Levi was surprised by how much better he already felt.
Mrs. Michaels hadn’t laughed or scoffed or told him it was just a phase and that what he was feeling was perfectly natural for someone his age.
Instead, she’d nodded and listened as all of his craziest, most frightened thoughts poured out of him. How angry he’d been when Corban tried to show him their father’s darkest fantasies. How isolated he’d felt as his parents’ marriage fractured under the stress of Mom’s career and Dad’s murderous fantasies. How betrayed he’d felt when Kari turned their family into pariahs to save her father — and how everyone around him crumpled rather than fighting it.
Most of all, how much he hated himself for being just like his father, hated that he couldn’t seem to help hurting everyone around him.
“I’m the worst kind of asshole,” he’d told her.
“You’ve definitely got some apologizing to do,” she replied with a smile that lifted his heart, because if she could listen to all that and think there was hope for him, maybe there was. “And you can’t make people forgive you. You have to give them time. It’s probably going to be hard for a while.”
He could do hard, if that meant things would get better. “Where do I start?”
“Corban.” She said it like it was the obvious answer. “He needs to hear you say that he was right.”
“I already said that.”
“You told him you were sorry you didn’t believe him when he was snooping on your father’s tablet?”
Uh …
“No, not that.”
“That’s what started the original fight, wasn’t it?”
She was right. This had been going on for nearly a year now.
“Okay.” He smiled, for the first time in months.
Mrs. Michaels smiled back at him. “If you want to come back and tell me how it went, I’ll be here.”
But what seemed so simple in her office was harder in practice. Corban avoided him at school, and when Levi cornered his brother on the way to gym class, he’d shunned him, acting as if he couldn’t see or hear his twin.
Now, as he stood in the open doorway of Corban’s room, Levi wondered what he could do to make his brother listen.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, for the dozenth time.
“I don’t care that you’re sorry. Fuck you and your sorry. Fuck you and Pussabo and Elliot and Dane. Fuck everyone. You’re just like him!”
“Who?” But Levi knew.
“You only care about yourself, and what other people think about you. You only care about being funny, not who you might hurt along the way. Get out of my room.”
Levi winced. Corban wasn’t wrong, that’s exactly how he’d been. But he wanted to be different.
If only he could make Corban talk to Mrs. Michaels. He’d left her office feeling hopeful. And heard. She hadn’t forced him to do anything, she’d just listened to his words and acknowledged his pain. She hadn’t told him what to feel or think, or …
That’s what he had to do.
“You’re mad at me,” he said.
Corban gave him a have you not been paying attention? look that could have fried an egg, before pointedly returning his attention to his phone.
“You’re so mad that just seeing my face makes your insides feel like they’re on fire.”
Now he had Corban’s full attention.
“Mom and Dad let you down, but it’s easier to forgive them. No one’s parents really get them.”
Corban eyed Levi like he was a snake about to strike. But he was listening, and that was enough.
“When you found that stuff on Dad’s tablet, you expected me to believe you. Instead, I dumped all over you because I was afraid to hear it. You were freaked out, and if I read it, I would have to freak out too.”
The muscles at the sides of Corban’s jaw bulged, but still he said nothing.
Levi took a deep breath. “I’m your brother. I should’ve believed you. You have every right to be mad.”
“Fuck you.” Corban looked like he wanted to jump off the bed and smash Levi’s face in.
“If you want to be mad at me for the rest of our lives … I’d hate it, but I get it.”
“I was right. Our father is sick, and I knew it, and we might’ve been able to do something about it if …” He looked down at his phone, blinking hard. “I should’ve gone to the police. Maybe those people wouldn’t have died.”
“No, if anything, that’s on me.”
“I found it first—”
“No, I already knew. I just didn’t want to admit it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Months before you—” He’d been about to say snooping. “—before you realized something was wrong with Dad, I went into Mom’s office, when she wasn’t there.”
Corban’s jaw dropped. “You what?”
“I found this box with a few red journals in it.”
“You knew?” Levi’s brother leapt off the bed, fists clenched. “You knew Dad was The Virgin?”
Levi raised both hands as if in surrender. “I had no idea who Mom was writing about. Or that Dad was one of her patients.”
“But when I found what Dad wrote—”
“I still have nightmares about some of the stuff I read in those journals. The idea that Dad might be sick that way too … I couldn’t take it.” Levi lowered his hands, held them out toward his brother in supplication. “If I read the stuff you found, I’d have to believe it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the journals?” Corban was blinking again.
Levi pretended not to notice. “I should have.”
“I would’ve believed you.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry.” Corban took a deep breath. “I don’t know if I can forgive you for what you did to Kari.”
“It was inexcusable.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“I’m going to apologize to her, for everything. In public, where everyone can see. So she knows I mean it.” And … “She doesn’t have to accept it, but she deserves to see me grovel.”
“Yeah, she does.” Corban sighed. “Get out.”
That was it? “But—”
Corban was off his bed and marching toward the closet. He flung it open, rooted around inside, and emerged a few seconds later holding a bat. And then he screamed, “Get the fuck out of my room right now!”
“What the hell is going on in here?” Their father was suddenly standing in the doorway, looking stern. As though he had the right.
Corban raised the bat over his head, and for a moment Levi actually thought he might charge their father. But instead he lowered it without a word and stood there snarling like a bull, staring at the man in the doorway.
Levi cleared his throat. “We were just figuring a few things out.”
“I could hear that. Wanna talk about it?”
Together, the twins said, “No.”
Dad continued, trying to make something better when he was clearly only capable of making everything worse. He turned to Levi.
“If this is about Kari, Corban has a right to be upset, so maybe you should—”
Corban interrupted. “Are you kidding?”
Dad looked almost comically surprised. Levi had to stifle a laugh, despite the tension. Or maybe because of it.
“What do you mean? I’m trying to help.”
“You’re not helping anything,” Corban said. “It’s too late for that.”
“But—”
Corban looked at Levi. For support?
He could do that. “Get out of his room, Dad.”
“This is my house.”
Levi walked over to his father, looked him in the eyes without any apology, and slammed Corban’s door in his face.
Then he turned to his brother and dissolved into laughter as Corban dropped the bat and flopped backward onto the bed. Laughing with him.
For the first time in what felt like forever.
“Can you believe him?” Levi asked, desperately clinging to whatever this was.
“Haven’t been able to for a while.” Corban looked as uncertain as Levi felt. What now?
“Do you want me to go too?” Levi asked.
His brother hesitated, then shook his head. Although he didn’t say he wanted Levi to stay.
But he did.
Levi was afraid that he might do something stupid to pop this brittle, beautiful bubble. “Can you believe we were raised by The Virgin?”
“Ugh. I hate that word, at least in that context.”
Levi looked at his brother, almost didn’t dare to say it, then decided that they weren’t going to get back to where they needed to be unless they started sharing again. Preferably something positive.
So he asked, “But you and Kari … right?”
For the first time, Corban’s face cracked into a wide and unrestricted smile. “Yep.”
“And?”
Corban laughed. “You know.”
Levi laughed too. He did. And that was enough for now.