Chapter 4

- I did not say it like that. Don't make things up.

- But you thought it. It doesn't matter! You were right. I have wanted to do it for a long time, but I could not bring myself to.

- And?

- I think I love her.

Wow. Hell of a confession. It drops on me like a sack of flour, and I whistle softly. I look at my brother, throwing my hands behind my head:

- Holy shit. You have lost your mind, dude!

Alex says nothing, and I give him a chance.

- Or maybe you just think you do?

- No, - he answers with certainty. - For a long time now. I feel it.

I find it funny. The age of sappy Romeos ended the moment Hugh Hefner sold out the first print run of Playboy, both Kennedys got caught cheating, and humanity figured out how to film porn. What fucking love?

- You know, - I answer my brother, - when Bridget Doe let me touch her tits in seventh grade, I felt something too... I could not calm down until I jerked off twice in the bathroom!

Alex groans with laughter. Propping himself on one elbow, he throws a pillow at me as hard as he can.

- Oh my God, Carter, shut up! - he begs. - Why can't you ever be serious?

I can. Absolutely. Just not when my own brother is spouting this kind of nonsense!

- Because your confessions are about to make me puke, Al! You have never even been with a girl. What the hell can you know about love? It is obvious!

- And you?

Alex throws the question back at me, and I throw the pillow back at him. I lean my bare back against the wall and warn him, pointing a finger:

- Do not even start filling my head with that crap! I am not answering!

But Alex would not be himself if he did not sit up in bed too and add stubbornly:

- But it is true! It is real, do you understand? Lena is kind, smart, and very beautiful! - For a second he tries to hide the words behind an embarrassed pause, but the need to say them wins. - And she loves me too.

This day is just full of shitty surprises, and I snort doubtfully:

- She is a girl like any other. Two arms, two legs... an ass. Hm, technically she should have one by now, though I did not notice.

- Carter, if you do not shut up, I am going to be offended! - Alex promises angrily, and I surrender:

- Fine, calm down!

I get out of bed, go to the window, and move the blinds aside. Sitting on the windowsill the way my brother did not long ago, I take a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the hiding place beneath it and light one. I drag in smoke and exhale it through the open pane.

- So I still don't get it, Alex, - I ask. - Did you kiss her after all, your Teal? Or did you stand there stammering like an idiot again?

- No stammering. It just happened. Carter?

- What?

Outside, the night is dark, and only the light by the Holt house is burning. In the girl's second-floor window, a night-light glows dimly, and I suddenly wonder how long Alex looked into that window before I came in.

- I think I will love Lena forever. I don't need anyone else.

The confession is quiet, and maybe it is the night and exhaustion, or maybe the sincerity in my brother's voice, but I finally understand what a feeling sounds like when the heart gives it a voice. And I no longer want to laugh. In those sounds hanging in the room, I suddenly feel like a stranger who accidentally wandered into a world he never even knew existed.

Sometimes words mean nothing, crumble into background static in the air, and are carried off by the wind without leaving a trace. And sometimes their weight is so real that your own life, compared with them, seems like a faded dot lost beneath layers of husk. Sweep the husk away, and nothing remains.

Of course, I say something stupid to Alex, because I am not capable of anything else right now. All I can do is smile crookedly with my battered mouth and narrow my eyes against the smoke that gets into them:

- So how exactly do you feel this fucking love, Al? With what part of your body? You want to see what Teal has under her skirt?

He does not take offense, though I am waiting for it. I want him to, and I wish I knew why. But instead of being offended, Alex gets out of bed, turns on the lamp, and goes to the desk. Opening the top drawer, he takes out his journal and opens it. Shows me.

This journal is deeply personal. I have never looked inside it before, but now I see a scarlet feather from a red cardinal between the written pages.

- Lena and I caught one feather the first time we met. And the second one today, under the White Oak, and I kissed her. That is how I feel love, Carter. Like this feather in my journal. Do you understand?

And while I stare at it, stunned, Alex closes the journal and hides it back in the desk. He smiles at me, shyly burying his fingers in his hair--still alive, real, and happy. In the dead of night, in our bedroom, lit from within by a feeling capable of driving the dark out of any crack.

I will remember him like that forever, even after years pass.

- So what do you say now, brother? - he asks me, searching my eyes as if he hopes to find understanding in them. A reflection of the emotions overflowing him, and of himself. For us, that has always mattered. Unfortunately, I cannot give it to him.

I have nothing to say. I shake my head and crush the cigarette right on the windowsill.

- God, Al. What a load of shit.