Page 54 of Snowed In with Benefits

She opens her mouth. Closes it. Her jaw works like she’s chewing on something she doesn’t want to swallow. I can see it on her face, the recognition. She’s thinking about her own split-second decision. The wedding. The car. The mountain. She doesn’t say it. She doesn’t have to.

She shivers. It’s cold in here. The stove takes a while to heat up and neither of us has lit it. I think about doing it, but I don’t move.

“It’s always been us,” I say. She didn’t ask. I don’t know why I’m telling her. “Me and Hunter. Since we were kids.”

She watches me. Her arms are still crossed. She’s listening but she hasn’t relaxed. Good. She shouldn’t.

“Our mom was… unpredictable. She had boyfriends sometimes. Some good ones, some bad ones. Hunter charmed them. And her. He was her good boy.”

Something shifts in her expression. Not pity. If it was pity, I’d shut down the conversation right here. Something else. Something like recognition.

“I was the bad kid,” I tell her. She didn’t ask that either. “I was bigger than Hunter when we were kids. Angrier. People were afraid of me. Other kids. Babysitters, when we had them. Then as we got older, I think my mom was afraid of me too.”

I’ve never talked about my childhood this much. I don’t think I’ve ever talked this much about anything that matters. I’m waiting for her to get tired of listening to me, but she’s not. She’s standing there with her arms still crossed and her teeth still chattering, watching my face, absorbing what I’m telling her, and somehow it makes me want to talk more.

“When Hunter got picked on, I got into fights. I got in trouble. When Hunter did something wrong at home, if it was something Mom would find out about, I’d make sure to do something worse. I wouldn’t take the blame for the thing he did, he wouldn’t let me do that, but I’d make sure that whatever I did would draw the attention.”

“You’re a good brother,” she says quietly.

I shrug, uncomfortable with that. I don’t think I’m a good brother. I don’t think I’m a good anything.

“I just did what I needed to do, that’s all. Hunter was softer than I was. Kinder. Smarter. He had a future in front of him. I wasn’t going to let her beat that out of him.”

She nods slowly. “And you didn’t think you had the same kind of future.”

It’s not a question, so I don’t answer it. It’s true, though. I didn’t think I had a future. I was the one who was always in trouble at school and at home.

When I pictured what my life would look like, it was small. A job where I used my hands and nobody asked me questions. A room somewhere. Maybe a trailer if I saved enough. Maybe a dog if the landlord allowed it. That was it. That was the whole picture. Teachers didn’t pull me aside and tell me I had potential. Guidance counselors didn’t ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. They asked me what I was going to do about my anger. They asked me if I understood the consequences of my actions. They asked me those things so many times that I stopped hearing them.

Hunter was the one with the future. I was the one who made sure he got to keep it.

“I can’t tell you how many times someone told me I was going to end up in prison when I was growing up,” I confess. “I guess they were right.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say to a child.” There’s a flash of anger in her eyes that makes me feel seen in a way I don’t fully know how to deal with.

“I understand why they said it,” I tell her. “I wasn’t a martyr. I was furious. Looking back on my childhood, I can’t remember a whole lot of times when I wasn’t angry about something. There was always something. I was always pissed and ready to let everybody know how pissed I was.”

“It kind of sounds like you had plenty of good reasons to be pissed.”

The validation stings like antiseptic on an open wound. I shift my feet, feeling awkwardly exposed. I want to brush it off and take the blame.

My hands want to move. I can feel them trying to find something to do. Pockets. Belt loops. Anything. My jaw wants to clench and my shoulders want to roll forward and close my chest off. The impulse to say something dismissive is so strong I can taste it. Something like, “It is what it is.” Something that puts the wall back up and ends this.

But she’s not flinching. She said what she said and she’s standing there, steady, looking at me like she means it. She’s not afraid of me. She heard all of it. The fights. The prison. The anger. She heard every ugly thing I just told her and she didn’t step back. She didn’t reach for the door. She didn’t change her posture or glare at me or do any of the things that people do when they’re recalculating how close they want to stand to you.

That’s the thing that undoes me. Not the words. The stillness. The fact that she’s still right there.

I don’t brush it off. I don’t take the blame. I sit with the discomfort and let it start to heal something in me that I’ve never taken the time to address. The quiet stretches out between us and I struggle to find something to fill it with.

“I’m not used to talking about myself this much,” I blurt out. “I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

She laughs softly. “I get it. There’s been a lot lately that I’m not used to, either.”

I cock my head slightly. “Like what?”

She gives me a hooded look full of meaning. “One-night stands,” she says, her cheeks flushing. “My life going completely off-track after I’ve already chosen a direction. You both…” She bites her lip, leaving that thought hanging. “All of it. Any of it. This whole thing has been a new experience for me.”

I snort. “I definitely understand the feeling of thinking your life is on a certain track and having that change.”