Tangled Like Us (Like Us 4)

“Stab it.” She picks up a steak knife. “Roast it. Eat it.”

My siblings explode in applause, drumming their feet to the floor. Palms to the table, the room beginning to rumble.

I pat my thighs, a peculiar feeling sinking inside me as I watch and look around at my dramatic family.

My smile flickers in and out.

And I wonder…

What would it feel like for Thatcher to be at the table next to me? There’s never been harm in just imagining, but the more I do, the more my stomach descends and my head droops.

He’s my bodyguard.

That’s all he’ll be soon—no fake boyfriend, no late-night sex—and I have no need for security when I’m at my childhood home in a gated neighborhood.

No need for him.

It hurts to think.

So I won’t think it. I won’t feel it.

“To eat my heart,” my dad says smoothly, “is to have me with you always.”

Thunderous noise escalates.

“Incorrect.” She zeroes in on him. “It is cannibalism. It is murder.”

“You love me,” he declares, his eyes fixed to hers in victory and affection.

Usually, she’ll deny. Tonight, my mom lifts her chin and restrains a smile.

She turns to the rest of us and taps her goblet with the knife. “As with every Wednesday, it is what you make it.”

“And someone will win,” my dad adds.

Someone will win. Most faces teem with some sort of excitement. I hope mine appears the same, but if not, the mask should do.

Every Wednesday night…it’s not just a dinner. The second half is a trivia game. Sometimes, depending on the night, we’ll even have different rules. Once only French was allowed at the dinner table, no one speaking a single word of English. Another Wednesday night, all cursing was banned and if someone slipped, they had to put money in a goblet—which would later be delivered to Uncle Ryke.

Tonight, as far as I know, is more of a traditional Wednesday night dinner. No new rules.

“Opening remarks have commenced,” my mom announces, lowering in unison with my dad onto the velveteen chairs.

This time is occupied for us to share our lives. Or not. It’s up to each person.

I intake a breath. Ignoring the sinking pit.

Eliot grabs the moment first. He almost always does. Rising to his feet, climbing onto his chair—and like an orchestrated play, we all reach for our goblets. Eliot pounds his boot to the lip of the table.

Rattling the dishes.

He bows forward, elbow to his knee. “I’d like to talk of deception.”

I frown behind my mask. My heart quickening. Eliot will most often quote a play and use up his time with someone else’s words.

His intense gaze sweeps the table. “To be able to deceive…” He looks directly at me for an extended beat. Emotion bleeding through his eyes. “You need to know where the lie is at all times. So as not to deceive yourself.”

I sip my water, hand frozen on my goblet.

“Was that Macbeth ?” Ben asks.

“No,” everyone says.

Eliot stands up further onto the table, the surface quaking. “It was an Eliot Alice Cobalt original. This is Macbeth.” He takes a puff from the pipe. “‘Away!’” His blue eyes pulse with raw feeling. “‘False face must hide what the false heart doth know.’”

Breath traps in my lungs as those words pool into me.

Tom snaps his fingers.

Possibly, his speech was all coincidence and I’m suffering from severe paranoia.

Eliot takes a single step backward, not even looking. His boot lands on the cushion of his seat and he sits down on the top frame.

All the while, Tom grips the chair so it won’t tip over.

Eliot has broken many chairs throughout our childhood. He’s a six-four strong-built nineteen-year-old. And right now, he roots his gaze on me.

I don’t turn away. “Do you wish to ask me something?”

“No, dear sister.” He looks to Tom. “Dear brother.”

“Dear brother.” Tom quickly rises and stands triumphantly on a chair. He often talks of music and issues in his band. I’m waiting for him to mention a recent dilemma. How his drummer has quit, right before The Carraways were recording an EP.

Tom hoists his goblet of liquor. “Fear.”

I breathe harder. They can’t be speaking to me.

He scans the table like Eliot had done. “The feeling that lets you know you’re alive.” He puts the goblet to his lips just as Eliot slings open a Zippo lighter. Flame in his hand.

Tom blows liquor at the fire, and I feel the heat of the amassed blaze, sputtering out as quickly as it came.

One dinner in the past, Eliot lit the entire tablecloth on fire, purposefully. Their show tonight is entirely normal.

Except for the fact that Tom pins his eyes to mine.

My lips part, confusion and some other sentiment ascending. I try to understand.

Part of me is afraid to.

Tom remains standing on his chair, and I wait for slingshot banter. For another person to comment on fear or their theatrics, but there is silence. And movement down the table.

Beckett shifts his plate, lining the silverware. He often spends his opening remarks catching us up on his life. Moments we may’ve missed. He stays seated nearly every time.

Powerfully, Beckett rises. Graceful like water, he puts a foot on the cushion to stand, and that’s when I’m certain—this is for me.

He turns. Eyes on mine. “Sacrifice.”

It crashes against my body, and I stare at him, my brother who understands that word most deeply.

“The act

of surrendering something to gain something else. Your greatest desire isn’t without sacrifice.”

I swallow hard. I picture Thatcher. But his career is not mine to sacrifice. I will never; I could never.

He’s needed as my bodyguard.

Yes. That’s what we agreed on.

Beckett stays standing on his chair too, and then Charlie snuffs his cigarette on a dish. His opening remark almost never changes.

He will say, I invoke the right to pass.

Careened back on his chair, he kicks his feet up on his plate. Clattering silverware and cranberries. And loudly, he says, “Love.”

I freeze, eyes burning.

I can’t.

Charlie tilts his head to me. “To love is to reach true fulfillment.”

I can’t.

There is no scenario, no possibility, where Thatcher and I can be together beyond the ruse. I can’t love him.

I can be fulfilled without him.

I have to be.

Dropping his feet off the table, Charlie stands on his chair. Staring strikingly down at me.

“Courage,” Ben says as he steps onto his cushion. Towering over everyone as the tallest here. Warmth in his gaze. “Meaningful change takes great acts of courage. Confront what scares you the most.”

Tears prick me, and my sister rises elegantly. “Heartache. What comes with love.” She stares earnestly onto me. “What can be necessary.”

This is a riddle I’ve just solved. My family loves riddles, I love riddles, and this one was meant to rip down my defenses. To be open to love, even if it hurts.

I pull off my mask, and I brush my fingers under my watery eyes.

My parents rise together, not to join my siblings. They value the bond between me and my brothers and sister, and they want us to work together.

Always.

They begin to walk out, my mom staring fiercely at me. Her hand glides across my shoulders in comfort before she leaves.

My dad passes my chair. He pauses, his calming hand on my arm. “Ne fais pas mes erreurs, mon coeur,” he whispers. Don’t make my mistakes, my heart.

He wouldn’t accept how much he loved my mom.

I breathe in.