When I was thirteen, Reed caught a bad case of croup and spent three days in the hospital for observation. Every spare dollar for the next five years went to that bill. That Christmas, Dad taught me how to play soccer in the snow with a half-flat ball he found somewhere in the apartment complex. All the other kids sat inside playing their new video games.
When I was fifteen, some asshole punk drew a dick on Reed’s forehead with Sharpie and stole his lunch bag. For the first time, he ran to me for help, and I accepted that sharing my parents wasn’t so bad, because in return, I’d gotten someone who looked at me like I was the solution to life, not a problem.
When I was twenty-five, Reed told me I was dead to him after the cotillion. Ma cried the entire night, then cried again the next morning when she realized he’d meant it.
Dad turned to me, placed his calloused palm on my shoulder, and said, “Life hurts something stupid, kid, but being brothers is a lifetime commitment. He’ll realize that.”
I listened to Dad and waited it out, convinced it was a phase, because from the moment Reed had been born, I’d done everything for him, given him all I could, and loved him more than I did myself.
Seven years later, I was still waiting.
The email sat on my laptop, the words unlikely to change in this lifetime, but I wasn’t opposed to funding time machine research. I’d go back and reverse a lot of things, starting with the cotillion. I told Durga I didn’t feel regret, but I lied, knowing she’d call me out on my bullshit. Someone had to.
Here’s what people who sit around smoking ganja and quoting Gandhi won’t tell you. There’s always that one mistake that changes your life. If you’re lucky, it’s for the better.
Spoiler alert: I’m not lucky, and regret is life’s longest punishment.
I felt it now, reading Ma’s email, wondering how someone who shared my blood could turn into a coxswain, Vineyard Vines-wearing, Niçois salad-ordering, country club-attending, nouveau riche douchebag, who surrounded himself with people named Brock, Chett, and Tripp with two Ps.
From: [email protected]
Subject: 4th of July Weekend
Hi, sweetheart!
I was hoping to catch you on your phone, but you didn’t answer and your voicemail inbox is full. (You should really consider hiring an assistant. It’s been like this for months. I’ve been meaning to tell you.)
Your brother says he’ll be spending the weekend in Eastridge with Basil, Chett, Brock, and Tripp for the country club’s fourth of July brunch. I think Reed and Basil are ready to take the next step. Seems like he’s gonna pop the question. I mean, we always knew this was coming, but I’m happy that he’s happy.
You know I love you, and I hate to ask you this, but would you mind not coming that week? We both know he won’t come home to see me unless I assure him you’re not in town, and I haven’t seen him in months.
I ain’t happy about this. It hurts to even ask, but it won’t always be like this, baby. I promise.
Love,
Ma
I couldn’t blame Ma.
Growing up, Reed used to think Ma favored me, so Ma worked extra hard to prove she didn’t. What Reed never got was, Ma didn’t love me more. She’d just loved me longer. Ma had ten extra years to learn how to love me best. She’d been figuring out how to love him, which he made infinitely harder by having mood swings that would make teenaged girls seem tame.
I typed out my reply.
One word.
Nash: Sure.
Then, I wired the allowance I sent Reed each month—apparently, he couldn’t take my calls, but he had no problems taking my money—and slammed my laptop shut, discarding it on the pillow next to my head.
Some asshole knocked on my door, but I sunk back into my mattress and closed my eyes. The knocking persisted. I muttered a curse, reached out to the nightstand, blindly fished out the bottle of painkillers, tossed two into my mouth, and swallowed them dry.
Padding barefoot to the door, I yanked it open, knowing I’d throttle whoever it was if they said the wrong thing. I didn’t know why I thought it’d be Emery, but it wasn’t. Disappointment burned my tongue.
A uniformed staff member stood on the other side. He tossed me a loopy grin, his feet shuffling back and forth like he bought a new bong and couldn’t wait to get out of here and try it.
“Mrs. Lowell sent this up for you.” Dudebro held up a folded piece of paper with the Prescott Hotels letterhead sticking out from the flap. “She left this letter for you, too.”
I snatched the letter and let him in. He pushed a cart past me, a smile on his face, too damn chirpy for a Saturday morning. My nudity didn’t faze him. I greeted him in boxer briefs, taking in the food as he unveiled it.
A full breakfast. Eggs, bacon, bagels, coffee, hash browns, and French toast. Beside the silverware, a fruit basket of bananas, strawberries, and Fuji apples had been arranged in a phallic shape, ejaculating into a bowl of Nutella.
The clock in the open-plan kitchen read eight in the morning exactly. This spread hadn’t been to feed me. It’d been to wake me up with an extra side of fuck you.
Delilah Lowell thrived on passive-aggressive bullshit.
Breakfasts screamed wake the fuck up.
Lunches doubled as a reminder not to pile any more lawsuits onto her plate.
Dinners cemented the fact that I’d be flat-out broke and most likely dead if she didn’t exist to put out my fires and occasionally feed me.
I never bothered with dessert. Learned my lesson the first time when she’d brought her rat and asked me to pet sit the monster. (Rosco and I do not and will never get along.)
The alarm on my spare phone set off two horns. I’d set it up last night after carefully sealing the broken phone in a plastic bag in my nightstand. Swiping the screen up, I shut off the noise and noticed the eight missed calls from Delilah.
Pressing the return button, I spared the guy feelings of inadequacy at the sight of my dick and stepped into the en suite bathroom before stripping out of my black Calvin Kleins. The rainfall shower heads shot out water.
I connected the phone to my shower’s Bluetooth speakers.
Delilah answered my call on the second ring with a tsk. Her voice came out in pants like she’d been walking. “Do you ever answer your phone?”
So much tact, this one.
“Eventually.” I dumped shampoo onto my head, wondering if I had any unread messages from Durga. “Is the breakfast from last night’s catering staff?”
The memory of Emery Winthrop against my body drove my line of questioning. Her existence pissed me off. A trust fund princess. A daughter of a thief and (as far as I was concerned) murderer. Someone complicit in his lies. Complicit in Dad’s death.
The worst part wasn’t seeing her last night. It was feeling her against me. I could write our first time off as a mistake, but she was still young. So damn young. She’d been an adult for all of two seconds, and I’d already fucked her.