My Only (19 page)

Aaron made his way back to the door and I mumbled, “Congratulations.”

“Thanks, bro! I knew we’d win. Must’ve been al that energy we were getting from the band.” Again, it was nice that he mentioned the band, but I didn’t know if he was somehow rubbing it in our faces that we were just members of the marching band and not the cool, kick-ass footbal team. I would’ve liked to think that he wasn’t. Aaron was my brother after al and typical y he wasn’t a jerk.

Even if he
did
ask out the girl I liked.

Nothing unique or interesting happened after Casey left Friday night and my mood on Saturday was glum. I worked a ten until six shift and it kept my mind off of Olivia, Aaron, and the dance. Delaney was there.

“How’s the manuscript coming?” I asked. “Heard back from anyone?”

She sighed, flung her hair over her shoulder, and reshelved a loose copy of
The Art of Happiness
. “Nope. So I’m on query revision number nine.” Delaney turned, her long braided red hair hitting the shelf. “But I started something new. I’m so excited about it.”

“What’s it about?” I asked. I was always interested in her stories. She had such talent. I wished I possessed a fraction of her storytel ing ability.

“Not quite sure. I mean, I have the characters and I have the final scene written, but I’m not quite sure how it al goes down.”

“How does that happen?”

Delaney shrugged. “I was working out one day and al of a sudden the ending hit me! It’s a dark-haired guy with a stubbly beard on the ground holding his dying father in his arms. And the father says, ‘It’s okay. I can see it now.’ And that’s it.”

“Sounds depressing.”

“Oh, it’s going to be, for sure!” Her excited tone made me laugh.

“And this is what you want?”

“Absolutely. Pulitzer Prize winner for sure. I just have to figure out what the hel happens before that and what the dad’s talking about.” I chuckled again. “Have fun with that.”

“I wil .”

I could feel her eyes on me as I put away three more books. Then she asked, “Haven’t you ever heard a beat in your head that was only the start or the end of something?” I shrugged. “Then you have to fil the rest in, right?” I didn’t answer her. Talking about drumming and beats made me think of the dance that was going to begin in a few hours. And that made me think about Olivia. And about Aaron.

After work, I was lonely. Dad was sleeping. Aaron was already gone. Off to have fun with the girl of my dreams.

At dinner, Dad said nothing to me and just read the sports section. I wished I knew something about sports. If only I’d watched more Bears games with him, we’d be able to talk about the quarterback and playoff chances.

But I’ve always read when games were on. Sports were Aaron’s thing.

And so I was alone tonight.

Loneliness is amplified when everyone you know is busy talking to everyone but you. My real-life friends were at the dance. Wel , two of them were. Casey and Cory were home and online, but they were occupied chatting with each other over something so stupid I didn’t want to join in.

Hel , even al my Twitter friends were tweeting among themselves. I tried to add to the feed, but mostly my tweets were ignored.

I was so lonely that I was practical y nonexistent.

I wished I wasn’t. I wished my personality was one that made people gravitate toward me. I wished I knew what to say to people. I wished I knew how to just fit right in. I wished I could just be comfortable in social settings and be able to go after everything and anything I wanted. In short, I wished I was my brother. He was never lonely.

I hated when these moods hit me. It was so difficult to pul out of. Part of me wanted to ask my dad if I could go to therapy or a counselor or something, but the other part knew I never would. It would be a sure-fire way of feeling even
more
different from Aaron, my father, and the other kids in school.

I flipped my laptop closed and settled into bed around eleven. I read a little of an epic novel, momentarily getting lost in the fantasy world as I imagined myself a great knight or heroic champion defeating the evil alchemist or demented king of the neighboring land.

But by two in the morning Aaron stil hadn’t come home and I went to sleep knowing that my brother was having a great time with a wonderful girl while I was miserable in my bed wishing I was him.

Depression made the weeks fly by quickly, even though the days dragged on while I was in them. Three weeks passed in rapid succession. Aaron and Olivia were an official “thing” at school but both of them were kind enough not to rub my nose in it . . . much.

Now that Aaron knew my bedroom was directly across from Olivia’s, he came in once a day. He’d cal her and then stand there as they spoke. I usual y ended up leaving my room and sequestering myself down in the garage, banging out a beat loud enough to drown out my thoughts.

For her part, Olivia seemed uneasy when Aaron was in my room. I didn’t make it a habit to look at her when they were chatting on the phone, but when I did she was kind enough to look either embarrassed or uncomfortable.

I stil helped her study, and we stil ate meals together in the mal , but I didn’t teach her how to play the drums like I’d promised. We didn’t go to the bookstore either. Maybe she wanted to do al of those things, but I never brought it up.

My competition in Indianapolis was coming up, so I used that as an excuse to avoid doing much. I spent a lot of time online. I led a few raids in
WoW
and I completed the game . . . again. I grew bored easily, so I spent most of my online time having random discussions on forums, Twitter, and Facebook. I kept off of Olivia’s Facebook page. She never posted much personal stuff, but even the inspirational quotes left me feeling cold and alone.

At dinner Aaron would give everyone a status update about their relationship. It was always PG-13, given that my father was in the room. I usual y tried to tune it al out.

The week of the Indianapolis competition, my father drove me down. It was a huge event. It kicked off on Wednesday night and didn’t finish until Saturday. Aaron stayed home. Even though I hadn’t been feeling great, I real y focused on my drumming. Al of the practicing I’d been doing real y paid off. We somehow became the Class A Band of America National Champions.

I couldn’t wait to tel Aaron! It was late when my dad and I returned home Sunday, after spending the whole day doing a little bit of everything in Indianapolis. But just like always, Aaron was up. Despite our differences, we real y cared about each other, so I knew the thril in his eyes was genuine. We stayed up even later talking about it. It reminded me of when we were little, lying in a bed, talking superheroes or Pokémon.

I was a lump as I rol ed out of bed that Monday morning, but the excitement stil tickled at the inside of me. News traveled fast. It was easy to tel the whole town was excited. Final y, it was cool to be in the band. I didn’t know how long it was going to last, but the energized feeling penetrated even my depression. My mood lifted. It was awesome.

I wanted to tel Olivia. I wanted to apologize for what a lackluster friend I’d been the past few weeks. Aaron had taken to meeting her in the courtyard at school. Today I waited with him.

The warning bel rang. “Where is she?” I asked.

Aaron shrugged. “I guess she’s not coming. She was sick or something yesterday and Mrs. Cartwright wouldn’t let me see her. She was kind of a bitch about it, too.”

I scanned the parking lot one more time, just to make sure she wasn’t there. “That makes three times in the past month.” He hiked his bag higher up onto his shoulder. “Three times what?”

“That she’s been absent.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

I couldn’t tel if he was worried about Olivia or not, but I was. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to take note of things like that. But even through my recent bout of depression, I stil noticed everything about her.

My concern grew throughout the day to the point where I couldn’t focus in class. I didn’t even pay attention during the sixth period assembly in honor of the marching band’s huge win. Our season was almost over. There was only the Magnificent Mile Lights Festival Parade this coming weekend. We would practice Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to prepare, but after the Parade, it’d be over until col ege.

Right after school, I went to the Cartwrights’. Mrs. Cartwright seemed fine. She let me in the house and said, “You can’t stay too long. Olivia’s quite fatigued today. I hope to have her rested enough to attend school in the morning.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, already ascending the stairs. Something kept me from asking what Olivia had—a cold, the flu, girlie issues. I figured I’d check on Olivia and it would be obvious what was wrong.

When I knocked on her door and she gave me the okay to come in, there was nothing that indicated any sickness. Olivia was lying in her bed, covers drawn up to her chin, but other than that she looked fine. Her room smel ed as nice as always—definitely not the smel of a room where sickness was blooming.

“Hey!” she greeted.

“Hi, Livie,” I said as I ventured inside her room.

I sat down in the chair by the window and she pushed herself up. Clutching at the comforter, she kept it tightly against her body. I could see now that her shoulders were bare except for thin orange straps.

I hoped I hadn’t caught her at a bad time. I didn’t want to impose. “Is it okay that I’m here?” Her eyes widened. “Yeah, total y. I’ve been shut up in this room for two days.” Quieter, she said, “I’ve missed you.” Her voice wasn’t scratchy or hoarse, so I was completely baffled as to what could be wrong with her. She said, “So tel me about the competition.”

“We won.” I wanted to be a little more excited, but the fact that she was lying in bed with some unknown il ness made me much more subdued.

“I know! Aaron texted me last night.”

It sort of thril ed me that he cared enough to tel people that we won, but there was stil a pang of misery that Aaron was texting her at al . “So I have a Fun Fact for you.”

“Awesome!”

“Okay, so Herbert Hoover, the guy who was president during the initial part of the Great Depression, he gave every dime of his salary to charity.”

“Did he do that because he felt bad about no one else having money?”

I had no idea what the man actual y felt, “He
was
a mil ionaire, but he gave his money away even before the Depression. Also, he was Quaker, so that probably humbled him a bit.”

“They were antiwar, right?”

“Yeah, they were anti a lot of things. One being taking oaths, so he never took the Oath of the Presidency, he just affirmed it.”

“You should be a history teacher, Adam. You’re so good at this stuff.” Then she said, “I have a Word of the Day.” She cocked her head. “Wel , Merriam-Webster had a word of the day, I’m just stealing it. Aesopian.”

“Like the fables?”

She rol ed her eyes. “You’re supposed to let me define it, Mr. Smarty-Pants.”

I chuckled. “Sorry. I’l do better next time.” A quiet settled between us until I final y asked, “Do you feel okay?” She nodded then gave me an exaggerated look of exasperation. “I’m fine. My grandma just gets a bit overbearing, that’s al . I could’ve gone to school today, but instead I sat up here listening to music and dancing in my head.”

“How are things with Aaron?” I didn’t know why I asked, but it seemed destined to come out. I couldn’t block it al out. I knew that he wanted to have sex with her, but as far as I’d heard, they hadn’t yet. The previous weekend would have afforded them the perfect opportunity to do it.

Olivia looked uncomfortable but answered me anyway “Good. I think. He’s hard to read sometimes.” It wasn’t like I expected, or even wanted, her to give me al the “juicy” details of their time together, but I wanted something more concrete than that. Actual y, I wanted her to tel me that she was going to break up with him because she’d realized how mismatched they were. Then I wanted her to ask me to go to the bookstore with her because she knew we both liked it. Once there, we’d lose ourselves in the maze of stacks. Then she would tel me that she’d made a mistake and she real y wanted to go out with me.

That wasn’t what happened. “I need to teach you how to drive before the snow gets here.” That drew me out of my fantasy. It wasn’t the same as a declaration of love or admiration, but it was enough to make me happy. “Yeah, I know.

I’ve got the parade this weekend, but maybe after that? Are you going?”

“To the parade?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know. It’l be cold out and Grandma is kind of—”

“A freak when it comes to cooler temperatures?”

It made her giggle a little and that lightened my heart even more. “Yeah. Exactly. I’l ask, though. Do you have practice al this week?”

“Not tomorrow.”

“Wel , provided that Grandma lets me go to school, do you want to have a driving lesson? I swear I’m a great instructor.” Her face was so earnest as she said it.

“I bet you are.” There was an awkward silence, then I said, “It’s getting late. I should let you rest before your grandma hobbles up here and tosses me out.”