Page 5 of Cueball & Double-Z (Alpha’s Rejects #5)

I packed the few books I had into a box, along with some souvenirs I saved.

Like when Gio took me to the Baltimore Aquarium for my birthday last April and got me a stuffed red octopus, my favorite animal.

Once, before my mom and stepdad died, we all went to Washington, DC, and Gio’s dad bought me a snow globe with the Washington Monument and U.S.

Capitol inside because I collected them.

I had one from St. Louis, New York, and Seattle.

My dad had gotten them for my birthday after the divorce, back when he still cared.

Eventually, I never heard from him again.

I shook the plastic snow globe, watching the fake snow fall to the ground. They were more interesting when I was little. They had seemed magical, and I dreamed of traveling to those places. Even though I was older and no longer believed in magic, I still liked them.

I tossed it into the box with the others and lifted the silver-framed picture of Mom and me when I was about five.

She had dirty blonde hair and blue eyes like mine.

She looked really happy, too. I didn’t remember that day and had no idea where we were, but I liked her face in the photo.

She was pretty and looked happy. I was missing half my teeth, it seemed.

I ran my fingers over her, feeling the anxiety coming on, forever knowing she was dead because of me.

I missed her so much. It took so long to get over my involvement and not freak out.

Well, I’d never be over it, but I’d started to accept that it’d been my fault.

Most of the anxiety was gone, but it punched through during certain moments, especially on that day.

The day I lost them. The day I killed my mom and my stepdad.

Gio and I would never be the same again.

Gio set aside a box marked ‘ Parents ’ and taped it up. That box held all we had of them, like pictures, documents, and some things that held sentimental value for us.

I held in my sigh and shoved away my fear, so Gio didn’t get stressed out. He was always stressed out. I didn’t want to move. This apartment wasn’t the best home, but it’s ours… or it was . Still, I needed to adapt. What choice did I have?

Gio and I got some money from our parents when they died, and there was some insurance money from the accident, but the driver who killed our parents didn’t have any insurance or money to pay us.

So, whatever we got hadn’t lasted very long.

The house had cost a lot each month, more than our current rent, along with the bills, paying off credit cards, and other shit our parents owed.

The funerals and my hospital bills took most of the money.

It was fucking expensive to die, which seemed kind of stupid.

Everyone made a profit, even from someone literally just dying. It was gross.

Eventually, the house Gio grew up in was foreclosed on, so we got this place.

The apartment was a little run-down, and the furniture was crap, but it was our crap.

Now we had to abandon everything. It hadn’t taken me long to learn not to cling to things unless they were small.

Everything in our lives felt temporary. Everything was temporary. Our eviction proved that .

It wasn’t Gio’s fault, though he always blamed himself for everything.

I wish he’d stop. Life dealt us a shitty hand, and he always tried his best with what little we had.

Then again, he’d tell me the same thing over and over when I blamed myself for our parents’ deaths.

I still did. I knew I’d been too loud, and his dad was distracted.

We wouldn’t be in this situation had I not been yapping and yapping about school with Gino, my stepdad, or singing ‘ Heartbreaker’ by Pat Benatar at the top of my lungs because Mom loved that song.

They’d still be alive if I’d just been quiet.

Gino told me a few times to settle down, and I didn’t.

I’d always talked too much, so much so that I used to get into trouble with my teachers because I’d disrupt the class when I finished my schoolwork early.

After the accident, every time I tried to speak, nothing would come out, and anxiety would cripple me. Suffocate me. It didn’t take a genius to know why.

Over the years, I eventually came to terms with knowing everything had been my fault.

The acceptance helped with the anxiety, but not so much the talking, which was hard on Gio.

Not just from the death of our parents, but from my issues and being unable to talk to him.

I wondered if my silence sometimes made him feel lonely.

“We can’t take everything,” Gio said, bursting my runaway thoughts.

I waved my hand at him. When he looked up, I signed, ‘I know. Only my favorite things.’

I did everything possible to keep him happy. Never argued. Never fought. He was stressed out enough.

He looked at me with sad, angry eyes, and dark brown, furrowed brows.

Then he nodded. He had his dark brown hair pulled back at the top of his head in a half ponytail to keep it out of his face as he packed, showing off the freckles on his pale skin.

Some hair had fallen, so he blew upward at it before shoving a manila folder into a box.

His high forehead was smooth, and the stress between his brows was more pronounced than usual.

That ‘V’ between them had been there since our parents died. That was my fault, too.

With an exaggerated sigh, he picked up a T-shirt, folded it, and tossed it into one of our suitcases before reaching for the pack of cigarettes sitting on the nightstand in our bedroom.

“I need a smoke,” he said, walking out and heading toward the living room to open the window.

He sat on the large sill, one leg stretched out as he pulled the hood of his red hoodie over his head, and lit up.

I hated his smoking. It was bad for him. Gio didn’t smoke all the time. He did it only when he was stressed, which was a lot lately.

I didn’t help our situation either because I couldn’t talk.

I tried, but it was like I forgot how. Like my throat stopped working or something.

Noises would come out, but no words. Gio said it was because of my trauma from the car accident, which I already knew.

It made sense, since that was when I stopped talking.

They told me the same thing while I was in the hospital.

Selective mutism, they said. At the time, when I tried to speak, I’d be nearly doubled over with nausea and anxiety.

Then the anxiety would cause this weird crash, like I’d fall into this depression. Eventually, I stopped trying.

Gio and I would often head to the library to learn Sign Exact English.

I’d tried American Sign Language, but it was too hard, especially for him.

I loved that he never pushed me to speak, knowing how it made me feel, so we just learned to talk differently.

I really liked being able to speak without saying a word, most of the time, anyway.

Gio only used it to stay fresh or when he was really stressed and didn’t want to yell at me.

Eventually, the anxiety subsided, but my voice never returned, though I tried. I really did. Sometimes a word would pop out, but only to Gio—no one else. Signing became my main method of communication. It became a comfort rather than freaking me out.

Because I couldn’t speak, that made it hard to find a job.

Interviews had to be done by writing on paper, or asking questions that no one understood, if I had to sign.

I wasn’t dumb. I’d made really good grades back in high school, but people would always talk to me extra loud or slowly, as if that’d help. I wasn’t fucking deaf.

I’d been really interested in computers and programming, but we didn’t have a computer. Or a phone. All we had was a public library. If we had a phone, I could get an AAC speech assistant app. That’d be so cool.

Maybe one day. Until then, I carried a small notepad and a pen.

I folded and placed the red University of Maryland T-shirt on the bed, a school I’d wanted to attend after graduating high school, but never got the chance to, and headed over to talk to Gio. He needed support .

I sat on the floor, shivering from the cool breeze coming in as I crossed my legs. When he wouldn’t look at me, I patted his thigh to get his attention. He took a long drag from his cigarette and blew the smoke out the window, still staring outside.

I patted him again when he wouldn’t look at me.

With a deep breath, he turned his pretty, stormy blue eyes on me.

Gio was so handsome, but I’d never tell him that, being my brother and all.

He’d probably think I was weird. I loved his dark brown hair, threaded with copper, his thick brows that always sat low over his eyes.

And those lips… God, he had really full lips.

I bet they were soft. The best thing about his face was the freckles splashed across his pale skin.

I’d crushed on Gio on and off through the years. It didn’t matter that he came out to me as pansexual. I’d only seen him with girls, even if he’d never had a serious relationship before.

He took another drag from his cigarette, and I wanted to nag at him for smoking, but it wasn’t the time. He was grumpy as it was. ‘It will be fine,’ I signed instead. ‘We will be okay.’

“Jesus, Cole. Who the fuck wants to live in their car, especially in the dead of winter? I sure as hell don’t. No, it won’t be okay.” His tone was hard and low, and I hated how frustrated he was.

I blamed myself for our situation.

He blamed himself for our situation.

Round and round we went. Neither of us was happy about it, but we struggled to get out of it.

I knew he wasn’t really angry at me, just at life. ‘Let’s take a break.’