31. June
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
JUNE
Where the hell is my diary?
I’ve torn through every drawer in my desk, the pile of textbooks, the gap between my bed frame and the wall where things sometimes disappear to and collect dust. I even checked under the canvases leaning against the wall, which was pointless because I would remember placing it there.
The dusky rose bedspread is pulled back, pillows on the floor. My room looks like someone ransacked it, which was me. It’s like my diary grew legs and disappeared.
I know I had it last week. I wrote in it during Visual Studies while pretending to take notes. Aeron had missed class again, so I exchanged a worried look with Cinna and then wrote down my worries. I’m pretty sure I wrote in it the day after that, while studying alone in the library. And then…?
It grew legs and ran away.
I’ve been looking on and off, always telling myself it would turn up in some obvious spot and I’d feel stupid for missing it. But I’ve run out of obvious spots.
My frustration is bubbling in my chest. I need my diary.
My name isn’t in it so if some stranger finds it, they likely won’t know whose it is.
Still, there are a lot of personal things on those pages, I was almost done filling it up so I could start a fresh one, and there are so many notes about Dorien I want to record.
These early relationship moments with him are already fading because I can’t jot them down.
I let out a frustrated groan and then riffle through my bag. I pull out a school notebook, one with Visual Studies lecture notes on the first twelve pages, and flip to the back. This temporary diary will have to do until I find my lost one.
My cursive comes out fast and sloppy, my thoughts racing to get everything out.
Yesterday, it rained in the evening. Dorien was walking me home, and we ran for cover under a large tree because the sky split open and we were both too stubborn to run for a real building.
His leather jacket was soaked through and he was laughing, rain plastered his hair to his forehead.
I kept thinking, I need to paint this with the exact shade of his skin in the light: warm amber against the gray behind him.
Then his mouth was on mine, and the rain was cold on my face yet he was warm everywhere else.
I kissed him until my lungs ached and the ache felt better than breathing.
“The only art I want to make is of you,” he said. I’ve never felt such a full, passionate feeling. My heart felt like it’d burst.
I press the notebook against my stomach and let myself relive the moment a few more times. I never want to forget that moment.
Grinning in a way I can’t stop, I close the notebook, shove my feet into sneakers, and open my bedroom door. I’m supposed to meet Cinna for mocktail hour tonight.
Is tonight a good time to tell her about me and Dorien? God, what if she hates me?
As I leave my room, Aeron is in the hallway, coming from the kitchen. He’s wearing a new black hoodie. I know it’s new because there are no holes in it and the fabric looks strong. It’s so oversized it eats his frame. With the hood up, shadows cover his face.
“Hey,” I say. “How have—”
“No,” he bites out. He moves to pass me.
I step sideways to block him. I’ve watched my brother disappear for weeks. He doesn’t come to meals. He’s skipping tons of classes. Every time I knock on his door I get silence or a single syllable. And he was checked out during the food truck hangout.
Mom said he’s going through a phase and to give him some space. But this is the one time I don’t agree with her. Aeron’s going to flunk, and I won’t sit back and watch him throw away a semester.
Also, I’m worried. This doesn’t feel like a “phase.” It’s like he’s deeply hurt, and I don’t know why.
“Talk to me,” I say.
“About what?” His voice is so firm and forceful. He’s looking past me to his bedroom door.
“About anything. Are you okay? You’ve been locked in your room—”
“I’m busy.”
“With what?”
His eyes land on me through the hoodie’s shadows and the look he gives makes my heart lurch. The ocean-teal has drained to grey and there’s so much hate in that look. I know I yelled at him for the pot, but do I deserve so much hate for just being worried?
“Busy with my life,” he says. “Which doesn’t need your supervision.”
“I’m not… I just want to know how you are.”
“You’re blocking the hallway.”
He’s right. My body has shifted fully into his path and I’m standing with my feet planted, with one arm on the wall so there’s no way around me. I can’t let him escape again without talking.
“Come eat dinner with us tonight,” I say. I have plans with Cinna but she’ll understand if I cancel for family reasons. “Come on. Real dinner at the table. Mom can make the chicken casserole you like. Or I’ll get takeout from—”
“No.”
“Aeron.”
“I said no.”
“You can’t keep hiding in your room like this. It’s been weeks…”
He pulls his hoodie down to snarl at me. I’m so shocked by how hollow his cheeks are that I’m speechless. I’ve seen him take food to his room like normal, but it’s as if he’s lost weight somehow. And the bags under his eyes are so thick I wonder if he’s slept at all this week.
“Maybe I’m hiding because every time I come out,” he growls, “someone is standing there telling me how to exist.” His voice drops instead of rising, scraped clean of all emotion.
“You don’t check on me because you care, big sis.
You check on me so you can feel like a good sister. Everything you do is self-centered.”
My palm presses harder against the wall to balance me. Am… am I? I do care about him… but I know I can be controlling. I just worry about him making mistakes, so what am I supposed to do?
“That’s not fair,” I say.
“It’s true. You notice I’m alive when it’s convenient. The rest of the time I’m an item on your to-do list. Did I check on Aeron today, yes or no, and then you move on with your life.”
“T-that’s not—”
“You treat me like a responsibility.” His upper lip pulls back and his whole body is tilted forward. “Not a person. All you care about anymore is your stupid boyfriend.”
I drop my gaze. “How did you—”
He laughs a dark laugh. “You two think you’re hiding anything? It’s obvious to everyone that you’re fucking.”
My fingers scratch along the wall as I make a fist. Fine. Dorien and I are obvious, but he’s wrong that I think he’s just a responsibility. The reason I know he’s wrong is because the ache in my chest is real, and I wouldn’t feel this worried if he were just a box I check.
But the part of me that’s honest, the part that paints things I can’t bring myself to say, knows there’s enough truth in his words to make them impossible to dismiss.
How many times have I checked on Aeron and then gone straight back to texting Dorien?
How many of those check-ins were a question I asked on autopilot before returning to the thing I actually wanted to be doing?
Instead of saying something raw, I say, “You’re coming to dinner tonight.” Apparently my response to feeling gutted is to grip tighter. “I don’t care if you want to or not, you need to stop hiding away. I mean it.”
I’m still blocking his path with my feet planted. I cross my arms. The older sister stance I’ve perfected since I was five years old.
Aeron’s face twists into the nastiest snarl I’ve ever seen. “I said get out of the way!” He shoves my shoulder. It’s forceful enough that I stumble sideways and my back slams into the wall.
My eyes go wide as we stare at each other.
He makes a fist at his side, arms trembling. All the color has bled from his face, wiped clean like a canvas hit with turpentine. He looks scared and his mouth opens on a word he doesn’t say.
Then the snarl returns and he walks past me. His bedroom door slams shut. The lock clicks. I stay against the wall.
My brother has yelled at me before, slammed doors, gone entire weeks refusing to speak to me.
He has never put his hands on me.
I press my palm flat against the wall and exhale deeply as tears rim my eyes. What’s happening to him? I know he’s upset, but I should knock on his door. Mom went out for groceries, so I should call her and tell her to come home now.
Or… I don’t know. Does he really just need space, like Mom said? I wish I could understand why lecturing him about pot has caused this deep withdrawal.
I walk to his locked door and tap softly. I clear my throat before speaking. “Hey. Um, I know you’re mad at me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I lectured you about pot and…”
I don’t know what else to say. I don’t even know if he’s listening.
So I leave and walk down the hallway. I text Cinna that I had a family issue and can’t meet up with her.
Cinna: OMG is everyone okay?
Me: Yeah. Sorry.
Cinna: Don’t apologize. Family comes first.
I send her some heart emojis because I love her so much. She’s like my sister at this point.
When I reach the front door, I consider staying home but I know Aeron won’t come out of his room again.
I seek refuge with Dorien.
Dorien’s dorm is a single on the third floor of the east residence wing. After I knock, he opens the door in a T-shirt and sweatpants, barefoot, and his expression shifts the instant he sees me. The smile starts and catches halfway, reading my face before I’ve said a word.
He steps aside.
Late afternoon light comes through the window.
His bed is a twin pushed against the far wall, with navy sheets rumpled in a way that says he never makes it.
There are four paperbacks, each with a bookmark partway through, stacked on the windowsill by the bed.
The mirror on the back of his door has been covered with a towel, like he doesn’t want to look at himself.
His desk is only covered with polaroids of his sculptural works-in-progress because he doesn’t seem to do much sculpting in his dorm.
It is a messy medium so that makes sense.
“What happened?” he asks once I’m in the middle of the space.