Page 4

Eric cleared his throat. “Should I get the food to go? Are you finished with classes for the day? I can drive while you eat?” he offered. He sounded hesitant. Unsure.

Sam pictured the last ten minutes through Eric’s eyes and found himself nodding. “That would be great. I just need to pick up food for Dad, but my classes are finished.”

Outside, it was still bright, the sun shining in a cloudless sky. This time of year, clear skies were a double-edged sword; you got the sun, sure, but it came with bitter cold. Sam walked briskly to keep warm. Mary dominated his thoughts. Her fiery nature frustrated him to no end, but it was hard to stay angry when he knew it was her frustration with him that sparked it.

“Can I check out the boat? See your paintings?” Eric asked.

“If you want.”

Eric nodded to himself, but his gaze fixed on Sam’s uneven stride. “Your leg got hurt?”

A muscle in his hip pinched with each stretched step. “A bit.”

They reached his car, luckily parked on campus since he’d arrived early enough to find a spot. As Sam clicked open the lock, he peeked inside the back seat and was satisfied to see that everything was tidy; he made an effort to keep the car equipment free. As he opened the door, he smelled the clean cotton air freshener clipped into the vent, not fish. There was still an undercurrent of brine, but Sam didn’t mind that at all. Sam hadn’t been the passenger in this car in years, but it was oddly familiar to see Eric occupying the driver’s seat.

“Do you want me to stop somewhere for groceries?” Eric reached beneath him and pulled the lever to slide the seat back a few inches. “You can give me a list, and I can go in and buy everything?”

Sam studied Eric as he adjusted the mirrors. “You don’t have to buy me things.”

“I’m not offering because I have to,” Eric said. “I’d like to. I just…” He cast Sam a sidelong look. “I still can’t get my head around the fact that you’re grown up. Last time I saw you, you…” He pressed his lips together hard, and his eyes dropped.

Sam waited patiently, hoping to hear more. Maybe something that would fill in the Eric-shaped hole in his memory.

“You were sleeping,” Eric continued. “I went into your room to wake you up. It was like two or three in the morning.”

“But you decided not to?” Sam prompted.

Eric lifted his eyes to meet Sam’s. Sam could have been looking in a mirror; their eyes were the exact same colour. Exact same shade. Though Sam didn’t know if his own eyes were as expressive as Eric’s. If anyone could take one look at Sam and see a storm of emotions behind his eyes. Anger. Hurt.

Regret.

“I don’t know, Sam.” Eric tore his gaze away with a jerk. “I don’t think I ‘decided’ anything. I just acted. No thoughts, no contemplation. I looked at you curled up in bed and knew if I woke you up and you gave me a sleepy hug or a sleepy smile, I wouldn’t be able to leave.”

Sam’s throat tightened. It took effort to swallow. Conscious thought to keep it quiet. How could he not remember Eric? How could he not remember this ?

Movements still jerky, Eric turned the key to start the engine. “Feels like a kick to the gut to see you had to put up with the same crap I did. Even here at college.”

“I don’t put up with crap,” Sam jumped in. He had. Grew up with jeers and snide comments, but he had also grown up with family. With people who stuck up for him. “You’re like Mary. She always focuses on the negative, on the guy who talks shit. And she gets so wound up about it that she never notices the other guy.”

“You mean the one waiting on the sidelines to sucker punch you?”

“I mean the one who steps in to have my back.”

Eric, after a long stretch of silence, stopped gripping the wheel like he wanted to crush it beneath his fingers. “I guess.”

“Should I drive?” Sam offered. “You seem more worked up than I am.”

“No. I’ve calmed down now,” Eric said. “I’m sorry. Of all the things I expected when I came out here, having to watch you get punched wasn’t something I prepared for. Is your face okay?” He put the car into gear and reversed out of the parking space.

“Feeling better already,” Sam lied. He relaxed into his seat and lifted the ice pack to his face.

Sam pretended not to notice the looks he was getting every other second as Eric drove. Sam didn’t even have to tell Eric the knack for getting the car into gear, didn’t have to tell him he needed to hold the stick in place as he released the clutch or else it would pop back out. Eric just did it automatically. Muscle memory. He must have learned to drive the car before he left. Their mom’s car was one of the few belongings she’d left behind when she died. Sam had been four years old, so he had only vague memories of her. Scattered memories told him she was a soft, loving figure. Always gentle. Warm. He’d loved her, and he didn’t need any relatives to tell him that she’d loved him too.

He considered the fact that he could ask Eric about her; he would have been nine or ten when she died. Surely, he had more memories of her than Sam. But what if he had something negative to say? He clearly didn’t have a positive opinion of their dad. Did Sam want the little he recalled of his mom marred by cutting words? Aunt Mal already confused him with the way she described her, said she had an attitude like Mary. A fiery woman with big opinions she made sure everyone heard.

Sam didn’t bother to correct her; even from a young age, he knew she was wrong. As he got older, he realised that his mom very well might have had those aspects to her as well, but Sam only recalled the soft and the gentle parts.

“What do you do?” Sam asked, drawing himself from his memories. He let go of the warming ice pack in favour of the panini.

“I work at Ivan’s tattoo shop,” Eric said. “I’ve been there for years now, ever since he first opened it. I handled the admin side of things until he taught me how to do what he did.” His lips quirked up, as if he were recalling a pleasant memory. “It was a mess at the start. But his art was always brilliant, and he never compromised on that ever, so we turned it into something good. He has two other artists working for him now too, and they’re almost as good as he is.” Eric glanced at Sam. “What about you? You’re in college full time, but Mary said you still take the boat out with Dad?”

“Not with Dad,” Sam said. “Just by myself.”

“Dad doesn’t help at all?” Eric pressed.

Sam unwrapped his panini. There it was. That tone from the other night. Bitter amusement. Criticism and censure. All of it packed into one little question. Eric had clearly left on bad terms with their dad. Sam didn’t know why Oisín never talked about Eric, never wondered to Sam where he’d ended up, but he didn’t think his dad was fuelled by the same bitter anger that clearly stewed inside Eric. Most likely, Oisín had tried to protect Sam. Tried to spare him from bad memories or spare him from feeling the loss of his older brother. Oisín had stopped talking about Sam’s mom years ago. Though, perhaps the dementia had set in before Sam had noticed it. Perhaps those memories had been eaten up and devoured years ago, and there was no reason behind the silence about Eric’s existence beyond the cruel, unstoppable deterioration of Oisín’s mind.

“I’m sure we’ve had this conversation already,” Sam said, flat. His voice, he hoped, was enough warning to drop it.

Eric’s jaw tensed. “It’s just a question.”

“It’s poorly disguised criticism.”

Eric scoffed. “I’m not allowed to talk about him at all, am I?”

“I don’t even remember you. If you’re just looking for someone to talk shit about Dad with, you’ve picked the wrong person.”

Eric drew upright, hurt flashing in his eyes. Sam didn’t apologise or correct himself. He let silence fall between them. He’d heard enough people talking crap about his dad growing up that he wasn’t going to put up with it from anyone now, no matter who it was. Contrary to what Mary fussed about, Sam was more than able to put a stop to what he never knew how to handle when he was a teenager: he’d learned that long ago. Difference was where she was ready to go to war over every single paper cut, Sam picked his battles.

The silence between them was sticky. Heavy.

Eric shook his head. “That first part was necessary, was it?” he asked, voice brittle with hurt.

Regret pricked Sam’s conscience. He loosed a long breath, calming himself. “No. It wasn’t.” It was needlessly hurtful. Cruel. A pointed stab that, even after only two conversations with Eric, he knew would find tender flesh.

The drive passed in uncomfortable silence after that. Eric, Sam reckoned, was too chastised to risk another loaded question, and Sam was too irritated by his remark to give him an easy out. Sam wished the road home was shorter.

“Do you have any plans for dinner tomorrow?” Eric finally broke the silence as they neared their town.

“Nothing in particular.”

“Can we meet?” Eric’s shoulders crept up as he asked. Tensed, as if waiting for Sam to snap at him.

Sam had to think about it, but…alright. Sam knew families were complicated. If Eric ran away, it meant he didn’t have a good relationship with their dad in the first place, and he also hadn’t seen him since coming back. He also knew that none of the aunts or uncles that he might have talked to at the party yesterday fully recognised how bad Oisín was now. They thought he’d withdrawn from heartbreak after the losing his wife. They thought it was a weakness of character.

“Alright,” Sam agreed.

Eric flipped up the indicator as they neared their overgrown driveway, and Sam’s heart leapt. Jerkily, he pointed ahead. “Bring me to the pier. I’m going to take the boat out.”

“At this time? During the week?”

“Yes,” Sam said, emotionless.

And for some reason, that made Eric tense too. “I’m not having a go at you, Sam. I’m just asking .”

“And I just answered.”

“Does not remembering me mean you have to hate me?” Eric asked, that shining hurt back in his voice.

Real frustration curdled in Sam’s blood. “It’s your tone, alright? Every time you ask about the boat or Dad, you make this face, and your voice just—”

“That isn’t on purpose! I have horrible memories of both of them, that doesn’t mean I’m—” Eric’s voice cracked. He jabbed the indicator and roughly pulled off the main road into someone’s driveway. The seatbelt dug into Sam’s shoulder as they jerked to a stop.

Sam turned to Eric in alarm to find a hand already covering his eyes. “I’m not doing it on purpose. Okay? I’m sorry.”

Sam’s heart sank. Eric’s breaths came in rough, uneven gasps. His skin – already pale enough – seemed almost ghastly now. Sam reached out, finding the skin at Eric’s wrist warm and clammy beneath his own. “I understand,” he said. He squeezed, his fingers forming a ring around Eric’s wrist, and he felt his rabbiting heartbeat through the contact.

Eric, under the gentle pressure, lowered the hand covering his face. His eyes reddened with the threat of tears, and there was an unstable tremble in his mouth.

“Do you want me to call Ivan?”

“Why?”

“So you can talk to him. Relax a bit, maybe?” Sam suggested. “I don’t think you find talking to me calming.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t mean that as a barb.”

Eric shut his eyes, and Sam watched him bring his heartbeat back to a more normal pace through deep, purposeful breaths. Sam felt as though he was looking at Eric as a teenager, not a man who was closer to thirty than twenty. He could picture him sitting on his bed, bent over with his fingers wound so tightly into his hair his knuckles were white. Holding on so tightly Sam was afraid he would pull out his hair, prompting him to approach and hug him and—

Pain lanced through Sam’s eyes. He recoiled from Eric and curled forward, jamming his palms hard against his temples as a shudder racked through his entire body. “Christ,” he cursed.

“Sam?” Eric’s voice rose in alarm. “Are you okay?” A warm arm wrapped around his shoulders. Careful fingers combed back the hair at his temple. “Sam?” Eric softened his voice.

“Headache,” Sam gritted out. The pain in his eyes morphed and expanded; pressure built at his temples until each beat of his heart drove too much blood through delicate veins. They were overfull, about to burst.

“Out of nowhere like that? Okay, okay, uh, Ivan’s in town, and he’s got heavy-duty painkillers. I’ll call him.”

Sam tuned out Eric’s babbling. He curled forward even more, pressing his forehead against the dash, and he slipped his fingers into his hair and squeezed. The outside pressure helped with the inside pain. Cutting through that pain was a soft touch at the back of his neck. A gentle, achingly familiar voice telling him he was okay.

Sam was half aware when Ivan arrived.

“He’s got migraine tablets for you,” Eric said, encouraging Sam to sit up. His door clicked open, and a firm arm around his shoulders pulled him upright. Black patterns on olive skin filled Sam’s vision. He focused long enough to swallow whatever the hell they pushed between his lips, then promptly doubled over again and prayed.

“It’ll kick in soon, promise.” Ivan rubbed his back. “Those are the same tablets that helped out Eric when he was younger. His migraines stopped years ago, but I always keep a bottle around in case he needs them. Good thing, huh? Migraines run in the family?”

Their voices buzzed. Sam gradually became less aware of how his eyes felt inside his skull and more aware of how the soothing hand rubbing the back of his head massaged away tension. It was just like how his mom used to stroke his hair as she told him stories about school to send him to sleep. Often the stories were too engaging; they kept him awake as he fought the urge to sleep.

“You didn’t give him a migraine, Eric,” Ivan said gently.

“He got it while we were arguing. I triggered it.”

“Mary told you he gets bad headaches,” Ivan reminded him. “That’s not your fault. And don’t get stuck in your head about it, Eric. Just be chill. He’s probably had a headache since he got punched in his head and just didn’t tell you. Blaming yourself won’t make his headache go away.”

“I feel like he hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you.”

“He definitely does!”

“ Nobody hates you. You’re hypersensitive around him because you’re stressed out and nervous.” Ivan answered Eric’s rising voice with a calm, temperate one. “He probably feels like you came out of nowhere, so I’m guessing he’s unsure about you, and I’m sure he’s nervous around you too. Ease up on the pressure you’re putting on yourself and him and get to know each other normally. Okay?”

“…what if hates me after getting to know me?”

“He won’t.”

“But what if—”

“He won’t, Eric. I promise.”

There was a beeping next to Sam’s ear.

“Alright, there’s the timer. Let’s lift him up.” Ivan’s arm moved to Sam’s chest. Sam wanted to tell him he was fine, he could straighten up himself. But the muscles around his mouth stayed slack, unwilling to move. He felt like a doll, like Ivan’s arms, the strings, were the only thing that could move him. “You still with us, Sam?” Sam was propped upright, his head lolling back onto the headrest of the car. He tried to open his eyes; his body refused.

“Sam?” Ivan repeated his name another half dozen times. “Alright, he is totally gone. Probably should have just given him one pill.”

“ Ivan, ” Eric chastised.

“He’s fine, just chill out. At the very least, I’m dead sure his head isn’t bothering him anymore. Let’s bring him back to our flat. We can keep an eye on him that way. Unless you think it’d be better to bring him back to his place?” Ivan asked.

“I don’t want to go there,” Eric said immediately.

“I know you don’t. Should I drive him?”

“Why would you drive him?”

“Alright, alright. What happened to chilling out? Meet you there.”