3 A.M.

by Chloe Spencer

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like…okay, do you remember the time that we went to see that Transformers movie? And how I kept laughing at everything? I had been smoking pot.” I paused to think of more examples. “Oh, and remember that spring fling sophomore year? Totally dropped acid before that.”

  “Holy shit,” Phillip whispered, hanging his head.

  “I’m sorry. I thought you knew by now.” Mizu knew. Guess he kept that a secret from him.

  “You thought I knew? Kuro, I never knew this! I’m honestly in shock. You fucked men for drugs?”

  “It wasn’t just older men, it was women, too, and that’s not the only reason I slept with them. I liked them. They bought me things. They took me out to eat at nice restaurants. And yeah, you throw some molly or some Adderall into the mix, and that just made things more fun.”

  “But I just don’t understand why you would go looking for older men. There were plenty of guys at our school who would have dated you. Instead you snuck around like it was something to be ashamed of.”

  “Because it was something to be ashamed of,” I said. “I wanted the adults in my life to take care of me. They didn’t. I wanted someone to tell me that they loved me. No one did. I had to fill the void myself.”

  “That’s fucked. This whole thing is fucked. You were fourteen. That makes all those people pedophiles and rapists. Real relationships aren’t like that, Kuro.”

  Honestly, I was surprised by how upset he was. I’ve lived with the regret of what I did when I was younger. My grades tanked. My friends ghosted me. My mother cried when she found out. But I never realized until now those lovers, including the people I thought helped me, actually hurt me. I didn’t want to acknowledge that. And I hated how disgusting Phillip made me feel.

  “Are ‘real relationships’ more like what you and Mizu had?”

  As soon as I said it, I regretted it. He scooted away from me, his eyes narrowed. Hurt surfaced in his expression.

  “What the fuck do you mean by that? Mizu and I loved each other.”

  “Oh, the irony,” I said. “You loved each other, but you cheated on each other. You fought constantly. He killed your fish because you didn’t wash the dishes. Can you imagine what he would have done to a dog or a cat? To you, if you had been home then?”

  “He never hit me.”

  “You walked out before he could have.”

  Phillip considered this, pressing his knuckles against his chin. “We were young. We made a lot of mistakes. I cheated on him because I really struggled when I was coming to terms with my bisexuality. I hurt him more than he ever hurt me.”

  “I doubt that.” Mizu was a master of speech, and unabashedly manipulative. He probably convinced Phillip that he was the problem.

  “He took care of me after the accident, when I was too injured to work. He was there for me when my parents divorced. He can be an asshole, but do I think he’s an abuser? No.”

  “But why? If you told a therapist what happened to you, they would say he is.”

  “He never hit me,” Phillip repeated flatly.

  “He didn’t have to.”

  * * * *

  Our next morning went by intense silence. We showered, dressed, and headed over to the house. Mom wasn’t home. Her Sedan wasn’t in the driveway, which meant that she was either running errands or visiting with friends. It was typical of her to blow off meeting times. I quickly dialed her number and it rolled to voicemail.

  “Hey Mom, it’s Kuro. You said ten, but you’re not here. We’re grabbing our stuff. Just letting you know that we haven’t broken into your house.”

  I punched in the code for the garage door and waited for it to open. Phillip opened the back of the truck and lowered the plank. We lifted the furniture into the truck. Fifteen minutes in and he was sweating already, grinding his jaw in pain.

  “Phillip, stop,” I said. “We’ve got the bedframes in. Let me handle the smaller stuff for a few minutes.”

  “You got any ibuprofen?”

  “Probably in the house,” I fished around in my pocket for the key to give to him. “Check the cabinet over the kitchen sink.”

  I loaded chairs onto the truck. I lifted one end of the desk onto the dolly and pushed it up into the truck. When I realized Phillip wasn’t coming back outside, I headed in the house to look for him. I passed through the kitchen and found him sitting cross legged on the floor of the family room. My mom had two shelves filled with DVDs framing both sides of the television.

  Phillip held up a copy of Space Jam. “Can we take this?”

  I laughed. “Is Space Jam more important than loading furniture on the truck?”

  He stared. “It’s Space Jam. One of the greatest films ever made.”

  “Are you sure you don’t still have a crush on Lola Bunny?”

  “Is it weird that I still think she’s hot?”

  “Probably. Hey, did you get your ibuprofen?” I sat down next to him.

  He rattled a little bottle in his hand. “Yep. Right above the kitchen sink. Next to your mother’s vitamins and uh, fish oil pills. Tell me again why she doesn’t keep them in the bathroom like a normal person?”

  “Well she used to, but um…after she found out I was doing drugs in high school, she tried hiding them.”

  “Not a good hiding spot.”

  “Nope.” I adjusted my sitting position and the floor squeaked. “She should have gone all out. Buried them beneath the floorboards.”

  He sighed. I guess we weren’t at a point where we could joke about it yet.

  “I think I need to get some help, Kuro. Last night was…bad. Today isn’t much better.”

  “Could you talk to your doctor about it? Do you need to go to rehab?”

  Phillip shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know if I need rehab but…I need to quit the meds. Find a switch. Maybe cannabis oil or something.” he glanced over at me apologetically. “I’m sorry if I scared you last night.”

  “I’m sorry you’re in that much pain,” I sighed. “And I’m sorry for what I said…about you and Mizu. I went too far.”

  Phillip blinked. “I don’t think you went too far at all.”

  “You…you changed your mind?”

  “I didn’t change my mind. I just…I’ve decided to stop ignoring what actually was going on between us. Because it was abusive and unhealthy. On both sides. And…and I’d been afraid of him.” he glanced over at me. “He still texts me, you know. He wants to reconcile. But I don’t know if he means he just wants to say he’s sorry, or if he wants to get back together.”

  “Oh,” I said slowly. “What do you want to do?”

  Phillip considered this for a moment. “I just want him to leave me alone, honestly. I think if we keep talking to each other, we keep getting sucked back in. It’s hard.” He swallowed, and his eyes clouded with pain. His voice sounded hoarse when he spoke. “Sometimes, Kuro, I look at old photo albums. I look at how happy we used to be. I remember how much he loved me. And you know what’s sadder than that being gone? The idea that it was never there to begin with.”

  I saw the tears rise in his eyes. I whispered his name and reached out for him. We embraced tightly. He let out a quiet sob, hiccupping. I rubbed his back.

  “It takes a lot of strength to walk away from that,” I whispered. “And I think the love you two had for each other was real at one point.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But at the same time,” I said, “you were both so young that you didn’t really understand what love is. And how to grow it into something real, right?”

  He nodded, wiping his tears. “Sounds about right. I mean, a lot of our problems started after we went to college.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “So…it just…it stopped growing. And I don’t think that’s entirely a bad thing. Now that you’re walking away, you can be with somebody else. Someone who really loves you, you know?”

  He smiled at me, sniffling. I didn’t realize how close our faces were to
each other’s at that moment. I could have sworn he was leaning in, but then my mother appeared in the doorway.

  My mother Lucy was a stout, intimidating woman. In her younger years she had been petite, but after gaining weight and also doing more weight training, she had bulked up. She had a slightly crooked nose, freckles, and frizzy brown hair. Her eyes were a glassy blue, and her smile was youthful.

  “Phillip,” she said, the laugh lines wrinkling around her eyes. “It’s so good to see you.”

  Phillip stood up and hugged my mother. For years, I thought she considered him her “third” son. But knowing that she’d greet him instead of me first, I realized that she had subconsciously swapped me out for him.

  “Go ahead and take whatever movies you want. It’ll help me declutter.”

  “Where were you this morning, Mom?”

  “Nowhere,” she said, in that annoyingly evasive way of hers. She headed back into the kitchen to wash the dishes.

  I rolled my eyes. Phillip rubbed my shoulder reassuringly and we walked back into the garage.

  * * * *

  My mom sat down a plate filled with crispy grilled cheese sandwiches. As children, she made them with Kraft singles and mild cheddar cheese sprinkles. Now that we were old enough to appreciate bougier cheeses like Mimolette and gruyere she generously added thick, gooey slabs. Today she also added green apple slices, folding them underneath the blankets of cheese.

  “This is all so exciting,” my mom said, passing a roll of paper towels to Phillip. “I can’t believe the two of you are moving in together.”

  Yes, Mom. We know exactly how shocked you are. I glanced wordlessly over at Phillip, signaling for him to take over the conversation. A switch flipped. He turned on the charm, complete with his adorable lopsided grin.

  “It’s great that it has all worked out, honestly,” he said, wiping his hands on a paper towel. “I would rather live with Kuro than anyone else.”

  My mother was unabashedly nosy, and unfortunately for Phillip, she was not going to let this go.

  “Have you not heard from Mizu?” she asked.

  Phillip exhaled slowly, his eyes still maintaining that positive twinkle. “Nope. Not at all. I’ve seen him posting on Facebook though.”

  “I have to say,” Mom said, “I feel horrible about how things ended between you two. The fish…I mean it was just a fish, but it was still extremely unnecessary.” she sighed. “I hope you and him can make up someday.”

  “Mom,” I interrupted sharply, startling her. “Mizu flushed his fish. That’s fucked up. They are not going to just kiss and make up over this.”

  She glared at me. “Watch your language, Kuro. I wasn’t saying that they should get back together.”

  “Then what?” I set down my sandwich, fingers dripping with grease. “Mom. Don’t make this weird, please.”

  Mom blinked repeatedly. Her smile was passive aggressive; the corners of her mouth barely curled upwards at the ends. I hated it when she did that.

  “I just think that your brother might be going through a difficult time. He gets…weird at this time of year,” she wiped her hands on a paper towel and passed the roll to me.

  “What? Like seasonal affective disorder? He doesn’t like the changing leaves?”

  Mom whispered, “Because it’s coming up on the anniversary of your father’s death.”

  Oh my God. Of course, my mom was jumping to the golden child’s defense. And she had to pull the dead dad card. Why wasn’t I afforded that luxury? I grinded my jaw, struggling to repress my rage.

  Phillip interjected, thankfully. “Lucy, thank you so much for lunch. I think we gotta haul our stuff back though.”

  Mom smiled. “Let me pack up these sandwiches for you.”

  * * * *

  I rummaged around in one of the boxes until I located my bedding. I piled it up in the blue laundry basket till it stacked up to my knees. Phillip drifted by the doorway.

  “You’re supposed to put sheets on your bed.”

  “I’m washing them. They smell musty.”

  “Musty?”

  “Old. Gross. Like they have been sitting in a cardboard box that was hauled by sweaty men.”

  “Gotcha. If I give you a few quarters, will you wash mine then, too?”

  I outstretched my hand. “Gimme.”

  He chuckled and pulled out a few quarters from his wallet. He then went into his bedroom and retrieved a massive gingham duvet. It was so fluffy, it blocked out his entire face.

  “Those aren’t sheets,” I told him. “That’s a duvet.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So you have to remove the duvet stuffing—”

  “Duvet stuffing…?”

  “I can’t wash it with the stuff inside of it. You’re supposed to take it out.” I unbuttoned the top part of the duvet. He lifted the opposite end and I removed the insert.

  Once that was done, I piled everything into my basket and walked out into the living room.

  “What are you going to do about our bed?” Phillip called out after me.

  “Our bed?”

  He pointed to the pile of blankets in the center of the room. I shrugged my shoulders.

  “I’ll take care of that later. Besides, we still don’t have a couch.”

  “Okay. I’m going to start mopping the bathroom floors and vacuuming the rooms.”

  “You should rest,” I protested.

  He grinned at me. “I can push a vacuum around just fine, Kuro.”

  I rolled my eyes and exited the apartment. The laundry facility was in the basement, buried behind a wall of mailboxes. The scent of mildew wafted in through my nostrils as I loaded the blankets into the washing machine. When I returned to the apartment, Phillip was in the middle of deep cleaning. Sometimes I forget how eagerly he can dedicate himself to a task. He was using a rag to scrub the baseboards, and judging by how brown the rag was, he was removing a surprising amount of dirt. In his other hand he was pushing a Swiffer mop across the floor.

  “What do you want to do for dinner tonight?” I asked him.

  “Dinner?” he raised his head, removing one of his earbuds.

  “Well, yeah. Or do you have plans?”

  “I could make something,” he said, leaning against the mop.

  “No. You’ve done enough. Let me cook, okay? Any requests?”

  He grinned. “I would love that mushroom-kale egg bake.”

  “Sure. That’s easy and quick.” I headed into the kitchen and got to work.

  We ate our dinner on the mound of blankets. Phillip managed to get the DVD player plugged in so we could watch Space Jam. Surprisingly, and perhaps disturbingly, he remembered all the words to the theme song.

  “Your obsession is a little much,” I laughed, listening to him rap along.

  “Tell you what, after we finish this movie, we can watch something you want to watch.”

  “I don’t know if I could stay awake that long, but okay.”

  He smiled and leaned against me, resting his head against my shoulder. I hesitated, but leaned against him. We watched the rest of the movie in silence.

  * * * *

  I’m three years old, pushing my yellow Little Tykes mower across the yard as far as my legs will carry me. Mom sits on the sun porch reading a Jodi Picoult novel in one hand and cradling a glass of iced tea in the other. Phillip and my brother are jumping into piles of leaves that my father carefully raked yesterday. It’s a picture-perfect autumn day.

  Then Dad’s blue Cadillac turns into the driveway, and he loses his shit, almost leaping out of the car before he could put the parking brake on. He marches towards Mizu, shouting at him, “Do you know how long it took me to rake those, you little shit?” Terrified, Phillip sprints home, and Mizu and I start crying. Dad’s face is so red it could burst. My mother is furious. Fists clenched, she walks towards Dad and shouts for him to shut up. She jabs him a few times in the chest with her finger. He smacks her hand away and screams into her face, spittle
flying from his mouth, his rage growing until she breaks down in tears as well.

  The earliest memory I have is realizing that my parents never should have married.

  My mother, Lucy, met my father at a bar in New York while she was celebrating her twenty-second birthday with her coworkers. My dad, a shrewd businessman over twice her age, was only there that night because he was looking to get laid—which he did, but he also got her pregnant. Six months after they met, my pregnant mother walked down the aisle in a gaudy taffeta gown. This is despite multiple red flags, like my father being twice-divorced and losing custody of his only daughter, Mariko, whom I’ve never met. To this day, if I ask Mom what the hell she saw in him, she’ll shrug her shoulders and just say, “I don’t know.” Years later, after doing some digging, I found out that when she met him, she had recently been dumped by her college sweetheart. In her heartbreak, I think she was looking for someone to make all of her dreams come true. Instead, she married someone who embodied her nightmares.

  * * * *

  “Kuro? Kuro, wake up,” Phillip said, shaking my shoulder.

  I stirred awake, and found that I was laying on the blanket pile in the living room. I didn’t even remember falling asleep.

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s three A.M.”

  “Why the hell did you wake me up?”

  “You were having a nightmare,” Phillip said. “You were thrashing around and talking. Something about the leaves?”

  It took a moment for it to come back to me. “Oh. I was dreaming about that time my dad yelled at you and Mizu for playing in the leaves.”

  “And he flipped his lid?”

  “You remember?”

  “I literally peed my pants. That’s why I ran home that day,” Phillip said.

  Then I realized I was soaked in sweat. My clothes stuck to me like Saran wrap. I crawled towards an open box of my clothes and dug through it, searching for a spare pair of boxers. I found the obnoxious orange ones with the pink lollipops and pulled them on.

  Phillip laughed. “What are those?”

  “Boxers.”

  “Uh, okay, Willy Wonka.”

  “Shut up. Go back to sleep,” I mumbled, crawling back under the sheets.