The last room was my brothers'. It was the biggest room in the house, like I said. But now, it seemed empty and barren. I hated to go in there. There were too many memories from that room to forget, and they just kill me everytime I pass. Right then, I wished out of all wishes that I didn't have to go in there. No. I didn't have to. Zoe could go in there. She has no problems with going in there, she could tell him. I sure wasn't. But I sighed, and dismissed those thoughts. I couldn't put that burden on Zoe; she was just a child, and I shouldn't put responsibility on her. Though she should learn how to handle this kind of shit already. No, this was my responsibility, and I had to face it. I had to go inside my brothers' bedroom. I tapped the wooden door quietly, hoping against hope that no one would answer. But I knew better. He was there. He was always there. He never left, not for anything. Worthless piece of shit. I didn't even care that he was my brother. The door opened, and my brother's head peeked behind it, the familiar dirty blond locks looking drab and completely disgusting in the grey light from the window. His hair looked greasy and unwashed, which wasn't all that different from the usual, and neither was his attire: his usual grey T-shirt and sweatpants were dirty and stank. The most unusual thing, though, was his face. He was smiling. For reasons unknown to me. Why would he be smiling? It didn't make sense. Maybe he was stoned again... "Jess." He was smiling at me. And he remembered my name. At least he was better at this than Mom. I looked down, not able to meet his gaze. I knew it wasn't his fault, but I still couldn't ever look at him the same. Instead, I held onto the doorframe, making sure my presence was still noted and he didn't just forget about me. "Isaac," I said. I felt his eyes on me, and I knew that he was looking at my reddening cheek from where Mommy slapped me. My hand instantly went to my face, trying to hide it, but he had already seen (and most probably heard) what went on between Mommy and me. "Was that..." I nodded. He didn't even have to finish the sentence. He was asking if Mom had did it. He already knew the answer, anyway. He knew she did it. "She was drinking again, wasn't she." It was more of a statement than a question. He knew she had been drinking. She always drunk; why would this time be any different? I nodded again. "Yeah," I said. It was all I had to say. Isaac opened the door fully and let me in. "Come on in," he said, stepping aside so I could enter. "Thanks." I looked around the room, its grey walls dank and prison-like. Serves him right. It's appropriate. The room itself, though, almost hadn't changed at all in the eight years we lived there. The bunk beds that Taylor and Isaac shared still stood in the corner, both beds unkempt and messy, like they always were. Zac's bed stood opposite the bunks, also messy. Man, in seven years I thought Isaac would have done some housekeeping. I guessed wrong. Clothes were littered everywhere, and the mustiness in the atmosphere was just crying out for moth balls. I breathed in, and noticed the slight buzz I got from the air. I was right. He had been smoking up. "Nice what you've done to the place," I said sarcastically. He didn't notice, though, and gave me a confused look. I smiled, trying to be nice, but I couldn't. I didn't like to be nice to Isaac. He didn't deserve it. "Sit down, stay for a while," he said, pointing to the lower bunk bed. Taylor's. He had insisted on taking the lower one, even though Isaac wanted it, because he was afraid of heights. Isaac never forgave him for that one. Don't know why I remember that; it had just come to me when I sat on the bed. Reminiscence. What a concept. I sighed heavily, rolling over the events of the day so far. Zoe was about to hate me for life, and I actually showed backbone to my mother, which probably meant I would find new locks on the doors when I got home. And Jesus, it wasn't even noon yet. This day was hankering to suck. My hand reached into the side pocket on my cargo skirt, and came back with a pack of Marlboros in tow. I took one out of the box, counting the remaining five, while Isaac sat next to me on the bed, his eyes widening. He pointed to the pack of cigarettes, then to me. Forgetting my manners momentarily, I regained my composure by displaying the box. "You want one?" I asked. "I never knew you smoked," he said, although taking one and pursing it between his lips. I looked at him as he lit a match, the head blazing as he put it to the end of the cigarette and took a deep puff. He reluctantly handed his cigarette to me, where I placed it to the end of mine, inhaling deeply as the smoke entered my body. Ah, nicotine. Nothing like it on Earth. "What do you mean you never knew I smoked?" I said, aghast. "Ike, I've smoked for five years. You never noticed?" He shook his head, looking ahead, eyes seeming faraway. "Didn't think you were one to smoke," he said before he inhaled again, dishing the crumbling cimbers into an ashtray on the night table. He didn't know I was one to smoke? Where the hell had be been for five years? In a fucking hole? Oh, wait. He had been. Never mind. I changed the subject, readying myself to leave that godforsaken room any minute. "You know what today is, right?" Like he didn't know. I would've killed him if he didn't. He should never forget what he did. I knew that no one else in this family ever would. He nodded, and took another drag of the cigarette. "You're going today, aren't you." "Of course, Ike. I go every year." I looked over at him, wondering if I should even ask him. He didn't deserve to go. He's the one who caused it all, and he shouldn't be able to go and feel anything. But I had to ask him, even though I knew he wouldn't go. It was the principle of the thing. If he was going to go at all, it was right to go with family. "Are you going to go this year?" I asked, already knowing the answer. He would say no, Jess, not this year, and that would be it... "No, Jess, not this year." I know my brother. I know him well enough to know that he always says the same exact thing every year. Just once, he should go. Then he could see what he had done... "Who else is going?" "I'm forcing Zoe to go, and Mac is supposed to, but he's not home yet." "What about Avery?" What about her? I'm not her fucking keeper, Ike. She's a big girl now; she can go if she wants to. No one's stopping her. I should have just said that to him, really piss him off. He didn't like it when I talked back to him. Like I gave a shit what he liked or not. "Haven't seen her yet today," I said instead. Two fights already so early in the day was a record for me, and Mackenzie would probably bitch to me about going. I wasn't going to have a fight with every member of my family today. I just wasn't up to it. "She's probably at Sunday Mass, so she'll probably go anyway." Isaac snorted. "Avie still goes to Sunday Mass?" he asked, hopefully rhetorically. At least; I didn't dignify it with an answer. Avery and I...didn't get along much. Not at all. She called me the heathen, and I called her the prude. It was that kind of relationship between us. "Why don't you guys get along anymore? You used to be such friends." Isaac changed the subject again in a vain attempt to "bond" with me. What a joke. He couldn't be asking me that question: I wasn't going to answer it, and I sure wasn't going to have an entire conversation with someone I hated. I wasn't in a room with Mom, after all. "Why do you even care?" I retorted, feeling absolutely snippish about everything, including the sudden inquisition from the Hanson hermit. I didn't need to answer to him. He wasn't anything special anymore, and he had never been. "It's not like you actually know what's going on with our lives." Isaac stood up, and looked down at me, his brows furrowed, looking like he had never seen opposition from me. If he hadn't, then he sure wasn't around for a long while. "I know enough," he said, not one to be disrespected. Well, he should have known: I'm one to disrespect. This time, I was the one to stand up. I purposely got into his face, just waiting to see how far I could go until he kicked me out of his room. It seemed like the only way I was ever going to get out of their that day. "Like hell you do. You know enough, huh? What do you know, Ike? What you think you know about us? Or your 'selective memory' bit-" I raised my hands and curved my fingers, creating tiny quotation marks in the air. "-where you just know what you want to know?" I got right in his way then, not backing down at all. He wasn't going to play clouded judgment man with me. "Look around you, Ike. We're not the same family that we were seven years ago. Dad's gone. Mackenzie's a fuckin' drug dealer. Avery acts like she's some hot shit and that she's too good for our family. Zoe's in her own little world, just like you. She doesn't deal with reality. Mom's a fucking drunk who doesn't get off her lazy ass to do any work; not like she's qualified to do anything besides chug a forty-five and pop babies out of her-" "That's enough!" Isaac yelled. Aw, and I didn't even get to say how fucked up my life was. I gave him a disgusted look. He shouldn't ever talk back to me. Not after what he did. "And my life, Ike. Did you know I had an abortion?" "You had an abortion?" he asked, bewildered. Told you he was in his own little world. "When was this? A month ago?" I threw up my hands, amazed at how clueless my older brother was. "It was four years ago, Isaac!" I screamed, hoping my mother didn't hear me. Hey, why did I care? She wasn't going to fuck with me after what I did today. "Four years. Where the fuck have you been?" I wasn't expecting an answer. I was ready to walk right out the door, satisfied with myself for emotionally breaking down my mother and my brother in less than an hour, when something weird happened. Something I hadn't seen happen for seven years. Isaac was sitting down on the bottom bunk, his head in his hands, and he was...crying. My brother was crying. I was dumbfounded. Isaac...crying? This almost never happened. Isaac was always the rock of the family...he never cried. Not even when Taylor stuck bubblegum in his hair and they had to shave it all off...this was too weird, even for our family. Why, the only other time I had ever seen him cry was...well, let's just say I had only seen him cry one other time. I had no idea what to do. What did you do when someone you hate is crying right next to you? "Isaac?" I asked quietly, sitting down beside him on the bed. His body was soon shaking with silent sobs, as he flinched away from my voluntary sisterly hand violently. Okay, so he didn't want sympathy. I wasn't going to give to him anyway, I swear. Really. After a few minutes of silence between us, he finally looked up at me, his face red and tearstained. I couldn't stand looking at him like that; so vulnerable, so different, so...un-Ike-like. He sniffled once, then looked down at the hardwood floors again. "Oh God," he whispered ever so faintly. "Seven years. It's been seven fucking years..." I felt bad for him. Honestly, I did. He was just so pathetic that I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. I placed a sisterly arm around his shoulder, trying to be comforting. I wasn't that good at comforting. I needed work. But the minute I heard him say, "it was all my fault," I immediately jumped away from him in disgust, remembering why I had shunned him in the first place. He was the cause. He was the problem, and I was actually trying to comfort him. "It was your fault," I said, standing up. I was about ready to burst out the door when a desperate hand flew to my wrist. Isaac looked up at me, his eyes pleading with mine, begging me to keep him company and let him get out his emotions. "Please," he said with such an urgency in his voice that at one point in time, I might have obliged. "stay. That's all I'm asking. Stay." I stayed. Why? Don't ask me. Maybe it was the pleading in his voice that broke me down. Or maybe it was the fact that he, at one time, was my brother, and I guess would always be, no matter what would happen between us. Or maybe because he bribed me with a blunt the size of Texas. No, wait. It was the blunt. Never mind. "You just have to tell me one thing, Ike," I said, closing the door. "Tell me what happened that night. Tell me what went wrong." I needed to know this, no matter how horrible it was, no matter what had happened, it was important that I hear what really went on. Isaac shook his head at me. "You've heard the story before, Jess," he told me. Sure, I had heard what my parents had told me. But they had sugar-coated it for a twelve-year old, and I had never heard any other version than that. I needed to know the real truth. "It was raining out, it was dark, I couldn't see, and I hit the pole. Okay?" He swallowed hard. I could tell it was difficult for him to say just that. But I didn't care. This was something I needed for me, and I didn't care how much it hurt for him to repeat it. "But I want to hear the details, Ike," I told him. "I want to hear, in your words, what happened. Don't disappoint me, brother. I'm no kid anymore. I can deal with whatever you've got to throw at me. Just tell me what happened." Isaac sighed, and ran his fingers through his oily hair again. It was a habit of his he had never seemed to break. Did awful things to his hair, too. After a few minutes of what I think was contemplation on his part, he decided to answer me. What I was about to be told, however, was something I was never prepared for. Isaac looked me straight in the eyes, bloodshot as they were, as held his most serious tone. "Jess, what I'm about to tell you right now I had never told anyone before. Not the police, not Mom and Dad. No one." He looked away again. Something was wrong. It wasn't just an innocent night gone wrong. Something was different... "Tell me everything."
mail. [email protected] � FTLOM
