Page 38 of Silver Sweet

Fuck.

Without Charlie, I’m not sure I’d be cognizant of every little thing that’d set off Beckett’s OCD. Beckett was diagnosed at an early age and it’s a different type than Ben’s obsessive compulsive disorder, so it’s more familiar to me.

Still, living with Beckett is a challenge.

I don’t move right away. “You think Neil Armstrong swept away his boot prints on the moon?”

“Tu n’es pas si important que ça.”You’re not that important.

I tsk, then rise to go grab cleaner. “Je suis suffisamment important pour te divertir.”I’m important enough to entertain you.

“You’re doing a terrible fucking job.”

“I disagree.” When I return with a squirt bottle of Clorox and a paper towel, I wipe down the coffee table. “It looks like I’m not bugging you into taking a midnight flight to Prague, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin?—”

“There’s still time.”

“I sense an empty threat, Charlie Keating. You know why?” I’m knelt on one knee at the table, the dirtied paper towel crumpled in my hand. “You’re not exercising your passport because you’re sticking around for Ben too. And I know you and Ben don’t get along, but that doesn’t change one very real fact.”

Charlie looks absolutelydonewith this conversation. Which makes my grin stretch wider. “I’m sure you’ll try to enlighten me,” Charlie says dryly.

“You love our little brother.”

Charlie blinks into the hardest eye roll of the century. He says he loves infrequently and sparingly, but it’s hard to believe his love doesn’t extend to me and our brothers and sisters. At the very least, I’m positive he would spend eternity in a tormented hell for Beckett. That’s enough to put Charlie’s shrunken-heart Grinch status into question.

Because if Charlie would do anything for Beckett, then he’d try to love us for him too. It might be love by osmosis, but I see it aslovenonetheless.

“You’re worried about Ben,” I add, my smile fading at another realization. “It must’ve really shaken you when youfound him alone out there.” Charlie was the one who brought Ben home from Alaska.

“All it did was remind me that I am nothing like him,” he says while trying to return to his book.

Charlie is apathy while Ben is empathy, and their dichotomy isn’t a new development. But the fact that Charliecaresabout Ben’s well-being—that is.

I chuck the dirtied paper towel in the kitchen trash, and when I come back to the couch, Charlie tells me, “Beckett asked if I could stay in New York more.”

I sit down slowly. “For Ben?”

“Of course for Ben.” His tone is irritable. “I spent the end of last year trying to be scarce because I thought I’d provoke him into punching a wall.”

“Which you’ve done before,” I note, then wince as the memory floods back. “Or was it a tree? The very thing Ben likes to protect. Alivingthing.”

Charlie’s annoyed eyes puncture me.

I raise my hands in defense. “I’m just gathering the facts, dude. Don’t come for the fact finder.”

“It was a tree.” He glances back at his book. “If he were smarter, he should’ve just punched me in the face. Too bad he’s not the fucking genius.”

I’m glad Ben is not in the vicinity to hear that. It’s not that he takes things too literally. I’m pretty sure he can detect the bottomless sarcasm Charlie deep-sea dives into. Ben just has more sensitive skin, and he thinks we all make excuses for Charlie’s asshole behavior.

It hurts knowing Ben might feel like Eliot and I chose Charlie over him growing up. Because I want to be there for Ben. Especially when Charlie doesn’t need any of us to go to bat for him, and Ben does need us.

Hehasneeded us.

But it’s hard to say I don’t excuse our oldest brother. When Charlie aims for the jugular like he’s hoping to be stabbed back, the first thing I think is,his mind seems like a prison he’s trying to escape.And I end up just thanking the gene pool lottery that I don’t have an IQ comparable to our dad’s.

Charlie flips a page. “You won’t push Ben to leave a second time around.”

“Yeah, because we’re not letting it happen.” It’s what Eliot would say if he were here. “I think it’s good you’re doing the opposite of what you did before. Make yourself more present. It’s better for Ben to have us all around, especially since you were the one who found him. That changed things for him. I think he’s viewing you differently.” I don’t add,because you care.But he has to fucking care about Ben.