I walk over to the school. Replaying our time together in my mind, cursing myself for not seeing the signs.

I look at his truck. Sitting there, waiting for “repairs”.

You can turn a blind eye to anything, I suppose. Humans are so good at it. I liked having some semblance of control. Being in charge for once. I didn't stop to ask why I always had to pick him up. Why I was his chauffeur.

Burlingame is so cozy, so happy and small. The way he walked to the grocery store, the gas station for gum, it made me miss my years here.

When I step into the school I close my eyes, listening for him. The familiar sound of a basketball pulls me to the right, to the gym.

It’s become our place. The place he first kissed me.

How many nights does he drink there? Without me? Is that how he spent his time before I showed up? The mighty fall so swiftly, so sadly. I once thought he had everything I wanted in life. More friends than I could count on two hands. A beautiful two-story home. A full family.

It was all a lie.

And he keeps digging further into himself, into his mistakes. He burrows there.

When I find him, he is staring at the hoop. The thud thud thud of the basketball hides my approach. I slip my shoes off at the side of the court and walk to him slowly, wringing my hands.

I tap him on the shoulder once he is within reach. I am pulled back to high school days. When I would want his attention. So shy around him then. So bold now, except in this moment.

He turns to me. His beautiful blue eyes are sad. They’re always sad. My own flicker past him, to the case of beer by the far wall.

I should have known. I should have known that patterns repeat whether you want them to or not, sometimes.

“Hi,” I offer meekly.

“Hi.” He is tight-lipped. I sense an urgency in his body. He turns away, sinks the basket.

We watch it, linger a moment too long in unison, the net swaying.

When he turns again, he grabs my hand, intertwines his fingers with mine. When I was a teen, I would have lit on fire over a moment like this. Now, I just feel something grow in the pit of my stomach.

“What’s up?” His tone is casual, contradicting his slow movements and intimate motions.

“Nothing. I just wanted to see you.” This is not how I planned to start this conversation. I talked to myself the entire walk over. Granted it wasn't a long walk, but it was a strong argument I had with myself. I told myself not to get lost in the blue. In the touch. In the scent and taste of him. I needed to know what the hell he was doing. 

“You don't have nothing face.”

I wanted to kiss him for not letting me out of my questioning. For not letting me let things lie. Because as much as I hated him in this moment, I still felt the pull. “Why don’t you drive your truck?” 

“It doesn't run.”

“Tell me the real reason,” I say, pulling my hand from his. He doesn't release it.

He wanted this. It was in his reply, he wanted me to push. He always wants me to push him for the truth in the lie.

Finally, he unwinds his hand from mine, lets it fall. It slaps my bare thigh and the sound surrounds us. “Who told you?” 

“I know I don't have many friends here anymore, but you couldn't expect me never to find out. Did you think it would go down that way? Maybe since I'm not going to be around forever.” 

“I didn't want you to know. What’s wrong with that?”

“Did you do it back then, too?" I can't say the words, but I don't have to. He knows what I am talking about.

“No!”

I think of my classmates. Bragging about flying down the dirt roads of our county. Flying fast. We don't have curves in Kansas, so the only way to feel like you're doing something dangerous is to amp the speed.

I knew they were drinking back then and I didn't know if Bryan was lying now or not. He ran with the kids who broke the rules. He wasn't sitting on the sidelines shaking his finger just because he was the preacher's son. But maybe his loathing of his father pushed him to do the stupid shit they did.

“You could have hurt someone! You could have hurt yourself!” My voice is loud, and I do not care.

“Don't you think I know that?” He walks away, to the side of the court. He grabs an open beer, tips it back.

I laugh. “How did I not notice?”

“Maybe you didn't care.”

“Are you drunk now?”

“I don't get drunk. I never get drunk.”

“So that makes it okay then, right? You live your life buzzed?”

“Beats the alternative.”

“Here we are again. Poor, poor Bryan. Always hiding from his actions and the consequences. Always hiding from reality.”

“Sometimes the picture doesn't fit the reality. I am never going to fit into this pretty picture you have in your mind. I am not the prince you thought I was.”

I throw my hands up. This is never-ending. I want off the ride. “Just stop.”

“Am I boring you?”

“No. This is beyond that. I just, I want more for you. Don't be your father.” 

“I can never be my father. Because you know who he gets to be now? The caring, understanding father. The one helping his poor son, fallen from grace, as he recovers. He is the one praying for me. He is the one who can't believe I would let this happen, but he will help me find my way. I will never be him. I will never let my bullshit get to my daughter.”

“She will feed off of you. She is a child, but fuck, she isn’t stupid. You were that small innocent sponge once, too, remember? Every bad vibe, every little bit of loathing you carry in your heart for this life you are living, she will soak up. She will feel like the blame, the reason. She will wonder what your life would have been like if she had never been born if you keep treating your time on this earth with her here, in this town, like a prison. You only have so many nights, so many weekends, so many summers with her before she isn’t your little girl anymore. Before this time fades away and she is gone, living her own life. Making her own mistakes and making her own family. Give her the best one, build it from this broken moment and these broken years. Build it up so it is solid and sure, for her.”

“You're right. I know.”

“Then do it. Don't you see how lucky you are? I bet she looks at you like you're the goddamn sun. She runs around you. Revolves. You're so lucky. I can see it from my fucking porch when you two run around that lawn out there. You're so lucky,” I repeat myself.

“I know I am.”

“Act like it. Don't be boring. Take this boring life, on paper, and live it to the fullest. Jesus.”

“I know!”

“You can be pissed at me all you want. If that's what you need to take away the self-loathing you have for yourself.”

“So this is you helping. Okay.”

“Always. I like to think I’ve come to know you in some way. In a way others can’t. Or maybe that’s just what I want to tell myself. But there is this part of me that believes you think you're not seen. Or you can only be seen when you choke on your words. When you wear some sort of suffering on the outside. That you can’t be loved if you openly express joy. Maybe that's the only way you found love from your parents. I don’t know if that’s right. Or if it’s just the story I’ve written for you in my mind, and due to my own imagination, I’ve inserted my own reality into yours. I’ve projected this onto you. Does it sound right? I’m rambling. I’m rambling the way I used to with you. When I never knew what to say. And I am so fucking mad at you right now I think it’s just better that I fucking ramble.”

“I like it. It takes me back.”

“Love isn’t about power. It isn’t about having the upper hand. It’s about this gentle ease. You just feel it with some people.”

“There is something good coming from this. So maybe I'm not sorry for it.”

“And what is that?” The anger comes again. I know he is sorry, but I hate his words.

“My mother has some peace because her son is a fuck-up. She gets out of that house. She gets her own office, helping with the real estate. I've never seen her like that. She is happy. She is helping me, because she truly loves me. And it’s her escape. There it is. The thing you always want me to look for.” He finishes his beer and I want to slap the empty can from his hand.

“There what is?”

“The silver lining.”

“It’s always there, Bryan.”

“So who told you? Ben?”

“Aurora.”

“You talked to her?”

“She found me.” I think back, to high school. The scary meeting on the bench. The way I shivered in her presence. “She wanted to know what was going on with us. She wanted to make sure I would stay away from you.” 

“And is it going to work?”

“Yes.” There is no doubt in my mind that this is over. I knew it once she told me.

“Wow. She’s so good at what she does.”

“If there’s one thing I know, it’s this: No one will care about your sadness as much as you do. No one will be as invested in it, fall apart for it, crumble with it. We all have our demons, and we will find people willing to hold our hands and help us, but no one can fight our battles for us. You need to figure out how you’re going to overcome this.” I walk past him, grab one of his beers.

“And by this, you mean my marriage?”

“Your sadness. It’s deeper than you think, I believe.”

“Say it.” 

“Depression?” I don't want to diagnose him. But I want to open the dialogue.

He barely lets me finish. “No. That’s not it.”

“Don't be like the rest of this town. Hiding from the real world and all there is out there. Thinking what we see on TV is make-believe." 

“You’re so supportive.” His sarcasm is thick.

“I am. You may not see it right this second, because I have always been blunt. But maybe one day you’ll look back on this moment and see it for what it was. Me, trying to help.”

“And maybe I don't want any help.” His words sound hollow. We both know he doesn’t mean them.

“Oh, I'm aware.” I humor him. “I've watched you double down on your walls. Your excuses. Your reasons for the isolation and the pity. It bores me, Bryan. That’s me being blunt. I want you to surprise me with your fight.”

“You've always been the one with the words. They hurt, you know? They hurt, the way you use them. With the truth you throw around. Maybe some people don't want to deal with it. Yet. Just not yet.”

“It’s always going to be there like a ghost in the hallway.”

“I’ll never be like him, you know?”

I wonder if he is denying the similarities between him and his father again. We stare into each other's eyes and I see it. No. Not his father. “Ben? Not this again.”

“Yes. This again. It’s always going to be there.”

“Well, it’s a good thing this is done and I can do whatever I want.”

“Was it one of those things where I was just something on your list? Something to check off? Gotta fuck the high school crush so I can tell all of my friends?”

“Speaking of your brother, he is never this immature.” Well, he was. But not in this way. Not in the form of his emotions. He was surprisingly self-aware. It was too much at times. I wanted to be in a room with him. Not here. Building up, boiling over. I walk out of the gym, into the hallway, away from him.

I feel the fresh air of the night hit my face and listen for his next footsteps. At first, they don't come, and I get halfway down the lawn. Thinking I’m free. But soon I hear the echo of bare feet on concrete.

“And this is why we would never work, even if you stayed.”

I turn around, face him. “Oh, do tell. Because I have a list a mile long of all the reasons why we would not work. But I’m curious about this one.”

“Because you just say shit, and don't even try to filter out what will hurt someone.”

“I let myself be this silent child in school. I was so scared of the popular kids and the real world and everything. Because I didn't have my mother to teach me how to be both strong and soft. So I just became a barbed wire. This has always been my defense, but you just didn't know me back then. Don't tell me something is new about me when you didn't even know me back then. You were too scared to let yourself. You were too scared to face the judgment of friends you probably don't even talk to anymore. No, I don't filter what I say. I’m sorry that hurts you but actions hurt more than words. You try to be this stoic guy, and maybe you think it’s sexy, and maybe it was back then, but it’s the way you treat people that will be remembered. Remember that.”

I can see my front porch. It’s so close, but I don't move. I don't want to be there. I don't know where I wish to be. Anywhere but Kansas.

I want to be anywhere but here with this mess that we’ve made. I don't know who I am anymore, and the more I examine my past transgressions, and what I've let my body do here in the present, the more I’m not sure of where I am trying to get to.

I want to be easy, find who I am meant to be with, without hurting others.

It’s strange, the way I am drawn to Ben. His brother's body fits into mine so easily, so smoothly. But it isn't what I hoped for. It wasn't something to check off a list. It wasn't something I ever thought would happen and I don't feel fuller for it.

I feel weighed down by my own duality.

“Don’t go,” he says, reading my mind. Sensing my splitting apart. I don't want it to be alone. And I hate myself a little for that. The days are winding down and the hole in my heart, left by my father, needs to be filled somehow, some way. “I just want it to be easy again,” he whispers.

“It’s never been easy. We've just pretended it was,” I reply.

“Pretending is fun sometimes, right? Can we pretend again?” Bryan asks. And it would be so easy to fall into him. But my body recoils.

“I want to,” I admit.

“Maybe you were right. We were never meant to be anything permanent.”

“I like you.” My voice is unsteady, and he mistakes it for weakness. He reaches for me and this is when I break. I pull my hand away, not letting him touch me. “I love her.” My voice cracks. “I loved her. I loved her and she was taken from me. From her family. From her friends and this town. This world is smaller without her and her friendship. There is someone out there who was meant to love her and maybe they never met her and they felt the loss when she closed her eyes. I believe in stuff like that. Romance and tragedy and the way we carry that. She was taken from this world because someone was stupid and selfish and you know that. You’ve seen the way it can rip a community apart. The way it can rip someone apart. Do you know how long it took me to recover from that? I had to leave here. I had to hide in a city full of millions. And I cried myself to sleep every night. I had to be put back together. I wrote stories for her, because she, above all else, encouraged me. She never got to read them. She never got to go out and conquer the world. And she would have. How dare you be that selfish. How dare you be that stupid. You can't love someone you don’t respect. And I have none for you now. I can barely look at you.”

“How could you not see it before? Did you really think this dark pit I fell into was just because of Aurora? It’s because I’ve been hating myself. I hate myself. Is that not enough?”

“No. You’re going to take mine, too. And Aurora? She loves you. She loves you. The good and the bad and all of it. Just go. Go back to her and stop this endless bullshit. I’m bored of you.”

“Keep using that. Keep stabbing me with that.”

“This is the last time. I’m done. I’ll be gone soon.”

“You're so good at running.”

“Don't confuse this with running. I’m just done with things that do not serve me. And you are one of those things. You always have been.”

“Goodbye shouldn’t sound like this.”

“Should it sound like last time? Where I don’t even give you one?”

“Maybe this time I would have preferred that.”

“I guess I don’t care anymore. To give you what you want. To serve myself on a platter for you. Maybe this is growth. Maybe you should study it.”

“I am. I’m always studying you.”

“If you were, you would have known to be there when I needed you. My father is dead. I lost him. And the person there for me, was Ben.”