Beneath The Skin(143)

I stop at a giant abstract sculpture made of wire and glass panels just outside of the School of Art and collapse onto one of the benches that encircle it. On that bench for an hour, I stare at the horizon as it ignites with angry shades of orange and pink before being chased away by deep blues, then darkness. That sunset pretty much sums up my mood: up in the air with Dessie’s mouth on mine, I was ignited, and back down on the ground, I’m the shadows.

I pull out my phone and text Brant, asking him what he’s up to. I desperately need to distract myself. My phone shivers twenty seconds later, Brant asking me where we keep the chocolate syrup because he’s got a girl in his room and they “have ideas”. With a sigh, I inform him that we have none, then shove my phone back in my pocket, ignoring his response. That was more distraction and imagery than I needed.

Two girls pass by, and the conversation they were clearly having is paused as they sip the straws of their beverages suggestively, but it’s their eyes that do all the drinking, staring me down as they pass. One of them, a pretty brunette with curls down to her boobs, gives me a wiggle of her long fingers, sporting blood red nails.

I look away, annoyed. Girls like them used to be my thing. I was the expert. I had the skills that Brant was jealous of, even back when we were kids and our voices were still changing.

It’s the strangest thing, for the last memory of your own voice to be that of your twelve-year-old self, an unreliable voice that cracked at the worst of times, a voice that turned rough one day of the week, then boyish and squeaky the next.

But that squeaky voice couldn’t dare stop me from going after all the pretty girls. Little Clayton knew how to talk to them. He wasn’t afraid.

It was little dorky Brant who had all the trouble, and I was the one who coached him that day at Laura’s party. “You can’t think of a girl as someone you want,” I told him—my cocky, know-it-all self who acted like I had all the answers a dumb twelve-year-old would ever need. “You have to see her as someone who wants you.”

“I feel like I’m gonna puke,” whined little Brant. It always annoyed me how much he complained.

“Walk up and ask her why she hasn’t offered you some punch yet,” I teased him, nudging him with my elbow. He pushed me off, annoyed, and I saw the fear in his eyes. It didn’t make me sympathize with him; it made me want to laugh at the scared little fucker. “You’re such a chicken, Brant.”

“Shut up, I’m not.”

“Watch me,” I told him, puffing up my chest. “Watch and learn, little bro.”

We weren’t brothers, but I loved acting like the older brother Brant never had, in all the best and worst ways.

I walked up to that girl he’d had his eyes on ever since fifth grade. It was that easy. I strutted up to Miss Courtney and enjoyed the conversation Brant was meant to have. And at nine o’clock that night, it was me kissing Courtney in the closet under the stairs while everyone else’s fingers turned orange eating Cheetos and playing Twister in the living room.

I’d done some pretty sick shit back when I could hear. I was on top of the world and acted like I owned it, no matter how poor I was, no matter how I felt after Dad took off before my sixth birthday with some blonde bitch he met online, no matter how bad Mom’s hoarding problem got for those three months before he came back. I wouldn’t let anything stop me, even when Brant was furious with me for taking Courtney from him. “Snooze you lose,” I recall telling him in my room before he hurled a PlayStation controller at my head and pounced on me. In the heated struggle, Brant sliced open his arm pretty bad, and a trip to the emergency room earned him twelve stitches and a crescent scar he still has to this day.

He didn’t forgive me for a while. The last time I ever heard his voice, it was in the hallway at school right in front of my locker where he shouted, “I’m sorry I ever looked up to your selfish, coldhearted ass! You’re not my friend! Fuck you, Clayton!”

Not two months after that exchange, I lost my hearing forever.

And Brant’s loving, final words to me would be thereafter locked in my mind. When he saw me next, the only apology I received was in the form of his lips moving, creating words I couldn’t understand. Then I couldn’t even see the lips anymore as they began to blur behind a sheen of my tears.

I blink away the memories, startled to discover how dark it’s gotten. The only light that touches me now is the nearby lamppost. I pull my phone out, the screen blinding me, and type a message to Brant:



ME

We DO have caramel sauce, tho.

Behind the salsa....