Chapter Text
Chapter One: Jamie
One-hundred and fifty-five days. That came out to be five months and two days. Almost half a year since Alex had left, and it still hurt like a freshly opened wound.
Half a year meant we were getting close to our first dance recital, not that we were in any way ready. The steps should have been relatively simple: Starting from multiple staggered rows, some of us would take a step back, some a step forwards, and the rest would stay where they were. In the end, we’d form a line facing the audience. It was something I could do in my sleep, but I was one of the better dancers among us. Lisa was unfortunately one of the worst. She kept stepping on my foot and tripping, as if we hadn’t painstakingly choreographed this for hours.
Lisa stepped on my pinkie toe this time, the heel of her sneaker making me wince. “Sorry,” she apologized, as if that would make the throbbing pain magically disappear.
I threw a look towards Holden, who was taking a break from practicing his solo to watch us. His black hair was getting long enough to fall into his eyes again, but he refused to wear a headband, settling for pushing it back every two minutes instead. He did that now as he smiled at me, and the action made my heart skip a beat. I quickly averted my eyes, hoping nobody had noticed my reaction.
“Okay, you know what?” Ms. Page said finally. “I’m not gonna stop the music this time. Everyone, just try and get as far as you can. If anyone messes up, keep going.”
I braced myself for people tripping and falling into me like dominoes, but it didn’t end up being as bad as I thought it would, even though my feet were feeling very bruised by the end. I’d managed to do some improv to avoid the worst, which Ms. Page praised me for while simultaneously scolding everyone else to practice more at home.
“Y’all could learn a thing or two from Jamie,” she said. Everyone turned to look at me, and I immediately wished the ground would swallow me whole.
After some grumbles of acknowledgement, we were finally released. Holden made his way over, hugging me from the side.
“Want to be Ms. Page throws something by the end of the year?” he said into my shoulder.
I extracted myself from his grip. I’d told him before that I didn’t like pda. Just because we were together didn’t mean we had to rub it in everyone’s faces. “At this rate, I think I might throw something.”
“Oh, I know. You should see the looks you give poor Lisa.”
Once we’d all made our way outside, Michael asked, “Who wants to go to Taco Bell?”
Michael was a senior, and he had an old, rickety car that felt like riding a roller coaster the one time I’d been in it.
A few people agreed, but Michael specifically looked in our direction. “Holden?”
Holden looked at me, even though I wasn’t the one being asked. “I think I just want to go home,” I told him.
Holden turned to answer Michael. “Yeah, me too. I still have a lot of homework to do.”
Michael rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. You used to hang out all the time.” Everyone knew what Michael wasn’t saying out loud. If there was any doubt, the glare he was giving me cemented it. Holden used to hang out last year, before he’d met me.
Holden noticed it as well, his usual carefree smile turning into a slight frown. “Well, things change, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow.” He turned on his heel and stalked towards the bus, me hurrying to catch up with him.
I hesitated when he threw himself in the seat at the very back, obviously still angry. “Are you mad at me?” The question came out sounding a lot more like a whine than I’d intended.
His expression immediately softened as he hurried to make room for me on the bench. “Of course not! I just wish Michael’d learn to take a hint.” When I sat down, he pressed a kiss to my temple and added, “I could never be mad at you.”
---------------------
If I were any good at drawing, I’d be able to draw Holden’s room purely from memory by now. I’d rarely spent a single day elsewhere for the past five months. My time was mostly spent staring at the walls while he did his homework. I’d given up trying with mine a while back. There was no point, especially in the afternoon once my Adderall had worn off.
Holden’s room was how I always imagined mine would be if I could decorate it however I wanted to. There were two framed posters on the biggest wall adjacent to the door, plants on the windowsill that he somehow managed to keep alive, and pieces of furniture he’d been allowed to pick out himself. Best of all was the wall of pictures above his desk. They ranged from him as a baby until the present day, his cute freckles clearly visible in all of them. Some were with friends, some with his family, and some with me. Everybody was smiling gin each one, even me. I knew that if I ever tried to create a wall like that, there wouldn’t be enough people to cover it with.
I was fine with that, though. I didn’t need friends, I could entertain myself like I did now by opening The Battle of the Labyrinth again. I was rereading the entire series while I waited for The House of Hades to come out, even though I knew it all by heart. If I had to recite those books instead of state capitals in school, I’d have A’s all around. When I was little, I used to think my ADHD was proof I was a demigod. I kept waiting for the day I’d be whisked to Camp Half-Blood and meet my real family. Of course, I’d have found a way to convince Chiron to let Alex come along, too. Even in my wildest fantasies, I’d never considered leaving my older brother behind for a second.
I jumped slightly when Holden sat down next to me suddenly, holding his laptop. He grimaced. “Oh God, sorry. I forgot.”
“It’s fine,” I assured him. “Are you done?”
He nodded and scooted closer to me, pressing our shoulders together. I was a sort of dance we’d been doing for a while now- carefully testing the boundaries of how much of the other’s space we’d be allowed into. I felt a jolt of electricity course through me as I accepted his touch.
Holden tried to open Netflix, but announced after a few moments, “The Wifi’s not working. One of us has to go and reset the router.”
We looked at each other, entering into a tiny battle of who could do the best puppy-dog eyes.
“I don’t want to get up,” he complained.
“Well, neither do I.”
“I reset it yesterday!”
“Did you? I don’t remember,” I countered.
“I’m pretty sure I did.”
“I’m pretty sure you didn’t.”
He shut his laptop. “I guess we’re not watching anything, then.”
That was a move I hadn’t been expecting. “Are you serious?” I pouted.
“Hey, if it’s that important to you, you can go.”
I thought about it. “Yeah, no.”
He laughed, resting his head on my shoulder. I froze, no knowing how to react and also scared that if I did anything, he’d move.
We’d been in a position pretty similar to this when we’d gotten together a few months back. He’d had his head on my shoulder and asked, “Can I ask you something?”
“Totally.”
“Have you ever thought about us maybe doing… other stuff?”
“Other stuff?” I asked, even though I was pretty sure I knew what he meant. I needed to hear him say it out loud.
He cleared his throat awkwardly. “You know, stuff real couples do.”
My heart did a leap of joy when he referred to us as a couple, like it always did. At the same time, anxiety suddenly clawed at me. Of course I’d thought about it. We’d never even kissed before, probably because we were both too chicken to go for it. At least, until now.
I looked pointedly away from him, suddenly much too aware of how close our faces were. “Stuff real couples do.”
“Yeah.”
“We’re fourteen,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, I mean…” He lifted his head from mine and sat up, fixing his gaze on me and probably expecting me to do the same. When I kept my eyes on his desk on the other side of the room, he forced his next words out awkwardly. “I don’t know, I just thought… since we’ve gotten together all we really do is hang out, and I really like hanging out with you, you know? I guess I was just thinking that maybe… I don’t know, this is just a dumb idea. I was just thinking that maybe we could try kissing or something, I don’t know.”
The longer I was silent, the more I could see his face start to fall from the corner of my eye, until he eventually started to say, “You know what, forget-”
“Okay.”
His head whipped up to look me in the eye, as if to make sure I wasn’t joking. I couldn’t withstand it and finally forced myself to look at him. “Okay?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
We stared at each other awkwardly until I said, “Um, you want to come over here?”
“Yeah! Yeah, sorry.” He nodded vigorously as he scootched over until his face was inches from mine.
The new angle didn’t do his face any favors. That was probably a thing in general, though, nothing specific about him. Faces just didn’t look as pretty when most of what you could make out was a gigantic nose and maybe a single freckle. Most people probably didn’t waste this much time looking at those things though, they probably just leaned in and did it-
Holden leaned in and did it. It happened so quickly I barely registered it until he was leaning back, looking at me expectantly. I didn’t have anything to say, so I smiled. He smiled back.
After a few more painstakingly awkward seconds, the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs reached our ears. We didn’t even get a chance to adjust before his dad knocked and opened the door. I’d never understood why his parents did that. What was the point of the knock if you weren’t gonna wait for someone to say it was okay?
“Dinner’s ready,” Matt said. His brow furrowed as he looked between the two of us. He had to know what we’d been up to, right? Our expressions were probably as readable as a kid’s book. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Dad!” Holden said, making me turn read. Why did he have to react like that? Now Matt definitely knew what was up.
Matt held his hands up in defense. “Hey, I was just asking.”
“Well, you are,” Holden said. “Get out.”
Whenever Holden talked back to his parents, I prepared myself for someone to start screaming before I remembered that wasn’t going to happen here. Matt just rolled his eyes and said, “Whatever, just come set the table.”
I maneuvered around Matt as I went to get the silverware, not wanting to come into contact with the large, steaming pot he was carrying.
“What are we having?” Holden asked.
I’d never ask a question like that, not in a million years. What if it came across as ungrateful?
“Spaghetti,” was all Anna said.
The homemade tomato sauce was a lot better than the cheap store-bought one Alex used to heat up in the microwave. I was pretty sure the strange chunks I was picking at were actual tomatoes. I tentatively poked at a small one with my fork and forced myself to swallow it. I’d always hated eating in front of other people, especially when it wasn’t one of my safe foods. Having to pretend I wasn’t literally choking most things down was exhausting.
“So, how was everyone’s day?” Anna asked, like she did every day. I’d only been dealing with it for five months, I couldn’t understand how Holden managed it his entire life.
“It was fine, I guess,” Holden mumbled, trying to get out of the question as always. I’d come to realize it was their ritual. He’d try to avoid answering, but she managed to get the details out of him in the end. There wasn’t a single aspect of his life Holden was allowed to keep private.
“You guess?” Anna pried.
Holden busied himself trying to roll the spaghetti onto his fork. He gave up on doing it with the fork pressed against the plate after a few tries and started lifting the spaghetti into the air to roll it. It was pretty cute to watch.
“Holden, don’t play with your food,” Anna said gently but firmly.
“I’m eating it!”
I tensed at his tone, but again, Matt just made Holden watch while he showed him the correct way to roll spaghetti.
“Jamie’s doing it,” he pointed out. “Maybe you should watch him.”
I hated it when they did that. Pitted us against each other. Couldn’t he have just shown him and left it at that? Now, I could feel everyone’s eyes on me, and it was making my skin crawl.
Thankfully, Anna remembered that it was still supposed to be Holden’s turn in the spotlight. “How’s your solo coming along?”
Holden gave a thumbs up with his mouth full of spaghetti, which Anna patiently waited for him to swallow. “We were mostly practicing the beginning of the routine today,” he finally explained.
“Still?” Anna frowned. “Your recital is next week.”
Holden snorted. “Yeah, and it’s gonna be a… bad show.” I knew he’d narrowly stopped himself from saying shitshow.
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that.”
Anna spent the next few minutes prying about how Ms. Page was handling it, how the moral was among the dancers (what kind of question was that?) and figuring out exactly what Holden had ‘learned’ in school today. It was exhausting to watch, but I desperately wished it would go on forever, because one she was satisfied with him, she fixed her piercing gaze onto me. “What about you, Jamie? What did you learn today?”
This was always the most uncomfortable part, because Anna definitely thought I was being rude when I didn’t answer, but I truly didn’t have a single idea what my teachers had droned on about on any given day. After I said “I don’t really remember” for what felt like the thousandth time, Anna changed the subject. “How are your parents? Are they still working hard?”
Anna thought the reason my parents were so nonexistent was because they were workaholics. She’d kind of come up with it on her own, and I’d never corrected her.
“Yeah,” I replied, picking at my food. Everyone else had already served themselves seconds, but my plate was still half full.
Anna and Matt shared a look that I didn’t understand, then Matt cleared his throat. “We were thinking of inviting them to dinner some time. You know, since you’re here so often, and we’ve never met them. They might want to know who their son is spending so much time with.” He gave a light chuckle at the end.
Had Matt’s eyes always been so intense? Why was my fork suddenly so heavy? It slipped out of my hand and landed on the plate with a loud clatter, making everyone at the table jump.
“Sorry!” I exclaimed, quickly picking it up again.
“It’s alright,” Matt said, even though he looked slightly frazzled. He opened his mouth to say something, looking at his wife for help.
She seemed to be as lost as he was, but she didn’t let that stop her from trying. “Jamie, honey, is everything… alright?”
My heart was pounding with so much intensity I could feel it in my fingertips. I set my fork down so I didn’t make the same mistake again and put on my best mask. “Yeah!” I said, too loudly. “Sorry, I was thinking of something else. I’ll ask my parents, but I honestly don’t think they’ll be free anytime soon. You’ve seen how much they work.”
My sudden change in attitude didn’t seem to convince them. I cursed myself for getting too comfortable and letting my mask slip.
“Okay, you do that,” Anna said with an uncertain smile. “But if you need anything, you can tell us, okay?”
No matter how annoying she was, my heart warmed at her genuineness. I almost felt guilty lying to her. Almost. It was a necessary means. I flashed her a brilliant smile. “Thanks, but really, everything’s fine.”
She let it go and transferred her spotlight onto Matt. He excelled in it, telling her every conversation he’d had that day almost word for word.
After dinner, Holden followed me to his room as I got my backpack. I turned when he closed the door behind him.
“What’s going on?” I asked. Matt was waiting for me downstairs to drive me home.
Holden moved to stand face-to-face with me. He looked troubled. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”
“Yeah!” I lied.
I didn’t convince him. I could tell by his expression.
“He’s getting better,” I tried again. “I’m pretty sure he wasn’t even all that drunk yesterday.”
Holden definitely did not like that statement. “Jamie, I think we should tell someone.”
I rolled my eyes. We’d had this conversation before, and he knew my answer hadn’t changed. “No.”
“Just one adult, Jamie,” he pleaded. “It can be anyone. If I told my parents, they’d know what to do.”
I struggled to keep my voice level as I bluntly stated, “There’s nothing to do. It’s fine.”
Holden just didn’t get it. “They could call the police.”
“So they can do what? It’s not like he’s hitting me.”
A tear rolled down Holden’s cheek and he gave a sniffle, which pissed me off. He wasn’t the one with the problem here. But he didn’t stop crying, and I guessed I felt a little bad, so I hugged him and let him cry into my shirt.
“I’m scared something’s gonna happen to you.”
“Well, so am I,” I said bitterly, surprising myself at my own truthfulness. Holden hugged me more tightly until I said, “I have to go. Your dad’s waiting for me.”
Matt usually put on his favorite radio station, something that only played The Beatles, but today the car ride was silent. Maybe he was trying to give me the room to tell him something. I liked Matt a lot more than I liked Anna. He never forced things out of you, so when we talked, it was always things we both genuinely wanted to say. I imagined what would happen if I told him about my dad. He’d freak out but still manage to keep his cool, wait for me to finish talking and then figure out what to do. He’d only want to call the cops though, no matter how much I tried to talk him out of it. So I kept my mouth shut.
We said our goodbyes, and I watched him drive off from the house I always told him was mine. It was only a block away from my actual front door. Taking off my shoes, I unlocked the door as quietly as I could before tiptoeing though and closing it a millimeter at a time. Then came the stairs, where I made sure to avoid the creaky ones. If that even mattered with how loudly I could hear the blood rushing though my ears.
After maybe ten minutes, I reached the top landing. Alex’s bedroom door was open and waiting for me. It was right next to mine, which had remained firmly shut since he’d left. I pulled myself under the covers that had stopped smelling like him a long time ago and fell into an uneasy sleep.