Page 155 of Crew
He started to turn away, his shoulders rigid and tight.
He was such a hypocrite. He hated him more than I did.
"Should we talk about that night? That's what he's going to say to me. He's going to talk about his regrets."
Channing's back got even tighter. His shoulders seemed to stretch out, widening his shirt.
I waited. I wanted him to say something. I wanted to hear him acknowledge that night.
I laughed. "Don't you want to hear a play-by-play of that night? I can tell you. I don't need to go see Dad to remember." Slowly I stood, though I kept my head down. I felt like I was talking to a sleeping cobra. I was wooing him, trying to engage him. It didn't matter that the cobra was my brother.
No one talked about the night our dad was arrested. No one. I never had, and I knew Channing hadn't. I didn't even know if Channing knew what had happened. This was the first time I'd brought it up. And I was using it to needle him. I wanted to get at him. I wanted him to feel some of the pain I would have to suffer if we didn't fight the mentoring program.
He looked back toward me as I stood waiting.
"Bren."
He wanted me to let him off the hook. I wasn't going to do that. I wanted that cobra to wake up. I didn't care if I would get bitten. I might have welcomed it.
"Were you told what happened that night? Are you able to imagine it?"
"Don't." He drew in oxygen, then letting it out just as quickly.
So he did know. Maybe?
I began remembering myself, speaking the memories out loud. "She died. She was gone, and you were gone too. It was me and him in the house."
Way too many fucking years, just him and me. Him. Me. His alcoholism.
"It was quiet when she was sick. Did you know that? It was eerily quiet. Then she died, and there was no sound. Not a peep. You were gone. He was gone. She was gone. It was just me, until..." I hated this. I hated peeling back the layers, the memories, the numbness. It was all being stripped away. "Then he started coming back. So did the booze. The partying."
Channing's jaw clenched.
He knew what that was like. It was why he'd left in the first place.
"His friends started coming around too."
I would be in bed. I'd be trying to sleep.
I could hear their drunken laughter. They'd hoot. They'd holler. Their dirty jokes had them slapping hands. They sickened me. They sickened me now.
"That became the norm, Channing. Every night he brought friends home. He didn't care who they were, just as long as the house wasn't empty. He didn't want to feel her like I did."
Like I still did.
"Stop, Bren," Channing rasped, but wouldn't look at me.
He couldn't. He would see what had happened to me.
"At first he stayed up while they were there. He was responsible, making sure no one found out about me. That didn't last."
He started falling asleep.
That night his latest group of "friends" had woken me up with their noise. But they always stayed downstairs, so I didn't think too much of it. I'd just needed to go to the bathroom.
"I didn't have toilet paper," I said aloud.
If I had...
