Page 5 of Sweat

My eyes well up, and I don’t know whether to agree or disagree or which one would be more truthful. Lese will be a great mom one day, and she might even make a great wife if I could get over the fact she can’t keep it in her pants. Honestly, I don’t even care that she screws around. It’s the humiliating way she does it that hurts the most. Throwing herself at Rowan Hughes at a party full of people I go to school with is about as bad as it gets.

“Maybe it doesn’t feel like she’s your soulmate, but that stuff is only in movies. Real love isn’t always a transcendent, passionate affair. Sometimes, it’s just knowing you’re better together than apart. Sometimes, love isn’t as much a feeling as it is a choice to take care of someone and to be taken care of by them.”

“I get it.”

Erica lifts her head. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” I finally look at her, my heart breaking a little to see how sunken her eyes are, how bloodshot and glossy. Maybe love isn’t always a feeling, but my love for Erica is as close to transcendent as I can think of. My big sister. My rock. The only person I ever let see me cry, because when she cries, I can’t hold mine back.

“I just want you to be happy.”

I frown, feeling like a failure that I can’t honestly swear to her I’m happy, or that I even can be happy. Happiness isn’t meant for me. The best I can manage is content, and maybe that’s what Erica was getting at with the wholelove can be a choicething.

If I choose to love Lese even when I don’t feel it, is that happiness?

“I just want you to get better,” I tell her, because I’m a selfish little brother who can’t just let her rest.

She frowns, like I’m accusing her of not trying hard enough, and I hate this. Sweating, chest aching, eyes leaking. I’d rather feel nothing than feel this way for another second.

Even if it’s a lie, I promise Erica I’ll be okay, and when she puts her cheek back on my shoulder, I stay put until Mav slips into the room dressed in dinosaur jammies.

“Come say goodnight to Mommy,” I tell him as I scoot off Erica’s bed. I hoist Mav up under his arms and put him where I just was.

Lese lingers in the doorway, and I figure I better walk her to her car before she tries to stick around.

The air outside is colder now that I’m not consumed with rage. I shove my hands deep into my pockets and lift my shoulders. I look straight ahead and let the silence between Lese and I fester while we walk at a snail’s pace down my congested street.

That little silver hatchback Lese’s dad bought her after high school glints under the last streetlamp. Before we get to the corner, she tugs on my arm and forces me to look at her.

“I fucked up, Tom,” she says. “I’m a selfish, stupid slut sometimes, but I love you. You’re the only person I’ve ever loved, and I’ll never love anyone but you. I just get so lonely sometimes. You know how lonely I get. I’m clingy, and you’re the opposite, but I feel like if you loved me as much as I love you—”

“What? If I really loved you, I would have gone to that party with you? Is that what you think love is? Me ditching all my responsibilities to watch you get shit faced around a bunch of people I barely know?”

“If you loved me, you would want to do more with me than watch me babysit your nephew and do chores for your mom.”

“I never asked you to do any of that.”

“You don’t need to ask. I do that shit because I love you, and I love your family, and I want to feel like you want me in it.”

“Maybe I don’t.”

In a flash, Lese’s face drains of life and her eyes go as dull as I feel. “Fine, then,” she mutters before picking at the clasp on the charm bracelet I gave her for her twentieth. She forces the silver, jangly thing into my palm, then goes rummaging through her giant purse. Some cheap keychain, a Bic pen, and a vape battery amount to the whole of our four-year relationship when she puts them into my hands.

“You’re being dramatic,” I tell her.

“You’re done with me? Then, take your shit.”

“Whatever.” I cradle it all in my hands and watch her march past me toward the last street lamp.

She makes it a couple yards before switching around and saying, “I don’t know if it’s erectile dysfunction or depression, but I never woulda stepped out if your fucking dick worked right.”

Yeah, well, you give trash head, I almost say, but what’s the use? I let her go, and it’s the easiest thing I’ve done in a long time. Hard, because I don’t want to have to tell Ma, Erica, and Maverick I failed. Easy, because being alone makes more sense than trying to keep Lese and me afloat.

When I get back inside, Ma is still tiding up the kitchen and Mav is still with his mom, so I sneak to the bathroom for a shower among Mav’s many bath toys.

I lock the door, switch on the fan, get the water going, and while it’s heating up, I open an incognito browser tab on my phone and type in my go-to Pornhub search. My pants arealready tenting from the thumbnails alone, and I strip naked quickly before tapping on a video.

Every time I failed at maintaining an erection for Lese, I could’ve flung myself off a tall building. But it’s not because of E.D. or depression. It’s because the only thing that’ll keep me rock solid is something Lese doesn’t have.

---