Elias
My brother looks like shit. And I'm not talking woke-up-on-the-wrong-side-of-bed kinda shit, I'm talking hasn't-shaved-or-slept in-three-days level shit.
The thing is, Tanner always has his life together. Like, this is the guy who takes the time to iron his t-shirts and color codes all the pants in his closet. This is the guy who does his laundry every week instead of figuring out new ways to wear old, dirty clothes.
Tanner's organized.
Borderline perfect.
But today he just--pathetic.
He's not even standing as tall as he usually does, and he always loves showing off the couple inches he has on me. His hair's a damn mess, his eyes are bloodshot, and his clothes look like he backed his car over them a couple a' times before putting them on.
Something's off.
Way off.
But my mom's too busy hugging and kissing him to notice. But I notice everything--even the things he doesn't want me to.
"Elias, come say hi to your brother! He missed you!" Mom says.
Missed me? Please.
The only thing he missed was the chance to take a shower before he showed up here. I take a couple steps in his direction like I actually plan on saying hello, but the stink coming off his clothes stops me dead.
Alcohol.
I'd know that smell anywhere.
He never drinks outside of social situations.
Ever.
Even when he does drink, it's a beer, and he's done for the night.
But it's in the afternoon and he reeks.
"Hey, Tan. You look like shit. What's wrong? Did a train hit you on the way over?"
The look in my mom's eyes when she turns around to shush me wipes the smile right off my face. Tanner brushes off the comment like it doesn't bother him, but I know it does.
Good.
At least he's capable of feeling something.
"I'm not in the mood, Elias. It's been a long day."
"Clearly. Look at your face! I didn't know forty-five minute flights were that hardcore. Didn't the baby bottles of liquor take off the edge? How many did you have, buddy? Twenty?"
The rattle and crack of my mom's hand ripples across the side of my face before I even realize what's happening.
I stagger backwards and shake off the shock only to see her on the verge of tears when her eyes meet mine. She's looking at me the way she did the day she told me Dad cheated. But this is the kind of hurt he brings out of her. Not me.
I'd never hurt her like that.
So why the hell is she looking at me like I'm him?
I'm not him.
I'm not anything like him.
Am I?
"What the hell was that for?"
I ask like I don't know why she hit me, but I totally do.
I deserved it.
Taking cheap shots at my brother when he's clearly in bad shape was a dick move, but part of me wants him to know what it feels like to be me for once. To be the guy everyone judges when he walks in the door. The guy who's better at screwing up than playing superman.
Maybe I am like Dad. He belittles me like this all the time.
"I hit you for talking to your brother like that! I will not allow you to speak to him like you're some kind of monstruo (monster) in this house. You're better than that, Eli."
"Maybe I'm not. Maybe he's just better than me," I say under my breath.
Even on his worst day, Tanner's still the good boy. He's only been here ten minutes, and Mom's already willing to come to his defense. She took his side when it came to me and Alex breaking up. She stood by him when he made me take responsibility for Mindy.
Now, the one time he walks in smelling like booze, she hugs him like she can't even smell it. But I know she does. She just chooses to ignore his faults and focus on mine. Like fucking always.
"Elias, I already told you I didn't want the two of you fighting."
"I wasn't fighting with him, I was just pointing out the obvious. You can't tell me you didn't see how messed up he looked when he walked in here, Mom! You noticed it, right?"
Mom massages the tension out of her temples and then turns around to help Tanner with his bags when she should be talking to me.
"Mom!"
I call out to her, but she doesn't hear me. She never hears me whenever Tanner's around. The thing is, I thought she'd be different now. I thought after it just being the two of us over the last couple months that she'd finally learn how to listen to me when I need her to. But she's blocking me out again. First born, first priority.
"You always do this, you always choose him, no matter what he does!" I say.
She turns towards me and opens her mouth to say something, but Tanner steps between the two of us before she can stumble over an answer.
"I need to talk to you outside. Now." He says.
His voice is almost as rock steady and condescending as it always is, but it cracks seconds before he finishes speaking. I square up and step towards him like I'm ready to settle a four month fight with more than just a conversation.
"Why? So you can lecture me into living with you? 'Cause the answer's no."
Tanner grips both my shoulders, whips me around, and muscles me towards the door without even
thinking twice about it.
He's always been stronger than me, but this is the first time he's actually made me feel the difference.
My feet catch on the welcome mat, I trip outside, and eat it at the top of the stairs.
The concrete scrapes a layer of skin off my hands and knees, but I'm so pissed I barely feel the sting. I scramble to my feet as Tanner's closing the door behind him. His attention's focused on calming Mom down, but I redirect it back to me with a hard right hook.
He catches my fist in the center of his palm and twists my wrist around 'til my whole arm's
backwards.
His grip's too strong for me to break, but I push back against him hoping to knock him off balance. He doesn't move an inch, just keeps twisting me around like a pretzel till we're face to face.
"Let go of me!" I say.
He slaps his free hand around my shoulders and pulls me hard against his chest. I shove him, but he releases my wrists and wraps his other arm around me tightly enough to keep me from moving.
"Get off!" I say.
"Not until you calm down!"
Whatever patience I had for him snaps the second those words leave his mouth.
"Tanner, you've got thirty-seconds to take your hands off--"
Tanner pulls one arm off of me and wedges his fist between the two of us. His knuckles sink straight into the soft spot just below the place where my ribs meet. All the air rushes out of my lungs and spills straight into the June heat.
I can't breathe.
I can't talk.
I can't do anything but collapse against him like a rag doll and gasp for air.
"Is this what I have to do to get you to shut up and listen, Elias!?"
I suck in a breath through my teeth and try to blink away the sting behind my eyes, but I can't hold back.
I can't hold back anything anymore.
"I'm tired of always hearing you talk, Tanner! You're always talking. Telling me how I should live my life, where I should live, and who I should and shouldn't be in love with. And the worst part is, Mom agrees with you. She always agrees with you! It doesn't matter how wrong you are or how badly the things you did fucked my life up. Everybody always listens to you--"
"Elias--"
"--especially me! I listened to you! I did everything you said. I stayed with Mindy, I even let myself think that I was ready to take care of a little girl who wasn't even mine. You have no idea what that was like, Tanner! I walked out of that delivery room feeling like less than a person because of someone else's lie. I thought I was gonna be a father, and I wanted to be. I was almost ready to be. That little girl--that little girl was one of the reasons I forced myself to keep going over the last half a year. She saved my life, and I didn't even get to hold her. I'll never get to tell her how much I was gonna love her, Tanner. My whole life fell apart in that room and that's why I needed you that day. I needed you so fucking badly and I still--"
I bury my nails halfway into Tanner's t-shirt just to keep standing, but the weight of everything pulls me down toward the concrete. I'm drowning in the same kind of sadness I used to be able to
suffocate.
But now it's got it's hands around my throat, and I can't fight it.
I hardly have it in me to stand.
But right when I think everything's over-- right when I think he'll leave me in a pile of anger and brokenness on our Mom's doorstep, he lifts me up.
He pulls me off the ground, into his arms, and hugs me the way we used to hug each other when we weren't too stubborn to love each other out loud. Before being brothers got complicated.
Before I got complicated.
Tanner buries his hand in my hair and holds my head against his shoulder.
"I'm so sorry, Eli. God, I'm so sorry, that I--"
Tanner sobs into my shirt so hard his whole body's shaking. I can't do this. I can't see him like this even though I thought I wanted to. Even though twenty minutes ago I wanted to see him broken. But now that he is, I regret ever telling him the truth. I regret this whole conversation.
"Just--forget I said anything. I shouldn't have told you," I say.
I pull away from him, but he doesn't loosen his grip.
"Don't move. Please. I flew 500 miles to get you back, and I'm not letting you leave until we fix this. I--I have to fix this."
Dr. Dan taught me a lot of things in rehab, like how not to hold grudges, and how to forgive. Every book he's forced me to read says that at moments like this, I'm supposed to swallow my pride and accept a genuine apology. That I should take my brother back the way he's begging me to. Too bad real life doesn't play out like it does in the textbooks.
'Cause this is my life, and I'm not ready to have him back in it yet.
"You can't."
"Elias, please--"
I peel his hands off me and shove him away. He caves in on himself like he's taking the bullshit coming out of my mouth at face value when he should be reading me backwards.
"You can't fix anything, Tanner--"
Yes, you can.
"--so stop trying--"
Try harder.
"--stop apologizing--"
I wanna forgive you.
"--and let it go. Mom's waiting."
I straighten out my shirt and push past him towards the front door. Tanner's hand lands on my shoulder and I nearly cave from the weight of it.
"She left me, Elias."
"What are you--"
"Caleigh left me because of you. She was so upset with the way I've been handling things since February, she broke things off. So please don't walk away from me right now. Cause if I don't have you, I don't have anyone."
I almost turn around. I almost act like the person I should be and hold him together when he's in pieces. But I turn the door handle and step inside instead.
Mom's standing a couple steps away from the kitchen with two bowls of paella in her hands.
I'm not sure if it's the food or the sight of her standing there looking so desperate that makes me sick, but my stomach turns inside out.
"Dinner's ready, mij--"
"I can't right now, Mom."
She stares at me heartbroken, but I don't wanna see her like this, and I don't wanna be seen, so I sprint upstairs to my room without saying another word. She follows after me, a desperate step at a time, dishes clanging in her hands, but I'm too good at running for her to catch me. I close the door and slide onto the floor while she calls out to me from the other side.
"Elias, please don't do this. Your brother needs you."
I need him too, mom.
I love him.
I've missed him.
I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry.
I just can't say it tonight.
***