by Alexis Bass
I close my eyes when I hear Jonathan’s answer.
“Amanda.” His voice is dark, serious. “She deserves to be with someone who makes her happy. That’s not you, from what I can tell. Not anymore.”
I open my eyes and watch as Jonathan unscrews the cap of the bottle, shaking his head. He tips it back, slowly at first, and then he tilts it upward, letting it flow down his throat. He hardly winces as he swallows. Sutton vomits again.
“Hey, hey.” Jonathan bends forward and taps Henry on the shoulder twice, trying to get his attention. Henry shrugs him off.
“Hey!” Jonathan says. His smile is sinister, like he’s enjoying his anger. “You should stay the hell away from Amanda. I mean it.”
Henry rolls Sutton toward me and looks at me for the first time since we arrived here, to make sure I’ve got her. He stands up and walks over to Jonathan. They’re practically the same height, though Jonathan’s slightly taller. I can’t see Henry’s face because his back is to me, but I watch his shoulders drop in a loose shrug.
“If she’s better off without anyone, it’s definitely you,” Henry says. “Look at you; what a joke.”
There’s no time to be upset by what they’re saying to each other. Jonathan takes a sloppy swing at Henry. Henry leans back, and instead of getting hit in the head, he gets knocked in the chest.
“Fuck you,” Jonathan slurs.
Henry raises his fist so quickly I barely see it move. I just see Jonathan’s head knocked to the side, droplets of blood soaring through the air, and Jonathan falling to the ground. I scream—I can’t help it. Henry whirls around to look at me, and even though his mouth is turned down in an apology, his eyes are so wild.
Jonathan is on his hands and knees, blood covering his nose and mouth. It’s dripping down his chin and smeared on the front of his jacket. There’s so much of it that I can’t tell where it’s coming from—if his nose is bleeding, or his lip, or both. He coughs and spits, trying to wipe the blood away a few times before he sees that it’s useless.
“Come on,” Henry says, jerking Sutton up a little too hard and hoisting her into his arms. She moans loudly, like she’s going to let out a scream, too.
“Come on!” Henry says again. I hadn’t realized he was talking to me.
I stare at Jonathan, sitting back on his knees. Not even trying to get up. Bleeding. Swaying slightly. Staring at me with unfocused eyes.
“Get in the car, Amanda,” Henry says. He’s halfway to his car when he’s forced to stop so Sutton can throw up again.
“My baby sister’s not going anywhere with you,” Jonathan calls.
Henry doesn’t react at all—he’s too busy wiping Sutton’s face. He takes her the rest of the way and eases her into his backseat. As soon as she’s secured inside, she curls into a ball. Maybe she’s done this before.
“Please get in the car,” Henry says, walking past me to retrieve Sutton’s crutches. “I have to take Sutton to the hospital.”
“That’s a smidge dramatic.” Jonathan shares a drunken laugh with himself and takes another swig out of the bottle, covering its top with blood.
Henry shakes his head. “I don’t know what else to do.” He holds out his hand to me even though I’m too far for him to reach. “Come on. Please.”
I look over my shoulder at Jonathan, tipping his head back to take another drink. He’s smiling, still, but all I can see is the blankness behind his eyes—the way they looked after he heard about Grace.
“Amanda,” Henry says, coming toward me. “If you think I’m leaving you here alone with him, you’re mad. But I have to go now. Sutton needs help now.”
“It’s fine,” I tell him. “Go. I’ll be all right. We can take a cab. I have to make sure he gets home.”
“So call him a cab. Please. Please, just come with me.”
“I can’t. But you should go. We’ll be fine.” But even as I say the words, I don’t believe them. I walk over to Jonathan and bend down to help him stand. He puts one arm around my shoulders and leans against me. I hug him with both my arms—it’s the only way I can keep him steady, he’s so much taller. Henry doesn’t say anything else. He stares for a moment, watching us, and I can’t tell if his anger or disappointment is winning out.
But did he really expect me to leave Jonathan here, drunk and bleeding and alone?
The second Henry’s car is out of sight, Jonathan lets go of me.
“Sorry I called,” he mutters.
I try to ignore him as I call for a cab. It arrives twelve minutes later to take us home.
CHAPTER
FORTY-FOUR
It takes me thirty minutes to clean the blood off Jonathan and convince him that the place he needs to be right now is in bed. The vodka is taking its effect. Each time my brother talks, his speech becomes more and more indecipherable.
My dad’s at work and Mumsy is out, at the club, most likely. I’m very glad they aren’t here to see this.
“Go to sleep,” I say to Jonathan.
“Mm-hmm,” he mumbles, turning from his stomach to his back. He repositions the bag of frozen peas I gave him so they’re resting over his nose.
I take a seat next to him on the bed, pushing him so he rolls back onto his stomach. I position the peas under his nose.
He lets out a tired, sad sound. “Oh, baby sister. You’re so good.”
“You’ve got to sleep it off.”
“I’m going to kill Henry Crane,” Jonathan says.
“Go to sleep, Jonathan.”
“I guess I can’t really talk about killing someone these days, can I?”
“Shhh.”
“I just don’t know anymore.” He sighs, and I think he’s finally starting to fall asleep. “I just don’t know . . .”
“It’s okay. Go to sleep.”
“I just . . . I don’t . . . I don’t know how to be anymore.”
“Be nice, Jonathan.” I feel tired, too, like I’ve just finished a sprint.
He sighs again, but I’m starting to think now that in this stage of his inebriation all his breaths come out heavy and exasperated. “I miss her,” he mumbles, rolling to his side so he can see my face without craning his neck. “I miss them.”
“I know you do,” I whisper back, my bottom lip quaking furiously. He pulls at the hem of his shirt, tugging it upward before losing his grip on it.
There it is, exposed with the rising of his shirt—words I can’t understand, written in small black letters above his hip bone.
“What . . . is that—?”
“Italian,” he slurs, closing his eyes.
“What does it mean?” But I’m suddenly so afraid of the answer. “Jonathan?” I nudge him.
“It’s fucked up that that was her favorite book.”
“Which book?”
His eyes stay closed, but his forehead creases as he frowns. “She was fascinated by it. Thought it was a beautiful and dark story. We’re always most curious about the things we’ll never know, the places we’ll never go.” The right side of his mouth quirks up, noting the rhyme.
I stare at the quote for a moment longer before pulling his shirt down. “Where is this from?”
Jonathan’s quiet. He might be asleep, but I don’t care, I shake him lightly by his shoulders. “Is it from the Bible?”
“No,” he says. “The Inferno.”
It was on our reading list sophomore year. I remember Grace saying she’d read it the summer before. She always picked the darkest stories in English class. Essays on the works of Edgar Allan Poe; a character sketch of Patrick Bateman from American Psycho; a diorama of the murder scene in The Secret History. What could have possibly inspired my brother to brand himself with a passage from The Inferno? If Grace loved it, is it to commemorate her? Or is this tattoo some sort of punishment, one for my brother alone, that only he’ll ever understand?
“What does your tattoo say, Jonathan? What’s the translation?”
He’s silent, and even after more shaking, more
nudging, he doesn’t speak.
A few minutes later, he mutters, “Don’t you dare get a tattoo, baby sister.” Instantly, he’s snoring.
I stay next to him all afternoon and into the evening, holding the peas against his nose until they’ve defrosted into a soggy lump. I replace the peas with a bag of frozen corn, keeping him propped up so he doesn’t roll onto his back. I’m careful not to fall asleep. What if he vomits and I’m not there to make sure he doesn’t choke? What if the ice melts when I’m not looking and he becomes so swollen and infected that his injuries get worse? My head is so clouded with what-ifs, it scares me. But I’m glad for them, even if they torment me. Because the night Grace died, all my what-ifs were about Henry, and I missed the most important what-if of all. What if my brother gets in his car and drives?
My mother arrives home around five. When she walks past Jonathan’s open door, she doesn’t come in to check on us, just shuts the door carefully.
Jonathan finally wakes up around seven that night. “You need water,” I say to him. He stares at me blankly, like maybe he doesn’t know where he is, or at the very least, doesn’t remember how he got here.
“You need to eat.” I turn on the light on his nightstand and prop him up against his headboard, repositioning the pillows under him. “I’ll get you something.”
He stares at me for a long time behind bruised eyes, still tired and confused. He nods.
The house is empty, cold, and abandoned. No sign of my mother, even though I never heard her leave again. A few lights have been left on: the chandelier in the dining room, the pendant light above the sink in the kitchen—but there’s no other trace of her. My father’s still at work, or out. It’s late enough, he could be home. But he’s not here.
I drop some water and toast off for my brother, then cross the hall and knock on the door of my parents’ bedroom. I don’t wait for my mother’s permission to enter, I just open the door. She’s there, cozied up in her robe on the chaise lounge, watching television. In denial. Pretending nothing is wrong. If she can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. Her room, her bubble. All is well in here and she doesn’t have to think about the rotten world outside.
And my dad, he’s no better. Both of them, insisting we have our own lives, letting us think we scored independence early. Like responsibility doesn’t have to be learned, honed. Instead, Jonathan and I were alone, free but struggling, with only ourselves and each other to depend on.
“You saw us—” I blurt out, my voice rising in astonishment.
Her face falls, she shakes her head—this accusation hitting her full force, like an attack.
“I didn’t want to disturb you,” she says quickly.
A monstrous growl comes out of me. “What’s the matter with you?” I yell. “We’re yours! You’re supposed to disturb us!”
She widens her eyes defensively, and her legs, previously curled beneath her, drop to the ground.
“Didn’t you see his face?” I ask.
The way her lip is trembling, her eyes ready to spill, I know she did. It’s why she’s in here—the same reason she stopped going into my brother’s room after the accident. If you can’t see something, it doesn’t exist.
“You’re not going to ask what happened?” I yell at her silence. My screaming contains the rage of all the years she didn’t ask.
“I don’t want to know!” she shouts back—and it’s the most helpless sound. At this, her lips press together tight, her eyes snap shut.
“Mom,” I say, softer now. I hate her in this moment, I really do. I imagine all the exquisite reasons most other girls loathe their mothers. She nags me. She doesn’t approve of anything I wear. She calls me over and over again when I don’t answer. She grounds me for coming home too late. She’s unreasonable. All I have to hold against my mother is that she let us do whatever we wanted and we had to find out the hard way that we don’t know anything.
“He needs help,” is what I end up saying, as a few stray tears begin to fall.
She covers her mouth, tears sprouting in her eyes, too. “I—” She shrugs. “Tell me what you want me to do.”
“Make him go to an AA meeting. There’s one tomorrow at seven, at the church by that art gallery you love.”
She stares at me, red-faced and crying. I wait for her to tell me that she’ll do it, that she’ll try—I wait for her to rise to the occasion.
“Get him some water,” I tell her. “Make him a sandwich. He’s sick, hungover, maybe still drunk. It’ll be worse if he doesn’t eat. He’ll need more ice, too, for his face.”
She nods. This, she can manage.
“I have to go,” I tell her. Now she’ll have no choice. I watch a shadow of fear, of doubt, of panic pass over her face. “I’ll be back later.”
“Where are you going?” she calls. But I don’t stop. I don’t turn around. I hear her again when I’m in the hall. “Amanda?”
I walk fast down the stairs, snatching my purse and coat from the closet in the foyer, and head out the front door without looking back.
CHAPTER
FORTY-FIVE
I text Henry to meet me at Hal’s Diner. He’s there before me, sitting in a booth near the back and away from the windows. It’s relatively empty for a Friday night.
“What’s happened?” he says, scrambling to his feet when he sees me. He takes me by my shoulders. I know what he’s thinking; he left me in the park with my brother, and now this is how I look—disheveled and tearstained. This is how we see things now. Our first instinct is to wonder who’s to blame. Our second instinct is to blame ourselves.
“It’s nothing,” I tell him, shrugging my left shoulder so his hand presses into my cheek and he can feel me smile. He hesitantly sinks back into his seat.
“Is Sutton all right?” I ask.
He nods. “She just needed to vomit and sleep it off, it turns out.”
The waitress comes, bringing two pink lemonades. We tell her we’re not ready when she asks to take our food order.
“How’s your brother’s face?”
“Terrible,” I say.
Henry bunches his lips together to hide that he wants to smile. When he moves his hand from where it was resting in his lap to scratch his opposite wrist, I notice his knuckles are bandaged. He doesn’t look at me when he asks, “And how are you?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly.
“It was Sutton who brought the vodka,” Henry tells me.
“I guess I don’t blame her.”
“I do.”
I wish I could be glad for this—there was nothing we did wrong, nothing we could have helped. Henry rubs his eyes. I want to take his hand, hold it in mine, say, “We’ll get through this together.” It’s such a damn lovely thought.
“Henry.” I pause, working up courage even though I feel like I don’t have any left. “I’m never going to be okay with the way you hate my brother.”
“I’m trying not to hate him, I swear.” He shakes his head. “He makes it so difficult.”
I try to think of something to say to that. I come up short.
“It’s too hard for you, isn’t it?” he asks. “Pretending certain obstacles don’t exist; pretending his downward spiral isn’t coming at a cost to the people around him, including us. Pretending there aren’t real reasons for people to be livid.”
“It’s too hard for you, too,” I declare, but Henry hears it the way I meant it, as a question.
“Maybe,” he says.
We sit there in silence for a while, just the sound of nineties pop playing in the background and preteen girls laughing at the next table over.
I decide to bite the bullet and ask exactly what I’m thinking; exactly what I’m afraid of: “Do you think of her when you’re with me?”
We had our first kiss the night she died. And Henry got the news about her when he was lying next to me in bed. Whenever I look at Henry, I’m hoping he doesn’t remember the dark conditions under which we found our way to each other
. And I wish I could forget sometimes, too. I feel terrible for thinking this way.
“Honestly, Amanda, I think of breakfast.”
At that, I can’t help but smile.
“What?” he says. There’s suspicion in his voice and in the way he’s staring at my ridiculous grin. “Is that what you think of?”
“All I know is,” I say, “it’s much worse being without you.”
“Wow. How romantic. You really know how to sweep a bloke off his feet.” But a smile is budding on his face.
“It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
He leans forward, crossing his arms in front of him on the table. “Is that your way of telling me that you can’t resist me?”
“Henry . . .” I let out a small laugh.
“It’s okay, I understand. You’re pretty hard to resist yourself.”
Can we do this? Switch to laughter? Pick up with our old jokes and just breeze over the last few horrible hours? “Plus,” he starts, scratching his head, looking away, suddenly getting more fidgety than I’ve ever seen him before. If it’s my presence that’s making him like this, it’s too late for him. “I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you,” he says. He stops fidgeting and stares at me.
It’s too late for me, too.
“I sort of love you, too.”
“Sort of?” he says, but he’s smiling.
“Nope,” I admit.
CHAPTER
FORTY-SIX
The house is quiet and dark when I get home, except for a low murmur coming from the den. I trudge in slowly, unsure of what I’ll find. It’s just Jonathan, sitting in sweats with a blanket draped around his shoulders and his feet up. A sitcom is muted on the television. Jonathan’s on his phone.
“They always said I had a killer smile.” He laughs. “And a fondness for killer whales.” He pauses again, giving a soft chuckle. “What’s that? Killer instinct?”
I step in front of him, and his smile falters.
“Hey, I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? Okay, bye.”
I lean on the arm of the love seat, so I’m facing him.
“What’s up?” he says.