Tell Me How This Ends

by Victoria De La O

  “You’re going in one way or another, Price.”

  She gives in, and I hand the guy at the door our tickets. It’s dark inside but with enough strobe lights to see the evil scarecrows, bats, and ghosts lining the pathway. Every now and then something jumps out from behind a tombstone or flies across a wire in front of us. The sleeves of my hoodie are too long for Elizabeth, so she uses them to cover her eyes.

  It’s more fun watching her than what’s in front of me, especially since she screams almost the whole damn time. I can’t stop laughing, because she never sees it coming—like she’s always hopeful that, this time, there won’t be a zombie behind the tree. At one point, she jumps into my arms, and I stand there holding her, feeling the curve of her back, the delicate bones of her spine. I want to crush her to me, until we’re forced to breathe through the same set of lungs. And then she moves out of my embrace.

  By the time we get out, my stomach hurts from laughing, and she is red from yelling.

  “You did notice there were kids in there who screamed a lot less than you?”

  “There were big spiders everywhere. I hate spiders,” she says, hitting me with one of my own sleeves as I dodge her.

  “The best part was when the kid behind you tried to comfort you.”

  “Oh, shut up. If I lined that haunted house with women asking for a commitment, you’d be running out in horror.”

  I lean back. “Ooh, nice one, Price. I didn’t know you had that in you. Impressive.”

  She looks so pleased with herself for being a bitch that I laugh again.

  “Hey, I didn’t know you were funny,” she says.

  “Am I? I have my moments, I guess.”

  “You’re full of surprises tonight.”

  She’s not kidding. I feel . . . lighthearted. Like I haven’t felt maybe ever, and that surprises me, too. But then again, Elizabeth has always pushed me past where I thought I was capable of going. “I thought you had me all figured out the night we met? Guess you were wrong, hot shot.”

  I reach out and tug on her ponytail, which is a mistake because it makes her step closer to me. For some reason, I don’t let go. This forces her head back, so she’s gazing up at me. My hand strokes all the way down to the end of her ponytail. I imagine unsnapping those tiny pearl buttons on her shirt one by one, and then I force myself to release her. She turns away from me, but not before I see her cheeks turn pink.

  “Okay. Fair’s fair,” she says. “We’re doing the hayride now. That’s more my speed.”

  “Excellent. More hay.”

  She grabs my hand and pulls me toward the short line for the ride. Then she gets distracted by a food booth painted with leaves and pumpkins, so she buys a caramel apple and two hot chocolates. We sip the sweet drinks as we wait in line and darkness falls around us. I have to glance away as she eats the apple, because there is caramel coating her lips and I want to suck it off. She reaches over and gives me a bite, which feels almost as personal. She laughs at me as I try to wipe the stickiness off of my chin.

  “You missed a spot here,” she says, dabbing a dot of caramel onto my cheek.

  “Eck. God, this is the worst,” I say, slapping her hands away.

  She cracks up but gives me a thin paper napkin out of sheer pity.

  Finally we get loaded into the back of a truck bed full of hay attached to a green tractor, and we’re off—if you can call driving five miles an hour “off.”

  I shake my head. “I seriously can’t believe people pay for this.”

  “Shush,” she says, but she smiles. “You’re right, though. The guys who work here probably think we’re all insane.”

  All the buildings, including the big red barn, are lined with lights, and they twinkle as we pass. It has gotten colder, and I can see Elizabeth hugging my hoodie more closely around her. Seems like girls always do that with their boyfriend’s sweaters and jackets. Except I’m not her boyfriend.

  Maybe because the families are all leaving and the crowds have thinned, the guy driving the tractor takes us for an extralong ride.

  As we circle the farm, we pass underneath an almost-full white moon, which lights up the sky.

  “This is beautiful. It reminds me of something, but I don’t know what,” Elizabeth says.

  I do. It reminds me of her.

  She relaxes, leaning against me in the process. I shuffle my feet apart and shift my body so that one arm is almost around her. I want to rest my fingers on her shoulder, but I don’t. No way can I do that, which makes me sad.

  Still, her body against mine feels like a solution to a problem I didn’t know I had.

  “Is this what it would have been like?” I ask her. I know I shouldn’t, but it’s like the question is yanked out of me.

  She peeks up at me, and because of our height difference, I could so easily bend my head to kiss her. I feel the heat from her body, see the glow of her in the moonlight, and I want to touch those lips with mine. Even scarier, the memory of kissing her is like a full-body ache, and I convince myself that her lips have always belonged to me.

  She stares at me, puzzling out what I’m talking about. She knows, but she doesn’t want to say it.

  “If I’d taken a chance. Is this what we could have had?”

  “Yes,” she finally says.

  I close my eyes. “I didn’t know.”

  “I know you didn’t.” She sighs deeply and leans her head against my shoulder, like it’s too heavy for her to keep upright.

  To hell with this. I let my hand rest on her shoulder. I think we’re both aware that this is a moment out of time. This is what should have been, if I weren’t so fucking stupid and scared. The hay, the people chatting, even the lights—they all fade as I let myself feel regret. It’s more painful than I could have imagined.

  I lean down and bury my face in her hair, her neck. She puts a hand up and holds me there, maybe because she knows I might screw everything up by kissing her. She’s always trying to save me from myself. I’m just too stubborn to let her.

  The ride stops and the moment is broken. We climb off the hay truck back onto solid ground and walk through the pumpkin patch. She picks up a huge round pumpkin perfect for carving, and we pay for it and carry it to the car. I’m sure Ryan will carve that with her.

  Neither one of us speaks during the trip home. Our moment is over, and it’s like we’ve silently agreed to move on. What else can we do?

  It was only last week that Elizabeth wore my hoodie and laid her head on my arm. Might as well have been a lifetime ago.

  I can’t stand being home anymore, so I head to my favorite bar. Just like last night. Better than trying to face Ryan—or see the wife. Because that’s what it’s back to again. I turn the collar of my jacket up as I cross the street, trying to beat the chill in the air. In a few weeks, it will be Thanksgiving, and then the cool autumn nights will turn into the gray of winter.

  After I order my second drink, I notice there’s a curvy brunette eyeing me. She’s with a friend, but that’s not an obstacle in and of itself. The real challenge is my lack of enthusiasm. She doesn’t seem to care, though, because she’s practically eye-fucking me at this point.

  If I want a place to stay tonight, I better muster up some excitement. I already slept off my last visit here at Josh’s house, and now he’s going to feel like I owe him. Plus, he kept pumping me for information about people at work.

  I ask the bartender to send a round to the girls for me. The waitress nods over in my direction, and the brunette gives me a sexy smile. They wave me over, so off I go.

  Turns out the brunette is Jennifer, and the blondish one is Lauren.

  “Do you girls work around here?”

  “I’m a grad student at State,” Jennifer says. “Lauren works at Adobe.”

  They don’t ask me anything—just keep staring—so I ask them a few more stupid questions. While I talk, their eyes stay on my lips or roam my face. I get that a lot. They’re not interested in what I have to say, an
y more than I’m interested in a relationships with either of them.

  As the drinks flow, we get more heavy-handed with the flirting. I move closer to Jennifer and play with her hair, while Lauren rests her hand on my leg. The problem is the drinks I had before I came over here, combined with the ones I just had, are starting to hit me hard, and I’m not as functional as I thought I was. I was going to ask Jennifer if she wanted to leave, but instead, I find myself standing up on shaky legs and taking both their hands.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I say.

  I’m sort of surprised they agree, and I think they are, too, because I see them whispering something back and forth.

  “Let’s go to your place,” Jennifer says as we pile into an Uber.

  She leans over a lot as she talks, and her low-cut shirt gives me a nice view of her tits. I know there’s a good reason not to head to my house—not to be with these girls at all, really—but I can’t recall it right now, so I slur out my address to the driver. Jennifer pulls me into a kiss, and I slide my hand up Lauren’s skirt. The ride passes in a blur.

  I pull the girls into the house, trying to be quiet as I go. They are looking around like they’re tourists, maybe pretending they’re here for something other than a three-way. We go straight to my room, passing Ryan’s door along the way. It’s closed, but I hear giggling, so I know the wife is here. I stop trying to be stealthy. If everyone else has moved on, then why the fuck shouldn’t I?

  I slam the door shut and turn on some music as the girls move onto the bed. Lauren seems nervous, but I figure she’ll catch up quick. “Does someone live here with you?” Jennifer asks.

  “My brother. He’s cool.”

  Before I know it, my shirt is off and the girls are half naked. Jennifer is smooth and firm, but I like how Lauren’s blond hair flows over my wrists and arms. It’s not quite the right shade of blond, though. And she smells like flowers, which is all wrong.

  I fumble around with them, knocking something onto the floor. I’m a lot drunker than the girls are, but they don’t seem to care. They’re looking at me like I’m a trophy they want to stuff and mount on their wall.

  I hear thumping, but I ignore it. I’m trying to focus on getting my pants off, but I can’t work the zipper.

  “Someone’s knocking,” Jennifer says, kissing my ear. I realize that the thumping is Ryan pounding on my door.

  “What the fuck?” I yell as I open it, but my anger is not all that impressive, because I’m having a hard time staying upright.

  “Dude, why is your music so loud?”

  Ryan pushes the door all the way open so he can turn my music down. He sees the girls and stops suddenly. I sway into him, and he has to prop me up with one hand.

  “Are you wasted?”

  “Yeah. So fucking what?” I ask, my voice too loud.

  He gives me the pity look again and then shakes his head.

  Now the wife is poking her head in, all wide-eyed innocence and concern. “Everything okay?”

  She goes pale when she sees the girls. This gives me great satisfaction, or it would if the room weren’t spinning. I’m pretty sure the floor is rising up toward me.

  Ryan turns to the girls on the bed. “I’m sorry, but can you guys leave?”

  They start to get up and my anger detonates.

  “This is my fucking house. You get to bring your whore here, but I don’t?”

  Ryan lunges at me, and before I realize his intention, he has pushed me to the floor. I get up, grabbing on to my dresser for support. I swing at him with everything that I’ve got. He swings back, and his aim seems much better than mine. I vaguely feel his fist connect with my face, and I hear someone scream.

  Jennifer and Lauren hightail it out the door, and the wife follows. As I try unsuccessfully to get Ryan into a headlock, something extremely cold and wet lands on me. Someone is throwing water at me. I get doused again, and Ryan and I finally come up for air, spluttering. Elizabeth is holding our old plastic Kool-Aid pitcher, which she chucks on the floor as she walks away.

  I try to sit down on the bed, but really I just fall onto it.

  Ryan stands over me. “Your house? I thought it was our house. I d-don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you, but you c-could have just told me you didn’t want me living here.”

  His voice is shaking, and I can feel some heavy emotion pouring off of him. But I’m too muddled to have this conversation now, so I lay back on the bed and put my arm over my eyes. That doesn’t stop the world from spinning. The last thing I remember is the sound of the door slamming shut.

  When I wake up the next morning, it takes me a while to force my eyes open. It’s so fucking bright in this room, and my jaw hurts like hell. Ryan is gone, but I hear the wife making a racket in the kitchen. I get up, which makes my head feel worse, and go to face the day.

  There she is, in my kitchen, pouring orange juice and flipping French toast. She forces a smile, which I know is gracious of her.

  “Sit,” Elizabeth says, motioning to the kitchen table with the spatula.

  I do, and she puts water, aspirin, orange juice, French toast, and syrup in front of me.

  “Why are you here?” I ask, before I remember that she asked me that same question in this very kitchen, the night that I found out she was with Ryan and would never be mine.

  “Ryan had an early shift at work.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “Wasn’t meant to. I wanted a minute alone with you.”

  I push the food away, its sweet smell obnoxious. “I don’t need your concern, or whatever. This is between me and Ryan.”

  She sits down and starts to eat. She moans around her fork. “This is super good.”

  I get up to go, and she puts her hand on my arm to stop me. It feels so nice that I stay where I’m sitting.

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  “For what?”

  “For everything. For last week. For last night. For making you feel awkward in your own house.”

  “Jesus, this isn’t about you. I got drunk. It’s not a fucking crime.”

  She pulls her hand away. “I knew you wouldn’t admit it.”

  “Nothing to admit. Brothers fight. I’m sorry if it scared you.”

  Her forehead crinkles, and I can tell she’s getting frustrated. “Yeah, I know brothers fight, dummy. So you’re telling me I’m the only one having a hard time with all of this? I don’t think so.” Somewhere along the way, I forgot how honest she was. Never afraid to stare down whatever’s in front of her—except haunted houses.

  I’m not half as brave. I decide not to answer and I eat in silence.

  She sets down her fork and pushes her plate away. “I understand how you feel about Ryan. The way you love him.”

  “I doubt it,” I say.

  “Did you know my brother, Michael, has Down syndrome? He’s six years younger than me—the baby of the family.” She takes a sip of juice while she studies me. “When he was born, I treated him like a doll—brought him to show-and-tell, changed his outfits all the time. I thought he was perfect. Beautiful.”

  I don’t want to listen to this, but she has a way of staring at me—with such misplaced trust and openness—that I force myself to hear what she’s saying.

  “In second grade, this girl at my school said my brother was a monster—that he was deformed and stupid. I hated that girl so much—Jessica Ericson; I’ll never forget her.”

  “So what did you do to her?”

  “Nothing. Yeah, I hated her, but I also hated myself. Because for about two minutes, she made me ashamed of my own brother.”

  “You think Ryan is ashamed of me?”

  “No.” She pushes her food around on her plate. “I’m like Jessica, getting in between something I shouldn’t have. And I knew better. I told both of you that I didn’t want to be in the middle, and I did it anyway.”

  I want to deny it, make her feel embarrassed for thinking she has that much power over m
e, or that much influence on my relationship with my brother. The lie doesn’t come.

  “Yeah, well, he’s hard to resist. You didn’t stand a chance.”

  She looks at me straight on. “No. Not with either one of you.”

  The happiness I feel when she admits that is dangerous. It will not lead me anywhere I need to go.

  “This isn’t the first time something has almost come between me and Ry. It won’t be the last.”

  I set my cup down too hard as I remember all the people who have pitied me and Ryan, made fun of us, or given us shit—teachers, kids at school, even the social workers.

  When Ryan was sixteen and I filed for custody, the county did a home visit. I cleaned the house, watered the lawn, and threw out any alcohol. This woman came—early thirties, brown suit, and a briefcase. She inspected the house, including the refrigerator, and then she chatted with Ryan by himself. When she interviewed me, I explained that I spent every moment outside of work and school either with him, or taking care of stuff—bills, the house. I always knew where Ryan was, knew all of his friends, texted him all the time. I told her that I didn’t think any parent knew their teenager better than I knew Ryan. She was nice, she laughed, and at one point it almost seemed like she was flirting with me.

  I never told Ryan this, but when the social worker filed her report, she said our living conditions were good but that she had some doubts about my ability to work and go to school and provide supervision. She also wrote, “Jude is a young, active, college student, and I wonder if he will be able to provide the role modeling that is critical to Ryan’s development at this time.”

  Her objections had no teeth, so when I submitted our grades and a recommendation from my boss, I was awarded custody. But that word, “active,” haunted me. What she really meant was that she thought I was hot and assumed I was banging girls every night at the house. So I almost lost my brother because I have a symmetrical face.

  “We’ll get through it. We always do,” I say, refocusing.