Slate | ✓

ELEVEN | WILL

Charlie is home. Properly home. Car-parked-in-the-driveway home.

John idles in front of our house, shifting into park along the curb as we all stare at the unfamiliar car. A suspended silence fills the car as John and Athena's eyes fall onto me. They're testing to see if I'm about to explode, probably.

I don't know what I feel. I'm raw—a cushion of nothing whilst every nerve within me is misfiring, overloading with too much of everything. I'm able to recognize the ground beneath my feet, but there's still the sense that everything inside me is the wreckage after an earthquake. I couldn't stop the terror this time as all reasonable understanding of who and where I was fell away from me, and suddenly it was just animal instinct to keep breathing. I didn't feel like me. I didn't even feel like a person.

And, as Charlie taught me so long ago, fear is not something that can be forgotten.

Athena grows impatient at my lack of a response. "So, when his children needed him, Victor was at home."

I watch as John's hands wind tighter around the steering wheel. His knuckles turn white like he's ready to be our get-away driver. "What could he want from us?"

"Money?" Athena suggests. Her hands curl around the headrests of both our seats.

"I couldn't care less about what Charlie wants," John says. "I'm talking about Victor. I just don't get what he's trying to accomplish with this."

"It's his oldest kid, John." My voice is unintentionally soft. 

"Believe me, I'm aware." The malice in John's words disappears upon addressing me. "But this isn't just a catch-up, Victor is dragging out all the old shit and rubbing our faces in it, like you do when a dog pees in the house."

"You think he's punishing us for something?" The idea is unsettling.

"I don't know."

"I think he's punishing himself." They go quiet at my conclusion, and I prop another cigarette between my lips. "Guilt is a funny little thing." At the recycled words, Athena's eyes flash to mine in the rearview mirror. I give her a lazy smile as I roll down my window. It takes a few tries before my lighter produces a proper flame, and I recline my forearm out the opening.

"This is dumb," Athena announces. "We can't just sit here like we're waiting to rob the place. We should be able to walk into our own home." Still, she makes no move to exit the car, and the unspoken agreement between us remains intact: we either do it together or not at all.

John gives me a tentative look out the corner of his eye. "Will?"

It doesn't feel real yet—the fact that Charlie is within walking distance. I keep my eyes focused on the cigarette, "I don't know. I said I didn't want to see him."

"But he's here now," Athena says. "He shouldn't be able to push us out like this."

"What do you have to tell him?" John asks.

"What?"

"I mean, what do you have to say to him, Athena? Because the clearest message we could send is not seeing him at all, beyond that everything gets all muddled."

Athena's eyes turn down in a rare moment of submission. "I don't know if I have anything to say to him, but maybe I want to know what he has to say. I want to know if Charlie is worth any of this."

"I can answer that one for you," John replies. "He isn't. He's destructive, and selfish, and, and—"

"Our brother," Athena says. "If it's clarity you're looking for, John, then we can't do the same as we have been for the past seven years. Maybe I don't care what message Charlie gets, but I do care about what happens to us when he leaves again, which is going to be a lot sooner than later."