Strain

Seven

August 5

Kate is driving me home from the hospital. I was finally released this morning. Kate is going to be staying with me for a little while to make sure something of the same nature doesn’t happen again, and I can’t help but feel a little violated. Invaded. I don’t want to live with Kate. I want to live with myself. Alone. Where I can be me and suffer unaltered.

“Ooh, I am so excited! It’s going to be like a slumber party!” she giggles. I want to punch her in the throat, and I nearly do but I release the tension before I do.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, come on! Cheer up! It will be fun!”

“Will it?” she sends the stink eye my way.

“Yes. I will make sure of it.”

“Will you?” I still want to punch her.

“Yes.”

“Why doesn’t Andy go live with his parents?” I ask. The question has been leaking through my brain since Andy said they don’t talk to him. Because he’s a ‘faggot’, yes, but there was something more to it.

“They kicked him out of the house when he was seventeen when he came out and he never went back. They aren’t as accepting as Brian makes them out to be. They make sure to spoil Brian and make his life perfect, financially, and make Andy watch. They want to try and show him that if he hadn’t made such a stupid “decision” that he could have the same.”

Oh.

“Sad huh?” she bezels.

“Yeah,” it is. My parents just yelled and screamed at me and made my life hell, but they never kicked me out because they loved me, they were just extremely disappointed in my “choice.”

“How does he have such a nice truck?”

“Just like you. He worked hard to get it. He started working, finished high school, then got a scholarship and went to school for psychiatry. He has had some really bad depression issues himself. So he started drinking and dropped out,” she explains, and I feel a drop in my heart. Something softening and oozing over. Warming up.

“He got a job as a construction worker and then bought out the business and then sold it, made a lot of money on it. Him and his “boyfriend” broke up and he didn’t want to stay in Utah so he moved up here closer to Brian. He was worried about himself, given his depressive state… And here he is.”

Oh.

Andy didn’t seem depressed to me. Although, it was evident that he could handle a few drinks.

“So yeah, let’s not talk about such sad things! We should stay optimistic,” again, I want to throat punch her.

“Why doesn’t he just buy his own house instead of crowding yours?” she frowns when she realizes that her attempt the conversation failed.

“I don’t know,” why not? “I think he is just really messed up right now. He drinks like crazy, Noah. I’m serious. He hammers them down.”

He hammered me down.

If Andy is ‘really messed up right now,’ it’s just another reason to stay away from him.

We pull up to my house and the red door peeks through the trees. The color is solid against my eyes and it feels good to be home. But that comfort is broken when Kate’s voice bleaches my ears. She is my best friend and I love her with all my heart, but for some reason I want to do an awful lot of punching, with her as the bag. I would never actually hit her, not in a million years. Never in an eternity. And if I did, well I would most likely kill myself. Morbid yes, but I would never be able to forgive myself.

“Okay,” she voices. “Bry will be coming by in a few hours for dinner, if that is okay?”

“Of course,” Brian is as welcome as Kate. Andy, on the other hand, might have some restrictions as to how long he can be here.

“Great! What sounds good?” her teeth fluster out.

“Grease.” I peach.

“Agreed.” She rubs my fruity fuzz. “Deep fried chicken, it is.”

It’s at this point that I realize my friend, and myself, are both freaks.

6:40 PM

Brian showed up about fifteen minutes ago, surprisingly, without Andy. It was a relief. I feel oddly normal knowing that he isn’t in my house, that it’s just me and my friends.

I remember the sad sob story Kate told me about him, but the shriveled ache it popped in me is gone. Who cares? Everyone has a rough patch in their lives. Everyone has problems and no one is perfect. I guess, he just had a hard time understanding that.

Monopoly is set before all three of us. I am winning, Kate is second, and Brian is losing. Odd. The boy with all the money has the least.

“Well. I give up,” Brian slaps flicks the racecar, his player, and scrunches his few hundred dollar bills together.

“No giving up!” Kate stands his player back up and straightens his money back out. “You could still win.”

“Noah has almost every property, he’s going t’ win.”

“Yeah, I say I win,” I stretch back. “There’s no way you will win, I’m just too good.”

Kate leers at me, “Uh huh,” sarcasm lacing her tongue. She turns to Brian and weaves her fingers through his, “Where’s Andy?” Hopefully dead.

“At home,” he sips his beer.

Kate’s eyebrows furrow and her lips pucker, “Why didn’t he come with you?”

Brian locks his gaze on me and makes a goofy face, “He said Noah doesn’t like him.”

“What?” Kate looks concerned as she scorers me.

“He doesn’t know that,” is all I say because I can’t think of anything else.

“He seemed pretty sure.”

“Hitler seemed pretty sure.”

“Touché.” He smirks, “Why don’t you like him, Noah?”

“Just—just because I—because—” but Kate interrupts before I can come up with something.

“Because the other night.”

“What?” Brian asks.

“Yeah,” she interrogates deeper. “You don’t not like him, you are just mad at him.” That pretty much explains it. “Ooh, you little slut! You thought we would be mad!” her grin stretching around her head.

“What are we talking about? What other night?” Brian searches for answers, but I just sit here staring at Kate. Hating her. Wanting to knock my knuckles against her windpipe.

“When you guys went to Departure,” informing him of his brother and I’s fiasco. “Andy came home with Noah, and, well…” she descends. “The obvious…”

The obvious, my friend.

He illuminates, “NO!” But it isn’t the ‘no’ I expected. It’s a delighted no, a shocked yet happy no. “Already? He really is a charmer, that’s for sure.” And I’m confused.

“What?” I spit towards him.

“Well, we went to Departure to set you up with Andy.”

Well shit.

I’d been set up with Andy Theron, by his brother. Been fucked by Andy Theron, for his brother. And been lied to by Andy Theron, and his brother.

And it all seems to plain and open. It’s the obvious, my friend.