“Colin,” Sam warns.
Colin’s staggering drunk, but his speech is horrifyingly clear. He actually believes that they’re the loyal sons who loved our dad and I’m the selfish piece of shit who took him for granted and then bailed. I can feel it: the tickling in my ears and tightness in my throat that means I’m going to cry if I don’t do something quick. So I do the only thing that always works. I get mad instead.
“What the fuck, Colin!”
I shove him, thinking that this unsteady on his feet he’ll go down like a sack of cement. But, even wasted, Colin’s a fighter, and he sways back to center like a punching bag, grabs me by the shirt, and slams me against the wall so hard the light flickers. I hear Liza’s intake of breath. Colin’s face is a mask of fury. He’s the only one of us who looks like our mom, with light brown hair and light blue eyes. He’s my height, but he’s built like a tank. I’ve never won a fight with Colin. Not ever.
Then there’s a large presence at my shoulder and Rex peels Colin off me. His expression is neutral, but when he speaks his voice is murderously calm.
“Don’t. Fucking. Touch him,” Rex says, and you would have to be out of your goddamned mind to start anything with that voice. Colin, though I’ve wondered over the years, is not out of his mind.
The tension in the room is thick. Sam has half risen from the recliner and Brian is standing in front of the TV as if he might be able to change the channel and end up in some other living room in some other house, with some other family. He looks anxious. Brian is always anxious when Colin isn’t in control.
“Um, so, who are you?” he asks Rex again.
“Rex,” Rex says, glancing at me as if to check what he should say.
“He’s my boyfriend,” I say. I feel a flash of elation at saying it for the first time, followed by a deep pang of shame, the only emotion I’ve ever associated with desire for men inside these walls.
Sam looks at the floor and Colin sinks back onto the couch.
“Well, I guess it’s obvious who the girl is, Danielle,” Colin says, using his old nickname for me.
It doesn’t matter that years of studying gender theory have given me the ability to reject the gender binary outright. It doesn’t matter that I understand my negative reaction to being called the girl is due to a whole lot of entrenched cultural misogyny and not my own feelings about women. It doesn’t matter that I love when Rex fucks me, which is, of course, basically what Colin’s accusing me of.
All that matters in this moment is launching myself across the pathetic pressboard coffee table cluttered with beer cans and junk mail, and beating the shit out of Colin, which is what I’m attempting to do when Rex grabs me. At least he let me get in a couple of good punches, but I’m still vibrating with fury.
“Fuck!” I yell, and I’m actually glad when Rex grabs me this time, because I was about to punch the television, and god knows if I’d broken that, all three of my brothers would have jumped on me and murdered me before Rex could do a thing about it.
I slam out the front door and turn into the alley where Rex’s truck is. I’m leaning against it when Rex joins me.
“Well,” I say. But I have nothing to add.
Rex fixes me with a look that manages to be incredibly sympathetic without pissing me off.
“I don’t care for your brothers,” he says, jaw clenched.
I laugh.
“Fuck, me neither. Let’s get out of here.”
I FEEL better after the fight with Colin, actually. My anger for him is familiar; I know it’ll fade. It feels better than the creeping numbness I’ve felt the last few days.
It’s about nine when we get to Ginger’s shop, and I have a huge grin on my face as the door chimes tinkle their customary welcome. Ginger is in the back of the shop, doing inventory. She’s wearing these hideous purple overalls that she loves and a black bandeau top that shows off the tattoos on her arms, chest, back, and neck. Her curly black hair is shaved on one side and she’s wearing her usual tangle of thin silver chains around her neck.
She’s pretty but not beautiful, with a pale, heart-shaped face and intelligent brown eyes. But when she looks up and sees me, she cracks a grin that turns her into the most beautiful girl in the world. Her eyes flash and her nose crinkles and she squeals and rushes toward me, jumping on me in joy.
“You came back early!”
She smells like Ginger. Like baby powder deodorant, eucalyptus shampoo, jasmine perfume, and, over it all, the metallic tang of ink.