Renege [1/1] rewrite
Sarah likes to think that she’s a fairly normal woman-she has three children, all boys, a husband that loves her, and a job that isn’t overly demanding, but pays well. Her relationship with her mother isn’t strained, and her siblings are all well-involved in her and her children’s lives. Really, she should consider herself blessed. Happy, healthy, and wealthy-aren’t those the things everyone strives for in their lives?
But maybe those are just on the surface. She’s paying off credit cards with other credit cards, and bills are paid last-minute. In the last six months, the flu has gone around their house eight times, starting with Evan and working through the house through, she thinks, Nathan. And really, if she’s being honest, she hasn’t been happy since before she had the kids.
She’s been terrified since she had the kids. Well, since she had Evan. She was prepared entirely for sibling rivalry, because that’s what the books-and her friends-told her. Nathan would resent Evan and their parents because he was supposed to be their kid, and with a new baby, he would feel left out.
Her preparation almost drove David nuts. There wasn’t a free moment that she wasn’t listening to an audiobook or reading magazine articles about how to avoid those problems. It wasn’t just trying; Sarah had everything down perfectly, she knew just what to say, when to say it, and how to say it, and she was feeling completely confident that there would be no resentment or jealousy between her two sons.
All of that fell apart when Nathan met his little brother the day after he was born. Nathan was only three years old.
Sitting on David’s lap, Evan nestled snugly in David’s arms, Nathan sitting on his knee, he stared into Evan’s face intently. Sarah wrung her hands in her gown and swallowed. “Nathan, sweetie, we want you to understand-"
“What’s his name again?”
Sharing a look with David, Sarah says, “Evan.”
“Evan.” Nathan sticks his hand out and pokes Evan’s nose. “I like him.”
--
“But I love you. Cynthia was just, just a fling-just because she’s having my child doesn’t make me love her!”
Sarah’s never been too fond of offices. She has a hard time herding off anxiety attacks in her own office. Today yields no exception, and since Roland has been sitting next to her, jotting down notes in cave-scrawl handwriting for the last half hour, she’s starting to get a little… antsy, and the soap opera playing in the background really isn’t helping any. She can barely hear anything.
“Mrs. Macfarlane,” Roland says, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward to write some more. “There’s nothing wrong with your sons.”
She bites her lip, looks from the unreadable clipboard to her children to the doctor, and says, “Are you sure?”
He smiles as he attaches the pen to the clip at the top of the board. “Absolutely.” He looks at her and sighs. “Sarah… I’ve known your family since before Nathan was born. You’re doing everything right. Don’t start to question it now. They’re close and it’s very clear that Evan is Nathan’s best friend.”
Sarah swallows, looks down at her hands, and tries not to whisper when she says, “What about… What about incest?”
Eyebrows rising, Roland looks back to the boys. A heavy feeling settles in Sarah’s stomach. “What about it?”
“There isn’t a, a chance that Nathan and Evan will… do that, is there?”
Roland laughs, actually sounding amused. “There’s a chance for everyone. There’s also no chance for everyone.” Sarah frowns. How can there both be a chance and no chance? “Sarah, there’s no… indication that incest is a possibility. There aren’t warning signs. With nonconsensual incest, the… aggressor, for lack of a better term, knows how to keep it private. In consensual incest-“
“There is such a thing?” Sarah says, barely louder than a breath. “Oh. Oh, no.”
“Sarah. Don’t worry about this. Your boys are very close. That’s a good thing. You’ve told me that you pride yourself on your close family ties. This is a good thing. If Nathan and Evan keep this up like they have for the past three years, when they’re older, they’ll always be there for each other.”
She swallows, turning away from her sons and back to Roland’s clipboard. “You aren’t worried about the incest.”
He sighs and leans back. Why isn’t he taking this seriously? “Truthfully, no. I’m never worried about incest. There are certain tells when a child might grow up to be abusive, but those are hardly tied to incestuous relationships.” Sarah snorts-relationships. “But this conversation we’re having is completely hypothetical, because there are none of those tells in either of your boys.”
Either of your boys. Sarah’s not worried about Evan having those traits-at three years old, she’s worried that he’ll eat all of his dinner, or not drop his pants in front of David’s clients, or not pee on her garden.
“Thank you, Roland,” she says when he stands up. They’re empty words. The tight smile he gives in response says he knows that. She’ll have to get a second opinion. It’s the only way. “Come on, boys,” she says as she approaches them. “Time to go home.”
--
Nathan’s never understood physics. It’s one of the things that isn’t exactly a secret. The fact that it isn’t a secret is also why he hasn’t passed it yet.
Third semester of physics, and not one of them has he gained the credit.
“What are you doing?”
He glances up to see Evan drop his backpack to the floor by their bedroom door, frowning at him. “You know Williams will know if you studied or if you just stole notes from your brother, right?”
Nathan waves him away. “I’ll just tell him an apple hit me on the head, like Einstein.”
Evan’s lips twitch in a smile. “Newton.”
“Whatever.” Nathan keeps leafing through the notebook, trying to find where the answers are written. “If I can ace the homework, I’ll pass with a D-. That’s all I need.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to get D’s on the test and homework? Wouldn’t look as suspicious.” Evan plops next to Nathan on his bed. “And by the way, you’re looking for chapter seven if you want answers.”
Oh. Flashing his brother a grin, Nathan says, “What would I do without you?”
“Drop out of high school and become one of those disgusting janitors until you’re forty five and ultimately die from a broken heart?”
The bed shifts when Nathan’s trying to think of a reply, and when he finally turns his head to say it, Evan’s so close Nate can feel his breath against his cheek. All of the words fly out the window.
There’s a long, torturous moment where they just stare at each other, and Nathan’s positive that he’s leaning forward, not that there’s much space to move forward, when there’s a loud smack and the two of them turn around to catch their mother, pale, and a clothesbasket at her feet.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” she says in a high-pitched, broken voice. Lead settles in Nathan’s stomach as Evan sits up and Sarah runs out of the room.
“What’s up with her?” Evan asks. His fists are tangling in the hem of his t-shirt.
Shrugging, Nathan stands from the bed and says, “I’ll go find out.”
His mother’s not in the kitchen-not like Nathan had expected that-and after a few moments searching the downstairs rooms, he hears a clang! from the laundry room.
“Everything all right?” he asks as he enters, leaning against the doorframe and watching as Sarah folds clothes angrily, hands shaking, nose whistling.
The moment before she speaks is long and awkward, and Nathan actually thinks about leaving it alone before she says, “Do you have something to hide?”
He hopes his expression doesn’t falter as he says, “Straight to the point, I see. Maybe you only beat around the bush when there are questions you don’t want to answer.”
She crosses her arms and stares him down. “Damn it, Nathan. I’m being serious.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She steps forward. Nathan has a very strong instinct to back away, but he doesn’t. “I’ve wondered about you. Since you were a little boy, I’ve wondered about you. You had a… a connection to Evan. Dozens of doctors have told me there’s nothing wrong, that you were growing up to be a perfectly healthy boy, that the two of you had a healthy relationship, but…” She laughs humorlessly. “Nathan, there’s such a thing as mother’s intuition. We lucked out, we really did, because it’s a glorious gift from God.”
“Congratulations.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass,” Sarah snaps. “I know what your real intentions are.”
Nathan shakes his head, trying to keep the shaking out of his hands and knees. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s… It’s unnatural. He’s your brother, for God’s sake!” She steels her jaw and lifts her face towards the ceiling a little when she says, “I won’t let you corrupt him.”
“Corrupt him? What-“
While Nathan lets that settle in, Sarah turns back and starts throwing clothes into the dryer. “Tomorrow, we’re moving Evan into the nursery with Brian.” Pressing the button, she points an accusing finger at Nathan and says, “I’m stopping this before it gets any worse.”
She pushes past him, calling out to Brian happily, as Nathan hears Evan make his way downstairs. After he’s sure that everyone’s seated at the table, he makes his way upstairs quietly, crawling under the covers of his bed, and broods in silence.
His mother’s right. Something is wrong with him and she can see right through it.
An hour later, when Nathan’s drifting in and out of consciousness, Evan opens the door to their room and says, “All right, what happened? Why weren’t you at dinner?”
Nathan says nothing, just keeps tracing his fingers along the creases in the sheets.
“I know you’re not sleeping, so give it up. Come on.”
The blankets muffle his voice as he says, “I don’t want to talk about it.” He knows his tone won’t help matters, because there’s the whole problem that Evan knows him better than Nathan knows himself. Realizing that actually physically pains him, because that’s exactly what their mother means when she says something’s wrong.
“What the hell happened? You and Mom have a fight?”
Nathan kicks off the blanket and glares at Evan. “I thought I said I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Yeah, and I want to know what happened so I can adjust myself accordingly, so give it up.”
Deep inside, Nathan knows that the warm feeling he gets from seeing Evan sit down next to him on the bed isn’t a good thing, no matter how much he wants it to be. “Mom…” He sighs and stands up. There needs to be some distance, he can’t handle… “She’s moving you into Brian’s room.”
Evan frowns, but looks almost amused, like he doesn’t believe him. “Sorry?”
“She’s kicking you out of our room. You’re living with Brian, I guess.”
It’s disconcerting how Evan knows Nathan’s going to cry before Nathan does. His voice goes soft and smooth and he stands up to place his hands on Nathan’s shoulders. The lump hasn’t even formed in his throat yet. He knows Evan’s just trying to help, but it’s not helping, not at all.
“Why?”
He shrugs off Evan’s hands and moves away again. “It’s sorta complicated.”
“Is it something I did?”
Nathan chuckles, a dry laugh he can’t control that sounds a little bit like he’s dying, or choking. “No. No, you didn’t do anything.” Maybe
that was the problem.
They don’t sleep that night. They don’t speak, either. They spend the night in silence, Evan curled against Nathan in a way Nathan knows
without a doubt is wrong, but he can’t bring himself to pull away, not tonight.
Eight a.m. rolls around faster than Nathan had expected it to, and he jumps across Evan to his bed when he hears his mother’s footsteps approaching their door quickly. There’s no way that she can suspect. Everything looks normal, and Nathan’s not even breathing fast.
He feigns sleep as best he can, but his mother throws his wallet at him and says, “Up,” as soon as she enters. Nathan turns over-rubbing at his eyes for good measure-and frowns at the empty clothesbasket.
“What are you doing?”
She drops the clothesbasket to the floor. “Evan’s going to get his things ready to move.” She doesn’t even look at him when she hands him a lengthy, handwritten list. “You’re going shopping. There are a few things we need.”
Nathan pretends not to know what she’s really saying-there are a few things we need, and we don’t need you in the house-and asks, “A few?”
“Get money out of your account if you need to. We’ll pay you back.” He doubts that, but he still rolls out of bed, ignoring Evan’s confused
questions as he shoves his feet into his shoes and gets a clean t-shirt from his dresser.
As he’s leaving, he can hear Sarah say, “I thought it would make this experience a little more… bearable,” to Evan.
He hates the bit of pride that swells in his chest when Evan snorts and says, “Yeah, sure. Bearable,” back to her.
--
He stays out until well after midnight, just sort of watching cars go by from his spot by the woods. He’d silenced his phone at about six, when his mother started calling. Evan had tried a few times, but since he’d answered and gotten his mother the first time, he’d left it since then.
Finally, at about two a.m. when cops are scouring the roads, Nathan answers.
Evan’s voice, worried, crawls over the line. “Where are you?”
Nathan looks for road names, but there are none. “In the middle of nowhere,” he says, rolling down the window and breathing in the night
air. It’s nice. Cold, but nice. It smells… peaceful, almost. If he could live here, in his car…
Evan sighs. “You’re lost?”
“Depends on your meaning of lost,” Nathan says as he rolls the window back up. He starts picking at the cigarette burn on the seat.
After a few moments, Evan sighs and softly says, “Come on, Nate. Come home.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Is this about Mom? Because I can’t read fucking minds, you know, and she isn’t exactly saying anything, either.”
Nathan just listens to him breathe for a few minutes, closing his eyes. In, out. In, out. Maybe everything doesn’t have to fall apart. Maybe it isn't falling apart.
“Nathan?”
Reality crashes back into him, broken families, losing his mind… This time, he speaks his wishes. “Can I sleep with you?”
He should be thankful that Evan doesn’t even hesitate, but really, it’s just that much more painful. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”
The groceries stay out in the trunk of his car when he gets home. Really, he can almost guarantee his mother sent him on the shopping trip
just to get him out of the house, not because they really needed anything.
None of the lights are on, though Nathan can’t say if he’s surprised or not about that. It’s been a while since he’d gotten a phone call
from either of his parents, though the last voicemail from his mother was, “Your father and me are going to bed. I’ll worry about you in the morning,” so he really shouldn’t be surprised at it.
His dad, though… Nathan had thought about making as much noise as possible, maybe even bringing in the groceries and really making a scene, but that would make David suspect, if he doesn’t already, that something’s wrong, and…
He doesn’t want to create that tension between them, not if he can help it.
So he heads upstairs, knocking on the door of his bedroom before he remembers that Evan’s not in there anymore, and just pushes the door open.
“Hey,”
He tries not to show that Evan’s presence terrifies him. “What are you doing in here?”
“Waiting for you,” Evan says in return. Nathan can just make out the silhouette of his body on his bed. In the faint moonlight streaming through the window, Nathan sees Evan grin. “I know it’s taboo or whatever in Mom’s eyes, but I can’t really say I give a damn about what’s wrong with her right now.”
For a long time, Nathan just stands in the doorway, staring at Evan. He doesn’t say anything or move, just stands there, breathing in
short, quiet breaths.
With a sign, Evan gets up from Nathan’s bed and pulls him forward, into his arms. Nathan takes a deep, steadying breath, filled with Evan’s
scent and his stomach does twists and turns, flips and flops, all of it beautiful and ugly all at the same time. He pulls back, drops his arms from Evan’s shoulders and says, “I don’t think this is such a-“
The sentence dies as Evan presses their lips together, gently, firmly. Nathan’s chest feels like it’s damn close to bursting with happiness. His stomach turns sour.
“Okay, this really isn’t a good idea.” Nathan runs his hands over his face and tries to pull away. Evan’s fingers are wrapped around his wrist, almost to the point of stinging with pain. “Let me go.”
“Tell me what Mom said,” Evan says calmly. One look in his eyes tells Nathan he’s not going to give this up.
He takes the moment for what it is-the calm before the ultimate storm-and gets lost in Evan’s gaze, in the eyes the same color as his
own, in all the emotions he wonders if are reflected on his own face.
When he turns away, it’s hard not to look back. “Mom… Mom knows.”
“Knows what?”
“Evan.” Nathan’s voice cracks as he says his name. “Don’t make me say it.”
Out of the corner of his vision, he sees Evan’s hand reaching for his own. He moves away, sitting on his bed. It doesn’t take long for Evan to follow him and intertwine their fingers. Evan clears his throat, his voice soft and breathless when he says, “You shouldn’t feel guilty about this.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Nathan says, the lump in his throat growing. “I’m fucked. Mom’s already worried about this-our-us, and if she hears confirmation… She could tell them-“ There’s no end to what she could tell them. Absolutely no end. Rape, seduction, drugs, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. “You don’t understand what this could do to me. Nineteen means a hell of a lot more than sixteen.”
“Don’t play that game with me,” Evan says. “You know Mom would just as easily blame me.”
Nathan laughs, still dry and empty of humor. “You’re the golden child. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Evan sighs, sounding a little frustrated. “And neither did you. You didn’t seduce me and you sure as hell didn’t rape me, so whatever you’re
thinking inside that thick skull of yours, stop. You’re not unreadable, Nate.”
Shaking his head, Nathan takes his hand away from Evan and rubs at his eyes. “We-I don’t think we can take the risk, anyway.” The expression on Evan’s face rips at Nathan’s heart, but he can’t back out. “It’s for the best, really. We’re not-I’m not normal. It’s just… I’m everything you’re not, and Mom knows that. You’re talented and, and handsome and smart and… why are you looking at me like that?”
Evan has this incredulous look on his face, eyes wide and mouth just a little open. “Nate, I don’t-fuck normal! Mom and Dad aren’t even normal, so why the hell are they preaching to anyone?” He grabs at Nathan’s hands again, almost desperately. “I love you, so fuck everybody else. All right?” He looks down, shifting his position. “I am so in love with you.”
Nathan swears that at any moment, the tightness in his chest is going to crush his heart. “Evan-“
“Let me finish,” Evan says, shaking his head and pressing their foreheads together. “I don’t know when or how or why it happened, but-fuck, Nate, I’ve never felt this way about anyone. And don’t you dare even start telling me that I’m too young, because fuck, I know that I should have had some sort-I don’t know, a crush or something towards someone, but I haven’t. Not like you, and I really couldn’t care less if you’re my brother or my sister or my teacher or my millionth cousin four times removed, okay?”
“Don’t make this harder,” Nathan says. His voice is raw with the effort of not crying. “Please.”
“This isn’t hard at all,” Evan says, bringing his hands up to Nathan’s neck. “I’m so glad you came back. I can’t-I don’t-I don’t think I can live without you.”
Oh, God. Shaking his head furiously, Nathan pulls his head away from Evan’s. “There’s no way I could give you what you want. We can’t do this, it’s just not-“ He can’t make it sound like it isn’t a punishment.
“Nate, if we get out of here, we don’t have to worry about what people say. If people don’t know us, they wouldn’t think we’re related.”
“Stop-“
“No,” Evan says, pulling him close again. “I don’t want you to go.” Nathan stiffens, because he’s pretty certain he hadn’t said that aloud. “I won’t let you go without me.” He buries his face in the spot between Nathan’s shoulder and neck, tangles his fingers in the back of his shirt.
Nathan hates that he can’t bring himself to wrap his arms around his younger brother.
“I think I have to go.”
He knows Evan’s run out of excuses, that Evan knows nothing he says can get him to change his mind, not this time. Pulling away, Evan looks into Nathan’s eyes for a long time. “Please.”
“I don’t think-“
“Please.”
Nathan should pretend he doesn’t know what Evan’s asking for, but…
He barely gets out a word before Evan covers his mouth with his own. “You have to stop doing that,” Nathan tells him when they pull apart.
His resolve is breaking down.
“Please. I know you can, and I fucking know you want to. And I’ll tell you right now that if you don’t do this, I’ll follow you. I’ll steal Dad’s old Ranchero and I’ll follow you.” Nathan’s about to argue against him, about how Evan won’t know where’s he’s going, when Evan says, “I’m in your head, so don’t even try to fucking tell me that I won’t be able to find you.”
“I can’t.”
“Are you not listening to anything I’m saying?”
"Not here. We have to go somewhere else." The risk is bad enough, they don’t need to add to it by being at home.
Evan's face explodes with a bright, teary smile. “Yeah. Yeah, great,” he says, pulling away and wiping his face with one of his hands.
Before they leave, Evan buries himself under Nathan’s bed and comes back with a stuffed backpack and a half grin. Once they’re in the car, he directs Nathan hours away from home, and by the time Nathan figures out where they’re going, they’re three hours away from home and in South Dakota.
Evan is adamant that he directed Nathan down a wrong road somewhere and that it was a mistake. Nathan knows better-he’s making no attempt to correct it,
His phone rings every five minutes with phone calls from their mother, and Nathan eventually succumbs to Evan's wishes and shuts the thing off. "They can track them, you know," he says after a while, when Nathan's checking the forty angry and threatening messages his mother has left him at a gas station on the other side of South Dakota. “Find out where you are.”
Nathan shuts his phone in the middle of one of his father's worried messages-it seems their mother has kept her concerns to herself-and wanders into the bathroom as it shuts down to drop it into the toilet tank. When he returns, Evan's leaning up against the car, watching him walk out of the bathroom with a contented look on his face.
He smiles slowly and the warmth that spreads through Nathan feels like fever. Evan holds up a plastic bag and explains, when Nathan nears him, "Lunch," and pulls him forward for a kiss. Nathan pulls away before their lips touch. His skin burns where Evan’s fingers once were.
"What the hell?" Evan asks as Nathan unlocks the car. "What's this avoidance shit all about, anyway?” he continues when they’ve settled in. “Nobody even knows us here. Nobody even knows that there are people like us here.”
Involuntarily, Nathan's fingers tighten on the steering wheel. "We can't -we can't do this, all right? It's not-“
"I swear to God," Evan growls, stashing the bag of food at his feet. "If you start giving me bullshit about being normal-“
"It's not bullshit, Evan. Incest is illegal." It's the first time either of them have said the word, but it stings just like Nathan had expected it to. He sighs, keeping his head straight, unwilling to turn to look at his brother in the passenger seat. "Look… I'd be fine with this if… if we weren't related. It’s not the gay thing.” He almost laughs, because compared with the barrel they’re staring down, regular homosexuality seems like a cakewalk. “But… Incest. I can’t get involved with something like that."
Evan doesn't respond, so Nathan pulls out of the spot and back onto the road. Fifteen miles later, Evan says, in an unreadable tone, “I’ve told you a million times how much I love you. Hell, in the last twelve hours alone, I think I’ve told you more than my entire life put together.”
Nathan is painfully reminded of how the first time Evan said ‘I love you’ it wasn’t directed towards their mother, father, grandparents. He said it to Nathan. “Yeah.”
“Would it kill you so much to say the words out loud?” Evan murmurs, face turned towards the window.
The words fall out of Nathan’s mouth with an apology. They taste bittersweet on his tongue and he wishes that they could have come out in any other circumstance, but Evan refuses to acknowledge them anyway.
Nathan accepts is unresponsiveness as compliance with what he knows has to happen.
Nathan ditches him. He stashes a few of the hundred dollar bills from Evan’s backpack under the back seat at a rest stop. In Saint Claire, Wyoming, he sends Evan in with his backpack for food and supplies.
When he gets in the car, the slam of the door sounding terrifying to his ears, and turns the key in the ignition, he’s torn between thinking this is the best for them and thinking he couldn’t be much more of an asshole.
There’s no teary goodbye, but in his rearview mirror, he sees Evan waving his hands, jumping, as though he’d just thought that Nathan forgot him. After a moment, he stops moving, just stands there, disappointed.
The mirror breaks off when he twists it to the ceiling to stop from glancing back until the gas station was just a speck on the horizon.
It’s a flat highway, and it’s a boring ride, but the silence in the car isn’t riddled with tension and anger as much as it is loneliness. Every rational part of his body tells him he can’t go back, that he’d already let this go too far, that Wyoming is where it all ends, where it all begins, but his heart beats painfully in disagreement.
It wasn’t supposed to end like this.