Brothers/Sisters

I can feel faint sunlight filtering in through a window on a landing or somewhere upstairs; the rough patterned carpet under my fingers; that twisting snap in my chest that always comes with the memories. It's when the feeling of unease that I'll get in these familiar places spills over and I'm left lost and just...stuck. Like I have to physically slog through the past, as if it’s made of tar. The couple is gone. I'm alone, slumped over on the bottom three stairs.

I guess I do look drunk, but I don’t have it in me to laugh.

The door to the restaurant opens in a burst of sound, sound that becomes muffled again when it closes. I don't turn my head, which doesn't matter because my neck hurts anyway. The edges of the stairs dig into my still-healing ribs. I’m half-lost in that other world now, a world I never wanted to go back to. It doesn’t matter; it’s pulled me in every time, though the attacks were more frequent in the month following the incident, presenting themselves as nightmares and sudden bursts of unease whenever something vaguely familiar came up. I thought they were finished, but Cody brought it all back.

A shape moves to my right. On instinct, I recoil.

Eating breakfast. There he was, sitting there eating his goddamn breakfast, as if nothing had happened that night on the bridge.

And it’s my fault. My fault for not pressing charges. My fault for taking everything and leaving. My fault for choosing to disappear, to run away.

Jason’s face hovers nearby, but I don’t see Jason. I see Kyle, dressed in a battered blue polo and blowing out a stream of smoke from the passenger seat of an old Camaro. Thank God it’s just him, because I don’t know what I would’ve done if the other ones were here. Austin. Owen. Funny how some of the worst people can have such friendly names.

It’s probably psychosomatic, but my the bridge of my nose aches; it was Kyle’s friend, Austin, who pistol-whipped me in the face that night. The names. I still can’t get over that; a trio of common, faceless names whose faces are branded into my memory. Like I’m a goddamn cow.

Carina shakes me. “Garrett? What happened?”

Jason offers me a glass of water, but I shake my head. Ask hovers behind them; he’s got that confused look again, like when we went to Jo’s the day I crashed.

“I—” I’m pathetic.

Carina knows that something bad in Cody happened, but I’ve never told anybody—not even Dave—the details. Talk about it, they say. But I’m not a talk-about-it type of person.

I sit up straight, or as straight as I can without hurting myself. I want to shake my head, but that’ll hurt, too. Instead: “I...think I’ll wait in the car. You guys get breakfast. I just—just need to be alone. Please.”

Jason starts with an, “Are you sure?” but Carina elbows him and he goes quiet. She just nods at me, and they help me up. She knows the difference between abandonment and necessity.

“You’ll be alright?” Carina asks as she tosses me the keys.

“Yeah,” I say, but my voice is hoarse.

I go out the other way, and only when I’m outside do I wipe the tears off my face. I stumble on the steps outside and stand near the car for a few minutes, not ready to go back to confinement so soon. I look down Main Street, at Rattlesnake mountain, rising up where the road vanishes. It’s a straight shot from here to Yellowstone.

The front door opens, and I quickly unlock the car and slam the door behind me, slouching down in the backseat so that whoever just came out can’t see my face. My phone buzzes, and I take it out, grateful for the distraction.

“Up already?” I ask.

“Ha ha,” Dave replies drily. “Where are you?”

“...Cody.”

Silence.

“I’m fine.”

More silence. And distance. A crane fly buzzes at my window. A scruffy-looking golden retriever with a red bandanna in the neighboring truck eyes me, as if deciding whether it’s worth it to bark at me.

I shift the phone to my other hand, but end up just turning the speaker on. There’s an unspoken apology somewhere, but I don’t know which one of us should offer it.

I have to break the silence.“Really.”

“...oh. Okay. Are you alone?”

“For now.”

“Well, I just wanted to...to remind you. To, you know, stay safe.”

“Why? It’s not like I haven’t gone camping in Yellowstone before.”

“That’s not why.”

I wipe some snot off my nose. My face still feels wet. “Dave, can you tell me what’s going on? Does this have to do with—”

“Yes. But, Garrett, I don’t want to—” His voice breaks. “This is something I started, and I don’t want you to get involved. I know that it’s frustrating. I do. But this is over your head. So just keep a low profile and forget it. But stay safe.”

He’s quiet again, and I think he’s about to hang up when I ask, “Should I tell them?”

“Who? And what?”

“Carina. Jason. About...my cousin?”

“I’m surprised he hasn’t told them himself. But people don’t tend to believe him. But...no, probably not.”

“And I don’t suppose you can tell me why.”

“I can. I won’t. I’m not your father, Garrett. I won’t deceive you.”

“It kinda doesn’t sound like it.”

Dave sighs. I can’t take it anymore, so I just hang up on him, throw my phone into the empty seat beside me, and slam my head into the cushioned seat in front of me. When I look up, after what feels like a small eternity, Carina, Jason, and Ask are stepping through the door. Ask says something and the other two laugh. I realize I’ve been clenching the car keys in my hand.

I lean forward, between the driver’s and passenger’s seats, and start the car as the other three get in, the doors slamming behind them.

Ask gets in first; the other two are still on the steps. Perfect, because my mind has cleared enough for me to remember another thing.

I lean back into my seat and don’t look at him. “What did you tell him?”

“What?” Ask says. “Why?”

“Jason. Before we went in.”

“Well, someone’s feeling better.”

They’re coming down the steps. “Tell me.”

“I told him that you’re one fourth Japanese. Your grandparents. I thought it was a little weird considering how Russia and Japan have—”

“That’s all? That’s it?”

“He asked about San Francisco. Apparently it finally dawns on him. “Well, yeah. I didn’t tell him about the fact that you’re—”

The passenger door clicks open.

“—transgender.”

Jason shuts his door and buckles his seatbelt and twists around in his seat. “What’s this about?”

“Nothing.” He’s clueless; at least, that’s what I tell myself. When he shrugs, I try to hide the relief from my face. That’s all. So he’d been looking at me to see if I looked like what he thought my grandparents look like. Or...grandmother. Nothing malicious, nothing distrustful, nothing relating to why I give myself a shot in the thigh every other week.

Carina’s in the driver’s seat again. She rubs her hands together. “All right. You better, Garrett?”

I manage a sheepish smile. “Yeah.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.”

I know the roads around here best, so, logically, I should be the driver. But I don’t want to, so I don’t volunteer when Carina holds up the keys and asks for volunteers. Ask volunteers again, of course. Carina bites her lip and gives me a, Should I? Look.

But I know just what to do. “Do you have a license?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, I guess you can’t—” It takes a minute for my mind to properly register the reply. “What?”

“I have a license.”

“And who would give an eight-month-old a license?” The two in the front laugh, unaware of the irony.

But Ask already has the card in his hand. I take it.

“Good enough for—what?” He sees me squinting.

“Alessandro?” I ask, incredulous. “Alessandro Passerini? Nineteen?”

“Yeah. That’s my name.”

“Then why did Boyd and Dave call you Ask?”

“’Cause that’s my other name.”

Carina interrupts. “Any time, now.”

I look from her to Jason. “You’d really let him drive? With a fake ID?”

“You can’t prove that it’s fake,” Ask says.

“Nineteen,” I repeat, checking the card to make sure my math is right. For once, it is. But he’s right: I have no proof. Something does bother me about the picture, but I can’t place it. “You know what? Fine. But I hope you have insurance.”

Carina just shrugs, gets out of the car, and trades seats with Ask. He’s shorter than the rest of us, even Carina, so he has to go through an elaborate seat-scooting and mirror-adjusting ritual before we’re finally moving again.

Sheridan Avenue: it’s a basically straight shot (well, there’s a turn or two, but the road doesn’t really go anywhere else, so...it counts) to Yellowstone from here. A little ahead, the road’ll literally cut through the Bighorn Mountains that look down over Cody.

I have to roll my shoulders to get rid of some of the tension that’s apparently built up. Wonder where that came from.

Ask—Alessandro?—backs out of the parking spot with no problem, but then immediately takes his eyes off the road and turns to us—the passengers—just as we get to the intersection.

“I was wondering—” he starts, but my eye’s on the dented Tahoe on the road perpendicular to us that’s swerving a bit. The one that’s probably not going to slow down, even if the light’s read.
Ask doesn’t seem to see this, and turns anyway, and—

The Tahoe barrels forward.

“H—”

—slam. Jason’s car stops what looks like inches from the SUV, which screeches ahead, the driver likely oblivious. I don’t have time to finish—or start, really—my thought before I’m pitched forward against my seatbelt.

I can feel that familiar fire in my neck again.

Carina grips the handle above the car door, her mouth hanging open. “How did you…?”

“What? I stopped the car to let the drunk guy pass,” Ask says.

“You weren’t even looking!”

“Yeah, I turned at the last minute,” he admits. Someone honks behind us. He steps on the gas again, nudging the car forward. “Sorry.”

Jason just rubs his neck and lets out a low whistle.

I’m reminded of those problems in physics where we had to calculate how far a car would skid, the ones where you take the mass and velocity and...well, I almost failed the class. I glance over at Carina, and I think we’re thinking the same thing, sans the weird physics thing. Or maybe not. The point is, of course we skidded, because physics says so. Even I know that.

But I also know that half a second more would’ve sent us skidding straight into the side of that Tahoe. Less than that, even.

“I was wondering,” Ask starts again, oblivious. The his eyes catch the morning light in that catlike way again; his long-sleeved flannel shirt hides his wrists, but I know there’s still an indentation in his left wrist where he attached it wrong. “Could we go to a gift shop or something while we’re here? I’ve never been in one.”

“You’re not missing much,” Carina says.

“Still…”

“How about when we get into Yellowstone?” I suggest.

“Okay.”

“Do you know where you’re going?”

“Yeah, I memorized the map.”

We make one more stop to get gas, and—just like that—we leave Cody. Sometimes the leaving is insultingly easy. Past the infamous rodeo, past the ranches and the Shoshone river, and over the road that cuts through the mountain. I lean back, dozing, wanting to feel calm.

But I can’t shake the feeling that something’s about to go wrong.