Page 18 of Hurt

5

I’VE DRAWN REGRET FROM THE TRUTH OF A THOUSAND LIES

Willow tossed back the remainder of her drink and slammed the glass on the bar.

“You break it, you buy it,” Kurt warned as he rinsed out a glass.

She glared at her brother's back, fingers clenched around the glass as she twisted it on the bar. Her mood had been getting worse as the week dragged on. Tips were bad, and Willow was making mistakes in her dancing. For the first time since she started at The Sunspot, she was unhappy.

Even at night, when she practiced the violin, she couldn’t get his fingers to work. They fumbled over chords she knew in her sleep—sluggish and unbending. It was beyond frustrating.

Realizing Kurt was not going to refill the drink, she sighed and rested her forehead on the bar. Willow watched the muscles in Kurt’s back move as he washed dishes.

“Do you remember our freshman year?” she asked suddenly.

Kurt paused in his washing. “Which part? Freshman year was a long time ago.”

The part where we were happy,was what Willow wanted to say but didn’t. She had figured out that certain topics were tolerable for Kurt—any time before the Becketts’ death was usually acceptable.

“The party at the lake.”

A rare smile split Kurt’s face—not a broad grin, but just the corners of his lips upturning. It was like a ray of sun, and Willow couldn’t help but feel a rush of satisfaction.

“I remember you puking all over my shoes.”

That had happened. But what Willow remembered was that it was the first time they played for people. The siblings had skipped out on their after-school music lessons, catching a bus to the infamous party just on the outskirts of town. Rather than any sort of structure, the party was more of a gathering on the edge of the lake. Gaggles of people shifted along the shore, drifting from the various kegs and coolers that people brought and huddling around bonfires as the evening breeze kicked off the lake and dropped temperatures.

A makeshift stage had been erected on the dock. Occasionally bands would entertain people, but it was mostly poorly done karaoke. The creaking wood under their feet and the lapping water added to the melody, and there was so much alcohol being consumed no one really noticed if the singers were off key or if the instruments were tuned.

After two glasses of some poorly mixed alcohol, ferreted in by god knows who, Kurt had grabbed Willow and their instruments. With the instruments in hand, they shared a staticky mic and played. Years of playing together had made their performance seamless. A beautiful semblance of the siblings' personality: Willow’s high notes and quick changes, music that refused to be still and made you want to stand on your tiptoes and shout, mixed with Kurt’s softer, mellow vibe, the low notes making you lean closer and be absorbed in his gravely singing.

More than the music, Willow remembered the way Kurt had smiled. Normally when he played, his eyebrows were drawn together, and he was intensely focused. Head bowed and snarling every time he made a mistake. The weight of expectations from his family lay heavily on his shoulders and made his fingers dull.

But that night, he played what he felt. He turned his mistakes into power riffs, and his fingers were light and nimble. Willow couldn’t remember being happier than being shoulder to shoulder with her brother that night. It didn’t matter if anyone was listening—they were playing for themselves, the two Beckett Prides.

Kurt’s mom had gone ballistic when she caught them slinking home late that night. Her screams had rattled their house until the entire neighborhood shook from her displeasure. But every time her back was turned, Kurt and Willow would grin at each other.

“You broke a string that night.”

Kurt looked down at his hand. Countless scars crossed the skin, but there was a definite line from where the string on his guitar had snapped and slapped his hand. “Yeah. I had to mow the entire neighborhood’s lawns to afford new ones.”

“I helped,” Willow defended.

“You laid out in the grass and pointed out when I missed a spot.”

“Yeah. Like a helper.”

Kurt shook his head, and the smile lingered. Willow wanted to crawl across the bar and stare at that smile, at the way the fine lines wrinkled around his eyes when his cheeks lifted in joy. It was such a rare sight.

“Do you remember doing ‘Down with The Sickness?’ You jumped off the dock going ‘Oh-wah-ah-ah-ah!’ it was the most glorious fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I remember not being able to talk for two days because I felt like I ripped my throat out,” Kurt admitted, finally putting the glasses down and coming to stand beside Willow.

Neither one of them mentioned Hazel making them soup to soothe their throats and cure their hangovers. She prodded them with a wooden spoon until they got out of bed and refused to let them eat until they ‘stopped smelling like teenage miscreants.’ Even before Noah was born, she had been a mom.

They lapsed into silence. It was like the moment they stopped laughing, they remembered the gaping chasm between them. Willow felt like she was watching the chasm get bigger and bigger, and nothing she did could make it stop.

“You only talk about this stuff when you’re upset,” Kurt said, looking down at his feet. The smile was gone, and that guarded expression of his returned. “Is it Roland?”