One for the Money

“Who was it this time?” I ask, resigned.

“I don’t know why you assume I got into a fight with someone.”

“Why would I assume that?”

“I mean, yes. I often get into fights, but that’s not why I got expelled this time.”

I give him a hard look and wait for the reason. He doesn’t have any bruises on his face, which is odd. Usually, when they kick him out, he’s got a black eye.

The other kid always gets worse, but they’ll get in a few hits. I think partially, that’s what Hemingway likes about it. Something real is happening to him, a physical sensation he can react to, instead of the hollow emptiness and distress. At least that’s how I would feel about it.

He sighs. “I got caught doing something against the rules.”

“Drugs?”

“Do we really have to talk about this?”

“Yes, we really do.”

“It wasn’t drugs. I was caught having sex in the bathroom.”

Fuck. My stomach clenches. I should have had the sex talk. I’m late. I’m always too late. I scrub a hand over my face. “I’m failing you, Hemingway.”

“No, you’re not.” He sounds indignant. “Me having sex had nothing to do with you.”

Except it does. I should have known. I should have steered him away from this somehow. Physical fights only work for so long because you don’t know about sex. And once you do, well, you open up a lot of other opportunities.

“Did you use protection?”

My brother rolls his eyes. “I’m seventeen years old. That’s like, basically ancient. Do you really want to sit here and explain the birds and the bees?”

“Did you use protection?” I demand, my gut turning to stone, because if he didn’t, if he put someone else at risk, then it’s on me. He’s not even eighteen yet.

His brain isn’t fully developed. It would be my fault.

He gives me a goading smile. “Why do you care?”

“Because it’s important,” I tell him. “You know why. When you have unprotected sex, you can get someone pregnant. Do you want to pass the curse to someone else?”

Hemingway looks away, his mouth twisted into a scowl.

He stares out my office window and his anger comes across the desk, his frustration. He came here directly from school. He’s still wearing the uniform. They sent him straight to me, because where else would he go? Both of us are prisoners here. Not in the office, but in our own bodies. Our own minds. We both know how this will end.

We saw our grandfather decline in what was basically a private, luxurious prison. And we see what’s happening to our father. That’s what’s lurking around the corner for us. Maybe I could have accepted it with grace if it had just been me. Knowing that it’s going to happen to Hemingway, knowing that I can’t do anything to stop it, fills me with hollow rage.

“There’s no chance of him getting pregnant.”

My brother’s words hang in the air a second before they register. Oh.

I guess this is how my brother comes out to me. I weigh my words carefully, not wanting to fuck this up. Lord knows we have enough bullshit to deal with already. So I do what guys have done from the beginning of time. I turn something serious into a joke. “The bathroom? You couldn’t wait until you were in your dorm room, like every other prep school kid?”

Hemingway snorts a laugh. “Fuck you.”

The tension passes, and I let out a sigh of relief. Relatively painless, I suppose. For me, anyway. I’m glad there wasn’t a risk of pregnancy, at least. “You should still use protection, you know.”

“Oh my God.”

“It’s true.”

“We covered this in health class.”

Hell. I do need to have the sex talk with him, but the corner office of Hughes Industries isn’t the place for it. “I’ll call the tutor,” I say, resigned.

This is our standard procedure for when Hemingway has been kicked out.

A tutor will help him keep up with his academics so he doesn’t fall behind. Hemingway studies like the serious student that he usually isn’t. And when a few weeks have passed, I go back to Pembroke Prep and re-enroll him. Which mostly means that I promise he’ll never do it again. The headmaster and I both know I’m lying.

Then I make a sizable donation to the school, and we’re done.

It’s always going to work out in our favor, right up until the moment it doesn’t.

“Are you all right?” I ask my brother, my voice brisk. “Do you need anything? Are you hungry?” It can’t have been a comfortable moment getting caught having sex in a school bathroom. There would be some adrenaline after that, some residual shakiness, even though Hemingway is playing it cool.

“I thought I would head home,” he says, his voice hesitant. It’s really a question, so he knows what to expect. Has dad had good days or bad days?