What They Always Tell Us Read Online Free Page B

the greenish glow from the digital clock by his bed, Alex could barely make out James’s face. “Because I’ve got something to tell you, okay?”
    Alex said nothing.
    “I just want to say, that…you better not do anything fucking stupid again.” He paused as if waiting for Alex to protest. But he didn’t. He was shocked into silence. “I mean, I could…I couldn’t care less what you do. If you want to fucking hurt yourself and throw your life away, fine. Fuck you.” Alex could tell James was about to cry, but that he was fighting it. “But…but, Mom and Dad would…If you do something like that again, and if this time you succeeded…well, you’d ruin our lives. You’d ruin their lives. You do realize that, don’t you?”
    Alex heard James start to cry, and it was weird, because James never cried.
    “Fuck,” James said, like he was pissed at himself for bawling in front of Alex. After all, Alex was the one who cried, the weak one. “Just remember that,” he managed to mutter. Then James left, leaving Alex where he’d found him, sleepless in bed, his heart pounding, his mouth growing dry.
    Now in the bathroom, he pours the bottle of Mr. Clean out into the sink and runs his fingers over the sticky remains on the ceramic basin, listening to the liquid escape down the drain. He puts the bottle back under the sink, knowing that his mother will eventually discover that it is empty and probably suffer a moment of fear. But then she’ll find Alex sitting reading a book or watching TV, not passed out on the floor, and her fear will subside, though it might never disappear, at least not for a while. Alex knows he may never be trusted again, but here he is alone—well, mostly alone—and he’s fine. A little vodka-buzzed but fine. They’ll see that, they all will, eventually.
    Back in the living room he finds Henry sitting on the couch, still staring outside.
    “You want to watch a movie or something?” Alex asks.
    Henry nods.
    “Cool.”
    “Alex?” Henry says.
    “Yeah?” he says.
    “I’m not a baby.”
    “Oh, I know that.”
    “I didn’t mean to cry.”
    “It’s okay. I cry a lot.”
    “You do?”
    “Sure. All the time.”
    Henry looks at him, like he can’t imagine Alex crying.
    “And so does James, my brother. So do lots of people. It’s normal.”
    Henry sniffles and nods and then breaks into a relieved grin.
     
    At midnight they sit at the kitchen table drinking hot milk, because Henry said it’s what people in the movies drink to help them sleep. The curtains of the bay window are pulled. Alex has put sleeping bags on the floor in the den, but they aren’t tired yet. The dictionary lies open on the table and Henry thumbs through the thin, tissuelike pages, reading definitions aloud.
    Soon Alex hears a car pull up outside, and then the engine stops, but it’s hard to tell where the sound of the car is coming from. It could be James, or Henry’s mother, or just a neighbor returning home late from a party. Maybe even Alex’s parents, returned early. When the car’s engine starts up again, Alex looks over at Henry, but neither of them rushes to the window to see who it is. Then he hears the car drive away.
    For a moment Alex wonders what James is doing. Is he even thinking about him? Or is his mind focused solely on Alice? Then he thinks about Tyler and Kirk. Alice. Henry’s mom. Everyone’s out there, living, and here he is, at home with a kid.
    He should feel sad, like he’s missing out on something. But he doesn’t, not really. He’s not alone, after all, and tonight that feels very good.

James
    E verything is boring, James thinks. This town. This day. This night. Even this girl, Alice. He’s known all this for a while, but tonight it hits him even harder. Hits him like a punch to the gut.
    It’s a Saturday night, and he’s in a hotel room with Alice, whom you might call his girlfriend, though he’s not so sure. She’s pretty but in that cheap sort of way—big boobs,