Page 26 of Guitars and Cages

“Asher, please,” he called out, the door rattling as he trembled with fear and desperation. “Please, please, please don’t hate me, please.”

I tried to ignore it—the plea, the desperation, the voice rough with tears and pain. This was my little brother, the little kid I’d always had tagging behind me with the skinned-up knees and the leaves in his hair, the crooked grin and the devil-may-care attitude. Goddammit all to hell. Goddammit...

“Goddammit!” I roared as I yanked open the door, causing Alex to stagger and nearly fall into the room. I caught him, keeping him from hitting the floor, looking down into my brother’s eyes, searching them for the boy I once knew.

He was still there, just covered up with everything else.

“God fucking dammit, Alex, I could never fucking hate you, never, but it’s gonna take a long-ass fucking time before I’mma be able to call you Alexia, okay?” I half snarled, half yelled, but never let go of my brother.

“I know,” Alex said, looking at the floor, ashamed. “I... I’m sorry.”

I bit my lip and let out a frustrated curse, and then I removed one hand from my brother’s arm so I could tip his chin up to look at me.

“No, little brother, I’m the one who’s sorry,” I said, letting out a shuddering sigh. “No one has the right to judge you, least of all me.”

“You mean that?” Alex asked.

Another long-suffering sigh. Did I mean it? I did mean it, didn’t I? I mean, who the hell was I to judge—me, the guy who lied to himself as much as he lied to anyone. In the time it took me to think, I realized that I did, I did very much mean what I’d said, because if it came down to choosing to accept Alex the way he was, or losing another brother, then I didn’t care how many dresses Alex put on, as long as he was still gonna be walking around above ground for a very long time.

“Yeah, I mean it...but maybe we should find you a gentler way to break this to Michael. Something tells me that seeing you this way might give him a coronary.”

We shared a bittersweet chuckle, thinking of the stuffiest, most straitlaced of all of us, and we knew as we stood there in the doorway that it wasn’t all right at the moment, but it would be all right...in time. Over Alex’s head, I could see Conner watching me, a strange, unreadable expression in his eyes. I hated that he was seeing this; hated that he was judging me. Why couldn’t he have stayed inside his goddamned apartment like everyone else in this miserable place? I scowled, anger surging through me as I glared into his eyes, the first time I’d looked into them since the night with the tools when I’d fled his apartment. He gave me a small nod, and half a smile, and then slipped back into his apartment, shutting the door.Stay in there, you bastard; stay in there until the sight of you doesn’t make me think things better left ignored.

Chapter Eleven

I’d asked Alex to leave and give me some time to think, promising that we could talk soon, but after he was gone I couldn’t find a measure of peace no matter how hard I tried. I paced to the beat of the music still blaring from the bedroom,Tullplaying “Locomotive Breath” in the era before music truly died, knowing I should go in and tell Rory to turn it down now, but unable to bring myself to do it. I was seven kinds of confused, clenching and unclenching my hands reflexively in between bouts of shoving fingers through my hair. I no doubt looked like a madman, but in that moment I couldn’t bring myself to care. As cliché as it might sound, I felt as if the world as I knew it had suddenly tilted on its axis, spilling out all the sanity and leaving uncertainty in its place.

I’d said it would be okay, in time, but I didn’t know how to make things okay again. It bothered me, what Alex had done to himself—what he’d told me he’d become, or was, or whatever the fuck it’s PC to call it these days. It bothered me, and yet I wasn’t willing to lose my brother over it, which meant I was going to have to accept it, only I didn’t know how to go about accepting something like this. Our father would have found it unacceptable, if the old bastard was still anywhere to be found, and I was pretty sure our older brothers would find it unforgivable, but I wasn’t them and never could be. Still, a part of me was struggling with thoughts that this was wrong, or maybe it was jealousy: I never thought Alex could be so brave.

The pacing wasn’t helping; even the pounding of the music was beginning to get on my nerves. Prolly a good thing since itwaspretty fucking loud and I was lucky no one had come yelling at us to turn it down—or, worse, sent the Super back up so ol’ garlic-breath could toss us out on the street. That’s one guy who’d never have to worry about being some vampire’s dinner, if vampires should exist. His breath reeked enough that he’d melt them from across the room, long before one could even think about tapping an artery. Crossing the floor, I pulled open the bedroom door to find Rory lying across my bed reading aDarknesscomic, oblivious to the fact that I was standing there.

“You can turn it down now,” I yelled so he could hear me. He flinched and looked at me like a startled rabbit, and I realized that was twice now my being loud had made him jump. Guess he was used to a quieter environment. Either that, or someone in his life had a bad habit of yelling at the kid. I didn’t wanna think about that being the case or I might feel compelled to do something about it and I really didn’t wanna get more involved than I already was.

After a moment, likely to calm his nerves, he reached for the remote and did as I asked, dialing it down to a respectable level and then looking at me with questioning eyes. In them I could see curiosity, confusion, and a hint of fear. He wanted to know what was happening, but I couldn’t tell him anything: not now, not yet, not until I could find the words to explain. The answers I didn’t have. He was looking for reassurances and so was I, and it was I who turned my eyes away, lest he see the same confusion mirrored back at him.

Did he understand that had been his uncle? Is that something you even tried to explain to a kid? Who the hell writes the rulebook on how to handle these situations, anyway, and where the hell could I get one? ’Cause this kid sure as hell hadn’t come with any instructions, and deep down I was still scared to death of doing something irreparably wrong.

Yeah. ’Cause this situation wasn’t full of irreparable wrong.

“Uncle Asher, are you all right?” he asked.

No, no I was not all right.

“Yeah,” I told him with a shrug.

“Who was that?” he asked.

Wasn’t that the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question? Who was this Alex I had never known? Who was this person he’d become? He was a million and one childhood memories and an adult self I apparently didn’t know. He was complexity and confusion; he was change, transformation, another piece of an ever-crumbling puzzle, and I was lost trying to put the pieces together again. He was strength and fear and brutal honesty, and I was the one with the power to crush all that if I didn’t show up at his motel in the next two days. I’d said, “Give me forty-eight hours,” and now I was wishing I’d asked for forty-eight years. It was an unreasonable expectation, and yet, would any number have made it less difficult?

Rory stared at me with patient eyes, waiting for answers I didn’t have to give to him, shouldn’t have to give; needing to understand the root of my fury, likely so he didn’t accidently find himself on the receiving end.

“That was...” I began, pausing with a lie on my lips. Never start out with a lie, I thought, because once you got started the lies never seemed to end and I lie enough to make it too damned easy. I took a deep breath, sucking it up as Dad always used to say, and then I plowed right in with the truth. “Your Uncle Alex.”

“Oh,” Rory said, frowning.

Great; here it comes, the question there was no way in hell I could answer because I didn’t understand any of it myself.

“Why were you so mad at him?”

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