But he stopped.
Daniels stopped just short of slamming his car into the tree. He’s crying into his hands. He doesn’t check to see if I’m alright. I don’t hesitate. I reach into his glove compartment and take out the key for the handcuffs. I free my broken wrist and hold it against my body. I use my good hand to handcuff Daniels to his steering wheel. I grab the keys from the ignition and get out of the car.
He doesn’t even notice I am gone.
And I walk.
I walk all the way to the police station.
I don’t use my cell phone.
I walk three miles in my turtle pajamas, holding my broken wrist.
Chapter Fifty-One
Ed:
Saying goodbye to my mother was rough, but she didn’t cry. I love her for that. She didn’t make me feel guilty. I apologized. I told her I was sorry I couldn’t stay. I just had to get out of here for a while. I told her I was sorry I was like my father.
She laughed. “You think you’re like your father? Hell, that’s an insult. You’re just like me, kid. You think I wasn’t a little messed up myself? We’re all some kind of messed up. When you accept that and get alright with who you are, you won’t want to run anymore. Some people are never alright with who they are. You can’t save them either. It’s a damn tragedy, but you ain’t one of those people, kid.”
I pray she’s right. I insisted that I wait for the bus alone. I didn’t expect Brett to show up. But when does that girl ever fail to surprise me? She saunters up to me and flashes me one of those rare, genuine smiles. I can’t smile back. She’s wearing her turtle pajamas and her arm is in a sling.
“You thinking of leaving without saying goodbye?” she asks, raising her eyebrow. There are dark circles under her eyes. Her hair is wildly curly like she slept on wet hair. It’s the most beautiful disaster I have ever seen.
“What…what happened? Are you alright?” If she tells me no, I will stay. It won’t be good for either of us, but I will stay.
“Oh? This? Nothing. I’ll tell you about it one day,” she replies casually. Too casually. “So…you were really going without saying goodbye?” she asks, working hard to keep her voice light.
I clear my throat. “Thought we sort of did that last night.” I can feel my cheeks flush just at the thought of last night. I want to reach for her, but I can control myself.
“What? Did something happen last night?” she jokes.
God, I will miss her.
“Where you going, Ed?”
“Um…the bus is going to D.C.”
She shakes her head and takes a step closer to me. The bus station smells like piss and booze, but I can still faintly smell her perfume. “That’s not what I meant. Where you going?”
It’s another one of her deep, direct questions. One of the questions I always struggle to answer. I answer the best I can, knowing it might not be the answer she is looking for. “I don’t know.”
Brett grins. “Figured your answer would be something like that.”
“Are you sure you are okay?” I ask, pointing to her wrist.
She shrugs. “I mean, I’m not great, but I’m better.”
“Good.” I rock back and forth on my heels, just staring at her. The girl who changed my world. And then I’m talking so fast, I can barely make sense of it myself. “I’m a jackass. The worst human being in the whole world. I knew I wasn’t ready for you. For us. But I just wanted you so much. I don’t know how to be a boyfriend. I barely know how to live in my own skin. I’m messed up, but damn, that doesn’t excuse what I did to you. I should have left you alone.”
Brett laughs, running her undamaged hand through her wild hair. “I wouldn’t let you leave me alone. And you’re not a bad person. There’s no such thing. Just bad choices. Besides, neither of us was ready for this. For us.”
“You don’t have to make excuses for me. What I did—”
“What you did royally sucked, but you’ll have to live with that longer than me. We’re not some characters in a novel, Ed. We’re flawed. No more than Wendell is an evil place. It can get better too. I didn’t come to your room last night to prove some point. I came because I love you despite all the messy parts.”
My eyes burn with unshed tears at her words, and I feel like a bigger schmuck than I did before.
She holds out her hand. “Take care, Ed.”
It’s my turn to laugh. “We’re really going to shake hands?”
She smiles. Again. She pushes her hand toward me, and I shake it. Before she leaves, she turns to look at me. “I will miss you, Ed.”
“I’ll miss you too.”
It’s not a cinematic ending, but it’s the perfect ending for us.
Two Years Later
Brett:
“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?”
My brother has been dead for two years. It’s my senior year, and I know I should be thinking about things like prom and graduation, but there are days, days like today, where he is all I can think about.
I snatch Donnie’s Starbucks from his hand and take a gulp. When my throat doesn’t feel like sand paper, I turn to him. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately.”
Donnie takes his coffee and takes a sip, sitting back in his plastic chair. He nudges his cafeteria tray my way. “Want a French toast stick?”
“I tell you I’m thinking about my dead brother, and you ask me if I want your breakfast?” I ask, throwing my napkin at his chest.
Donnie rolls his eyes. “You know I’m not good at this existential crap. Look, you’re ending your time here at Wendall High, so of course you have endings on the mind. All ends are the same. Finality. Questions. Emptiness. Don’t dwell on it.”
I nod and begin to nibble on the toast.
Easier said than done. I still don’t understand Tristan’s reasons for leaving. I’ll probably never understand. I have made my peace with that. I know it had to be more than some show of suffocation from feeling like he had to keep the secret of his sexuality. Because gay or straight, that wasn’t all he was.
I know it wasn’t just because he was heartbroken. I don’t wish such a thing on anyone, but having had my heart broken, I learned one thing—you can live through it. Besides, Ed and I loved him. He was loved.
Donnie reaches forward and grabs my hand. He sighs, pulling me from my thoughts. “Look, something in him didn’t want to fight. Life is hard. There are billions of people who have it much harder, but that’s little comfort to those who suffer from depression.”
“I had no idea my brother was depressed,” I admitted. I loved the parts of my brother that he let me see. I just wish he’d felt brave enough to talk about the parts he felt needed to be hidden. “I will miss him every day of forever,” I say, giving Donnie’s hand a squeeze, “but I will never understand.”
Maybe his poem was invoking me to do what he could not—fight back, live.
After my incident with Officer Daniels, people treated me a little like Ed. They pretended that I didn’t exist at all. It wasn’t so bad. They just wished I had left things alone. They loved having my brother to mourn, a symbol to rally behind. All they saw now was a dead gay kid.
How could a son of Wendall kill himself?
Unheard of. He had everything.
One day, I got suspended. Yes, me. I made my own t-shirt to wear to school. On the front of the t-shirt, I put a picture of my brother. Under his picture, the word Fag. On the back was the complete word history of the word—origin, definition, variations. I don’t know that anyone got it. But I did, and that’s all that really mattered. Fag was just a word. It wasn’t my brother.
He was so many things.
But that’s all any of them could talk about.
My dead gay brother.
When Donnie showed up at school the next day wearing the same shirt, we were both called into the office. We were told the shirts were offensive and were asked not to wear them again. We both wore them the very next day.
/> Suspended.
My father yelled. My mother tried to stand up for me. They fought all the time.
But then everything settled down. It would never go back to how it was before, but it settled. When I went to lunch the first day back from my suspension, I sat at the table where Ed sat. No one would sit next to me.
I didn’t mind.
It just felt different.
After the first day, things got a little bit easier.
Life got a little more manageable.
I could finally breathe.
Last week, I found the Christmas present I bought for Tristan—the first edition copy of The Fountainhead. Donnie and I are reading it every day at lunch.
It’s a pretty good book.
Thanks for the suggestion, Tristan.
Three Years Later
Ed:
I haven’t been home in five years. So, to say I am a little nervous as I walk up toward the house is a bit of an understatement. It’s not like I haven’t seen my mother in five years. I made it a point to meet up with my mom at least twice a year.
Just never in Wendall.
That place, like it or not, was home. I wasn’t ready to go back, even for a visit. I would only go back when I felt alright—alright with everything that happened and everything I did.
My mom had a kid three years back. I have a brother. It’s a little unreal. I hope he can forgive me for missing so much of his childhood. I’m ready to be a brother now.
I’m ready.
I haven’t actually talked to Brett or seen her since the bus station. I sent her a couple postcards. When I worked on the farm in Iowa, I sent her a card. That was two years ago, and the first time I felt comfortable contacting her. I didn’t write a novel or anything. I told her I was doing better. I told her I liked working with my hands. I told her I missed her.
Maybe it wasn’t fair of me to contact her. She didn’t write anything back. Instead, she sent me a used copy of The Fountainhead.
I know Mom works till seven, so I reach for the spare key. I like the idea of getting used to the house again before she comes home with Lincoln. My brother.
Wow.
I have a brother.
I set my duffle bag down by the door. I close my eyes and inhale. It still smells the same. The house is the same. I’m the one who is different.
I’m happy.
I’m ok.
I decide to relax a little and watch TV before checking out my former room. One step at a time, let myself reconnect with this place.
But then I see her.
Brett.
She’s curled up on the couch with my little brother snuggled protectively in her arms. They’re both asleep. Their faces are flushed from the Georgia summer heat.
I still think she’s the most beautiful girl in the world. Just the sight of her causes my knees to buckle a little. I figured, or hoped, I would get to see Brett sometime soon. I just didn’t expect it to be this soon.
My little brother shifts and his eyes open. He stares at me. I’ve met him, and I know my mom has shown him pictures, but he’s staring like he’s trying to decide my future. Is he going to let me into his life? He snuggles closer to Brett and her arms automatically tighten around him. He pulls on her hair.
“Go back to sleep, Link,” she mumbles. He pulls again. “You hungry?” she asks, still keeping her eyes closed.
I take a seat in the chair opposite them. I want to watch. I want her to teach me how to be a sibling.
“You know you have to take a bath, right? And I don’t want any yelling. Your brother comes home tonight.”
She opens her eyes. The smallest of gasps escapes from her lips. Her eyes widen. Her shield is only down for a second, but I see her. And God, I missed her.
Lincoln—Link looks from me to her to me and back to her. She’s the judge. She’s the one he trusts. I am thankful she has been here for him. Mom told me Brett sometimes babysat. I can see it’s more than that. She loves my brother. She wants to keep him safe.
He loves her too.
I love her even more. I didn’t think that was possible.
Brett sits up and pulls Link closer to her. She stage whispers into his ear, “What do you think about this strange man, Link?”
Link giggles. “He not strange man. He my brother.” Link jumps off her lap and runs to me, throwing his arms open for a hug. I kiss the top of his head and look up at Brett. I can’t stop looking at her. It’s always been a physical need. Chemical. She offers me the brightest smile I have seen in years.
I walk Brett to her car when my mom gets home. My mom asks her to stay for dinner, but she declines.
Brett leans against Tristan’s beat up car. “You’re looking good, Edward.”
“Is it cliché for me to say you’re looking good too?”
She laughs. “Not any more cliché than me saying it first.”
It feels weird for things to be so easygoing. Not weird. Just….
“Hey. What are you doing tomorrow night?” she asks me suddenly.
I shrug.
“Want to come over? I can make dinner. Well, I can make a frozen pizza.”
“Um. Yeah. Sounds great.”
She flashes that brilliant smile at me once more, and I am left breathless.
****
The Jensen household is different than I remember. Brett tells me her father and mother are separated. Well, secretly separated. Her father has his own apartment. Her mom travels all the time. They still take a family Christmas photo.
Her mother isn’t home now.
Traveling.
I can see from the pictures on the mantle that Brett often travels with her mom. I like this. I like to think of the world knowing Brett Jensen.
The second level of the house has become her own apartment. After dinner, she gives me the tour of upstairs. Her room is totally changed. The décor reflects her age—twenty one. Wow, she’s twenty-one.
I want her to tell me about everything I missed.
So many unfamiliar objects scattered in her room. Each one a story, a time I missed in her life. But there’s some of her old life there as well. I see the postcards I sent her tacked onto her mirror, right next to a picture of her and Tristan.
She leads me to what used to be her brother’s room. There is a giant writing desk sitting in the middle of the room, and the walls are covered with pages upon pages of her latest manuscript. She’s a writer. She’s had some success with her first book and is starting her second.
I open a can of beer. I brought a six pack with me thinking I probably needed some liquid encouragement. I have some things to say to her. I offer Brett a can.
“No thanks. I don’t drink,” she says, taking a seat on the floor of her writing room—Tristan’s old room. I sit on the floor across from her. We stare at each other.
She slowly smiles. “What you thinking about, Ed?”
One of those darn questions. I laugh. “God, I missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
“So, you never left Wendall? Never went to college?” I ask, leaning back on my elbows and staring up at the girl who changed my life.
Brett shakes her head. “I had some stuff to take care of here first. Mom and I started therapy. Was actually pretty helpful. And I didn’t want to leave. I like my home. I didn’t want to go to college, so I didn’t. I wanted to be here, and I wanted to write. I’m pretty good at it, actually. Not that I’m not interested in your travels. Not all of us tried the On the Road therapy. How’d that go for you?”
“Good. I feel good.” I take a deep breath. And I start talking. I pull a napkin out of my wallet. Brett raises her eyebrow. “Remember that night when you asked me about losing my virginity?”
“Yes.”
I wait to see a look of accusation or hurt, but there is none.
“Remember what you told me when I dropped you off?”
She nods.
“I get it now. And I want to say something to you. I don’t
expect anything from this. I just need to say it. I went through my whole life not saying the things I wanted to say, afraid of what would happen when I did. Traveling the road, being with myself, I had a lot of time to think. You meet so many different people, so many happy people, and you begin to ask yourself, what would make you happy? There are so many different versions of happiness out there, Brett, it’s just crazy.” I take a deep breath. “I bought a farm right outside of Wendall. Isn’t that crazy? I’m gonna try and run it. It might backfire on me, but who cares? I gotta try for it.”
“Wow. Ed chasing the American Dream. I like,” she says, kicking my foot with her foot. She bites on her bottom lip, and it takes everything in me not to reach for her.
I swallow. And now, for the hard part. “I want to tell you I remembered you. I want to tell you I believe every word you said to me as if they are my own.” I toss the napkin—where I’d written down Brett’s words five years ago—across the room. I know these words by heart: “I’ll always remember you. I’ll remember you every time I kiss someone. I’ll remember you every time I’m brave enough to enter into a new relationship. I will remember you on my wedding day. You are the first person I loved.”
Brett is quiet for a long time. Maybe I should leave. I don’t expect anything from her. I just needed her to know.
Brett clears her throat. “You forgot the last part.”
“What?”
She grabs my hand. “Maybe we will work out. Maybe we won’t. Either way, you’ll always be part of me. And there is nothing you can do to change that.” She leans over and kisses me lightly on the lips. It’s a start. It’s more than I hoped for. Who knows what will happen next month or next year? I remember the book Brett sent me.
You can’t love anyone unless you love yourself. And sometimes, loving yourself feels damn near impossible.
Maybe we will work out, and maybe we won’t. Either way, I’m not running.
The End
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The Language of Silence Page 20
