11 #2
Shawn chews the inside of his cheek a moment, before he shakes it off. He glances between three of us and starts for the back door. “C’mon, let’s kick a ball around. The moon’s already fucking with me.”
“Yeah, I’ll be there in a second.”
I watch the door close at the last of them disappear back outside. I sway, and lean against a wall to steady myself, before dipping into my dad’s old office.
Between the fireplace, the large stately desk, the wood-paneled walls lined with bookshelves, the still room had an austere, almost menacing feeling to it. Even though I’ve worked at this desk for a few years now, know every file in the cabinets, I still feel like I’m crossing a line by entering.
I pull open the bottom drawer and pull out a bottle of the Aconite reserve, the family recipe. The bitterness of the wolfsbane pokes through the harshness of the alcohol, and after a long pull, I set the bottle down heavily. It leaves a lingering numbness on my tongue.
There’s the scuffle of footsteps down the hall, the barest sounds of Elise and Ava that catches my attention, Elise is rambling, “I wrote it down this time, last time I didn’t weigh out the chopped leeks to goat cheese ratio . . .”
I poke my head into the hallway, but I don’t see where they went.
Elise was family since before Shawn came back, her scent blended into the rest of the house; I barely notice it anymore.
In contrast, Ava’s heady, earthy scent lingers in the doorway to the kitchen, drawing me inside.
It’s empty, but clearly they were just in here, the oven on and the quiche inside.
I watch the quiche shimmer a light golden brown under the heat in the oven, the timer on the counter ticking away.
There’s the faint sound of movement in the other room, and just as I strain to listen, Elise says to Ava, “So . . . you and Logan. You’re cute together.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself quiet.
“Yeah. I mean, we’re not together. I, um, I’m not trying to date anyone right now. I just got out of a bad breakup.”
I can’t interrupt her and Elise, and yet I can’t tear myself away.
“Well, he really likes you. I can tell.”
I don’t want to hear Ava’s answer.
I yank open the nearest kitchen drawer, dig through and find the singular box of matches that have carried us through countless birthdays and still haven’t been used up. I strike a match and hold it up to the smoke detector. A moment later it starts chirping.
Elise swears. I toss the match in the sink and head toward the back door.
I’m outside by the time Elise reaches the kitchen, the oven door creaking as she checks on the quiche, muttering, “It’s not even hot yet, what set the smoke detector off?”
The grass is long, and a few stray fireflies buzz out of it as I cross down the lawn.
The rest of the pack is gathered around an old soccer ball, the once-bright colors worn dull by years of grass stains, two or three of us always kicking it around, chatting about nothing.
I steal a glance back at the house; the gold light of the kitchen silhouettes Ava as she watches from the window.
“Ok, this time it’s gonna stay lit ’cause we’re using the good stuff,” Aiden assures us as he brings out the lighter fluid from the garage, giving the bottle a shake. “I’m glad we’re finally old enough to do all the really stupid things.”
“And Mom can’t even ground us,” Shawn points out with a grin. He folds up his glasses and stows them in his pocket, apparently now capable of an ounce of foresight.
“Here he is, finally. Get over here,” Laura calls out to me, tying up her hair. She shoots me a nasty look that she’s been just barely suppressing all night. “Logan, I’m gonna burn your eyebrows off.”
“Was I supposed to ask for your permission? She came onto me.”
“Is that what that was?” Aiden asks in a leering voice.
I reply curtly, “Don’t tell Mom.”
Aiden’s brow furrows, but I see the resigned understanding there. Perhaps the only true sacred bond left between brothers: Don’t tell Mom.
He scoffs and he kicks the ball to Shawn. “Logan’s just grumpy that we interrupted his date.”
He’s not wrong. Already I feel a little too possessive of Ava, unwilling to share her time or attention with any of them.
As the middle child, I’ve developed an atomic Don’t-Touch-My-Shit chip on my shoulder.
A childhood stuck between the suffocating forces of Shawn and Aiden, there was a constant refrain of “don’t play my games, don’t go in my room, don’t borrow my sweatshirt, don’t eat my fries, don’t even read the Sunday funnies over my shoulder.
” There’s nothing like someone’s mouth hovering nearby, barking out a laugh and cereal-scented breath, repeating the punchline of a comic strip you haven’t gotten to yet.
And as much as it annoyed me . . . now, my throat tightens with an almost foreign emotion. God, some part of me has missed this.
I roll my shoulders and sigh. “I fucking hate you guys.”
“Yeah, yeah, keep being mad,” Shawn says, attempting to juggle the old, cobweb covered soccer ball on his knees, dropping it after a few bounces. He frowns at the ground contemplatively for a moment, before he says, “There’s this poem Elise loves, uh, Mary something-or-other, uh, y’know.”
“The one about the cows?” Laura interjects.
“What?”
“The two-headed cow poem.”
“No, not that one.”
“Well, that’s my favorite one,” Aiden puts in, as if anyone had asked.
“Ok, well, that’s great for you. I’m talking about the goose poem,” Shawn says, clearly reaching into that reserved-for-the-youngest well of patience.
“And I don’t think it’s, like, the point of the poem you’re supposed to take away or whatever, but I just think about those words, ‘the soft animal of your body.’ ”
There’s a long, empty moment where I wait for him to continue, but he just passes the ball to Laura, who never misses an opportunity to show off her high school varsity soccer skills, juggling the ball on her knees with ease, before kicking it back to Aiden.
“. . . That’s it?” I ask, unable to withhold my disbelief. “That’s not even a whole line.”
Aiden picks it up and snaps the lighter a few times before the soccer ball ignites, and he drops it onto the ground, hissing and snatching his hand back. He looks up. “The goose’s body?”
Aiden kicks the ball at Shawn, who seems unprepared to defend from both sides. Shawn passes the ball to me, managing not to burn himself. “No, your body, dude.”
“I’m a goose in this poem?”
“No, forget about the geese.” Shawn groans. “That was just the part that really drove it home for me, beating myself up about things that are just an animal being alive, doing its thing. You can’t like, get mad at a dog for running or barking.”
Instead of just passing it back to Aiden, I return the fiery soccer ball to Shawn with a little more force than necessary.
His eyes go wide, and he dodges it, the ball rolling down the hill, leaving a trail of smoldering grass in its wake.
Laura jogs after to catch it before it rolls into the woods.
“I’m sorry, did you read a poem and decide that meant it was cool to just forgive yourself for this one?”
Shawn runs his hands through his hair, directing his glare at the moon while we wait for Laura to return. I can hear his teeth gnash together for a moment before he says, “Fine, I’ll say it again. I’m sorry for . . . well, you know.”
“No, I really don’t,” I reply tonelessly. I’m going to make him say it out loud.
“For . . . ruining your wedding,” Shawn says under his breath.
“Didn’t catch that.”
“For being a part of the reason your wedding was ruined,” he corrects a little louder. “I mean, I still think it would have happened even without me there. I don’t think you were as ready as you thought you were.”
“Why is it so hard for you to take some accountability? That’s all I want.”
Of course he wouldn’t. That’s his method, run away, push the blame to someone else.
“No, you don’t, you want to punish me. You want to put it all on me, so you don’t have to look at yourself.”
“Fuck off. I don’t think you feel bad enough, man.”
Shawn spreads his arms wide. “Because I’m not moping around like you, taking my feelings out on everyone else?”
Laura stifles a laugh behind her hand, but not quickly enough. She clears her throat and kicks the ball to Aiden.
I chew the inside of my cheek, unable to defend myself there.
He’s right, even if I won’t acknowledge it out loud.
I’m tired of being angry all the time, but I can’t find the way out with all of them nipping at my heels, breathing down my neck.
I can’t help but wonder if they think they’re being helpful by ganging up on me like this.
I’m certain Shawn does, because he continues, “C’mon dude, what’s the deal? You just couldn’t end it with Celine before it got that far? Why were you even going to marry her? Because Dad would have approved?”
His words raise my hackles. They all grew up in the same house I did, they knew what the expectations were, how narrow the chances to be anything remotely resembling happy were. He thinks because he got away with breaking pack rules, we all should just throw all of it away.
“No, because she’s my best friend,” I answer coolly, and for some reason Aiden takes issue with that, scoffing loudly.