by Leah Scheier
“So Ethan will agree to eat. That was a good idea.”
“I didn’t do it for Ethan,” I say shortly. “I still don’t think Hope should have invited him.”
“Why not?”
“She’s pushing him too hard and is way out of her depth. And I still don’t understand what she’s getting out of the relationship.”
I shove our books aside, and we move over to the sofa with our coffee mugs. “I mean, I’m trying to be happy for them. I really want to be supportive,” I continue. “But I just don’t get it.”
“Well, maybe you don’t have to get it.”
I laugh shortly. “You don’t know me very well, do you?”
“Look, Ethan seems like a great guy to me. He’s intelligent and quiet. Maybe that’s what Hope wants right now.”
I shake my head. “I thought at first that she was like that Pygmalion guy. That Ethan is like this diamond in the rough for her.”
“Really?”
“Okay fine, that’s stupid. But I don’t know what to think! It’s like she’s completely changed her type. She dated Grayson for most of last year. The truth is, none of us really liked him that much. But at least that relationship made sense to me.”
“Grayson treated her like shit,” he says evenly. “Or didn’t you know that?”
I stare at him and place my drink down on the coffee table. “Why do you say that? Did she tell you that? Because she never told me—”
“I don’t know what she told you. But guys gossip about their relationships too. Maybe even more than girls do.”
“But you’re not even close with Grayson and that crowd.”
He shrugs. “A guy will sometimes spill his guts to someone he barely knows. If he thinks that it’ll make him look good.”
“Seriously?”
“It’s a pissing contest, Rain. That’s all it is. And between the two of us, I was the obvious loser when it came to girls. I’ve never had a girlfriend, right? So Grayson was more than happy to share all kinds of stuff with me. It was a while ago—back when he and Hope were still dating. He was heading to Missoula, and I offered to split gas if he gave me a ride to my grandmother’s house.”
“What did he say to you?”
He grunts and takes a long sip of his coffee. “Ugh, what didn’t he say?”
“Really? Because I was pretty surprised when they broke up. Hope seemed so happy with him. She kept telling me how in love they were.”
He snorts and looks away. “Maybe she was. But if I had to guess, I’d say they probably broke up soon after Valentine’s Day. Am I right?”
I stare at him. “The day after. How did you know that?”
“Because right before I got out of his car Grayson said, ‘We’ll see if she changes her mind on Valentine’s. Girls always put out then.’”
I’m speechless for a moment. Liam’s eyes are downcast and embarrassed; he fiddles absently with his mug and sloshes the coffee around. “I guess you can figure out what happened—”
“Oh my God.”
“As I said, he treated her like—”
“Shit! Oh, shit! I get it now.”
“Yeah. So either Hope changed her mind, and Grayson got what he wanted, and then dumped her. Or she didn’t change her mind—”
But that isn’t what I’m thinking about at all. “I don’t care what Grayson wanted!” I exclaim. “I mean now I understand why Hope is attracted to Ethan.”
“What do you mean?”
“How did I not see this before? It’s so obvious!”
He glances over my shoulder and lifts his hand. “Rain, maybe you should lower—”
“Ethan is basically like a eunuch to Hope! Like one of those castrated servants they used to guard the harems in ancient times. He won’t touch her, so he can never hurt her—”
“Oh, Jesus, Rain, just quiet down—”
But his warning comes too late. My words have already echoed through the room before I realize what Liam is trying to tell me. I turn around to see my brother standing by the stairwell.
He doesn’t speak at first. His head is down. His hair falls over his forehead to cover his eyes.
There are no words left, absolutely nothing I can say to take it back.
“Efan—” I get up and move toward him.
“That isn’t my name,” he says. There’s no anger in his tone. But I don’t understand what he means; I have no idea what he’s trying to tell me.
“Efan, I’m so sorry—it came out wrong—”
“I said that isn’t my name!” he shouts.
I step back, warm tears pricking my eyes. Beside me, I feel Liam draw closer to me, feel his hand steal slowly into mine. I’m shaking all over, and his firmness steadies me.
I swallow hard and take a deep breath. “Ethan?” The word is just a whisper on my lips. It’s the first time I’ve called my brother by his real name.
I love the sound of it. I want to say his name again. I want him to smile when he hears it.
But he’s gone before I can.
I’m shaking too hard to follow him. I start forward, stumbling toward the stairs, and then I feel Liam grasp my hand as he pulls me back.
“Give him a minute,” he says. “He just needs some space.”
“I have to tell him I didn’t mean it! God, I’m such an idiot.”
I lean against Liam’s shoulder; my cheek brushes against his shirt. I want him to hide me, to comfort me, to tell me sweet lies about how my brother still loves me. I want him to make me feel a little less horrible.
He hesitates for a moment and then draws me close to him and wraps his arms around me. It feels so good, so warm and perfect. I think I must be the most selfish person in the world because I smile through my tears. I hate myself, and I adore Liam, and I didn’t know happiness could be so guilty. “Thank you,” I whisper.
I rest my head against his chest; he smells of spice bodywash and coffee. He bends down and touches his lips against my forehead. I feel a pull… I want so much to lift my lips to his, but I just can’t. I don’t deserve this boy, his warmth, his sweetness. I can’t be happy with him now, not after I’ve just destroyed my brother. “I’m sorry,” I say, more to myself than him.
“He’s coming back,” he tells me.
I twist around to look, and there’s my brother again. His eyes are calm as always. There’s no trace of my own pain in his expression. I gently break Liam’s embrace and move a step away, but one of my arms still rests around his waist. I’m not ready to let him go yet.
“Hello, Liam,” he says, as if he didn’t just see him two minutes before. “I forgot to ask, did you check with Dr. Peters about the surgery?”
Surgery? I wonder, but I know better than to say anything out loud.
“Yes,” Liam answers. “Next Wednesday works for him. I’ll pick you up at four thirty. I’ll have my father’s pickup, so I can drive you.”
What is going on? I want to ask. What surgery are they talking about? “But we run at four—” I blurt out, and stop, embarrassed. We run at four? Damn, I sound exactly like my brother.
His eyes rest on me for a second, and then he turns his attention back to Liam. “We run at four,” he echoes.
“I know,” Liam replies. “But it’s the only time he can do it. It’s your choice, Ethan.”
He seems to consider for a moment, but only a moment. “I have to go to the surgery,” he tells me. “So we can’t run on Wednesday.”
Who is this person? Something inside me sinks, and the tears that Liam dried spring back into my eyes. I should be happy I’m getting the afternoon off, that for the first time in two years I can leave my running shoes in the closet. But I’m miserable at the thought. Is this my punishment for what I just said about him? Is this how he’s getting back at me?
“Okay.” It’s emb
arrassing how weepy I’m getting over this, and I hastily brush my hand over my cheeks.
There’s a flicker of concern in Ethan’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says. His brow furrows. “I made you cry.”
“You didn’t—”
“Because I canceled our run. I’m sorry. You can come with us to the hospital if you want. We’re going to watch a cholecystectomy.”
I still have no idea what he’s talking about, and not just because I don’t know what the word means. All that registers is that Ethan is apologizing to me, when it should be the other way around.
“He’s only given permission for the two of us, Ethan. And I don’t know if Rain wants to watch a gallbladder operation,” Liam suggests.
“You’re going to an operating room?”
Ethan nods happily. “Liam knows a surgeon in Missoula County Hospital. He showed him some of my anatomy sketches, and the doctor wants to meet me. He said I can watch the surgery with the medical students. We’ll be behind a glass window, but I’ll be able to see it all live!” He flashes us a brilliant smile. “It will be so much better than watching it on the laptop. And then afterward I can ask questions.”
“But, Ethan,” I falter. “You won’t like the hospital. It can get pretty noisy—”
“I know that,” he says. “But I don’t have a choice.”
“You don’t?”
“Of course not. I can’t do surgeries in my house.”
“What?”
“Surgery has to be done in a sterile room,” he explains patiently, “with anesthesia equipment and nursing staff. So that’s where I have to do them.”
I stare silently at my brother and then turn helplessly to Liam.
“I think what Ethan is trying to say,” he tells me, “is that he wants to be a surgeon one day.”
A surgeon? I’m not sure how to respond to this. There’s a million things I want to ask, of course. Have you actually thought this through, Ethan? How many years of school is that? How many new people will you have to meet and talk to, how many giant classrooms, how many bright lights, how many overwhelming sounds?
But there’s only one thing I do say: “You’ll be a great surgeon, Ethan.”
He nods. “I know.”
Cooking with Rain
SERENITY THROUGH YOUR GUT
Special Halloween Edition: Rain’s Bloody Skulls Punch
Peel and carve seven apples, then whittle some holes for eye sockets and a gaping mouth. Immerse them in a bowl of sweetened pomegranate juice (vodka optional). Pomegranates are like nature’s Roto-Rooter. So why not unplug a few arteries while you’re having a good time?
ETHAN’S JOURNAL:
Blood Alcohol Level and Effects of Behavior
0.02–0.03 BAC: Slight euphoria and loss of shyness. Depressant effects are not apparent. No loss of coordination.
0.04–0.06 BAC: Feeling of well-being, relaxation, lower inhibitions, sensation of warmth. Euphoria. Some minor impairment of reasoning and memory, lowering of caution. Emotions intensified.
Desired Effect:
I wish to avoid loss of coordination, memory impairment, and heightened emotions. I would like to enjoy the benefits of a decreased level of shyness, especially as relates to members of the opposite sex. Optimal amount of alcohol consumption for a male of my weight with unknown tolerance would be thirteen ounces of beer with 5 percent alcohol content.
Proposed Experiment:
Consume slightly increasing quantities of beer every night to test response. Will begin this evening with six ounces of Michelob.
Chapter 13
Choosing a Halloween costume for a party is way more complicated than working out a catering menu. For a girl, anyway. A guy can just stick a prop knife through his shirt and be done with it. But a girl has to take a lot into consideration. This Halloween I want to be sexy but classy, with just a dash of silly. I also recently bought the prettiest little green dress, and I want Liam to see me in it. So whatever costume I choose must somehow include that.
The idea comes to me three days before the party as I’m making breakfast. Twenty minutes later I’ve constructed a lightweight cardboard frying pan and pasted in two paper sunny-side-up eggs. I attach it to an elastic band and fit it around my head. Perfect. It’s a little silly, and I can debut the dress without looking like I’m trying too hard.
Ethan is upstairs working on a large cutout of a lightning bolt. He and Hope have decided to do a couples themed costume. He is strangely excited by the whole thing even though the costume wasn’t his idea and was responsible for their first fight—if you can call it a fight. My brother basically just rattled off pairs of organs for costume ideas: “We can be two kidneys! Two lungs! Two sides of a heart!”
But Hope said, “No. No. No. No body parts, Ethan,” and Ethan eventually got pissed off and walked away. They finally settled on “struck by lightning,” which featured Ethan as the lightning bolt and Hope in singed, hole-filled clothing.
I’m impressed by Hope’s idea because it satisfies both of them; the holes are in strategic, sexy spots (midriff, back) allowing Hope to look awesome, but the costume also appeals to Ethan’s obsession with human physiology. He spends a shocking amount of time lecturing all of us about the various consequences of electrocution. (Did you know that the capillaries in your skin explode and make a Christmas-tree-shaped burn all over your body?)
The final concern, after I’ve gotten the costume out of the way, is making up a white lie to tell my mom and getting her to extend my eleven o’clock curfew. I instruct Ethan to say nothing, and the day before the party I casually mention I’ve decided to take my brother to Kathy’s house and introduce him to a couple of my friends.
My mom actually glows at me. “That is a wonderful idea, Rain,” she says. “I’m so happy that you’re including Ethan.”
I sigh and shake my head. “Well, I don’t know if it’s going to work. Maybe we’ll only stay an hour. You know how he doesn’t like to have his schedule changed.”
“No, no,” she insists. “You should stay as long as he can handle it. The later the better. It’s going to be so healthy for him.”
“Do you really think so?” I say, wrinkling my nose. “Ethan’s never been out past ten.”
“Absolutely!” she says. “Stay out all night if he’ll let you. I give you my permission.”
“Well…okay.” I sigh again. “I’ll do my best.”
Oh, yeah, I will.
My mom gives me a tired smile and lies back on the couch. She’s gotten even thinner over the last couple of weeks, but when I ask her if she’d like some dinner she just waves her hand and tells me she’s not hungry. It worries me a little. I know she’s finished the case she was working on, but for some reason she hasn’t picked up anything new. In fact, over the last few days she’s been mostly at home, lounging on the sofa and listlessly surfing the internet. I would suggest she see a doctor, but I know she’ll just say she hasn’t seen a doctor for more than twenty years and she’s not about to start now. Maybe it’s a good thing she isn’t working on a lawsuit now. She looks like she needs some time off.
I’m dying to share my curfew triumph with someone so I knock on Ethan’s door and dance over to his desk. He’s pushed his books off onto the floor, and his table is littered with strips of aluminum foil and cardboard. The room smells faintly of beer, which I assume is coming from the cultures he grows on his windowsill. He glances briefly at me when I come in. “Hello, Rain.”
“Guess what?” I declare happily. “No curfew.”
“Okay.”
I was hoping for a more enthusiastic reaction. “After Kathy’s party,” I persist. “We can come home whenever we want. Mom said.”
“Oh. That’s good.” He goes back to cutting the cardboard.
“Just don’t say the word ‘party’ around Mom, okay? That’s really importan
t.”
“I know,” he replies quietly. “You told me three times.”
“Yeah. Okay, sorry. I just wanted to make sure.”
“I know.”
I want him to look at me so badly, but he’s barely glanced up since I entered the room. He’s slicing tin foil with an intensity that’s severe, even for him.
“Ethan,” I venture timidly. “Secret Rule?”
He stops what he’s doing and stares stonily at the silver pile in front of him. “What can I do?” he mutters resentfully.
“Would you look at me please? I need to talk to you.”
He lays the scissors down and turns to me; his pale eyes fix on mine.
“You’re mad at me. For what I said before.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not mad about the curfew. But you need to tell me when we’re going home. So that I’ll know.”
I smile to myself. You’d think by now I’d know not to be vague with him. “I didn’t mean what I said right now. I was talking about that comment I made about Hope. About Hope and you.”
I know I need to be more specific than that, but I’m finding it hard to repeat the words. It was bad enough that I said it once.
But now he appears to be replaying everything I’ve ever said about them back over in his mind. I’m going to need to help him out.
“The eunuch thing,” I mumble finally.
“Oh. Okay.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. When I said that.”
“But I’m not a eunuch.”
“I know you’re not, Ethan. That isn’t the point.” It’s weird trying to explain to my brother why he ought to be mad at me. I probably should just quit while I’m ahead.
“And Hope knows it too,” he continues seriously. “I asked her.”
“You did?”
“Yes. She didn’t know what the word meant. So I explained it to her. And then I told her that I’m sure that I wasn’t one.”
“You told her that—”