You Complete Me - 19. Chapter 19 - Crystal

Nic and Shiv walked all the way to the soccer/rugby field at the farthest end of Greendale campus, with Shiv filling up much of the space between them with chatter. The jig was up, so to speak, so Nic grudgingly participated in some of it. Secretly, however, a part of him was relieved: his relationship with Jake – or whatever it was – had become annoyingly difficult to hide.

“Have you gone on any dates yet?” she pressed, as they approached the chalked grass that marked the boundary of the field.

“For the tenth time, it’s just sex, Shiv.”

“Right. So when are you going on a real date with him?”

Nic sighed. “Don’t know. If we pull this off, maybe he’ll take me to prom.”

His sarcasm was completely lost on his friend. Shiv squealed, clutching her hands to her chest. “That would be just precious.”

Nic gladly put some distance between them to scan the field for Jake. The team had separated into two groups, one half doing passing drills on one end of the field and the other half – mostly beefier guys – were doing more physical stuff on the opposite side. A few spectators, all girls, looked on from the bleachers nearest them, and it was easy to see why. Jake was amongst that latter half, currently flipping one of those massive tires that Nic had previously thought people only did in movies. Nic went over to that side for a better look, Shiv at his heels.

They seemed to be doing it relay style, and Jake was leading by a mile. His entire body was glistening with sweat from the unforgiving heat, but he was barely winded. He noticed Nic and hurried to give the tire back to the next person in line, ending the show. He exchanged waves with the girls on the bleachers as he jogged past them on his way to Nic and Shiv.

Shiv and wandered back to Nic’s side and let out a low whistle as they observed Jake approaching them. “I see why you wanted him all to yourself.”

Nic gave her a scathing look, but he didn’t have time to snap at her before Jake had reached them.

Jake grace Nic with a brief, warm smile, but it visibly wilted a little when he turned to Shiv. He clearly hadn’t forgotten about their first and last interaction weeks ago. “Hey, you two. Shiv, right?”

“‘Honorary Sister-in-Law' works, too,” she quipped, deadpan.

Jake just gave her a wide-eyed blink.

“She knows, Jake,” Nic chimed in. He motioned further from the sidelines so they could speak more freely.

“Every dirty little detail,” Shiv said, throwing in a wink.

Nic could see Jake internally panicking, so he hurried to explain. “She figured it out on her own because I asked for her help. My bad – sincerely.” He motioned at Shiv. “Give him the phone so we can get this over with.”

Shiv casually tossed the phone to Jake, who was still flustered, so he fumbled the catch for what was probably the first time in his life. Once he had recovered, he just stared at it, numb. “I didn’t think you’d actually pull this off. I don’t know if I'm more scared or impressed.” Shaking his head, he took a few paces away.

Nic had been prepared to stand and sweat for some time, but Jake returned less than a minute later, an odd look on his face. “Um...I figured it out on the third try.”

“Wait, seriously?” Shiv perked up instantly. “What was it?”

Jake shook his head, keeping his eyes on the screen. “Just a date – doesn't matter. Let’s see here...” He trailed off as he scrolled through something, his thick brows knitting closer together the longer he read. Nic grew alarmed when Jake slowly sank into a crouch on the ground, rubbing his face. “Holy shit.”

Shiv and Nic clamored behind Jake to peek over his shoulders. Shiv gasped, and Nic shook his head. “Holy shit is right...that’s just disgusting.”

Not that Nic had ever doubted what Shiv saw, but no one would be able to argue that whatever was going on between Meg and Neumann was just a rumor after looking at these pictures. Interspersed with many lines of flirty texts between them, the two had also exchanged sexts. There were plenty of dick pics from Neumann – none of which Nic found very impressive and all of which he wished he’d never seen. The ones from Meg were less racy since she was kept her bra and underwear on in most of them, but nonetheless incriminating. Jake kept scrolling all the way up to the oldest message and paused on a date: late summer of that year.

“It’s all right here,” Jake said quietly, still staring at the screen. “She’s been fucking him since before this semester even started.”

“You should send it – ”

“Nic,” Shiv cut across him, her tone uncharacteristically solemn. “Give him a minute, yeah?”

Nic looked down at Jake. He couldn’t see his face, but the big guy seemed to be frozen, his eyes trained to a picture of Meg flashing the camera a nipple, thumb hovering over it. “She sent me this on the same day.”

Sympathetic rage flashed through Nic. He clenched his fists and his jaw as well, so he wouldn’t say anything. It would just be an unhelpful stream of expletives, anyway. He wasn’t the comforting type, but he could tell that Jake didn’t need someone ranting on his behalf at the moment. Shiv, however, placed a hand on Jake’s sweaty shoulder, which seemed to snap him out of it. He looked up at her in surprise; Shiv smiled gently at him, and he returned it.

“I’m fine, really.” He cleared his throat and lurched to his feet. There were still traces of something close to despair on his face, but he was doing a decent job keeping it in check. “What should we do with this?” he asked Nic.

Nic didn’t answer right away. He didn’t like the moment Jake and Shiv just had, and he disliked the obvious hurt Jake was feeling even more. It was a type of hurt that Nic knew he wasn’t equipped to soothe, and that bothered him. “You should send it to yourself,” he said brusquely. “We’ll figure it out from there. Don’t forget to delete the messages afterwards.”

Jake nodded and stepped away again to do that, leaving Shiv and Nic to quietly conspire with each other. “What an awful bitch,” she hissed. “He’s absolutely devastated.”

“It’s a pride thing,” Nic said, some defensiveness creeping into his tone. “He’s over her.”

Shiv gave him a knowing smile. “Of course, Nicky,” she said sweetly. “So what are we going to do with the nudes? Post them on a sock account, maybe?”

“‘We’?”

“Oh, hush, I just stole from a rich brat for you.”

Nic couldn’t really argue with that. “I don’t know. We don’t want it traced back to us, so maybe we could go a bit more old school.” He gazed absently across the field as he thought, and his eyes fell on a distinctive head of flaming hair amongst the other players. He hadn’t talked to Kenny since that awkward encounter at the game, and had frankly forgotten all about it, but the memory came flooding back as he watched him. Along with it came an epiphany of sorts.

“Done.” Jake’s low rumble cut through Nic’s plotting. He walked over to them, still looking thoroughly miserable, and handed the phone back over to Shiv. “You have plenty of time to return it before her practice is over. Thanks again.”

“Any time,” Shiv drawled. “Coming, Nic?”

“Go on without me. I’m going to ask Kenny something.”

“You know Enzo?” Jake queried, frowning.

Nic nodded, already striding away, a man on a mission. “He’s on the newspaper committee, and I might be able to get him to do me a favor.”

***

The end of practice couldn’t come fast enough.

Obviously, his teammates had questions about why Jake was talking to a couple of the school misfits, but he managed to shrug them off. Other than barking orders with less patience than usual, he avoided talking to anyone until Coach Reynolds let them go for the evening. Instead of badly singing or rapping along to whatever was on the radio, he drove home in stiff silence.

The sting of Meg’s first betrayal had just begun to fade, but now Jake had to deal with another. Hearing that she might have been cheating was different than seeing stone cold proof of it. Just when he thought he was over her. He hated her for even unknowingly still having her hooks in him and he hated himself for allowing it. She even had the audacity to use the date he asked her out as her PIN.

When he got home, all Jake wanted to do was brood alone in his bedroom, but his sister had other ideas. Ellie cornered him as he was shrugging off his gym bag by the door. “Good, you’re home. I need you to take me somewhere.”

She had been relying on carpooling and the taking the bus to go to work so she wouldn’t have to bother him too much. Jake gave her a reproachful look but didn’t feel asking questions just yet. “Uh, hello to you, too.”

“Hello. Want to take me on a short trip?”

“Just take my car.”

Her dark eyes widened: Jake never let anyone drive his car. “You feeling okay?” she asked, reaching up to place the back of her hand against his forehead.

The move reminded him so strongly of their mother that he flinched and shook it off. “I’m fine. Adderall crash,” he muttered, tossing her the keys. Maybe someday he could deal with the humiliation of confiding in Ellie about being cheated on, but the wound was too fresh right now.

She nodded in understanding. “Makes sense.” She studied the keys as he began to retreat. “You know I’m not great at stick…and I kind of need an extra set of hands for this.”

Jake paused, gazing into the looming darkness of the hallway, and let out a long sigh “Where do you need to go and why do you have to do it now?”

“The place I was staying at before I turned myself in to you. I need to get the rest of my things.” She bit her lip and looked away.

Jake found her caginess interesting. She was a better liar than him by far, but it was always obvious when she was holding something back. “And why now?”

“The woman that lives there has been…difficult. She doesn’t exactly want me to leave, and she’s been threatening to throw out my shit if I don’t talk to her.” She ran her hand through her hair, clearly embarrassed. “So…some support would be useful.”

The follow-up question came naturally: “Do you owe her something?”

“No, nothing like that, but it’s a long story. Drive me and I’ll fill you in.”

Jake considered it for a bit, this curiosity slowly winning over. It would delay thinking about Megan for at least a little while, and maybe he didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts after all. “Let me take a shower first.”

She seemed exasperated, but Jake didn’t care. He even took his time in the bathroom to spite her a little – after all, he was the one doing her yet another favor.

Ellie’s abandoned Duende was still parked in the garage in front of Bond, its hood still open from the day before. Jake had toyed with it sparingly over the past few days, and besides the massive dent and the need for an oil change, he hadn’t found anything else wrong with it. Still, the engine refused to turn over. Since their father was due to arrive at the end of the week, he had a deadline before he’d be forced to give up. Both Ellie and Jake gave the car a long, scrutinizing look as they passed it.

“No luck with it?”

“I’ll figure it out,” Jake assured her, getting back into his own car.

The place Ellie needed to go was a half hour’s drive to an unfamiliar part of town, which seemed in the general direction of that party house Jake had originally found her. “Pretty far from work,” he noted.

Ellie shrugged. “Only rental I could find for cheap.”

She could have back home much sooner, but Jake knew where Ellie stood on living with their father again. She hadn’t quite forgiven him for the first forced stint in rehab— or the decade of emotional neglect before that, so she’d gone her own way as soon as she finished her program. They hadn’t all lived under the same roof for almost two years, so Jake wasn’t sure how that would pan out. “What’s the story with your…landlord, I guess?”

“She’s more like a roommate. Her name’s Crystal and she owns the house…found her on Craigslist.”

“Sounds a little sketchy.”

“It was, but better than couch hopping, and she passed the vibe check. She’s a weed dealer, and she’s…alright, I guess.” Ellie kept her head turned towards the window so Jake couldn’t read her face.

“Why is she threatening to throw your stuff out? Did you not pay rent before you left?”

“No, nothing like that. I wasn’t actually paying anything for the last month.” She let that sink in before offering more context. “We had…a thing.”

Jake’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh…you’re a prostitute now, too?”

“Fuck off. It wasn’t the original plan and we never shook hands on it or anything…but yes, it was basically sex in exchange for boarding.” She smiled humorlessly at her reflection. “As you’ve probably guessed by now, I relapsed way before that pool party. Crystal offered me a drink after I ran into Stella, and one thing led to another. I didn’t think much of it, but I suspect it was more to her.”

“Why do you think so?”

“She’s been blowing up my phone since I left.”

“Oh,” Jake said again, running out of appropriate reactions. Then something occurred to him, and he frowned. “Did she know you have a problem?”

Ellie hesitated, as if she, too, had only just realized that Crystal may have taken advantage of her weakness after running into her ex-girlfriend. “Yeah, she did. There was usually alcohol in the house, though, and I left it alone. I guess when she passed the bottle to me, something just…gave.”

“That’s still fucked up of her.”

“I suppose so, but one of the first things they teach you in AA is that no one is responsible for your sobriety except you. I shouldn’t have taken it, and then I wouldn’t be constantly dragging mi hermanito into my bullshit.” Her expression had turned wistful.

Jake felt wistful, too, but for different reasons. He didn’t disagree with her, and they drove the rest of the way in silence.

The house they pulled up in front of was not what Jake was expecting. He thought that this Crystal would live in a similarly suburban neighborhood as the party house, but it was the exact opposite. It was a dreary little shack in an even drearier part of town, sitting in a yard that was more dirt than grass. Like something out of a movie, a man with a pit bull straining against a chain leash leered at them as they parked. Jake gave Bond one last, wary look as he followed his sister up the short walkway.

“Let’s make this quick,” he suggested.

Ellie grunted a sound of assent and banged on the door. It took several more rounds of knocking before the door finally cracked open.

A woman – Crystal, Jake surmised – stood at the entryway. The first thing that he noticed was that she much older than Ellie, by at least ten years. The second thing he noticed was the strong scent of alcohol and cigarette smoke wafting off of her. She swayed lightly as she glared at Ellie. “About damn time.”

Ellie sighed. “I didn’t say when I was coming, Crystal. I need my stuff.”

“Why? You’re not moving back in?”

“I never said that, either. Now are you going to let me in or cause a scene?”

The two stared each other down for a moment until Jake couldn’t take it anymore. “We’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes, ma’am.” He even turned on his winning smile, since it usually worked on difficult customers.

Crystal turned her glassy blue stare on him, seemingly noticing that he was there for the first time. “One – you’re barking up the wrong tree,” she spat. “And two: who the fuck are you calling ‘ma’am’?”

“Easy,” Ellie snapped at once. “He’s just a kid.”

“‘Kid’?” Jake echoed, losing the smile in an instant.

Ellie ignored him. “He agreed to help me out and he has homework to do, so let’s wrap this up, alright?” She gave Crystal a pleading look.

Crystal’s eyes flicked back and forth between them for a moment before finally acquiescing. She opened the door wider and waved her hand impatiently inside.

The house was cramped and dark, and the smell of stale cigarettes was even stronger. It was full of open boxes that were shoved to the periphery of the rooms. “Moving soon?” Jake asked conversationally.

“Nope,” Crystal said flatly. She flopped onto a couch that actually emitted dust and lit a fresh cigarette, which she waved in Ellie’s direction. “You know where your room is, make sure everything’s there.”

There was a half-empty liquor bottle on the floor near her. Ellie’s eyes lingered on for a moment before she seemed to snap herself out of it. She grabbed Jake’s arm, almost desperately. “Come on.”

She took him a short distance away to another, tiny room in the house. It was piled with boxes, and Jake knew there was no way Ellie had accumulated that much stuff in the short time she’d been out of rehab. Crystal had apparently turned her room into storage in the two weeks she had been gone. Ellie seemed to realize this too, grumbling to herself as she started to sift through the junk.

The room was windowless and even darker than the rest of the house, but when Jake tried the light switch, it didn’t work. Shrugging, he wandered into the room, curiously looking into the boxes. They mostly contained folders, holiday décor, and other random objects. “How can I help?”

“You already have.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Just you being here helped. She would have been a lot more difficult if I came alone.” Ellie pushed a box against the wall, revealing a small dresser that was hiding behind it. She started pulling clothes out of it. “I didn’t have much, so this will only take a minute.”

Jake found the barely-visible bed, shoved some newspapers aside to make himself comfortable, and took out his phone. He almost went to his gallery on pure muscle memory, likely to brood over those pictures and get depressed, but he just managed to catch himself. If he wanted to feel sorry for himself, he could have easily done that at home in the privacy of his own room. Instead, Jake redirected to Instagram, and very predictably to Nic’s page from there on. That usually cheered him up, and this time was no different. The most recent upload there was from the night of his game, judging by the makeup Nic was showing off. Jake smiled a little at the memory, then glanced over at Nic’s art page.

The sulky artist had been more active on this one, uploading to his story every few days. As Ellie noisily tossed things into a duffle bag across the room, Jake got lost in Nic’s art for the next few minutes. One that gave him pause was a monochromatic sketch of meaty, clawed hands wrapped around someone’s throat. It didn’t look like Nic’s other work; it was done in a more heavy-handed, abstract way, with harsh outlines. The description simply said, “Not for sale.” The longer Jake looked at it, the more uneasy he felt until he set his phone aside.

“Ya terminaste?” he called to his sister.

Ellie straightened up with a sigh, hands on her hips. “Soon. I’m just looking for Mom’s…”

She trailed off midsentence, her eyes fixed over Jake’s shoulder. He followed her gaze and jumped when he saw Crystal standing silently in the doorway to the room. She looked more frazzled than she had when they first arrive; her long, unbrushed hair was free, her eyes were bloodshot, and in one fist she clutched a cross on a delicate, silver chain. Similar to the one Jake always wore, he recognized it from their mother’s old jewelry box.

Crystal lifted it dramatically for the siblings to see, as if she didn’t already have their attention. “You left this in my room last time you were here,” she announced.

Jake gave her a bewildered look, then turned to Ellie for her reaction. His sister appeared calm, but he saw tension in her shoulders. “Thanks for finding it,” she said coldly, stepping over the junk to approach the woman. “Now hand it over so I can go.”

As Ellie reached for the chain, Crystal yanked it just out of reach, so violently that she stumbled back into the hallway. “Not until you talk to me and tell me what I did to make you leave,” she demanded.

Ellie let out a bark of bitter laughter. “You’re really going to hold my dead mother’s necklace hostage and ask me that question?”

“You always answer questions with questions!” Crystal blurted out, swinging the cross wildly. With every passing second, she was sounding and acting much younger than she looked. “Just be honest with me for once, Ellie.”

Ellie pointed a rigid finger at Jake, who was still quietly watching the confrontation with great interest. “I was out of control and my baby brother had to drag me out of it. And it’s because of you!”

So much for sobriety not being anyone’s responsibility but the addict’s, Jake thought, annoyed at being thrown under the bus. Crystal was giving him a look of pure venom, as if he were the cause of everything wrong in her life. “She doesn’t have a problem,” she hissed.

“I…don’t think that’s your call to make. Ma’am.” As soon as he said it, Jake knew he should have kept that last little dig to himself.

Ellie had looked back at Jake, probably to admonish him, but turning away from Crystal proved to be a mistake. She lunged at her, her arms outstretched and fingers clawed, and for a heartbeat Jake wasn’t sure if the woman was trying to hug Ellie or strangle her. He was frozen in indecision as a brief struggle took place: Ellie grunted when Crystal made contact, but she was able to easily shove her hands away. Crystal kept trying though, until she managed to grab a healthy chunk of Ellie’s hair and steer her back into the hallway.

“Get her off of me!” Ellie shrieked as the two women crashed onto the floor just outside the door. Jake was already on his feet and across the small room in several strides, ready to grab a limb if needed.

Crystal had hit the floor first and Ellie was on top, but the advantage ended there. The older woman now had both hands in Ellie’s hair, clutching her head to her chest, and Ellie was holding onto her wrists to keep her from pulling. Crystal was yelling and crying about needing Ellie in her life, her face red and shiny with tears and snot. Jake didn’t know what he could do to pry them apart without potentially scalping his sister, so he reached down and tried pull apart Crystal’s fingers.

“Let her go!” he shouted at her.

Ellie, shockingly, sounded very calm. “Crystal, don’t make me hurt you.”

“You already have!” Crystal shrieked at full volume. With their heads only inches apart, Jake recoiled a little.

Her face was still pressed against Crystal’s chest, so Jake couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard Ellie sigh. Then she let go of Crystal’s wrist and punched her square in the nose.

Jake wasn’t exactly surprised – he'd seen his sister in enough drunken catfights to know she could hold her own – but she definitely hadn’t held back this time. It ended the struggle rather abruptly. Crystal instantly let go and went limp, a trickle of blood running out of her nostril.

Ellie rolled off of her, panting, while Jake grabbed the woman by the shoulders and frantically shook her. “Shit, did you kill her?”

“No,” Ellie snapped. “She’s just drunk and being a fucking drama queen.”

Jake gaped at his sister, alarmed at her callousness, until he felt Crystal’s hand on his arm and jerked away from her. She lay on the floor, muttering incoherently and feeling her nose. As she started to roll over, Jake scrambled to his feet, fearing he would become the next target, but the woman just lay still, breathing deeply. He waved his hand in front of her face.

“I think she’s out.”

Ellie walked over to them and crouched by Crystal. Her hair was a bird’s nest, and up close, Jake could see some red welts on her neck, but she seemed more annoyed than anything else. She examined Crystal for a moment, then sighed again, the motion slumping her shoulders. “Help me get her into bed,” she commanded.

Her voice had taken on a bossy tone that she hadn’t used since they were kids, so Jake was compelled to obey despite wanting nothing more than to go home and forget any of the last hour had taken place. Reluctantly, he reached down and hooked his hands under Crystal’s armpits, and quickly realized that this wasn’t a two-person job. She was tall, but built rather delicately; he shoed Ellie away from her feet, readjusted his grip, and scooped Crystal up with ease.

Other than quietly groaning, she didn’t stir, completely limp in his arms and stinking of alcohol. It was almost as if she had soaked her clothes in it. Grimacing, he followed Ellie back into the bedroom and dropped her on the bed. As soon as his arms were free, he hugged himself against a sudden chill. This scenario was too familiar.

Ellie may have been thinking the same thing. She stood at the foot of the bed, her expression grim. “I guess we should go.”

Jake couldn’t agree more, but he didn’t move at first. “Is she going to be okay?”

Ellie waved dismissively, returning to her duffle bag. “I’ll call her boyfriend before we go.” She sensed Jake’s surprise without looking at him, and tossed, “They’re poly or something,” over her shoulder.

Her bag had nearly been full when Crystal first started bothering them, so it wouldn’t take long. While Ellie wrapped up her packing, Jake rolled Crystal over onto her side without a second thought. It was instinctive. He’d even found himself doing it to random friends that passed out at house parties, drunk himself, and got teased for it if the recipient happened to wake up. He hadn’t known that someone could be drunk enough to choke on their own vomit until he had to dig chunks out of Ellie’s throat once, and the memory was still fresh. She hadn’t remembered it the next morning, and he never told her.

Jake found Ellie’s cross necklace on the floor in the hallway, and kept walking, all the way back to Bond, where he sat and waited for her. He was so deep in his thoughts that he jumped when Ellie knocked on the window to be let in several minutes later.

Ellie threw her duffle bag into the backseat, then climbed into the car herself. “You forgot your phone,” she said, offering it to him.

“You forgot your necklace,” Jake returned, and they exchanged them.

“Amos doesn’t live far away, so we should go.”

“Amos?” The name sounded a little familiar, but Jake couldn’t place it.

“The boyfriend. He’s kind of a dick, so I’d rather not stick around – there he is.” She motioned at the rearview mirror, where a beat-up pickup truck rounded the corner. “Let’s go,” she insisted.

Jake shrugged and started the car. They pulled away as the truck parked behind them. Jake tried to see who the driver was in the hopes it would jog his memory, but he didn’t get out until they were already some distance away. He let it go with a small huff and refocused on the long drive back home.

Jake wasn’t in much of a talking mood, but Ellie seemed to want him to be. He felt her eyes on him several times, anticipating him to break the tension, but he wasn’t giving in. She even started making irreverent conversation about other topics as the minutes dragged, but after the second or third time he answered with a noncommittal shrug, she punched him in the shoulder.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“Punch buggy.”

“Ellie, I’m driving,” Jake whined, switching hands on the wheel to rub his stinging arm. “Fuck, you hit hard. What are you, ten?”

“Thought it would make you stop sulking.”

“I’m not…sulking.”

“You’re holding your jaw in that way you do when you’re sulking.” She reached over and Jake braced himself, but this time she just rubbed his tender arm. “I know that was a lot, with Crystal,” she said, softly. “I didn’t know she was going to be like that, I swear.”

“I thought you getting sober meant I wouldn’t have to…” Jake trailed off, gesturing vaguely.

“Have to what?”

“You said it earlier. Get dragged into your bullshit.” Ellie took her hand back, but Jake didn’t care. He was finally letting himself get pissed. “I don’t like dealing with people that drunk. It reminds me of you.”

Jake was ready for a fight, even wanted it. But instead of matching his anger, Ellie seemed to shrink into herself. She didn’t answer at first, and when he glanced over at her, she had retreated as far from him as she could get, against the passenger door. “I’m not like her,” she said quietly, her voice breaking a little.

In a flash, Jake simmered down. He had always been weak for tears, particularly from his sister, who almost never cried. But he wasn’t going to backtrack. “You have been like that. And luckily for you, you don’t remember.”

“Look, I feel like shit for putting you through all of that, but I can’t promise it won’t happen again in the future. That’s why I didn’t come back home right away.”

“So you’d drink yourself to death alone?” Jake asked sardonically.

Ellie cringed, but she didn’t deny it. “I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“Then don’t!”

“It’s not that easy,” she sighed. “You don’t get it, and I don’t want you to get it, ever. It’s my problem. So can you just accept my apology for sucking at the big sister thing for the last few years and we drop it for now, por favor?”

“I was minding my own business until you punched me,” Jake grumbled. “By the way – ” Swiftly, he struck her in the arm, with quite a bit more mercy than she had offered him the last time. “Punch buggy, don’t punch back. We’re even now.”

Ellie was rubbing her shoulder, but she was smiling again. “I am really sorry, though.”

“I thought we were dropping it.”

“We are. What was eating you earlier? You were doing the sulky thing before we went to Crystal’s, too. Is it Meg again?”

Jake gave his sister a long, considering look, somber again. Until they became teenagers, he’d confided in her about a lot of things; then he met Luke, who more or less took that role. When Ellie was sober, he still wanted to trust her like that again, but high school politics and dirty pictures his ex sent another boy seemed miniscule after dealing with Crystal. Besides, his bitterness and hurt over Meg had faded over the last few hours – it was no longer at the forefront of his mind. Jake wanted to tell his sister something that truly mattered, something that he hadn’t even admitted to himself yet.

The words simply tumbled out. “I think I’m falling for a guy.”

He immediately turned back to the road, as if he could somehow escape the confession, but not before he saw Ellie blink and nod once. “Oh…okay.”

Her utter lack of surprise was anticlimactic, and frankly a bit insulting. “Just… ‘okay’?”

She nodded again, more emphatically, as if it made perfect sense that her brother, who was somewhat infamous for making numerous rounds about the Glendale High female population, was falling for a guy. “Yeah, what am I supposed to say?”

“I don’t know, but I expected more of a reaction. This has been kind of eating at me, you know.”

“Why?” Ellie was trying not to smile.

“I’ve only ever been with girls before.”

“No, why has it been eating at you?”

Jake was quiet for a moment, not because he didn’t know the answer to her question but because he didn’t like the answer that first came to mind. “It’s weird, I guess,” he admitted. “I don’t know what this means for me.”

“Jake, if you’re wondering if you’re gay, I’m living proof that there’s a middle ground,” Ellie told him, gently, as if she was talking to a small child. “It’s 2022. Gender isn’t real anyways.”

“Right,” Jake muttered, his mind wandering. She had misunderstood. Now that he had acknowledged his growing feelings for Nic, he felt far from relieved. Until now, he had been quite content shoving the implications of their relationship to the side; all that mattered was that it felt good. When it had been just sex, he didn’t have to worry about the long-term implications.

Feelings complicated things. Would he have to “come out”? He didn’t even want to speculate on how his father would react. And would any of this matter if the feelings weren’t reciprocated? Nic seemed to be warming up to him lately, but Jake still got the impression that the guy barely tolerated him when they weren’t fucking.

“So, who is the lucky fella?”

Jake snapped out of his thoughts – he had almost forgotten his sister was even in the car. “It’s Nic Matheson. Luke’s cousin.”

Ellie frowned; interestingly, that was the most emotive she’d been so far. “The one that moved here over the summer? I think I remember Luke saying he gets into trouble a lot.”

“He mostly keeps to himself,” Jake said, a bit defensively. “Kind of antisocial, actually.”

“Alright, easy. How did you end up falling for him?”

Jake felt the beginnings of a blush. “It’s a long story.”

“Are you going to tell Dad?”

“No! He doesn’t need to know about every single person I’ve hooked up with.” Jake shifted gears a little forcefully as they finally turned onto their street.

Ellie perked up. “Oh, you’ve already hooked up with Nic?”

Jake tensed as the blush deepened and chose not to answer. Ellie giggled at him, but she let it go.

As they neared the house, an immaculately-kept, sleek black Lexus came into view, taking up the space behind Ellie’s wrecked car under the carport. Jake and Ellie noticed it at nearly the same time.

“Shit,” they said in unison.

Samwell had come home early.