Salt Water

Foreshadowing is a technique authors, filmmakers, and chefs use to warn their audience about an undesirable future event. When George told Lennie where to go if anything bad ever happened, it was the author's way of saying, "Yup, something bad is gonna happen." When Hitler declared himself undefeatable, World War Two said, "Yeah, right." When I tell you to stop reading, you must be smart enough to figure out that everything will…

I hope I didn't spoil anything for you. Let's try some different examples that won't inform you of such things, like the fact that Scrooge decides not to be a prick by the end of A Christmas Carol

Chefs use foreshadowing too. How? The waiters. They might make a face when you order something disgusting. They glare when they plan to spit in your food. They'll put disturbing names on inedible foods. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop the French from ordering sweetbreads.

Even in that book, Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare has to give me a bunch of hints about the ending I already know. He's such a jerk. At least he was. Now, he's… Well…

Dead.

Guess he should've listened to his own foreshadowing. I really should too.

Let's go back to right after Kim's freak-attack. Not at all a depressing place to start a chapter.

Julia decided to wait for her dad to pick her up, so she stuck with Kim awhile.

Willie stayed too. He seemed to like letting out little random words from his mouth. Kim would twirl his hair between her fingers and whisper things back. They looked like robots, and their actions made Austin's elbow jab on my arm every time.

With the world on a different axis, I eyed the door and announced my leave. My brother was waiting outside. I had a good excuse.

That's when Austin said, "I should probably get home, too. Mom's making beef stroganoff."

His footsteps thundered behind mine. Like a messed-up game of tag, he bumped my shoulder when he caught up to me. I let myself smile through my eyes and slipped out the door with him.

Another topic found Austin's head. I really wish it hadn't. Of all the things, it had to be that.

Austin nudged me again. "So, team 'Killie' for the win, huh?"

"What?"

He blinked. I blinked.

"You know, Kim and Willie. I thought 'Killie' sounded better than 'Wim.' Then again, 'Killie' sounds like they're in the mafia or something. But truly, Kim and Willie, who would've thought…"

"Kim and Willie what?"

He blinked again. I responded with one of my own.

"You're impossible," he chuckled.

I couldn't agree more with that logic, but he's supposed to be Mr. Positive. I turned to him.

"What do you mean?"

Austin twirled his hands through his hair, but it fell flat. "Oh, come on, she was all over him. Literally. And Willie hasn't opened his mouth since… He wouldn't have done it unless he felt like he really, really needed to express himself. I should've seen it earlier, the way she was always giggling at him, or how he would look at her, and how they'd sit there holding that stare for hours on end."

I blinked for a third time. Do you have any idea how many times people blink in a day?

"Flirting, Ben. They'd been flirting."

"Uh-huh."

"As in, you know, they liked each other."

I scratched my head and turned towards my brother's car. Two steps of progress later, Austin jumped in front of me. If I'd been any slower, he would've plowed me over like a bulldozer.

I crossed my arms. "What?"

His lips cracked into a wide smile.

"What?"

"You mean to tell me that you've never had a crush?"

Crush. I recognized the term from countless middle-school love tales. Kids, Diaries, Ponies. But why was Austin smiling? I pressed forward and focused on the beep of Kyle's convertible: twenty horn blows in fifteen seconds. New record.

Austin's thunderous steps sent the earth rolling for its original tilt. "There's no way."

I rested my fingers on the door handle.

"Dude," he howled. "You're seventeen!"

"And?"

"Well, I don't know, I get it holding off with that relationship crap. But, come on, we're talking about a crush. Like that random girl―you're telling me that you've never―"

HONK!

My brother lowered his sunglasses to the roof of his nose. I hated his topless car of easy eavesdropping and insensibility. I wished I had a baseball bat to smash up the headlights. I wished I knew how to swing a bat to do any kind of damage on anything. But Kyle of all people knows that I can't hit the broad side of a barn.

"Ben, who's this?" Kyle asked.

"Um…"

"Austin." My friend leaned against the hood. "I go to therapy with Ben. Who are you?"

Kyle scanned the bowling ball boy with sunburn acne skin. I kept my stare on the floor, opened the door, and hopped in.

"I'm Ben's cooler older brother."

"Oh, sweet!" Austin's aura snapped into a light spring. No, not light. Not a spring. Austin was a tectonic plate quaking California into the Dead Sea. "Verify this with me. Ben's NEVER had a crush?"

A cackle fled my brother's lungs and rolled through the air. There must've been a joke I missed.

"You didn't tell him?".

I responded with a swift, decisive shake of my head. What was he…

"Oh." Kyle wiped the water from his eyes. "I remember it like yesterday when you announced that you were going to marry Tiffany Joice. Mom and Dad thought I'd beat you up again or something. I mean, their faces!"

Austin perked. "Tiffany Joice?"

"One of our many babysitters who quit on the first job. But Tiff? She was…fine."

If it's even possible, Austin's face flushed out further. He reminded me of a teenage guy in a chick flick when bubbles pop out of his head and he imagines a car model in a bikini. I quote. I don't know. Maybe I'm just trying to make everyone less likable.

"… 'Course, she ended up dating Nick. So, yeah, that sucked. But turns out she has an even hotter younger sister, and then it was my turn. She was all over me. Course, she didn't have the body of her older sister yet, but …a close second."

"So, her older sister…"

"Did her too." Kyle's eyes were little mirrors into a livid heaven. "Ben was over his little crush after she quit, so he wasn't heartbroken or anything. But Tiffany…"

Kyle made some weird gesture that resembled a dog preparing itself to eat hot tamales.

"Score!" Austin nearly wiped out.

"Exactly."

I shoved them away from my vicinity.

"What?" they asked in unison.

I wish I'd been looking in the sun visor mirror. Whatever my face did, the two of them were hysterical cartoon hyenas. I had no words. So, someone else said them for me. (I'm sure you can guess who snuck up, especially if you read ahead just now.)

"You. Guys. Are. Absolutely disgusting!"

Julia White's shadow crept over me. My spine shriveled in the passenger's seat as I watched my legs slide towards the hood. Austin's heart thundered like a volcanic eruption. I'm surprised he didn't collapse under pressure.

"I thought you were waiting inside," he said.

Julia dropped a small device in his hand. "You left your phone."

Silence grabbed everyone's lungs and drowned them in saltwater. Julia even managed to shut up my brother, whose eyes were glued to a small spot on the wheel.

"Well," she said, "Aren't you going to say something?"

Austin peeked up at Kyle. He barely managed to return it.

Julia sighed, "Ben, I apologize for ever calling you a pig. Your brother takes home the prize."

With a stone glare at Kyle, a tiger-look at Austin, and what I recognized as a sympathetic one towards me, she stalked off. Perhaps, if I were a smarter person, I would have claimed my innocence. I would have understood how to fix this. I would have turned around and told my brother who the real farm animal was.

I could only ponder what his next shot would be in the war against our parents.

"Ben, your girlfriend's a piece of work," Kyle mumbled.

I scrunched my face at him, but I found his eyes farther ahead. Austin's weight had shifted from the car. He stood to his full height. A piece of grass he'd plucked twirled against his fingers.

"Well, I-I'll see you Monday then?" he asked.

I nodded as Kyle slammed his foot on the gas.

I briefed Kyle on the Kim incident in a good choppy sentence. He groaned that our "hang-out day" was now cut in half. Less time to fake it until the battle. I wanted to sing the hallelujah chorus. But I bit my tongue.

"What are we doing then?"

"I have an idea." Kyle rubbed his fist against my head. "Why don't we go get you a haircut?"

I shook my head violently.

"Why not? Your head looks like a bush that got attacked by a bunch of weeds that got a touch of some sort of mutant fertilizer. It's no wonder that Julia racist girl won't give you the time of day."

I jerked away. "That's why we're leaving it be."

There was some debate, but we ended up going to Stacks. Way to think outside of the box, Kyle.

Wait. It was my idea.

"So, that Austin's an interesting character," Kyle said.

What I thought: Like you are in any place to call other people 'interesting characters.'

What I said:

Kyle choked down half a hamburger. "What's his deal anyway?"

"Eating disorder."

"No kidding." My brother the hypocrite shuffled the rest of his food down his throat. "I should've signed him up for that pie-eating contest and won a few bucks."

I picked through my waffle, plucking a chocolate chip towards my mouth. My throat felt dead. "He's got depression too. Kim's schizophrenic. Willie's selectively mute. Stuart's got anxiety. And Julia's…Julia."

Kyle paused his pig-out to stare through my soul. A burning sensation trickled up my chest and sent my heart pounding.

"You hate labels," he said.

"They can be useful."

I noticed the checker pattern on the paper placemats. Red and white, black lines in between them. Like a country flag. I wish they were white. I would hold it above my head and wave it like a French man.

"So…you robbed a gas station."

I stared at my plate.

Kyle smirked for the ceiling. It cut through my oxygen supply. "Actually, rephrase. You stole a bottle of water and ran. You got arrested. Dad bribed the cop. And now you've turned yourself into a freaking campaign slogan for Peterson. And no one bothered to tell me about anything." I jagged my fork across my plate. He looked at me and frowned. "Sorry."

"It's fine."

"No, it's not. It's not like you had a choice in any of this."

I clenched my jaw. Sparks. I needed to fuse Kyle with silence, a distraction. Instead, I handed him the match. I chewed with force, kept my eyes to the floor, and let dread flood my consciousness.

Whatever it is I'm doing, life or nonlife, I hate it.

"Ben, would you stop treating me like some school counselor? Just talk to me here."

I circled a waffle square around syrup. Talk to him. That's what I'd tried to do. Even if he hadn't gotten the letter, the effort seemed pointless. I didn't hear my voice, but I felt the words come out of my mouth. "What's the point? You're just gonna leave again anyway."

Kyle dropped his fork and narrowed his eyes. The questions circled full force, predicting the sneak attack to come. But I wasn't Pearl Harbor. I knew it was coming. I had no power to prevent the catastrophe.

"I'm at…college, Ben."

"You could've gone here."

"You know that's not true. What's really going on?"

"Nothing."

"I'm trying here, Kid. I'm not a mind-reader." I shuffled down the waffle square. Kyle tilted his head. "You really hate me, don't you?"

I kept my eyes on my plate.

Kyle took in the surroundings, trailing the waitress as she scampered from table to table. My chest jumped when he looked back at me again, picking at his tooth with the plastic fork. "I don't like your friends."

"I don't like your ex-girlfriend."

"You've never met her!"

I sipped my orange juice. "You don't know my friends."

"They're not your friends, Ben. They're just…here. One day they're gonna leave and find whoever's next, and you'll never hear from them again. But I'm still going to be your brother no matter where I go. Alright? So, quit giving me crap."

"I'm not."

He stabbed his plate. "Fine."

Kyle sat there long after he'd finished eating, waiting for me to open my mouth and initiate communication. But I'm the king of stubbornness. And…I was mad at him. I used to send a letter a week. Never an answer.

I would not lose this battle.

Looking back, I wish I would've said something. Anything would've been than the haunting silence while I eavesdropped on the table next to us, listening to their conversation about cabbage (or xylophones, I couldn't tell). If I had attempted to communicate, perhaps the damage wouldn't be critical.

My brother would've blown up no matter what I did. But I handed him the match. I assumed myself powerless. I kept eating the soggy chocolate chip waffles and ignored my, for once, accurate instincts.

Julia's right. I am an idiot.

We got home. Everything seemed fine. It wasn't until dinner that Kyle mentioned he was going to head out late tonight for a rescheduled date with his previous girlfriend who was his "ex" but was now begging for mercy. I knew better. He wanted to go so they could tell each other off again.

"Bye, I guess," I said.

His voice stabbed through my airway. He gripped the railing and let himself hang with extended arms. "I'll keep in touch."

"Sure."

I watched him grab the light bag and trudge down the stairs. I stared at my watch, watched the digital numbers count off inside the sky-blue frame. Kyle had told me this watch was cooler than his when he gave it to me. He told me I was the coolest twelve-year-old he knew, but that's only because most twelve-year-olds are lame. I gripped my wrist and slipped into my bedroom.

Then my house became World War Seven.

Is that even a thing?

Never mind, it doesn't matter.

I'd been in my room. I checked my email: no feedback on the paper. My mind trailed possibilities as I read page fifty-five of Romeo and Juliet. That's when I heard the distant shouts. The cannons announcing the next battle. They had been faint, but the crackling fire burst with blue flame. I lost my place when I slammed the book shut.

I snagged a pair of socks. Fabric allows slick movement to defy gravity in the fine art of eavesdropping. Long enough to make out a few words, that is. I've had experience as a bystander to nuclear wars such as these.

The shouts became real words as I tiptoed down the steps. I'm going to censor this.

Dad's voice. "…what you want from us here. Why are you so worked up about this?"

"I need to know what the heck you did to my brother."

Heavy footsteps. Kyle. Why hadn't he left yet?

No. I led them here. I let this happen while I avoided fusing the flame. Now they were too strong for any extinguisher. I pulled at my scalp. I needed a new analogy. I needed to run, but my legs clung to the stairs like quicksand.

"What do you mean? What happened while you two were out?"

Crap.

"What happened? Nothing happened. Nothing. The kid was like some sort of walking zombie."

Sometimes words feel like a knife jabbing into your soul. Being compared to a zombie was a step up coming from Kyle. Still, pins pricked at my stomach.

"Kyle." Mom. Shaky voice. Not good, she was the pawn movement to distract from the king. "I know you've been gone a while, but your brother has always been that way. There's no denying that. And therapy, it's helping."

My breaths slowed against my lips.

"Helping. Right. You know what I see? I see my brother becoming more subjective every minute, and completely oblivious to anything going on around him! I… thought you'd been helping him, but I guess I was wrong. All you did was suck the humanity out of him and leave me with the result."

The silence was so thick I could reach out and grab it.

Actually, that's a stupid analogy.

Mom spoke after a long time. "I think you should go."

Her voice cracked. I don't know what Dad was doing. No one else spoke, but there were grunts. Feet shuffled against the floor, cut off by the echoing slam of our front door. My parents mumbled to each other. I imagine they were hugging. They did that a lot in response to Kyle's fiascos.

The image of the door shutting Kyle out froze over my head. Every time he'd done that. When our eyes broke contact because of that stupid brown door.

Tears are interesting. Some actors can go their entire lives being unable to generate them on command. Other people can't make them stop. They come at the worst times, uninvited like my mother's.

Sometimes, tears are a result of reflex. Kyle doesn't cry, but even his eyes were watering when our chef decided to make onion-based spaghetti sauce. Everyone was sobbing it up at our family reunion for the same reason.

Other tears are emotionally based. There are people who react this way to everything, whether happy, sad, or disturbing. It's a matter of sticking them in the situation. Their eyes melt like the Wicked Witch of the West.

Wikipedia says tears contain water, mucin, lipids, lysozyme, lactoferrin, lipocalin, lacritin, immunoglobulins, glucose, urea, sodium, and potassium. I don't know what those words mean, but it implies that tears are better as an output than an input. Ignore those stories when a magical dragon cried a lake and saved everyone from drought.

I can count the number of times I've cried on one hand. I cried when I was born because I didn't want to be here. I cried when the pills in my prescription bottle disappeared. My brother will tell you I cried when I broke my arm, but I don't think I did.

I snuck upstairs and peered out the window. The convertible was gone.

I climbed into bed and baited my breath, waiting for the world to fall into darkness. Kyle's water bottle still soaked through my old clothes shoved in the corner. My sheets were uneven and my pillow was wrinkled. The letter's scraps were scattered.

A single, wet tinge escaped my eyes and slithered down my cheek. My fist rubbed it. Another slipped to the corner of my mouth. I tasted salt.

"Shut up," I muttered to my eyes.

They quickly obeyed. He was gone again. Balance was restored. I was the problem child and a nobody, I had three perfect siblings, Mom and Dad were successful in business, Ed was my driver, and I had therapy in two days with friends I didn't even know.

The next morning, I wrote Kyle another letter. I never sent it.