The Language of Silence (17 page)

Chapter Thirty-Four

Brett
:

My mom is in rehab. Everyone knows. I can tell by the way Mrs. Freeman looks at me when I go to get the newspaper. It really isn’t a big deal. Sooner or later, some member from every important family in Wendall makes a trip to rehab. It’s a Wendall tradition.

They should make t-shirts.

I Survived My (Insert Family Relation Here)’s Trip to Rehab

I try to think back on my childhood to decide if my mother has always been like this. Has she always had a drinking problem? Have I been ignoring her? I assume for it to be a problem
, it has to be something with longevity.

Maybe there’s something about being a mom that demands you aren’t human. Maybe something about Tristan’s death lessened the burden a little, let the human side through. It can be really easy for kids to pretend their parents aren’t human.

I have belittled my mother. I have ignored my mother. I never tried to see her as a person. I know my mother loves me. I don’t know that she likes me.

Do you have to like your family?

For all her faults, my mother has been around. That’s more than a lot of kids can say. I wonder how hard her life has been. Sure, life could be worse. She could have money problems, or poor health, but how sad to have a husband who pays you no attention, and two children who don’t give you any respect.

It’s so quiet in my house. Tonight is Christmas Eve. My father told me he had to work late. He gave me some money and told me to go hang out with friends. He chooses to ignore the fact that most of my so-called friends will be hanging out with their own families tonight.

I tried calling my mother earlier. I miss having a Christmas tree. I miss my mom’s burnt Christmas cookies. I miss shaking the presents with my brother, a tradition we kept up even in our teenage years.

I miss my family.

Now it’s just me and my absent father.

I have no family.

Ed has his own tradition to carry out tonight. He and his mother always go eat Chinese food on Christmas Eve. Something about it being a Jewish tradition. He invited me along, but I declined. I think it’s important he and his mother continue their traditions.

I bought Tristan a Christmas present months ago. I got him a first edition of Ayn Rand’s
The Fountainhead
. It is sitting wrapped underneath my bed.

I thought maybe things would get better now that I acknowledged what Tristan did to himself, but I don’t feel better at all. I just feel alone. If this is how Tristan felt his whole life, I can’t blame him for choosing to go.

I hate Christmas.

It is snowing.

Great.

Chapter
Thirty-Five

Ed:

One night this past August, I stayed the night over at Tristan’s. We had made plans to watch all of the
Nightmare on Elm Street
films with Brett. Halfway through the videos, Tristan got a text. He told us Sophia was going through something and needed him.

Brett convinced me to watch the rest of the films with her, so I agreed to stay and wait for Tristan to come back. It had to have been around three or four in the morning when he called me. Brett was fast asleep on the couch, drooling onto her parents’ designer pillows.

Is it sad I thought it was cute?

Tristan sounded real bad. He asked me to come and get him
. He told me he couldn’t drive, and I thought he might have been crying. The last time he had called me like this had been bad. Sometime during the conversation, Brett must have woken up. By the time I got done with the phone call, Brett already had her shoes on.

Tristan had told me to pick him up at the Lee Memorial Bridge.

He was a complete wreck when we got there. He was sitting near the water, his fist pressed against his eyes. When he saw Brett trailing behind me, he started crying. Like ugly crying. Non-stop tears. Red face. Snot everywhere. Tristan Jensen.

Brett stood frozen in place.
Her eyes wide. I wondered if she had ever seen her brother like this. I knelt down in front of him. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

I had a sneaking suspicion he had not seen Sophia that night.

“It’s over. I am so fucking stupid.”

“You broke up with Sophia?” Brett asked, finally finding her voice. She still hadn’t move
d.

This wasn’t about Sophia. Tristan liked Sophia. Maybe he even loved her in his own way. But Tristan was a man destroyed.
“What did he do?” I asked, suddenly angry.

“Last week, at football practice, there were some kids talking about him. Saying he had been caught with Jenna Maples. They were caught having sex right there in his car behind the Feed and Seed. I thought there was no way it was true. He’d been working late all week, so tonight was the first time I could ask him about it.”

“I don’t understand,” Brett whispered, slowly shaking her head.

I wanted to go and hold her hand. I wanted to so badly. But this was already too big of a crisis. “What happened?” I asked, fighting my own internal war.

“He admitted it. He told me it was true. The worst part was he told me like it was nothing, like he had nothing to be ashamed over. He told me I had a girlfriend, so why was I so mad?”

“But you and Sophia…he knows that’s different. You two don’t have sex,” I offered. I hated seeing my friend used. Tristan nodded and wiped his nose on his shirt.

“I don’t understand,” Brett whispered again. She finally moved—she took a step away from us.

How the hell was I supposed to keep this all under control?

“I told him that,” Tristan continued, still choosing to ignore Brett. “I told him it was different for me. I couldn’t just come right out. He kept saying I was overreacting.”

“Ass,” I replied.

“I mean, he’s the only guy I have ever been with. I have shared everything with him. I have told him everything. I have kept no secrets, and here he is boinking everything in a skirt. He told me he wasn’t gay. He actually said that. He just thinks this is something…some…”

I rubbed my hand on his back. I remember my mother doing this to me when I would get upset.
It only caused Tristan to start crying again.

“Want to know
the worst part?” Tristan asked between sobs, sobs so strong and desperate that they shook his whole body.

There was always a worst part.

“He tried to hook up with me. After telling me he’s been cheating, after telling me he isn’t really gay, he tries to hookup.”

I looked back at Brett the moment Tristan spoke the word. She wouldn’t meet my eye
s. Her chin was trembling, only moments from losing it herself.

Tristan started to laugh.
Short. Bitter. Empty. “I left my damn book bag there. Great.”

“I’ll go get it. Brett can drive you home in your car, and I can go get it.”
Tristan nodded. “Is that alright with you, Brett?”

She still wouldn’t look at me, but that didn’t mean Tristan or I was off the hook.
Her face had paled and she narrowed her eyes, throwing daggers at some unknown enemy in the night sky. “How long have you known?” she asked me between clenched teeth.

“Leave him alone, Brett,” Tristan said tiredly, his sobbing quieted to slow, painful hiccups.

“No. You don’t have any right to tell me what to feel and not feel in this moment. You two kept this from me. You both did. You let me find out like this. I would have told you,” she charged.

Tristan pulled himself to his feet and stalked over to where his sister stood. When she wouldn’t meet his eyes, he grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him.
“No. You wouldn’t have.”

Brett’s face crum
pled and she began to cry. Something about Brett’s condition seemed to allow Tristan to pull it together. “I can drive, but if you could go over there and get my book bag…that would be great.”

I nodded. I walked to my car, refusing to look back at the brother and sister who no doubt had lost something that night.

As I drove to the d-bag’s house, I felt myself getting more and more angry. Brett, my mother, Tristan—these were the people that meant the most to me. I couldn’t let anyone hurt them. How come people who know they are messed up just don’t go and seclude themselves? Why do they feel the need to bring other people down with them?

Seventeen years of anger that I tried to keep at bay seemed to hum inside of me. It wanted to get out. Everything seemed really messed up. Tristan was a wreck. Brett was pissed. And this guy would probably convince himself he had an excuse to act the way he did.

When Officer Asshole opened the door, I stormed in without an invitation. I saw Tristan’s book bag on the coffee table. I grabbed it and began to head out, but something stopped me. Something that felt close to rage. I balled my hand into a fist and let it fly into the Officer Denial’s face, knowing full well I would most likely end up in jail. Officer Jerk-Off fell against the door, holding his hands to his face. For a second, I thought I saw a look of gratitude flicker in his eyes.

When I got back to the Jensen household, Tristan was asleep. Brett bandaged up my hand. She didn’t say a word to me the whole time.

Chapter
Thirty-Six

Brett
:

I don’t bother knocking on Ed’s door. It’s eight in the morning, and I know for sure that he isn’t awake. The final text I got from him last night said he just made it to some new level in his video game, so there was no way he went to bed at a decent hour. Ed and Tristan would always get sucked into this black hole when it came to video games, never showing their faces till they beat it. They would circle the release dates of new games on their calendars, stock up on junk food, and burrow themselves in poor hygiene and sleep deprivation.

With a grunt, I lift my
thousand pound duffle bag over my shoulder and creep into Ed’s room. Yesterday, I called his mom and asked permission before setting my New Year’s Remix plan into action. Leaving us the house, she made me promise to tell her all the details when she returned later this afternoon.

Of course, I wouldn’t tell her
all
the details.

I almost
drop my bag when I spot Ed sitting straight up in bed staring at me, a smug smile slipping across his face. My mouth falls open. “How did you know?”

Ed throws the covers off of his legs and hops down from his bed. He saunters over to me with the confidence of a character out of a 1920s gangster movie. He takes my bag from my hands and lowers it t
o the ground. Reaching forward, he pulls me by the waist close to him. So close I can smell the mouthwash on his breath. He’s been waiting for me.

As Ed leans down to kiss me, I turn my head. “How did you know?”
I repeat, sticking out my bottom lip in an attempt to pout.

Ed laughs, that deep, throaty laugh
that makes me shiver, and kisses me on the side of the head. Right on the temple. Who knew it would be such a turn-on spot? “How did I know you’d turn New Year’s Eve on its ass? I don’t know. Maybe I just know you, Brett. You kept asking me if I was free at eight, and I wondered why you brought it up a billion times. I knew you couldn’t just celebrate New Year’s like the rest of the world.”

I feel my cheeks go red. “I just wanted us to be the first people in Wendall to celebrat
e it. Make it ours. It’s silly,” I answer sheepishly.

Ed
shakes his head. “It’s perfect,” he says softly. “Now, can I kiss you? I imagine it would do more for me than a cup of coffee,” he teases.

I stand on the tips of my toes and peck him on the cheek. “The real kissing has to wait
till noon,” I whisper.

“Then you might want to stand back a bit. I can’t promise to mind my manners with you looking like that,” he
replies, gently pushing me away from him.

It took days to find the perfect dress. I finally decided on a gold
sequin vintage number that fit tight around the chest and flared slightly out at the waist. “Thanks. And before you question my feminism for actually caring that you like this dress, a woman can still want to be smart
and
sexy. It’s her choice. That’s what feminism is, you know. Choice.”

Ed chuckles and plops back down on his bed. “I wouldn’t dare question your
feminism,” he scoffs. He leans back on his elbows and looks me up and down. “Now, what choices have you made for us today?”

I clap my hands
with excitement and give a little jump as I move to the bag. I’m practically giddy. I reach down and unzip my bag of tricks, pulling out a stack of ceramic plates. Ed raises an eyebrow. I don’t give him time to question me. Instead, I lift my hands up and smash the plates down hard against the floor.

“What the world?” Ed yells, jumping off the bed.

“It’s for luck,” I laugh.

“Luck?”

“Yeah, it’s a Danish tradition. You throw plates and dishes at your neighbor’s house. The house with the most plates is supposed to be the luckiest. And since this is the only house I care about, broken plates it is,” I reply with a shimmer-shrug of my shoulders. “Now sit down,” I demand.

“You’re wonderfully weird, Brett Jensen,” he replies,
dutifully sitting back down on the bed. Despite the shock, his eyes light up, and I can tell he’s excited. It fills me with a warmth that I thought I’d lost forever. That’s what love is. Wanting to see the other person happy. Not because you want something in return. Seeing them happy is its own gift.

I could write for
Hallmark with as sappy as I have become.

I pull the second object out of the bag and toss it to Ed. “Grapes?” he
asks, catching and cradling them against his chest.

“Yes, grapes. You must eat twelve for luck,” I explain
, taking a seat next to him on the bed. I furrow my brow as Ed reaches behind me and grabs a pillow, wedging it between us like a mini Great Wall of China.

“If I have to wait till noon to kiss you, I’m gonna need that pillow to stay right there.”

I roll my eyes, but I can’t help but grin. I wonder if it’s normal, all this darn grinning. I tug a grape off the vine. “I would feed you, but I don’t want to get you all hot and bothered,” I quip, popping the grape into my mouth.

“Tease,” he jabs before pulling a grape off the vine and tossing it into his mouth.

As we both continue to take grapes, Ed’s fingers brush against mine. Neither of us makes jokes about tearing down the wall or sexual frustration. Mostly because it isn’t a joke. I didn’t know it was possible to want someone so bad. His pointer finger slowly runs down the back of my hand, snaking around my wrist. I turn my hand over and let his finger trace the inside of my palm. My throat becomes painfully dry. I drop the grape I’m holding in my hand. Ed picks it up off his comforter and drops it in my mouth, his thumb resting against my bottom lip. He pulls down on it slightly, and for a crazy second, I think about licking it. Is that a thing? There isn’t a part of him that my lips don’t want to touch.

He pulls away from me and licks his lips. “Is there anything else in that bag?” he asks, all breathy and husky. A symphony of desire and restraint.

I stand up and shuffle a few feet back from the bed. “Not in the bag, no. But there is one more tradition. It’s a Latin thing. They believe that if you wear red underwear on New Year’s, you’ll have a year of good fortune.”

Now it’s Ed’s turn to be shocked. His eyes go wide. When I giggle, he clears his throat. “Red underwear?”

I bite my bottom lip and nod. I’m having way too much fun. I reach behind and unzip my dress. I tug on the shoulders and slip it down to my waist, revealing the hot red lacy bra I drove two towns over to get so no one would gossip about it.

“Holy shit,” Ed stammers.

I tug on the dress and pull it over my waist, letting it drop to the floor. The bra came with matching underwear. I refuse to call them panties. I hate that word. I lift my chin up and stare him down. “I figure if there’s anyone who needs luck in this town, it’s you and me.” I don’t mean for the sadness to slip out, but I hear it. It bounces off the walls of the room. It falls down on us like confetti.

Ed stares past me for a moment. Only a moment. Lost in all the pain that we have shared. When he comes back to me, he shakes his head slowly back and forth. “How the hell am I not supposed to kiss you?”
he groans, throwing himself back on the bed.

I place a hand on my hip, and do the best impersonation of a vixen that I can muster. “I said we couldn’t kiss till noon. I didn’t say we couldn’t touch.”

Ed bolts up. “Best. New. Year’s. Ever.”

I crawl up on the bed and wait for Ed to pounce, but he just sits there and stares at me. Not in the I
-want-to-ravage-you type of way either. I suddenly feel cold, like I want to throw his comforter over me and never come out.

“You alright?” he whispers, reaching a hand out and tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. I press my lips together and nod. Ed gently grabs onto my chin. “No, you’re not. Tell me, what’s wrong?”

I expected to be naked by now
.
Why don’t you want me?

But I don’t say those things. “I’m fine. I promise.”

We don’t fool around. Ed rattles on and on about mundane topic after mundane topic. He has so many lined up that I’m sure he prepared a list of them the night before. He’s avoiding me. Avoiding intimacy.

I curl up against him and listen to him talk, and before I know it, I drift asleep.

I sleep right through our New Year’s kiss.