Shame ate at me and I moved away from Kellen before the next fire watcher showed up for duty. Had I actually bitten him? As the nest fire-tender joined us, I stood, trying to put some distance between Kellen and I. But I didn't know what to do, or where to go, or how to function in that moment.
"Morning, Salome." Kellen said; I hadn't even realized it was her. I expected him to leave, but he wove his hand through mine and gently tugged me with him. We walked away from camp, not following any of our known routes. After some time, Kellen sat against the trunk of a large evergreen with low branches that bowed almost to the ground. As I sat, I noticed him flexing his arm and rubbing the spot I'd bitten him.
"Sorry." I flushed. "Does it hurt?"
"Nah!" He flexed his arm again and draped it over my shoulder. "Not as much as you punching me."
"Ugh! Sorry!"
"I'm kidding, Hero!" He waved my apology off, pulling me back into his side again after I'd moved out of embarrassment. He twirled a long thin branch between his fingers, pondering it carefully. "What do you wanna do?"
"I dunno? I thought we were just walking."
"No." He huffed out a little chuckle. "I mean when you're, you know, like old, what do you want to do?"
"I don't really know. I'm hoping I'll figure it out in college." It seemed such a stupid conversation given our current predicament. None of us were thinking about college and being grown-ups right now.
"Yeah, but what are you planning on taking?"
"Not sure. I guess I'll try to do something with athletics... Or languages, I'm good at that. I've kind of always thought it would be cool to work for the UN as a translator."
"Sounds cool. So you speak other languages then?"
"Mostly French. The other ones... just enough to get by in the places I traveled to with my Mom. Italian, Japanese, Spanish."
"You could at least translate French for them."
"I guess. No one knows this, but I want to act—like my dad." I chewed my lip. It felt weird to be telling him something I hadn't even shared with Jess. It was stranger, still, because I felt safe telling him. Oh no, Nicole! "What about you?"
"Me? Not get people killed," he muttered.
I nudged him with my shoulder. "Hey! We're trying not to talk about this hell right now, so try again."
"A... Stunt car driver for the movies! You think your dad could get me an in?"
"Ah-ha! With the way you drove on the first day, yeah! I'm sure there are a lot of ivy league stunt drivers out there. Your parents will love it!"
"Yeah, I can see Dad introducing me... 'Here's my son the stunt driver, he crashes cars and breaks bones for a living.' He'd much sooner lock me in a closet than allow that to happen."
"You and your dad are close though, right?" My head tiled onto his shoulder like it belonged there.
"Kind of. But things have been harder this year."
"Because of Hijinks."
"Yeah," he confirmed, tilting his head onto mine.
I bit my lip, willing myself to leave it at that; I didn't need to dig any deeper. We were just trying to get our minds off things. I should've just changed the subject to which teacher we'd hated the most, before they'd all been run off by the crazy man who wanted to kill us.
"So, what was Hijinks all about?" Curse you, inner Nicole!
"Freshman year, Katia and I were our grade reps on student council, but we couldn't agree on anything. Everything was a full blown fight, so we started it as a way to decide who took point on each issue."
"I know that part, Kels."
"Oh. Katia and I, we... well I'm stupid, and she hates me."
"You're not stupid."
He tilted his head in disagreement with what I'd said.
"Okay, so you did a stupid thing, and she hates you? You guys have both done a lot of stupid things to each other―and all of us."
"Thanks, Babe, but it's not the same. I was terrible to her." He paused, picking at his pants before elaborating, "My dad cheated..."
"I know that part, too."
He chuckled but it held no humor. "Everyone knows my fucking life."
"I didn't mean it that way, Kels."
"I know, Cole. Dad cheated. I didn't find out till Katia and I were 11 and her mom was sick. My mom knew the whole time. Katia knew the whole time. My mom said Katia's mom was suddenly "sick" because they wanted more money than Dad already gave them. But, Dad used to spend time with her every week, even before I knew she existed. He never paid anyone off. He could never be like that..."
A faint smile lit his face. "I was excited to have a sister, at first; I'd always wanted a sibling. I was just mad because I was the only one who hadn't known. I should have been nicer to her, considering her mom had just died. I wanted to be... but I was annoyed that she was sad all the time and didn't want to do fun stuff. Then I was mad that she was always around, even when Dad and I were doing our things. And then it felt like Dad was doing more stuff with her, and all I could think of then was that she was stealing my dad away from me."
"Kellen!" my heart broke for him and how hard that feeling must have been―then and now. He mistook my tone for a reprimand.
"Yeah, I know I could've been a better brother. You know what the worst part was? My mom. She was always ranting about why my father let that "urchin" come live with us. Why she had to put up with "that little Mexican orphan" or Dad's "pet project". She called Katia the maid's daughter every chance she got―still does―and wouldn't talk to her directly at all―still doesn't―and I never said anything about it―never have."
He was crying. I was pretty sure of it, and I didn't really know what to do. Well, this is quite the way to get my mind off of Jess! I gave him a moment to swipe at his face before turning to him.
"Kels, Babe!" I said the word without even thinking, as if I were talking to Jess. "This is not on you! My God! You're the kid! A big fucking man-kid, but you're the kid. Your mom... sorry, but she's a bitch! She should know better. The adults around her should know better. I mean, you coulda shoulda said something, but you were a kid going against your mother.
"You were hurting, too. Definitely not as much as Katia was, but you were still hurting! I mean, what you're describing―jealousy and annoyance―is what every sibling on the face of the Earth feels. It's just that most siblings don't turn that into a huge prank battle that takes over an entire school. It's usually more small-scale than that."
He chuckled at my attempt to lighten the mood, and then sighed, "She thinks I hate her and that I agree with my mother."
"No she doesn't."
"Yeah, Cole, she does. She's said it a ton of times. I don't want us to be this way. I want to be able to hang out with her, watch a movie, eat dinner together. I dunno, whatever siblings do."
"You just described a date, Kellen," I teased, and he shoved me with his shoulder.
"Stop trying to make me laugh! Can't I just be self pitying for a minute?"
"Nope. You've gotta be perfect robot-Kellen all the time."
"I hate that guy..."
"Me too." I agreed and he looked at me in surprise. Grinning, I poked his chin where there was the scruff of a more than five'o'clock shadow. "If you hate him, get rid of him. It's not too late for you to be a better brother, Kels. If you ever have questions on how to do it, you have Jackson, Jess and me to ask."
He crushed me into a hug. "Thanks, Cole. I don't know what I'd do without you."
"Urhm..." My mind blanked, my breath stopping momentarily at his words. The situation had taken a strange turn. "talk to Jackson?"
He released his hold on me, his face mirroring my discomfort. "Sorry." His robot-Kellen mask fell back into place. "Jackson, talking about feelings?"
Even his laugh was back to the fake one he laughed in front of everyone. It was a defense mechanism, I realized. He'd been pretending to be robot-Kellen so long, he didn't know how to be himself around people. Not really. I frowned and poked his face again. "Drop the robot act, Kels. You're embarrassed, so what? That was awkward for me too. We're human, we feel things."
He grimaced and made a big deal of shaking himself out. "See? I don't know how to get rid of that Kellen!"
"Oh don't you worry, Kelly-bean," I said ruffling his hair. "I'll kill robot-Kellen for you."
Do you like this side of Kellen?
How do you think Nicole plans on killing Robot-Kellen?