“You two were always great at making each other smile, so do what you do best: Make my little brother happy again.”
“I’ll try my hardest.”
A short pause and a chuckle on the other line told me Mav was biting back a joke.
“Don’t be gross,” I said, smiling despite myself. I joked all the time with Mav about shit like that, but the jokes never included his brother.
“I’m just saying, you’ve got my permission to make him smile however you can.”
“All right, I think this call’s over.” I hissed into the phone. “Driving through—tunnel—can’t hear.”
“Can you hear this: you and my brother should fu—”
I hung up the call before he could finish. I didn’t know whether Maverick was drunk and talking shit or if he’d really picked up on the connection between Benji and me. It did make me feel better knowing that he was at least comfortable enough with the idea to joke about it, although he probably had no idea how far we’d already gone.
13
Benjamin Gold
Electra neighed as I walked over to her with a brush and carrot in hand. She crunched into the carrot as I got to work brushing through the silky black hair. Penelope followed me into the pasture and lounged nearby. She chewed on a bone she bought with her.
It was a quiet afternoon. I spent the afternoon running laps around the sanctuary. I hadn’t properly exercised in weeks, so it felt good to get the blood flowing again.
My moms had gone with Rex to go get groceries, leaving me and a few volunteers at the sanctuary. Two of them hung out in the pasture next to this one, with the three rescue horses that wouldn’t fly into a murderous rage at the sight of a stranger. I could hear them chatting about school, the two college kids laughing and teasing each other about an upcoming party for their sorority.
Must have been real nice to have something to look forward to.
I set the brush down and rubbed Electra’s snout. Her huge, intelligent eyes appeared to peer straight into my soul.
“We’re going to be okay, right, Electra?” I rested my forehead on her. She whinnied in an apparent response.
“And we won’t make fools of ourselves anymore, right, Electra?”
She didn’t whinny this time. Maybe she knew something I didn’t.
“No more blurting out any more boyfriend proclamations, right, Electra?”
She neighed loudly this time. I smiled and pet her forehead, her ears twitching.
I still couldn’t believe myself. It had been three days since I stuck both feet in my mouth. I thought ignoring the entire situation would be the best way to handle it, except there was no ignoring Rex Madison, not when he was living in my backyard. He had tried talking to me a few different times, but I managed to run off with minimal words spoken between us.
I just couldn’t look him in the eyes. I felt embarrassed and pissed and disappointed. Weird, considering I hadn’t been feeling much of anything lately.
I collected the brush and bucket and gave Electra a goodbye back rub. She tossed her head up and gave a loud rumble from her lips. Penelope grabbed her bone and followed me out of the pen. She ran ahead of me as I walked back to the house. I waved at Curtis, one of the security guards my parents had hired to keep watch. He gave me a warm smile back.
“How’s it going today?” he asked from inside his golf cart.
“It’s going,” I said. Going nowhere.
Curtis didn’t ask anything else. He gave me a smile and got back to his patrolling.
At least I didn’t ask him to be my boyfriend.
With a sigh, I started back toward the house. I didn’t make it another three steps before my phone started to ring. I assumed it was my mom calling to see if I wanted anything for lunch.
“I just had a sandwich,” I answered without even looking at the caller ID.
“Oooh, what kind?” That wasn’t my mom’s voice. It was my brother Dusty.
“Sorry, I thought you were Mom calling.”
“I still want to know.”
“Ham and cheese.”
“Wow,” Dusty said. “That’s a real kindergarten gourmet dish you’ve got going on there.”
I chuckled. Truth was that I hadn’t even eaten lunch. I hadn’t been eating much at all lately, actually. I still had all the muscle I’d worked hard for over these last few years, but if I kept this up, I’d be back to my high school weight in a couple of months.
Just something else to worry about.
“How’ve you been, Benj? Everything good?”
“As good as it can be, I guess.” I didn’t want to talk about myself, though. This was my twin. He’d figure out something was up, and I just didn’t want to deal with it right now. I switched topics real quick. “And you? How’s the job going?”
“As good as it can be going,” my brother said, throwing my phrase right back at me. He’d been working at NASA for a few years now and already had two promotions under his belt. I couldn’t have been prouder of him.
“I’m on break right now actually,” he said. “But I didn’t call to chat about sandwiches or my job, Benj.”
“Okay…” My eyes narrowed. “Why did you call? Just to say hi to your favorite twin brother?”
“That, and I wanted to make sure my favorite twin brother was doing okay… I still remember that talk we had by the lake, Benj, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. How you said that you felt like something was broken… Do you still feel that way?”
I could have lied. It might have been the easier choice to make, even if it wasn’t exactly the morally correct one.
“I do,” I answered. There was no lying to my brother. He’d see right through the smoke and mirrors. “It’s only gotten worse, Dust.”
Shit. There it was. Putting words to what I’d been feeling—or rather, lack of what I’d been feeling. This felt like a “no turning back now” point. The avalanche had begun, and it roared down the mountainside, ready to entomb me in an icy white calm.
“Talk to me,” he said, coaxing the words from me like a snake charmer. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”
“I’m not, Dusty. That’s the problem. I can’t feel anything. All the days just blur together, and I don’t really know when it’s going to get any better. I can’t look forward to anything, and I can’t look back on anything either. It’s all just… blank. I really do feel broken, Dusty. So fucking broken.”
“You aren’t broken, that’s a fact. This is something you can overcome. I shared a womb with you, I grew up watching you place first in every single competition you ever played in. You helped me learn how to read when I was having trouble, and you were speed-reading the freaking dictionary. You helped me when I wasn’t saying a word to anyone, and you helped me overcome that dark period in my life. I know you can overcome this.”
I shook my head and looked up at the cloudless blue sky. “I don’t know, I’m not seeing a way out of this.”
“Do you think you’re depressed?” my brother asked, point-blank.