Page 29 of Between Desire and Denial
“You’re here?” His voice was just above a whisper and dragged out so slow and so garbled I almost didn’t recognize it.
Knox was full of life and potential. Almost too much I used to think, because my parents loved to show him around. He was big and tall and got good grades, did all the sports, did all the things my parents told him to.
He fit in in Paradise Grove. He’d been the shining star, and I was the one they tried to hide away.
Yet, now, he sat there thin, so thin I was concerned he’d gotten sick. “Hey, yeah, I’m back for a bit. Thought I would come by.” It was all I could say as I took in his room, the blacked-out curtains and the mess. We were Monroes. We didn’t have a mess in our house. I spun around and around, trying to find evidence of his illness, trying to find the reason behind his change.
“Well, thanks for coming by.” He didn’t even lift his head. He’d learned how to dismiss me after my mom passed. We’d both dismissed one another day after day until we weren’t much of siblings at all anymore.
Now, though, the dismissal atmosphere felt catastrophic. My brother didn’t seem as strong as he used to, and without that strength, I saw the weakness there and didn’t want him to give in to it.
“What’s going on, Knox?” I asked the question quietly, hoping I could prompt some sort of real response.
“Olive, you’ve been gone for years.” He shook his head slow, smiled lazily, but his eyes weren’t steady. “You know what? Forget it. I’m just tired.”
I stepped closer, trying to get a read on him. “Do you need me to get Georgette?”
He rolled his eyes but his whole head moved with him, and he fell back into his bed. There was no attempt to get up. Instead, he reached for his nightstand, patting his hand around without looking. “I’ll be fine. Give me a few.”
He pulled the drawer open, and that’s when I saw them.
Pills. So many pills I gasped before striding forward and grabbing one.
It was prescribed to him.
Then another.
And another.
Every single one had his name on it. “What do you need all this for? Do you— Are you sick, Knox?”
“I just have anxiety, Olive Bee. Don’t worry about me.”
And I witnessed how easily he popped a lid and threw back two.
I was his older sister. I probably should have stopped him. Or said something rather than standing there with my mouth hanging open. But all I could do was stare.
We’d been distant for so long, and now I wasn’t sure how to come back from that. I scanned his room and saw the trophies from football, the medals from track, a couple of gaming systems, and a dresser with a few pictures on it. One was of me and another of him and my parents. We were all smiling, and I remember that day, we’d gone down the street to Fitches for custard.
“You remember this?” I pointed to the picture, and it took him a second to register but he nodded once before glancing away. “That was a good day.”
“Not many of those here,” he grumbled before sighing and sitting up again to swing his legs off the bed. “Why are you back?”
How could I even explain that to him now? “I sort of have a job here for a few days and—”
“Oh, work. Of course.” His tone was hard, his shoulders stiff. And then he turned a glare so cold on me, I wasn’t sure I was looking at my brother. “Go work then, Olive. No need to check in on me.”
“Knox.” His name came out a plea with all the emotions I couldn’t express behind it. “Maybe we should talk or—”
“Nothing to talk about. You left. I got Georgette and Dad, right?”
“I thought that’s what you wanted.” But the hammer of guilt at being the oldest sibling and leaving behind my brother to endure them alone slammed down pretty hard at that moment. Knox had been a kid when I’d left for college six years ago, but every time I came back, his disdain for me grew.
My father had made clear how I didn’t belong next to them at a dinner party one night two years ago. I remembered how I stood there as Georgette called me a failure and how their friends, people I’d grown up with, stood by and agreed.
Paradise Grove either accepted you or it didn’t. Somehow, without my mother, I’d been pushed out. And that night, Knox hadn’t said a thing. He watched me run upstairs to my room and pack my things. He told me it was for the best anyway. So, two years ago, I stopped coming. Two years ago, I decided to only call.
“You told me it was for the best, Knox.”
