Page 40 of Tell Me Softly
“You two think you can just laugh in my face?” Thiago asked.
“Bro…” Taylor said, looking tense.
“This better be the last time you try and put one over on me, understand? This is detention, not playtime. If I see the two of you even look at each other again in here, I’ll double your punishment and won’t think twice about it. I’ve had it up to here.” He closed his folder and walked out.
Taylor followed him with his eyes and said, “I’m tired of this shit. I’m tired of not being able to be with you because he freaks out every time he sees you. Why the hell can’t he get over it?”
“Taylor…” I said softly.
“Don’tTaylorme. I’m talking to him tonight. I’ve had enough of this shit. I hate it: the way he looks at you, the way he talks to you.”
“You can’t judge him for that.”
“The hell I can’t! You don’t deserve to be treated that way. I’ve put up with it as long as I could, but now I’m over it.”
“He’s just mad because he has to stay here and watch us.”
“Bullshit.” Taylor slung his backpack over his shoulder. “I know him. He doesn’t give a shit about that. You can’t even imagine the number of times I had to stick around school waiting for him because he’d gotten in trouble back in DC. He’s acting this way because of you.”
Maybe so. It wasn’t exactly news that Thiago couldn’t stand me.
“You drove here, right?” Taylor asked.
I nodded.
“Good. I’ll ride with you. I can’t stand to look at my brother right now.”
We walked out the front door and toward my convertible. I wondered what I should do then. Mom would kill me if she saw my car at the Di Bianco house. But if I parked in our driveway and didn’t come in, she’d ask questions. So instead, I pulled onto the street that ran behind ours and left my car there.
Taylor looked surprised at first, but then he understood.
“It won’t always be like this, I promise,” he said.
“Taylor, you can’t change the past.”
“Of course I can’t. Even if that’s the thing I’d like most in this world. But I can change the future, and I will. I promise this bullshit of you having to park on a different street just so we can hang out isn’t going to happen again.”
I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to argue, and I didn’t want to try to convince him that changing everyone’s attitude was futile. I was already nervous enough going to his house after so many years, seeing his mother… My heart was pounding, and he had to know.
“Hey! Relax. My mom knows you’re coming, and she’s looking forward to seeing you.”
I wasn’t sure that was true.
We walked to Taylor’s house. On the way, I saw Mom’s car outside my house. I never thought I’d say this, but thank God Ididn’t have my phone on me. If she couldn’t get in touch with me, she couldn’t order me to come straight home.
As Taylor took out his keys, I noticed his brother’s car wasn’t there. I wondered what would happen if he came home before I left. At the same time, I definitely didn’t want to know. Taylor opened the door and motioned for me to enter. I felt a tingle in my stomach. Hundreds of memories came back to me—nostalgia—and the pressure in my chest made it hard for me to breathe.
The same wood stairway was there. I had always adored it––my house had the same stairs, but made of marble. This place was so homey; if it weren’t for my brother’s toys and video game stuff everywhere, my house could have been an Airbnb or a hotel suite. All my parents cared about was neatness and order, whereas Taylor and Thiago’s mother loved beauty and comfort, and her house was full of fresh-cut flowers and the scent of pastries and coffee. It had been that way before, and it was that way again, and all those sensations moved me deeply.
I closed my eyes for a moment. I heard us laughing. I heard us running down the halls. I heard us playing, pretending the floor was lava and jumping back and forth from the couch to the armchair. I remembered us building tunnels in the living room with cushions and sheets and playing games inside them at night, holding a flashlight over the board.
When I opened my eyes, the woman who had given birth to those two wonderful boys was smiling at me from the kitchen door. She was wearing a pink apron knotted at the waist. Her hair was pulled back, with strands of it hanging loose. Her smile was sincere, but there was something different in her eyes.
“Kam, I’m so happy to have you back here,” she said. She liked to call me by that name, just like her sons. I felt paralyzed, with a knot in my stomach.
“I made you all a chocolate walnut cake. It’s still warm fromthe oven. I hope you like it,” she said, as if I hadn’t been standing there like a dummy, too rude to say anything back. “I guess you’re tired after that long day at school. How was detention?”
“It sucked. But we managed to have a good time, right, Kami?” Taylor said as he walked over to give his mother a kiss on the cheek.
