Thirty Two Faces - 11. Brave

The night gets colder in Eden as the fire flickers. There aren’t many dried twigs and branches left to feed the dying flames. We huddle up close, spooning each other for warmth instead. I think about what he had said earlier, about us having to end things here when it is clear that there is no way for us to live together.

Perhaps he wants to spare me the pain of longing and wondering when the next time we will meet or live together again. Or maybe he is trying to find a merciful way to end things gently. I’m dying to know but dreading to find out at the same time. He can easily crush me with his words.

I wonder how to stop loving a person just like that. Pull the plug on the life support when the doctors declare all hope is lost? It must be something that only normal people can do. They say things like ‘move on’ or ‘get a grip’, as if people are easily replaceable spare parts of a car.

“You’ll find someone else.” He forces himself to smile. He looks away, eyes vacant and says softly, “One day you’ll look back and laugh at yourself for feeling so sappy over this.”

If only I could believe him. I want to. He doesn’t even look convinced himself.

Perhaps his words are meant like a surgical blade, to remove a tumor – cold, clean, sterile – but without anesthesia. No comforting words, no gentle preamble. Just a direct, straight-in-your-face statement like in an old Western showdown.

My brother understands me well. I won’t get the message if it’s delivered through innuendo and subtlety.

But I’d rather he’d say that we have to stop making love because Mom will be heartbroken; that, I can understand. It gives me room to think that he’s reluctant, and the possibility of him being torn apart inside still remains.

Or he can simply tell me he’s done being ‘vegan’. That’s how he describes ‘boobless sex’ with me when I ask him how it is different from girls. At least my mind will not run endless calculations of could’ve beens, would’ve beens and should’ve beens.

“Oh, Jesus. You make me sound like a jerk.” He shakes his head and looks down.

“But you said you missed the meat racks.”

"It’s a joke," he says, throwing up his hands.

Then he sees the disbelief in my eyes, and sighs, "Ok, it's not."

His brows clench and eyes close for a moment. When he opens them again, he explains to me slowly, “What I’m saying is that being with you makes me feel clean and good, like fresh salads. You are very sweet, much more than I deserve.”

"What does that mean, Samuel?"

"It means I don't want us to end this if I can help it. But we're on the way to breaking many people's hearts, including yours."

Things can be complicated when you’re in love with your brother. As a lover, you want to profess undying love and eternal loyalty. But as a brother, you look for guidance – how to survive this heartbreak intact and move on.

Samuel’s love for me is like Dad’s old glasses. When the light shines through them, it splits into a spectrum with layers of colors. Samuel says it’s complicated.

But we have all night, and I want to hear from him how he truly feels about me. He is frank but sensitive when he describes his feelings towards me.

Part of what he says comes from our shared history of growing up together. It’s good in a sense, because things feel very comfortable and playful between us. No pressure and drama, which is refreshing for him.

Part of it comes from the thrill of sexual experimentation; the forbidden taboo makes it raunchy, but our bond makes it sweet. It has its chemistry, though it’s not like live wires all the time. The fact that our parents could climb up to our balcony from the sun deck makes the whole clandestine sex sizzle up a few notches. The whole idea of us versus the world when we dare each other to hold hands in public makes it kind of romantic, too. He’s the kind of guy who gets hard from taunting a wild grizzly.

But above all, and underlying all this, he loves me like a brother. His brotherly instincts kick in when he starts to worry about how to protect me from the heartbreak, how to move on and find someone else. Listening to his guidance, to war stories of surviving breakups, to advice on finding my next true love: all of them feel like listening to him scratching the chalkboard with his nails.

“Talk about conflict of interest.” He sighs with an ironic smile on his face, like a dentist treating his son with sweets and then sending him to the dental chair.

Samuel says I should choose who I fall in love with carefully. Some people can make you feel wanted and loved, while other people can crush your sense of worth.

If they treat you like a piece of meat, you may end up believing that you are unlovable even though they are important to you. Some people try to convince themselves that they’re loveable by sleeping with many people. But they are just addicts, filling up a bottomless pit, trading their bodies for false intimacy. Even when they leave abusive persons, they will still find someone who treats them badly. This is because they don’t believe they’re loveable anymore. And we choose to love those who we think we deserve.

“Remember that, Babe. When someday, someone wants to sleep with you, don’t rush it.”

I feel awkward listening to Samuel talking about me loving someone else even though I know he is watching out for me.

His conflicted face tells me this is one of the difficult but unavoidable heart-to-heart talks. It’s just like many parents finding it difficult to talk about sex with their children, and vice versa. Which is why, the whole burden of my sex education has been entrusted to my brother: Mom asked Dad to talk to me about my cum-spraying habits. Dad just asked me to stay away from the furniture and then asked Samuel to elaborate.

“They should give me an award for going the extra mile.”

My brother and I snigger at the irony. And I add a plaque for dedication and long service. He throws in a war decoration for surviving the tiny rabbit hole. We roll over and laugh.

Then he sits up and gets almost serious.

“Let’s forget we just fucked like rabbits and pretend I’m nothing but your bossy big brother now.”

“Okay.” I smile and sit up as well.

I don’t have to pretend, because he never stops being the bossy big brother to begin with. And I love to follow him around because he always shows me interesting things. But this time he’s not bringing me to a new playground, he’s showing me how to get out of the one I’m in without getting broken.

For the next hour or so, I hear him talk about his romantic history – from his first sexual experience to his first heartbreak.

When you make love, you tell the other person a secret about yourself: how you really feel and how much you care. If the person is special, they keep your secret, are gentle with it, and they will tell you theirs. Even if the person leaves eventually, you can recover from the pain, because they haven’t made you feel worthless.

That’s why he says I shouldn’t rush into sex, because I’m not like a normal boy, and I can get hurt easily if the other person isn’t honest, chooses to lie or doesn’t even know what they want. He says that even normal people get fooled easily.

“How can a person not know what they want?” I ask. It’s not like you have to read your own face to know what you feel.

“There are many layers to our motivations, Babe. The top layer you see may not be the only one or even the main one.”

Just like a tiramisu cake. There are layers of sponge, of mascarpone, of cream, and of coffee liquor; you can’t tell them apart when you take a bite. Just like how I need to break my feelings down systematically when I write in my journal. And as he speaks, I think of my brother’s love like a tiramisu cake – rich, sweet and with many, many layers.

“The first time I fell in love at sixteen, it was like lightning and a storm. I felt I could do anything, and I would do anything for her,” he says.

He smiles when I tell him I know what he means.

“Then I find my best friend making out with her at her own birthday party. And I never had a close friend after that.”

“Were they making love or fucking?” I ask.

I am not clear about when you are supposed to feel jealous if your partner has sex with someone else. Samuel has a girlfriend in college yet he’s still sleeping with other girls and me. It’s so hard to keep track of what’s acceptable.

He says life is complicated, and the things we do are never completely right or wrong. We just need to follow our guts and conscience and then live with the consequences. But in Samuel’s case, he felt wronged by his friend and his first love.

“I thought I deserved it; I was no better than she was.”

He says that the boys in his high-school football team kept score of how many cheerleaders they slept with. They’d steal one of their panties after they had sex together as a trophy, as a proof of their conquest.

“When I went after her, it was for a horny fuck; it was for a bragging right: scoring with the hottest cheerleader. To prove that you’re the hot stud. But things started to feel special after she wanted to see me again; then we watched our first movie, making out in the car, sharing secrets, exchanging gifts.”

He looks at the glowing embers with wistful eyes and a nostalgic smile as he talks about his first love. The fire is almost out when he continues, “When I came home to you that night, all bruised eye and swollen cheeks, I cried, not because I felt betrayed, but because I felt stupid. She had made out with my best friend for the same reason as I did with her: to keep score.”

Then he looks at me, and says, “And the most chilling thing is that I realize all the girls are doing what the boys do, and I’m the top prize for the girls. The other boys envied me.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“I felt good to be the prized bull for a while. And then I realized that’s all I am, a slab of meat for grabs. Even the boys want to be my friend because it makes them look cool. No one cared who I really was.”

He sits up to stir the logs with a branch, a few sparks flying out like fireflies. He says with a sigh, “Talk about karma.”

After that, Samuel never had a close friend. He never talks about himself. All of his girlfriends rarely lasted more than a month – until he met Beth in college and stuck with her for two solid years. Time to grow up and settle down; he mimics what Dad always says to him.

But even then, things are rocky between them. Beth reminds him of his first love – too much, in fact.

“We’re suckers for abuse, Babe.”

And blame it on the fact that I’m a shallow bastard, he adds. She’s the hottest girl on campus, hot like fire, and that’s why all the moths are heading her way.

He sighs, “Girls. You can’t live with them; you can’t live without them.”

The flames have finally died out. All the sparks are gone, and no amount of stirring will revive the fire. Holding me from behind, we keep each other warm with our bodies.

We sit and look at the smoke rising from the extinguished flame. Only the moon and stars faintly illuminate our immediate surroundings. We can’t see anything further beyond.

In the darkness, I feel him acutely. His chest against my scapula, thick arms around my shoulders, cheek pressing against my cheek. He says, “Thank you, Babe. This summer means a lot to me.”

Me, too. I will never forget it.

“Trust me, one day we will remember this fondly. I will tell my kids and point to them and say this is where I fucked your uncle’s brains out.”

We laugh, trying to ignore the creeping dread inside. No point feeling sad about the inevitable future. I’ll deal with it when the time comes.

Both of us stand up to put on our clothes since the night is getting cold. Goose bumps pop out from our skins like on a plucked chicken. I thank my brother for everything. Not just for the summer, but also for showing me the way out. I tell him I’m glad he has someone special and hope that he and Beth will work out.

“You are special to me, Babe. That’s why I want your first love to be special.”

I am confused. “But you’re my first love.”

“Doesn’t Mom always say if I want things done properly, I have to do them myself?” he says with a cheeky grin. It makes me feel warm despite the cold. We knock our foreheads together and laugh quietly.

“One day when you find someone else you really like, take your time to know them before you get too attached. Don’t be a dickhead like your brother. And stay away from boys who are like me.”

Suddenly, his phone beeps. It is a message from Dad. Earlier, before we left, Dad had said he wanted to speak to Samuel. So, I ask what the message is about.

His face looks like he’s suddenly been hit with a glass of cold water. His face turns into a steel mask as he reads the message. He says with a sigh, “Time to face the music.”

The narrow dirt road ahead is dark except for the short distance that the headlights reveal: bright enough to keep you from crashing, but not enough to make out the creepy movements in the forest. Sometimes, you can almost see the silhouette of a deer lurking in the shadows. It could be a bear instead.

His face is pale when he drives the car. Both of his hands clutch the steering wheel; veins pop out visibly from his neck and his temples.

“What does Dad want to talk about?”

He swallows and stares at the empty road ahead. Then out of nowhere, as if he forgot to reply me earlier, he says, “I don’t know.”

There seems to be a lot of things going on in his mind, but he doesn’t want to say anything. He is silent throughout the rest of the journey home.

We reach home at 10.53 pm. Before we get out from the garage, he commands, “Put on your jacket.”

His tone leaves no room for hesitation. So I do.

“Zip it up all the way up to your neck. Don’t let anyone see the bruises,” he says. This time it sounds like a warning. He seems worried.

“But I can explain to Dad those are just love nibbles. We were only playing around. It’s not like you hurt me.”

Sometimes when we play, we bite each other like zombies taking off a chunk of flesh. When we get carried away, the reddish teeth marks will remain for days, because my skin bruises easily. Mom will tell him off for playing rough, but we never get into any serious trouble.

He holds my shoulders, looks into my eye to make sure I get the message. He says with no uncertainty in his voice, “It’s not the same. Just do as I say.”

Dad is sitting in the living room, leaning back on the sofa and resting his eyes when we enter the house. His face looks the same as the time when he was waiting for Mom outside the operating room. On the table, I see an empty mug with coffee stains. I can smell the tinge of nicotine in the air. He is supposed to have quit smoking five years ago.

He stirs when we get inside the house. We say, Hi, Dad, and Samuel looks as if he forgot that Dad wants to speak to him. He simply walks straight towards his room until Dad speaks.

“Did you boys enjoy the swim?”

Dad looks at me even though he is asking the both of us.

“The water is getting cold,” Samuel says.

Which is true.

And then he adds, “That kind of screwed up the swim.”

Which is false.

All this while, Dad looks at me instead of Samuel, even though I’m not the one talking to him.

My brother turns towards me and says, “Babe, didn’t Peter ask you to email him the Parkour video?”

Something in his face disturbs me. Despite his smile and cheerful tone, the way his eye muscles tense unnaturally, stiff like plastic, signals to me that something is wrong.

He smells of fear.

I look at the ground and nod, running towards my room down the stairs. I hear them exchange more polite pleasantries behind me.

“How was your day?”

“Good.”

“It’s getting chilly at night, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

But all I see in my mind is the frozen dread in his face, barely veiled beneath the thin veneer of his poker face. I am worried for my brother.

The clicking sound of the closing door and the creaking door hinge echo through the house. But I don’t enter my room. I simply stand outside when I close it. They would think I went inside.

I creep backwards up the staircase quietly.

Eavesdropping is against the RULES!

I can see the subtitle blaring in my head like a radioactive warning sign in a nuclear plant. My entire system threatens to rebel against me, like I’m a tyrant who is breaking covenant with his people.

I cannot be trusted anymore.

Despite all that, I still find myself hiding behind the wall, pressing my face against it to listen. Samuel might need me to save him if the police come to arrest us for our crimes. The first thing I hear is Dad speaking.

Keith seems to be making good progress lately. He’s a lot more sociable and better at picking up social cues.

Yeah, he just needed some balls and practice.

It’s quite a miracle, nonetheless. Mom and I just want to say you’ve been a good brother, watching out for him.

Dad sounds nice and friendly, but Samuel replies in a terse, bitter tone.

Someone’s got to pick up the mess, right?

And there is silence.

Dad speaks again.

I know I’ve made mistakes in the past. Your mom has forgiven me. I hope you will, too.

So long as you don’t keep making them.

I’ve stopped seeing other wo-

That’s between you and Mom, Dad. But you can’t be a shrink and a father to us. Not when you’ve left us to our own devices for so long.

I tried my best, Samuel; both of you are quite a handful for-

For Mom, yes. But I always wondered if you would’ve cared so much about Keith if weren’t for your book with Hoffman. I never saw you around before that, and I’ve never seen you around outside our weekly ‘sessions’. So don’t suddenly act like you care.

Samuel sounds rather agitated even though Dad sounds pretty nice and friendly. Since we were young, I thought he was happy about Dad always being busy; no parents meant no curfews, no mandatory bedtimes, endless computer games and all kinds of mischief.

I hear Dad heave a loud sigh and say,

You’re right. But you’re old enough to know that everyone make mistakes. We all learn from our mistakes.

I’m not-

Please hear me out, son. Please.

Silence again.

Dad sounds sad when he pleads to be heard. I feel sorry for him. He says,

We can’t tell you what to do anymore, but I want you to think carefully when it comes to your brother. He is not like you – or other boys. And some types of damage will be very difficult for him to recover from.

Dad pauses for a moment, like he’s expecting Samuel to say something. Why are they suddenly talking about me? When Samuel keeps quiet, Dad continues.

It’ll take years for him to understand someone, much less relate and get attached to people. It’ll be very hard for him to move on. Do you know what you’re doing?

I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dad.

I’m saying you can’t take care of him forever. That’s why I’m sending him to Hoffman. WAIT! LET ME FINISH.

I get startled when Dad raises his voice. I’ve never heard him do that before. He’s always so mild and detached. When Samuel stops trying to interrupt him, Dad speaks more softly.

I’m not outsourcing my problem or sending him away for my convenience. I just want him to thrive in this world. Or at least be functional.

Really? Like how I’m not functional unless I study something that will actually earn money? If you stop trying to fix us, you might just be a father for once.

The atmosphere between them is tense. Samuel is still sore over the fact Dad didn’t allow him to study photography in an arts college. Dad says there’s no future in photography.

Dad seems to speak more slowly and softly to Samuel.

How do you imagine your brother’s life will be when we’re dead and you have your own family? Holed up in an apartment alone? Surviving from online groceries and welfare checks? How long do you plan to stick around?

There is a long silence. Then my brother says softly.

Isn’t that’s what family is for?

You are getting engaged to Beth next year, am I right? And where does your brother fit in?

There is a long pregnant pause.

My brother utters his next words clearly and slowly.

What are you trying to say, Dad?

He sounds like he’s challenging Dad to spell it out loud and clear. But instead, Dad says with a soft voice, speaking slowly,

I just want to say that both of you are my sons, and I love you very much... No matter what mistakes you make. If you need to talk about anything at all, just know that I’m here to listen... I won’t judge. I’ve heard worse things in my career.

Samuel draws in a deep breath slowly, as if the weight of the entire room sinks into his lungs.

And then Dad continues to speak,

All I’m asking from you is not to do anything to upset your mother. Or at least, don’t let her know. Can you do that?

My brother must have nodded. Because Dad says,

Good. Rest well, son. I love you.

My brother’s face is white when he walks down the stairs. He seems distracted and doesn’t notice me in the corner. He looks surprised when I call out to him and he finds me squatting down behind the wall.

“You’re getting sneaky these days.”

He smiles, but he doesn’t sound or look cheerful.

When he leads me into his room and closes the door behind him, we hug each other tightly. When he speaks his next words, he simply confirms what I’ve already suspected from his face, “Dad knows...”

“Are we in deep shit?”

I mean to ask him whether Dad will stop paying for his college or hand us over to the police? Samuel doesn’t think so, at least for now. But things might be different if Mom finds out.

“We need to get out of the house soon.”

“You mean run away? What about Mom?”

When he puts his hand over my shoulder, it feels more like he’s resting on me for support instead of being protective or friendly.

“No, not running away. We didn’t do anything wrong. I just want you to spend the remainder of the summer happily.”

My face must be questioning him.

How to be happy when we have to hide like criminals everywhere we go?

His face looks resolute but battle-weary.

He says, “I’ll think of something. Let’s go to sleep. I’m very tired.”

His hands feel like a mountain on my shoulders. His last words feel like a death knell.

Dad knows.

That means there is no hope left to live with Samuel in LA. All the more, Dad wants to send me to Massachusetts – Boston – where I will be safely separated from my brother – at the two extreme ends of America. It means Samuel will definitely end things between us this summer.

I take a deep breath to absorb all of that.

I almost smile at the bitter irony that I can come up with a brilliant joke to tell Samuel.

There is no need to pull us so far apart; our sperm can’t swim that far to each other.

My brother laughs, but I end up crying at my own joke instead.

That night, I wake up with a bad dream.

I dream that an imposter of my brother tries to trick me away from him. I feel really scared because I can’t differentiate between the imposter and my brother. Which of them is my real brother? They look the same, they smell the same, but I follow the wrong one. I find it out too late when he finally takes off his mask.

The first thing I see when I open my eyes is Samuel. It strikes me instantly how peaceful he looks when he sleeps beside me. The familiar symmetry of his face calms me down. The languorous heaves of his expansive chest with my hands resting on top feel like a small drifting raft kept buoyant on a calm, open sea.

I lie there quietly to watch him sleep, gently feeling the bristling hair on his chest with my fingers, tracing down the valley of his sternum. Inhaling his body and his warm breath deeply, I hold in his scent like I’m trying to pack his entire body inside my lungs as if in a suitcase.

I take another whiff of him – and another until the dread fully releases its grip, like a bully yielding his final finger on my collar.

Reaching for my phone beside me, I then take a picture of his sleeping face.

I smile.

In the picture, it looks as if I’m looking at him sleeping right next to me.

Quietly, I take selfies of us huddled together, eyelashes to eyelashes, like a voyeur peeking at both of us sleeping. I press my lips against his lips very, very gently, trying to relive how he breathed life in me when I almost drowned.

Very softly I whisper my name to him over and over again, so that he’ll hear it without waking up. Like a hypnotist planting suggestions, I hope he dreams of me.

The next day, as he accompanies me for my morning jog, out of nowhere he says through rasping breath, “I remember our ‘bucket list’ I’ve promised you.”

The things I wanted us to do together before we part:

Win the rodeo belt at the Cheyenne fair for me.

Go on a road trip together.

Take me somewhere that will scare the shit out of me.

Samuel plans to bust me out of the house as soon as he can. He brings up the subject to our parents during breakfast in the most artful way. He even manages to make it seem like it’s their idea.

“I’m leaving earlier, Mom, heading to New York to meet Beth,” he says in a nonchalant voice, slicing the bacon casually with the delicate silver knife as if he doesn’t care how they will respond.

I swoon when he keeps his poker face as Mom takes the bait.

“Oh, that’s near Massachusetts. Why don’t you take Babe there?”

Samuel frowns; he pretends to look reluctant.

“Don’t worry, Annie, I can take Keith,” Dad interjects.

“But Jack, you’ll have to cancel your press conference for this. Let Samuel do it instead,” she says to Dad.

Then turning to us and smiling, she adds, “Let the boys have some fun together.”

Dad looks at Mom with an odd expression. Samuel looks at me with a sly grin that silently says, you have no idea. I almost chuckle, but I’ve learned to hide my face and am more aware of my facial movements when the stakes are so high.

Almost immediately, as our parents turn their eyes on Samuel, his innocent face returns. He looks like the greatest martyr in the world.

“Oh, man, that means I’ve got to skip the first week of school, as well. That li’l brat will need someone there to help him settle in,” he says in a lamenting voice.

Mom wavers, which makes me almost panic for a moment. My brother is too convincing, yet he’s cool as a cucumber. He knows the outcome all along.

We hear her argument, about it being an unreasonable request to turning into a full-blown lecture about responsibility to my brother;

Don’t you want to spend time with Babe?

Won’t you spare a thought for Dad? He can’t spare more than two days away from work, you know.

“Come on, Samuel, think about your brother,” Mom pleads.

All this while he looks tortured, and after being asked several times, he finally gives in grudgingly.

Dad purses his lips. He is probably uncomfortable with the idea of us spending so much time alone together. But he relents in the end, anyway.

Perhaps it’s because Mom’s chemotherapy is starting soon and he would rather be around with her. Or perhaps, if I dare to imagine from the slight hint of a smile and the glint of respect in his eyes, it might mean he’s moved by our stubborn loyalty to each other.

“All right…” My brother sighs like he is taking on a heavy burden, and then he says to me, “You’d better not embarrass me.”

I couldn’t help myself but smile at him like a fool.

Later, back in the privacy of our rooms, we talk about planning our travel adventures in more detail.

It turns out that Samuel isn’t lying about meeting Beth in New York.

They had a big quarrel a few weeks ago because Samuel didn’t want to attend her twenty-first birthday party. He was angry at her because she didn’t understand that he’s not in a mood for parties when Mom is sick. But now that he is planning to meet her, I’m sure she won’t stay mad at him.

At first, I feel uneasy about going to New York and meeting her. I’ve always thought that when you’re in a relationship, you’re not supposed to have sex with other people. It causes jealousy. That’s why Mom was upset with Dad years ago, because he’d been fucking around with his secretary.

But I remember how Samuel explained the difference between fucking and making love. I think I vaguely understand the logic: you are not supposed to fuck other people, but making love is good because everyone seems to say the world needs more love. Maybe that’s why Samuel makes love to Mindy, to Sarah and to me. It’s because he is a very loving person at heart.

He laughs when I explain to him what I’ve learned.

“What’s so funny?” I ask.

“You don’t have to come to the party she’s planned, Babe. I know you hate loud noises.”

“I want to go. Beth will be my sister someday. I don’t want her to be a stranger at your wedding.”

Getting married is supposed to be a good thing, because you have more family members that way. Since I can’t marry my brother and we can’t have children with each other, one of us needs to do the job of recruiting people into our home. Otherwise, we won’t have any nephews around, and he’ll be lonely when he grows old. Besides, Beth sounds as bossy as Samuel from what he tells me about her. He also won’t have anyone else to boss around if I can’t be with him anymore.

I said supposed to be, because I dread seeing him get married. That’s why I am secretly happy when he says, “Marriage is scary, Babe. It’s like trapping yourself in a coffin.”

“Then why the engagement?” I ask it almost too eagerly, as if I’m trying to dissuade him. I berate myself for being selfish and childish.

“When you’re in love, you get very scared that the other person might love someone else more than you,” he says.

Samuel says Beth is a very loving girl just like him. I ask if she shares her love with other boys, too?

But he keeps quiet. Instead, he says, “If Beth and I don’t commit, we’ll just continue to hurt each other. One day we will finally end it or end up killing each other.”

I understand how painful it is to leave someone you love, because that’s what I’m feeling right now. He looks at me with imploring eyes, like he’s asking me to understand,

“We’ve been together two years, Babe. It’s the longest relationship I’ve had. I just hope she and I are not too screwed up for this.”

The way I understand marriage, it sounds rather chilling to me. Despite the sugar coating and euphemisms of vows and commitments, it sounds like becoming each other’s property.

He says marriage is a legal contract and that obligates both parties to love each other by oath. In return, you get the security that they will continue to love you back. The caveat is that they get to control everything you do, like how Mom says Dad has to stop drinking and smoking. And that’s why Mom had to stop work to take care of us.

The terms of the oath entail items like till death do you part, through sickness and in health. Sounds pretty severe, but I think they’re right. People can go bankrupt paying alimony. Some rich people end up having to sign pre-nuptial agreements. Because marriage is very hard work, you have to balance how much control each party has so that neither side loses out in the bargain. It’s so hard to keep up with the severe terms that half of marriages in America fail.

He says marriage is a necessary evil because you can’t measure love with a barometer or something. You will never know if the person finally decides to love someone else more. So the only way to feel secure is to make a vow to each other, find a witness and get the court to issue a certificate.

“It’s not that bad; well, maybe it is. But you do desperate things when you love someone, Babe,” he mutters.

I can relate to that. Desperate and pathetic things.

That evening, Mom helps me pack even though I say she should rest.

“Haven’t I rested enough?” She smiles.

Which one is my favorite winter coat?

The soft woolly one.

The one that makes me look like a polar bear?

Yes.

I should take the huge coat, too; Boston winters are brutal.

I tell her it’s not going to fit into my backpack. She says they will airfreight everything directly to the school. My residence caretaker there will make the arrangements. I will just need a few days’ spare clothes in my backpack. She has no idea how much her saying few days cuts me.

Samuel comes in and watches her pack. Does he know where we’ll stay in Boston before the official move-in date? Backpacker’s Inn, he says. Mom is appalled. She would have none of it. How can he make his brother sleep in a room full of strangers? She’ll speak to Dad and get us a reservation in a proper hotel. We hug our Mom and kiss her.

My brother packs everything in the same green duffel bag. He plonks it in the exact same spot that he had placed it when he first set foot into his room this summer. It feels like we’ve come in a complete circle.

What I would have given to rewind time, to when I melted into his arms for the first time this summer at the airport.

I feel the knot in my throat when I enter his empty room; the plundered tidiness reminds me of a suddenly vacated hospital bed next to you. It leaves you wondering if the former patient has died or has returned home. This feels like a rehearsal for our final farewell, and I dread how much worse the real thing will feel like.

Will I cry and refuse to let go?

How undignified will I get?

It’s like looking at Grandpa on life support before it’s finally over.

He puts both arms on my shoulders and says, “When you come for college, we’ll meet again as decent, respectable brothers. But I’ll still love you the same.”

Tell me that when we finally have to part, Samuel. Right now, I want to hear nothing but your lies. Tell me you’ll never want to let me go.

I am glad that I don’t have to stay behind and face his vacant room every day. I would rather be paralyzed in an alien world. At least the terror would distract me from thinking about him. I won’t have to spend another night sitting at the porch, counting every second and every passing car till he’s home.

When I open his closet, I find a pair of boxers, his faded jeans, a few hangers, a denim jacket, a pair of boots and the red tartan shirt he had worn on the first day home.

“Promise you’ll let me keep it after you’re gone.” I trace my finger over the tartan patterns of the shirt, like a rat trying to escape from a maze.

“Okay.”

“And keep wearing this, don’t wash it.”

“You’re sick.” He grins.

“Does it disgust you?”

“It’s just a joke. I’ve never seen you like this.” His eyes seem to look at me with pity.

I ask him if he feels sorry for me. He shakes his head gently and says it’s just my way of seeing the world that he will miss. And so I tell him, “I want your boxers, too.”

The ones he wore when he first made love to me. I want to wear them every night in bed and, with my eyes closed, pull them down slowly, pretending it’s him who’s doing it.

He won’t be allowed to wear anything else but them for the coming days.

“Even if I stink?”

“Especially if you stink.”

l want every cotton thread of that shirt soaked in his musky sweat. Before we part, I will ask him to take off his shirt, and I will seal it in an airtight container. I’ll carry it around, since I’m not allowed to carry a knife anymore.

When I freak out, when things get overwhelming, when my heart aches for him, I will open the container a tiny bit and inhale his scent. If I’m prudent and ration it carefully, it may last me for years.

“Think of me when you’re scared, Babe.” He puts his hand on my head.

I nod quietly. He pulls me in for a long, tight hug. Then he whispers into my ear, and says, “Think about happy things. And use our remaining time to make lots of good memories.”

Our best memories of the remaining days are in the morning. He joins me for my runs, getting up with me at five-thirty. The world is still dark after the intense silence in the house except for the occasional lark cooing.

I drag him out of the bed, like how I used to when we were in high school together. Even the little sounds we make in the bathroom are familiar, his flowing pee, the running tap, and the buzzing duet of our electric toothbrushes.

He’s barely awake, face grumpy and eyes half-closed when he shoves the vibrating Oral B inside his mouth. I laugh when he misses and the toothpaste splatters all over his face. Then he closes his eyes to doze for another second as I clean him off with the hand towel. Just like how Mom used to clean my face after I ate when I was very young.

It takes him a while to notice that I’m mimicking him; when he’s brushing left, I go left, when’s he drops his jaw to brush the top, I do the same. And it brings a lazy smile to his face.

He gets amused when I copy his every move; from the way he grooms his short tousled hair to how he slaps on his shaving cream. He laughs because my hair ends up looking like a broom. And he wipes off the cream on my face, saying, “What are you doing? You’re hairless, barely like a peach.”

“Shaving makes it grow faster.”

“What for?”

“To look like you.”

So that one day, when missing him becomes unbearable, I’ll just need to look into the mirror. If I can’t have him, let me be him, instead. Or is it the other way around?

The world belongs to us during those twilight hours. In our bathroom, we bathe together, wash up, brush, groom and shit and pee in solidarity. Between us, nothing is too unsightly that it needs to be hidden. I’ve seen the most unsavory parts of him.

I’ve played with his wounds and scabs, burst his boils and acne, screamed once at his unshaven, haggard face after a week-long partying binge, thinking that a stranger had broken into my room. I even miss his teenage years where I studied his steely braces, poked at his bony ribs, and laughed at his uneven growth spurts, especially at his unsightly, disproportionate ‘third leg’.

But he has always been beautiful to me.

I love the way he feels like the morning breeze, even before we step outside. Icy aftershave, minty mouthwash, scented detergent from the fresh running shorts he puts on. When he pushes the door open, we run just like the cool autumn wind.

We run away from our home in the hills towards the rolling fields of the valley. In a short time, the sun is just rising to cast an orange glow on the acres of sandy-colored shrubs and sagebrush, peppered with pink bitterroots and late-summer flowers. He says we are like cowboys riding into the wild, wild, west. Across the vast horizon, not a single pair of prying eyes in sight.

We take off our damp clothes and lie down, feeling the wind carrying our sweat and aches away.

After a while, he watches me rise and run across the fields, cartwheeling, back-flipping, leaping and jumping to feel the vastness of the landscape. Words cannot express the way my body does, especially this uncaged joy in my chest. It feels like the immense space within banishes all the lingering fear. He appears moved by the freedom of my Parkour.

“Babe?” I stop when he breaks the silence, “You look like a leaf blowing in the wind.”

I smile, because he hears my heart loud and clear.

When he gets up, both of us race each other down the valley. We leap into the raging river and swim furiously against the current just to stay in place. Whoever lasts the longest wins.

We laugh though we’ve almost taken a bite more than we can chew. The current is so strong that we would have been swept away if he hadn’t caught on to a rock in time and grabbed me. If we let go of each other, and if we survive crashing on rocks, the river would carry us straight to Eden.

“We could’ve died right there.” He laughs like it’s a joke.

“It doesn’t matter.” I laugh, too, trying to catch my breath before I continue saying, “The river would carry our bodies to our special place anyway.”

Looking back, I don’t regret the summer – not the shame, not the risks, not our recklessness – those things that will cleave my heart into two. I don’t dare to count our numbered minutes, because each pressing second burns intensely into my clockwork brain, and I refuse to miss a single frame and detail.

When we reach home, I lock the door and undress him. He thinks I want to make love, but I tell him to stand still while I get my phone.

I begin to take snapshots of him: two hundred and thirteen close-up images of his body – every vein, every scar, and every crease captured. I click away the landscape and contours of his form: its texture, the dead skin, the hair, the nails – his entire six-foot-three frame preserved into the tiny memory chip.

Like a cartographer, I am mapping his body, just like I’ve mapped his soul in my journals. But the phone cameras can only keep detached, impersonal images. That is why I don’t blink for a second. It is because my eyes are branding every inch of his skin, right into my heart like a hot iron.

I must not forget any of this.

He looks at me quietly as I lift his hand to take a picture, capturing his fingers from different angles. And he sits on my bed patiently as I snap away at his feet, his soles, his toes and his ankles.

He smiles gently and puts a hand on my face. I am grateful that he doesn’t make fun of me or think I’m creepy. Instead, he says I look intense, like a sculptor studying his subject so that he can immortalize him in a statue. He isn’t too far off.

I take a close up of his swirling blue irises. A close up of his penis, flaccid and hard. Then I ask him to look at me.

“Hold that expression.”

I want to capture his eyes at that moment – the tenderness and the sadness when he looks at me.

I am glad that he doesn’t ask why I’m doing all this. It would be unbearable to tell him that I’m afraid to forget a single detail. And that if I no longer can have him when I’m awake, at least let him be real in my dreams.

Right there, it hits me that my greatest fear isn’t the thundering urban traffic or drowning in the sea of faceless strangers. It’s not even getting mugged by boys. It is the sheer terror of him fading away in my heart, like footprints in the sand.

I will squirrel away little keepsakes; parts of him I can bottle in tiny time capsules: clips of his nails, slivers of dried skin, his cum, his pre-cum and his hair.

My brother stands there patiently in the bath tub while I take snippets of his hair like a barber – from his head, his chest, his pubes and his pits.

Then he helps me seal and label them in tiny plastic cases. We smile at each other like we’re doing a science project. He takes the blue marker and scribbles, Sammie’s pubes, Sammie’s pits, Sammie’s chest fur. I love the way he uses my pet name for him when I was a toddler. I couldn’t pronounce Samuel properly, and it ended up sounding like Sammie.

Then he sits on the ledge of the tub and watches me milk ropes of cum out from his penis, right into a small transparent tube.

“It’s going to stink, you know,” he says softly, as if asking if I really wanted to keep that.

“I know. But it’ll keep the bad dreams away.”

He finds me a bag to keep his trinkets, the memorabilia of my choice.

“Take your pick,” he says.

Then I raid his room for more booty: a cigarette butt, an empty beer can, his lighter, a maple leaf we took from Eden, the swimming trunks he wore when I almost drowned,

“Which one?” he asks.

The one when you gave me CPR.

“Which one?” he asks again.

The white one.

“Which one? I have two white trunks.”

And I say, in my meekest voice, the one when you made me cum.

When I look up and find him chuckling, I realize he tricked me into saying that. So I groan and hit him like I’m swatting away a dozen flies.

He kisses me to apologize and helps me to pack all the memories of our summer into a small black bag, neatly tucked away in my backpack.

He doesn’t need to ask me what I plan to do with them.

Because he knows I need these little glimmers from the summer to keep me warm. I am bracing myself for the lean times ahead. I will miss him badly. I will miss Mom and Dad. I will miss my bed, his bed, our shared balcony and bathroom. I will miss home.

Two nights before I leave this house for good, I wake up in the twilight hours when everyone is asleep and dreaming. I kiss Samuel softly as I leave his bed. I tour every single room and every corner of the house, like a cat burglar. I stand at the door outside my parents’ room, pushing it slightly ajar to watch their heaving chests rise and fall slowly. The light in the corridor cuts into their room in a shape of a butter knife, dipping into the darkness.

Outside the house, it’s almost pitch black. I feel my way outside my room and stand at the balcony railing, letting my eyes get used to the darkness before I make out the shape of the pool and the sundeck. The pool lights come up suddenly when they sense my movement, casting an eerie but beautiful glow to the blue waters, like a surprise party. I visit every nook and cranny, every crack and crevice in the walls like they’re my old friends.

I am etching my last scenes of childhood into memory, for when I return, I will be an adult.

At my final stop that night, I go down to the small laundry room next to the kitchen. Among the pile of dirty clothes, I pick up a deep-red neck scarf that belongs to Mom and a dark-blue necktie that belongs to Dad. I sniff them before I put them in separate containers, pumping out the air before sealing them away.

I feel guilty for stealing their things. So I write an apology and paste it at the side of the washing machine. They will find it when they do laundry on Friday, long after I’m gone. I do a final spellcheck on the note before I press it neatly onto the machine.

Mom, Dad,

Sorry that I stole your scarf and necktie because I will be away for a long time and I will miss the both of you. You wanted me to be brave, so that’s what I’m doing now. Remembering your smell makes me brave.

K

We spend the final day at home together as a family – a decent, respectable, American family. Then Dad, Mom, Samuel and I sit in our father’s silver SUV, chat and laugh like a normal family.

We go to the mall and do some last-minute shopping for our trip and for my new life in Boston. Dad says we need some new fishing gear; it would be a pity not to fish if we pass by Bear Lake in the Rocky Mountains. Mom says we need to bring more food for the road trip; there won’t be any nutritious food to buy at the highway stopovers.

Then we have dinner at Kenny Rogers.

After that, we go to a movie together, a family-friendly comedy. Dad holds Mom’s hands openly; Samuel holds my hand secretly. Samuel sits next to Dad in the middle, while Mom and I sit at the sides. Dad probably can see our hands, because he shifts uncomfortably from time to time. Samuel bites his lower lips and smiles at me, his face full of mischief; he’s taunting Dad on purpose. And I quietly chuckle.

Then we get back into Dad’s SUV again, heading home, laughing and chatting like a normal family.

The moment we reached home and lock our room doors, my brother and I made love over and over again, until our passion is completely spent.

I decide not to sleep in Samuel’s bed on the final night.

Despite my resolve not to count down to our departure, my mind works out against my will the remaining 648,973 seconds left to spend with him. I calculate it in seconds almost by reflex so that it feels like I have a lot more time left.

But I have only 32,115 seconds left with Mom and Dad.

After we finish washing each other up in the bathroom, I get dressed and am about to leave his room.

“Where are you going, Babe?”

“To sleep with Mom.”

“Don’t you want to sleep with me?”

“I’m scared that I might not see Mom again.”

She has still a few tumors inside her that cannot be operated on. Hopefully, the chemo can get rid of them, and I pray they won’t come back again. But her cancer is at stage 3, which means malignant tumors may have spread.

He looks at me for a moment, and he surprises me by saying, “Wait for me, I’ll come with you.”

I’m not sure if the king-sized bed can fit all four of us. Even if it does, I hope Samuel won’t bump Mom off the bed. He kicks around when he sleeps. My brother is bossy even in bed, whether he’s having sex or not.

But I get a feeling things will somehow work out, because we are a family. That’s what family does; you love each other, and you work things out. I can sleep between him and Mom. Then he will kick me instead, and I can kick his ass back.

That night, when my parents see both of us marching right into their bed, they groan and whine about us being big babies.

Despite what they say, I know they are secretly happy about us, because they are smiling. We haven’t slept together as a family for ten years, since our camping trip. It feels really, really nice.

While I snuggle between Mom and Samuel, I think about Beth becoming my sister someday. We might have to get a bigger bed to squeeze in five people.

I should feel jealous of her, and a large part of me does. She gets to be with Samuel for the rest of her life. But I know I have no right to feel that way since she’s now with him first. In fact I should be grateful to her for letting me share Samuel this summer.

Perhaps I should thank her in person.

Maybe if I become friends with her, like I did with Peter and Rachel, I might feel better about them being together. My brother did say both of them are very alike. If it’s true, then I will definitely like her.

And maybe Samuel is right that rules are meant to be broken: Dad doesn’t stop loving us even when we’re criminals. Mom and Dad let us sleep with them even though it’s against the rules. If I dare myself to dream, one day Beth might allow me to sleep between her and Samuel, too. After all, Samuel did say that she is a loving girl, just like him.

The next day, at eight in the morning, Samuel goes to pick up the rental car for our road trip. We will head to Uncle Rob’s ranch at Cheyenne for two days, drive to the Rocky Mountains for a camping trip for a night, and then we will fly to New York for the weekend. From there, we will take a train to Boston, where we say our final goodbye.

I stand at our front entrance, toes hanging out over the elevated ledge, heart beating out of my chest, like I’m standing on the brink of a cliff. These are my final minutes living at home. Once I cross over, I’ll fall into the big unknown of the outside world.

One day, I might run back home with my tail tucked under me, but it won’t be anytime soon. After a year in Boston, I will want to live with Samuel in LA and go to the same college as he does even if it’s for only one year. After I graduate, I want to come back here, hopefully with Mom and Dad still living in this house.

Dad comes up to me from behind and asks why I am standing at the door staring blankly. He asks me to sit down with him on the entrance ledge.

“Do you remember the lesson about Christopher Columbus, Keith?”

“Yes, he was stupid. He thought he’d found India when he actually discovered America,” I say.

Dad pushes up his glasses and looks at me. He tells me, “Life is a lot like that. You search for something but end up finding something else instead.”

I don’t know what he’s trying to say.

“Are you mad at your dad?” he asks.

“For what?”

“I know you wanted to live with Samuel, very badly, I might add?”

Does Dad want to talk about our incestuous love now? What is the point when it’ll all be over in a few days’ time? Can’t he leave us alone to enjoy what’s left?

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” I say.

Dad looks surprised; initially, I think my defiance offends him, but I have thrown worse tantrums before. Then he looks at the ground, considers for a moment before he says, “Maybe. There are always two sides to the coin. On the bright side, I don’t have to worry that no one will care for you.”

“Then why, Dad? Do you hate us so much that you have to separate us?” I try not to choke on my words.

He looks at me, stunned for a moment. He puts a hand on my back, and says, “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen so much emotion in your face, Babe.”

Then leaving his hand there, like he’s a friend giving advice, he says, “Think of yourself as Christopher Columbus. Think of me sending you alone on an adventure, on the biggest, final mission to learn about life. If you succeed, you won’t be scared of the world anymore. You might even start to understand it, meet new people, fall in love with new people. You will have choices. Your brother will have choices.”

He pauses for a moment to see if I am following him. I look at him with unflinching eyes. I would’ve said I don’t want choices, but I can’t say the same for Samuel.

He takes a deep breath and continues, “Hoffman says you are a bright boy, and he’s confident that you will make it. At the end of the year, if you still want to be with your brother… I won’t stop you. Both of you will be old enough to make your choices and live with them. I won’t pretend to be happy about it, but I don’t know which side the coin will land on. Only time will tell.”

Mom comes out from the kitchen and passes me several plastic containers of sandwiches, fruit and some candy bars. She takes out a clear plastic folder and goes through all the documents I need for enrolment, briefing me where I will be staying, who will be my caretaker in Boston, whom to call if I get lost or freaked out.

“Annie, we ran this through with Samuel already,” Dad says.

“Just in case; who knows whether Babe might get separated from him.” Mom shrugs her shoulders.

I tell her not to worry. That I am a big boy now.

A blue sedan turns into our driveway. I stand up and walk towards the porch with Mom and Dad flanking me. It is only a few yards away, but it feels like walking the Green Mile. I involuntarily hold on to my mother’s hand for a moment. She gives it a tight squeeze as we land on the final stairstep.

At the corner of the post is my large brand-new backpacker’s bag, red and spotless, leaning heavily on my brother’s frayed, green duffel bag. They remind me of us, of me leaning against his shoulders watching the sunset.

Samuel gets out of the car and carries our luggage to it. We hug both of our parents before we leave.

I turn back to take a final look at my home, at both of my parents standing shoulder to shoulder on the porch.

Before I get into the car, Dad waves and says to me, “Remember, Dad is on your side.”