Remember My Name (15 page)

“No, it was just dumb stuff.
I needed time to cool off, so I left.” My breath comes more easily as I spin my
lies with increasing conviction.  “I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.”

He gives me a serious look,
his tone adopting a hardness he hasn’t used with me before. “Make sure it
doesn’t. If you need to take a break, or if you need to cool off, that’s fine.
But you check in with me first, got it?”

I stand up, matching his
expression. “Understood.”

“Good, now let’s get going.”

As soon as we’re home and
out of the truck, I sprint up to the house and change into basketball shorts.
Jackson and Jeff are just getting water from the fridge when I race back down
the stairs and slip on Jackson’s running shoes. He locks eyes with me for a
fraction of a second before I’m out the door. They’re the same blue eyes as
this morning except not the same at all. God I really need to run. I need to
run until my heart bursts or breaks, it doesn’t matter which. Either way it’s
not coming back whole.

Today I head west. Crops on
both sides of the road fill my vision as my feet beat the ground into
submission, forcing it back under my advance. Endless rows of corn stretch to
the south, while wheat dominates everything to the north.

If only he would let me in,
maybe we could find something close to what we had. I have things I’d like to
share with him too, if he were willing to listen. Stuff about living with Mom
and about getting to know Katie. Stuff like how a gaping crater inside is
threatening to engulf me. Maybe it’s irrational, maybe it’s bizarre, but I need
him.

After what feels like
forever, I turn toward home with a growing headache threatening to split my
head apart and my chest so tight I can barely breathe. For the hundredth time,
I regret not drinking any water before I left. I shouldn’t run this hard when
I’m dehydrated, but I don’t care. Barely more than the balls of my feet touch
the ground. If I push myself hard enough, the physical pain will cover the
other, deeper pain. It will be a welcome relief if I can get there. So I keep
pushing.

Finally crossing the road
into our driveway, a sickening roil grips my stomach, and I know I’ve overdone
it. I slow my pace to a walk, but it’s too late. Gritting my teeth through the
razor-edged headache, I try to burp but I can’t get anything out. I’m ten feet from
the front door when I double over in the grass and start dry heaving. This is
the closest I’ve been to throwing up in a long time.

The caustic taste of acid
fills my nose and mouth, but nothing actually comes up. Once it’s over, I take
a few minutes to just let myself breathe. Spitting a few last times into the
grass, I push myself to my feet and head inside.

Jeff and Jackson are on the
couch watching TV. I turn my face away as I pass the living room so they won’t
see how flushed it is. Pouring myself a glass of water, I rinse my mouth out
first and spit the bile into the sink. Topping off the glass, I drink it all.
From the cabinet above the sink, I take three ibuprofen and down them with a
second glass.

Half dragging myself up the
stairs by the banister, I stumble over a pile of dirty clothes as I enter
Jackson’s room. My head pounding and my throat still raw, I pull the shades
down and drop into his bed. It’s not exactly what I wished for, but straight
unconsciousness will suffice.

Hours later, I awake as
Jackson climbs quietly into bed beside me. Everything is dark, but my headache
is gone. Neither of us says anything, and in a minute I’ve fallen back to
sleep.

When I awake for a second
time, the room is still smothered in darkness and silence. My legs are stiff
and my throat feels like an animal clawed its way out sometime during the
night, but at least I’m well rested. A few inches to my left, Jackson’s steady
breathing counts time to the passing seconds. With only the top sheet covering
him, I reach out across the space between us and lay my hand on his stomach.
Under my palm, it rises and falls in cadence with his breaths.

He rolls his head to the
side, but I know he isn’t awake because my hand on his belly still moves evenly
up and down. This moment feels stolen, like it will never really belong to me.
Because as much as I’m craving connection with Jackson, it has to be freely
given, not taken. I withdraw my hand.

Jackson

Another week has passed, and
we’re still working at Dad’s greenhouse. The days move quickly, and the
evenings even faster. It’s taken a little time to get used to Ben being beside
me every night, but I don’t really mind anymore. In a way it’s kind of cool,
even if our frequently whispered conversations before we fall asleep are
stilted and awkward at times.

Tonight Ben doesn’t say
anything for almost fifteen minutes, but I know he’s awake. It’s something
about his breathing, but I’m not sure exactly what. At last he says, “So do you
have a girlfriend?”

I shift under the sheet,
wanting to take back my earlier thoughts. He’s never dropped something like
this on me, and I really don’t want to get into it with him. “No girlfriend.
You?”

“No,” he says, answering
quickly, “but I’m kind of hoping to get to know Katie better.” He pauses for a
second before continuing. “She’s got the best smile… and laugh. And don’t even
get me started on those shorts. She always wears the sexiest shorts.”

“Um…” I guess I should be
proud of him for going after someone here and trying to make the best of this
summer. Still though… it’s Ben, and I don’t want to think about him that way.

He rolls onto his stomach.
Jesus, I hope he’s not doing that because he’s getting hard. So gross. I scoot
away from him a little bit. “You like her a lot, huh?”

“So what if I do?” He’s
silent for a moment, then asks. “You and her didn’t have like a thing, did
you?”

I actually laugh this time.
“Uh, no.”

“What’s so damn funny?”

“Nothing,” I say quickly,
holding my breath. I
really
don’t want to get into this right now.

Ben is quiet for a bit, long
enough that I think he’s given up, when he restarts the conversation. “You’d
tell me, right?”

“Huh? I was almost asleep.”

“Sorry,” he says quickly.
“But now that you’re awake again…”

“Yes?” I grumble.

“You’d tell me if you were
interested in someone, right? I know that–” He stops midsentence, like
he’s afraid of what he might say. He tries again. “I know that things aren’t
like they used to be, but we’re still brothers. We’re supposed to share stuff
like that.”

How can I possibly answer
him?
Oh yeah, Ben. Actually I do have something of a love interest. He’s six
foot one, a hundred and eighty pounds, and his dick really puts to shame those
push-pops we used to like as kids.
Yeah, not going to happen. Not that I’ve
actually
seen
Matt like that yet, but I had my hand on it, so that
counts. “Sure, I’d tell you.”

“I thought so,” he says. “I
was just checking.” From his voice, I can tell he’s smiling. I don’t like lying
to him, but what choice do I have?

*     *     *    
*

Dad delivers the good news
that business has slowed down enough for the summer that he can manage with
just him and Katie, who’s now working full days. The caveat, of which he
somehow managed to inform us no less than seven times in that one conversation,
was that he still might need our help sometimes.

He’s also decided that it’s
time to fix up the guest bedroom so Ben doesn’t have to keep rooming with me.
It’s funny that a few weeks ago I would have done anything not to have him in
my room, and now I’m going to be sad to see him go. Despite his rocky time
here, there have been brief moments where it feels like everything was like it
used to be between us. For the first time in years, it was just him and me,
together.

I don’t quite understand the
intense need to be close to him. It was easier to ignore when we lived apart,
but now that we’re in the same house, it’s an emptiness inside that demands to
be filled. What makes me feel like this? My mind supplies a rogue explanation,
but I know it’s not
that
, there’s no question about that. I’m no more
attracted to Ben than I am to a houseplant. It’s something else, something
deeper.

The following morning, Dad
gets a friend of his to manage the greenhouse so he can work on Ben’s room for
the day. When Dad asks which one of us wants to go to Menard’s with him to get
the drywall sheets, I gladly let Ben go ahead. I’ve been to that store way too
many times over the years. Each trip drags on until we’ve been there for hours
and I’m hauling around a cart or lumber trolley filled with so much stuff it
borders on being unsafe. So yeah, Ben, go right ahead.

After they leave, I text
Matt to let him know he doesn’t need to come over to help until after lunch.
Dad said they’d be back by eleven, but it always takes longer. Dropping my
phone onto the bedside table, I strip off my jeans and t-shirt and lie down to
get a bit more sleep. As much as I don’t want to admit it, I haven’t been
sleeping any worse since Ben started sharing the bed. I don’t know how that’s
possible, since it’s a double and we’re not scrawny guys. We’ve got shoulders.

Once on a field trip in
middle school, I had to share a bed with another guy, and I slept like shit.
Every time he moved I woke up. It was miserable.

But with Ben? I’m out cold,
every night. Except for that time he said my name in his sleep.
Jacks
.
Fuck if I wasn’t wide-awake from the moment that syllable passed his lips. For
a split second it made me feel amazing, and then I remembered. I remembered he
never calls me that anymore and probably never will again. I bite down,
suppressing the emotion smoldering in my throat before it can really take hold.
Forcing my eyes closed, I make myself take steady breaths until I no longer
have to force it. Rest is a welcome relief when it finally comes.

 “Hey,” a whispered voice
coaxes me from sleep.
Ben
?
No, that’s not right.
Sleep clouds my
brain, so it takes some effort to open my eyes. Matt is sitting at my desk,
just a few feet away.

“What are you doing here?” I
glance around, trying to make sense of everything. “Did I oversleep?” The
shades on my window are drawn, leaving the room cloaked in murky shadows.

“It’s only nine thirty,” he
says a little louder than his earlier whisper. “You said your dad and brother weren’t
coming back for a while, so I thought I’d come over.”

I sit up in bed, acutely
conscious of his eyes as they skim over my shirtless chest. Even in the
semi-darkness, I can see him turning red. “Huh?”

“I, uh, thought you meant
for me to come over before they got back.”

I give him an incredulous
look. “Um, no, I didn’t mean that. How could you have gotten that from my
text?”

“All right, I know you
didn’t say that,” he admits. “But I wanted to see you. Without your family
around for once.”

Hearing Matt refer to Dad
and Ben as my family feels off for some reason, if only because it’s just been
Dad and me for so long. I sigh. “I don’t feel comfortable, uh, fooling around
here. Ben has been asking questions, and I don’t want him getting ideas.”

“Who gives a shit?” Matt
breathes, fire instantly kindling in his expression. “I’m pretty horny, and I
bet you are too. It doesn’t matter if your brother is here for the summer.”

“It does.” My words hover in
the air, a challenge.

“Fine. I’ll go then.”

Am I really going to let him
leave? It’s been impossible to get him out of my head lately, but the thought
of Ben finding out about us scares the shit out of me. The sounds of his
footsteps on the stairs echo back to me as melancholy notes.

Without caring about the yellow
and orange striped boxer briefs I’m wearing, I toss the covers off and bolt
down the hallway. If he leaves, he’s not going to come back. I don’t know how I
know, but I do.

Bare feet slapping the
smooth oak stairs, I burst into the kitchen and run through the living room,
catching his arm just as he reaches the front door. “Don’t go,” I say, my
breath heavy. His skin feels hot beneath my fingers.

He glances downward, no
doubt taking in the fact that I’m not wearing anything but a pair of skintight
underwear. “Don’t go,” I repeat. His eyes snap up to mine before being drawn
back down just a little.

“I don’t want to play games.
You said you were okay with just having fun this summer, but that’s pretty hard
to do if you’re being a paranoid closet case. I don’t care, because that’s your
deal, but there’s no one even
here
today.” He pulls out of my grip.

I bite my lip. “I’m sorry.
It’s just kind of confusing with Ben here.”

He sighs. “I’ll be back in a
few hours to help you guys with the room.”

“Really?”

“I said I’d help, and I kind
of need the money.” Then he turns and disappears out the door. Behind him, the
screen door slams with a screech. I hate that sound.

Climbing the stairs back to
my room, I throw myself onto the bed and pull a pillow into my arms, unable to
shake the feeling that I’m messing something up right now. And for what?
Because Ben might be upset if he found out?

The rest of the day passes
in a blur. Matt shows up at one o’clock just as we finish lunch, and he works
with us the whole day, just like he said.

Dad took time at the
beginning to show both Matt and Ben how to hang drywall properly, but he kept saying
things that made it seem like he was impatient. Once they each mastered scoring
and snapping apart the pieces, positioning them properly on the studs, and
finally drilling the screws to the right depth, the work started to go a lot
faster. I would have preferred not to team up with Matt, but Dad told us to
work together. Probably thought he was doing us a favor.

After the walls went up, we
mudded between the joints, keeping the work clean enough that we won’t have to
sand it much afterward. We’ll still have to paint before Ben moves in here, but
at this point I think Dad is in more of a rush to get Ben out of my room than
either of us are.

Without anything else to do,
Matt and I just watch as Ben and Dad clean up. We aren’t talking, but that’s
not really a surprise since we haven’t said much all day. We didn’t talk while
we were working either, at least not any more than we absolutely had to. I know
it would have taken a lot longer if it had just been Dad and Ben and me, but I
wish Matt hadn’t come back to help.

“I think I’m going to head
home,” Matt announces, shooting a look at me.

Dad sets down the drill and
pulls out his wallet, handing Matt several twenties. “Thanks for the help,
Matt. Was good to see you again.”

“No problem. Glad to help
out.”

My eyes catch Dad’s, and
then I say, “I’ll show him out.”

An hour later, the sun is
already casting evening shadows from the deck railing as Dad tosses three
steaks onto the grill. Beyond the deck, the willow branches hang down,
completely still.

“You and Matt didn’t talk
much today,” he says.

The edge in his voice makes
the hairs on the back of my neck lift into the air. “Not really,” I say cautiously,
glad that Ben is still inside the house.

“Did you guys get into some
pissy fight?”

His words make my chest
constrict, forcing the air out of my lungs. I don’t know what he’s getting at,
and I don’t want to find out. “No,” I state. “We just didn’t talk much.”

“Hmm,” he says as Ben steps onto
the porch and sits down on one of the deck chairs.

I refuse to look at either
of them.

“You picked up pretty quick
on the drywall work,” Dad says to Ben. “Have you ever done any type of
construction before?”

Ben flushes and shakes his
head, his hair brushing against the back of the chair he’s reclining on. He
must like getting a compliment from Dad. “In a weird way,” he says, “it was
kind of fun learning to put walls up.”

Really? I’m surprised that
he enjoyed himself, but there’s more to the thoughtful expression he’s wearing,
although I can’t quite figure out what it is.

“You and Jackson do a lot of
this stuff?” he asks.

“Not often, but sometimes.”
Dad closes the lid on the gas grill. “Be right back,” he says, stepping through
the screen door.

When he returns he has three
dark brown bottles. He hands one to Ben and another to me. “You’ve earned it,”
he says.

Prying the cap off mine with
the opener on my keychain, I take a long swig.

Ben rotates the bottle in
front of him, eyeing the label with green writing and a picture of a cow
jumping over something I’ve never been able to identify.
New Glarus Spotted
Cow
.

“You’re serious?” he asks,
raising his eyes to Dad.

“Yep,” he says, taking a
drink.

I watch Ben out of the corner
of my eye as his fingers close around the neck of the bottle. Like mine, it’s
cold and covered in a layer of condensation. I hand him my keychain. He opens
the bottle and takes a drink, seeming to savor it. “Thanks, um, Dad,” he says.

My eyes jump to Dad and the
smile awakening on his face. Ben hasn’t called him that even once since
arriving here.