by Mere Joyce
I study Kayla, both missing and hating the way I used to be. Both hating and admiring the way she is now.
“We could ask him, or we could get rid of the boots altogether,” she says, oblivious to my silent judgments and internal accusations.
With a sigh, I grab a garbage bag and toss the boots inside before we spend any more time thinking about old footwear — and before I spend any more time thinking of how my cousin’s lifestyle no longer aligns with my own. Forrester might be pissed if he ever notices the boots are gone. But they’re gross, and he’s not up to choosing the fate of every single item in the cottage, anyway.
Boots are boots. If he’s upset, I’ll buy him a new pair myself.
“I found Nolan trying to sneak a glance at his phone earlier.” Kayla smiles as we dump the boots in the garbage. “He stole it back from my bag. He doesn’t think anyone’s noticed.”
“He’s pretty attached to that thing.” I smirk.
She nods. “My dad would call it smitten.”
My serious stare lasts for about half a second before I start to laugh. “Mine would say the exact same thing.”
“They look alike, that’s what’s so weird about it,” Kayla says, her face falling.
I glance at her, confused. “Who looks alike, Thomas and Nolan?”
“Well, yes, but no … I mean our fathers,” she says. I drop the garbage bag and focus on Kayla’s expression. Her brown eyes are sad, but the amber speck in her right iris still shines like a miniature star in the galaxy of her face. “They’re all different, but they look so much the same,” she explains. “At the funeral … at first I tried so hard not to look at Simon. But eventually I did. I saw him, and he looked ugly and dead. But he looked like my dad, too. He could have been my dad. He could have been yours. It’s not like Simon was the oldest, after all. It’s not like any of them are old.”
“Grandma and Grandpa died young, too.” The thought comes from nowhere, but I can’t stop it getting loose from my tongue. “Young enough, anyway. We didn’t even get to meet them.”
“I know, it’s so terrible,” Kayla sighs.
“It’s bullshit,” I spit, my lips drawn tight. “It’s bullshit for kids to not even meet their grandparents. And it’s bullshit for a teenager to lose his dad.” I pause, surveying the mudroom. “And it’s bullshit that brothers have to get so worked up over some stupid piece of history they can’t even be bothered to help clean up after one of them is gone!”
I kick the garbage bag at my feet.
“Your parents didn’t offer to come and help, either?” Kayla asks.
“No, they didn’t,” I say. I expected they would, but I was wrong. “My dad barely made it through the stupid day, seeing his brother like that. But he’s been so busy trying to decide what it all means to him, he hasn’t given a single damn thought as to what it means for everyone else. My mother’s shut herself off, focusing on Marissa and Liam and pretending nothing’s happened. When I told them where I was going this weekend, they got mad at me for ditching work. Can you believe it? Because serving people burgers is more important than helping family.”
“That’s horrible,” Kayla says, shaking her head. “But then again, mine weren’t much better. They didn’t get mad, but …”
She sighs, the tired gesture explanation enough. I offer a single nod of agreement before turning to leave the mudroom. My parents are messed up, but so are hers. It’s not exactly a comfort, but there is some relief in not being the only one crushed with disappointment over the inaction of her creators.
I storm down the hall, but my temper cools as I pull open the door to the first-floor powder room and am confronted with the next task to accomplish. I’m grateful to see this room only needs a quick tidy. I’ll deal with grease burns and pissy customers for hours without complaint, but cleaning bathrooms is not my idea of time well spent.
I wipe down the mirror, and Kayla volunteers to clean the toilet. Cleaning supplies are stashed under the sink, so once I’ve finished the mirror, I turn on the tap and swirl the water with foaming solution.
“Hailey, do you know anything about what tore them all apart?” Kayla asks as I stare at the porcelain before me. Her words are a continuation of the conversation I tried to abandon in the mudroom, and the question is equal parts unexpected and anticipated. After all, I asked Allison the same thing only a couple of hours ago.
“My dad said something about family, once,” I mumble. I didn’t tell Allison this. I didn’t think of it until now. Maybe Kayla’s drawn it out of me because she feels less like a stranger. “I know that sounds pointless … a family fight being about family, big fucking surprise! But he wasn’t talking about his brothers. He said something about someone not being family. I can’t remember much about it. It was years ago, I guess right about the time the fight happened. My parents thought I was asleep, and they were arguing. My mother said something about having sympathy, and my dad said he did, but that it wasn’t his fault, and it didn’t change anything.”
“Did they say anything else?”
Kayla finishes scrubbing the toilet. I turn off the tap and eye her in the mirror.
“No.” I shake my head and bend forward to wipe down the sink. “Liam started crying, and my mother left, and my dad turned on the TV. And then I guess I probably did fall asleep. It doesn’t help much, but I used to be curious who he was talking about.”
I’m curious about it now, the old scene playing through my head as I clean the sink and dry it off with paper towel. Shit, I hate the heaviness of this whole weekend. I didn’t expect two days of sun, sand, and fun, but I didn’t plan on feeling so many ups and downs all weekend, either. I want to call one of my hookups. Damien, maybe. He’s so self-centered he wouldn’t ask how I was feeling or whether I wanted to talk about it. I’d like the distraction of his pushy hands and skilled tongue.
But he’s at home, as likely as not hungover and maybe using his skills on one of the other girls he thinks I know nothing about. So, I stuff the remaining paper towel back under the sink and follow Kayla out into the hall.
If my dad and his brothers hadn’t fought — if they’d stayed a happy family — things would be so much different now. Shirley might still have left, but at least Simon wouldn’t have let his health suffer if he’d had the support of his brothers and the company of everyone around him. Or, maybe I know fuck all, and he really was supposed to go when he was supposed to go. But even if he was destined to die, the aftermath would make more sense if my eighteen-year-old cousin didn’t have to be so damn alone.
Mental powers tingling, I walk into the living room and see Forrester standing in the back doorway, a towel around his waist, his hair wet and clinging to his face. His eyes are obscured by the fringes of his bangs, and I can’t tell what he’s looking at. I hope it’s not at me. In this moment, I can’t fake a smile or attempt a lighthearted remark about his dripping a puddle of water on the wooden floor. If I try to open my mouth now, I’ll say something stupid. Or worse, I’ll start crying for no fucking reason at all.
My problems mean jack. He’s the one with something real to cry about, and he’s standing across from me, trying to keep himself together. I refuse to be the cause of him losing the few stitches he’s managed to sew.
“Dude, I just scrubbed that floor so hard I could see my reflection in it,” Thomas says, his voice deadpan.
He stands in the kitchen, and his words surround me like a comforting blanket. No more thanking the stars for Thomas. I’m going to have to give my thanks to Keesik Aski — the entire sky world.
“Sorry.” Forrester shrugs.
He offers Thomas a wry smile before dashing across the living room and taking the stairs up two at a time. I swallow down breath after breath, staring at the water on the floor as I wait for my nerves to settle. I stand like that until Forrester reappears on the upper balcony, his hair still wet but his bat
hing suit exchanged for dry clothes.
“Better?” he asks.
Thomas offers an approving nod.
“Okay,” I say, dropping our mudroom garbage bag by the back door as I force myself to get a grip on my sappy sentimentality. I cross the room and step down into the sunken square of the living area. “I think we’ve covered this storey.” Flopping onto the couch, I peel a couple of hair ties off my wrist before pulling free my braid and looping the hair into two quick pigtails hung low against my shoulders. “What should we tackle next?”
“Well, it might be best to get the shed out of the way,” Forrester suggests as he bounds down the stairs. “Before it gets dark.”
I slump into the cushions, my nose wrinkled. “I was hoping you’d have forgotten about the shed.”
“You’ve always hated it out there.” Kayla smiles. “When we used to play hide-and-seek, the shed was the safest place to hide when you were the one in charge of seeking.”
“It’s full of bats,” I grumble.
“And bugs,” Allison adds, her voice tinged with excitement.
I quirk a brow at her interested expression.
“You hated the bugs,” I remind her.
Allison blushes. “I thought I was supposed to,” she mumbles, her tone almost apologetic. “I thought girls had to be afraid of bugs.”
“I take it you’re not afraid of them now?” Thomas asks.
Eli scoffs. “Ali’s not afraid of anything. You should see her collection of snail shells.”
“Ew, snails?”
I give her a disgruntled look, and Allison smirks.
“They’re gorgeous creatures,” she says.
“They’re gross,” I argue.
“They’re beautiful,” she says with a serious edge.
“They’re delicious,” Thomas pipes in.
“You’ve never had snails in your life,” Nolan says.
“Fine. But I’m sure they’d be delicious,” he amends.
Allison scowls at him. Sweeps of blond hair have escaped from her ponytail, and she brushes the strands back behind her ear.
“You’re as bad as Nathan,” she mutters, tugging at the bottom of her sweater before she heads for the back door.
“Who’s Nathan?” I ask, my smile mischievous.
“A friend,” Allison says.
Eli snorts, and Allison turns her glare on him.
“What, have you broken up again?” he asks.
Her cheeks flush an angry pink.
“Maybe we have,” she snaps. “So what?”
“For fuck’s sake, Ali.” Eli looks pissed at his sister, and Allison’s boyish body tenses under his remonstrance. “Let the guy go, will you? You break up with him every other month, and then give into him and start dating again.”
“It’s none of your business,” Allison seethes.
“You don’t care about him, and he’s mad about you. Give him a break!”
I’m torn between regretting my question and loving the sibling drama now unfolding before us.
“I care about him plenty,” Allison replies. She sounds almost hurt by her brother’s comment, which is surprising after all of the furious back and forth between them. “But I don’t love him, and he knows it. When he gets too close, I break it off. He understands the drill, and if he wants to go through it all again, why should I care? It’s not like I’m —”
She trails off as Eli’s stare flashes in warning.
“It’s pretty much the same damn thing, Ali,” he growls.
Allison blinks, her eyes glossed over with unshed tears.
“I can’t believe you’d say that,” she mumbles, her voice tight.
Eli shrugs, turning his back on her. His shoulders are tense as he leaves the house, and I watch him through the windows until he curves out of sight, headed in the direction of the shed. Allison stands in the living room for a moment, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. She doesn’t look at any of us. She stares after her brother too, and then follows him outside, the back door slamming shut behind her.
“What the hell was that all about?” Thomas asks.
I glance around at the others, unable to hide my amusement. I’m used to temper tantrums. I’ve thrown enough of them myself, and I’ve got two younger siblings to boot.
“Should we join them?” Kayla asks, uncertain.
She’s not sure if it’s acceptable for us to interfere with their fight, and she doesn’t want to be rude. But I’m not about to let two bickering siblings delay the work we have to finish on a tight deadline. I’m kind of interested to find out more, anyway. I want to know what secret these two have been keeping.
“Yeah, let’s go,” I say, my voice dripping with disdain only partially forced. “Let’s tackle the stupid shed.”
Eli
Great. Now we look like stars of our own daytime soap.
Me and my
stupid temper.
I can’t help myself.
Ali’s one step away from ruining that boy’s life
with her careless
attitude, her lack of regard for the
fragility
of his heart.
She’s one step away from being like Dad, and I can’t deal
with two of them
in one family.
I don’t think she gets it.
If she ends up like him, I’m cutting her out.
I don’t want to lose my sister, but I’ve got enough shit to
stress about
without the chaos
of her mistakes.
I wish she’d stop dragging Nathan around
like some kind of sad teddy bear.
Maybe it’ll happen soon. One more year
and they’ll be forced to separate.
Ali wants to travel. He won’t follow her from country to country,
hanging around while she studies insects
and chases after storms.
At least,
I fucking hope
he won’t.
It’s still only the afternoon.
Time is creeping
like one of the bugs in the shed.
I’m so sick of being here,
being stuck
somewhere me and my sister
can’t even
properly
fight.
I’m sick of these people I don’t care about
being so near
the embarrassing drama
of my life.
One more day.
By this time tomorrow, Dad will have picked Ali up.
I’m not happy with the arrangement. It’s a waste
of time and gas money for us to leave separately.
But at least it means I’ll be free
to go home alone.
Twenty-four hours,
and I can leave this place
for good.
Kayla
THE MID-AFTERNOON SUN SHINES bright and warm as we join the twins by the shed. Allison leans against the wooden boards painted in peeling white, while Eli is slumped to the ground, his finger tracing absent shapes in the dirt by his feet. They’re both silent, their lips drawn in identical tight lines. As I approach, I stare away from them, studying the shed to avoid making any awkward eye contact.
Luckily, the shed, like everything else here, offers enough in the way of memory to distract me. Even as I turn to study its worn exterior, an old thought flickers in my head, and despite the gravity this moment should be settled in, my cheeks flush with happy embarrassment as a muted giggle escapes my throat.
Forrester’s glance is perplexed, but his confusion only makes me laugh harder.
“What’s so funny?” Hailey asks.
; I wave her question away, trying to straighten my lips into a serious line.
“Nothing. It’s nothing.” I look at Forrester and lose the battle against my grin. “The Shed People,” I say.
It takes only a few seconds before he, too, breaks into a smile. A real smile, one reaching all the way to his eyes. For the look alone I want to hug the shed and its childish recollections.
“I still can’t believe how much that freaked you out,” he says, remembering the incident as quickly as I did when I took in the shed’s old, familiar shape. “It was the dumbest lie I could have told you, and I didn’t even mean for it to be scary.”
“Who are the Shed People?” Allison asks.
Her eyes are tired, and the coloring in her cheeks is off, but she and Eli are not, for the moment, yelling. Her twin doesn’t look at us. He keeps his head down, his finger still trailing designs in the earth.
“I told Kayla that people lived in this shed,” Forrester explains. This memory is one of the few I have of the cottage that the others are not a part of. We didn’t always spend time here as a complete extended family. Sometimes Forrester would have been here with only his parents, and sometimes just one or two of his uncles would have made it up for a week or even a weekend. “I said they only came outside at night, so we never got to see them. And she got massively scared.”
“Think about it. Creepy night dwellers stalking about in the dark. It’s like vampires or something,” I say, trying to defend my pathetic childhood delusions. I think about the nights I spent watching the stairs leading down to the basement, sure someone was sneaking around the cottage in the dark. Even now, I can’t sleep without the curtains drawn over my window at night. I have a paranoid suspicion I’ll look over to see someone standing outside, despite the fact my room at home is on the second floor.
“Speaking of vampires,” Thomas says. He motions toward the shed, where Runner and Star are sniffing at the door. “Look, Hailey, there’s probably something living in there now. Maybe Kayla’s fears were well founded.”
