A Taxonomy of Love

by Rachael Allen

  I nod at his drink. “Diet Coke?”

  “Diet Fucking Coke.” He clinks his cup with mine. “Only five more months to go.”

  It makes me feel at least 20 percent less crappy about losing to him today. Even so, I can’t sit here and watch Dean devour any more soft-serve, peachy goodness, so I push my chair back from the table and go for a refill. My phone buzzes in my pocket—a text from Pam.

  Hey Spencer,

  Where are you boys?

  xo, Pam

  I’m typing a reply with one hand and not really paying attention as I jam my cup up against the ice machine. Someone’s cup is already there. Someone’s arm. Hope’s arm, and it’s touching mine. It’s funny how skin just feels like skin until you see who it’s attached to, and then it feels like terror or comfort or fire. Hope’s knuckles burn against mine, and I have to jerk away before my entire arm bursts into flames.

  “Oh.” I hope she knows I didn’t do that on purpose. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

  “It’s fine.”

  We stare at the ice dispenser and back at each other. It takes decades.

  “Well, here.” I gesture at the machine, proud to have recovered the power of speech, though my voice feels rusty in my mouth.

  She attempts a smile. “No, you. You were here first.”

  And then in a feat of unbelievable awkwardness, we both go for it at the same time. Again.

  “Oops.” I back up so she has tons and tons and tons of room. I wish the floor would swallow me whole.

  She laughs. It’s her nervous one, not the one that sounds like music when things are funny but dissolves into snorts when things are really funny.

  “Thanks.” She presses the ice lever and shrugs her shoulders. “Sorry.”

  For getting in front of me for ice or for deciding we don’t get to be friends anymore? I hold in a sigh. If we could just have some time to talk, really talk, maybe things could be different.

  My shoulders let off a flurry of tics while Hope fills her cup with peach tea. I remember the first time she tried it. She went from “peaches and tea are not things that should go together” to “whoever decided to mix them is a genius” in one sip. She takes a sip right now, eyes closed in ecstasy, and for a second, I see thirteen-year-old Hope and sixteen-year-old Hope sharing the same body. They look at me, and young Hope slips away, and old Hope is left. She smiles, and it is so damn sad.

  “Still genius,” she says.

  If I could say the magic thing, right here, right now, I could fix us. Hope leans forward, her face changing like there are big things sliding into place inside her brain. Her mouth opens.

  And then it closes. And then she’s turning to get a napkin, and I can feel the moment slipping away. So I just say, “Yeah, genius,” and try to ignore the feeling that middle-school Spencer and Hope are yelling, “Noooo,” and banging on the walls of the bubble that separates the past and the present because they both know we were supposed to be best friends forever.

  “Mikey is a dumbass,” Dean says without ever taking his eyes off the TV screen.

  “Yep.” I make Robin follow his Batman up a ladder. This is probably the third time he’s complained about Mikey during this PlayStation session alone, and I’m starting to wonder if it has less to do with prank stuff and more to do with Mikey’s new girlfriend.

  We’re camped out on the carpet in front of the TV because the couch feels too far away at this critical juncture in the game, and because it’s kind of an unwritten commandment that thou shalt never sit in my dad’s monstrous recliner (that goes double during baseball season).

  “It’s like, the prank is going to be awesome the way Ethan and I planned it. And he keeps trying to add all this other stuff. And I’m like, ‘Dude. Did you not see what happened in Clayborne? If you cause thousands of dollars worth of damage, it’s a felony.’ Four of the Clayborne guys might have to go to jail.” Dean pauses so we can take out some of Two-Face’s henchmen. “Flamingoes on the lawn. Blacking out the windows with window paint. All that stuff is going to look cool as hell, but it won’t cause any permanent damage. I’m not about to lose my chance at a scholarship just because Mikey wants to do a bunch of crazy shit.”

  The sound of Dad’s feet clomping down the stairs gives us plenty of time to stop talking. He stands right behind Dean and crosses his Paul Bunyan arms. “We’re leaving for the store in fifteen minutes. Get going.”

  Dean shoots a henchman directly in the head. “Make Spencer go.”

  “Yeah, I can go.” I may not be into hunting, but Dad’s always getting in crazy new camping gear, like solar phone chargers and bug-zapper rackets and stuff. I shrug. “It’s been a while since I checked things out.”

  “You can come on Monday when it’s less crowded,” Dad says. He turns to Dean. “Saturday’s our busiest day. I need you.”

  I keep pressing buttons and shooting bad guys, but suddenly the game doesn’t seem as fun. My brother, on the other hand, is still 100 percent glued to Batman: Arkham Unhinged. My father steps directly in front of him, and Batman steps directly on an explosive and splatters into seventy-five billion pieces.

  “Ah! Do you know how close I was to Two-Face?!” Dean unleashes a string of obscenities under his breath, which Dad pretends not to hear as he lumbers back upstairs.

  I push my controller away. “I can help, too,” I grumble to no one.

  Dean pushes my head to the side. “Your Tourette’s scares the customers.” He stands up and stretches. “Ugh. I don’t want to do this. For one freaking Saturday, I just want to sit around and play video games.” He tosses the Player 1 controller in my lap. “Do you know how lucky you are?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m super lucky. Like, the luckiest guy on the planet.” I slump against the coffee table.

  He cocks his head to the side. “It really bothers you.”

  “I mean, yeah.”

  Dean’s eyebrows go all serious—it’s very out of character for him, but, hey, even wood lice are capable of empathy. “How come?”

  He doesn’t say it like it’s a challenge. He genuinely wants to know. And yeah, sometimes I want to punch him in the face or I wish he would disappear, but at the end of the day, I know I don’t really mean it. I’m glad he isn’t gone forever. He’s here and he’s trying to understand, and that’s something.

  “Well.” Where do I even begin? I don’t usually talk about this stuff. “There’s this thing we learned about at camp. The social model of disability?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know what that is.”

  “It’s. Well, it’s like this. I have Tourette’s syndrome.”

  “That part I know.”

  “But it’s not my Tourette’s syndrome that keeps me from working on Saturdays. It’s our dad. Because I could go to the store, and like, if someone noticed my tics, I could just be like, ‘Oh, hey, I have Tourette’s syndrome.’ Or if the tics got really intense, I could always take a break or something. But the barrier isn’t me and my tics. It’s—”

  “It’s Dad.”

  “Yeah.” We both get quiet.

  “Do you want me to talk to him about it?” Dean finally asks.

  The thought of it sends a flash of fear through me. “No!”

  He looks up, startled.

  “I mean, maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Okay, well, you let me know,” he says.

  “Dean!” yells my dad from upstairs.

  My brother stands. “Hey, I gotta go, but uh, thanks. It was good to . . . I mean, I’m glad we—” He pats my shoulder awkwardly. “Good talk.”

  He heads upstairs, and I just kind of stand there with my mouth half open. My brother gets it.

  Really gets it. Someday I hope our dad will get it, too.

  Dean snuck out a couple hours ago, but I’m too nervous to sleep. He’s told me so much about the prank over the last few days, I almost feel like I’m part of it, even if all I’m doing is waiting up and playing video games.

  The call comes in
the middle of the night. I hear the phone ring. Hear Dad’s feet stomping down the stairs like he’s trying to punch through the floorboards. The den door flies open, and he squints in the glow of the TV.

  “Where’s your brother?”

  I hit pause on the controller and try to look as honest as possible. “I don’t know.”

  He makes an angry noise through his nose like it’s my fault Dean is gone and then stomps back upstairs. Normally, I do my best to stay away from my dad when he’s pissed off, but then I hear Dean’s truck creep into the driveway. There’s nothing quite so satisfying as watching the perfect son get in trouble for a change, and I hurry upstairs so as not to miss a second of it.

  Pam wobbles from left to right in a frantic sideways kind of pacing. Her lips recite silent lists of worries, and wrinkles I’d never noticed appear around her brown eyes. She always looks at least eight years older whenever one of us is in trouble. Dad’s head is a red balloon on the verge of popping. That means things are bad. My body casually leans against the floral wallpaper while my mind claps its hands together with glee. The side door opens—it’s the only one that doesn’t creak—and Dean steps inside. When he sees the welcoming committee, his mouth falls open and everything in his face says, Oh, shit.

  “Are you in trouble?” Pam twists her fingers while she waits for the answer.

  “What? No.”

  Dad’s head deflates.

  “Yeah, so,” Dean pastes on a smile, but his eyes are shifty. “I just came by to get some stuff, but then I’m going back to Ethan’s house.”

  In the middle of the night. Riiight.

  Balloon-head Dad is back. “You’re not leaving this house for the rest of the night. Especially not to go pull a senior prank.”

  The cocky smile rips in half, and Minotaur Dean emerges. “You told them?” he hisses at me.

  “I didn’t tell anybody shit.”

  “Spencer. Language.” Pam locks the side door behind Dean. “We got a phone call from the president of the booster club. Somebody tipped off the administration. They’re going to the school tonight.”

  “We’re lucky that people care about seeing you play football,” says Dad. “There’s nothing there that’ll link you to the prank, is there?”

  Dean’s face goes pale. “I gotta go warn the guys.”

  My dad’s lips disappear between his teeth. “You. Are. Not. To. Leave. This. House.”

  “You don’t understand. I just came home because I forgot the flamingoes. Everyone else is still there setting up the prank. Ethan, Mikey, Joel . . .”

  Hope. I remember Hope is there. “Call them,” I say. “Call them right now.”

  Dean pulls out his phone and dials Ethan. We wait and wait and wait, but it goes to voicemail. “Fuck.”

  “Dean. Language.”

  He leaves a quick voicemail warning, then some texts, then calls a couple more times. There is no response. He swings his phone around like he wants to throw it against the wall. “He’s not answering his phone. This is just wasting time, and they’re all gonna be screwed. I’ve gotta go up there.”

  “No. What you gotta do is go up to your room and stay there.” Dad’s red eyes say it would be dangerous to argue.

  Dean moves like he’s going to leave again anyway, and Dad grabs his shoulder. Minotaur vs. Minotaur. Their horns clash like stags fighting over a deer, but we all know Dean’s already lost. At times like this, I remember just how big my dad really is.

  “You’ll go to your room if I have to take you there myself.”

  Dean turns away from the door, but he’s still angry as hell, a teakettle about to shoot steam, and it pops out of his mouth before he can stop it. “This is bullshit.”

  As soon as he says it, his face pales. We don’t swear at my dad. Ever. (In front of him, yes. But at him, never.) He’s old-school southern—the kind who believes in respecting your elders and belt whippings—and the way he looks right now, well, let’s just say I wouldn’t trade places with my brother for anything. Dad’s hand lashes out, and for a second, I think he’s going to smack Dean, but instead he grabs Dean’s phone.

  “Your room. Now. You can have your phone back tomorrow.”

  Dean goes. Neither of us argue that taking Dean’s phone hurts the wrong people. There’s no chance of him changing his mind once he’s made a Dad Decree.

  I mutter something about my video games and slink back downstairs. I don’t think it even registers with them. Dean’s shadow hides me pretty well.

  I grab my phone from the coffee table. I’m not friends with the seniors, but I can at least try Hope. I pull her up in my contact list and hit the call button. It feels like going back in time. Her voice makes me jump, but it’s just the pre-recorded, leave-a-message message. I text “CALL ME! PLEASE!!!” and try calling a couple more times, just in case, but get the same thing. So, I text “LEAVE NOW. ADMINISTRATION KNOWS.” Still nothing. Well, that’s it, then. There’s only one thing left to do.

  Dean’s door is closed, but I think I’d rather do this on my own anyway. I walk right past my spot by the TV and stop in front of the door that leads outside. I can still hear my parents walking around upstairs, so I guess this is my only option. I tic-sniff approximately eighty-seven times while I freak out internally over whether this is really a good idea. I take a deep breath and release it. Here we go. I turn the handle, and the hinges shout my escape plan to the whole neighborhood. I grab my keys from the hook by the door. Run to the truck. The blinds are down, but I could recite the scene behind them. Now is the part when they wonder if they heard what they think they heard. I crank the engine. And now is the part when they know.

  The side door swings open. A silhouette—my dad’s head in the porch light, blown up to full hot-air balloon.

  I’m already gone.

  I navigate through our neighborhood, and it occurs to me that I’m driving by myself for the very first time. And it’s nice. No one gripping the door handle and looking at me like I’m a time bomb. No one asking me if I feel sleepy. I focus on the road, and my tics hardly bother me at all. It also occurs to me that I’m breaking the teen curfew law, but at least there’s no one around to see.

  When I get to the school, there are three cars parked in the south lot outside the cafeteria, and I recognize all of them. My lungs relax a little in my chest. I got here first. There’s still time.

  I fly from my parking spot to the cafeteria doors, but something stops me. A circle of orange light that becomes Hope’s hand holding a cigarette and a surprised scowl framed by waves of white.

  “What are you doing here?” she asks.

  “Somebody’scoming they know about the prank.” I pause to breathe.

  Realization flashes in her eyes. “That’s why you called before.”

  Something about the fact that she’s still screening my calls hurts more than it should. I hope that she’ll say sorry or thank you or something, but she takes her damn sweet time puffing one last puff before she lets the cigarette fall to the ground.

  Whatever. I’m still doing what I came here to do. As I pass through the cafeteria doors, I hear her say something behind me.

  I turn. “What?”

  “Where’s Dean? Your brother’s a douche, but he wouldn’t abandon his friends.”

  “He didn’t. My parents won’t let him leave the house. They got a call—”

  “What’s the narc doing here?” yells Mikey.

  Hope shrugs.

  The prank insanity taking place around me finally starts to sink in. The cafeteria has a huge row of windows, one glass panel right after the other, and they’ve been blacked out with paint except for where the letters S-E-N-I-O-R-S shine through, one giant letter on each window. It’s spelled out everywhere, even in the gaps between the tiny paper cups of water that cover the lunch tables. It’s everything Dean said it would be. And a lot of things he didn’t. In the hallway that leads away from the cafeteria, there are guys blasting door handles with cans of shaving cream
and spray painting lockers with every four-letter word in existence. There’s no way my brother would have been cool with that. Mikey pops the lid off two huge buckets of what look like live crickets. This is bad. A Taxonomy of What Not To Get Caught Doing at School bad. The administration is going to annihilate them.

  I remember why I’m here and yell, “People are coming! Y’all are gonna get caught!”

  The guys debate the validity of this threat with a series of looks. Mikey stares at me, his face weirdly serious, and that’s when I notice. His eyes are all red, eyelids hanging lazily, and most of the other guys look the same way. Mikey cracks first, busts out laughing—that prick. And then everyone else is laughing, too, and going back to their water jugs and paper cups and F-bombs.

  Except Ethan. “Where’s Dean?” he asks. His eyes are clear.

  “My parents won’t let him out of the house.”

  Ethan shakes his head. “He’d still let us know.”

  I run my fingers through my hair and sniff twice. Even my tics are exasperated with these guys. “He tried. Check your phone.”

  “Why do you even care? You can’t stand Ethan,” says Hope.

  “I just don’t want anyone getting in trouble, okay? C’mon,” I tell her. “We need to go before they get here.”

  Her eyes have a faraway look.

  “Hope. I need you to come with me.”

  She’s still not listening. They could be here any minute. I grab her hand and pull her toward the door.

  She wrenches it away like I’ve burned her. “I appreciate that you’re trying to help, but I can take care of myself.”

  I take a step closer, blocking the path that leads to Mikey. I sure as hell don’t want her driving with him if he’s high. “But—”

  “You need to back off.”

  Here we go again. No matter how much I care, or maybe because of how much I care, I come off looking needy or creepy or desperate or all of the above.

  Hope’s anger sounds an awful lot like a sigh now. “Look, it’s not that I don’t—”

  “Holy shit, you guys, stop!” Ethan’s got his phone pressed against his terrified face. “Dean says the administration’s coming. We need to go. Now.”