Tailspin (Better Than You) Read online

  As I push off of the kitchen counter, I push back all of the guilt that I may feel over what I am about to do. It slides away easily, my mind for once listening and complying. It leaves and is replaced by something more carnal, primal; something that doesn’t require excuses or feelings. I make my way over to her, fast and completely set on fulfilling this need. And thank God, Heather doesn’t pull away. Her movements meet mine, but I’m more concerned with extinguishing the fire inside of me than deciding whether she wants this as much as I do.

  Heather pulls away from my mouth and I move my lips to her neck, roughly pressing kisses along the line of her jaw and down her chest. “Emily and Joshua?” she asks breathily.

  “Gone,” is all I say before I yank her silky black tank top over her head. My Uncle Drew and Aunt Kristie decided to take them for a few days, to give me time to readjust to this life that is now mine. But they’ve got seven kids of their own and so Emily and Joshua will be back here and under my care by Wednesday. A part of me is dreading that and the guilt for feeling that way is almost enough to consume me. But like everything else, I push it away and instead focus on the button on Heather’s black slacks. On the way her hair feels, fisted in my hand. On the taste of her skin and the heat of her breath and the sound her moans.

  After it’s done and the only sound in the room is the ticking of the grandfather clock and the occasional passing car, the emptiness hits me. It expands inside of me, pushes against my skin and threatens to tear me open. Suddenly I’m panting for a whole different reason. Suddenly the feel of Heather’s slippery skin on mine is too much. Her nearness is too much. Luckily, she senses it. If there’s anything I can say about our relationship, it’s that she understands me. Always has. So when I begin to shift, she stands and finds her clothes. Disappears upstairs and leaves me with the deafening silence of the empty house.

  It’s only minutes before she’s back, but it could have been hours or days for all I know. Time is inconsequential. It’s suddenly insignificant and predictable because it will consist of things I never wanted, a life that was never supposed to be mine. Anger boils inside of me, heats my blood and makes the room swim.

  “I’m gunna go.” Heather’s soft voice breaks into my thoughts. It makes me angrier than I already am, because Heather is never soft. She’s demanding, high-maintenance, in control. This voice she’s using now, it’s pity and I don’t want any of it. Not when she’s about to walk away. Not when she’s using this circumstance as an excuse to leave. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” she adds.

  My hands, hanging limply between my knees, tighten into fists. “Don’t bother,” I snap. The sound of her taking a step back infuriates me. Like I’d ever hurt her. Like all I haven’t done is please her.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers, and then she’s gone, the sound of the front door opening and slamming shut echoing throughout the entire house. The sun has sunk beneath the ground and the moon is barely visible through the cover of clouds. The house is dark, and I am naked and alone with my thoughts. I can’t go back to my dorms, because I’ve pulled out of my classes. My former teammates are at a game, with their new quarterback and their new lineup. There is only me and this damn house and all of the shit that belongs to them. I squeeze my eyes shut, try to remind myself that it’s not their fault that they are gone. But all I can manage to do is ask questions. Why did they have to go out that night? Why did they drive in the rain? Was Dad drinking? Were my hurried pleas the cause of their accident, and ultimately their deaths? Is it all my fault?

  It’s all my fault.

  Before I know what I’m doing, before I realize what my intentions are, I’m finding anything breakable and throwing it on the ground. Destroying what’s theirs and what’s now mine and what I don’t want. Because, if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t want any of it. Not now, not ever. I just want to go back to school, go back to playing football and my easy relationship with Heather and throwing back beers with the boys and everything that people my age are supposed to be doing.

  The sound of Mom’s favorite lamp crashing to the floor fills me with more comfort than it should. In my head I’m yelling a loud fuck you to them, even though I know it’s wrong, even though they can’t hear it. But this feeling, this anger that’s eating me up inside, is so much easier to deal with than the complete sorrow that will take its place once the fire is cooled. It makes me feel stronger, instead of feeling like a pussy that’s about to cry every second of the day.

  A car passes by, the headlights sweeping through the house and illuminating the disaster I’ve made, but I don’t feel regret. I don’t feel anything at all except the coolness of the air against my naked skin and the heat of anger running through my veins. And I feel strong. Stronger than I have in the past days, since losing my parents. Strong enough to be undeserving of the pity in Heather’s eyes. Strong enough to be the parents that Emily and Joshua need. More than strong enough to let go of the person I was and become someone entirely new.

  ~~

  When I wake up the next morning, lying on top of the sheets on my bed, I’m confused, blissfully so. It’s another morning, just like any of the other mornings I’ve had in my life. The sun is bright, the room is uncomfortably warm and familiarly messy, but the house is strangely quiet. Joshua’s early morning whining is nowhere to be found. Emily’s heavy footsteps can’t be heard. Mom’s soft humming isn’t floating through the house, finding its way up to the second floor and annoying me as usual. But before I can let it sink in, let the desire to go back to sleep and never wake up win, I grab onto my anger and fist it tightly. Just as I hoped, it gives me the strength to go on, to clean up the mess I’ve made and to accept the truth of my life as it is.

  4

  May 30, 2006

  I’m starting to forget what his voice sounds like.

  It’s been weeks since I’ve heard him say anything at all, weeks since our parents were taken from us. And while Emily is the extreme, voicing every opinion and every thought, Joshua has yet to speak one single word. I’ve stopped trying to coax it out of him. I may have the strength to keep going, to wake up every morning and make lunches and drive them to school and work at the bar Dad left behind and be a real, living, breathing adult, but I don’t have the strength to make him speak when I’m thinking it’s better that he doesn’t. His silent treatment feels like a form of punishment I know I deserve.

  “You can still talk to him, you know,” Emily says, breaking into my thoughts at just the right moment. Any farther on that line of thinking and I may have lost all control I feel as if I’ve just gained. “You know how they say that people in a coma can still hear, and they encourage their family to talk to them, tell stories and all that? It’s kinda like that. Maybe he’s in some sort of living coma thingy.”

  My eyes cut to the rearview mirror where I see Joshua staring out the window, as if he hasn’t heard Emily at all. She’s studying her nails as if she didn’t just speak the most profound words I’ve ever heard leave her mouth. “He’s not in a coma, Em.”

  “It’s Emily,” she snaps. “I know he’s not. I’m just using it as a comparison.”

  “So you think I should put him in the hospital? Have him watched, monitored, poked and prodded? That’s what they do to coma patients.”

  She sighs heavily. “All I’m saying is that you should talk to him. He hasn’t said a word since they died, but neither have you. Not really.”

  What do I say to a nine-year old boy who’s lost the parents he barely got to know? Will he even remember them, the sacrifices they made, the trips we took? Again my eyes stray to the rearview mirror, and all I see is a small boy who looks exactly like Mom, exactly like me, and all I want to do is disappear. Like a fucking coward.

  The rest of the car ride is quiet, as usual. It’s like we don’t know what we are to each other anymore, so there’s nothing to say. Are we siblings? Am I still their brother, or their parents, or both? Have I lost the right to pester them like older brothers sho
uld? Where do I draw the line between friend and authority? I don’t have answers. I feel like I don’t have anything anymore.

  “I have to do some catch up work after school today. I’ll catch a ride with Cora,” Emily reminds me before leaving the car. She glances at Joshua, then back at me and wiggles her eyebrows, like I’m one of her friends and can understand everything she says with just one look. As I’m driving away, I see her watching after the car, this look on her face that I wouldn’t be able to forget even if I tried. It’s hard to remember that I’m not the only person who has lost everything they’ve ever known.

  Now that Emily is gone, the silence in the car is ear piercing. I don’t know where to start with Joshua, or what to say, or even if he cares to hear what I have to say. If only there was a way to know what he’s thinking.

  “If you don’t wanna go to school today, just let me know.” When he doesn’t respond, I continue. “We can stay home and hang out, maybe go to the beach or something. We can try out that paddleboard I got for Christmas.”

  He’d been begging me to take him for months, but I kept putting it off, always telling him I was too busy. With school. With football. With Heather. Maybe if I’d been a better brother, he wouldn’t be shutting me out now. By the time we get to his school, he still hasn’t said a word. The car slides to a stop and his door opens and shuts quietly. Joshua’s backpack is almost bigger than him and I watch as he disappears into the elementary building. The whole time he’s walking, he watches the ground, almost as if the world around him has ceased to exist. To me, it feels as if it’s way too big, way too much. I envy him and the chance he gets to disappear.

  Instead of driving away like I know I should, I sit in the car for almost an hour, part of me hoping that Joshua will come running out of the building so that I can keep putting off the things I need to do. Like sell Mom’s shop. And open dad’s bar. These things weigh on me so heavily that most days I have to remind myself to breathe. If I didn’t need the money, I would just say fuck it all. But Joshua and Emily and that huge ass house we have are expensive. If only I had known before, maybe I could have been more thankful to my parents for what they gave us. How had I been so completely blind?

  The drive to Mom’s store takes less than twenty minutes and as I walk through downtown and come to a stop in front of the very empty looking boutique, I begin to wonder if I can really do this after all. This was Mom’s. It was part of who she was, something she had built and created and nurtured. Emily will kill me when she finds out, but it’s just too much. There are so many things I never bothered to learn, so many things that Emily said she would figure out later, after her cheerleading practice or after hanging out with her friends.

  It’s too late now.

  “Mr. Hawkins?” a voice interrupts my thoughts. I turn to find a woman with brown hair and mousy features. She’s young, but not as young as I am. Maybe she’s older but the way she holds herself, small and timid, reminds me of a child.

  “It’s Nathan,” I respond. Mr. Hawkins was my dad, and he’s gone. I’m not him. I could never be him.

  The woman shakes her head, her thin hair falling out of its ponytail and tickling her face. “Right. I’m so sorry. I’m Lauren, Mr. Jose’s assistant. I have the paperwork.” At that, she pulls out the folder from under her arm and begins shuffling through the contents.

  “Let’s take care of it inside.” As I’m unlocking the door, I hear her take a deep breath, like she’s nervous. But what is she nervous about? Dealing with this? Dealing with me? I lead her to the small back office and motion for her to lay the papers on the wooden desk. Her hands tremble as she sets them out.

  “I just need you to sign here,” she points to a line, “and here, and here.” As she’s handing over the pen, I have this moment where I know that I can turn back. It’s not too late. I can keep this part of Mom, try to keep this alive. Tears sting my eyes but I can’t let them fall. There’s so much to be done and crying like a pussy won’t get them done. The pen glides across the paper so smoothly I hardly know it’s being done. It’s much too easy to sign away this last part of her.

  “Thank you, Mr.- um, Nathan. I’ll keep you updated on the progress of the sale.” Lauren takes the pen from my hand and begins to pack up, never once looking me in the eyes.

  “Don’t bother. I don’t want to be a part of it.”

  This stops her. She looks up at me, searches my face for sincerity. Seeing it, she drops her eyes and pushes a piece of hair behind her ear. “I’m so sorry, about, um, for your loss. Mrs. Hawkins was a wonderful lady. She really was.” Lauren clears her throat and then looks up at me. “We’re all set here then.”

  “Thank you, Lauren.”

  She nods brusquely and then scurries out of the shop. I’m left standing there, surrounded by Mom and her papers and her tendency to be disheveled and disorganized. Instead of rifling through her things like I have the urge to do, I walk out of the office, through the shop, and out of the front door. I lock it behind me and I never look back, not once. With my hands fisted by my side and my heart pumping so hard it feels like it might explode, I walk away from a decision I might regret one day.

  ~~

  “It had to be done, Emily. It’s too much responsibility and we need the money. Mom would want this for us. She would understand.”

  Even as I say the words, I don’t feel them. I look into the mirror again and try out different facial expressions, all the while feeling ridiculous. Is this something that Dad would do? I wonder if there will ever be a time when I stop questioning myself. I wonder if Mom and Dad questioned themselves as much as I have without them.

  As it turns out, practicing my speech in the mirror does nothing to prepare me for the wrath of Emily Hawkins. She screams, she cries, she throws her phone and shatters it against the refrigerator when it misses my head. Joshua sits in a stool at the kitchen bar and watches the whole scene with wide eyes, but never says a word. Not that I expected him to. When Emily is done yelling, breathing heavily and nostrils flared, she sinks to the ground on her knees, much like I did when the news of our parents came. Slowly, like approaching a wild animal, I crouch next to her and take her heaving body into my arms. She lets me hold her, she lets me whisper Its going to be okay, over and over again, and when she’s done crying she gets up and walks away without a word. Joshua follows soon after, and the days that follow are nothing but silence from them and confusion from me. The tiny bit of control I felt I was gaining is gone and I’m back at square one.

  5

  June 23, 2006

  The last of the glasses have been wiped down and the liquor restocked. We’re ready to open for the day, to flip the sign from surfing to serving. Dad thought he was clever. I can admit now that he was, after spending so much time here. People love that sign and the different specials we have to offer. Even though it’s been six weeks since I started coming here, it hasn’t gotten any easier to be him; to sit at his desk and do his job. To take his place as boss when there are others more qualified for this job than I am. I won’t give it up, though, especially after what happened with Emily when I gave up Mom’s store, and as it wrong as it is, it’s given me the escape I need.

  When I’m here at the bar, the expectations are different; not as heavy. The lives and happiness of my employees don’t depend on me. Not like Joshua and Emily, who still haven’t spoken to me. It feels like I’m living in a house full of ghosts, disturbances of Mom and Dad and Joshua and Emily everywhere I look. But no one’s there, not really. In some ways it’s worse, knowing that they refuse to talk to me, the one family member they have left. In other ways, it’s a relief. I don’t know what I’d say anyways.

  “Hey Kait, would you flip the sign, please?” I look up from wiping the counter to find Kait, who smiles and says, “Sure,” before walking over to the door. She had just started working here before Dad died, and maybe has had the easiest transition of all of the employees. The others miss him; his surefire decisions and witty bante
r, but I can’t try to be him anymore than I already am. It hurts too much.

  The first few hours of the morning are always the slowest. It’s the time before any of the summer breakers are up and before the alcoholics roll out of bed. The girls get to try out new drinks and listen to their own music and I get to catch up on paperwork. Around one is when the crowd rolls in and then it’s non-stop until closing time. I’m sitting at Dad’s desk, reading over something or other when I hear the bell for the door go off. Glancing at the clock, I see that it’s just past noon; a little earlier than usual for a customer, but nothing too unexpected. I go back to reading, my eyes blurring over the small print and the long words. But then I hear my name called, the voice thin but urgent, and it sets my heart racing.

  As I’m walking around the desk and heading for the door, my first thought is for Emily and Joshua; that they’re okay, that whoever has just walked into the bar isn’t here to bring bad news. My eyes sweep over the entire bar, looking for a uniform and tearing up with relief when I don’t see one. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, but only at first. Once my head is screwed back on, once I’ve told myself that Emily and Joshua are safe, I see why I’ve been called out. And my blood runs cold. My heart stops. I blink, once, twice, three times, hoping that the man pointing a gun straight at Kait’s head is a figment of my overworked imagination.

  “Who’s he?” the guys asks, shaking the gun for emphasis.

  Kait whimpers, her hands shaking by her head. “That’s the owner. That’s Nathan.”

  The guy looks confused, his eyes jumping from me to Kait, back to me again. Swallowing down the urge to run away and never look back, I step forward, raise my hands in surrender just like Kait. “Hey man, whatever you need, we can work this out. Why don’t you point that gun over here?”