Guarded

15

“Costello? You mean Cost?” I asked. I looked her over. She had light brown skin, just like Cost’s and they both shared the same brown eyes. Her hair was cut very short close to her head and looked slightly wavy from what I could tell. Her face shape was similar to Cost’s but it wasn’t until she smiled I realized they shared the same smile.

She laughed. “I’m sorry, I forget he goes by Cost out here in Hollywood. Yes, I’m Carissa, his sister.”

I sat down - so much for a peaceful evening. “I didn’t realize he had a sister,” I said.

“Most people don’t. I have a very strained relationship with my parents. I haven’t been in contact with them in a few years.”

I nodded, taking in what she was telling me. “I’m sorry about your brother.”

“I’m sorry to you too. From what I understand, you were dating him, is that right?”

“Yeah, uh, we started dating about six months ago.”

“I’m going to leave you two to it,” Stacey said. She hugged me and left the room and I heard her head upstairs to her bedroom.

“I remember when Cost told me about you two. Don’t worry, he told me how it was a mostly fake relationship. But he always regarded you highly. He spoke nothing but nice things about you. He was a very confused man. I think that’s what drove him to contact me after a few years of us not speaking.”

“Confused?” I asked.

“Let me start from the beginning. My father was in the military when we grew up and he’s always been very reserved. My mother made excuses for him our whole life and had just always stood by idly while he ruled our house with an iron fist. He was never physically abusive, but sometimes words can hurt more than anything. I remember when Cost was five and I was nine and my mother was going through my Barbies to give away to charity. She had left them in a box by the front door to put them in the car. My father came home later than evening. Cost must’ve somehow gotten into the box. My father found him playing with two boy dolls. I just remember the yelling that night and Cost coming into my room and wondering why they were yelling.

“A few years later, my father caught Cost playing doctor with one of the neighborhood kids in our basement. That wouldn’t have been such an issue if Cost hadn’t been caught playing with another boy. It was written off as a misunderstanding until Cost started junior high. He had come home with a note explaining that he was being suspended for a few days. He had been caught touching another boy’s penis in the men’s bathroom.

“When I asked Cost about it later on, he told me the boy had asked him too and only blamed it on him once a teacher had come in. I knew at that moment my brother way gay. I was supposed to be graduating in a few months and I was too caught up in my own drama to pay attention to his pain or the struggle that he was going through. I approached my mother with it and my father overheard. I remember him shouting that his son was not gay and he told me if I ever spoke those words again, I was disowned.

“I left home the minute I turned 18. I moved in with friends and finished out the school year and then moved to Philadelphia for college. I got caught up in my life once again and forgot about things at home until I received a phone call from Cost one day. He explained to me how he was feeling very confused. He had approached our father asking if he ever had sexual thoughts about other man. Our father slapped him and told him no man ever thought such unpure thoughts.