All the Things We Never Knew

by Liara Tamani

  “I know,” he says, without trying to give me a hug. He’s still so calm. It’s like we’ve switched places and I’m the emotional wreck and he’s the chill one. What the hell’s going on? I am not supposed to be like this. He is not supposed to be like this. This is not supposed to be happening.

  I scoot fast to the edge of the bed, preparing myself to run out of the room, to confront Mom and Daddy. Then I remember that Mom had to go to the office, and Daddy’s key chain with his bazillion keys wasn’t in the key bowl when I came in.

  Cole picks up the pieces of the picture and turns to place them on my bed. “Here, you can have it.”

  “Why? Why are they splitting up? Why like this?” This cannot be about the boutique. Daddy would never take his issues with Mom’s work this far. None of their arguments ever get this serious. Not to say that the residue of black-blue words hasn’t hung around for a few days here and there—house cold and quiet. But eventually someone cracks a joke or cuddles up or cranks up some nineties R&B or breaks out Monopoly or burps really loud, and things go back to normal. It’s like they’ve always known the limit of how far they could stress their love. But this is way over the limit.

  “He wouldn’t say.”

  “He didn’t say anything about why? Like, nothing?”

  “You know there’s no getting real talk out of Dad. I’m surprised I got that much,” Cole says, picking up a couple of the photos around him.

  “Well, did they get in a fight this morning after I left?”

  He grabs another photo. “No.”

  “Did you see anything weird between them?”

  “Not really.”

  “Come on, Cole! Something had to have happened!” I yell.

  He lets out a long, hard sigh and then shifts his tired, swollen face into a bright smile. It’s almost scary. “It was a normal Saturday. Mom went to work before I got up. Then Dad drove me up to the school for my tournament.”

  He’s speaking in a high-pitched tone with a slow cadence, like he’s reading a fairy tale to a bunch of first graders. This boy is not my brother. My brother is never this rude. I want to tell whoever this boy is to kiss my ass, but I don’t because I need to hear what happened.

  “He seemed cool in the car. Talked about the strengths and weaknesses of a few forwards from other teams and how he wanted to see a better follow-through from me. He left after the first game. He usually stays, but I didn’t think anything of it. Then he picked me up and filled me in on what was going on with you. Didn’t say two words on the way to the hospital, but you know how Dad’s always lost in his head.

  “Is that enough for you? Or do you want me to remember what we were listening to on the radio or how many red lights we stopped at or exactly where we were when the clock struck six or which way the wind was blowing when we drove under the live oaks on Rice Boulevard? Or maybe you want to know how many times Dad cleared his throat or scratched his chin. Because I can try to recall all of that if you need me to,” he says, face still fake with cheer.

  The sting of how ridiculous he just made me sound won’t let me respond. Am I really that stupid for trying to keep an eye out for things that might clue me in on my future? I can’t even approach the answer. The question has only been here two seconds and it’s already changed my shape. And now it’s like I don’t fit right inside of myself.

  “Sorry, I’m just tired,” Cole says. He stands, picking up the rest of the photos and putting them back in his black storage boxes. “Give me a second and I’ll be out of your room.”

  What? He dumps me in this foreign place, turns me into this foreign shape, and now he wants to leave me? No! I grab his hand.

  He looks over at me in surprise.

  The thing is, I’m usually the one trying to kick Cole out of my room. He’s always in here. Says he likes staring at my walls. At the sketches and writings torn from my notebooks, at the images I’m drawn to in magazines . . . the photos he lets me keep . . . my favorite pieces from art classes over the years . . . all the poems and notes and lists and cards and quotes and random facts I collect. I’ve always figured that if I’m constantly looking at things that call out to me, then the Universe would eventually have to tell me what I’m supposed to do with my life. But it hasn’t happened yet.

  Cole squeezes my hand, lets it go, and gets back to collecting his photos.

  “And what? Daddy told you to pass all this information along to me?” I ask, trying to slow him down. It pisses me off that Daddy would tell him and not me.

  He grabs a black box off a stack of magazines on my desk. “No, he probably thought Mom would tell you,” he says, and slides three photos behind a tab in the box.

  “Mom didn’t say anything to me. We talked about—” I almost tell on myself, but don’t. On the way to get my car, I talked to Mom about the gallbladder attack finally being the sign to quit basketball. She’s the only one who knows I want to quit. Known since I was in seventh grade and told her that getting my period was a sign to quit. Known I’ve been afraid to quit because I don’t have a better dream to replace it with.

  Daddy would die if he knew the truth. He’s had a basketball in my hands since before I could walk. If Cole knew, he would die, too. He loves basketball. And we’ve been playing each other our whole lives . . . pushing each other . . . supporting each other . . . defending each other when Daddy’s too hard on us. Sometimes I wonder if we’d be so close if I didn’t play.

  Cole hasn’t even noticed I stopped mid-sentence. It’s like he’s in a trance, focused on picking up and organizing his photos. “Oh, and we have until March eighteenth. That’s the date we’ll have to sit down with the judge and state which parent we want to live with,” he says. I swear it’s like someone has steamrolled over his emotions. Flattened him right out.

  “That’s not even six weeks! What if we refuse?”

  “Then they’ll have to spend a whole lot of time and money fighting over us. Believe me, I’ve already asked Dad these questions. And a million more. We need to choose. And I think we should stay together. It’s one thing for Mom and Dad to get a divorce, but it’s a whole different thing to split from you, too.”

  There’s my brother. There’s my Cole. “Me, too,” I say, feeling the agreement soothe the hurt a little.

  “Right now, I’m thinking we should stay with Mom. I don’t like the idea of her being in the house by herself at night. Plus, we wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of switching schools.”

  What about Daddy? I think. What about the way his eyes go sad when he’s alone? The way he can look scared even when he’s sitting on a barstool eating pancakes. “But you know Daddy needs us around,” I say. “Mom will be fine. She’s always fine.”

  Cole stops stacking his black boxes of photos and looks at me. “Do you really want to switch schools?”

  “No.” I feel lost enough as it is. I couldn’t imagine throwing the change of a new school into the mix. But still . . . Daddy.

  I stand up and grab the photo box at my feet. “Look, I’m not arguing in favor of Daddy or anything.” In favor. The words taste greasy and bitter in my mouth. I hate them. I hate everything about this situation.

  “I’m tired and I stink. Can we talk about this later?” Cole asks, and stacks another box.

  “Okay,” I say, walking over to him. I place the last box on top of the six others. And before he reaches down to grab them, I reach out for a hug.

  He hugs me longer than I usually let him. And when he tries to let go, I hold on to him and hide my face in the ripe funk of his basketball clothes, where I feel safe. Where I’m just a sister. Not the girl whose parents are suddenly splitting up. Not the girl who has to choose which one to live with. Not the girl who’s thinking about quitting the team, throwing all of her scholarship opportunities away, giving up everything she’s worked for her whole life, and having the whole team, her daddy, and her brother probably hate her for it. And for what? The girl doesn’t have a clue what to do with her life. Not
a single fucking clue. I’m not ready to be alone with this girl.

  I’m not ready.

  I’m not ready.

  I’m not ready.

  Tears flood my face and I’m a 100 percent sure the ill-fitting girl inside me is going to explode.

  “Everything will be okay,” Cole reassures me.

  He says it three times, and I still don’t believe him.

  REX

  The house is freezing when I get home. My father must be here. With this house being so big and him being such a reclusive neat freak, the temperature of the house is one of the only ways I can tell the man is in. I never see his car because he keeps it parked in the garage, which is too small for my pickup truck.

  My phone rings and it’s Nya.

  “Hello,” I answer, and sit down on the concrete bench in the mudroom.

  “Hey, heard about the game. Sorry you lost,” she says.

  “Thanks,” I reply, and take off my LeBrons. The cold stone floor shocks the bottoms of my feet, even through thick socks.

  “Heard you still had thirty-six points, though.”

  Did I? I think. Carli made me forget all about my stats.

  “It never feels good losing, but at least that’s a positive,” she says.

  Nya’s big on positives. I like that about her. “True,” I say, and store my shoes in a cubicle beneath the bench.

  “So, did Danny have an off night?”

  “Nah, not really.”

  “Oh, Jason was ball hogging again?”

  “No.”

  “Well, what happened, then?”

  I usually like that Nya asks a lot of questions. Keeps the conversation flowing, which I’ll admit, I’m not always the best at. But tonight, the only answer to her questions is Carli. How do I tell her that?

  “Oh, well. Can’t win ’em all,” she says, letting me off the hook. “I figured since y’all lost, you wouldn’t feel like going to the movies.”

  But I can tell by the hope in her voice that she still wants to go. Hope that’s making me feel terrible because I’m wondering what it would be like to take Carli to the movies. What it would be like to see her again. I have to see her again. “Yeah, it’s probably too late now.”

  “Well, there’s actually a midnight showing if you want to make that?”

  “Sorry, I’m too tired,” I lie, and make my way to the kitchen. When I get there, I open the fridge. “Arepas! Angie must’ve come today.”

  “A-what-who?”

  I take the Pyrex out of the fridge and put it on the counter. “Let me tell you, Angie’s arepas go so hard.”

  “Who’s Angie?” Nya asks with a hint of she-bet’-not-be-a-side-piece in her voice, which doesn’t even make sense.

  I’ve already told her that I don’t have time to waste trying to keep up with multiple girls. And even if I did, what kind of fool would I be telling her about one of them? “My babysitter,” I say, and get a plate out of the cabinet.

  “Babysitter?” Now she sounds confused.

  I start preparing a plate of Angie’s arepas and rosemary chicken (also bomb). “Well, she was my babysitter growing up.” Damn, I miss Angie. She was the only person I had to talk to around the house. She started looking after me when I was born and my father decided to become a heart surgeon. He took forever. Twelve years, to be exact. Twelve years of never being home and studying in his room whenever he was home. Finally finished his residency two years ago, but nothing’s changed. He’s still always gone or in his room. Only difference is that now we live in this big-ass house in the boonies and I have a team that hates me. I pop the plate in the microwave.

  “Oh,” she sighs. “So she still comes by sometimes to make . . . wait, what’s it called?”

  “Arepas. They’re these little corn pancake things filled with cheese,” I answer, thinking about how Angie used to come over every morning and make them for me. That is, until she had a kid of her own. I was about nine.

  After that she’d come over two or three times a week to bring groceries, make meals, and take me to games. Man, I used to get so hyped the days I’d step off the bus and see her blue Corolla parked outside our house. Having her around lifted me out of my father’s cold silence.

  But there’s no escaping it these days. Now that we live way out here in Woodside, I can drive, and Angie has three kids; she makes it when she can, which is usually once a month. And that’s if I’m lucky.

  “They sound good. Maybe when you finally let me come over, I can try some.”

  “Shi—oooot,” I say, catching myself, “these are as good as gone.”

  “I heard that,” Nya says in a stern-mama type tone. See, she has this thing with cursing. Probably comes from going to church every Sunday. She’s always inviting me, but I like to spend my Sundays outside, taking in the glory of trees and sky. Anyway, every time I curse, I owe her a kiss (with tongue) in the hallway beside her locker at school.

  “But I didn’t curse, though.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “I didn’t!”

  “You almost did.”

  “Almost doesn’t count,” I say. I mean it’s cool that I’ve had someone to walk the halls with the last few months, but I’m still not down with all that PDA stuff. I take out the apple juice and drink it straight from the jar. The sweet, cold liquid feels good running down my throat.

  “What are you drinking?”

  “Juice,” I answer, and pour myself a tall glass—straight up liquid gold.

  “So first you want to curse, and now you’re over there sippin’ on gin and juice?”

  I chuckle. It’s almost funny. I like how Nya can almost be funny sometimes. But I shouldn’t be laughing at all. Not when I have to tell her about Carli.

  The microwave beeps, but I don’t get my food out.

  “I have something I need to tell you,” I say.

  “What?” she asks.

  I don’t know why this feels so hard. I mean, what sixteen-year-old hasn’t left one person for another person or told someone I can’t do this anymore or straight up ignored someone until they stopped calling.

  But Nya is the closest thing I’ve had to a friend since I’ve moved out here. Because I’m kind of quiet and mostly keep to myself, people are always making up stuff about me. Me being an arrogant asshole is my new team’s favorite.

  The thing that people don’t understand is that when you spend a lot of time by yourself, you get used to keeping how you feel and what you think on the inside. But most people aren’t having that. They need words. Words to put them at ease. Words to validate them. Words to excite and entertain them. And when you’re not coming with the words they need, they’ll start trying to figure out what’s wrong with you. And when they can’t figure it out, they have no problem making stuff up.

  Learned that early, when the kids in my hood started calling me Half-taco. They said I didn’t talk (barely said anything back then) because I could only speak Mexican. Used to piss me off so bad. First of all, Mexican is not a language. Second of all, Angie was Colombian and spoke better English than Spanish. If they wanted to be racist, they could’ve at least gotten their facts straight. But no.

  So I’d fight. And when I got tired of that, I’d keep to myself. Had to walk a mile and a half to the basketball court at Emancipation Park, where all anyone cared about was ball, just to have some normal interaction with people. And by the time I was old enough to play ball for the school, I was used to keeping to myself. Used to being the dude everybody saw but nobody really knew. It felt safer that way.

  I mean, the last couple years got better. Years and years of balling with the same people, and they start to get to know you a little. But then I moved out to Woodside.

  The point is, I feel safe with Nya, less lonely with Nya. And it’s hard to give that up. But Carli. Carli makes me feel . . . everything.

  “Well?” Nya says, sounding frustrated.

  And it’s the kind of everything that’s not going away.


  “Hello! Earth to Rex! What is it that you gotta tell me?”

  I take a deep breath and push out, “I met somebody else.”

  “Who?”

  The question comes at me with lightning speed. I want to say, This girl you don’t know to keep things vague, but the ache in my throat won’t let me call Carli something so impersonal. “Carli.”

  “Carli?”

  I can hear her face twisting up.

  “Who’s Carli?”

  “You don’t know her.”

  “Did you have sex with her?”

  “Whoa! Hold up a second,” I reply, trying to think of why she would ask that. I didn’t even think sex was on her brain. We never even got past touching above the waist with our clothes on.

  “Well, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Did you kiss her?”

  “No.”

  “How long have you been talking to her?”

  “I haven’t been talking to her. I—”

  “Well, when did you meet her then?”

  “Tonight.”

  “At the game?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wait, is it that girl from the video?”

  “You saw that?”

  “Of course I saw it. Everybody saw it. So, is it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, what exactly happened?”

  “I caught her and—”

  “So you already knew her?”

  “No.”

  “Sooooo . . . you caught her and what?”

  “I felt something.”

  “You felt something?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Felt what?”

  “I don’t know . . . something deep.”

  She cracks up laughing in a way I’ve never heard her laugh before—hard and high, like she has her head thrown all the way back. “You felt something deep? That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard. And for a girl you don’t even know? Everybody said you were an asshole, but I didn’t know I was dealing with a fool, too.”

  My ear throbs with that familiar word—asshole—with the unfamiliar brand-newness of Nya. It’s like she just smacked me upside the head through the phone. This can’t be Nya. I wish I could clap back and call her a fraud, but shock has dulled my anger.