I laugh and shake my head. “You have some nerve. I used you? If anything, sweetheart, we used each other. Your popularity must have sky rocketed when we were together, and let’s not forget how good you looked with the people in there,” I say, nodding toward the party that was going on without us.
Georgina rolls her eyes. She crosses and uncrosses her legs. “Please, like you could really make me more popular,” she spits.
“Then why were you with me?”
“I…I don’t know, but it sure as hell wasn’t that. Maybe I found you interesting.”
“Interesting, huh? That couldn’t be because I was the best friend of the dead kid?”
Georgina runs a shaky hand through her hair. “Look, it doesn’t matter. That doesn’t matter. What you did, the way you treated me, I didn’t deserve that. Despite what you may think, I do have feelings.”
“Feelings? No, actually, I didn’t know that you did,” I scoff. “I know what you did to Tristan.” I could feel my face turn beet red. Not with embarrassment, but with anger. The past couple of weeks with Brett, I had somehow convinced myself that I squashed all the anger inside me. I was wrong.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
I turn my chair so I’m facing her. I push my face as close to hers as I can get. “I know you were blackmailing him.”
Georgina’s eyes get big. “Blackmailing? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“How can you lie without even flinching? He told me. He said you saw him, him and Daniels, and that you told him how sick it made you. How you were going to save his soul. How his parents and everyone else needed to know. You should have seen him the night he told me. God, he was so scared.”
“You have it all wrong.”
“Do I?”
Georgina jumps up from her chair and begins to pace. “I did see them. They were making out inside Daniels’ police car late one night on Wilmington. And I did say those things. That doesn’t make me the devil. Why would you wish that life on anyone? The lies? The way people would look at you? I didn’t tell him those things to blackmail him. I said those things because I wanted to help change him.”
I get up so fast from my chair that it falls over. “He didn’t need to be changed,” I yell, pointing my finger in her face.
“I don’t think he saw it that way,” she says quietly.
I take a deep breath to calm my nerves. “I’m going back inside. Don’t talk to me again.”
“You think I deserved to be played with and ditched? Right? What I said to him that night wasn’t out of hate. It was love. I’ve known Tristan Jensen my whole life. The things you did were out of hate. Pure hate. So, who’s the devil?”
I still, my hand on the door. Suddenly, I find it hard to breathe. “Maybe you don’t know the difference between love and hate,” I say between my teeth.
“Maybe you don’t either.”
Chapter Forty
Brett:
“So, tell me. What was it like, losing your virginity?”
Ed chokes on his gum. We’re lying entwined on his bed. We no longer avoid touching during the day. I don’t think either of us can pretend any longer that Tristan is still around. We are unable to pretend that things aren’t completely and utterly different.
Things will never be able to go back to the way they were. There’s a certain sadness that comes with this realization. I wonder if it will ever lessen. They say it does. It’s a little hard to believe right now.
“Um…”
“What? Am I not allowed to ask you this?” I ask, shifting so I am sitting up and leaning against the headboard. The smell of his spearmint gum still stings my nostrils. Spearmint is the worst flavor ever. I make a note to buy him some gun. Maybe some Big Red. This way, I can be subtle about the gum change.
Wow. I’m really in a relationship.
Ed’s face has actually gone a little pale.
“Oh jeesh. Please don’t act like you’re embarrassed. Besides, I think I know most of the details from Tristan anyway.”
Ed’s mouth falls open momentarily from shock. “Wait. Tristan told you?”
“Of course. It really isn’t a big deal. I just wonder if you feel, you know, different afterwards?”
“Brett, this is sort of a weird conversation to have with you,” he replies, scratching the back of his head.
I laugh. “Why? Because we make out now? We’re still friends. Right?”
Ed is sitting up now too. “I guess,” he says with a shrug.
“So, it was with your cousin’s friend, right? How did you decide to do it? I mean, did you, like, plan it?” Ed sighs. His foot begins to bounce so hard that the whole bed shakes. “Forget it,” I mumble.
He takes a deep breath. His fingers now tap the comforter in tune with his foot. “It was sort of planned, I guess. I mean, I could tell she liked me. I knew she wasn’t a virgin. She didn’t really have any qualms about the whole sex thing. So, I decided one day to just do it. I mean, I went to the store and bought condoms and stuff first.”
Ed’s face has turned bright red. I want to make fun of it. But I won’t. “Well, how was it?”
“God, Brett. You’re killing me. Why are we talking about this? Aren’t you supposed to be jealous or something?”
“Oh my gosh. Really?” I roll my eyes and hit him with a pillow.
“What?” Ed asks, snatching the pillow from my hand.
“We weren’t together. Why should I feel jealous?”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to hear about you with another guy,” he admits, unable to look me in the eyes. Instead, he curls his hand into a fist and brings it up and down against the pillow.
“Well, I’m way more mature than you,” I reply, nudging him with my shoulder.
“Granted,” he replies.
“So…”
“It didn’t take very long,” he says sheepishly. His eyes meet mine for the briefest of moments and his face turns even redder.
“Well, of course not. Not the first time. Did you feel different?” I shift my body so I’m sitting Indian style facing him.
“Truth? Not really,” he answers. He takes my hand in his. “Really, why are you talking about this?”
I clear my throat. It suddenly feels dry and empty. “What about with Georgina?”
Ed sighs. Again. He scratches the back of his head. Again. “Felt about the same as it did the first time.”
I look down at our hands. “Maybe you didn’t feel different because it wasn’t with someone you love.”
“Maybe,” he says quietly.
I take a shaky breath. I lift my chin up and look Ed directly in the eyes. “I think we should have sex.”
Ed is silent. He stares deep into my eyes, searching for something. His eyes squint, and then he’s looking back down at our hands.
Not exactly what I was expecting.
I was expecting my top to be off by now.
“Why?” he asks. His voice is all breathy and trembling, and for a moment, I think I might get what I want.
“Why not? I love you. You love me. I want you.”
“You’re fifteen.”
“And? I know how it works. I know the consequences. I am never going to want someone as much as I want you.” It is almost painful to be this honest. I can feel my face becoming the red I wanted to make fun of earlier.
“You don’t know the consequences,” he counters, his voice suddenly hard, distant.
“I have taken sex ed, Ed.”
“That’s not what I am talking about.” Ed gets off of the bed. He moves away from me. He’s pacing. “I’m glad I lost my virginity to someone I didn’t love. This way, when I remember it, it means nothing more than three minutes of awkwardness. Every time I have sex, for the rest of my life, and I think back on the first, because you will always compare it to your first, I can do so without feeling any pain. If I take your virginity and this doesn’t work out, if I hurt you…”
Ed’s no longer
looking at me. He clenches his jaw. His fists curl in and out like he’s struggling against some unknown force. Like it’s painful to do so. “I don’t want to be something you’re reminded of if I leave. I don’t want that.”
I shake my head and move so I’m sitting on my knees. “So, what? We’re never going to have sex? Don’t I have some say in this? And why do you always think this is going to end badly? If this is already doomed, what the Hades are we doing here?”
“Brett.”
“No. I want to do this,” I demand, my voice rising.
“Well, I don’t.”
There. He has said it. There is no taking it back. I don’t care about his reasons. Rejection is rejection. I get off the bed and grab my book bag.
“What are you doing, Brett?”
“I’m going home.”
“You going to walk?”
“Just take me home.” I snap.
We drive in silence. Ed’s fingers tap so loudly and quickly against the window that I’m almost afraid he’s going to break it. I lay my head against the passenger window and close my eyes. I can’t bear to look at him. I just hear his darn, incessant tapping ringing in my ears.
When he stops the car in front of my empty house, I’m quick to open the door. Before I leave, I turn on him. All the words that sit in my throat tumble out. “Look. Here’s the deal. Even if we don’t have sex, I will always remember you. I’ll remember you every time I kiss someone. I will remember you every time I’m brave enough to enter into a new relationship. I will remember you on my wedding day. You are the first person I loved. And sex or no sex, you can’t change that. You think you can just end this and there are no consequences? Maybe we will work out, maybe we won’t. Either way, you’ll always be part of me. And there is nothing you can do to change that.”
I slam the door before he has a chance to respond.
Chapter Forty-One
Brett:
Things in my life are falling apart. Completely apart.
I’m unable to sleep at night. I have lost my appetite. I keep having nightmares about my brother—a hazy, horrific compilation of the world’s greatest car crashes.
And I think Ed and I are over.
We’re just going through the motions. Neither one of us wants to be the one to say something. If he says it, he’s just like his dad, someone who gives up and runs off. If I say these things, I’ll just become another person who has let Ed down.
I don’t want things to be over with Ed. I love Ed and he loves me. Is that enough? It’s just so overwhelming. Every second of my day is filled with worry. I worry about Tristan. I worry I didn’t do everything in my power to keep him here. I worry about my mother. Is she alright? Will she come home? She hasn’t called me once from rehab. Not once. Mostly, I worry about Ed and me.
I am so sick with worry.
I’m sitting, staring at my Algebra/Trig homework, when the doorbell rings. And I spot hope, that elusive feeling, the great white whale of my current life. I nearly knock over the kitchen chair running to the door. Suddenly, the idea of ending things with Ed seems too real, too frightening. I can’t lose him. I know he’s on the other side of the door. I just need to be in his arms, and all this mess will go away.
When I yank open the door, the white whale disappears once again. Much to my disappointment, it’s Sophia. I haven’t seen her since the party. Rumor was her parents had her transferred to a private school in the town over.
“Come to try and kiss me again?” I ask sourly. I can’t even pretend to feel bad for her anymore.
She shakes her head. “No. I came to tell you the truth.”
The truth?
I open the door wider and motion for her to come in. I offer her a seat, but she just stands. She’s holding a crumpled envelope in her hand. Something inside of me twists. I try to will my hand to stop shaking as I reach for the letter. It feels heavier than is logistically possible.
“Why didn’t you open it?” I whisper, afraid that if I speak too loudly, someone will hear. But there’s no one home. No one to stand with me as Sophia gives me this truth.
“It’s addressed to me, but it’s not for me. We both know that. Are you going to open it?” she asks, raising her eyebrow. She is offering me a challenge. She has found something to fill the emptiness left by my brother—contempt for me.
I shake my head. “It wouldn’t be right for me to open it without Ed.” This is a lie. Ed would never open this with me. He wouldn’t want to open it at all. We’re both cowards.
“I don’t even know why I gave it to you. I certainly don’t owe you anything,” Sophia snaps, her voice soaked in bitterness.
“You gave it to me because you loved my brother,” I reply, my voice cracking.
“I guess so,” she admits, crossing her arms. She looks me up and down, opens her mouth to say something, but shakes her head. And with that, she’s gone.
****
Every night for days, I hold Tristan’s letter in my hands. I want to read it so badly, but something keeps me from reading it.
Fear.
I fear he blames me.
I fear he wrote of all the things I didn’t do or didn’t say to make his life easier.
Last night, I picked up the phone to call Ed. I wanted to tell him everything.
But the words wouldn’t come up.
I hung up without even dialing.
****
I’m skipping school. It has been a month since we have been back, and Dad has already shrugged off his fatherly duties. He tried to explain it by telling me he was in the middle of a big case.
I wanted to tell him it didn’t bother me.
I’m sitting with my brother’s letter in my hands.
Why did he send it to Sophia? Did he worry my mother would see it, and it would push her over the edge? Did he see her weakness when I did not?
Did he want me to try and comfort Sophia?
Did he worry at all about who would comfort me?
Because Ed is not up for the task.
I didn’t bother to text or call Ed and let him know I wasn’t going to school. It’s noon, and he hasn’t called to check on me. I caught him staring at Evelyn in the library yesterday. He had no idea I was even there.
I need my brother right now.
Even if it’s only his words, his last words.
With a deep breath, I open the letter.
I gasp.
It’s nothing but a poem.
Not even handwritten.
Probably something he copied and pasted from the Internet.
I feel betrayed.
Chapter Forty-Two
Tristan:
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
—Dylan Thomas
Chapter Forty-Three
Brett:
I’m staring at myself in the mirror. I can see it written all over my face.
Defeat.
Lost.
Broken.
>
I have one hand braced against the sink, the other clutches a bottle of Vodka. I’m considering drinking it. I’m considering trying my mom’s way of coping. My mother who isn’t here. She’s been drinking for years. It has to have some benefit. Maybe it can numb the pain for a while, allow me to forget it all if only for a few hours. I can see the appeal in that.
He left us a stupid poem.
A poem.
He left me with no answers. Did I mean so little to him? Couldn’t he have given me something? Is the poem supposed to be ironic? A big f-you to everyone who cared for him? I’m in no mood or shape to do some kind of freakin’ literary analysis.
I look at the bottle in my hand. I know it will change nothing. I shudder at the cliché nature of it all.
Did he want me to hate him? He certainly didn’t want me to understand.
I uncap the bottle.
My leg is bouncing up and down.
I look at myself again.
I should call Ed.
I press the bottle to my lips.
The liquid burns down my throat.
I’m coughing. My eyes are watering.
I press the bottle to my lips again.
And again.
And again.
I don’t know when I started crying.
I stumble to my parents’ room. I want my mother.
I can hear my phone ringing.
The room is spinning.
My eyelids feel heavy.
I welcome the darkness.
Chapter Forty-Four
Ed:
I ring the doorbell again. I’m going to break up with Brett. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s the only thing that makes sense anymore. I love her. I know that. But like I’ve always known, I just can’t be with her.
Love is not always enough.
This will be good for her. She’ll get over me. I remember what she said about always remembering me, but she’s young. We’ve only been together a few months. She can move past this. She can move past me.
The Language of Silence Page 17