Authors: Julie Halpern
“It’s off. What’s wrong? It’s not real,” I told him.
“But it was real! People die! And they look gross! Dad looked gross!” CJ began full-on sobbing.
I didn’t know what to do. Not that I ever did, but it was paralyzing seeing my normally brash and annoying tween brother turn into a blubbering little kid. Then things got even worse. AJ began crying, too.
“What’s going on?” I panicked.
“Don’t you ever think about him, Alex? Don’t you miss him?”
Dad. I rarely heard them talk about Dad, not in a way that expressed any sadness.
“Of course I do,” I admitted.
“Then how come you never talk about him?” CJ sniffed.
“What do you want me to say? Remember when Dad got mangled in a taxi?”
Wrong again. CJ exploded like a four-year-old who lost his blankey.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I fumbled. “I do miss him. I loved him so much. He was my dad. Our dad. He was funny. And smart. And he listened and taught us things and now he’ll never be here to teach us anything else. Like how to make my gigantic brothers feel better when they’re crying next to me on the couch.” I pressed back my own tears, until AJ started laughing.
“We’re not gigantic,” he snuffled.
Somehow that made more tears escape from my eyes. “To me you are. You sure you guys weren’t adopted?” I joked.
“You’re the death-loving weirdo,” CJ noted.
“I don’t love death,” I defended myself.
“Then why do you watch this stuff?” He waved his hand at the blackened television.
“Because it’s not death. It’s ridiculous. It’s fake and it’s controlled and it’s hilarious and girls like me can kick zombie ass, that’s why. Because in the movies, I could stop Dad from getting in a cab and turning into shrapnel.”
AJ and CJ just looked at me. I didn’t know if they got the full impact of my confession, that even making a confession was one of the hardest things I could do.
“What’s shrapnel?” CJ asked.
“Never mind. That’s not important.” I rubbed my eyes. “You guys want to watch something else?”
“We never got to watch this week’s
Wipeout
,” AJ hinted.
“Big balls it is.” I switched on
Wipeout
, and my heart warmed at the sight and sound of my brothers laughing at others’ stupidity.
It wasn’t a direct lesson from my dad, and it was about the most sour lemonade I could have made out of lemons, but his death forced me to have a real talk with my brothers for maybe the first time ever. And for the first time in forever, some of my guilt finally lifted.
That night, my mom home, the twins in bed, I sent a text to Leo.
I want to say I’m sorry, but I don’t know how.
Those words, “I’m sorry,” felt so contrived to me for so long and yet I knew they were important. What Leo did with them was up to him.
SNOW FELL STEADILY
on my way to work Saturday, and I gripped the steering wheel to the point of hand cramps. Drivers ed never prepared me for skidding sideways uncontrollably until my possessed car decided to stop inches from a stop sign. Not to mention how other people drove like complete assholes. I don’t know how many times I yelled into my rearview mirror, “Two car lengths, dickwad!” There were very few things I feared, and driving in snow was one of them. My mom claimed it would get better with practice, but since it didn’t snow year-round, how could I ever stay on top of it? I’d either have to move to Antarctica to have snow all the time or the equator to never have it. But I liked the seasons.
I arrived at work shaking and dripping in sweat.
“Did you run here?” asked Ila. She wore fingerless gloves, as the front counter received a lot of the draft from the opening door.
I peeled my scarf away from my neck and shivered at the newly exposed wetness. “Snowshoed, actually.” I hung my jacket up in the back room and pulled my grungy work t-shirt out of my schoolbag. Before I re-smoothed my hair into a low ponytail and tucked a towel into my waistband, I checked my phone. No reply from Leo. Using Becca’s positive thinking, I told myself he probably slept in. Using my usual apocalyptic brand of thinking, I guessed he barfed on the word “sorry” and had his phone number changed.
Since it was only 10:00 a.m., the lunch rush was still to come, although on a snowy day there could either be a ton of people who didn’t want to cook or just a trickle of customers. Enough people lived within walking distance, and walking around in the snow was a lot easier than driving. I passed the time by refilling the mayo and mustard squeeze bottles, restocking cheese, and arguing with Doug about the greatest sequels of all time.
“Aside from the obvious
Evil Dead
and
Basket Case
, I think
A Nightmare on Elm Street
3 was really good,” I said.
“I haven’t even seen that. I’m sure it sucks. Commercial crap.”
“Aren’t we all pretentious, Mr. College Student? You can’t judge a movie you haven’t seen. We’re talking teens in a mental hospital. At one point, Freddy pulls out some kid’s tendons and works him like a marionette. Brilliant.”
I was so busy making my obviously winning point that it took me a few minutes to notice Leo watching me on the other side of the counter. He wore a gray winter hat this time with his black winter coat. Not that I noticed. His cheeks were red from where the falling snow burned them.
“You know nothing,” I told Doug as I budged past him toward Leo. “Hey,” I greeted him, hopefulness practically exploding off my face.
“Hey.” He leaned on the counter, as was his usual position here. It had been so long, though, did he actually have a usual position?
“Thank you for the text,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” I offered. It seemed like enough to start the flow of conversation.
“How’s Becca doing?” He surprised me with the question, even though it was what a nice person would ask. She did have cancer, and she did once barf in his general direction.
“She’s okay. Chemo is over, but she’s in radiation which seems to also suck. She’s really weak.” I didn’t like the sound of that, since Becca was trying to kick cancer’s ass. “I mean, she’s tough, but it’s never-ending. I still don’t understand why the treatment is so unbelievably cruel. She passed one hundred days. Sick for one hundred fucking days.”
“Seriously? That long? I feel like this year has gone on for ten years.”
That wasn’t good. I was part of his extra-long year. So was his brother, I knew, but if only I had been there for him when I should have, maybe it wouldn’t have felt so long.
“So how are you?” I asked. The dumbest question in the universe. Still working on moving along the conversation.
Leo shrugged, an appropriately ambiguous answer. The awful thing was that I really wanted to know how he was, and that was one of the things that kept me from talking to him since his brother’s death. The longer I waited, the less we’d have to say, the more blanks no one wanted to fill in. Those blanks could be sadder than that ridiculously sad movie I sent to laughless Becca.
“How are
you
?” Leo asked back.
“Okay,” I answered. “I hate this snow. I mean, I actually love it aesthetically and how quiet it makes everything at three a.m., but I’m terrified of driving in it,” I admitted.
“You? Terrified of something? You’re full of surprises today.”
“Full of them? What else?” I asked.
“I think that might have been the first time you asked me how I am. Ever.” He was serious.
“It’s not because I don’t want to know. It’s just such a contrived question. I usually figure if someone really wants to tell me how they are they’ll just tell me. No need to pull it out of them.”
“You are abnormal.” Leo studied me.
“Thank you,” I answered dryly.
“Sometimes I think you might be a robot. Or an alien. At least genetically engineered somehow,” Leo said.
“That would explain my freakish elbow dimples.”
“Or how you could just stop talking to someone after what we had.”
So it was time to talk about that.
“Can we go sit at a table?” I asked, noticing that the lack of customers made Leo and me center stage for my fellow sub makers.
Leo didn’t answer but led the way to a table, the same table where we first sat months ago. I wished I could say life was simpler back then, but it seemed like life was never going to be simple. Maybe if we were Amish. He shrugged off his jacket and flipped it over the back of his chair, which I took as a positive sign compared to the coffee shop. His hat stayed on, probably to keep his newly shorn head warm. The hat made him look snuggly, and I had the urge to lean over and rub it. I resisted, knowing we weren’t there yet, nor did I know if we would ever be again.
Leo looked at me intently, and I knew he expected me to speak. It was he who had come to my work, though, and I hadn’t prepared anything. The text was a huge step for me, and I hadn’t yet figured out what would follow it. I convinced myself I’d probably never hear from Leo again.
Yet here he was.
He kicked back in his chair and slung one arm over the back, his eyes never leaving my face. Feigning confidence, I continued to meet his eyes, which had the uncomfortable effect of making me want to touch him again. Even though I stopped talking to Leo, even though I totally fled when he probably needed me most, and even though I made it a point to move on with my semblance of a life, I couldn’t dispute the fact that I. Liked. Leo.
Shit.
It was so much easier being with guys I didn’t like. Davis went off to join the army, and I hadn’t thought about him since. For all I knew, he was dead, too, right alongside Leo’s brother.
Leo’s brother. Right then it hit me what it could have been like if I were with someone like Leo when my dad died. I doubt he would have left me out of fear like Davis left me.
Like I left him.
“I am such an asshole,” I said, not quite meaning to, aloud.
Leo didn’t disagree.
“I was your Davis,” I decided. “I should just go off and join the army.”
“Who’s Davis? And there’s no way you’re joining the army.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I argued.
“You seriously want to join the army? All five feet of you?”
“I’m five foot two, and, well, no. I don’t want to join the army. I just need to stop speaking.”
“You already did that, remember?” Leo looked smug.
“What are you doing here, Leo? I have no idea what to say to you. I’m not going to apologize anymore because I did that and apologies are really just bullshit to make the apologizer feel better. And I don’t deserve to feel better. I should feel like absolute, total shit. I deserve someone to take out my tendons and parade me around like a marionette.”
“Diarrhea mouth, can you plug it for a second?”
The thought of having plugged diarrhea in my mouth shut me up.
“I’m not looking for another apology—” Leo started, but I cut him off.
“I don’t know what to give you. I have nothing to say that will make anything better. Nothing is going to bring Jason back, and it’s totally my fault.” Wait. What?
“Alex, how could Jason’s death be your fault?” Leo unhooked his arm from the chair and put his hand on the table near mine, but not touching.
“I don’t think I meant that. I mean, of course I didn’t.” I picked at a jagged fingernail.
“Do you think your dad’s death was your fault?”
“No,” I argued. “But I just don’t get it. Any of it. I don’t want any more real horror in my life. There’s nothing funny about actual death and disease. If only my dad could come back because of a rabid monkey at the zoo.” I laughed to myself at the ridiculous horror movie sentiment.
“Or as a reanimated prostitute,” Leo added.
“Maybe we should have buried them in pet cemeteries,” I suggested.
“That never ends well,” Leo admitted. I had never joked about my dad’s death with someone, not someone who had a death of their own to joke about.
“Do you believe things happen for a reason?” Leo brought the conversation back to serious.
“No,” I answered emphatically.
“Me neither,” he concurred. “I can’t buy the idea that we’re supposed to live and learn from horrible things. That somehow these things happen so we can grow as people.”
“I hope nothing else happens to you,” I told him, “because you have done enough growing.” I held my hand over my head acknowledging his exceptional height.
“Maybe that’s why shit
does
keep happening to you. Because you need to grow. Shorty.”
“That was quite possibly the lamest insult anyone has ever bestowed upon me.”
“Forgive me. I’m out of practice. Being away from everyone except your depressed parents will do that to you.”
“That sucks,” I said. “You should come back to school. Better of two evils? I’m there.” I prodded.
“So that would make school the bigger of two evils.” Leo smiled, and one of his fingers stroked one of mine. My toes wiggled.
“Alex! A little help here!” I hadn’t noticed that the snowy eaters had arrived, and a line was backing up.
“I guess I have to go work.” I rolled my eyes.
“That is what they pay you for.” Leo stood as I did.
“I thought it was for my bubbly personality and smaller-than-average butt.”
“Imagine the tips if you had an even average-sized butt.”
“You’re lucky I still feel guilty, or I might have to hit you.” I started walking behind the counter.
Leo grabbed my arm. “No more guilt, okay?”
I nodded weakly. Guilt was the one thing I’d held on to for everyone. “So you’re saying I shouldn’t blame myself for you smoking again?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Let’s say you were a coconspirator, but I was the mastermind.”
“I can live with that.”
“Good.”
“Alex!” Doug yelled again. “I need more meat!”
“Should I be jealous?” Leo asked.
“I wouldn’t mind if you were.” I almost felt coquettish, if such a thing were possible. We both smiled.
“Alex! Meat! Now!” Doug harassed me.
“Better go give Doug his meat. See you in school?” I suggested. “There’s a book closet that misses you terribly.”