Invincible Summer(24)

Noah’s upset again. I notice it more quickly this time— while he’s buckling Gideon into the car.

“Gid’s going to be fine,” I tell him. “We’ll make sure.”

Noah climbs into the driver’s seat and buckles his seat-belt. “Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal,” he says, his voice really tired, like he’s been running a million miles.

He gets like this more often now, ever since he started college. He said living at home was to save money, but the choice not to move out was so insanely out of character for him that I have to think that there was some bigger reason.

And I think it’s this—part of Noah recognized that leaving all of us, really, finally, permissibly, would be the complete and total end of him. Hell, spending every day an hour away on campus drained some of the life out of him. Maybe Noah doesn’t cling because he loves us or run away because he doesn’t. Maybe he clings because we’re the only part of him that feels anything, and he runs because that anything is too much to stand. I wonder if Melinda ever makes him cry.

“Do you want to stop for ice cream or something?” I ask, because that’s what Dad always suggests when I’m upset.

“I’m tired, Chase,” he says. “Let’s just go home?”

I say okay, even though I know that as soon as we get there, he’s going to go out for some run and not come back for a few hours or a few days. Because he hates us, and he hates us because he hates loving us. And maybe I’m deluding myself by thinking that Noah loves me the most—it’s probably Gideon, who Noah would talk for in a heartbeat, if he asked, or it might even be Mom—but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say he hates me the most with that part of him that doesn’t know how to need anyone.

Because I’m the one who should have been named Stay,

and he’s the one who should have been named Chase. And I came along and stole everything from him. I was the first one to make Noah McGill give a shit. And I pay for that every day, when I miss him.

“It’s going to be okay,” I say. “I promise.”

In the backseat, Gideon signs home Claudia Mom Dad

beach cake. n i n e

A t least once, every time we’re down here, we try to get everyone dressed up and go have a nice dinner somewhere off the boardwalk. This was hard enough before Newbaby, by virtue of Noah and Gid. Claudia and I love dressing up—it’s one of the few things we have in common with Mom—but the boys are always such a hassle. As soon as we have them both dressed, one of them will slip off and return a second later in sandy shorts and flip-flops. Dad hates it too, but I think Mom whips him into submission somehow.

His bow tie is his dog collar.

Tonight, Mom’s too busy dressing Lucy to chase Gideon

and Noah into dress shirts and khakis, so I’m assigned to the big kid and Claudia’s assigned to the little one.

“Yeah, because this really needs to be our priority.”

Noah wrestles with his tie like it’s alive. “Dressing up and forking over two hundred dollars so Gideon can pick at his chicken nuggets and Claudia can order something she can’t pronounce. Yeah, this is really at the top of our Need to Do list.”

I think Noah sees some crisis I’m not aware of, like we’re all supposed to be out saving the world right now instead of eating dinner.

I shut Camus and lay the book on the bed. “All right, bitch. Come here.”

He stands in front of me, messing with his cuffs. “We’re falling apart. Maybe Mom and Dad could, I don’t know, talk to us?”

“I thought talking was uuuuuuuseless.”

“Yeah, it’s useless with us because we don’t say anything.”

“God, stop being Melinda.” I tug Noah down to my level so I can do up his tie.

“Without Melinda, you’d have no Camus.”

I exhale. “I know.” I know it to my f*cking bones.

He tugs the tie underneath his collar. “Look. We should just tell Mom and Dad that we want to actually discuss this, right?”

“Discuss what, exactly?”

“You know . . .”

The problem is that I do know, even if I don’t think the growing tension between our parents is quite the tragedy Noah’s making it out to be. “That’s what we should do?” he says.

“Probably.”

“Then how come we’re not going to do it?”

There are a lot of reasons, so I shrug.

“Because we don’t talk, Chase.” He goes to the mirror to fix his hair. “I swear to God, Gideon’s better off than any of us, it’s the truth. Because he doesn’t have that . . . drive to communicate.”

“Maybe he does. And just can’t communicate it to us.”

I’m sick of talking about this, to be honest. But at least it’s something to think about besides sex.

Noah takes a minute to catch his breath, then he says, “I can’t stand feeling so goddamn responsible. I suck at this oldest brother shit. How did I get stuck with this?”

“We were born in the wrong order.”

“I know. It’s bullshit. I don’t know how you put up with this as well as you do. Don’t you ever want to be alone?” “Not really.”