Jerkbait Page 7

  “Bullshit.” Dad’s voice always scared me when it dropped to this register. Sometimes it was followed by the fists Robbie inherited. “Where were you?”

  I looked at the floor and inhaled slowly. As quietly as I could, I said, “At an audition.”

  “What’d you say?”

  I barely raised my voice. “I was at an audition, for a musical.”

  Mom burst to her feet. Her face was dark red. “You did what?” I took a step back. I’d expected a big reaction from Dad; Mom barely looked up from her mobile. Dad was the one who yelled at us, but that yelling was always related to hockey. Even he seemed taken aback by Mom’s outburst.

  “I’m sorry,” I spluttered. “The show starts when the season’s over. I thought—”

  “You thought what, Tristan?” Mom took a step toward me. Her mascara was wet around her eyes, making them darker. “You said acting was an easy elective.”

  “It is. I just—”

  “You’re just like him,” Mom murmured. I shrank back. Who was him? Uncle Anthony? But she broke from that reverie with a sneer. “What’s next? You’re going to tell us you’re a homo?”

  My twin’s head snapped up. He stared at me wide-eyed.

  “No!” I said, shaking my head. “No, Mom, I—”

  “Is that it? Is that why you went over to Heather’s so often? Why you don’t have a girlfriend?”

  “No!”

  Mom advanced toward me until I was pressed against the wall with nowhere to turn. “What’s next? You want to be some sort of woman? You want to be Caitlyn Jenner?”

  “That’s enough,” Dad said, rising to his feet.

  Dad and Mom stared at each other before Mom sat down, folding her arms across her chest. Dad looked down at me. “So, you decided to audition for a play instead of come home with your brother?”

  “Yes, sir,” I whispered. I didn’t dare correct him with “musical.”

  “You were supposed to watch Robbie.”

  “I thought that was just overnight . . .”

  Robbie’s shoulders started to shake. Before the knife incident, the last time I saw Robbie cry was when we were nine and our dog was hit by a car. Robbie cried for days then, and wouldn’t even consider getting another pet even though I wanted one. Now he was on the verge of a breakdown for the second time in a week.

  Dad’s enormous fist snaked around my bicep. It hurt. He hauled me up the stairs. Immediately, Robbie was on his feet, chasing after us.

  “Dad, don’t!”

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Robbie was never the type to beg.

  “It’s not Tristan’s fault! Me being a screw up has nothing to do with him!”

  But Dad didn’t slow, dragging me behind him toward my room. I wondered if he was going to beat me, how he used to when he still thought I could be good and just wasn’t trying hard enough. The day he stopped doing that, I was almost disappointed. It meant he gave up on me.

  Dad yanked me into my room. In the center of the floor was the ceiling fan, broken and bent, with bits of crumbled ceiling around it. I looked up to the hole and electrical wiring. “What happened?”

  “Your brother tried to hang himself.”

  The air to my windpipe cut off like Dad’s words had turned a tap. The room seemed engulfed in a silent explosion, something so big I became deaf. My throat burned.

  An image came to my mind. Robbie on the top bunk with sheets around his neck, trembling before shoving himself off. I felt the cracking and collision as he hit the ground, the fan landing on top of him.

  I doubled over, put a hand over my mouth. Dad was screaming at me, but I still felt deaf to everything except, “Your brother tried to hang himself.”

  I didn’t even realize I was dragged back down the stairs and into the living room until Dad pushed me on the couch. My head hit the back. I trembled, pressing myself into the cushions. This couldn’t have been real. I just went out for an audition. I was only gone for a couple of hours. Maybe three, tops. Probably two.

  This was preventable.

  This was my fault.

  Robbie stood by the couch, disheveled, body swallowed by his large, black hoodie. He held his forearm over his eyes to hide his tears. Hockey players don’t cry. Dad had drilled that into our heads since we were four. Robbie tried to sniff back his snot, then rubbed the back of his hoodie sleeve over his red nose to wipe it away.

  “It’s not Tristan’s fault.” I wanted him to be quiet. Defending me made me feel even worse. “I messed up. I screwed up.”

  “Robbie, just shut up,” Dad snarled, though it wasn’t the sort of yell that came with anger. It was the kind that was born from terror. Dad was afraid. Afraid of what Robbie might do, what he could have done.

  Dad turned his fury on me. “You can say goodbye to hanging out with your friends for a while.”

  “And you’re not doing musicals under this roof,” Mom added.

  My twin tried again. “Mom, Dad, don’t—”

  “Shut up, Robbie. Just . . . shut up.” Dad suddenly choked. I’d never seen him so close to tears. Robbie was their child, their special child. Their favorite son. Were they like this when Robbie came out breach at birth? Or was it only after they realized just how promising Robbie’s future was? Every little change was monumental in their eyes, from his bleached hair to his fake lip piercing, which Grandpa had said looked like a fish caught on some jerkbait. “That’s the point,” Robbie had told him.

  Dad exhaled. He glanced at Mom, who glared daggers at me. “While your mother and I take care of the mess, you’re to clean the rest of the house downstairs, Tristan. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mom picked up the tissue box and carried it with her. She left the grocery bag with used tissues behind. The sound of their upstairs door closing didn’t mute anything as they began to scream.

  “It’s not like Tristan’s going to end up like Anthony,” my dad yelled.

  “Yes, he will!”

  “Even if he was, it wouldn’t matter! As long as it’s not Robbie.”

  “Oh, so just because Tristan won’t be drafted it doesn’t matter? You’re a real bastard.”

  “Go to hell!”

  I stood next to my twin in silence. A tear rolled down my cheek before I could wipe it away. Robbie looked at the ceiling, narrowed his eyes, and stuck his middle finger up.

  I trudged to the kitchen where our supply closet was. Robbie’s footsteps tapped behind me. “You want to help or are you going to call me queer, too?” I mumbled, unsure how I could apologize to Robbie for my negligence. It felt like I was only now regaining my hearing after the explosion and looking at the bloody carnage around me.

  Robbie reached around me from behind with a sudden, tight hold. At first, I jerked, hands gripping onto his wrists. He was going to strangle me. Choke me until I passed out.

  But Robbie’s hands didn’t move near my neck. They hugged my stomach. He rested his head on the back of my shoulders. My shirt became wet. He started to shake, hard.

  “Robbie?” I whispered, afraid to move.

  “I’m so . . . so sorry, Tristan,” Robbie murmured. “That’s so shitty of them.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter,” he insisted. He stalled and squeezed tighter. “If you’re gay—”

  “I’m not,” I said as I pulled from his grasp and faced him. “I just like musicals. That doesn’t mean I’m gay.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “You really think there aren’t hetero men who like musicals?”

  “No, I just—” Robbie bit his lip. Frustrated with words he couldn’t formulate, he grabbed the mop and bucket. At a time like this, that telekinetic stuff so many identical twins talk about would be helpful.

  We cleaned in silence for several minutes. Finally, I
asked, “Why’d you do it?”

  Robbie kept his eyes low. “Sometimes you get an idea in your head and you don’t think about consequences.” He pulled the neck of his hoodie down enough for me to see the bruising and raw skin around his neck. I finally processed the cuts on his face and purple swelling around his eyes, probably from where the fan came crashing down.

  “Dad hasn’t decided what my excuse to Coach is this time. Probably something heroic, like me falling down while shoving a little kid out of the way of a moving car.”

  Robbie looked like he was waiting for me to say something, but I kept my mouth shut. Nothing I could say would be worthwhile. Nothing would take back the horrible mistake I had made.

  As we cleaned, we listened to the sounds of our parents rearranging furniture. I wondered what the room would look like, what we were doomed for next. Would everything look the same as it was? The only thing I was sure about was that this time I’d take it with my head down.

  13

  My room was sealed. Literally. Boarded up with long nails like it was a condemned building. It didn’t seem real.

  In Robbie’s room, our mattresses now lay side-by-side, taking up almost the entire room. We didn’t even get box springs. Our table was still there, only about a foot away from the mattresses. Even squeezing between the table and a computer chair would be hard. On the desk, the scissors were gone. So were the stapler and paper cutter. In the closet, the clothing bar was missing as well as the door. Our nice suits lay flat on the floor wrapped in plastic. The room was stuffy and suffocating. Even though it was freezing, I opened the window the whole way.

  Cold air flooded the room, making it less claustrophobic. Shivering, I leaned out and inhaled. The chill air cleared my nostrils and my mind. Robbie stepped up next to me. He fidgeted with the drawstrings on the neck of his hoodie. “I keep making things worse.”

  “Don’t.”

  “No, really. This was on me.”

  “No. It wasn’t. If I hadn’t auditioned—”

  “You really think you could have stopped me?”

  I pulled my head back in the room. “You don’t?”

  Robbie didn’t answer.

  I crossed the room to our table and tugged at my desk chair. It caught on the mattress. The front of the table pressed against my stomach as I squeezed in, but I didn’t budge. I needed to listen to music and write.

  I turned on Spotify but couldn’t find any music to help me relax. Instead, I put on Billy Elliot and listened to “Angry Dance” on loop at least ten times, then put on Heathers, mouthing along to “Life Boat.” Other people’s hopelessness made me feel a little less alone, I guess.

  Even with an open Word document, my creativity was as dry as the last Florida Panthers’ goal drought. Working on my dolphin story would be impossible.

  I took out one of my textbooks but didn’t read a single word. My mind kept drifting to Robbie, only hours ago, trying to hang himself in my room while I auditioned. I touched my throat. Hadn’t I felt a raw pain right before I sang? Wasn’t there a nagging feeling that something was wrong—really wrong—that I ignored? A warning.

  Robbie sat next to me, with his headphones on, in some sort of chat room. I didn’t even know there were chat rooms anymore—I thought those pretty much died when people switched to cable modems.

  After a few minutes, Robbie got up and mostly shut the window, leaving just a small crack for ventilation. I glanced over at his screen, but it was minimized.

  That night I couldn’t sleep. I stared at Robbie’s blanket-covered feet; he slept in the opposite direction from me. I thought about us in the womb, how Robbie was born breach, the opposite of me. Now was no different in this confined space.

  Robbie rolled on his mattress. “Hey, Tristan? You awake?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “Same.”

  My brother sat upright, his body a silhouette. “Can I tell you something?”

  “Uh. Okay?” I propped myself up on my elbows.

  “Things might be a little messed up soon. Just so you have a heads-up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Robbie hesitated. In the darkness of the room, I couldn’t make out his expression. Was he upset? Lonely? Scared?

  “I think I really screwed up.”

  “Screwed up what?”

  Robbie’s tone changed. “Coach said the director of scouting from St. Louis was talking to him for about an hour about me.”

  “Holy shit. The Blues are interested in you?”

  “Maybe. Seems like more western conference teams are kicking tires right now. Coach said Colorado, Calgary, and Vancouver are supposed to watch the next one. Possibly a bunch of others. They could be looking at Beau, Durrell, or Raiden, though.”

  “You know they’re looking at you.”

  “. . . yeah. I know.” Robbie reached under his pillow for a slip of paper. “This morning, Dad gave me this.”

  I picked up the sheet and reached for my iPhone. Using it as a light, I read the sheet of paper:

  CALLED—POSSIBLE DRAFT COMBINE INTERVIEWS?

  1. Calgary Flames—10 calls

  2. Anaheim Ducks—7 calls

  3. Vancouver Canucks—5 calls

  4. Arizona Coyotes—5 calls

  5. Colorado Avalanches—3 calls

  6. Minnesota Wild—2 calls

  7. Washington Capitals—2 calls

  8. Winnipeg Jets—1 call

  9. Los Angeles Kings—1 call

  10. Chicago Blackhawks—1 call

  11. Detroit Redwings—1 call

  12. Florida Panthers—1 call

  13. New Jersey Devils—1 call (returned)

  I looked up at Robbie as I turned off the cellphone light. “This is legit?”

  “I don’t think Dad would lie about it to inflate my ego.”

  “Oh my God.” I couldn’t help it. A huge smile spread across my face. “Robbie, this is seriously incredible. I mean, holy crap. That many teams already?”

  “Dad said it’s not enough,” Robbie mumbled.

  I stared at him. “Robbie, thirteen teams have called about you. Thirteen out of thirty. I mean, you can’t even schedule interviews until two weeks before combine. That number should go up. And even if it didn’t, that’s incredible. Look how many times Calgary called about you!”

  “Yeah, but Dad keeps reminding me that the Devils only called once.”

  “Yeah, but they called.”

  “Because Dad called them first,” Robbie mumbled.

  “You think Dad would be upset if you got drafted by a different team?”

  Robbie thought about it for a few moments. “No,” he said. “I just need to hold it together long enough to make sure I get drafted.”

  “Why are you even worried?”

  “I told you, I think I really screwed up.” Robbie’s voice dropped, “You know, the guys could beat the crap out of me. Wouldn’t matter if I wear an A on my jersey. If they found out, it’d be the end. Just one less person to compete with for a scout’s attention.”

  I sat upright, pressing my hands on the mattress. “Why would the guys try to beat you up just because a scout’s looking at you?”

  “They don’t know, Tristan.”

  “Don’t know what?”

  “Forget it.” Robbie pulled the sheet of paper from me and shoved it under his pillow. He abruptly rolled on his mattress so his back faced me. I frowned.

  “Robbie? What don’t they know?”

  “Nothing,” he mumbled. I stayed still, not sure whether I should try to say something else or remain quiet.

  When the sound of Robbie’s breathing pattern change, I got up and squeezed into the space between my chair and table. My mind wouldn’t slow. Robbie should have been in therapy. My parents didn�
��t even take him to the ER this time just in case that’d get on his record. Like his mental health would lower his draft value.

  I pulled up my story of the dolphin people, particularly focusing on the kids who were in the hut by themselves, biting my lower lip the way Robbie always did as I resumed typing.

  There was something strange happening on the island. You could feel it in the air. It became harder to breathe. Each inhale was a labored huff-huff. Clouds rolled in, thick and low to the ground. Sluggish. The huts were shrinking, but the dolphin people remained the same size. Their homes constricted around their long bodies. Soon, their heads and feet were sticking out of the hut until they were stuck.

  From the center of the island, black beasts emerged from beneath the sand like crabs. They dripped black blood from their teeth. It’s suppertime, they said, then began to whack off the dolphin people’s heads with a machete, like a butcher. Mercilessly, they killed all of the dolphin people and kids, except two. Brothers. They had grown too large, or the hut shrank too small around them. The black beasts put collars on their slick necks with metal chains tied to a stake in the ground.

  A whimpering sound drew my attention. I saved the story, then went back to my mattress. Robbie was crying in his sleep. I wasn’t sure whether I should wake him up or let him sleep through it.

  Carefully, I rested my hand on his side. He jerked once, and I withdrew. His body stilled.

  I pulled my blankets up and turned on my side, my back toward Robbie. A draft crept along the floor from the open crack in the window. I curled my body into itself as I thought about my brother, not surprised when the next morning we woke to a sheet of white on the ground. Snow.

  14

  Despite Robbie’s bitching, I talked him into going to school half an hour early so I could wait outside Heather’s locker. The second she made eye contact with me, she half-looked like she wanted to walk the other way but thought better of it.

  “What do you want?” Heather asked.

  “We need to talk.”

  “I don’t have time.”

  “He tried it again,” I said urgently.