“He wouldn’t say.”
“He didn’t say anything about why? Like, nothing?”
“You know there’s no getting real talk out of Dad. I’m surprised I got that much,” Cole says, picking up a couple of the photos around him.
“Well, did they get in a fight this morning after I left?”
He grabs another photo. “No.”
“Did you see anything weird between them?”
“Not really.”
“Come on, Cole! Something had to have happened!” I yell.
He lets out a long, hard sigh and then shifts his tired, swollen face into a bright smile. It’s almost scary. “It was a normal Saturday. Mom went to work before I got up. Then Dad drove me up to the school for my tournament.”
He’s speaking in a high-pitched tone with a slow cadence, like he’s reading a fairy tale to a bunch of first graders. This boy is not my brother. My brother is never this rude. I want to tell whoever this boy is to kiss my ass, but I don’t because I need to hear what happened.
“He seemed cool in the car. Talked about the strengths and weaknesses of a few forwards from other teams and how he wanted to see a better follow-through from me. He left after the first game. He usually stays, but I didn’t think anything of it. Then he picked me up and filled me in on what was going on with you. Didn’t say two words on the way to the hospital, but you know how Dad’s always lost in his head.
“Is that enough for you? Or do you want me to remember what we were listening to on the radio or how many red lights we stopped at or exactly where we were when the clock struck six or which way the wind was blowing when we drove under the live oaks on Rice Boulevard? Or maybe you want to know how many times Dad cleared his throat or scratched his chin. Because I can try to recall all of that if you need me to,” he says, face still fake with cheer.
The sting of how ridiculous he just made me sound won’t let me respond. Am I really that stupid for trying to keep an eye out for things that might clue me in on my future? I can’t even approach the answer. The question has only been here two seconds and it’s already changed my shape. And now it’s like I don’t fit right inside of myself.
“Sorry, I’m just tired,” Cole says. He stands, picking up the rest of the photos and putting them back in his black storage boxes. “Give me a second and I’ll be out of your room.”
What? He dumps me in this foreign place, turns me into this foreign shape, and now he wants to leave me? No! I grab his hand.
He looks over at me in surprise.
The thing is, I’m usually the one trying to kick Cole out of my room. He’s always in here. Says he likes staring at my walls. At the sketches and writings torn from my notebooks, at the images I’m drawn to in magazines . . . the photos he lets me keep . . . my favorite pieces from art classes over the years . . . all the poems and notes and lists and cards and quotes and random facts I collect. I’ve always figured that if I’m constantly looking at things that call out to me, then the Universe would eventually have to tell me what I’m supposed to do with my life. But it hasn’t happened yet.
Cole squeezes my hand, lets it go, and gets back to collecting his photos.
“And what? Daddy told you to pass all this information along to me?” I ask, trying to slow him down. It pisses me off that Daddy would tell him and not me.
He grabs a black box off a stack of magazines on my desk. “No, he probably thought Mom would tell you,” he says, and slides three photos behind a tab in the box.
“Mom didn’t say anything to me. We talked about—” I almost tell on myself, but don’t. On the way to get my car, I talked to Mom about the gallbladder attack finally being the sign to quit basketball. She’s the only one who knows I want to quit. Known since I was in seventh grade and told her that getting my period was a sign to quit. Known I’ve been afraid to quit because I don’t have a better dream to replace it with.
Daddy would die if he knew the truth. He’s had a basketball in my hands since before I could walk. If Cole knew, he would die, too. He loves basketball. And we’ve been playing each other our whole lives . . . pushing each other . . . supporting each other . . . defending each other when Daddy’s too hard on us. Sometimes I wonder if we’d be so close if I didn’t play.
Cole hasn’t even noticed I stopped mid-sentence. It’s like he’s in a trance, focused on picking up and organizing his photos. “Oh, and we have until March eighteenth. That’s the date we’ll have to sit down with the judge and state which parent we want to live with,” he says. I swear it’s like someone has steamrolled over his emotions. Flattened him right out.
“That’s not even six weeks! What if we refuse?”
“Then they’ll have to spend a whole lot of time and money fighting over us. Believe me, I’ve already asked Dad these questions. And a million more. We need to choose. And I think we should stay together. It’s one thing for Mom and Dad to get a divorce, but it’s a whole different thing to split from you, too.”
There’s my brother. There’s my Cole. “Me, too,” I say, feeling the agreement soothe the hurt a little.
“Right now, I’m thinking we should stay with Mom. I don’t like the idea of her being in the house by herself at night. Plus, we wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of switching schools.”
What about Daddy? I think. What about the way his eyes go sad when he’s alone? The way he can look scared even when he’s sitting on a barstool eating pancakes. “But you know Daddy needs us around,” I say. “Mom will be fine. She’s always fine.”
Cole stops stacking his black boxes of photos and looks at me. “Do you really want to switch schools?”
“No.” I feel lost enough as it is. I couldn’t imagine throwing the change of a new school into the mix. But still . . . Daddy.
I stand up and grab the photo box at my feet. “Look, I’m not arguing in favor of Daddy or anything.” In favor. The words taste greasy and bitter in my mouth. I hate them. I hate everything about this situation.
“I’m tired and I stink. Can we talk about this later?” Cole asks, and stacks another box.
“Okay,” I say, walking over to him. I place the last box on top of the six others. And before he reaches down to grab them, I reach out for a hug.
He hugs me longer than I usually let him. And when he tries to let go, I hold on to him and hide my face in the ripe funk of his basketball clothes, where I feel safe. Where I’m just a sister. Not the girl whose parents are suddenly splitting up. Not the girl who has to choose which one to live with. Not the girl who’s thinking about quitting the team, throwing all of her scholarship opportunities away, giving up everything she’s worked for her whole life, and having the whole team, her daddy, and her brother probably hate her for it. And for what? The girl doesn’t have a clue what to do with her life. Not a single fucking clue. I’m not ready to be alone with this girl.
I’m not ready.
I’m not ready.
I’m not ready.
Tears flood my face and I’m a 100 percent sure the ill-fitting girl inside me is going to explode.
“Everything will be okay,” Cole reassures me.