Matt's Story

“Matt, can you answer the question?”

I look up and see thirty-two sets of eyes on me, anxiously waiting for me to crash and burn. If this were the first time Mr. Benson had called on me, the thirty-two sets of eyes wouldn’t care. They’d stay glued to the phones hidden under the desks, the notes being passed, or even, maybe, the notes being taken. But no, this isn’t the first time. It’s probably the fifth, and it won’t be the last.

“Can you repeat the question?” I mumble.

Over the snickers I hear the audible sigh coming from Mr. Benson. He tries, he really does, but I just can’t seem to concentrate on the trigonometry problems he writes on the
board. They’re numbers and letters and just as mixed up as I am. If I can’t figure out myself, how can I figure out a problem that has absolutely nothing to do with me? In a former life, I was actually a decent student, but there’s something about guilt and regret and disappointment that make you stop caring.

Mr. Benson starts to repeat the problem again, and I hear tapping coming from the desk next to me. A girl—Cindy, I think—is hitting her pen on her paper, pointing to the number forty-six and giving me a hard stare.

She could be lying. She could be leading me on to make everyone laugh. But what the hell, I have nothing to lose. I pretend to mentally calculate the problem in my head, scrunching up my face and letting my eyes drift to the ceiling, and answer “Forty-six?” when he gets to the end.

“Yes,” he says, audibly relieved and surprised. “Very good, now . . . ,” he continues, but I zone out again. I look over at maybe-Cindy and give her a half smile, whispering, “Thanks.” She nods back with an amused smile and wide blue eyes. She has auburn hair that waves down her back, and blunt bangs. Her nose is small and juts out a bit like a ski slope, and she kind of reminds me of, funnily enough, Cindy Lou Who, from
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
. Maybe that’s why I think her name is Cindy.

If I were Jake, I’d invite her back to my house and we’d be making out within minutes. But I’m not Jake, and she’s not Ella, so her bangs and eyes and nose don’t really matter
to me.

I turn back to the paper I’ve written nothing on and realize that “Can you repeat the question?” was the first thing I’ve said all day.

The bell rings, and all thirty-two sets of eyes find partners and talk about their plans for the weekend. It’s Friday, after all, so everyone has something to do, while I have a nice TV marathon waiting for me. If this was any other year, I’d try to fit in, try finding a group to blend in to and maybe make friends, but it all seems so pointless now. It’s February . . . college is around the corner, barreling down on us, and we’re all leaving anyway.

I just wish I’d gotten to finish out senior year in Orlando. Life was awesome for those six months there. I had friends, a girlfriend, a life. After a lifetime of temporary houses and temporary friends because of moving around for Dad’s job so much, I finally felt, I don’t know, stable. And then we were uprooted to Houston in December, ruining everything. And let’s not forget the shitty reason why we’re here.

I make my way into the hall, bumping into a few people gathering around the door, and hear my name.

“Matt. Matt!”

I turn around and see maybe-Cindy walking toward me.

“Hey,” she says, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “Cindy,” she says, pointing to herself. Ah, I was right.

“Yeah, hey,” I say. “What’s up?”

“Um, I was wondering if maybe you wanted to study sometime? You seem kind of . . . lost in there.”

I push my glasses back on my nose and look down. It’s
nice
she’s inviting me to study, but I’ve managed to go the past two months here without making friends, and I’m okay with that. I look up and see not Cindy, but Ella looking back at me. She’s standing in the hallway, shuffling from foot to foot, and I want to grab her, but I can’t because she’s not really here, and I’m not there, and it’s all in my head.

“Yeah, kind of,” I say, instead, shaking the vision away, “but it’s cool. I’m figuring it out. Thanks anyway.” I try to sound appreciative, but also give her a no at the same time.

“Oh, okay,” she says with a shrug. “Have a good weekend.” With a smile and a wave she turns around and walks in the other direction, and part of me feels guilty and wants to chase her down and say, “Sure,” but the other part just really doesn’t care.

After the final bell, and a long trek through the parking lot, I get in my car and drive to Chris’s rehab facility. I don’t have to go, but Mom’s going to be late, and Dad is obviously staying at work until God knows what hour, so I guess I should be there. As much as I hate what he did and how it made life hell, he’s still my older brother.

After about thirty minutes, I park and look up at the center, a more familiar sight than I’d like for it to be. I hate this place—the bland, concrete exterior; the lifeless people
milling around; the fake cheery flowers and fountain outside—but lately it’s become less haunting, which might even be scarier. When Chris first came here, I didn’t want to visit; I wanted to avoid it—and him—for as long as possible, but eventually my guilt hit. So now I’m here. Again.

I sign in at the front desk, where a bored secretary sits, wearily watching me. After going over the same set of rules I’ve heard before—and he’s clearly said before, judging by the monotonous tone of his voice—he leads me down a windowless hallway, past more fake flowers in oversize vases, and into Chris’s room.

You see these situations in movies all the time, but never think it’s going to be you visiting your brother after he went through hell and back. After he was caught selling drugs. After he was kicked out of college. After he was put in jail, forcing our parents and me to move here to help get him out. After he was finally released and, as per court-ordered rules, had to recuperate here.

Chris is on his bed when I get in, staring out his window. Seeing him always surprises me, no matter how many times I’ve been here. Mom always says we look alike—same flat dark brown hair, same slanted nose—but I don’t see it anymore. He’s so much skinnier than he was before we moved away—the athletic build from years of soccer has been whittled down, and his face is hollow and pale, not the fuller, cocky one I used to know. I wonder what he sees when he looks at me.

“Hey, lil’ bro,” he says with a smile on his face when he sees me.

Even though I’m still pretty upset with him, I find myself smiling back. “Hey, Chris.”

“How’s it going? How’s school?”

I shrug. “Okay,” I say, because what else can I say? School kind of sucks, and I hate that I’m here and not back in Orlando? I hate that you screwed up both of our lives? Yeah, like he wants to hear that. “How is . . . everything?” I ask.

“Good,” he says with a bit more energy. “Good. I mean, I’m leaving soon, so that’s—”

“Yeah,” I cut him off. “It’s awesome.” There’s an awkward pause. We used to be able to talk for hours—I told him everything. And now these are our conversations. Short and stifled. Distant.

“And maybe when I’m back home, we can hang out.” A tinge of hope is in his voice. Were this last year, I would have jumped at the suggestion. Hell, I would have jumped at the suggestion anytime, but now I don’t know what to think. What would we do? What would we talk about? He took away my desire to be around him when he ruined everything for me. And even now that he’s getting out, having been clean and apparently restored, after the revelation came about that he wasn’t in charge of a drug ring after all, it doesn’t feel any better. Because he was still part of it in the first place.

But, he’s my brother, so I say, “Sure,” and leave it at that.
We’ll figure out the specifics when he comes home. In a week.

“Hey, Matt,” a voice says behind me, and I turn around to see Delilah, Chris’s girlfriend, walking in. She’s here often, I’m told, but only rarely do our visits coincide. She’s cute, with inquisitive eyes and black hair, and I wonder why she’s still with him, why she’s giving him her time. Yeah, they dated for, like, four months before everything went down in November, but still, she deserves better. I never thought I’d think that about him.

“Hey, Delilah,” I say, then turn back to Chris as she sits down on his bed. He’s visibly happier; a smile on his face replaces the awkward look from earlier when he clearly didn’t know what to say to me.

“Hey, baby,” he coos, and she melts, and I feel the familiar pain I get whenever I see couples act like couples.

“Hi, you,” she responds quietly, but he hears. “I’m sorry for interrupting y’all—should I come back?”

“No, don’t worry about it,” Chris quickly says, and a part of me twinges with jealousy. “We were just talking about Matt’s school and stuff.”

No, we weren’t.

“How’s the new school treating you?” Delilah asks, including me in the conversation. “Enjoying your senior year?”

“Um, it’s fine,” I answer uncomfortably.

“Wait until next week,” Chris says, suddenly much
perkier. “I’ll be home and we’ll make it memorable. It’s your senior year, dude,” he exclaims. “Live it up. Remember mine? I was the king at being awesome.”

“And coming home late, from what I recall,” I say, remembering our mom pacing the living room when Chris was, once again, an hour late. He always “accidentally” turned off his phone, or “accidentally” left it at home. “How many times did I cover for you?”

“Two or three—”

“Hundred times,” I say to Delilah, and she giggles.

“Mom always got over it,” he says, waving his hand, then turning to Delilah. “I’m too cute to resist.”

“Yeah, you are,” she says, smiling.

“Get a room,” I say, rolling my eyes.

“I think we’re in one,” Chris says, gesturing around him. He starts making these ridiculous kissing faces at her and, yep, I’m out. It was okay for a second, but now . . .

“I’m going to leave you two alone,” I say, standing up abruptly.

“You don’t have to leave, Matt,” Delilah says.

“No, I know, I just . . . I have homework,” I say, not really wanting to see them making out any more. “I’ll see you at home soon, and all . . .” I trail off, realizing how true that really is. I wonder how it’ll be then, with him and Delilah. With him and me.

“Yeah, cool.” Chris nods, looking at me with hope, but I don’t think he gets it. “We’ll talk more then.”

“Sure,” I say. “See ya.” I wave and he waves and I leave.

Chris and I were best friends growing up. We moved around so often for our dad’s military job, we had to be. We didn’t have anyone else. Being more social, he always took care of me in a new school, making friends instantly, and then introducing me around. He never grew tired of taking my quiet self under his wing. So it’s weird, for once, seeing that
he
needs help, and
he
doesn’t know what to do next. We’re reversed, and I don’t know how to help him once he’s home. I don’t know how to be that better person, because the last time I saw Chris, he was winning the state championship for his soccer team, and now he’s out of prison and rehab for drug possession and addiction. How can everything change so much?

I get home to an empty house. I throw my bag on my bed and sit at my desk, opening my laptop before I can tell myself not to. I go right to Facebook and search for her name: Ella Rhodes.

She hasn’t unfriended me yet, which I figured she would. She should have. I haven’t spoken to her since we moved away. It was a crappy thing to do—to just leave, not explain anything—but I was so scared, so confused about everything that I didn’t know what else to do. I just wanted her to move on after I left, and not be involved in my family drama. But according to her Facebook page, and the text I got this morning that made me want to crush my phone, she
hasn’t let me go. Why won’t she?

She hasn’t updated her profile, except for changing the picture. What once was a shot of the two of us spinning in circles on the school’s roof is now a picture of her and her best friend, Meg. Meg’s grinning and Ella is just . . . there, kind of smiling. If you didn’t know her well, you’d think she was fine, that she was happy. But that smile—it’s her fake smile, the one she has when she wants to show she’s okay, but really isn’t. It’s the smile she’d give me before a show, when she was shaking from the fear of singing in public. It’s the smile that would be replaced, later, by a real one, a genuine one that would melt my heart and make me want to keep it to myself forever, hidden away from anyone else’s view, else they’d see the magic she has.

She gave me that smile—the real smile—the last day I was with her, two months ago. I didn’t want her hurt by the fact that I was leaving. I didn’t want to see her sad, so I kept trying to keep her happy. We were lying on the couch, squished close together. Her parents were on their way home, so we’d come downstairs and were pretending to watch a movie, when really I couldn’t keep my hands off her. We both knew what the next day held, but we didn’t think about it. I didn’t want either of us to feel the loss already. So I kissed her as much as I could, and when my hand went to her hip, her shirt came up a little, exposing a sliver of skin.

“I love this, right here,” I said, rubbing the skin with my thumb.

“Then it’s yours,” she said, with that smile, and her eyes burning impressions into my soul. I kissed her again and again until we had to release in fear of drowning in one another.

I thought I was right in leaving her like that. I thought it would make things easier, but seeing her in these pictures, I’m not so sure.

I made the decision right after my family and I found out about Chris. Mom was hell-bent on moving here, but I didn’t get it—I didn’t even know
how
we could support him—he was in jail, what more could we do? Turns out, a lot. We could be threatened and burglarized by the guy Chris owed money to. We could be endlessly frightened and followed. We could be the people who turned in the real seller, and got my brother cleared for most charges and moved from jail to rehab.

It’s been a long two months.

But at the time, I just hated Chris for taking me away from Orlando. From Ella.