The Rest of Us Just Live Here (24 page)

“I don’t…” I say. “I didn’t… Jared’s always been secretive.”

I said goodbye to everyone, even Nathan, wincing through his hangover, and Jared, who kept his distance, waiting for me to come closer. But I left instead.

“This is stupid,” I say, feeling my chest get tight, like I’m going to cry. I cried during the night when we lay on the couch together. She let me. And even though she didn’t tell me about Jared and Nathan before either, I’m not mad at her.

I just feel so dumb.

“You guys don’t have to treat me like I’m going to break,” I say. “Everyone does. Mikey with the OCD. Mikey with the medication now–”

“We never did, Mike–”

“Mel
died
. She’s still weird around food and everyone treats her the same. Like they should.
I
do. I spend a lot of time doing that.”

“Jared is a quarter
God
, Mike. And I’ve got freak parents who are taking me to a war to talk about Jesus and feet. Everyone’s got something. Not even just us, everyone we know.” She looks thoughtful. “Except maybe the indie kids. They’re probably the most normal ones out there.”

“I wonder what was going on last night. With the lights.”

She shrugs. “Probably some apocalypse.”

“I feel so stupid,” I say. “Just so, so stupid. Right in front of my face. And no one tells me.”

“If it helps,” she says, “it means I really was your date to prom.”

I drive some more. I don’t say out loud whether it helps or not.

My mom hands me an envelope as I walk in the door. “I checked,” she says. “You aced them.”

Our finals results. I open it. I did ace them, even Calc. College was kind of a formality – I knew I wasn’t going to fail – but it’s nice to have the formality all wrapped up. New life, here I come, I guess.

“You’re back early,” my mom says, going to the kitchen.

I follow her. “So are you.”

“Meredith made me.” She smiles, but I know it’s true. “That freak lightning storm.”

She says it in a way that’s almost asking me about it. “I don’t know either,” I say. “I don’t know a lot of things.”

“You know enough to go to a good school.” She takes some drinks out of the fridge, not even asking what I want, just somehow knowing that I’d love a cream soda. “You know enough to face a future with some confidence.”

“Do I?”

“I’m proud of you. I’m proud of your sister, too.”

“How’d she do?”

She grins, pouring me my soda. “It’s like you’re twins sometimes.”

“Good,” I say. “Good.”

She hands me my drink. We just stand there for a minute, drinking, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. “I really am proud of you, you know,” she says, then she gets a tough look. “I want a world where you can live and be happy.”

“That’d be nice,” I say, but she doesn’t seem to hear me.

“I’ve gotten it wrong in the past. Really wrong. I haven’t even managed to get you guys to believe in my political party.” I open my mouth to object, but she stops me. “Don’t deny it. I don’t even care. All I care about is keeping trying. To make the world safer for you and your sisters. Any way I know how.” She takes a drink. “I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe, Mike.”

“You said that before. What kind of things?”

“Things that would keep you awake at night. Things that would make you desperate to try and protect your own kids.” I see her look past me. “Hey, sweetheart.”

Meredith’s come in, holding her pad. She looks worried.

“What’s wrong?” my mom asks.

Meredith turns her pad to show us.

“I didn’t know!” Jared says. “I swear it.”

“Your dad sure as hell knew!”

“And I’m as pissed off at him as you are!”

“
Are
you? It’s my
sister
!”

Mr Shurin’s campaign got hold of Cynthia the blogger. The story was pretty much dead, gone, Mel a hero, my mom the mother of a brave daughter. But now the footage of Mel punching Cynthia has been recovered from her destroyed pad (recovery paid for by Mr Shurin’s party). Unlike all the news cameras who turned to us too late, this is footage that shows Mel having a bit more time to recognize the woman, more clearly decide to punch her, and then a great big shot of Mel’s foot stomping on the pad.

It’s all been put up on Mr Shurin’s website along with photos of Cynthia looking like she’s fallen off a cliff face-first. Mr Shurin’s campaign site has big ol’ headlines on it: “Questions asked about brutal attack by Alice Mitchell’s daughter!” “Political blogger says First Amendment rights breached, will sue!”

Because yeah, she’s suing us, too.

Jared didn’t answer his phone as I drove over and wasn’t at his house when I got there. I had to wait for him to show up from the drive back from the cabin with Nathan. I barely let them get out of the car.

“She’s my friend, too,” Jared says.

“Really?” I’m shouting a lot. “Like you’re
my
friend?”

“That’s… Shit, Mike–”

“I thought your dad was a good guy–”

“He
is
a good guy. I’m sure there’s an explanation–”

“I don’t
want
an explanation! I want him to lose like the loser he always is!”

Jared’s face gets harder. “Watch it,” he says, quietly.

“Watch what? What are you going to do?”

Nathan’s standing off to one side, still hangover-squinting. He says, “I’m sure this can all be straightened out–”

“Shut up!” I shout at him. “Things were fine around here until you showed up.”

“Christ sake, Mike,” Jared says. “Is that was this is about? I
knew
I couldn’t tell you! I
knew
you’d be jealous!”

“Jealous?” Nathan asks.

But Jared’s still going. “You stick to me like a tick! I can’t breathe without you wanting to know it! I can’t live my life without you wanting to crowd in.”

“You never tell me anything, Jared! It’s always the same. All this stuff you don’t want me to know! Like some power trip you have to have over me at all times.”

And then he says–

Well, he says this:

“Maybe if you were a
real
friend instead of an endless bag of need, I’d have told you about Nathan
first
. Did you ever think of that?”

At that, I just stand there.

And stand there some more.

Jared’s face softens. “Mike–”

“Just get your dad to take it down,” I say, looking at the ground.

“Mike, please, I didn’t–”

“Get him to take it down.”

“I will.”

I get in my car. They watch me go.

“But I’m
not
worried,” Mel says, as we sit on her bed.

“Are you sure?” I ask her.

“It’s politics,” Mel says, leaning back with a frown. “It’s filthy and it’s disgusting and dirties everything it touches.” She shrugs, still frowning. “It’ll blow over in a week.”

“Mom went mental,” I say. “She’s already got lawyers on it. There’s no way that lady wasn’t made-up in those photos.”

“They don’t want me, they want Mom. So it’s her problem. I told her that and she agreed. She says she’s fixing it.” She hugs herself, lightly. “I’m just … really disappointed about Mr Shurin.”

“I
know
–”

“Maybe even nice guys get tired of losing.”

I feel an ache in my stomach when she says the word “losing”.
I want him to lose like the loser he always is
, I said to Jared. About his own dad.

But so what? He attacked my sister.

Almost like my thoughts summoned him, both of our phones buzz at once. It’s from Jared.
He’s taking it down. Today. Says the campaign team kept pushing him on it and he finally said yes and regrets it. He’s pulling out of the race altogether. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.

“Wow,” Mel says, quietly.

“Won’t stop the blogger suing, though,” I say. “The damage is done. It’s already spread to other sites.”

“But so has his resignation.” She shows me her phone.
Congressional Candidate resigns over attack on opponent’s teenage daughter.

“That’s a site friendly to Mom, though. There’ll be more.”

Mel sighs and starts texting. “What are you doing?” I ask.

“Texting Jared back. I don’t blame
him
. He’s probably the one who talked his dad into pulling out of the race.”

I don’t say anything. It’s kind of loud.

“He didn’t mean to hurt you,” Mel says, looking up at me. “You know that, don’t you?”

I run my fingers across the top of her bedspread. “You’re more important. This is way bigger than
my
stupid thing.” She looks at me. “You see? That’s what I mean. The pity. That’s what I don’t want or need and you just have to stop.”

Mel’s phone buzzes. I assume it’s Jared texting back, but it’s not. “Steve’s shift doesn’t start until midnight,” Mel says, getting up. “I’m going to go see him. Get some smartness and squeezing.”

I get up and hug her. “I’d kill anybody who tried to hurt you,” I say.

She hugs me back. “Not if I was too busy killing them first.”

After she leaves, I press a number on my phone.

“Can you come over?” I say.

“Absolutely,” says Henna.

We sit on the edge of my bed in a surprisingly nice kind of silence.

“You’re not all right,” she finally says.

“No,” I say. “I said some things to Jared. He said some things to me.”

“Bad things?”

“End of friendship things.”

“I’m sure that isn’t true,” Henna says. “I’m sure it isn’t–”

“Don’t
pity
me,” I nearly snap. “Jesus, why does everyone–?”

I stop because my eyes are filling up. Again. This is ridiculous.

“I think you’re wrong about that.” Henna puts a single finger on my chin and makes me turn my head to her. It’s kind of funny. We both smile, but mine doesn’t last. “I think you mistake care for pity,” she says. “We worry about you.”

“Same thing.”

“No, it isn’t. We worry about Mel, too. And you worry about me and so does Mel. It’s care, Mike. Who have we got to rely on except each other? For example, this isn’t pity.”

She kisses me. I’m so surprised I barely kiss her back.

“I don’t do pity kisses,” she says. “I don’t do pity
anything
. Pity is patronizing. Pity is an assumption of superiority.”

“That sounds like your dad.”

“It
is
my dad, but he’s right. He says kindness is better. Kindness is the most important thing of all. Pity is an insult. Kindness is a miracle.”

“So you’re kissing me out of kindness?”

“No,” she says, frowning. “I’m kissing you because I’ve always wanted to, Mike. You never let me.”

“I never
let
you–?”

“We’re each other’s questions, aren’t we? The question that never gets an answer.”

“What do you mean–?”

But she’s already kissing me again.

This time I’m definitely kissing her back.

No one’s home. My mom went to handle her lawyers and dropped Meredith off at a Saturday horseback-riding lesson (the first, it’s a new thing). Dad is at work or wherever. And Mel’s out with Steve. There’s no one in the house except for me and Henna.

Then she pulls my shirt off over my head, and there’s no one in the
world
except me and her.