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They were on the beach, and it would be getting dark soon. Ford knew that they would have to head home, but he wanted to savor the moment a little longer. They were both getting older, and their lives were getting busier. Ford with his studies and college applications, and Stanley with his boxing and part time jobs and the occasional girl. He knew that there was a growing distance between him and his brother. But he had no idea how to cross that gap that seemed to be getting wider by the day.
Surely Stanley must know by now that their lives were heading down separate tracks. But college was college, not the moon. Stanley could still come visit him, and they could talk on the phone every few days. As soon as his brother realized that the treasure hunting dream had only ever been the bored imaginings of two lonely young boys, he would be better off for it. He… he just hoped Stanley would realize soon.
Still, he enjoyed spending time with his brother. Ford had the feeling that things wouldn’t ever be this simple again. And there was absolutely no reason to go home early and have to deal with their parents. They were lounging against a relatively glass-free part of the beach, cloud-watching as the sun set.
“I think that cloud looks like,” Stanley said, pointing at a fluffy cumulus cloud. “Hmmm, a cotton ball!”
“C’mon, you can do better than that!” Ford said with a laugh. “I think it looks like Mrs. Nelson’s hair!”
Stanley grinned. “Okay, okay.” He pointed at another one. “I think that looks like… the Jersey Devil eating cotton candy!”
“Erm,” Ford said. “I don’t really see it.”
“You just gotta tilt your head a little,” Stanley said. “Here, I’ll show you.”
Suddenly, Stanley grabbed Ford’s neck, wrestling him into a headlock.
“Hey!” Ford cried out as his brother wrestled him into prime noogieing position. There was little point in fighting back. Their respective strengths had diverged sharply after Ford had quit boxing. “What was that for?”
“Do I need a reason?” Stanley said, ruffling his hair fondly.
“Get off, Stanley,” Ford said, still trying to wriggle away, but he was smiling.
“Nah,” Stanley said, adjusting his hold slightly, but giving Ford no room to break free. “I don’t think I will.”
“Staaanleeeey. Come on already. Let me go!”
“You’re such a wimp,” Stanley said, but he let him go. Ford felt a little lightheaded as he took a step back. Stanley had kept him restrained for longer than he usually did for some friendly noogieing. “Y’know, if you had kept boxing, maybe you wouldn’t get into so much trouble at school.”
Ford felt cheeks warm, staring at his brother in shock. Was Stanley really blaming him for getting bullied? Distantly, he noticed that the sky had become very dark. The fluffy clouds that they had been watching seemed to have vanished. It was night, and all Ford could see was Stanley’s smile, which looked almost mocking in the dim evening light.
“You don’t mean that,” Ford said, but his voice felt uncertain and weak. “I—You know I always hated boxing…”
“Oh, you didn’t like it?” Stanley sneered. “You should’ve pushed through. I don’t like always having to be your white knight, y’know?”
“I never asked you to be!” Ford said, his eyes wide. Ford took an unsteady step back from his brother, but Stanley followed him.
Why was Stanley acting like this? He had never acted like it was some great burden to help Ford with bullies before. In fact, his brother had always gone out of his way to help him, refusing to accept any thanks, because, as he said, that was what family did for each other. You help me and I help you, Sixer, Stanley had said fondly. Of course, Ford didn’t like being so weak that his brother had to help him—but having to rely on his brother had never felt so humiliating before now.
“Yeah?” Stanley said, and he actually sounded angry now. “How about I don’t anymore, then?”
Without warning, Stanley pushed him back against the ground, hard. Ford gasped as he felt the ground slam into his back and his head. That was going to bruise. And still, Stanley didn’t leave him alone or apologize for being too rough. Instead, he straddled him, using his weight to keep Ford on his back. Ford tried to squirm away, or push him off, but Stanley was immovable. For a brief moment, Ford thought about crying out for help, but at this time of night, they were the only ones at the beach. And… maybe he could still talk Stanley out of whatever this was.
“Stanley,” Ford said, trying very hard not to cry. “Y-you’re hurting me.”
“Yeah,” Stanley said. “That’s the idea, Sixer.” Using one hand, Stanley grabbed Ford’s right arm and wrenched it back at a painful angle. “Fucking worthless freak.” Hearing his brother’s voice calling him that hurt even more his arm. “You cause so much trouble for me, you know that?”
“I don’t—what?” Ford felt the tears leaking down his cheeks freely now. “S-Stanley, why are you doing this? Are you mad at me?”
“Am I mad at you?” Stanley repeated in a mocking tone. “God, what are you, five?”
“Lee…” Ford said, biting his lip so he didn’t start sobbing then and there. Why was his brother so angry at him? What had he done?
“Stop crying, freak,” Stanley said, and the malice in his eyes was legitimately frightening. “I haven’t even done anything yet. Maybe I should give you something to cry about, huh?”
Ford squeezed his eyes shut to try to stop the tears from flowing. “I-I just don’t understand why you’re doing this.”
“Maybe I’m sick of having a freak brother ruining my goddamn life,” Stanley said. “You know, I was talking to a girl the other day, and she asked me if your little condition was genetic. I can’t even pull a girl because of you!”
Ford’s cheeks burned with humiliation. “I-I’m sorry about that, Stanley, but that’s not my fault. I didn’t ask to be born like this-”
“Yeah, but you could fix it,” Stanley said thoughtfully.
“What are you talking about? H-how could I fix it? You know Pa’s insurance won’t cover the surgery.”
“Who needs surgery?” Stanley said brightly.
“What?” Ford said, feeling suddenly nauseous. “Let me up, Stanley. This isn’t funny anymore.”
It hadn’t been funny the entire time, but maybe if Stanley let him up, he would apologize and say it had been a bad joke and he didn’t mean any of it and things would go back to normal.
“Yeah,” Stanley said, and suddenly, there was a large, sharp rock in his hand. “What do you call it? Do it yourself?”
Ford gasped. “No, no, Stanley, that’s crazy. The wound will get infected. And—and, it’ll hurt. There’s cartilage, and bone, and-”
“C’mon, Ford. I’ve been stuck taking care of you, having a reputation as the freak’s twin brother my whole life. Are you really that selfish that you won’t let me fix the problem?”
Stanley was pinning down his right arm with one hand, and holding the rock menacingly with the other. Ford felt more tears running down his face.
“Oh, God, please don’t. P-please stop. I promise I won’t tell Pa or anything, just let me up, okay?”
“You won’t tell Pa at all because I’ll fucking slit your throat tonight if you do,” Stanley said, his voice cold.
Ford stared up at his brother, frozen with fear. This made no sense. How could his normally playful and gentle brother be acting his way? Sure, sometimes they argued, and sometimes they roughhoused, but Stanley had never treated him like this before.
Ford took a gasping breath. It was getting really hard to breathe. But he had to calm himself down and figure out how to get Stanley to stop. He had to, or else Stanley would—
“You wouldn’t,” Ford said. “I-I don’t know what’s come over you, but I know you wouldn’t hurt me. We’re brothers.”
“And what is that supposed to mean to me? That I’m stuck with a freak for the rest of my life? You know,” Stanley said, and then he suddenly grabbed Ford’s sixth finger on his right hand and wrenched it back until Ford screamed in pain.
“You think that this is what makes you a freak. And, yeah, it is pretty bad. But y’know what your real problem is? You know why you have no friends? You know why no girl ever looks at you twice? You. Your personality. The way you think you’re better than anyone just ‘cause you’re smart. But face it, Sixer, no one will ever love you. Not for you. You that know Pa only tolerates you because he thinks you’re his ticket out of here. And Ma has always loved me more. Isn't that pathetic? Our own parents don’t even really like you. You’re going to be alone for the rest of your life.”
“But—but I thought—”
“What? You thought I loved you? Please. As if I could ever give a damn about a worthless freak like you.” Stanley said. “But, hey! We can at least still fix the finger problem.” Stanley held the rock up. “Try not to scream too loudly, okay?”
“W-wait, wait, Stanley, please!” Ford said, eyes wide. “Don’t-”
Stanley brought the rock down.
And then Stanford woke up.
Ford was tangled up in his bedsheets, covered in sweat, breathing so heavily that he felt dizzy.
Stanley wouldn’t—he wouldn’t, not ever—
A couple of minutes later, once the almost overwhelming fear and dread had settled into something more familiar, Ford could think clearly again. It had just been a nightmare, of course. Nothing like that had ever happened in real life, at least not with Stanley. He’d had other encounters with bullies throughout his childhood, of course, although none had ever been quite that level of disturbingly violent. And afterwards, Stanley had always been there as a source of support and comfort, not—not that.
Even when they argued, which had never been that often, Stanley would never, ever hurt him like that. Sure, he had always been kind of weedy as a child, and Stanley had gotten pretty strong once he had really gotten into boxing, but Ford had never once been scared of his brother’s strength.
Where had this nightmare come from? Ford knew that dream psychology had long been discredited. Dreams were nothing more than the unconscious mind’s attempt to make sense of neurons firing during sleep. But it was still disquieting.
He wondered, not for the first time, what Stanley was doing. Not thinking about Ford, he was fairly certain. He wondered if his twin ever spared a moment from his life of scams and schemes and new products to think about him. Four of their birthdays had passed now without word from Stanley. Ma had let it slip once that she had passed his phone number onto Stanley. He had watched the phone out of the corner of his eye for weeks after that conversation. But no call had ever come from his brother, or anyone really except for Ma and that weird prank caller. Surely Ma had given Stanley the address of his apartment too. Surely he could at least send a card if he was too busy to call.
But he hadn’t. No card, no well wishes, no how are you doing. Certainly no apologies. Ford wondered if Stanley ever felt guilty for what he did to Ford. Probably not, if he was being honest with himself. Probably Stanley didn’t think of him at all.
Ford knew that it didn’t matter if Stanley hated him now. They didn’t have a relationship anymore. It didn’t matter at all. So why did the thought of it make him feel like there was a hole in the pit of his stomach?
The thing was, Ford didn’t really think about Stanley that much any more. That first year had been hard. He had thought about Stanley a lot. He had learned to get used to falling asleep without anyone to talk to, without Stanley’s soft breathing in the background. Ma had drank even more than she usually did, cried at nights and slept in the guest bedroom. Ford didn’t talk to her that much. Talking to her made it hard to pretend that she didn’t blame him for Stanley being gone just as much as she blamed Pa. People at school had asked him what had happened to his brother, both students and teachers, and he never had any idea what to say.
And Ford had felt… well, he was furious and betrayed and grieving over the closest relationship he had ever had all at once. After a few days had passed, he hadn't been stand looking at Stanley's things anymore, still left out like his brother would be back any day. So he had packed away all the things Stanley had left behind and shoved them in the corner, waiting for him to come back and get them, but of course he never did. Some days it was hard to find a reason to get out of bed at all. Being at the house was hard, but so was being at school. He spent a lot of time alone at the library that last year. He kept expecting Stanley to come back at some point, for him to wait for Pa to cool off and then grovel a little and for everything to go back to normal. But it never did.
So he told himself that it was a good thing. Stanley should experience the consequences of his actions for once, because God knew that Ford was. The only other school besides West Coast Tech that was offering a full scholarship was Backupsmore, which wasn’t great, but it wasn’t like he had a choice. Their parents hadn’t saved a dime for college, and he had been too busy with schoolwork to ever take a part time job.
And besides, Ford knew that Stanley would be fine. His brother had always been good at talking to people. He could make friends and talk his way into a job anywhere, Ford was sure.
Nowadays, he only thought about Stanley on holidays (not that Backupsmore recognized any Jewish holidays, so he had an excuse not to come back home), or their birthday (he had stopped celebrating it after he moved out), or when other people talked about their siblings (he told people he only had one brother). And of course, he thought about him when he called Ma, because Ma kept bringing him up.
You should forgive your brother. You know he misses you. It’s not right for siblings to be apart for this long.
Well, maybe he could forgive Stanley if he had ever once apologized, or even admitted to the fact that he destroyed Ford’s life on purpose.
Ma had passed Stanley’s number on a couple of weeks ago. Ford had told her it wasn’t necessary, but he had agreed to write it down anyways, just in case. The number had sat on a piece of paper at his desk ever since, staring up at him accusatorially.
He tried not to think about it, just like he tried not to think about the nightmare. He splashed some cold water on his face, trying not to think about how his brother’s voice had sounded when he called him a worthless freak. It wasn’t real. Ford knew it wasn’t real. Stanley had never thought of him like that. (Probably.)
He felt off for the entire day. He found himself rereading the same pages of his textbook over and over again. He tried to work on his own projects, but he kept finding himself distracted, remembering the dream. When Fiddleford asked him if he wanted to go out with some friends that night, for the first time Ford found himself agreeing.
They weren’t really his friends, of course. They were Fiddleford’s friends. They were his classmates who he studied with occasionally. He tried not to feel too awkward when he saw them sitting at the bar, waving him and Fiddleford over. This was a perfectly normal thing to do. He was spending time with his classmates in a casual, social setting.
Admittedly, the bar was very loud and he could hardly hear what the person next to him was saying. But that seemed to matter less and less after someone passed him a second drink, and then a third drink.
How much alcohol was in a margarita anyways? He was too embarrassed to ask the bartender. It couldn’t be that much, right?
Drinking made things easier. He stressed less about whether or not what he was saying was normal and friendly and not weird and instead just… talked. Admittedly, Ford still had a hard time hearing what anyone said in response, probably because of the very poor acoustic design of the bar. And he had to talk very loudly so his classmate could hear what he had to say about their engineering class.
At that point, things were starting to get a little… dizzy. He had to sit down to avoid falling over. His face felt warm. He felt someone clap him on the back, and he nearly jumped before he realized it was just Fiddleford.
“It’s real good to see you letting loose, Stanford!” Fiddleford said with a smile, and Ford smiled back.
When he and Fiddleford came back to their apartment, he was actually in a good mood. So that was probably why, after he said goodnight to Fiddleford, when he saw Stanley’s number still sitting there on his desk, he thought, what the hell.
They hadn’t spoken in almost four years. It’s not like Ford could possibly make their currently nonexistent relationship any worse. And if Stanley picked up the phone and made it clear he didn’t want anything to do with Ford anymore, then maybe he could finally let Stanley go and stop thinking about him.
He reached across the desk for the paper with Stanley’s number on it, and inadvertently knocked over a cup of pens as he reached for it. Whoops. He watched the pens roll across the floor. He could deal with that tomorrow. He had a phone call to make.
Ford decided that he would go into the call with zero expectations for any kind of apology or explanation for why Stanley had never bothered to reach out. He would just call and see what happened. And maybe he could ask him those questions that had been lingering in his mind all day! Subtly, of course. Ford was great at being subtle. Liquid courage, he thought to himself, and then he smiled and dialed the number.
The liquid courage seemed to vanish when he heard the dial tone. What if Stanley actually picked up? What was he supposed to say?
Greetings, Stanley. It’s me, your twin brother Stanford. I know we haven’t spoken in four years, but I was just wondering if you despise me and have always secretly done so.
Okay. Okay. He wasn’t going to say that. That was a terrible idea. He just needed to think of a better one.
Click.
Oh God, someone just picked up.
“Hello? Hal Forrester speaking.” Was that Stanley? That certainly sounded like his voice. A little older, a little gravelier, but still very recognizable as his brother.
“Stanley? Is that you?” Ford asked. “Who is Hal Forrester?”
There was a noise almost like a phone being dropped directly onto hardwood, but surely he was misinterpreting something. Stanley couldn’t possibly still be that careless with his belongings. They were both 21 now, after all.
“No one! Ha, just a… a friend of mine. Not important! Hey, Stanford. Look at that. You’re… calling me. On the phone! That’s cool and normal.”
“Yes. Ma gave me your number a couple weeks ago.” Ford said. “Um. Hello!”
“Uh, hey man,” Stanley said. There was a distant noise in the background—maybe someone else talking? Did Stanley have a roommate? Or maybe a girlfriend? “Wow. It’s really you. Here on the phone, with me. That’s, uh, great!”
Hmm. Stanley was acting weird, and Ford had no idea why. Or maybe this was what his brother was like now? They hadn’t spoken in four years, after all. “Did I, erm, catch you at a bad time?”
“No!” Stanley said loudly. There was another distant noise that sounded like something falling on the floor. “Everything is fine. What’s… what up?”
“Oh… nothing really. Uh, I’m at school right now, but I guess Ma probably already told you about that.” Ford said. He wondered if Ma talked to his brother about him as much as she talked to him about Stanley. “How are you?”
This was normal, right? This was how normal people talked? It was good that he had asked how Stanley was. People loved to be asked how they were. That’s probably why they did it all the time.
God, this was weird. He used to be able to talk to Stanley about anything. He never had to think about his word choices or worry if he was going to be misconstrued. His brother always understood him. Ford felt a sudden, sharp wave of loneliness like he hadn’t felt since those first awful weeks at Backupsmore, before he had befriended Fiddleford.
“I’m, uh, good,” Stanley said. “You know me. Always… on the grind.”
Ford felt his lips twitch up, despite himself. “Yes, I saw some of your commercials.”
The commercials were kind of terrible and embarrassing, because anything his identical twin did in such a public setting naturally reflected back onto him. But, also, there was something ridiculous about them that he enjoyed, even if he would never admit it.
“Oh,” Stanley said. “You saw those. The commercials. Ha. Yeah, that’s great. Those were… um, fun.”
“It’s good that you’re doing well,” Ford said, and he was surprised to find that he meant it. Maybe there was another reason he enjoyed the commercials: they proved that his brother was still out there. And they proved that he was doing well enough that his projects merited at least some commercial investment. “I’m glad to hear it. Genuinely.”
“Yeah. Doing great over here…uh, just a second!” Stanley said. “I’m on the phone! Could you gimme a minute? Yes, it’s important!” Stanley said, his voice distant. “Sorry, that was my, uh... roommate.”
“Oh. If it’s a bad time…”
“No, no, it’s fine!”
“I suppose it is kind of late over there,” Ford said, though now that he was thinking about it, he wasn’t actually sure where exactly Stanley lived now. Somewhere is in the south, maybe? Ma had said Louisiana, maybe? He hadn’t really thought about the time zones…
“Sixer, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
Okay, enough small talk. Ford needed to stop overthinking this. Just let the liquid courage take hold again and he would be fine. There was a reason he had called. The same question that had been lingering in the back of his mind since the nightmare. Now or never.
“Anyways, I just wanted to call because I was wondering if youalwayssecretlyhatedme.”
“What?”
“Um. Nothing," Ford said quickly. God, he was such a coward.
“No, what did you say?” Stanley said. “C’mon, you call me outta the blue like this after four years? It must be important.”
“It’s not important. I-I’m sorry I bothered you…”
“Sweet Moses, Stanford, just spit it out.”
“Uh. I guess… I’ve just been thinking. About things. I had this weird dream earlier.” Why had he mentioned the dream? Stanley wouldn’t care about his stupid nightmare. (But he used to care, back when they were young...) “And it just made me think about us. And, um, I guess I was kind of wondering. What you thought. About me.”
“I’m… not really following. What do I think about you? Like, in what way?”
“I mean,” Ford said. “What did you think of me? That last year we were together, when things got… awkward.”
This was so hard to talk about, even with the alcohol. They hadn’t even been able to openly acknowledge it at the time, much less after four years of silence. He wanted to know if Stanley had really cared about him, or if at that point it had just been some mixture of obligation and fear of being alone. He wanted to know if his brother missed him. He wanted to know if Stanley thought about him at all.
“Are you trying to ask me if I destroyed your science fair project on purpose?” Stanley said, his tone significantly cooler.
Ford felt his face flush. “No! I-I wasn’t talking about that.”
If Stanley wasn’t ever going to apologize for ruining his life, or even admit that he’d done it on purpose, then Ford wasn’t going to let him know that he was still upset about it. This was a strict fact-finding call.
“But you were thinking about it,” Stanley said. “And it was an accident! I never meant to hurt you. I—God, what are you even asking me? What did I think of you? I loved you. You were everything to me.” Stanley still sounded angry, but voice had gotten uneven. “There. You have your answer.”
I loved you. You were everything to me. Past tense, of course.
Ford felt something funny in his chest. He put a hand over his mouth and tried to focus on his breathing. He couldn’t start crying. He just couldn’t. He hadn’t cried in front of another person since they were kids, alone in their bedroom after Pa had—he felt his breath hitch.
“Um? Sixer? You alright?”
“I-I’m not—it was a dumb question,” Ford tried to force polite neutrality into his voice, but he could feel it trembling. “I’m sorry to bother you.”
“Fuck, are you crying?” Stanley’s voice sounded so genuinely concerned.
“N-no. I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine. Is everything going okay up there? Are you doing alright?”
“I’m fine, I just—I had a nightmare. Like I said earlier. Then I went to a bar, and then I called you.”
“Wait. You’re drunk?”
“Um. I mean. I only had a few margaritas.”
“Geez, kid,” Stanley said, suddenly sounding amused. “Maybe lay off the tequila in the future, alright?”
“I’m not a kid,” Ford said. “We’re the same age, Stanley. And I didn’t have tequila, I had margaritas.”
His brother actually laughed at that. “Oh, wow. You must be the life of the party at your fancy school, Six. Margaritas have tequila in ‘em, genius.”
This conversation had taken a turn at some point, and it wasn’t a good one. Now Stanley was making fun of him for his lack of mixed drink knowledge, and also his brother didn’t love him anymore.
Ford sniffled.
“Oh, come on. What’s wrong? You’re already payin’ the long distance rate. You might as well tell me.”
“Do you ever wonder what would have happened to us if you hadn’t… had to leave? Do you ever wonder about me? About how I’m doing?” Ford said. He was sure he knew the answer already.
Stanley might have had some polite reply prepared, but Ford knew the truth. The truth was: he didn’t. Stanley had a great life now. He went where he wanted, he did what he wanted, and even made enough money to occasionally appear on television. He had a roommate and probably a ton of friends and he knew what margaritas were made out of. He probably enjoyed going to bars and didn’t think about their poor acoustic design at all. He had a normal life.
In fact, he was probably happy because Ford wasn’t around. He could live a regular life and could meet people without anyone worrying if his kids would have a normal amount of appendages. Ford doubted that he ever looked back fondly on his nerdy freak of a brother.
Because that had been it, hadn’t it? They hadn’t really been friends. They hadn’t chosen each other. They were just there in that house together, and there had been no one else to protect them. They had clung to each other because the only choice was to do that or drown.
It was good that they had gone their separate ways. Stanley was doing his commercials and hawking his products, and Ford was going to school and doing his research. They were both happy, or at least close enough.
He shouldn’t have called.
“Geez. How many margaritas did you say you had?”
“Stanley!”
“Okay, okay. It’s not every day you find out your brother’s a weepy drunk. And I still think your questions are stupid, by the way, but I’ll still answer them for you, because I’m nice like that.” Stanley paused for long enough that Ford wondered if he had hung up. “I think about you every day, Stanford. I wonder how you’re doing. I wonder how school’s treating you. Congrats, by the way. Ma told me you were top of your class.”
“Oh. Thank you?”
“Sure. And of course I wonder what would’ve happened if Pa hadn’t kicked me out, but life’s not for regrets, y’know?” There was a slight resentment in his voice that belied his words. “I’m out here. I’m free. So don’t worry about me, alright? I’m doing fine.” He paused for a long moment. “I’m glad you called, okay? It’s really good to hear from you.”
“Why did you never call, then?”
Stanley laughed, but there was something bitter underneath the levity. “Guess I’m not brave like you are, Sixer. Maybe I shoulda tried some of that liquid courage, huh?”
Ford was silent for a long moment, looking at his desk. He wasn’t actually quite as hopeless with social situations as most people thought. He could tell Stanley was trying to make him feel better, though he really wasn’t sure why. Could he really be telling the truth? Had his brother thought about Ford as much as he thought about Stanley, or perhaps even more?
There had been a time when he thought that Stanley would never lie to him. Lie to other people, lie to their parents, sure, he saw his brother do that as easily as he breathed nearly every day. But Stanley was always honest with him. But after the incident with the science fair project, when Stanley hadn’t even bothered to come up with a plausible lie for why he had been right next to his project after school was closed… well, he had made himself a lot of promises during that long, awful first night alone. One of them was never to take his brother at his word again.
But Stanley had sounded so concerned. He had asked how he was doing. He had said that he loved him. He had said that he still thought about him every single day…
“Are you free the second week of May?” Ford asked before he could think better of it.
“What?” Stanley said. “Uh, maybe? Do you need something?”
“I—um. My exams will be over by that week, and I’ll have some time off… uh, if you’re not busy, you could come up for a few days. I could show you around town. We could talk. I have a place off campus. It’s pretty small, but my roommate wouldn’t mind if you took the couch for a few days. We have a pullout couch…”
Stanley was silent for a long moment, again for so long that Ford thought that maybe he had hung up.
“A pullout couch, huh?” Stanley said, and there was a strange, wobbly note in his voice. “You drive a hard bargain, Sixer. Sure, I can get a few days off in May. Come and see what my fancy college brother is up to.” He paused for a moment. “You’re not just saying this because you’re sloshed, right? You’re going to remember this in the morning, and not, uh, have any second thoughts?”
Ford huffed out a breath. “I didn’t drink that much, Stanley.”
It had been an impulse to invite Stanley over, but he found that he didn’t regret it. Seeing Stanley in person would give him a better chance to see if his brother was being genuine about what he had said. And… maybe they could catch up. He could find out what his brother was doing with his life besides the commercials. And Ford could share what he was doing with his life.
And besides, it was during school break, and only for a few days. What was the worst thing that could happen? Ford smiled to himself. Ma was going to be over the moon when she found out.
“Are you sure about that?” He could hear the smile in Stanley’s voice. “You kinda seem like a lightweight, Sixer.”
“I-I guess I kind of am,” Ford said. “Look, I can call you again tomorrow night? Just to prove to you that I mean it.” Ford jotted down a quick note to call Stanley back on the same piece of paper where he had written down his phone number.
“Alright. Looking forward to hearing from you, bro.”
“Goodnight, Stanley,” Ford said for the first time in four years.
“Night, Stanford,” Stanley said, and, strangely, Ford couldn’t really remember ever hearing him sounding happier.
That night, Ford slept like a rock. The nightmare didn’t come back.
When Ford woke up, his head was pounding. And, God, it felt like he was coming down with the flu or something. He felt cold and shaky all over his body. Had he… had he gone out drinking last night? Was this what a hangover felt like?
Why on earth had he done that? This was the worst, and not all worth whatever fun he’d had at that stupid noisy bar. The memories of the previous night came back slowly. Fiddleford and his friends. The loud music. Coming home and—Ford’s eyes shot over to a small sheet of paper lying on his desk. Coming home and calling Stanley?
Oh, God. Had he really done that? The memories continued to come back, whether Ford wanted them to or not. He stumbled over to his desk, nearly tripped over some stray pens on the floor, and then stared down at the piece of paper.
Oh, sweet Moses. He had not only called his estranged twin brother and asked him a bunch of needy, emotional questions. He had not only started crying while he was on the phone with him. Looking down at the piece of paper in front of him, Ford realized that he had apparently also invited him to come and visit him! There, in Ford’s own familiar cursive, was Remind S about visit, 2nd week of May.
He was never drinking again. He was going to kill Fiddleford. Also, he needed to take some aspirin or something. His head was killing him.
He forced himself out of his room, turning on an overhead light. He quickly regretted his decision and turned it back off. He padded out to the kitchen in the dark, filling and draining a glass of water, and then took two of Fiddleford’s aspirins. He was going to strangle that man when he saw him. Ford hoped bitterly that Fiddleford was just as hungover as he was. How could he have let Ford do this?
Well, okay, it wasn’t exactly like he’d told anyone his plans. But he had just humiliated himself in front of his estranged twin brother, so Ford felt like he was allowed a little self-pity. Stanley probably thought Ford was some emotionally unstable, needy idiot! His brother had probably laughed it up with his roommate after he got off the phone.
Although… Stanley hadn’t been unkind on the phone, had he? He’d answered all of Ford’s questions honestly, even to the point of being vulnerable. Ford remembered abruptly—Stanley had said that he loved him. That he thought about him every day. And he had seemed so genuinely pleased when Ford had invited him over.
God help him. There was no way he could back out of this, was there?
Okay. It was fine. It would have to be fine. What was the worst case scenario here? Stanley came over and he was kind of annoying and embarrassing? He asked Ford for money? So what? Fiddleford wouldn’t care. He would never judge Ford. And Fiddleford had always been bugging Ford about meeting his family. Besides, his brother had probably done some growing up in the four years since he had last seen him. They were both adults now. He couldn’t be that bad.
And… maybe it would go well. Maybe Stanley would come and visit, and they could have fun together again.
Without even really thinking about it, Ford reached for his latest journal. Pressed in between the last page and the back cover was a familiar old picture that he had kept with him since he had moved out of his childhood home. It was of two young boys playing on an old ship. He traced his fingers on the edge of the picture, and then he sighed.
Stanford could admit it here, in his own head, even if he couldn’t admit it anywhere else: he had really missed his brother. It would be good to see Stanley again.