by Abby Wilder
Judah grunted and took another gulp of water. His face was smeared with dirt and he hid beneath the dark hair that hung over his eyes, trying not to show the bruising that was under it, something Dad would see as either a badge of honour, or weakness. But because it was Judah, the latter was the more likely.
Dad sighed and turned back to me. "Friday night," he said, as though his announcement made it so. "You boys got anything planned?"
I swallowed the last bite of apple. "There's a party at the old hall that I might check out."
"And what about you, Judah? Do you think you'll actually leave your room tonight and interact with the world?" Dad asked coldly.
Judah shrugged and grabbed another bottle of water from the fridge. The light from the open door illuminated his face, and Mum's features wrinkled with concern.
"What happened?" She walked over and traced the faint bruising already starting to blush under his left eye.
"Nothing," he muttered, pulling away from her touch and trying not to wince at the sudden movement.
"It doesn't look like nothing," she said, replacing her look of concern with a frown and crossing her arms.
Dad rolled his eyes. "Shouldn't have let them get that close to you, boy. Back in my day—"
Mum smiled and walked over to pat Dad's cheek. "But it's not your day, is it?"
Dad chuckled. "Not anymore, my love. Those days are long gone. But not for these boys. They have their whole lives ahead of them, to make something of themselves, just like their old man, not to sit around and cry over a little scuff."
Dad didn't see the tackle. He didn't see the way Judah was slammed into the ground, or the deliberate head butt that occurred just before it. But Judah didn't bother answering. He didn't bother pointing out that he hadn't shed a single tear. He simply twisted the cap off the bottle and emptied the contents in one gulp before leaving the room, slamming the door behind him.
"What's his problem this time?" Dad asked.
He couldn't, or wouldn't, see the way he treated Judah, the way he assumed the worst of him. Admittedly, Judah did very little to help himself. He spent most of his time tinkering with his car in the garage, or locked away in his room playing video games. He wasn't like me. He didn't care what other people thought of him, Dad included. He would rather talk to people halfway around the world about which clan to raid next, than talk to his own family, his own brother. As I said, rugby was the only thing we had in common, and even then, he barely spoke to me. We played on opposite sides of the field. We rarely had the need to communicate, just the way Judah preferred it.
Dad picked up the paper and jostled it firmly. "Take him to that party with you tonight," he ordered, turning his attention back to the headlines.
Judah hated parties, or as he called them 'group alcohol consumption gatherings.' I laughed. "Unless there's going to be a car show or some sort of gaming exhibition, I don't see that happening."
"Well, find some way to convince him," Dad said gruffly. He looked over the top of the paper. "I'm not having a son of mine waste his life away playing pretend games and fiddling with cars."
Mum walked out of the room, refilled wine glass in hand. She hated the way Dad talked about Judah, but she never did anything to stop it. Neither did I.
Whenever Dad was home, his input into our lives was in the form of lectures and comparisons to what he was doing at our age. In Dad's eyes, I stacked up not badly. Judah didn't. Judah wasn't enough. He would never be enough.
"No worse than drowning it in wine." I meant to say it quietly, mutter the words under my breath, but Dad caught every one of them and sent me a sharp look. He didn't address them, though. He merely turned his attention back to the subject of my socially backwards brother. "It's not a good look. I want him out of the house tonight. You hear me? I've got a meeting."
And with that comment, the truth came out. Best to hide him away rather than face the embarrassment of a son not living up to his potential.
"I'll do my best," I said as I walked out.
I bounded up the stairs and stopped at Judah's door. Machine gun fire blasted through the open crack. Our rooms were either side of the staircase and took up the entire level. Left for mine, right for Judah's. They were exact replicas. Same layout, same wallpaper, same furniture, same everything. But, unlike Judah's, in my room everything had a place. I had a few of my most treasured sketches pinned over the gold and black wallpaper, but other than those, it was clean and clear. My books were arranged neatly on my desk, my TV flickered with music videos, but the volume was down, and the big mirror above my duchess was clear from dust. It was only my guitar that sat out of place, leaning against the wall. It was there to impress people who might happen to come in, but I could only play one song.
Judah's room was the opposite. I squeezed through the door, as it wouldn't open properly due to the clothing scattered across the floor, and waved my way through the haze of smoke until I was standing in front of Judah, blocking his vision of the screen. The game was loud. Gunfire and explosions sounded in my ears, but Judah barely registered I was there. He simply tilted his head so he could still see the screen and continued forcefully tapping his thumbs on the controller.
"Judah!" I yelled at him. He looked up but didn't answer. He didn't even take off his headphones. "Judah!" I yelled again.
He paused the game and removed the headphones, placing them carefully on the coffee table. "What?" he asked impatiently. Only it wasn't really a word. It was a grunt. He picked up a cigarette packet from the ground and tapped the bottom so one popped out. I flopped down on the beanbag beside him and kicked away an empty chip packet. "You're coming to the party with me tonight."
Judah rolled his eyes, placed the cigarette in his mouth and put the headphones back over his head. I wasn't sure whether he was using them to communicate with the other gamers across the world, or whether they were just a way to block me out. I got up and ripped them from his head. Anger flared in his expression, but he merely snatched them back and placed them over his ears again, making a deliberate effort to look around me at the screen. The unlit cigarette clung to his bottom lip, stuck by some magical force, or spit, probably spit. Although he had wiped the mud from his face, he hadn't bothered to get out of his rugby clothes.
"Hurt much?" I nodded to the marks across his nose and under his eye.
Judah moved his eyes towards me and wiped his wrist under his nose. His hand came away with a line of dry blood. "Right as rain." The cigarette bobbed up and down as he spoke.
"You're coming to the party with me. We leave in fifteen minutes," I said. But Judah was already fixed back on the game, the sound of gunfire filling the room with deafening clarity. Absently, he brought a lighter to the tip of the cigarette, flicking his eyes between it and the screen, and inhaled deeply, the end of the cigarette burning red.
I walked across the hall, into my room, and breathed deeply. I liked clean, clear spaces. Clean, clear air, too. It helped keep my thoughts ordered and my mind focussed. My room was so tidy that if I knew anyone would be entering, I messed it up a little in order not to show how much of a neat freak I was. Well, anyone apart from Judah. Even though we barely spoke, we never felt the need to hide from each other like we did others. It was because of this that sometimes I wished we were closer, that we connected in ways they say twins do. The way we used to. It wasn't always this way. We used to do everything together. But that was before Cara Armistead moved in next door. A few years after that, he hated me. At first, I thought it was because of Dad's attention. Being the favoured son came with its own brand of torture. Only, Judah couldn't see that. All he saw was the attention I received, the gifts I was adorned with, and the praise that fell so easily from our father's lips. But he didn't realise the pressure that came with those expectations. He didn't realise that every time I came home with a high grade only compounded the pressure to achieve a better result next time. He didn't know that Dad's praise meant a completely different thing to my ears than i
t did to his. But I don't think that's why he hated me. He hated me because Cara didn't.
It didn't take long to jump through the shower, pull on a clean shirt and jeans, and slick my hair back, but it was obviously not long enough for Judah. When I went back into his room, he was sitting in the same place as before, eyes glued to the screen, gunfire blasting through the air. I walked over, grabbed a beer out of his mini fridge and flicked off the power switch to the gaming consul, silencing the bloodshed and explosions.
"It's one party." I twisted the cap off the bottle and took a swig. Judah just stared. He had this way of looking at me that made me feel guilty, even when I hadn't done anything wrong. He didn't answer, just stared at me with eyes that were a replica of my own, unblinking, unwavering and cold, as if he were holding all his emotions inside until I left. So I said the one thing that I knew would work. "Cara's coming."
Sure enough, Judah's eyes widened, despite his best effort to appear uninterested. "She's home?"
"Last week."
"And you know this, how?" His eyes narrowed.
"She called. She wanted a ride to the party tonight. She asked if you were coming." She hadn't, but he didn't need to know that. Judah had been in love with Cara Armistead since they met. They became inseparable and stayed that way until Cara left for boarding school at the beginning of the year. But Cara had been called home when her mum started to get sick.
Judah jerked off his headphones and stubbed out the cigarette in the overflowing ashtray.
"Did you hear me?" I said. "Cara's coming."
He stared without blinking, until he reached up and grabbed the bottle out of my hands, downing it in one gulp. "Well, I'm hardly going to attend the freak show sober, am I?"
"I guess that means I'm driving." I grabbed his keys off the bedside cabinet and jangled them in front of him. "We're taking your car."
Judah shrugged. "Whatever." He stood and looked around the room, pulling off his rugby uniform and dumping it on the floor, until he found some crumpled jeans, a tee shirt and his leather jacket discarded in a pile, and pulled them on. He didn't bother to clean the mud from his arms, or smooth back the hair that was dangling in his eyes. It wasn't Judah's style.
Cara's house was set in the middle of a paddock and surrounded by broken cars, thanks to her dad's auto shop which was situated in the large shed off to the side of the house. Her family moved to town when she was eleven, and my father hated it, claiming that their presence brought down the value of all the properties in the area. He had been petitioning for the house to be demolished before the Armistead's bought it.
Cara hated growing up in our small town. She hated that everyone knew her name, and that she couldn't take a step without someone having an opinion on which direction she was walking. But I liked it. I couldn't imagine living anywhere else. In a city, I would be one among thousands. Here, everybody knew my name, and unlike Cara, I loved that. So Cara was excited when she left for boarding school. She was finally getting away from this town, this life that had her trapped. But when her mother's illness grew worse, she had to come back to the place she wanted to forget existed.
I guess that's why I kissed her when I did. She didn't give a damn. She lived the way she wanted and to hell with the consequences. She didn't care about grades or making some sports team. She wasn't consumed with how she looked, or what others thought of her. She was nothing like me.
We were at a party one weekend when it happened. Parties were common in my town. It was the last weekend before Cara left. She would be back each school holidays, but I guess I wasn't thinking about that. All I thought about was the way she offered her soft lips. The way she looked at me with complete adoration when she never looked at anyone like that. Judah knew she liked me. It had been the cause of many fights over the years. I never wanted to kiss her. I never wanted to take her away from him. It was a stupid thing I did.
I never told Judah about it. I knew it would break his heart.
Judah almost smiled when Cara bounded out of the house. Dressed simply in ripped jeans, a striped black and white singlet and a faded red jacket, she looked nothing like the girls I normally dated. My last girlfriend before her had been the type my parents approved of, pretty, and from a well-off family. Cara was neither of those things. But there was something about Cara that seemed to attract boys. Well, the Mitchell boys, anyway. I wound down the window and thumped the side of the car in greeting.
"Careful," Judah said. Even though the doors were rusted and the paint was patched across the body, the 1973 Ford Fairlane was his pride and joy. I suspected the only reason he let me drive was because we were picking Cara up and she loved his car almost as much as he did. I stepped on the accelerator and revved the engine, waving at her to hurry. Cara's little sister followed her out of the house and leaned against the post that held up the sagging porch, scowling so hard her face was barely recognisable.
"Hey Lana," I called out and waved. She didn't reply. She was too busy throwing daggered looks at her sister. They looked alike, both skinny with long hair, thick eyebrows and small faces which had the ability to clearly display what they were thinking. And in this case, Lana Armistead was pissed.
"Stay," Cara flung over her shoulder, much like she was talking to a dog. She turned and gave me a slow smile, a smile I hoped Judah didn't notice.
"So you come home to party and leave me to look after Mum?" Lana yelled after her. "I thought you came back to help."
"Yes, that's right," Cara said, yanking the door open and standing with her hand resting on the roof of the car. "I've come home from boarding school, which I loved, by the way, just to go to a lame party. It's one night Lana. Get over it."
"One night?" Lana replied, her voice rising in pitch. "It's been all fucking year!"
Cara groaned and plonked herself down on the back seat. "Language!" she scolded her sister out the open window, before leaning over and pecking us both on the cheek. Judah did his best to appear calm, though the colour flooded up his cheeks, and his eyes flicked to her reflection in the mirror. But Cara was searching for mine. A knot of guilt twisted in my gut as Judah reached forward and fiddled with the radio. I liked Cara, I really did. But I didn't love her like Judah did. She was just there.
Lana placed her hands on her hips and glared at her sister. "You swear," she retorted.
"I'm not fourteen," Cara replied and poked out her tongue which belied the comment.
Lana crossed her arms and glared at Cara with an expression that left nothing to the imagination. "What time will you be home?"
Cara leaned forward and groaned in my ear. "Just get me out of here. I forgot what an annoying little bitch she is."
I gave Lana a weak, apologetic smile and pulled out onto the driveway, flinging Cara back in her seat as she let out a whoop of laughter.
She stuck her head out the window, the rush of wind whipping her hair around her face, and yelled back down the driveway. "I'll be home whatever fucking time I want!"
Chapter Six
Lennon
The next day dawned bright and clear with just a hint of frost in the shade outside my window. I loved that window. It ran from floor to ceiling, and when I lay on my bed, it created the perfect frame for the landscape. The trees that dotted the street lined up perfectly to block the houses and all I could see were the swaying branches, a tiny peek of the lake, the mountains and the sky. It was perfect.
As usual, I spent way too long in the shower, dreading when I would have to step out of the hot water and face the day. Finally, I dragged myself out, slipped on my dressing gown, wrapped a towel around my wet hair, and tried not to think of Judah. I didn't like to think of myself as the type to swoon over a boy, so thinking about him seemed like a betrayal of my personality. Or, at least, the personality I liked to think I had. But I couldn't get him out of my mind.
I made a sandwich from the leftovers from yesterday's non-lunch and stuffed an apple and a drink bottle into my school bag. The car I had ended up
with was an old, beaten-up hatchback covered in faded and patched red paint. Sienna had promptly named it Elmo. It took a couple of turns before the engine chugged to life.
Sienna was waiting at the school gate, scowling at the black smoke that came from Elmo's exhaust. Somehow, she managed to make our maroon and grey school uniform look great. Her tie was loosely looped around her neck and her white shirt buttoned low. She was all curves where I was straight lines. I loved her for it and despised her because of it.
"Hey you." She looked up as I crossed the concrete entrance. She finished typing on her phone and slipped it into her bag. "How's it going, big sis?" She grinned wickedly.
"Don't remind me."
"That bad? How'd your mum take it?" She looped her arm through mine and we walked up the steps.
"Better than I thought she would. Mind you, neither of us has had that much time to process."
I pushed open the heavy wooden doors to be greeted by the chaos that was school. Some students rushed down the hall, others hung in the corners, looking out from under the hair falling in their eyes. Sienna smiled and waved, greeting her admirers like a star walking the red carpet. I followed in her wake, though we walked side by side. We reached our lockers and Sienna pulled out a couple of books, and shoved her bag into the small space before slamming the locker shut and leaning back against the wall as I organised my stuff.
"I've got to go to the baby shower." I pulled out my books, arranged them into the order I would need for the day, then shut the locker door. "It will be such fun!" I mocked Melinda's voice and clapped my hands.
"I thought you liked her?" Sienna studied her nails, frowning.
"I do, mostly, sort of. It's just, I feel like I can't like her too much, or take an interest in the baby because of Mum." Sienna had lost interest, so I changed the conversation to her favourite subject. "Your hair looks good by the way."
