Page 70 of Give My Everything
Sometimes I wonder what I could have done differently. Other times I imagine what life could have been like if things had turned out a different way.
Neither of those things do me any good.
“We should talk,” Ben says, reminding me that he’s still in the room with me as I tuck all my dirty brushes into my holder, rolling it up so I can carry them to the sink in the kitchen.
Mom hates for me to wash them in the kitchen sink, but I do it anyway.
“About?” I ask, trying to focus on picking up my materials.
“About…everything,” he replies. “We’ve been having all these…half-conversations that get us nowhere, and I don’t want it to be like that anymore.”
I know he’s right, but that doesn’t mean it sounds like something I want to do.
Ben seems like the kind of guy who likes to address things head-on.
No thanks. I’m very good at avoiding things.
But I doubt he’s going to let that happen with this.
I take a deep breath and then let it all out in a long sigh.
“Sure,” I reply. “Let me just get this shit off my hands.” I lift them up to show him my dirty fingers. “I’ll meet you in my room. It’s just down the hall on the left.”
He nods but continues to watch me as I finish packing up my brushes and pick up my canvas.
I leave the easel, though. My dad rarely comes in here, and it’s just easier to leave it behind for when I’m back in here tomorrow and the next day and the next.
“I’ll be back in a minute.”
I leave the study and head down the stairs, first setting my canvas down with some of the others in one of the spare rooms on the ground floor, then heading into the kitchen to clean my brushes.
“You know, I think the thing I’m most interested in is that he’s willing to pretend to be the father.”
Dominic’s voice has me turning to look at him as he walks into the room.
He makes his way over to the basket of fruit that sits on the corner of the island, plucking out a banana and beginning to remove the peel.
I return my focus to where I’m scrubbing my brushes.
“Isn’t that interesting to you?” he continues. “Why would he do that?”
I stay silent. My brother doesn’t goad me. Not usually, anyway. So this feels…different.
“What does he have togainfrom something like that?”
I sigh. “Why does it have to be about something he gains, Dom? Why can’t it just be because we’re helping each other out?”
The last thing I want to say is that I’ve had the same question on repeat in my mind for the past two and a half weeks, that I’ve wondered what his motives are.
His explanations have always been too vague.
But I keep that to myself.
“I can see howhe’shelpingyou,” Dom says. “I just don’t get howyou’rehelpinghim.”
There’s a long silence.
I refuse to let him lure me into focusing on this.
