blurry | ✔️

chapter seven

It was a little past one o'clock in the morning when I slammed my laptop shut. I couldn't write this essay to save my life; how was I supposed to know what Hamlet was thinking when I didn't even know what I was thinking? I'd typed my name and the date, as well as "Title" in the place of the actual title, but after that my page was blank.

I tossed the paperback play and my notebook on the ground and flopped over in my bed onto my back, staring at the ceiling. It was Saturday night, and I was here, at home, in ratty sweats, attempting to write a paper for class, instead of out with friends like any normal eighteen-year old girl. I thought about Joshua, wondering what he was up to at the moment. Probably fooling around with Emmy. I quickly pushed that thought out of my head.

I recalled the Saturday before, the night before the carnival, when he and I had driven to the drive-in movie theater and met everyone else there, how we snuck in alcohol and sat on Joshua's and Matt's tailgates, slowly getting drunk. I couldn't even remember half of what happened in the movie, but I still had fun. Everything had changed within the course of only a week.

I thought about calling Charlie, because I knew he'd be here in an instant if I told him I was alone, and last night was on replay in my head—us steaming up the windows on his car, not moving for a few minutes after we'd finished like we were locked together, him gently pushing my sweaty hair out of my face and kissing along my collarbone, my jawline, driving me crazy—but I didn't think a repeat was going to stave off my problems forever.

Frustrated, I climbed out of my bed and padded across my carpet, my stomach rumbling. I knew that downstairs in the refrigerator, there was an extra piece of peach cobbler my dad had brought home from my favorite bakery, and it was calling my name. Slowly, I turned my doorknob and pulled open my door. The house was dark, no light coming from underneath my parents' doorway across the hall, only a soft glow emanating from Ian's room which I could only assume to be from the television. His friend had stayed the night, and no doubt they were playing video games and didn't plan on sleeping at all.

I walked toward Ian's room; the door was slightly cracked and I could hear muffled noises coming from the TV. I walked over, aiming to close it so the light or the sound wouldn't wake up Mom or Dad. I pressed on the door slightly, wanting to let Ian know what I was doing, and it swung farther open, and before I could get any words out of my mouth, I froze.

There he was, on the bed.

And there his friend Grant was, on the bed.

Ian's hand was on the side of Grant's face.

Grant's hand was on Ian's thigh.

And their lips were pressed together.

Kissing.

It took a second to register. My brother—the one who got his first girlfriend at age fourteen, the one that gawked at models on television and constantly made sexual remarks about them, the one who had never in the least been slightly bro-mantic with any of his friends. My brother, Ian, who was straight. Or at least.

I stumbled backward, wanting to quickly get out of there before I made them aware of my presence, before I made it an even more awkward situation, and I ran right into Ian's door frame, the sound loud enough in the empty air to wake a sleeping bear. Grant and Ian snapped apart, their eyes shooting open and looking toward me, my jaw dropped to the floor and my hands out in front of me as if I could capture the noise before it reached them.

"I—I'm so sorry," I stuttered, and slipped out of the room, shutting the door behind me.

I was sitting at the dining room table when Ian found me, not even ten minutes later, my legs pulled up to my chest and my chin resting on my knees. The pie was in front of me, and I was absentmindedly nibbling on the crust, twirling the fork around my fingers. I looked up when he came in. He sat in the chair next to me, staring down at his hands and bouncing his leg up and down nervously. Neither of us said a word.