Chapter 4

“Why are you cooking?” Dane startles me from behind as he walks in, dumping his school bag on the breakfast island, and peruses me up and down with a slight arrogance. It makes me bristle all over, given that it’s the first thing he has said to me in two days, and it's not a pleasant tone. Dressed in his uniform still, be it rumpled and untucked like always, I guess he was at Tyler's until now as school got out two hours ago.

“Mom and Dad are out, and Monique has a headache, so I told her I would make us dinner,” I answer flatly, ignoring him, and continue turning the meatballs for the pasta. I am hot and sweaty from slaving in here and not in the mood for his dickishness.

“Can you even cook?” He sneers, walks up, and leans over my shoulder to stare at what I am doing, getting a little too close for comfort, so his body heat envelopes me from behind, and I elbow him back. Suffocated by his presence, especially when he smells like he is freshly showered and has a new dose of aftershave on. For a guy who rarely irons his clothes, he always smells good, and it’s annoying. I don’t even want to know why he showered after school yet returned in the same clothes.

“I’ve been cooking for myself for years. Do you think Monique works twenty-four-seven in a house with two working parents? I sometimes fend for myself.” I shove him further away with a palm to his abs so I can move past and pick up the salt and pepper canisters on the next counter. “Get out of the way until it’s ready.” He’s making me feel hemmed in and touchy. I’m already in a weird mood and don’t need him to stoke the fire.

“I don’t like it.” Dane noses over my head at the pot, and I turn, glancing from the pasta to him, and narrow my eyes. Irritation is growing so easily.

“What do you mean you don’t like it? You’ve eaten this anytime Monique makes it. That’s why I chose to make this….. you always eat it. It’s how she makes it.” My voice pitches as anger bubbles, and I know I’m falling for his baiting, but sometimes I can’t stop myself. Dane is like a wound under a band aid where you must pull it off and pick at it.

Dane picks up an apple from the center island and takes a loud, crunchy bite. Resting his butt against the edge and lounging casually with that undeniable signature smirk. Facing me and spreading his feet so he’s not as tall.

“That’s because Monique made it… not you,” he grins and raises a brow at me before dodging back away from my slap swipe at him. Enraging me because he can and so effortlessly has me in stabby mode.

“Starve then. I don’t care. I won’t bother doing anything nice for you ever again.” I huff and return to what I’m doing, sprinkling the seasoning before stirring the sauce pot and tasting it to check. I pause and glance around as he strolls to the refrigerator and retrieves a bottle of water before walking back to the bar and pulling out a stool. Sliding in, he nestles himself while propping his feet up and under and resting his chin on his palm on one elbow. I guess he’s decided to stay here and eat after all.

Dane quietly pulls over his bag and empties a random assortment of books, his cell phone, and general school stuff before picking up a comic and flicking through it. It looks old and worn, like he’s had it for years, and I vaguely remember the cover. Distracted by what he’s doing while waiting for my food to brown.

Sitting like that, looking like a rock star teen boy with something so juvenile in his hand in a cute pose from our younger days when I didn’t despise him so much, I get an inkling of something weird and warm in my stomach and turn fast to shake the image out of my head.

“Why are you talking to me, anyway? I thought you said I was to stay away and leave you alone?” I snort at him, annoyed because he dared to breathe my air and get in my space. Making me antsy and irritated.

“I’m not talking to you. I’m reading.” He answers with an empty tone and doesn’t pull away from his book pages. He misses my frowning a glare aimed his way, too busy leaning in and eyeing the story.

“Hardly reading…. don’t you own any proper books?” I scoff, flick off the frying pan ring, and tip the meatballs into the sauce. The pasta is already rinsed and waiting to be served. I do so quickly and dump it out onto two plates.

Dane ignores me, and when I walk over and slide his plate towards him, he lifts his arms to take his reading material out of the way, face still engaged with it, and I push it under. Stopping to stare at him for a second and hating his lack of interaction.

“I hope you choke on it.” I shove his shoulder before turning on my heel and leaving him to it.

I move opposite him and slide my cell from the table to where I am sitting, staring at the top of Dane’s head because he eats while flipping through his comic and blanks me. Fork to mouth automatically without lifting his eyes from the pages, and I am suddenly non-existent in his world.

My eyes stray to what has captivated him, noticing old scribbles on the edges. Even the inside of his magazine looks old, and I wonder if he found it recently and is reading it for nostalgia. There is something vaguely familiar about it, but I cannot figure out why. I haven't seen him with a comic for years.

“I thought you stopped reading those when you were, like, ten?” I nose nod at the manga and get zero response. He stuffs a mouthful of pasta and uses his other hand to turn the page, not bothering to acknowledge a presence. No thanks for making him food, and it’s obvious I am getting zero conversation now, too. Whatever has been eating him the last two days is still brewing, and I am being frozen out.

Asshole.

“Whatever.” I snort sulkily and push my fork into my mouth, chewing what should be a favorite meal for both of us, yet it tastes like ash. I have no appetite today. There’s nothing wrong with my cooking skills, but my mood, and he has helped it get worse. I don’t know why I care.

I guess I can’t blame Dane for it all, given he is only half the issue the past few days. My shitty blue mood is mostly down to my father.

I have left my dad a dozen messages in the last couple of days, and he’s not responding. He does this whenever holidays come up; even though I know it, it still hurts. I can’t help myself.

There’s a part of me that cannot give up on reaching out to him and trying to keep our relationship alive. When I was little, my father made me feel like I was the center of his universe, but the second they divorced, I became baggage. No matter how often I tell myself to let it go and stop chasing him, I just can’t.

I retrieve my cell and open my messenger app, seeing all are still unread, even though the last one I sent over an hour ago. My father uses his cell for business, so there’s no way he’s not seeing them and knowing I am trying to get hold of him. He has one phone.

I hit dial instead and put my phone to my ear, holding my fork midair and staring pensively at Dane. My eyes naturally stray that way when he’s facing me, but somehow, his presence gives me courage.

The atmosphere is thick with static around us as I listen to the endless ringing, and my heart deflates and withers in my chest. My whole demeanor sags along with what’s left of my mood, and Dane must sense it. He glances up at me for a second, frowns at seeing me on my cell with eyes locked on his head and goes back to eating and reading simultaneously with no visible reaction.

Like every call this week, my dad's cell rings out and eventually goes to voicemail. I had avoided leaving one as it’s harder to conceal my disappointment that way, but I have had enough. He has no idea how much of a wound this inflicts when he dodges me and won’t outright tell me he doesn’t want to see me. It’s always an excuse of how busy he is, even though I fly there, get to his apartment, and do everything for him. I learned to cook for that exact reason. It isn’t a hassle for him for me to go.

Maybe my heart would stop clinging on if he were honest and told me he didn’t want me to keep looking for him.

“Dad, can you please reply to me or call me back? It feels like I haven’t heard from you in weeks, and I’m worried about your lack of response. Please, Daddy, we have a break coming up in school, and I wanted to see you….. call me back.” I hang up and stare at my cell for a moment, a lump lodging in my throat as emotions rise to make my chest ache. Then, I face it down on the table and calm myself with a deep breath. Trying not to let this get to me or show my broken disappointment.

I realize Dane isn’t continuing the motion of lifting his fork or turning pages, and I glance up to see him watching me silently. His eyes dart away, dropping his head back to his previous focus when he sees I noticed but doesn’t say a word. He acts like he didn’t hear me, even though I know he has before, and flicks to the next page. Embarrassing me that he sees it so clearly and silently judges me, probably calling me pathetic and a loser in his head.

What does he know?

He has never had to deal with this because his mom begs him to visit as often as possible.

“Are you going to see your mom in London this break?” I ask to deflect the focus from my call, making out it was just a casual call and not my sad stalking of my own father. I’m humiliated that I almost begged in front of him and get a shrug in response. Not even eye contact.

It riles that inner anger only Dane can trigger, and my stomach tightens in frustration.

“Are you really going to be like this?... This ignorance even when sitting at dinner together. This is stupid, Dane, and immature.”

Dane sits up straight, locks his gaze back on me, sniffs, picks up his water bottle to take a drink, and then returns to what he’s doing. Making a good go of clearing his plate without complaint, even though he criticized my cooking. It’s a very big ‘leave me alone’ move that he does so very well, and I swear, for once in my life, I wish it wouldn’t kill him to be a little bit nice to me.

Can’t he see I need someone to care right now, even if it’s him?

In this house, which isn’t all that huge, he has been acting as though we don’t walk right past one another. He actively blanks me here, at school, or outright avoids me. This weirdness since we argued on the drive is driving me crazy. At first, I thought he was sulking and it would pass, but now, after two days, I want to punch him in the throat and smack him about his dumb head for being like this.

It’s been irritating me and making me mad as hell, and now sitting facing him, he’s still acting like a prized asshole. He has no shame.

When he still doesn’t look at me or answer, I lean forward and forcibly slam the pages shut of the damned comic he’s using to ignore me and slap my hand on top of it. Almost trapping his hand if he hadn’t moved it at the last second to reach for his water.

Dane doesn’t flinch or react.

“Stop being a jerk. Say something, anything….. even if it’s some shitty remark about chasing after my father and acting like that. I hate this.” I spit at him angrily, disrupting my bowl and spilling my glass of water on the side of my plate, but I don’t care. My dad and Dane combined have made me feel like shit these past two days, like I'm invisible and worthless, and I want to scream at his stupid head. All the bubbling internal frustration and angst needs an outlet, and with him acting this way, I aim it at him.

Dane leans back and fixes his pale grey gaze on me with an expressionless stare while sighing like I'm an irritating problem. Picking up his water, he takes a long, slow drink. His eyes never leaving mine for a second, nor even a blink. He moves his tongue inside his mouth to clean the food from his teeth, swallows, then pushes his chair back and picks up his bowl with the fork balanced inside. Sliding the comic out from under my palm, he picks it up, too, then turns and walks off with both towards the sitting room off the kitchen. A total non-reaction to me that normally would get something, maybe sarcasm or an argument, and he disappears from view.

Just a blank look, a nothing interaction, and he leaves me sitting here like I am some crazy banshee ex who won’t leave him alone. He swaggers off with that cool boy walk and ‘don’t care’ attitude, making me want to scream.

It wounds me as much as my dad ignoring my calls and makes me feel worthless. Clenching up my insides, my chest aches, and my throat constricts like he’s strangling me. My heart accelerates like I’ve run a marathon and pounds so hard it feels like it might explode from my chest.

“I hate you sometimes.” My voice croaks and breaks at how he's abandoning me, and despite not even wanting his stupid company, it feels like he’s stabbed me in the chest. I loathe how, even though Dane is the absolute bane of my existence, he has this weird power over me and can make me feel invisible without doing a damned thing. I always crave his reactions and attention, even while telling myself I wish he would stay away from me.

I wait, tilting my head towards the door, and listen because I know he heard me. The cozy is close enough, and the house is quiet, yet he doesn’t bother to retaliate. There’s the faint sound of him laying his plate on a table, the scrape of a chair, and then silence again.

My eyes well up with moisture, and I swallow down the crazy, insane need to storm through there and throw my bowl at his head. I don’t know why I am like this today, but maybe my father has me sensitive. Perhaps it’s being made to feel like I don’t matter by someone who is meant to care about me so that Dane’s behavior, which isn’t all that out of the ordinary, is way more hurtful. Getting under my skin.

I just want someone to give a shit about me, for once. This stupid house sometimes feels so huge and so empty…. I sometimes feel like I could disappear, and no one would notice.

I can’t believe there was a time, long ago, when I used to look forward to Dane coming here, thinking we would get through this together. That my loneliness wouldn’t run as deep if someone was going through the same as me and could be here to lean on. Back then, I was happy that of all the kids in school that I was forced to be siblings with, it was Dane.

I can’t believe I was ever stupid enough to think that just because we were friends when we were little, we would be something closer as siblings as we grew. That my fondness for him back then would become the toxic mess it is now. That I mistook our closeness as something positive, only to have him end up hating me and my mother for what we did to his family. Treating me like the enemy added to my loneliness and hopelessness growing up.

I didn’t gain a brother. I lost a friend… one I used to wake up happy to see at school every day. It’s never stopped being a scar on my heart and left me asking myself why it had to be him, of all people.