by Bromberg, K
“I’m too much of a pussy, aren’t I?” he said.
Back to Guy Talk.
“You’re a total pussy, Ross.”
“Hey, I owned up to it. You don’t need to dig it in.” He rolled his tongue inside his cheek and punched me in the shoulder.
“You weren’t a pussy, though, to go out to Ohio and rescue Trevor.”
“I didn’t rescue Trevor—Darla rescued us both.”
“And now you’re leaving her?”
He blew out a looooong puff of air. “I’m leaving everything, aren’t I?” he said, starting to walk slowly toward the apartment.
“Yeah, you are. But that takes guts.”
He laughed. “It doesn’t take guts to pick an Ivy League law school over BC. In fact, it’s kind of the easy way out.”
“What do you mean ‘the easy way’?”
“It’s programmed in me, man. This is what I have to do. Climb, climb, climb. Scrape, scrape, scrape. Get to the top. Ditch Trevor and Darla.” His voice took on a hard tone.
“You’re not ditching them, though. You’re moving seven hours away.” He started to walk a little faster, his head down. I found myself following, even though I was heading the other way. “You’re not really breaking up with them, are you?”
“Breaking up?” He came to a dead halt, his voice cracking. “Breaking up? You make it sound like we’re in some kind of a....”
“You are in some kind of a...” I stumbled, drawing out that “a…”. “What the hell do you call that thing that the three of you are doing?”
He leered at me. “Really incredible sex.”
“TMI, man.”
“No,” he stopped and put a hand on my shoulder, and dipped his head down, his eyes boring into mine. “It’s really incredible sex.”
“Yeah, I know, Joe. I hear it. I’m on the couch, remember? And, by the way, you guys are out of whipped cream.”
“We’re out of condoms, too,” he said, absentmindedly, starting to walk at a faster pace toward the apartment.
“You’re going to give all this up for Penn,” I said dryly.
“I’m going give all this up for Penn,” he confirmed. “But I’m not breaking up with them. Ah, geez,” he cringed. “Breaking up with Trevor. That sounds so fucked up.”
“The whole situation is kind of bizarre.”
“Yeah, I know,” he admitted. “But it’s the first thing that’s felt real, too,” he confessed. “What feels real to you Sam?”
Amy. Her name flashed through my head.
Joe stopped and said, “I gotta run, man. See you later.” He took off like a shot, abruptly ending whatever conversation we just started to actually have.
Shit got real when you talked about what was deep inside you. Another person could help you find things, beliefs that were buried so far inside you didn’t even know they were there, ideas and thoughts and feelings that you could never discover on your own, like trying to tie your shoes with one hand.
You could do it, but it was a hell of a lot easier with two.
Amy
The all too familiar sound of Darth Vader’s marching music floated through my ears and I panicked, realizing my phone was ringing. Dammit! Mom’s ringtone. I grabbed the phone and quickly pressed Accept.
“Hello?” I whispered.
“Amy? Are you okay?”
“Mom.” Of course it was Mom. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Why are you whispering?” she said. There was urgency in her voice, a tone of weariness combined with worry that she always had. I couldn’t remember a time when my mother didn’t sound like that.
“Nothing. I’m just... I’m out in public and I’m trying to be respectful of other people,” I lied.
“Oh, okay. Well, that’s good. Honey, I’m calling with great news!”
Oh boy, here it came. Evan. This was going to be about my brother Evan. Evanfest. Evanpalooza. Evan-o-rama. I steeled myself for a twenty minute conversation where Mom would talk about nothing but my brother.
I walked as fast as I could back to the park bench and sat down, curling into myself, covering one ear, my phone pressed hard against the other. “Yeah, Mom, what’s going on?”
“Evan is coming home.”
That’s great!” Mustering as much enthusiasm as I could, I slipped into the very familiar role that I was expected to play: dutiful sister, supportive daughter.
What I wanted to say was, “That’s great, Mom! And by now he’s probably as high as a kite.” Or, “Wow, they let him out even though there’s no way he’s actually clean!” Or, “So, who did he bribe this time to get a few hits while he was in rehab?”
When you live with a brother like Evan, you develop a bullshit radar—and it was so finely honed in me that it made me want to reach through the phone and slap my mother silly for her enthusiasm and optimism.
“Oh, honey, he’s on his way home right now. He just had to stop for a few minutes to get something to eat and then he’ll be here, and he is going to move back into his old room, and we’re going to get him enrolled in classes at Bedford Community College, and he’s decided that he’ll completely turn his life around, and he’ll apply for a bunch of jobs. And...”
My throat tightened as the words flowed over me.
“That’s really wonderful, Mom,” I choked out. “I’m sure Evan is going to do whatever Evan puts his mind to.” Carefully chosen words designed to tell the truth, and yet, to someone whose entire emotional landscape depended on systemic denial, they seemed supportive.
“Amy, I’m so glad to hear you say that,” she said, her voice cracking, “because that’s exactly how I feel. He’s so strong and he’s smart, and if he put his mind to it he could do anything. My goodness, he could—”
Half my brain started screaming, which meant that the other half of my brain had to keep itself occupied to drown out the sound. I started tapping, absentmindedly, on the bench and found myself dulled, just slightly, by picking a tempo and sticking to it.
My shoulders loosened. Mom prattled on. I’d reached a point where I knew from the tone and from her pauses exactly when to pretend to respond. I could fake it.
Faking it, in fact, was what I was expected to do. If I told her the truth—and trust me, I had tried—she would explode on me. Not go cold and shut me out, though she was good at that too.
I mean, she would just flat out explode.
Mom was a guidance counselor with a Master’s in Psychology and Counseling. To watch her turn into a fury—a red faced, screaming monster who accused me of not loving her or Evan when I had simply said, “Mom, he’s an addict, and he doesn’t want to get better yet”—well, that shuts you down.
That shuts you down damn fast.
I’d tried once after that. Once. She’d cut me off, turning away, marching out of the room, and then stopping in the threshold and looking back with eyes that were a strange combination of red and black, and a face so cold you would think that she was an executioner.
“I don’t ever want to hear you say another word about what your brother can’t do.”
And that was it.
The lesson? The truth matters less to some people than the veneer.
Sitting here on the park bench, I nodded like an idiot, unseen as my ear pushed against my phone, tapping my fingers and shining her on.
Sam
As Joe ran off I thought about what he’d just said. For the past four and a half years my entire life had been like walking along the blade of a razor; one slip and the results were deadly.
That’s how this worked.
When I stood up to my father I took complete control of my life. Except, when you take complete control of yourself you assume complete responsibility, too.
Responsibility I don’t mind. What I didn’t really get was that, at barely eighteen, everything I didn’t realize was going on behind the scenes when it came to the right stuff was all on me.
Dad might have been an asshole, but he gave me a place to live. Da
d might have been a self-righteous prick, but I had a car to drive. And my father might have been a selfish alcoholic with a megalomaniacal streak in him as wide as the path of the Boston Marathon, but when you discover that you don’t even have a car to sleep in after a fight where you stand up for yourself, and you come to see that your friends’ parents are the only thing keeping you from living on the streets—that sense of freedom and responsibility loses its expansiveness and takes on the feeling of a stone around your neck.
Don’t get me wrong—I wouldn’t trade the freedom, ever. I’d rather slip on the edge of that razor blade than go back.
But it was times like this, where I was indebted to Trevor and Joe for all these years of help and support, either from them or their parents, where some part of me wavered and wished for more.
I couldn’t ask for two better friends. Now Joe was asking something of me; to take over his half of the rent, to give Trevor some stability. Offering to front the first six weeks was really cool. For a guy who been a supercilious jerk most of high school, Joe had turned out okay.
More than okay.
Out of the blue, I heard a familiar voice.
“Sure, Mom.” The lilt floated on the air and caught in my ear, echoing like a measure you play over and over again for the sake of something meditative.
Amy.
I followed the sound, her words less distinct, the voice muffled. My body was frozen and on fire at the same time. Some part of me hardened—the obvious part—and then, others. What was she doing here? After last night at the bar where she disappeared, I didn’t know what to think. Now, I took strong strides in the direction of her voice, as if she were a homing signal.
I heard the word ‘Evan’. Her brother. A younger kid who moved in circles that I worked hard to avoid.
And then, the unmistakable tone in her words. I didn’t need to know what she was saying because I knew exactly what she was feeling from the way her voice sounded.
Amy’s mom was a guidance counselor at her high school. Everybody in debate circles knew that. Now I heard her in casual conversation with her mom. I spotted a shrub—she was sitting on a park bench behind it, giving me a perfect opportunity to observe.
Her legs were crossed at the ankles, and she was wearing pants that cut off at the mid-calf, muscled legs flexing. Her sandals showed little painted toenails, bright red, and the idea that she had spent time making her toes look pretty made me smile. Muscled legs went up to thick thighs and something about the curve of skin and flesh against bone made parts of me even harder.
My body zoomed from normal to lust in three seconds as my eyes traveled up over the curve of her hips, her navy pants snug and perfect. My hands itched to touch that waist, to run up her ribcage, to feel the pink cotton of her shirt, the way it rose and clung to the swell of her breasts. I could see it in my head, the two of us together. The memory of a heated embrace and fevered kissing drove its way home into me, one word echoing my head. More. More.
More.
“That’s great, Mom. He’s absolutely fabulous,” I heard her say, and then, her head dipped down and she smiled, a genuine look that made a flush of envy and sadness run through me, mixed in with the rush of hunger for her.
I hadn’t had a normal conversation with my parents in four and a half years. What is it like to have parents who care about you? Who are invested in you—not like Mr. and Mrs. Ross, who practically scrubbed Joe’s asshole with a brand new toothbrush every day, or like the Connors, who tried to turn Trevor into something he wasn’t—but this?
Being able to pick up a phone and talk to your mom for five minutes, ten minutes, and shoot the shit? Must be nice.
Must be damn nice.
A flush of jealousy coursed through me at the same time Amy ran her fingers through that long, brown hair over her temple, behind her ears. And that was it. I was done. A goner.
I started to stand, but froze in place as I saw who was walking toward Amy.
No way.
“Liam!” Amy said, an enormous grin spreading across her face. A rush of uncontrolled adrenaline set my feet and hands on fire, quads screaming as I crouched behind the bush.
Amy was dating Liam? Liam the manwhore? The guy had slept with a groupie who had his name tattooed across the top half-moon of her waxed butthole.
Ask me how I know.
Liam uploaded a pic of it to Facebook and titled it “True Love.”
It was more like a selfie.
Amy
Joe had wandered away from Sam; I could see it as my mom settled into her monologue. I rolled my eyes at something she was saying, looked back, and then suddenly Sam was gone.
The past four years of my life seemed like something out of Groundhog Day—at least when it came to my relationship with my mom.
I was deep in my thoughts when I heard my mom. “Amy. Amy? Amy, you there?” she asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, I am, Mom. I- I’m fine, I’m good. Yup,” I stumbled.
“Okay, well, I gotta go, because Evan is on his way.”
“That’s fine, Mom. I understand.”
“Hey.”
I looked up.
Standing right in front of me, was the one guy I least expected.
And it wasn’t Sam.
“Hey, Mom, gotta go. Bye.” Click.
Standing right in front of me was a fine old friend. A giant piece of sex perched on flesh and bone.
“Liam!”
Was Boston Common suddenly hot guy central? How had I not known this? I licked my lips involuntarily—it wasn’t on purpose, but it made Liam grin.
“Amy,” he said. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“You looking for Joe and Sam?” I asked, and then bit back the words, wishing I could swallow them. Now Liam knew that I had seen Sam, and Sam might know that I had seen Sam.
“Not looking for them but if they’re around I’d...” He craned his neck, looking. It gave me a chance to take him in even more. He was just as fine as he’d been four and a half years ago—even better—filled out with broad shoulders, rippled with muscle in that way that cloth can form to and tell you everything you need to know about what someone looks like naked.
And yet, still want to see them naked.
The feelings that Liam triggered in me were so different from the ones I had for Sam. There was nostalgia, a sense of gratitude, and then there was a full blown lust like a light switch being flipped on. Liam had that quality in him.
I had to temper it with the knowledge that he would never feel the same way for me.
“You know we have a gig next week? Will you be there?” No hint of anything other than basic friendliness. Liam’s hair was a wild mess, the sun bouncing off the soft waves that framed his temples, his body warm and strong, like a large lion, as he folded himself onto the bench to sit next to me.
Distracted and flustered, I stammered out, “Um, sure. Maybe. As long as I don’t take a raffle ticket.”
His laugh boomed across the grass in front of us, scaring off a small flock of pigeons.
What had happened four and a half years ago was somewhere between tenderness and pity on his part, and I knew that. I could fantasize, and I could remember, I could let memory stretch me back to the first sexual experience of my life, and I could put on the brakes pretty quickly when the emotions kicked in.
Those? Sam owned those.
I wanted the combination of what I felt for Sam and the burning hot sex I’d had with Liam.
If only, right?
If only.
Sam
What the fuck was Liam doing here? And it turned out Amy had seen me and Joe? This was getting weirder and weirder.
Liam was hitting on Amy.
There was a familiarity there—I knew they lived next door to each other growing up—but, there was something more. I caught a glimpse of her pink cheeks, the way she ran her fingers through her hair in that flirty gesture that so many girls had. Did she really just lick her lips?
And Liam w
ith that cocky grin.
Plus there was that damn kiss on stage.
He had bagged so many girls over the years. Groupies loved him. He’d pretty much fucked anybody with a vagina except Darla, and I wouldn’t put it past him to have tried. The funny part was, he only slept around after his ex, Charlotte, dumped him. Before that, he was totally, one-hundred percent a goner for her.
He’d gone silent at the end of our senior year of high school, said nothing about what was going on with her. She was in college and something had happened, but Liam was like a steel drum welded shut—buoyant and airtight.
The speed with which he’d found his way into so many other girls’ pants had been really, really admirable. Most of us couldn’t believe that he could get a girl in bed so quickly. At one point, we’d even timed it—his record was forty-seven minutes.
If you were into that sort of thing, it was pretty fucking impressive.
Which meant he was dangerous talking to Amy like this.
I overheard their banter; it was flirty without being serious. There was something in his tone that said this was not someone he was after. She seemed to recognize it too. There was a guardedness to her.
Amy could be like a little puppy, eager and a little too excitable when she wanted people to approve of her, and there wasn’t any of that here. Then again, I was projecting qualities onto her that she’d had four and a half years ago.
Now, all I felt was a massive mushroom cloud of jealousy and an undercurrent of rage because if he touched her right now…
Red rage filled me.
What I needed was to go back home and drum my way out of everything.
And stop letting the past get in the way of the present.
* * *
The walk back to Trevor and Joe’s place was short and uncrowded. I got into the apartment and then I grabbed a few drum pads, some headphones, some sticks. A full set of drums wasn’t gonna cut it in an apartment building with hundreds of people so the only way I could practice was to go down into the basement, which was surprisingly clean and dry for an ancient building, and set up my drum pads. They were these little circles designed to practice songs without making too much noise.
