The Best of Us

twelve

NOTE: this chapter may be slightly edited in the future, just because it's already late and I wanted to get it published! please forgive me for the late update, more details about that at the end! if you're here then thank you for still supporting, I really hope u enjoy <3

WARNING: extremely brief references to self harm / suicide. they are barely there, but I feel better putting a warning!

HALLOWEEN. 2014.

THOMAS HAD WARNED me that I would be called down by dad and I would've seen it coming even if he hadn't. The problem wasn't that I didn't expect it, but rather that when it did happen I had only just woken up from a nap.

Stumbling down the stairs and clutching the bannister, I was still dazed with sleep; squeezing my eyes shut and rapidly blinking them open in an endlessly futile attempt to shake myself out of disorientation.

Dad was already waiting for me in the living room doorway with his arms folded over his chest, and his eyes hard and glaring; the lion guarding the den.

"Did you know?" He demanded immediately, his brow clouded and his gaze hot with fury. His voice was calm and his teeth were barely gritted, his lips just moving, but there was a quick, jabbing movement of tendons straining against his neck, right above the collar of his crisp button-up. He was still wearing his office trousers, too, and his black oxfords that grinned up from the floor like two sleek alligators.

I blinked hard and said nothing. My sudden disturbance from sleep had lurched me back into consciousness and everything felt like it was moving too fast, even his question– simple and clear– sounded foreign and had the element of words being spoken in a dream where language melted together and even familiar sounds buzzed with obscurity.

When I failed to respond and instead frowned dumbly, he snapped, "Did you know?"

"Know what?" I managed, my voice thick with neglect.

I already knew what he was going to ask me because Thomas, of course, had already told me what to say but I couldn't let dad know that. If I answered him without asking him to specify then he would've known straight away that I already knew. Still, in a funny way, I think I was also asking him to specify because I still felt uncertain of what was happening and didn't want his impatience to take the form of an open palm against my cheek.

"Did you know," he pressed, deliberately decelerating his words as if to dumb it down for me, "that Thomas isn't moving back in with his roommate?"

By then, I'd known for about two weeks— so had Bradley. The memory of Thomas telling us that things were getting complicated with his roommate was still fresh in my mind and so was that dull panic that thudded in my chest and flowered through my veins. That day, I had stupidly assumed that I wouldn't be involved but Thomas had dragged it out and dragged it out so that he could delay admitting the truth to dad.

I still might have been able to avoid involvement if he lied and said that he had only just seen his roommate, but he told me frankly that he was too tired to lie and was going to face dad's confrontation without resistance. He was going to tell him that he wasn't moving back in with his roommate and he was going to tell him that he'd known it for a while but hadn't wanted to start a fight.

We both knew that dad would want to know how much I knew. If he found out that I had known as long as Thomas had and hadn't said anything then we both would've been victims to a Spartan rage.

It worked out better if Thomas suffered alone for his secrecy so that I could provide the neutral bridge between them. When dad was mad at both of us at the same time, his contempt was so intense that it acted as both the sword and the pyre, and left both of us so far removed from his respect that he wouldn't acknowledge either of us for days at a time.