Teeth (14 page)

And the fishermen aren’t coming.

There’s a hand on my shoulder. Either it’s shaking or I am. I turn and face Fiona. Okay, so definitely me, then.

“Your ghost is screaming,” she tells me.

I can’t take this. I start to go, and then I turn around, because I can’t leave her yet, because I made a promise to the fishboy. And because if I don’t keep it, it will stick in my head, and I cannot think about Teeth right now. I can’t. I need to do this for him and get rid of it so he cannot exist.

So I say, as quietly as I can, “Thank you for taking care of him. I told him I’d tell you.”

She looks at me for a long time. Her eyes are the palest blue I’ve ever seen.

“Thank
you
,” she says.

So in the end, keeping the promise didn’t help, because I’m walking home thinking about who I should have taken care of, and I’m throwing up on the beach.

It happens slowly.

First, he stops running. Then he’s raising his arms up in the air every time someone passes him, silently asking to be carried. Then, when we’re giving the smallest meals with the smallest bits of fish, he’s coughing until he throws it all up.

We take turns pounding shit out of his chest and it barely makes a dent. I stop leaving the house. I know that out there everyone’s trying to figure out bait, everyone’s threatening the fishermen, everyone’s trying a hundred ways, but it’s fucking useless and no one knows it more than me. Almost every thought in my head is
run
, but it just stops being an option. I might as well be thinking
fly
. I can’t do it. I can
barely even go to the empty market every day when Mom sends me, just to check if maybe, maybe there are fish. There never are, because I guess fucking Teeth was encouraged by our success, I don’t know, and every second I’m out of the house burns in my chest. I definitely don’t look at the water when I go, but a few times I’ve heard the fishboy calling my name. Quietly.

But what the fuck is there to say to him? That I’m mad, but not as mad as I should be? That I don’t really think fish are more valuable than people, but that’s essentially the choice I made? That I made it because I wanted him to like me? Please stop? I thought you needed me?

I am the worst brother in existence, and it’s not even because of the things I do and know are terrible. It’s the stuff I don’t notice, because he isn’t on my mind.

I should never have made a mistake like that.

I don’t know. I can’t think about this anymore.

We watch TV in the evenings now, just to avoid talking to each other. Mom and Dad haven’t fought once since the fish ran out, or if they do, it’s whisper-fights in their room, and they come out looking close to stone. Mom had the breakdown initially, but since then I haven’t seen a feeling from either one of them.

It’s not that I think the emotions aren’t there, I just wish that they’d show them so I could show mine. Because I can’t be the one who’s not strong enough for Dylan right
now. I can’t do it. I need to be the strongest one. Because the kid has no idea what’s going on, and every strangled breath he takes is completely terrifying him, and . . . shit.

He trusts us.

We’re all just quiet. It’s like we’re afraid if we talk, we’ll miss someone opening their mouth and coming up with the solution to everything. So we sit and stare and wait for someone else to come up with the answer.

When I go into town, when Mom makes me, it’s more of the same, and the guilt blooms in my stomach. Sam’s wife hasn’t been out of bed in days, and you can see the tumor in Leann’s neck growing back and pressing against her skin. Mrs. Lewis collapsed on the beach a few days ago. Nobody’s died yet, but it’s just a matter of time, and I have to get home. I can’t stand this.

I really didn’t think we were this reliant. I really didn’t.

And they’re grabbing Teeth harder and he’s crying louder every night and I lost my only friend, so in what way wasn’t this a hideous mistake?

I’m a shaky mess all the time.

My parents have no idea this is all my fault, that they should be tying me down and excising me or lancing me like a boil or shooting me full of poison, anything, and then taking my lungs and stuffing them down my brother’s throat and watching him turn pink again.

I have a dream about carving Teeth open and taking
his liver and giving it to Dylan, and Dylan keeps asking me what a liver is.

But I can’t even fool myself into thinking my parents would want me dead, because I see how badly they need me right now, how they need me to be the one who leaves the house for milk and no fish, because they couldn’t stand it right now. They need me because I’m the only one who can leave Dylan, even for a second.

“It’s not going to happen,” I growl at him when he’s asleep. “So stop even thinking about it.”

Mom holds him and strokes his hair and he asks—sometimes with words, when he can, sometimes just with his eyes—what the hell is going on, why the fuck he feels so sick. “Only a bump in the road,” she says to him.

I wonder what the fuck road she thinks we’re on. There aren’t even any cars on this island.

I trap Dylan on my lap with my arms and listen to him wheeze. We put together puzzles. When he’s falling back asleep, I whisper, “Breathe breathe breathe breathe,” over and over again, my forehead up against his.

I don’t care how much time he has left; he needs to be spending every second of it listening to every single thing I’m telling him right now. Because I am telling him some important shit.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” I whisper.

On our doorstep there is half a fish, the head and half a body. It’s wrapped in wax paper. It’s cool enough out here that it’s like it’s been refrigerated, but really it doesn’t matter how long it’s been waiting for us. Magic fish don’t spoil.

The footprints in the sand are small, and the note says:

Mom’s sick, could spare this, hope it helps. –D.

My parents act all grateful, like they don’t know that half a fish isn’t going to do shit.

Dylan is worse today, but something inside me has let go a little, and when Mom tells me to go down to the marina again to check for more fish, I go. I’ve gone a few times most days, just to beg for something. But they’ve been holding on to what they’ve caught this week very tightly, selling it to the rich old women on the island whose hearts haven’t been beating right since the shortage at the market. Even though Dad tells me to spend whatever I have to get my hands on a fish, one single fucking fish, they’re always already reserved for someone else who’s paid even more. I can’t believe this. It’s like nobody in the world cares about a dying kid anymore. Except Diana, and even she didn’t care enough to matter.

If I steal one, they’ll never give my family another fish
again, but I don’t know how long that will be a problem for us.

“Rudy.”

I look over and there he is, bobbing in the water. He looks worse than I’ve ever seen him. He has bruises and scabs all across one cheek. I knew by the screams that the fishermen were really punishing him, but I didn’t know he’d look this bad. It’s more bruising than I’ve ever seen, and he’s wearing this expression like he doesn’t even notice. And it makes it very hard for me to be as mad at him as I want to be. My anger’s more a thought than a feeling. Maybe I don’t have room for any more feelings right now.

Except no, because apparently I still have room for my throat to tighten when I’m around him. Goddamn it, Rudy.

I pull my jacket around myself. “It’s cold.”

“Where have you been all week?”

“My brother’s sick.” I say this with as much meaning as I can. I punch out each word like I’m trying to hit him with it. I don’t know if I can make this statement weigh as much as it really does.

But he looks down. He gets it. And now he doesn’t know what to say. I see all the possible sentences flashing across his face.

He eventually settles on, “Is he okay?”

God. “No. He was up all night puking and he can’t take a single step. He’s fucked. I can’t even believe we . . . ”

I put my hand against my forehead and rub as hard as I can.

I can’t even believe we.

“But it’s not that many,” Fishboy says, his voice all desperate. “The fishermen will catch a ton more and bring them to market—”

“Teeth, I’m not a fucking idiot. You’re still slitting nets.”

“A few, okay, maybe, but they’re the ones who bring me to the mar—”

“Teeth, this isn’t a fucking game, okay?” I charge toward the water, but I don’t let it hit my shoes. “This isn’t fucking Operation Anything besides Operation Watch Your Brother Die and it fucking sucks!”

He pushes his chest out. “You think I don’t know that? You think
I of all—
”

“Fuck you.” I leave him and walk the rest of the way to the marina.

“You didn’t do it for the fish, you did it for me!”
he screams, but I can’t tell if he’s trying to comfort me or condemn me. I don’t know what he means. I don’t know why I try to listen to him.

Hanging out with the fishboy has been a horrible life decision. I’m lying to my parents and sneaking out, I’m not spending nearly as much time with Diana as I should be, even if the time I spend with her is time I’d rather be spending with him, but I shouldn’t be spending time with
him, because it doesn’t make any sense why I want to be with him, and I shouldn’t . . .

Too many feelings.

If he calls my name one more time, I swear to God I’m going to hit him, and I don’t know if I’ll let him go like the fishermen do. I don’t know if I could.

Except with every exhale, all this anger is leaving me, because there’s really no point in blaming this all on him. I’m not fooling myself, and it isn’t making me feel any better. I was the lookout. I’m as much to blame as he is.

God. Shit.

I ignore the people who need me and latch on to people who don’t. I dive into every other world except my own just because I want something more glamorous than my real life. I do destructive shit so a stupid hypocritical fish will like me.

I fall for fish instead of girls.

Fuck.

I have to stop and hold my head for a minute, but then I charge forward into the marina and get my shit together.

“I need a fish,” I tell the fisherman. “Please.”

The one-eyed fisherman leers at me the best he can. I want to run. “Gave you one yesterday,” he says.

“Please. My brother’s really sick. I can pay. Whatever you need.” I take a handful of bills out of my pocket. They’re all balled together so I don’t have to think about how much
it is and how little we will have left. “Please.”
Begging you makes me want to kill myself.

“Still working off a loss today. Come back tomorrow.”

I scream. I want to hit him but I know what he’ll do to me, and fuck it, I don’t care.
“This is a little fucking kid! Give me a fucking fish!”

The fisherman stares at me, then chuckles a little and turns back to the water.

I want to throw myself into the water, get all caught in his net, do whatever the fuck it takes to make him listen. Make him reel me in and I will scream at him the whole time. I’ll grab the fishboy and hold a knife to his throat and tell them what I’ll do to their toy if they don’t give me a fucking fish.