3 5
choke
verb. immediately smothering a cymbal by muffling it with a hand.
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PART OF THE HALSTON UNIVERSITY'S Music Department's yearly routine is to hold a recital for local high schools to bring their music students or prospective graduates. Halston wants to pique interest and secure new recruits among the high school seniors, which purportedly can be done with a series of trending songs that social media has appropriated for their memes.
Christian's high school is one of the attendants, and so is the Carsonville Academy, where I graduated from. There are three other schools from the wider Halston area, but I'm focusing on the contrast between the former two: a public school without a uniform, rowdy kids herded into the Choral Hall by frazzled, caffeinated teachers; and a private school with demure, polished children in crisp blue blazers, heavy black Oxfords, teachers like penitentiary staff.
Across the heads of the Halston Student Orchestra, I catch Quen's eye, who's sitting in the first flute chair, flick my eyes to the Academy crowd, and put a finger gun to my temple. He chuckles and nods, wordlessly gleaning my sentiment about our alma mater and agreeing.
Further in the crowd, I see Christian's pale face in the front of the audience. He's not a musical child, but he is enrolled in a music theory elective this semester. That class earned him a spot at this recital, and he wouldn't say no to a day off school. When he first found out he was coming to watch me play, he said (over a phone call): "Don't let anyone know we're related. Don't embarrass me, please, and just treat me like any other member of the audience."
Is this why parents reminisce about how loving their children used to be, and decry how distant they become as teenagers? Because, damn, it stings. However, now, perched at the drum kit, I feel the uncontrollable and embarrassing urge to wave and yell Christian's name and pull faces at him, and I kind of get his point. I'm an uncool sibling by virtue of being a sibling.
The HSO is performing first, and then Shane, Maria and I are going to get into our marching battery in preparation for the pep band's set. Keller steps up to her conductor's podium, baton rolling in circles to rouse the orchestra into a concert G for tuning. As we play through our selected pieces, I can't help but notice Christian sitting with his schoolmates. One of the boys sitting in the row behind leans in to whisper something in his ear, and it makes him flinch. Another slumps slightly lower in his seat so he can kick his dirty sneakers into Christian's calves. He glances at the teacher but she doesn't notice. The group of them laugh, Christian stoically sets his jaw and tries not to respond. Blood roars into my ears, blocking out all the sounds of the music. It's a marvel I can even register when my entries are, because I'm deafened by anger.
It's hard to see exactly what's happening, but throughout the performance, the boys keep leaning in closer to Christian, who swipes at the back of his neck each time. Finally, his grasping manages to snatch their permanent marker and bring it into his chest. They were drawing on him. I get so mad I want to stop the recital and throttle the entire group of bullies, even if they're just kids. How fucking dare they?
Then Christian realizes I've been staring at him, and his entire face goes red. Reading my urgent expression, he shakes his head in tiny movements. His warning takes on a new meaning: "Don't embarrass me, please."
Don't make it worse, he meant.
I hate this. He's my little brother. I knew him as a baby. He was small enough to hold in my lap at one point, all floppy and sleepy and warm. My first instinct has always been to protect him, but now he wants me to stay out of high school life. And I remember it too clearly to ignore that wish—I remember my own bullies, how involving outside parties or adults felt like a cop out, felt like losing, like expanding the target.
Just how early do people start hurting each other?
During the intermission, teachers start counting up the students who need to use the bathroom and sending them into the corridor. Christian slips out of his seat, and when they notice, so do his bullies.
"Shane," I say quietly, who's just about to meet the drumline in one of the backstage rooms.
"Yo." Maybe Christian asked me not to interact with him, but he didn't bar me from sending proxies.
"I'm sending you on a mission."
Shane cocks her head to the side, brows arched. "Not at all cryptic. What is it?"
I shift closer to relay the situation: my little brother, the one with the Game of Thrones t-shirt, is being harassed by a bunch of scummy dipshit kids and perhaps has some graffiti on his back. I ask her to find him, and make sure he's okay while I prepare the rest of the percussionists to go on.
As I explain, Shane's usually cheerful expression darkens into thunderous vengeance. Her mouth hangs open with outrage, and before I even stop talking, she is shrugging out of her maroon band shirt, releasing her hair from its spiky ponytail, and reaching into her black bralette to tug her breasts higher on her chest.
"What are you doing?"
"This requires the big guns."
"He's fourteen," I splutter.
Shane doesn't even look up, making small, thoughtful adjustments to her cleavage. "And you weren't into boobs when you were fourteen? I'm going to humiliate those assholes, and it works better the hotter I look."
"I—" I release a frustrated sigh through my nose, seeing Christian's group disappear out one of the side doors. "Fine. Hurry up, they're leaving."
"Yes, boss," Shane winks, slipping sideways out of the percussion section, hair whipping behind her like a battle flag.
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After dinner, I barge into Christian's bedroom without knocking and launch myself backwards onto his bed. The mattress ripples under my weight, which usually makes him react, but he keeps staring unblinkingly at the ceiling. His eyes are rimmed with red, and I feel my heart cracking in my chest.
"Hey, lil' bro."
Christian doesn't respond. I wasn't planning to come back to Carsonville tonight—sometimes I visit on weekends when I have the time, and always I give Mom notice—but the situation was too dire.
"What happened with Shane?" I prompt, even though I already know.
(She made up a clever lie about already knowing Christian after attending several exclusive parties at my house, though in reality Mom would have my head if I ever attempted that. She said she really missed hearing his funny jokes and that she knew an upstairs bathroom that had less of a line. Whisking him away, Shane discreetly and thoroughly rubbed away an ableist slur and a phallic image scrawled on the back of his neck and walked him back to where his schoolmates were sitting. I really, really owe her for this.)
At the memory of Shane's theatrics, though, Christian fails to stifle a little smile. "Nothing much. Shane's really funny."
"Yeah, she is," I agree. "She's a good friend. Why didn't you tell me you were having a hard time at school?" How long has the bullying been a problem?
"Because it's not a big deal," my brother groans, rolling onto his side so he doesn't have to face me. "If they see it gets to me, they're going to do it more. If I take the fun out if it, they'll stop eventually."
"Idiots can make their own fun, sadly. Endlessly."
"I don't want to talk about it," Christian snaps. "You don't have to tell me to cheer up, buddy. I'll be fine. Really."
"I wasn't going to do that."
"You always do that." I blink, stunned. "Whenever I'm sad you just start thinking of activities we should go do or or places we should go visit or things we should go buy," he rants, "and it never feels like you want to listen to me. Just go away and let me be sad, okay?"
Sometimes you need to wrap yourself in sadness.
That was what Bay said to me. We were huddled in my blankets, beside the glow of my lamp, voices hushed to avoid waking my housemates in the early morning. I didn't understand her perspective at the time, but now I wish she was whispering into my ear like she did then, softly feeding me threads of advice and wisdom dressed as pillow talk.
"Do you want me to stay?" I whisper.
"No," Christian mumbles, turning to press his face into his pillow.
"Do you want me to go?"
His voice is muffled but audible. "No."
"How about I lie on the carpet?" In complete silence, and I'll keep him company. "Then you don't have to see or hear me until you're ready, but I'll be here."
Christian considers, and then nods once, the ends of his light brown hair splayed on the pillowcase. Sighing, I roll off the bed and arrange myself on the carpet, hands behind my head, one ankle hooked over the other knee.
Staring at the ceiling, I see the pale green fluorescent dinosaur stickers I requested Dad adhere when I was ten years old. This used to be my room when Christian was an infant, when he slept in a crib in my parents' bedroom. Time is moving too quickly.
I think if your family loves you the way you love them, they'd want to share in your burdens.
Christian used to wet the bed, up till age twelve. Up till age six, he was non-verbal. He used to get so mad and hopeless because he was thinking perfectly coherently, six-year-old dreams and emotions and adventures, but we couldn't understand him at all. He's been in so many therapies—speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy—and for the rest of his life, he still will never be able to go on the thrill rides at amusement parts or play contact sports or swim alone.
As his big brother, my goal was always to shift his focus from the shadows to the silver linings, from rain to the rainbows. I didn't want him to dwell in sadness—and maybe when he was younger, this was a valid response. But now I realize we're growing up. He's becoming his own person, expanding the range of his experience. A life without any darkness is not really a full life. His big brother shouldn't bat away all life's challenges for him.
Without a word, Christian reaches his hand over the edge of his bed, and I hold on, squeezing his fingers with mine.
Relief sweeps over me, though it's silly, that he still likes me. I know he loves me, but I want him to like me. He's still my little brother. Just not so little anymore.
All last summer, Christian had been worried about making friends and settling into his new high school, but I can't remember what I said in response, whether I pressed his negative feelings down into the background like I apparently tend to do.
I miss Bay so much. I want her beside me. Sadness has no use, I thought. The best thing to be is so busy that sadness can't reach you. But perhaps my way of seeing the world has its own blind spots. I live like I skateboard; I go so fast that everything in the periphery blurs out.
I feel the thrill and the excitement and the wind on the my face and nothing else can catch up—just the way I like it. Stopping is not fun. Slow is not fun—in fact, it's maddening and depressing. I don't want to feel anything else but up. I suppose there's definitely some complicated family dynamics responsible. But then I met Bay, and she knocked me flat on my back. She challenged everything. She doubted everything.
It hurt at first, of course, and I was winded, forced to look up at the sky. I see stars. Stars make me feel small and insignificant. They remind me of scary things: mortality, smallness, coldness, meaninglessness. But there's the moon. I can stare at it in a way I can't stare at the sun. And the longer I stare the less alone I feel.
Because of her.
I hope if she were here, she'd approve. She'd know the softest things to say, the perfect things to say. If I had her, we could cover each other's blind spots. Gazing up at my dinosaur-dotted ceiling, holding onto my brother's hand like it's a lifeline, clarity strikes me, sharp like a glockenspiel's chime.
I need to see Bay again.
This time, I know exactly what to say.