IX
Jonathan absently flicked through the mail with one hand as he slurped a glass of juice from the other. Dad, dad, junk mail, dad... hey, that was a new one. "Jed!" he yelled into the next room. "You got a letter!"
Jed came through with a surprised frown. "For me?"
"Yeah," Johnny shrugged, holding it out to him without looking. "Don't recognise the writing."
He took it, and frowned. "Me neither." He reached across the table for the butter knife and slitted it open.
"Hey! That's for my breakfast, not your letter-opening, buddy."
Jed shrugged disinterestedly, and started to read the letter. He broke into a smile, and dropped into the nearest chair to continue reading. Jonathan watched with growing fascination as the smile spread; Jed had been miserable through the whole holiday, hardly a surprise when you considered what he'd revealed on his first day back. Dad had declared, in typical "Spare me the details" fashion, that Jed was going to go back to college and do better, and that was all there was to it. His brother hadn't admitted that he was actually thinking of dropping out, and Jonathan wasn't about to spill it. He and Jed fought all the time and over everything, but there were lines he would never, ever cross.
It was bitterly ironic, really; Jonathan suspected that he hated their father far more than Jed would ever bring himself to. He hated being the favoured son, hated that it was always Jed his father had to take down, hated that he could never truly bridge the gap between the two of them because of that distinction. He knew Jed was never anything but glad that his father's wrath landed only on his own shoulders... But Johnny hated it.
It was almost as if by sparing him, his father made him an accomplice. He'd rather be a victim than a bystander; the witness who saw it all, but did nothing to stop it. There was nothing he could do to stop it, and no way to ever bury the memory of too many nights with the covers drawn over his head, trying to block out the shouts - and worse - from the next room.
But now... Jed was smiling. Not the bitter smile, either, or the sad one, or even the one that passed for cheerful if you didn't look too closely. The real one. He hadn't seen his brother look that honestly delighted since before their mother had died.
He waited impatiently for his brother to get to the end of the letter. "Well?" he demanded. "Who's it from?"
Jed looked up, as if he'd almost forgotten he was alone in the room. "My friend Abbey," he said, and there was a strange, almost awed tone in his voice when he said the name.
"Abbey?" He narrowed his eyes. "Now that's a funny name for a boy."
Jed gave him a look. "That's because she's not."
Jonathan laughed aloud. "You know a girl?" he sniggered.
"I know lots of people," Jed shrugged defensively.
"But a girl. Abbey..." he mimicked and exaggerated his brother's wondering tone.
"Shut up." Jed glared balefully, and Jonathan leapt to his feet, grinning.
"Let me see that." He grabbed for the letter.
"Hey! Hey." Jed yanked it away from him, and folded it hurriedly to thrust it safely away in a pocket. Jonathan smirked in equal parts amusement and disbelief.
"Oh my God, you've got a girlfriend!"
"I do not!"
"You've got a girlfriend!"
"Johnny!" he yelled, going red in the face with embarrassed frustration.
Oh, this was just too good to be true. "Jed's in lo-oove," he sang out delightedly.
"Shut up, Johnny."
"You are. You so are. Admit it. You're in love with this Abbey girl."
Jed folded his arms. "I'm not," he insisted, pouting.
"You are! And she wrote you a letter. That's so cute!"
"Johnny! I-" Jed broke off, abruptly, and a shadow of something like fear passed momentarily over his face. Stomach suddenly lurching, Jonathan turned to see his father in the doorway.
He spared not so much as a glance for his younger son. "Jed," he said, and Johnny shivered at the coldness in that single syllable.
Jed slowly straightened up. "Sir, I-"
"In the study," his father said firmly.
Jed stood and just breathed for a short moment, and then he walked past Johnny and his father and out towards the study. The door closed as his father followed him, and Johnny stared at it for a moment, feeling sick.
Half of his breakfast was still untouched, but he suddenly had no stomach for it. He scraped it into the trash out in the kitchen, and ran the plate and glass under the water mechanically, staring out of the window without actually looking.
On his way to the bedroom he shared with Jed during the holidays, he had to pass the study. The murmur of voices was low enough that he couldn't make out the words, but he quickened his step as he passed in anyway.
Back in his room he lay stiffly on the bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
When things started to get noisy, he turned over and pulled the pillow over his head.
Jed moved with cautious slowness. For the moment, his back felt blessedly numb, but he knew it couldn't last for nearly long enough. It was going to be a blaze of white-hot agony come nightfall.
Johnny didn't look at him as he headed back into the bedroom. He lowered himself slowly onto the bed, trying not to wince and not quite succeeding. He raised his hands very gradually to lock them behind the back of his neck.
The small of his back was starting to throb already. He pretended it wasn't. He closed his eyes against the blurry haze of colours that warned he'd edged too close to passing out.
He wasn't used to this, anymore. In fact, he'd been foolish enough to believe that maybe he'd left it behind. But no, why should he have? What did it matter that he was a man now? That didn't really mean anything.
Jed didn't bother to chase thoughts of injustice through his head. It had made him angry, to hear his father reinvent the world as if Abbey was some kind of evil tramp and temptress, luring him away from his studies to embarrass his father. But he'd known for a long time that it wasn't really anything to do with what he did... just what he was.
He was himself. And that was what his father hated.
He heard the springs on the other bed as Johnny shifted position. He wanted to speak, Jed recognised it in the tenor of the silence, but as usual he said nothing. After a few moments, Jed heard him sigh softly to himself.
This was a familiar silence, but not a comfortable one. Too many school days, when he'd defied his father's word or talked too long and too loud about things his father didn't want to hear from him. Too many nights at the dinner table, when he could feel his mother and his brother tense to either side of him, but he still just couldn't stay silent.
Maybe it would have been better if he'd learned to stop himself from speaking out.
And maybe it wouldn't have made any difference at all.
It was becoming too uncomfortable to lie still. He pulled his knees up and squirmed up into a sitting position. Johnny looked across at him, and then quickly looked away. And Jed wanted to say something to him, but he never had before, so he didn't know how to start now.
He watched the dust motes move in the stream of soft sunlight from the window by his head. The air was cold; it would probably snow later. He remembered the winter when he was nine, when the roads had all been too icy for anyone to drive, and he and his father had walked all the way into town together while mom stayed at home with Johnny. They'd just walked, and neither of them had said anything, and when they'd got to the point across the fields where his legs were no match for the depth of the snow there, his father had picked him up and carried him.
Later, there had been the point when he'd amused all the people in the store with words that were too big for a nine-year-old, and the punishment that had come after... But it was the walk he always remembered.
Jonathan shifted again, and then got up in a hasty twang of springs and padded across the floor. He hesitated in the doorway, and Jed met his eyes.
Johnny opened his mouth to speak, stopped himself, and looked at the floor for the moment.
"It was a nice letter, huh?" he asked, finally. It hadn't been what he was going to say.
Jed allowed himself to smile softly. "Yeah."
Johnny's fingers wandered absently up and down the doorframe as he lingered. He pointedly vaguely out of the doorway. "I'm gonna go-"
"Yeah."
"Is she really your girlfriend?" he suddenly asked.
He shook his head slowly. "No."
Johnny nodded to himself for a few moments. "Okay."
Jed lowered himself back down onto the bed as his brother left. He thought again of Abbey's letter, and a small smile crossed his features.
But I wish she was, he whispered, in the confines of his own head.