CHAPTER SIX
CONNECTICUT, AGE FIFTEEN
Mom and Dad had died instantly in a head-on collision with a pickup truck driving too fast on the wrong side of the road, and on a cold and stormy day in the first week of October, they were buried.
I had heard them speak their last words, heard them take their last breaths, with the phone pressed to my ear, my knuckles turning white around the receiver. Luke had to pry the damn thing out of my hand, unwrapping my fingers as the tears poured from my eyes in a never-ending deluge of inconsolable despair.
“Charlie! Let. Go!” he had growled through gritted teeth, more from sheer panic than anger, before pressing the phone to his own ear with a trembling hand.
He called for Dad, he called for Mom, but of course, neither answered.
So, he’d hung up with only a hint of reluctance and dialed 911.
Despite being an idiot a good deal of the time, Luke always seemed to know what to do.
Even as we had planned the funeral—something that felt so, so, so surreal and strange and wrong and unnatural—Luke had handled it all with the help of our last living relative, Dad’s mom, Nana. And the whole time, I just sat there, barely nodding or shaking my head whenever someone dared to address me by name.
I had been too afraid to speak, too afraid to look at anything but my own hands. Too scared I’d cry instead, especially when in the presence of my big brother, who hadn’t shed a single tear yet. Not that I was aware of anyway.
Now, after the morning Mass and the burial at the cemetery, I sat in the house where my parents used to live. Nana had said it made the most sense to hold the funeral reception here because it was closer to all of my parents’ friends than her house, which was two hours away. Luke thought she’d made a good point while I just shrugged and kept my head down.
To be honest, I didn’t think it was a good idea at all. Why would I want to tie the memory of my parents’ funeral to the place I’d last seen them alive?
But Luke had gone along with Nana’s plan, and I’d followed because what else was I supposed to do? I was the younger one, the weaker one, and as far as I knew, my opinion didn’t matter much.
After all, Mom and Dad had left in the first place, even when I’d begged them not to.
I had known something was going to happen. I had known , and they didn’t care. Nobody had cared, nobody had listened, and it took every last bit of my waning strength to hold it together as I sat on the couch in the living room—the last place I’d seen them both alive, so happy and full of excitement—and stared ahead at the funeral guests.
They hugged, kissed, cried, and offered their condolences to each other. Occasionally, someone would stop, pat my shoulder, and tell me how sorry they were. I’d offer a faint smile and nod, like I was simply playing a part in a movie I’d been forced to be an extra in.
But mostly, they just whispered.
“That’s one of Sue’s sons.”
“Poor thing. Life has been difficult enough for him with, you know …”
“I can’t imagine how hard he’s going to take this.”
“He’s always been so fragile.”
Nobody whispered about Luke though. Luke was strong, they said. He’d get by. He’d be just fine. And I thought I could be fine, too, if I could stay with him.
God, what if I can’t stay with him?
The thought struck my chest, and my lips parted in a choked gasp. There hadn’t been any talk of what would happen to us. We’d been too busy with the funeral to even think about anything else, but that part was almost over. Soon, all these people would leave to go back to their lives, as if Paul and Sue Corbin had never existed within their lives at all, and we’d have to go back to ours. But what kind of life was there without Mom and Dad?
I swept my gaze around the living room as my heartbeat sped up to a frantic, out-of-control gallop.
Just four days ago, Mom and Dad had been here. Laughing and happy. Alive . Now, they were cold and concealed in their caskets, and I was never going to see them again. For the rest of my life, I would be an orphan, and, Jesus Christ, that felt like such a long time right now when I was still only fifteen, and, oh my freakin’ God, what the hell would I do without Luke?
Where is he? Where did he go? What is he doing, and why isn’t he with me?
I abruptly stood up, nearly knocking the drink out of some guy’s hand.
“Hey, watch where you’re going,” he scolded, but was quickly reminded by the woman with him that I was one of the grieving sons.
Grieving sons.
My parents are dead.
I’m all alone.
Oh my God.
I’m alone.
My palms were sticky with a thick coating of sweat as I hurried blindly from the living room and stumbled up the stairs. I ran down the hall, passing my parents’ room—closed and sealed off to everyone—to Luke’s open doorway, only to find it empty, and I was certain my heart would explode.
“Luke!” I cried as I hurried past his gigantic laundry pile and back out the door, not caring who heard.
The bathroom was empty, he wasn’t in my room, and I wouldn’t dare check Mom and Dad’s bedroom. I wasn’t ready—not yet, maybe not ever—and I seriously doubted Luke would be either. He had even made Nana go in to grab some clothes for their bodies to wear. So, I ran back down the stairs, clumsily weaving my way through the crowded living room to the dining room, not bothering to apologize to the people I bumped into as I went.
“Luke!”
I shoved my sticky, shaking hands into my hair, gripping the strands as the panic quickly made it harder to breathe. I gulped for air, struggled to calm the nausea building in my gut. Everyone was staring at me—I knew they were—but panic didn’t leave much room for self-consciousness, and I didn’t freakin’ care.
“God, where are you?!” My voice cracked as I made my way to the kitchen, only to find he wasn’t there either.
There were so many people. So many eyes. So many bodies taking up the space and air in a house that used to hold a family and now only had room for two orphaned kids. And not a single one of these people was the one person I needed, and where the fuck was he?!
Nana spotted me from the sink. She didn’t understand me or my panic attacks—I had heard her talking to my parents once or twice before about how I needed help and what the hell were they doing to fix it. But I guessed she had some compassion this time—maybe because my parents were dead, who knows—and she came over to me with a rare look of affection and sympathy in her eyes.
“Charlie, sweetie, what is it?”
“I-I-I-I … I c-can’t find L-Luke,” I managed to say, my voice barely carried by a terrible tremor that would be humiliating later, but not now.
She nodded and gestured toward the basement door. “I saw him go downstairs with his friends a little while ago.”
My lips parted with my heavy exhale, and my lungs began to find their rhythm. The basement— of course . Why hadn’t I thought to go down there? Luke hung out downstairs a lot, especially when his friends and Melanie were around.
It had seemed to be a mutual understanding that as long as he was safe, none of us—Mom, Dad, or me—really questioned what he did in the confines of the basement. I’d overheard Dad say that it was better he did shit at home than on the streets, and although I wasn’t always sure what he’d meant by that, I had never disagreed.
Luke was always better off at home.
Now, even though I seldom went downstairs myself, I hurried for the door. The hinges creaked as I pulled it open and closed it behind me. The stairs groaned beneath my feet as I made my way down, listening as the older teens talked.
“Hey, Zero,” I heard Ritchie say. “Grab me a beer, will you?”
Zero . I rolled my eyes.
I had always hated that stupid nickname. So did Mom.
“Zero?” she had asked a couple of years ago when Luke demanded we all call him that—even though we never listened. “Why the hell would you want anyone to call you Zero?”
“Because he gives zero fucks,” Tommy had replied before high-fiving my brother.
“You’re all ridiculous,” Mom had grumbled, even as she smiled, reaching out to shove against Luke’s shoulder.
He had kissed her cheek before walking out the door, even in front of his friend, and she’d been so happy. She’d smiled all through cooking dinner, singing songs and dancing around the kitchen, and my heart pulsed now with such a tremendous, impossible ache at the thought of never hearing her sing again.
A sob forced its way past my lips as I plonked down on the last step. Then, with my arms folded over my knees, I leaned forward and tried to force the tears back.
There was no way I was going to cry in front of my brother’s friends.
Especially Ritchie.
“What was that?” Tommy asked.
“I dunno.” Ritchie. “Came from over there.”
Footsteps approached, and then there was a quiet gasp.
“Charlie?” Melanie sounded worried, and she sat beside me, wrapping her arm around my shoulders. “Oh, honey.”
God, I hated the way she talked to me sometimes. Like I was a little kid who needed coddling, and I hated even more that, sometimes, I did. But right now, it felt nice, and even though she was only a few years older than me, she felt as close to Mom as I was going to get in the moment. So, I let her press her temple to my head, and I continued to fight against my tears.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Ritchie groaned without the tiniest hint of empathy.
More footsteps approached and stopped in front of me, but I didn’t bother looking up to see who it was, afraid that Ritchie had come to torment me during the worst, most nightmarish time of my stupid life. I just kept my eyes closed, shielded by my arms, and waited for the crushing weight of grief to finally subside, even if just a little.
“Hey.”
Luke’s soft tone jolted my heart, and I looked up to find him crouched in front of me, looking back. The dark circles beneath his eyes reminded me that he hadn’t slept much—if at all—over the past few days, and I felt even more like a baby as I fought against the urge to cuddle beside him and ask him to take a nap with me and forget all of this for just a little while.
I’m so stupid.
We used to take naps together as little kids. Why had it stopped? Why had things changed? Why was it that, just because we got older, we had to stop doing things like cuddle and nap and hug?
I’m such a freakin’ baby.
“Luke,” I whispered as if I could keep his friends from overhearing.
“Yeah?” he whispered back.
“What are we going to do?”
His shoulders dropped heavily with the weight of his sigh, and his gaze flitted from mine to Melanie’s.
“We’ll figure it out, Charlie.”
“But what if—”
To my left, I heard Ritchie release a guttural, long-winded groan. Someone else—Rob maybe—whispered for him to shut the hell up, but Ritchie never could listen.
He stood up from the beat-up old couch and said, “God, you know, the least they could’ve done was take him with them.”
Melanie took in a sharp breath of air in time with the metaphorical punch to my gut.
“Oh shit,” Tommy or Rob muttered—I wasn’t sure who.
All I could focus on was the overwhelming need to throw up and the look of horrified betrayal in my brother’s eyes.
“What?” he asked, slowly turning his head to look at his oldest, closest best friend.
The kid he’d known practically since birth.
The kid he’d grown up with.
The kid who had, for all intents and purposes, been there through everything—regardless of if he was an asshole or not.
“You know, your parents, man. Obviously, it sucks they died— obviously . I mean, come on. But, like, they could’ve at least had Charlie boy in the car with them.” Ritchie snorted like he had just made the funniest joke on the planet. “Would’ve made your life easier—that’s for damn sure.”
My nose sniffled uncontrollably, and there was no holding back the tears now. I had always known Ritchie was awful. I had always known he was an asshole. But I couldn’t wrap my head around just how terrible he was. How he could stand there, grinning and laughing, like he hadn’t just said the single most horrific thing I’d ever heard someone say—and it was about me. How he could wish that I were dead, just like our parents …
It hurt more than I wished it had.
“Rich!” Melanie cried, appalled, as she tightened her arm around my shoulders. “Oh my God, how can you be so freakin’ awful?!”
“Say that again,” Luke dared his friend, slowly rising to his feet, still wearing the black pants and white button-down he’d worn to the funeral.
He’d taken off his suit jacket at some point while I hadn’t had the strength to even kick off my shoes.
Ritchie laughed lightly. “Oh, come on, Zero, man. I’m just playing around. You know that.”
Luke moved toward him, one socked foot in front of the other. Taking each step carefully, slowly. “You think this shit is funny, huh?”
Ritchie shrugged casually, never wiping the grin off his face. “I mean, it’s a little funny that he’s taking it so seriously. Come on, Charlie boy. Don’t cry, you little baby. Your mommy isn’t here any— fuck !”
My head whipped toward the cracking sound of flesh meeting flesh as my brother’s fist connected with Ritchie’s mouth.
“Luke!” Melanie screamed, jumping to her feet and taking me with her.
She backed us against the wall at the bottom of the stairs, and together, we watched in a blend of horror and gratitude and amazement as Luke held tight to Ritchie’s collar and repeatedly punched him in the face. Once, twice, three times, his fist met with Ritchie’s mouth, cheek, eye, before Ritchie could gather his bearings and grapple with Luke’s shoulders, shoving him back and into the side of the staircase. Luke’s back hit the flimsy banister—something Dad had always intended on fixing, but now never would—and I heard something crack and splinter.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Tommy chanted, jumping out of the way as Luke lunged at Ritchie again, knocking him down and onto the couch. “Luke, man, stop! Ritchie, come on! Guys!”
“Asshole!” Ritchie shouted when Luke’s fist caught him once again in the mouth, causing a spray of blood to splatter against my brother’s clean white shirt.
Ritchie threw Luke off him and onto the coffee table. The thin, cheap piece of furniture shattered beneath his weight, and Melanie let out a shriek. I could only stare, petrified, too stunned to cry as I held on to Melanie’s arm. Afraid Ritchie would kill Luke, the only person I had left, and leave me with no one.
God, I don’t want to be alone.
I don’t want to be without Luke.
“Stop it!” I heard myself cry out, my voice cracking as Luke scrambled to stand up, but Ritchie stopped him with a winding punch to the nose.
Luke shouted in pain, cupping his hands against his face. “You piece of fucking shit!”
I hoped they were finished. I hoped beyond all hope that Ritchie would just leave and never come back. But something had snapped inside my brother. Something that had been lying dormant for days—hell, maybe even weeks or years, I didn’t know—and it was now awake and angry, unable to be contained.
He stood from the wreckage of the coffee table on unsteady legs, took Ritchie by the collar, and hauled him against the basement wall. The back of Ritchie's head smacked against the concrete, and Tommy jumped into action and grabbed the back of Luke's shirt, trying to pull him off his older brother. But Tommy wasn't a big guy, not nearly as strong as Luke, and there was nothing he could do to keep him from rearing back and thrusting Ritchie against the wall again.
“You think this is funny?!” Luke repeated, spitting into Ritchie's face. “You think it's funny that my parents are fucking dead?!”
“Luke, stop it!” Melanie screamed, her nails digging into my arm.
Rob joined Tommy, grabbing for Luke's arm, and somehow, together, they were successful in prying him off Ritchie.
“The fuck is wrong with you?!” Ritchie shouted, rubbing at the back of his head. He pulled his hand away and found it coated in a sheen of blood.
“Me?!” Luke yelled back, his arms still held by Tommy and Rob. “I am sick and fucking tired of putting up with your shit! All the shit you say! You think you’re so goddamn funny, but you know what, asshole?! You’re not!”
“Yeah, well, fuck you too,” Ritchie snarled, stepping in close to my brother's face, their noses barely touching. “I'm done putting up with your shit and your retarded little brother.”
“Don't you ever fucking talk about my brother again,” Luke replied, his voice low and close to a growl. “I swear to God, if you say one more thing about him, I will fucking murder you.”
Ritchie only snickered at the threat. “Whatever.”
He walked around Luke and headed toward the stairs. He didn't seem to notice me as he zeroed in on Melanie. He towered over her, his bruised and bloodied face tipped downward to stare into her eyes. His chest heaved with anger and adrenaline, his fists clenched at his sides, and while I couldn't meet his wild, crazy gaze, Melanie never faltered.
I wished I could be so brave.
“Go home, Rich,” she muttered through a tight jaw.
A drop of blood dripped from his mouth and onto the floor as he asked, “You wanna come with me?”
“Don't you fucking talk to her!” Luke shouted, struggling against Tommy’s and Rob's hold on his arms. “Jesus Christ, let me go, assholes!”
“Are you gonna hurt him again?” Tommy asked, sounding uncertain and worried.
Luke groaned, more frustrated than enraged. “Just let me go, okay?”
They listened, and to my relief, Luke stayed back, wiping the blood off his upper lip. I watched as he shook his head and sniffled, then turned his back on all of us. He raised his hand over his eyes, his shoulders shuddered, and he dropped to his knees beside the broken coffee table.
“Luke,” I said in a whisper as I witnessed the crumbling of my brother's walls.
“All of you, go. Get out of here,” Melanie demanded, her voice trembling with an urgent need, before quickly moving between Ritchie and me, hurrying to reach Luke's side.
I wanted to join her, to wrap my arms around my brother's hunched back and cry with him. But Ritchie was there, and Rob and Tommy came to stand beside him. A wall of older, bigger guys blocked my path, and there was nothing I could do about it.
“I meant it, you know,” Ritchie said, his voice quiet and cruel. “You should've been in that car.”
The basement door flew open, and there was Nana, staring down at us at the bottom of the stairs.
“What the hell is happening down there?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Ritchie was quicker.
“Nothing. We're just saying goodbye to Charlie boy here,” he said, never taking his eyes off me. Never allowing Nana to see the blood coating his bottom lip or the way his left eye was beginning to swell shut.
Luke had really done a number on him.
Good .
She didn't look convinced and narrowed her eyes at Ritchie, but still, she said nothing. Then, she stepped away from the door, leaving us alone.
Ritchie stepped in closer, ready to speak or hurt me or something, but Tommy grabbed his shoulder.
“Let's go home, Ritchie,” he said, and for whatever reason, his brother actually listened.
The three of them left, parading up the stairs like defeated soldiers and shutting the door loudly behind them. I didn't bother to watch them go though and instead stared at my brother.
His arms were around Melanie, gripping her black dress with clenched fists as he pressed his face to her chest. His shoulders shuddered as he cried, sobbing and wailing like a lost, wounded dog against her. Melanie softly raked her fingers through his hair, whispering reassurances that everything would be okay even though I thought we all knew it was a lie.
How could anything be okay now?
How would we ever be okay?
I sank down onto the bottom step, silently watching my brother and his girlfriend. I didn't know if they wanted me with them. I didn't think I was welcome. Luke needed to cry, and I wasn’t sure he wanted me to watch any more than I already was. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to. Everything changed a little when the person you saw as Superman took off his cape, and that was exactly what was happening now as I watched my brother fall apart.
He’d become a little more human, a little more like me.
So, there I sat, giving him the space I assumed he wanted as his shudders eased and his cries subsided.
Then, his head lifted from her chest and his hands from her back. He pressed his palms to her cheeks, and he leaned in, slamming his mouth against hers, hard and fast.
I wrinkled my nose as he gripped her chin, tipped his head, and stuffed his tongue into her mouth. I turned away, not wanting to watch while being acutely aware of that thing between my legs, aching and twitching.
Dammit, I wished it would go away.
Now wasn’t the time, and I didn’t like Melanie like that. But I was curious, wondering what it was like to kiss someone, let alone with tongues, and it felt wrong to feel like that today, of all days—but somehow, I also couldn’t help it.
But, God ! How could he even be kissing her like that now ? How could he ever want to kiss someone again when Mom and Dad were gone forever?
“Luke,” Melanie whispered, trying to catch her breath. “No, we have to … we have to stop.”
She said it, but she didn't sound like she wanted to stop. She sounded like she wanted to keep going, to keep kissing. To do anything but stop.
Would a girl like it if I kissed her?
I shook my head, sending the thought away, immediately feeling guilty for thinking it at all.
“No, no, please,” Luke begged. “I need you. Why—”
“ Your brother ,” she hissed beneath her breath, as if she could prevent me from hearing, even as I sat less than ten feet away.
All Luke could say then was, “Shit.”
Melanie cleared her throat, and there was some rustling behind me, but I wouldn't dare look. Afraid I'd see something I couldn’t unsee.
Then, she said, “I'm going to get a washcloth for your face, okay?”
Luke sniffled. “Okay.”
“Talk to him,” she whispered, and then she was walking closer, stepping onto the staircase, and resting her hand against my head before ascending quietly and disappearing behind the door.
Luke and I were alone now. I was painfully aware of the fact that this was the first time we'd been truly alone together since the night our parents had died. I was so painfully, acutely aware that this was how our family would be from now on.
Luke and me. Just the two of us. Nobody else.
I hate this.
“Charlie.”
I inhaled deeply, then answered, “Yeah?”
“Come here.”
Just like that, I forgot all about kissing and girls, and I was instantly reminded of why I had come down here in the first place. There was so much of me that didn't want to go over there and hear what he had to say. What if he was about to tell me that we’d have to leave our house and go live with Nana in Mystic? What if he said he couldn’t come with me?
I can’t be without Luke.
Swallowing repeatedly at my quickly rising panic, I slowly stood from the stairs and walked over to where he now sat on the couch. Reluctantly, I took a seat beside him, facing forward, just as he did.
I guessed he couldn’t look at me when he said whatever it was he needed to say.
“Ritchie is a piece of shit.”
I nearly laughed. That wasn’t at all what I’d expected.
“Well, duh. I could’ve told you that.”
“No, I’m serious. He’s not a good guy, Charlie. You have no idea. He’s bad . He’s …” Luke wiped his hand over his bloodied mouth. “I should've ditched his ass a long time ago. It’s just …”
“I get it.”
Luke glanced at me through the corner of his eye, a little skeptical. I figured it was hard for him to believe that I’d understand, and I guessed I couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t like I really had any friends of my own, outside of him and Melanie—if I could really consider my older brother and his girlfriend friends at all, organic ones at least. So, why should he have assumed I’d understand the difficulty in ditching a friend you’d had since you’d both been in diapers?
But the thing Luke didn’t get was, I did understand it.
After all, it was exactly why I couldn’t imagine a life without him in it.
It was hard to let go of someone you’d built so much of your life around.
“Anyway”—he wiped at the drying blood beneath his nose—“you don’t have to worry about anything, okay?”
I scoffed, already beginning to choke on another wave of emotion. “I have to worry.”
“Well, don’t.”
“Yeah, okay. Let me just turn it off.”
Luke sighed, pushing his hands into his disheveled hair. “I’m just saying, I’ll take care of shit, okay?”
Then, I asked the question I had been reluctant to ask. “But what if we can’t stay together?”
Luke turned in his seat, and his bruised and blackened eyes came to mine with an urgency he hadn’t shown before.
“That’s not going to happen. That won’t ever happen.”
“But upstairs, they said—”
“Charlie, listen to me. I won’t let it happen. Everything is going to be fine. You’re going to be fine .”
I wiped my hands against my cheeks and nodded, not sure that I believed him, but not wanting him to know that.
Then, I remembered one of the last things Mom had said to me, and knowing she was never coming home felt like a living nightmare. I turned to my brother, my heart full of pain and an overwhelming feeling of helplessness, and asked, “Luke … w-will you teach me how to shave?”
And I didn’t know why that was funny, but Luke laughed despite the tears building in his eyes. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pressed his forehead to mine, then said, “Yeah, Charlie.” His voice broke, and then he sighed. “I’ll teach you how to shave.”