Liodore: you have siblings?
ThisIsntSparta: a brother
Liodore: how many?
ThisIsntSparta: 1?
Liodore: must be weird
ThisIsntSparta: how many sisters do you have?
Liodore: a million
see, theyre kinda my whole world
Now I’m sitting here watching him nod at the phone and beg for more information on the sister that he wanted to be with, that he skipped school to be with, and I’m thinking that I should have just made the U-turn. It’s no good if I want him to be here more than he does, that’s not how this can work. I need more of a push than that. He shouldn’t be here. Shit shit shit shit what am I doing?
Then Lio tells his dad, “I’m at Craig’s,” and I can tell by the way he says my name that he’s told his father about me. I feel kind of obnoxiously happy.
“I’m totally safe,” he says. “We’re right by the school . . .” He closes his eyes for a second. “I know. I know.”
He seems smaller than usual when he talks to his father. Not in a bad way, just a younger one. I wonder if everyone gets younger when they talk to their parents. I spend too much time around mine. I need to get out of the house more. I need a hobby. Besides the animals. Maybe I’ll start trying to give a shit about karate again.
He says, “Yeah. Craig drove. Yeah, he has his license.”
I grin a little. Yeah, okay.
He says, “That’s fine. Can she bring me clothes and a toothbrush?”
I look at him. I’m probably making the same face his dad is. Are you sure? Don’t you want to be with your family right now? Don’t you want to be surrounded? Aren’t you scared? You sound scared.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” he says. He nods. “I want to stay here tonight.” His voice is so quiet. “I feel safe here, Dad.”
It’s not until after he hangs up that he says, “Is that okay?”
“Of course. Um, we have a spare room.”
He nods.
“Upstairs,” I say. It’s not really a spare room. Technically it’s actually my room. But I moved to the basement when my dad started worrying about the pee and the carpet. Animal pee, obviously.
Like he’s reading my mind, he says, “Where’s your room?”
He doesn’t ask in a sexy way, just in a curious way. And that makes me feel a little relieved, to be honest. I think, that if we did share a room, I’d be more likely to cry myself to sleep tonight than try anything. It’s one of those nights. And maybe Lio is one of those boys.
The stomachache I got when he was on the phone is back, and, God, maybe I really did make a huge mistake, bringing him here, kissing him back, dressing him in my clothes, looking at him in my clothes.
“The basement,” I say. “Come on.” I lead him down, one hand on the banister, flicking on the lights as I go. I feel bad that his feet are bare. He must be freezing. “Do you want some socks?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“Come on.” I toss him a pair. Then another. “Don’t get sick.” He only puts on one pair, so I yank the others on my own feet.
He sits on my bed without pausing, like he doesn’t even think about the fact that it’s my bed—my place, where I stare at the ceiling and jack off and sort of sleep. He sits like he belongs here, like he’s decided on his own, and then he leans forward onto his knees and looks around the room.
He wrinkles his nose up. Good thing he wasn’t here when it was packed full of animals.
“I know,” I say. “Smells like a litter box, yeah I know, because animals sleep down here with me. This is sort of home base for them. That’s kind of why my parents stuck me down here. Maybe my brother’s glad, because he has the whole upstairs to himself. I think my parents are starting to wonder why he hasn’t moved out.” I don’t think I usually babble this much, but I could completely be wrong.
Lio says, “Why?”
“Why are they wondering, or why hasn’t he moved out?” It barely bothers me, having to lead him like this. Maybe it isn’t a character flaw. Maybe it’s how Lio is. Maybe I should stop trying to fix him.
I shake my head a little.
I don’t know what comes after trying to fix him. Or maybe I do, and maybe that’s the problem, I really just don’t know.
Lio looks at me for a second, then says, “Second one.”
“Why hasn’t he moved out. Um, I don’t know. I think . . .” Maybe I do know. “I think he needs to know that we’re okay all the time.”
And then Lio says, really softly, “I miss my mom.”
I sit down on the bed next to him. And then I’m kissing him because I don’t know how to fix him and I think this will help. Or it has to help. He moans really softly, but of course I’m the one who’s crying, crying because this kid misses his mom who I don’t even know, and how well do I even know the kid? But I know the missing, at least.
I wipe my cheeks off the second he pulls away. I wipe them off hard, like that makes it manlier or something. Lio watches.
“I cry, like, all the time,” I say.
He nods. “I know.” A smile plays with his mouth. “It’s okay. Sometimes I get cancer.”
“You’re horrible,” I tell him. But now I’m laughing, big and strong and real like I want to be.
When I tell him he can’t smoke inside, he shuffles his feet and chews on his lip for a while before he eventually says, “Okay,” and takes a small step out onto the deck. As much as I hate cigarettes and as much as I’ve worried about his cellular growth today, I kind of like that the clothes he’s wearing, my clothes, will smell like them now, and even though I don’t understand why he’s worried about the sniper, I like that he keeps his palm pressed against the door behind him while he smokes, like a kid keeping his hand on home base during freeze tag. Safe.
LIO
WHEN CRAIG’S PARENTS GET HOME AND ASK WHO I am, Craig cuts in and says, “Lio,” with a significant look that makes my heart beat twice when it should beat once. He says something under his breath, probably about my sister. The next thing I know, everyone’s hugging. His mom hugs me. Then his dad. They smell like hospitals.
“Are you staying for dinner?” Mrs. Privett asks me.
I look at Craig, but he’s cleverly looking away. Damn it, he’s going to make me talk.
What’s weird is, I’m willing to talk, because I have an unexpectedly intense desire for them to like me.
Christ, I really must love him.
So I say, “Yes, please.”
I sit at dinner nicely with Craig’s parents and his brother. I can tell immediately that Todd disapproves of me for what’s probably some deep philosophical reason I’ll never understand, judging by the way he’s dressed. I say please and thank you. I pass things when they’re requested, and sometimes when they aren’t requested but someone seems to be running low. And by someone I mean Craig.
He smiles at me, and for the first time in a while, I feel like I’m doing all right.
Mr. Privett asks him, “How was your day?” and instead of saying “fine,” and passing to the next sibling, like I always do at home, Craig says, “You will not believe what happened to me between first and second period,” and he starts talking. He tells some long rambling story about a boy who stood too close to him at the urinal.
Todd passes the glazed carrots. I’m sure this is another sign of him quietly hating me. Wasn’t choking down the first serving of carrots enough? I try giving him my I’m fine smile, but he’s not looking at me. I take two or three carrots.
Craig is still telling his story, though I’ve lost track of what exactly is going on. He’s very passionate about it. “And he was all offended, this kid, and he kept asking me if I thought he was a faggot, which was really weird.” He pauses and gives a dog who walks up a few good rubs. I palm one of my carrots and offer it to the dog. He/she/it eats it right up. Wow, pets are awesome.
Craig kicks me, so gently. “Listen to my story.”
I nod and slip another car
rot into my palm. And I am listening. It’s just that Craig has a lot of great qualities, but coherency is not one of them.
Craig says, “And he’s like, oh, so is that the problem? You think you don’t know me, so I must have some disease or something? You’re afraid of pissing next to me because I must have some disease, is that it?”
“This is ridiculous,” Mrs. Privett says, spearing a green bean on her fork. “I don’t believe this.”
I feed the dog another carrot.
“No,” Craig says, “You have to believe it. You have no choice but to believe, because this is real life. So I’m like, ‘dude, I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m just trying to pee here,’ and he pulls back from the urinal, still . . . well, exposed, and he’s like, ‘so you think I’m a faggot, is that it!?’”
Mr. Privett goes, “Craig. Do you have to keep using that word?”
“I’m gay, I think I can use it. Faggot faggot faggot. It’s what they call cigarettes in Britain, isn’t that right, Lio?”
I nod.
Mrs. Privett looks at me all skeptical and motherly. “And how would Lio know what they call cigarettes in Britain?”
I don’t know what to say. I cough a little. Todd says, “Getting sick, Lio?”
“No,” Craig and I say together.
“Just cold,” I say, softly, and Craig gets up from the table.
Mr. Privett says, “So what’s up with your hair, kid?”
Craig comes back with a sweatshirt and puts it around my shoulders. “He used to have cancer.” I look at him. Are there amphetamines in his water glass? For the first time since I’ve known him, he might be entirely present.
Although he could also just be panicking. I try to catch his eye, but I can’t.
I say, “It has nothing to do with cancer. But it’s still, um, kind of a morbid story?”
Mrs. Privett says, “Oh, you don’t have to tell us anything you’re not comfortable with.”
As much as I can tell Craig wants to hear it, what really inspires me to tell this story is looking at Todd. He’s scraping his knife around his plate, his upper lip curled inside his lower. He’s not listening to me. He still doesn’t take me seriously, even though we just threw the word “cancer” around. Does he really think I’m not good enough for his hyperactive little brother? What did I do to piss him off?
Fine. I take a deep breath.
“There’s this service online,” I say. “You send them a picture of your kid. It’s really expensive. They scan it and send you back a folder with the kid at different ages. What he would look like.”
Craig says, “So, like, if you’re really curious about what your kid’s going to look like?”
I give him a look.
Craig says, “Ohhh, so, like, if your kid dies and you’re really curious about what he would have looked like?”
I nod. “That one.” I rub the back of my head where my hair is growing in unevenly. It’s dark red back there, I think, and faded blue in the front. There’s also some green, but I can’t remember where. Really, I’m blond. “So they sent in pictures of my twin and we got them back and it was . . . scary. To see what he would have looked like. What I’m going to look like. There was a picture in there—THEODORE, AGE 16. I’m going to be sixteen in a month. So I cut it off and dye it lots of colors. Now I don’t look like the picture.”
“You were a twin?” Mrs. Privett says. Her voice is so soft and gentle, like whipped cream. Whipped cream that feels sorry for you.
I say, “I am a twin.”
Craig smiles at me. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that expression on someone. He is proud.
“More carrots, Lio?” Todd asks, because I’m down to one. I say yes. I’m a doormat.
But I made Craiger proud.
CRAIG
LIO’S DAD DRIVES JASPER OVER ABOUT AN HOUR AFTER dinner. He stays in the car while she comes in, which I can tell Lio doesn’t feel right about, because he keeps looking out the window at his dad in the car. “Is he mad at me?” he says eventually. “He didn’t sound mad on the phone.”
“I don’t know. My keys?” She takes them from Lio and hands him a small bag. “Toothbrush and shit.”
“Why isn’t Dad with Michelle?”
“How the hell was I supposed to get here without him? And she’s sleeping in the backseat.”
“Oh.” He’s still peering out the window. I can see his little sister’s feet in the backseat. They’re in socks and curled up against the window.
Jasper says, “I told him he doesn’t get to chew you out about the car when Craig’s here. So he thought it’d be best to stay outside. I think I finally got it through his head that Craig’s . . . you know.”
Lio keeps frowning, but then his dad waves at him, and his face lights like a candle. “Okay.”
“Hey.” Jasper takes Lio’s shoulder and yanks him around. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t chew you out in front of Craig.”
I swear he shrinks like five inches.
She says, “You ever do that again, I’ll skin ya.”
He nods.
She lets her air out and pushes Lio’s hair back. “You sure you don’t want to come home?”
They’re both speaking in these really quiet voices, but it doesn’t sound like they don’t want us to hear. They’re standing in the middle of our kitchen, after all. It sounds like they’re being gentle with each other.
Lio nods, looking down.
“We’re worried about you.”
He shakes his head.
“Do you want to call Adelle?” She takes out her cell phone. She must have his therapist’s number in her phone. I bet if I had a therapist, Todd would have her number. I don’t need to feel jealous right now.
He says, “No. Really, I’m okay.”
“All right.” She gives him a big hug. “Michelle’s okay too. We love you.”
He nods and watches her go all the way down the driveway until she gets into her car. His hand holds on to that bag so tight.
In my bathroom downstairs, he washes his face and brushes his teeth and changes into his own pajamas. He gives mine back, folded neatly. If they didn’t smell like smoke, I’d guess they were clean.
I feel like I’m on a sleepover back when I was a little kid, with a friend—usually Cody—and sometimes he’d get homesick in the middle of the night and have to be picked up. I remember praying before we went to sleep that he’d still be there when I woke up. It was sort of a toss-up, but I really hated when he left. And it meant there was always this anxiety hanging in the air before we went to sleep. Will he stay or won’t he?
I think I really, really want Lio to stay here, to make it through the night, for us to make it through the night, but I can already feel him slipping away. I think his sister coming was bad for him, because now his mind is back at that house and not here with me. And really there’s only room for one of us to be this distant, here, and the last thing I can do is hold on hard enough for both of us.
And we haven’t even closed our eyes. We haven’t even left for separate rooms. It’s barely ten.
He sits down on my bed and pets Sandwich.
To fill the silence, I say, “There’s no way we’re going to find all of them. It kills me. No matter how many we find, it’ll never be all. It’s never going to be how it was. There will never be as many.”
He says, “Maybe it can still be special even if it’s not as much.”
There’s something significant about this, and I don’t know what to do with it.
He clears his throat. “Your brother hates me.”
“He doesn’t. He’s just wary with people he doesn’t know. He was sort of trying you out. Like a dog. I’m not sure my dad liked you much, but he’s weird, ignore him. He’s a principal. Automatically predisposed against people with funny hair.” I sit down next to him. “You okay?”
He nods.
“It’s just that Todd’s protective of me. He just doesn’t want me to . . . you k
now. That again. With Cody. You okay?”
He nods again.
“I know you told Jasper you are. Are you really? Are you worried about . . . do you want to talk about the boy who got shot?”
He’s still alive. They found a tarot card by him. Death, of course. Even I have to admit that’s some scary shit. But he’s still alive.
He says, “Michelle’s safe now. It’s like lightning.”
“Definitely.”
He rubs his eyes.
Kremlin howls at my feet. I say, “Quiet, you. See, this is why you don’t want to sleep down here, Lio. They’ll all keep you awake. Good thing I don’t sleep.”
“Can I ask you something?”
I put my hand on top of his head because it feels right. Really, because it feels like he needs it. He’s shaking. “Of course.”
He’s just so little.
He says, very softly, “I wish we were alone in this room right now.”
Is that what he wanted to ask me? But that wasn’t even a question. I look at Kremlin, and at Sandwich batting at her tail. “Do you . . . want me to put them upstairs?”
“It wouldn’t help.” He plays with his fingers. “I wish my sister weren’t here.”
“What?”
“I wish she weren’t here in this room right now. With us. Or my brother. Or your parents. Or Cody.” I don’t like the way he says Cody’s name. I hate that I don’t like the way he says Cody’s name. “Or the sniper. I wish we were alone.”
I want to touch him more, but now I don’t think he wants it.
He looks up at me. “What are we doing, Craig?”
Fuck.
I say, “It’s just that I think it might be too soon for me.”
And then we have that conversation neither of us wants to have, because neither of us wants to believe the things I’m saying or to think that they are important, and he has had such a long day and he looks like he’s about to fall asleep, and I probably look like I’m about to cry, and we both want each other, I know it, and here we are sitting around telling each other why we can’t have each other and all I want to do is be an each other for once.
Gone, Gone, Gone Page 11