by M. Garzon
Dec’s shoulders slumped. “I’m not making any promises.” But his quiet voice was enough to reassure me.
Seth dodged around Dec warily until the last of the boarders and students left; he knew there wouldn’t be as much yelling in front of them. When Dec started throwing hay bales down from the loft at feeding time Seth turned to me with raised brows. I shrugged.
Dec climbed down the ladder. He paused, one hand still gripping a rung as he frowned at Seth. Seth squared his shoulders, his face tightening as he braced himself.
“I heard you and Julia broke up,” Dec said.
“Yes.” My brother drooped suddenly, his head hanging down so that his answer was muffled.
“I’m sorry about that, son.”
Seth’s head rose slowly and he stared at Dec in apparent confusion.
“You’re still grounded, of course,” Dec went on gruffly.
Seth gave a small, cautious nod.
“Let’s get these critters fed,” Dec muttered, picking up a bale. “I’m hungry.”
I was relieved there hadn’t been a blowout, but Seth was miserable over the next week. Julia still wouldn’t talk to him, and she hadn’t even been to the barn to see Jasmine. I’d tried calling her but she hadn’t picked up for me, either.
It was an awkward situation since Julia was not only my close friend but also a boarder. Dec frowned on us dating students or boarders, but he didn’t outright forbid it. Part of me had always wondered whether that was because it was obviously good for business that every teenage girl in the barn — not to mention some older ones — made eyes at Seth, but now that we were in this pickle I suddenly understood Dec’s mixed feelings.
I was surprised when I saw Julia’s number on my phone on Friday night, but all I heard at the other end was sobbing.
“Did you see those pictures?” Julia’s normally-clear voice was clogged with tears.
I hesitated. I had seen some pretty compromising pictures of Seth with a familiar-looking blonde. In one shot, Brittney was sitting on Seth’s lap. A drink dangled from his hand and he was looking away, but she was smiling triumphantly at the camera, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck. In another, it looked like he was kissing her neck, or maybe just whispering in her ear — it was hard to tell.
“Yes,” I said, deciding to be honest.
Fresh wailing erupted from the phone.
“He admits he made a mistake, Jules, but he feels terrible about it. And he didn’t sleep with Brittney, that part’s a lie. He just wants a chance to talk to you.”
“Okay,” she said shakily.
I froze in shock for a second before running across the hall to Seth’s room. I barged in without knocking and held the phone toward his startled face.
“Julia,” I whispered.
His hands fumbled for the phone and I backed out quietly, fingers crossed. Ten minutes later he was back in my room, smiling.
“I’m going over there.”
My answering smile faded. “Wait — aren’t you still grounded?”
“Oh, crap.” He chewed his lip for a minute. “Well, he’ll have to make an exception. This is important.”
I followed Seth downstairs worriedly. I didn’t have high hopes that Dec would be flexible about this. We found him sitting in his office, and I hovered nervously in the doorway while Seth perched on the chair facing the desk.
“Julia called. She agreed to talk to me,” Seth began.
“That’s good news,” Dec said.
Seth hesitated. “The thing is, she wants it to be tonight. And-” he swallowed, “she wants me to stay over.”
I bit my knuckle to stifle my gasp. Seth hadn’t told me that part.
Dec glared at him. “You can’t stay at Julia’s, not while I can’t trust you to stay out of her bedroom.”
A flush spread over Seth’s face. “I’m an adult! You can’t tell me what to do at someone else’s house!”
“As long as you’re under my roof, you’ll live by my rules,” Dec growled.
Seth stood up slowly. “Then I guess I won’t be under your roof much longer.”
As he passed me I grabbed his arm and gazed at him in dismay. He pried my hand off gently, not saying anything, and I knew we’d have to wait until we were alone to talk. But I didn’t panic because I knew it wasn’t really true. It couldn’t be.
I stepped back quickly as Dec charged out of his office; Seth was already at the front door.
“I mean it, Seth,” Dec warned. “If you stay out all night again you’d better pack your bags.”
“Yeah, I got it,” Seth said coolly.
And he walked out the door.
Seventeen
He sounded rough when he called the next morning.
“Is Dec home?”
“Yes, he’s been prowling around all morning. How’d it go last night?”
His laugh sounded bitter, not like him at all. “Well, I spent the night at Kyle’s. That should tell you something.”
My heart sank. “So you and Jules didn’t make up?”
All of a sudden he just sounded tired. “No. We just ended up fighting again. And now I need to come home and pack. I already canceled my lessons for today.”
A flare of panic erupted in my chest. “You can’t be serious!”
“What’s left for me here, Sis?”
I lapsed into silence, stunned. “What are you talking about? Your whole life is here.”
“I’m flunking school, which Dec is gonna kill me for. He’s already on my back about everything. My girlfriend dumped me and my friends are moving away. Face it, it’s time for me to move on.”
I stared at my feet. You have me, I wanted to say, and the barn, and the horses. But I knew those weren’t enough for him. Not like they were for me.
“My life isn’t exactly peachy right now either, you know,” I reminded him. “The show season was a bust, and Jaden and I are pariahs, but you don’t see me running away.”
“Just call me when Dec leaves, okay?” He hung up without waiting for an answer.
Dec eyed me suspiciously all day, but I tried not to make eye contact with him because I was afraid if I did, the anger I was feeling would burst out of me in a big mushroom cloud, which would not help anything. I spent my time dropping things and snapping at students and startling my horses, tears clogging my throat whenever I tried to speak. I couldn’t process all of this; I needed a saner head. I needed Jaden.
He was busy with some kind of group project, but he dropped everything and came over. He walked in carrying a shopping bag; I looked a question at him.
“Did you eat today?” he asked.
“Oh.” I hadn’t, naturally. I was too consumed by worry for Seth to notice paltry things like hunger pains.
“Exactly. You never eat when you’re stressed.” He put the bag on the kitchen table and pulled me into his arms.
I wanted to protest — Dec was in the house somewhere — but his embrace felt too good.
“Mmm, you smell even better than usual,” I murmured. “How is that possible?”
He extricated himself with a smile. “Fresh Montreal bagels,” he explained, pulling them out of the bag. He reached in for another package. “And Kicking Horse coffee for Dec.”
It was Dec’s favorite, but he rarely bought it because it was expensive. We sat down while I told Jaden the latest developments. He listened quietly, his gold-filament eyes never leaving my face. When I was done he took my hand, his face thoughtful.
“Querida, you and Seth are very close, and I hate that it will hurt you if he leaves, but have you considered that this may be a wise decision on his part?”
“No!” I yelled, shooting to my feet. “It’s not wise, there’s nothing good about this in any way at all!”
He stood too and tried to hold me, but I fought him until he forcefully pulled me against his chest, pressing his face into my hair. As his warmth washed over me I stopped struggling.
“Not you too,” I groaned into his
shirt.
He ran his hand down my back as he spoke.
“If he truly feels there’s nothing positive for him here, then he needs to seek elsewhere. As cliché as it sounds, he needs to find himself, although I do worry it will place undue stress on you. Dec will have to hire extra help.”
“Could we please stop talking like he’s already gone!”
“But it seems like he is.” Dec’s clipped voice came from the doorway.
I jumped a bit, but Jaden took his time releasing me.
“I brought you some coffee,” he told Dec, picking up the bag. “I’ll make some.”
Dec looked at me. “Do you know where he is?”
I nodded, biting my lip.
“Then tell him to stop this juvenile behavior and come home.”
The swell of relief inside me was so huge it nearly choked me. “So he doesn’t have to move out?”
Dec’s mouth flattened. “I didn’t say that.”
“Well, if he’s leaving then you may as well get used to his absence.” I brushed past him, ignoring his warning look, and ran upstairs.
I called Seth anyway to tell him that Dec wasn’t leaving anytime soon, so he might as well come back and face the music. When I heard the front door an hour later I scrambled downstairs. I didn’t want to leave Seth alone with Dec, and Jaden had gone out to the barn. It seemed that Dec was in no hurry to have this conversation either because his office door remained firmly closed despite the sound of our voices. We went to Seth’s room. I sat on the bed and watched him walk around, aimlessly picking things up and putting them down, looking anywhere but at me.
“Well?” I said finally.
He looked at his feet. “Well, I guess I’d better start packing.”
The edges of my heart suddenly felt too sharp inside my chest, cutting me every time I breathed.
“But... but where will you go?”
“Where do you think? Spain. I was on the phone arranging it all morning.”
I stared at him with my mouth hanging open. “You can’t just move to a new country on another continent with some guy you just met! That’s craziness.”
“He’s not just ‘some guy’, Téa. He’s our father.”
“No, he’s not.” I said it with a bitterness that surprised me. “Having a roll in the hay with mom doesn’t make him a father.”
“Shut up talking like that!” Seth snapped angrily.
“No! You’re throwing your life away, your home, your friends, everything, on the off chance that you’ll hit it off with him? What are you even going to do in Europe?”
“The same pointless things I do here, I guess.” It was as close to a growl as I’d ever heard from him.
“But... you can’t leave now. What about the Beiges? And Dec’s blood pressure?”
“What the hell does Dec’s blood pressure have to do with it?” Seth demanded.
“If you cared about him at all, you’d stay,” I accused him loudly.
“You’re not staying for Dec!” he yelled back at me. “You’re staying for Jaden and your riding career, and if you didn’t have them you’d be out of here in a heartbeat!”
My head snapped back. “That’s not true.”
He let me think about it for a minute. He was already calming down. “It’s a little bit true,” he said, finally.
He was right. I was siding with Dec not only for his sake, but to preserve the life I had here.
“You can’t leave, Seth. I love you,” I mumbled illogically, sniffling.
“I know that, dummy,” he said, sounding exasperated. “That doesn’t mean you get to tell me what to do with my life, okay?” At the look on my face, he softened. He dropped onto the bed next to me and clasped his hands between his knees.
“Remember when you wanted to go out with Jaden, and I was against it? That’s the place I’m at right now, Sis. No one else understands, but I need to do this.”
“I don’t think the grass is any greener over there, Seth,” I said quietly. “The grass gets greener where you cultivate it.”
“Speak English, would ya?”
I sighed. “I just mean that you’ll be the same person over there that you are here.”
He was silent for a long moment. “Yeah,” he said finally, “but maybe there, it’ll be enough.” He tilted his head sideways to look at me, his fair hair falling in his face, and he suddenly looked so young. So young, and so sweet. And I was so scared for him.
I swallowed hard. Then I took a deep breath, ignoring the cutting pains in my chest.
My voice was ragged when I answered. “If you really want this, then I’m behind you one hundred percent. B-but I can’t promise not to worry.”
“You’ll be the first to know if there’s a problem,” he joked. Our intuition about each other would certainly be put to the test.
“Who knows if it will even work over there,” I wailed. “You’ll be halfway around the world.”
“Will you be able to handle things around here?” he asked, growing serious.
“Guess I’ll have to,” I muttered.
“No, really, Sis.” The inner corners of his brows lifted with worry. “That’s what bugs me the most about all this... I don’t want to leave you stranded.”
I sighed. “I’m sure we can manage. Maybe we can hire one of the students.”
“What about Dec?” he asked quietly. “Can you manage him?”
“Guess we’ll find out.” I felt a bit petty for not reassuring Seth that I’d be fine, but a part of me was still upset with him.
“When are you leaving?” I mumbled.
“Friday.”
A mere week away. I nodded numbly, beyond reacting anymore.
I lay in bed that night trying to imagine life without my brother, but it was impossible. All of my memories were laced with Seth, woven so tightly together that to remove Seth would unravel my entire childhood. He was the person with whom I’d shared my very first breath, but I had to accept the fact that our lives were veering in different directions. It would be selfish to hope for him to stay. That’s what I told myself, but I wiped my eyes so often that the sleeves of my pajamas were sodden with tears.
But even as I was dreading the gaping hole of Seth’s absence, the certainty grew that I was doing the right thing. This crying in the dark was too familiar. I’d already spent so much time regretting what I’d lost — my mother, Blaze, the father I’d never had. It was time for me to let go of that, and start appreciating what I did have. With that thought, I finally fell asleep.
I woke up the next day feeling as though all the life-force had been drained out of me. It was Sunday, which meant endless lessons to teach, and I sat listlessly on a jump in the center of the arena, making the occasional comment to my students in a dull monotone. When he wasn’t teaching, Seth stayed in his room, presumably tying up the loose ends of his life here.
I lived the next few days in denial, pushing aside my worry and sadness so that I could study and write exams, using exam stress as an excuse not to speak to anyone. But it wasn’t my exams that were scraping my heart raw. By Wednesday I was a quivering mess. I had an afternoon exam so I spent the morning at home, studying in theory, but in practice staring blankly at the wall. As I got up to get a drink I caught sight of myself in the mirror that hung on my door. I was pale, the circles under my eyes were large and dark, and my hair obviously hadn’t seen a brush in a while. But that was nothing to how I felt on the inside.
I shambled into the kitchen in a daze, desperate for coffee, but there wasn’t any. I set about making some. In my stupor, I banged the coffeepot against the edge of the sink so hard I was surprised it didn’t break. Then I dropped the bag of coffee beans on the floor. Luckily they didn’t spill out, but as I was taking the lid off the grinder I tipped it, sending freshly-ground coffee cascading over the counter.
“Godammit!! You stupid-” I heard a throat being cleared behind me and whirled around.
Dec brushed by me without a word. He us
ed a paper towel to sweep the coffee into the filter and started the pot brewing. When he was done wiping the counter he turned to look at me.
“You can’t let him go.” I had to force the words around a choking ball of sadness.
“He was right about one thing, Téa. He’s an adult. I can’t stop him, and he’s being too stiff-necked and angry to hear reason.”
My sadness morphed into fury with frightening speed, making me harsh. “Well, congratulations. You’ve finally gotten the son you always wanted — he’s acting just like you.” I saw Dec’s slight recoil, the shock and even hurt in his eyes, but I was too incensed to be sorry.
* * *
Seth had been spending as much time as he could at school, coming home only when he had to work in the barn and teach. He and Dec were hardly ever in the same room together, except at dinnertime, when the tension cloyed the air. Dec had promised my mother that we’d always try to have dinner together, and he was a man of his word. Unfortunately, it was a double-edged sword; now that he’d told Seth to leave I knew he wouldn’t take back those words, either. So I was surprised when, as we were clearing the table that night, he gave Seth an opening.
“You remember why we have dinner together, don’t you?” Dec asked, not looking at us.
“Yeah,” Seth said slowly when I didn’t answer.
Dec stopped suddenly and met Seth’s eyes.
“I was loyal to your mother, and I’m loyal to you,” Dec stated. “And I always will be, as long as you do the same for me.”
He turned abruptly and dropped his plate into the dishwasher before leaving the room. I leaned against the counter, suddenly shaky.
“You know what he means, don’t you?” I asked. I felt my heart cautiously lifting.
Seth shrugged. “It doesn’t change anything.” He kept his back to me, rinsing dishes in the sink.
“What are you talking about? He as much as said you don’t have to go!” I said desperately. I heard the tremble in my voice and swallowed, not wanting to cry.
He turned to me, his face pleading, unshed tears making his eyes glitter. “Not having to go isn’t the same as being welcome,” he said softly.
The next day Gran took Seth aside; I didn’t know what she said to him but he emerged with red-rimmed eyes and slumping shoulders. Jaden showed up shortly afterward since Seth was leaving the next day. They went out for a walk together, but it was late December so I didn’t expect them to stay out long. After an hour or so I decided to see what was keeping them and went out to the barn, jogging a bit through the darkening cold.