is mostly his stuff—the desk, the books, the jars of colored pencils—since besides my clothes, all my stuff lives in the garage.
And even when I try to walk quietly all the sketches pinned up on the wall flutter like leaves in the breeze.
I glance back.
Kit’s motionless on his bed. Blankets up. Asleep.
I wait for his chest to rise and fall once, twice. See that he’s breathing, just to double check. And then I can go.
The kitchen’s on the first floor, the shop level, in the back. It doesn’t really have much actual kitchen stuff, in terms of appliances or pots and pans, or whatever, but it has a fridge that works, and a microwave that works, and an oven that…
Well, that explains one thing. The oven is on. The oven is on, and the whole room smells like spicy charcoal, and when I open up the door there’s a pizza in it. Or what used to be a pizza. Now it’s just a big black crumbly circle.
Classic drunk Fox. Make pizza, pass the fuck out.
I pull it out of the oven and drop it on the counter. Then, just in case, I break off a chunk just to see if it’s still edible and…not really. So I go for Cheerios instead. The bright yellow box.
That must have been it, I think as I chew a ton of tiny Os. The lingering hangover guilt. Or whatever feeling it is. My dumb pizza. I mean, shit, I could’ve burned the whole shop down.
Except that doesn’t feel like it was it.
I stab my spoon into the mountain of cereal and chew another bite. It tastes…bad. Or not the cereal itself, but the milk part. I grab the carton and sniff. Kinda hard to tell, because it’s empty now, but…
“Oh. Hey.”
I look up. It’s Tink.
“Didn’t think anyone else would be up yet,” he says. I shrug, nod, my mouth full of Cheerios, and as I do, this cold feeling takes over my stomach.
One that I don’t even think has to do with the milk being off.
Tink. Tink.
Did something happen with Tink last night?
I squint into my bowl of getting-mushy cereal, head pounding, as Tink drops his bag on the counter and heads for the fridge. Did I…say something to him? Piss him off? I definitely can shoot off for no reason, but at Tink?
I sidle a glance at him. He’s fully dressed—dressed for a ride, too, jacket, pants, boots, the works—while I’m still fucking around in shorts and bedhead.
“Going out?” I croak.
“Huh?” Tink startles a little, like he already forgot I was there.
“Oh, uh. Yeah. Since we’ve got nothing going on, I figured I might…
cruise around a bit. Nowhere in particular.
” He quickly stuffs something into his bag, but I catch it before it disappears: a bottle of sunscreen.
Some nice kind, it looks like, too, not Discount Drug store brand.
Huh, I think. Responsible.
Which only makes my head hurt worse. Because Tink’s like that. Like, I guess we do all spend a lot of time in the sun, but Tink’s the kind of guy who’d do something about it. Think ahead. Like, since he moved in, we’ve never run out of toilet paper, you know? Not once.
Point is, he’s just not the kind of guy who starts shit. Or gets shit started with him.
And yet…and yet this churning in my stomach makes me feel like I might have.
Like Drunk Fox might have.
I stir my Cheerios, trying to think, wondering if maybe I should just ask, when—
“Ugh.”
Pan heaves himself into the kitchen. No shirt, hair all messed up, eyes bleary. I give him a half-hearted salute, and Tink pauses, just steps away from the back door.
“You gonna live?” he asks Pan.
Pan just groans dramatically and takes the other side of the island. “What year is it?” Seeing my ex-pizza, he scowls. “The hell is that?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say, but Pan ignores me, too busy leaning over the island to scootch the colorful cardboard takeout box in front of him. He flips it open and pumps a fist.
“Jackpot,” he croaks, pulling out a foil-wrapped lump that he eagerly peels open.
“Did those sit out overnight?” comes another voice.
I don’t have to turn around to know it’s Kit. But I do anyway. My twin is also actually dressed, flannel over T-shirt and jeans. His hair’s combed, mine isn’t. His glasses are on, I…don’t wear any.
He’s little. I’m big.
Identical? You don’t even look alike.
Don’t remind me.
Pan lifts his head just enough to scowl at the burrito. He stops chewing. Then starts again. “S’fine,” he mutters. “Let me live.”
“Yeah, I’m trying to.” Kit grabs an orange from the plastic bag on the counter and starts shucking it. “That shit does not keep as long as you think it does.”
“M’fine,” Pan says, stuffing like half the burrito in his mouth. Like a boa constrictor with a mouse. “I’ve got—whatever it is. One of those things. Stone…steel…” He glances at Tink. “You know what I’m trying to say.”
“Iron constitution?” Tink’s still at the back door, like he isn’t sure if he should stay or go.
Tink. Another little wiggle of guilt in my gut. What the fuck did I do last night? I spoon up some more cereal, but now it’s gone legit sludgey, so I put it back down. And when I do, Kit catches my eye. One eyebrow raised.
“That’s the one.” Pan nods and spins a hand in the air. “Hey, can you grab me a—”
Tink pauses a split second, then nods and swings open the fridge.
I shake my head at Kit as Tink drops a can in front of Pan. I’m fine.
I don’t know if twin telepathy is real, exactly, but I do know that Kit and I can basically…talk without talking. Somehow. Comes in handy, sometimes.
Other times, it’s just annoying.
Kit snorts. Bullshit you are. He pushes his glasses up his nose, pushes his sleeves up his arms, like he’s about to snap on some gloves and start inspecting my skin for the best place to draw. What is it?
Nothing. Seriously.
Kit’s expression tells me he doesn’t believe me.
“…not actually winning that random drawing every week,” Tink is saying. “You know that, right? That poor El Zocalo counter girl just gives you the burrito box so she has an excuse to talk to you.”
Seriously, Kit. If I did start shit last night, then I don’t need Kit getting involved on my behalf, and I try to make that as clear as I possibly can across the kitchen island. I’m fine.
The other two don’t notice. Pan is giving Tink a blank look and shrugging. “Okay, so? Now she has my business card. Win win.”
“Business card? You mean a receipt with your name and phone number on the back?”
Except now Pan ignores him. Because he stopped ignoring me and Kit, and that’s when I realize the two of us have been way silent for way long.
“What are you two up to?” Pan narrows his eyes and tosses back his last chunk of burrito. “Some weird twin shit?” He swallows. “Like…what’s the movie where there’s two Lindsay Lohans?”
“The Parent Trap,” says Tink.
“Yeah!” Pan laughs. “One of those.”
“As if that would work,” Kit mutters. I ignore him. And them, kinda.
“I was just…uh…does the milk smell off to you?” I nudge the carton at Kit to change the subject. “It tastes kinda weird.”
Kit drops the other half of the orange, wipes his hands on his shirt, and lifts the carton. But he doesn’t smell it.
“Tastes weird?” he echoes.
I nod. Take another bite of cereal. Yep, definitely weird.
“Yeah,” I confirm through my Cheerios. “Does it smell weird?”
“Is there something wrong with just checking the expiration date?” Tink asks. “Or…”
Another squeeze of guilt clamps my stomach.
Wait…
Kit studies the milk carton. Then sighs. “It tastes weird because it’s oat milk, Fox.” He slides the carton back over at me. “Specifically Blue’s oat milk. Which you seem to have killed.”
“Oh.” I gulp. “Shit.”
Pan laughs. “Oh shit is right.”
“No kidding,” Kit says. “Your last will and testament up to date?”
“Fuck you,” I mumble into my Cheerios. My face feels hot. “They looked the same.”
“Except for how that one says OAT MILK on it.”
Tink.
And then, all it once it hits me.
Last night. The Lagoon.
Tink.
The bathroom door…
Can’t you fuckin’ read?
His voice rings in my ears.
I can, I think. I mean, I kind of can. I’ve figured out how to get by. And whenever I can’t, I ask Kit.
But besides Kit, nobody knows.
Or I didn’t think anyone knew.
And on the one hand, it doesn’t matter. I know it doesn’t matter. I mean, it’s not like I’m the one doing tattoos and actually writing stuff on people’s bodies, for one thing. Bikes don’t need you to read.