“I want to see this one,” she said simply. She turned on her heel to exit the dressing room and return to the full length mirrors. Gracie followed dutifully behind, already assuming her maid of honor duties by lifting the extra material out of the way.
As the two of them passed by me, Gracie stuck her tongue out at me with a wink. “Don’t gloat.”
I chuckled and followed them to the center of the common area. Lauren had no sooner resumed her position on the pedestal before one of the salesladies rushed over, practically pushing Gracie aside. Her trained hands bunched and tugged at the excess fabric until it resembled what it might look like if it was truly in her size.
“It’s a beautiful dress,” the woman said as she worked. Even though she was likely commission based and therefore laying it on thick to make the sale, I couldn’t argue with her statement. I was good at what I did, whether or not Gracie thought it was gloating.
The halter style dress was made of ivory satin, slim cut and form-fitting. The bodice was dotted with intricate beading which ended at a charcoal gray sash that tied at the empire waist. There was something about the classic elegance mixed with the unexpected that reminded me so much of Lauren herself that I knew it was perfect. Subconsciously, I’d known this when I’d spotted it on the rack, but seeing it on her confirmed it.
“I have goose bumps,” she whispered.
So did I.
“So very pretty,” the lady continued. She stopped fussing over the dress and held still next to Lauren, trying to duck out of the way as much as possible so that we could see for ourselves. “If you’d like, you can take a picture so that you can show your mother.”
The look Gracie gave that woman was priceless. I half expected her to go into mother hen mode and tell the poor lady off. Lauren’s lower lip trembled and I could see the tears beginning to form under her lashes. Still, she motioned to Gracie that she was in control of the situation and to back the hell off.
“My mother passed away a long time ago,” she explained to the unassuming clerk, “I’d like to think that she’s watching right now.”
“Oh, dear, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. There’s no way you would have known. You didn’t mean anything by it.”
Within seconds, Gracie had produced a tissue from her giant purse and handed it over to Lauren, who took it gratefully. She dabbed at the moisture on her face and composed herself as best as possible. Though I was certain she wasn’t the first person to break down in tears in the middle of a bridal shop, she likely had a different reason than most. I hadn’t thought ahead to the emotions involved in finding the perfect dress; something that traditionally happened when your mother was there to witness it. Knowing Lauren, she likely would have cried without the lady pressing her hand.
“It’s perfect,” Gracie breathed.
Lauren nodded.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to go home and think about it. You’re never going to find another dress like this.”
“Nope. I’m ready. Let’s do this.”
The saleslady breathed a sigh of relief that all was not lost. Crisis averted, she grew more animated as she spoke about the ordering process. She intimated that Lauren should also shop for her accessories now as well, but she demurred. Just the dress was enough for today. Besides, my friend joked, she hadn’t even started wedding planning in earnest.
I snapped a picture of the gown before she changed back into her own clothes, vowing not to ever leave my phone unattended where Matthew could come across it. Though we both knew he wasn’t the snooping type, there was no way either of us wanted to tempt fate and have him see it beforehand. Even if it was a silly superstition, enough had gone wrong in both of their lives in order for her to take those things seriously. She was determined that nothing would mess this up.
Which meant that I would have to be on my best behavior. There was no way that her future sister-in-law would ruin the wedding by having a nervous breakdown over being a bridesmaid instead of the bride.
Chapter Eleven
(Past Tense)
Matthew was right about at least one thing in conjunction with his plan: our father was practically ecstatic to see him move out. Granted, that was a testament to the sorry state of their relationship, but my brother visibly relaxed once Dad assured him that he’d continue to pay his tuition at school. With those small details finalized, he began packing up his stuff almost immediately.
Whatever he’d done with that Sarah lady at the bank was enough to rush him to closing. I shuddered to think what all that encompassed. I only hoped he hadn’t hurt her too badly. Maybe she had no idea that he’d used her and was already on the prowl for his next conquest. Whatever the case, within about two weeks’ time, he was the proud owner of the worst house on the block.
The day of closing, he burst into the family home for what would be the last time, jangling the keys to his new property in my face like they were some sort of trophy. I looked up from my literature textbook and stifled a yawn.
“It’s mine,” he enthused, “and I’m out of here.”
I didn’t quite share in his excitement. To me, his ticket to freedom just seemed like a giant pile of work. He was all about the dream of getting away from under Dad’s thumb. I was looking at things more practically, knowing that the novelty would wear off soon enough and he’d be left with a house in disrepair and a car that wasn’t much better. However, I admired him for not turning up his nose at anything less than perfect. So much for him being the spoiled rich kid. That was one reputation he’d been given that he didn’t deserve. Everything else was probably true.
Chris arrived soon after and helped him clear his room of the boxes that he’d readied. With all of his belongings loaded into the three of our cars, we were able to move him out in one trip. Since our mother was out at one charity function or another and our dad never returned home from the office before sunset, there were no goodbyes to say. He was gone, no traces of him left behind.
In the weeks that followed, his name wasn’t mentioned in the Snyder household. He might as well have been a figment of my parents’ imaginations, though the loss of his presence left a whole in my stomach that I couldn’t fill. Sometimes I would let myself into his old room, now eerily vacant, and sit cross-legged on the carpet remembering what it was like to have him there.
My worst fears were coming true. He was slipping away from me. Just when he’d become someone that I really, truly, enjoyed being around, he’d gone and left. I’d swallowed down my own Mercedes driving pride and hinted that I wouldn’t mind being his roommate in a futile attempt to continue that connection. He’d handily refused. In fact, his negative response to the idea had been so blunt that it had almost physically hurt.
I’d wondered why he hadn’t extended an invitation to Chris, either. With them being best friends he would have been a logical choice for a roommate as well, but the offer never came. That arrangement would have made me feel slightly better, too. But something was going on behind the surface that neither of them would share with me.
Our party of three was fracturing right before my eyes.
That something, not surprisingly enough, was a new woman in Matthew’s life. Where he’d found her I had no clue and the details weren’t important anyway. What mattered was the aftermath that she left behind in her wake. Their relationship was volatile and self-destructive - at least on his account.
He began to skip classes. Sure, everyone in college plays hooky from time to time, but more often than not, he was absent. A couple of times Chris had gone over to his place to check on him, only to find him drunk and strung out, barely able to form a coherent sentence. Chris hadn’t offered up this information easily, instead making me press him for specifics.
At my insistence, I went with him to the latest well-being visit. We’d fought about it quite handily, until I’d barricaded myself in the passenger seat of my old Civic and he’d had no choice but to take me.
“You really don�
�t need to see him like that,” was Chris’s position.
“And you’re not doing anything to help him,” I fired back. “Someone needs to knock some sense into both of your heads.”
“It’s a phase that he’ll grow out of.”
I raised my eyebrow. “If it doesn’t kill him first.”
My prophetic words echoed in my head when we pulled up at his house. I hadn’t thought ahead to how we’d gain entrance. I couldn’t imagine him running to the door to greet us if he was in as bad of shape as Chris had let on. I seriously doubted he even had a doorbell.
But Matthew had left things easy for us. The front door hung wide open, loud music blaring from the interior. At least the utilities were turned on for now. I made quick work to find the source of the noise as soon as we went inside, turning the radio off and relishing the silence. Even that was deafening.
Chris stood and watched me, kicking a couple of beer bottles absentmindedly with his foot. The place was trashed, even more so than the first time I’d seen it. It looked like someone had had a hell of a party here, then had forgotten to clean up before having another.
“Where do you suppose he is?” I stage whispered.
“My guess is back in the bedroom.”
Chris grabbed my hand and escorted me down the hall. We made quite a bit of noise on purpose, not wanting to sneak up on him. I felt kind of guilty showing up at his place unannounced, not even attempting to call beforehand. Then a horrible thought entered my head: what if he wasn’t alone? Even though the only car in the driveway when we’d pulled in was his rusted Pontiac, that didn’t mean that he didn’t have a guest.
Ultimately, what I saw in his bedroom was far worse than him being in the throes of passion with his new lady love. Given the choice, I probably would have preferred that.
Matthew lay naked, facedown upon a mattress on the floor that must have been serving as his makeshift bed. His arm was outstretched, his fingertips dangling just inches away from the neck of yet another beer bottle that had fallen out of reach, its contents spilled out onto the floor. He’d obviously passed out while drinking. And now he laid deathly still.
The room stank of alcohol, weed, sweat and a couple of other aromas I couldn’t put my finger on. The blanket that I found tossed in the corner of the room didn’t smell any better, but I covered him with it anyway. He still didn’t budge.
“Matthew,” I called, slightly louder than a conversational tone. I really had no idea why I thought that would have woken him up, given the fact that he’d slept through the concert going on in the living room.
Chris snorted and I shot him a dirty look. He instantly sobered, as did I. If he was this unconcerned about what he saw before us, it spoke volumes about the condition he’d seen his friend in before. His nonchalance did little to ease my panic.
I dropped to the mattress beside him, my hand reaching for his shoulder and shaking him. His skin was hot, almost on the verge of being feverish. I supposed that explained the lack of modesty on his part.
“Matthew,” I called again, this time louder. “Wake up.”
No response. Even though I knew in the back of my mind that he couldn’t be dead with the amount of heat his body was radiating, I still felt reassurance when I trained my eyes to his neck and saw the steady flutter of his pulse. Just to be completely certain we were in the clear, I placed my hand in front of his nose.
Well, I thought dryly, we’ve just reached a new low in our relationship. I’d just checked to make sure my twenty-one year old brother was still breathing.
“Jesus Christ, Chris, are you going to help me or not?”
Admittedly, I’d snapped at him, but the look he returned was anything but helpful.
“I usually just let him sleep it off. He’ll be better in a couple of hours.”
“We are so not leaving him like this.”
My mind made up, I pulled back my hand and slapped Matthew’s face with my open palm. It made a loud smacking sound and I recoiled in pain, my fingers stinging. My brother’s skin was red where contact had been made.
“Fuck that hurt,” he slurred, his hand raising slowly to his cheek. I couldn’t help but notice the way his arm trembled as he rubbed the tender flesh. As though he had limited control of his body, as though his muscles fought an invisible fog of resistance.
“Yeah, no shit.” I stared down at my own hand, flexing my fingers. They were going to burn for a while. But he was awake, at least kind of.
“Blake?” he asked after several seconds of silence. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m the one that hit you, you idiot.”
“Oh. Why?”
“Because you scared me.”
That blond head turned towards me, bloodshot eyes observing me intently. He squinted, the small amount of sunlight entering the room from behind the towel that covered the window blinding. Classy. Any help I could give him on the decorating front would be a drastic improvement. Provided of course that the walls didn’t fall down around him before he had a house to furnish.
He made a sudden movement to roll over on his back, wincing at the action.
“No, no,” I protested, “please don’t roll over.” I shielded my eyes with my arms in case the blanket fell down.
He laughed, a drunken giggle that sounded almost feminine in tone. Yet another thing that would haunt my dreams tonight.
“Why?”
“Because you don’t have any clothes on.”
The laughter came again, punctuated by a hiccup. “Most women like me that way.”
“I’m your sister. Doesn’t work for me and you’re not being cute.”
“You’re in luck. Can’t move anyway.”
I wanted to light into him, my fear replaced by anger. Then I realized that by doing that, I’d be no better than our father. My eyes flitted up to Chris for guidance. He shrugged at my silent question and it was then that I knew he was at as much of a loss on how to proceed as I was. What was protocol for dealing with someone like this other than to load him up in the car and take him to the nearest outpatient substance abuse facility? It wasn’t like he could afford that anyway, and our parents weren’t about to offer a handout. They’d more or less written him off as it was.
“Are you going to be okay?” I asked instead.
He coughed. For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t stop until the contents of his stomach were displayed in front of him, but he somehow managed to keep everything where it should have been.
“Matthew?” I pressed when he didn’t answer.
His body jumped violently as if I’d frightened him. “Blake?”
I chose to take that as an attempt at wittiness rather than him circling back to the beginning of our conversation. Surely he couldn’t have already forgotten that I was here. Right?
“I said, ‘are you going to be okay?’ Do you need me and Chris to stay?”
Part of me wanted him to say yes. Another - much larger - part of me wanted to get the hell out of dodge and take a shower.
“Chris is here?” he asked, his voice instantly much more composed. Hell, if I would have know that mentioning Chris would be the secret antidote, I would have started with that. “Fuck. He’ll be mad and yell again.”
“Chris yelled at you?”
For whatever reason, this startled me. My boyfriend hadn’t mentioned laying out the tough love. He’d made it sound as though he’d sat idly by. In all the years that they’d been friends, I’d barely heard them fight about much of anything. Maybe Chris had been just scared as I was on his initial visit.
“Yeah. And you slapped me. The two of you are meant for each other. Violent. I just hope you never piss each other off.”
I snorted despite myself. Just like him to diffuse the situation with humor and draw the attention away from himself. Like a child who did something funny to avoid getting into trouble. I folded my arms across my chest to steel myself from letting him crack my demeanor further. As it stood now, I would make a horrible
parent.
“Do you want us to stay?” I repeated.
There was silence while he thought. “No, I’m okay.”
The tightness in my chest subsided as I felt an inordinate amount of relief at being dismissed. I uncrossed my legs and went to stand up, only to be stopped by him grabbing my pants with his hand. His grip was remarkably strong and I nearly toppled over.
“Was she still here?” Matthew asked suddenly.
“She who?”
“Girlfriend.”
“There was no one here when we got here.” I confirmed.
“Fuck. I remember fighting. She was mad at me. I can’t remember if the sex was before or after that.”
I wanted to slam my hands over my ears to avoid hearing the rest, but I didn’t. His full disclosure involved him trying to decide if he’d been too out of it to use a condom. The offhand remark made me want to yank his head up by his messy blond hair and slap him around some more.
“Guess I’ll just have to hope I still have a date to the party this weekend.”
“What party?” I asked hesitantly. The last thing that he needed was to be going to a party with this chick and getting into it with her in public. Plus, the weekend was just a few days away - his body would barely be recovered enough from whatever he’d just poured into it.
“Tell you later, sweetheart. Going to be sick now.”
I jumped away from him as he pulled the blanket around his waist. He scrambled to his feet with the reflexes of someone who was accustomed to making a mad dash for the bathroom. Luckily, the master bath must have been functional and he only bounced off a couple walls before making it inside and slamming the door. Chris and I made our retreat to the sound of him retching.
“What party?” I asked once we had made our way out to the car.
Chris turned away from me to look out the window.
“Dammit Chris, just tell me.”
I was sick of them treating me like a baby. It didn’t happen often, the two of them acting superior due to their age and trying to protect me, but when it did I was beyond livid. Especially now, when I knew that this wasn’t an impromptu thing and that Matthew’s bitch of a girlfriend would be there.
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