He looks up toward the turret and even though I’m filled with anxiety, I feel my body go warm as I think about him in my bedroom. “I want to, but… it’s kinda hard to sneak out of a room like that.”
Shit. He’s right. There’s only one way down that doesn’t involve acrobatics and an extreme lack of good judgment. I think about the tree house, but I feel strange inviting him into my space with Lionel again, especially tonight. And I’d rather be close to Lion; the tree house is too far.
“We’ll set an alarm,” I say. “You’re used to getting up early. You could even run home.”
“Okay.” He looks at me and shakes his head, smiling. “This is probably a really bad decision, but okay.”
“This whole night has been a bad decision. Why stop now?” I smile back at him before I get out of the car and wait for him to talk to Justin.
The house is quiet, and I click off the lamp as soon as we’re inside. Emil takes off his shoes out of habit while I lock the door behind him. He holds the shoes in one hand and I take the other as I lead us up the first staircase, walking on the very tips of my toes. I pause in the hallway between Lionel’s and our parents’ room, but the strip of space under their door is dark and I don’t hear voices on the other side. Lionel is still up, though, bumping around in his room.
I grab the tissue box from my nightstand and leave Emil alone, sitting barefoot on my bed. Then I march back down the stairs and knock as softly as possible on my brother’s door while also trying to signal that I mean business. He pulls the door open immediately and walks over to his desk, as if he was already midtransit.
“What’s up?” he says as soon as I close the door. “Change your mind about Brite Spot? I know you think I’m too fucked up to drive, but I can get us there. It’s just up the street. Or we could walk! It’s not too far. Not too late.”
“Lion, this isn’t okay. What happened tonight…” I swallow and set the tissue box on top of his bureau, dig out the pill bottles, and line them up next to each other. “You need to go back on these. I can’t hide them for you anymore.”
I expect him to be combative. I don’t expect him to look at the bottles and then me with a derisive smirk that makes me feel stupid for being here. For saying something. For caring.
“You were the one who offered to hide them,” he says, his back to me as he plops down in front of his computer. “You can leave them here, but I’ll get rid of them before I take them.”
“Lionel, you got into a fight. You punched a guy so hard his nose might be broken.”
“So? He should have left Rafaela alone.”
I notice, as he types, that he hasn’t bothered to clean off his knuckles. They’re crusted with blood, the skin broken open in some places, but he’s just clacking away on his keyboard as if this is all commonplace.
“Lion, this isn’t you.” I walk over to stand beside him, but still he doesn’t look at me. “You don’t drink like that. You don’t get in fights. This is the bipolar.”
“You think I don’t know what I’m dealing with? It’s my brain, Suzette.” He pauses with his fingers above the keys. “Lots of people ride out their hypomania and they’re fine. It’s, like, increased energy. Nothing to worry about.”
“It’s not just increased energy!” I have to actively work to keep my voice down. “Not with you. You get irritable and angry and…” I stop myself from saying it scares me. “Lion.” I take a deep breath even though I’m still looking at the back of his head and it’s always easier to say something to someone when you don’t have to make eye contact. “If you don’t start taking your pills, I’m going to tell Mom and Saul.”
His fingers start clicking over the keyboard again, as if I haven’t spoken at all. Then: “You don’t want to do that.”
“No, I don’t want to do it, but you’re not giving me a choice!” I realize I’m breathing heavy, talking too loudly, and take a moment to calm down.
He whips around then, his eyes narrowed to slits. But still I can see the pure fury that lies behind them, and I can’t believe that for the first time in his life, it’s directed at me. “You think I don’t know you told them last summer? All that stuff I said to you… You went right to them the next day.”
I knew he knew about it, but I thought the fact that he didn’t bring it up meant he was grateful, on some level, for my intervening. “I didn’t tell them exactly what you said. I—”
“It was enough to make them decide I had bipolar! And then everything was worse than when they thought I just had fucking ADHD.”
“The doctors decided that. What was I supposed to do? Pretend like what you said didn’t scare the shit out of me? You were talking about dying.”
“And I told you I didn’t want to, but you still went right to the parents. I’m so fucking sick of this,” he says, shaking his head. “Sick of everyone butting into my life, thinking they know what’s best for me.”
“But you’re not getting better… you’re getting worse.”
“First of all, you don’t get to fucking tell me how I’m doing. And second, do you really want to talk to them about me again? When you have some secrets of your own that they might want to know about?”
“Fine.” I throw my hands in the air. “That would be really, really shitty of you, but fine. Out me to our parents if it makes you feel better, but—”
“No, what would make me feel better is if they knew how shady you’re being with my girlfriend.”
My skin turns cold. I want to hurt the person in front of me, the hard expression contrasting against lively freckles and bright, bright hair. But this isn’t Lionel.
“I’m not doing anything with your girlfriend.” My voice is shaking.
“You would if there was no way I’d find out.” His voice is pure ice. And he doesn’t give me a chance to protest. “I can’t stop you from telling them,” he says, his eyes boring into me. “But aren’t they gonna wonder why it took you so long? And if you tell them… we’re done.”
“We’re not done.” The tears come fast and they’re rolling over my cheeks, dripping down my chin and into the crease of my neck. “We can’t be done. We’re family.”
“Yeah, well, family doesn’t tell on each other. They keep secrets. They protect each other.” He shrugs then, and that smirk pops back up, more mocking than before. “So go ahead and tell if you want, but we’re done if you do. It’s not like we’re blood, anyway.”
My knees buckle instantly; I barely catch the wall for support in time. I have nothing to say after that, but it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t look back again. I’m invisible to him. The sister he could disown in five seconds flat.
I stumble out to the hall, pause when I’m just a few feet from Mom and Saul’s room. I could go in there now and tell them everything and hope that one day he’d be able to forgive me.