I toy with my tongue ring absently, staring at the sandwich. He even served it with a side of plain potato chips, just how I like it.
“Is this off-menu?” I ask, not knowing how to show my gratitude.
The feeling is uncomfortable, like a pair of boots two sizes too small. I distract myself by lifting the bun and shoving a few chips into the sandwich.
He shakes his head and grins. “It’s from the new menu. I called it the Huxley.”
I’m hit with another disarming emotion. Love dipped in glass shards. It hurts. But I also desperately crave it.
I snort, grinning from the corner of my lip, trying to cover my actual reaction. “You’re so fucking cheesy.”
I take a bite of the sandwich, and I’m suddenly transported back to the Italian deli.
Barely seven years old. Back when one single afternoon felt like a lifetime. Ozzy felt so old to me back then. Like an adult, when he was just a teenager.
Ozzy’s eyes shimmer as he takes another sip of espresso. And maybe it’s the happiness that I constantly see in his gaze that makes me hate him. Jealousy so profound for how his life turned out that I can hardly put it into words.
“You like it?”
I take another bite and nod.Fuck, it’s good.
“You know,” I muse after swallowing my bite and placing the sandwich back on the plate. “That Italian deli is pretty hazy, but Idoremember you never getting anything anytime we went. You’d always just take a few bites of my sandwich.”
Ozzy laughs, but it’s a sardonic kind of sound. He slowly smoothes his hand over the bottom half of his face, his gaze distant as if recalling something. His eyes then flick to mine. His expression is friendly but I can see behind the bullshit.
I don’t think I’ll like what he’s about to say.
“I never had enough for two sandwiches. That was your treat, not mine.”
The jagged, broken feeling returns. This time, it slices straight through my heart, and vague anger wafts in like a hot breeze on an equally hot day. This time, the anger isn’t directed at my brother like it usually is, just at … life.
At the injustice of it all.
My voice cracks when I speak. “You never told me that.”
Ozzy studies me for a few seconds, then presses his lips together and shrugs.
“I didn’t tell you a lot of things. You were just a kid, Hux.” His gaze turns mournful while his index finger taps idly on the linoleum table. “I was trying my best to keep it that way.”
I stare at my older brother. Nine years separating us. I stare at him long enough for all of our miserable childhood to pass us by. Somehow, I feel like a failure, and I don’t even knowwhy.
I want to run out the door. I want to spit on Ozzy’s stupid fucking sandwich and flip the table over. Instead, I sigh and take another bite of the sandwich, our silence speaking volumes.
Then I surprise us both. It’s as if our exchange stirred something deep in me, and the words pour out of my mouth before I can convince myself how stupid the question is.
“Do you still have the contact for that therapist?”
Ozzy jolts as if I just confessed to murder, but he recovers quickly. He smooths his shocked expression into one of nonchalance and smiles.
“Yeah, of course I do.”
I can tell he wants to press the issue. Probably ask me why now? But I’m relieved he’s still treating me like an easily spooked dog because I wouldn’t have an answer.
Only maybe …
This constant suffocating anger is getting old.
Maybe aiming for a better version of myself isn’t a bad idea after all.
