Page 62 of How to Hide in Plain Sight
“Eh.” Manuel tosses a crust off the building. It lands on the hood of Clarence’s car. “You’re a contender. But Wendy might be my Person, too. Depends on the day.”
I elbow him again. A bit harder this time. Too hard. He grabs the stone ledge to keep balance. “Jesus, Eliot!” He scoots away from me. “Be careful.”
“Sorry.” I look down. “I didn’t mean to push that hard.”
He grunts, then looks away, far away.
I did it again.
In these moments, I become suddenly, painfully aware of the gap between us. The mental one, not physical. I recognize the fact that I don’t know what he’ll do next. That it could be anything.Anything.
We often make the mistake of believing humans are predictable. That they live by patterns. Especially if it’s someone you trust. But when Manuel stops speaking, I’m reminded that I don’t know his brain, not really, and it terrifies me. It terrifies me to lose the only bridge I have to his mind. To feel deprived of his words, the ones he chooses so carefully—the ones that float to my ears like small vivid rings of smoke.
—
EVERY THANKSGIVING MORNING, THE FAMILYdescends upon our home. Taz from his job in Connecticut, Karma from the construction site where her first bakery will go up, Clarence and Caleb from Real Middle-Aged Adult Life, unless they’re spending the holiday with their own mother. Our doors and hallways, normally deserted, fill to their usual state of chaos. I love that chaos. I lie in bed and listen to the sound of it, the laughter and slamming doors and socks on the spiral staircase.
My room sits right at the top of those stairs. All my life, I’ve listened to my family go up and down, around and around. Each carries their body with a unique rhythm—Caleb with purpose, Clarence two at a time, Taz near silent, Karma with such force you’d think the stairs had wronged her. I know them all.
Taz is working at Blue Sky Studios. When he comes home, he brings a suitcase full of cords and tablets and clunky laptops that whir when you plug them in. He sets up an editing studio in one of Dad’s old offices and spends most afternoons there, buried in Photoshop.
Occasionally, I poke my head in the door and watch him work. I see pixelated planets. Talking sheep. Pirates and robots. I watchthem dance or run or just hold perfectly still as my brother edges them to perfection with a stylus.
One morning he catches me spying. I start to duck out the door, but he smiles and says, “Want to watch?”
I stand over his shoulder. He talks as he works, long sentences filled with words I only sort of understand, likeskinsandmasksandlayersandvectorsandintegration. As he speaks, I peek at his face. I’m struck for the first time by how old he looks; he’s only been working for two years now, but already his face is stubbled and sun wiped, as if the winds of Connecticut blow stronger than they do here. He doesn’t look like my brother anymore; he looks like a handsome man.
Ew. You think your brother is handsome?
Yes, I say back to the Worries. You’re allowed to find your brother handsome, right?
You can find him handsome, sure. But you can’t beattractedto him. Are you attracted to him?
No. Yuck. That’s impossible.
Is it, though?
Why don’t you check down there? Just to be sure. Just to make sure there’s no reaction.
Okay, fine. But you’re wasting your time. There’s no way I…
Oh.
There it is. There it is again. That pulse. That sign of arousal, right in the groin.
No, no, no, no, no…
Blind panic rises in my chest. I’m still there, still standing beside Taz, but I no longer hear a word he’s saying. All I can think about is that pulse, that throb.
I feel an immediate sense of loss. Of grief for every moment that led up to this one. Fifteen years spent free from the knowledge that I was attracted to my brother. Sixteen years. I watch that old life slipaway. Oh, how lucky she was, Eliot of Thirty Seconds Ago. How good she had it. How simple her life. And she didn’t even know.
—
I LOVE YOU,LEO TEXTSme while we’re in the middle of dinner.
“Oh,” I say out loud.
“What?” asks Manuel, who is with us for Thanksgiving as always.
