Work Text:
11:43 PM
May 30, 1987
You sit on the back patio of your home. It’s dark outside. The backyard of your home is lit only by the full moon’s shine and the kitchen light peeking through the kitchen window. It’s a lot later than you’re used to staying up. You wonder if your father has noticed you up past your bedtime and doesn’t care tonight, or if he’s too busy with Michael and Charlie’s graduation party inside to notice.
You opt for the latter. Father is far too keen on routine to just forget.
You feel slightly bad for taking a break from the party, but the shouting and music were too loud, and your good eye can only take so much bright light at a time. You’re not sure if Michael would be upset. You’d hope not; you wouldn’t be upset at him taking a break from your party.
But, then again, graduating from high school is a big thing. Or, at least Uncle Henry says it is. “The dropout rate in Hurricane is quite high, son. It’s a miracle that my Charlie and your brother got honor roll, much less graduated!” You hear his voice echo back to you.
You’re not quite sure how that’s meant to be a compliment, but you’re happy for your brother anyway.
You’re glad that they’re done with high school. The last couple of months have consisted of Michael droning on about how much he hates school, about how everyone is annoying, and that he can’t wait to get out of Hurricane.
It did nothing to ease your anxiety about starting 9th grade in the fall. Michael was popular in high school. He has a big group of friends and even more acquaintances who signed his yearbook and attended his 18th birthday party five days ago. He has a girlfriend, Charlie, who is equally as popular and kind. He plays basketball. He draws. He wrestles. He even won the regional championship for boys’ wrestling.
It’s not too different from Liz either. She’s 15, turning 16 in September. She’s already talking about her sweet sixteen and how many people she’s going to invite. It always makes you chuckle to see the look of preemptive exhaustion on Father’s face.
You never had many friends growing up, and even when you did, most of them were fleeting. You have one friend, Cassidy, but one friend is not enough for big birthday or graduation parties. If Michael hated school so much and he was popular, then you know you’ll hate it even more.
You’re proud of your brother and sister, though. You’re happy they’re doing great things. Being great people. You’re just not quite sure what you would put in a yearbook if anyone asked you to sign one, or if you’d even have enough friends to have a big sixteenth birthday party.
Mikey tells you that you’re good at plenty of things. He says that you’re the best at your middle school in soccer and that you’re really picking up photography, just like Charlie.
You try not to think about how quiet the house will be when Michael leaves.
You hear the sound of the back door opening and then shutting quietly. You don’t look. You know who it is.
You’ve gotten really good at differentiating everyone’s footsteps. Father walks slowly and heavily, but with purpose. He rarely stalls. Lizzie walks quickly, but, similar to Father, never stops between point A and B unless interrupted. Michael walks fast as well, but unlike Father and Lizzie, he stops frequently. Usually, to assess a situation or room first.
The footsteps move out of the doorway and onto the patio, then stop. Of course. Michael.
“Bloody hell, man. You scared the shit out of me,” your brother pauses for a moment before smiling softly, “What are you doing out here, Evan? You ditching my party?”
You turn your head to look at him. He’s discarded his red cap and gown, but is still wearing his dress shirt and pants. His dress shoes are gone now, too, only gray socks on his feet. You hold back a face of distaste as he walks onto the patio with just his socks on. “Just thinking.”
He relaxes a little. “Mhm…” He doesn’t look at you when he says it, shoving his hands into his pockets.
After a moment of soft silence, he crosses the patio and sits beside you. Did he come out here to retrieve you? You feel a twinge of guilt before opening your mouth to speak. “I’m sorry for coming outside. I'm just overwhelmed.”
He shushes you and scoffs. “Don’t worry about it. It is pretty loud there. Uncle Henry and Aunt Nina started trying to force everyone to do karaoke, so I knew it was time for me to go.”
You huff out a laugh, the image of Henry ushering everyone into the living room and shoving a microphone in your sister’s face flashes into your mind. She’s probably enjoying it, you think. She’s always been really good at singing. She’s been in chorus since the beginning of middle school. When Mum was still alive and made everyone go to church, Liz would sing there too. Just like how she sings in the shower, and in the car, and obnoxiously outside your bedroom door to wake up in the mornings.
“You’ll be fine, y’know.”
“What?” Your thoughts are interrupted by your brother once again.
“At school, and stuff. I know I talked a lot of crap about it,” Michael puts a ton of emphasis on the word “crap”, just so you know he’s censoring himself, “but you’ll be fine. It’s easy.”
You scoff. “That’s easy for you to say.” It takes you a second to realize that you may come off as rude. You smile weakly as an apology.
He smiles back before looking out at the trees lining the backyard. “I was terrified on my first day. Charlie and I practically clung to each other the first week. Didn’t wanna look alone, I guess.”
It makes sense in your mind. Michael and Charlie grew up together. Well, you all grew up together, but they were closer. Maybe it was because Charlie was his first “friend” after him, Mum, and Father moved to America, but they’ve been attached at the hip since.
“Liz was scared on her first day, too. I remember she came into my bedroom the night before in tears. It was way after her bedtime, and I was very confused.” Michael chuckles, “She was so terrified. Even though she had, like, a million friends, she made me promise to let her sit with me at lunch.”
“Really?” You’re a little shocked, Elizabeth has never had much of an issue making friends and getting comfortable in new spaces. She “commands a room”, as your father likes to say. It’s difficult to imagine her being so frightened.
“Yeah, really. So, don’t worry about it. You’re not the first to dread it, and you won’t be the last.” Your brother leans back on his palms, sighing, probably thinking about how good his advice is. “Plus, it’s, like, in the Afton blood to be amazing and charm the room. Dad does it, Mum did it, Liz and I do it, and you’ll be able to do it too.” He nudges you with his shoulder.
You snort quietly. “What if I skipped that part of the bloodline?”
Michael lets out a breath through his nose, half amused, half exasperated. “Oh, please. You just don’t see it. You’re oblivious, man. They were flirting, Ev.”
Flirting? You blush slightly, brain short-circuiting. Nobody is flirting with you. Are they? ‘N-no. What are you talking about?”
He rolls his eyes. “You know what I’m talking about, Ev. At your last soccer game, those three girls from your class were practically swarming you-”
“No, they weren’t!” Your voice cracks louder than you mean it to. Even with your tan skin, you can feel the heat crawling up your face. You feel your cheeks start to prick.
“Yes! ‘Oh, Evan! You played so good!” “Evan! See you tomorrow, right?” Michael drags out his words and raises the pitch of his voice in a strange attempt at sounding like a 13-year-old girl.
“Okay, enough.” You beg.
His hands shoot up in mock defense before landing back on the deck. “Okay, okay. I’m just taking the piss out of you. I’m saying, you’re not exactly ‘struggling’.”
“I just…” You stop.
Michael waits.
You shake your head. “Nothing.”
“No. What is it?” Your brother gives you a look of confusion. You gesture to the scars on your face and your missing eye. His grin falters. Just for a second. Then it’s back. You did not mean to do that. You forgave him a long time ago. You were never even angry, or at least, not that much.
You cannot deny, however, your insecurity surrounding the evidence of the accident. Sometimes, kids at school whisper about it amongst themselves, or they offer you looks of pity. As if something that happened five years ago should still feel like a spectacle.”
“Listen, man. Girls love scars.” He gestures to his own face and points at the thick scar that starts from his jawline to the middle of his cheek. “Kids in middle school used to call me a ‘warrior’, y’know. Not sure how I’m a warrior for busting my face open on the corner of the living room sofa, but whatever.”
You laugh a real deep laugh, before cupping your mouth to contain your snorts. “I remember that! Aunt Nina freaked out and called 911, like, three times.”
Michael watches you for a second, like he’s making sure you’re really laughing before he nods, his own grin spreading. “Remember we ended up driving to the hospital anyway because ‘they’re taking too long'? Dad cared more about the blood on the couch than my face.” He shrugs. “To be fair, my face turned out alright.”
You hum in response. You remember all of that. It was a year before the accident. You were seven, and you remember hearing Aunt Nina scream. You and Sammy ran downstairs to see Michael sitting on the living room floor, his face buried in his hands, blood slipping through his fingers.
Uncle Henry and Father were attempting to pry his hands away from his face to see the damage, while Dad simultaneously scolded him for running in the house.
It was the first time you saw blood, and you wanted to puke. You’re still not sure if it was because of the blood itself or the reaction from the people around. You ran upstairs to hide under your bed.
You don’t tell him that his accident still shows up in your dreams sometimes. You wonder if he dreams about your accident, too.
“You ever notice how quiet it gets out here?” Michael asks suddenly. “It’s crazy. The difference between day and night. Hurricane’s only beautiful after dark.” He says it more softly than he’s spoken all night.
“You like it better at night anyway,” he adds.
You nod. You used to hate the night. When you were younger, your dreams were plagued with images of monsters and animatronics, killing you over and over again. They only stopped after the accident, and since then. In fact, you don’t dream the way you used to at all. After that, the dark didn’t feel so frightening. It’s the only time you can think in peace.
“I don’t blame you. I used to come out here to hide from Dad while he was nagging me about something stupid. It was so funny watching him get pissed about not being able to find me, but I also really liked lying on the grass. One time, I fell asleep, and Dad came out yelling at me, ‘What are you doing out here, Michael?!’” Your brother chuckles, lying fully on his back, staring at the ceiling of the patio.
You try not to think too hard about the fact that Dad never tries to find you when you hide. You try to tell yourself that’s because you’re not a troublemaker, but you’re not too sure if you believe that.
You hear a scream of laughter from Michael's friend, Jeremy, inside. He sounds like a hyena.
“People are louder than they need to be.” You change the subject.
“Yeah? I don’t know. I think everyone’s at the perfect volume.” He pauses for a moment. “But, I can see what you mean.”
There’s a lull in the conversation. You take the moment to just be. The night air is dry and hot. It is summer in Utah, after all, and there’s the faint sound of crickets chirping. “It’ll be different with you gone, Mikey.” You let out softly. “We’ll miss you. I’ll miss you.”
Both your brother and Charlie are going to MIT in Massachusetts. You’re a little frustrated they chose a school so far away. ‘It’s the best engineering school in the country!” Michael told you. You know deep down he’s doing it to prove something to Father. He doesn’t know that he has nothing to prove, though. You don’t want him to leave before he knows he matters. You don’t want him thinking school is what makes him important. He was important before that.
He frowns slightly, like he didn’t expect that. He sits up to face you. “I know. I’ll miss you all too. You and Liz and…” He trails off at the end of his sentences, as if reluctant to finish it, “....Dad. But, I’ll be here on, like, Christmas and Thanksgiving AND I’ll call all the time.”
You nod at his reassurance, even though you’re not sure.
You want him to be successful, but deep down you know that those phone calls and visits will start to space out. Sure, for the first couple of months, he’ll call all the time, but soon he’ll be caught up with classes, new friends, and Charlie. He’ll find people who love him more and forget all about you and Liz back at home.
MIT sounds bigger than Hurricane. Bigger than this house. Bigger than you.
Boston might as well be another world.
“Listen, man, you’ll be my brother forever. Here, in Boston, it doesn’t matter.” He places his hand on your back and awkwardly pats you. You lean into comfort.
Suddenly, the back door swings open, and you both turn around. It’s Liz. “Mikey, Daddy said come inside. They want you and Charlie to open your graduation gifts.”
Before either of you can say anything, she shuts the door, and you watch as your sister runs back into the living room. “Welp.” Michael stands, dusting his hands on the thighs of his pants. “We should probably go, huh?” He offers his hand and pulls you to your feet.
You squeeze his hands once before letting go as you make it to the door.
Just in case.