It’s weird, the way the guilt of it follows me around, but doesn’t quite hit me. I still haven’t done a good job of narrowing her down. Presumably she is not lactose intolerant and isn’t absent today. She seems not to come from a super wealthy family either, but it’s hard to tell who falls into that category anyway since we all wear the same school uniforms. Maybe if I were on Instagram, I could rule the richer kids out, but it seems creepy to obsess too much.
So instead, I just walk around feeling vaguely apologetic at every girl I pass in the hallway, making way more eye contact than I intend to, until the female half of the school probably thinks I need glasses.
Pepper, on the other hand, doesn’t even acknowledge me on the pool deck, but the ghost of that smirk of hers seems to be on her face whenever I’m within ten feet of her. It isn’t until I’m walking out of the locker room after practice that I know why.
“Dude. I thought you said you were on top of this.”
I scowl at Ethan, who has shoved a screen with the Big League Burger Twitter page so close to my nose, he nearly squashes it.
“Who says I’m not?” I ask. “Besides, shouldn’t you be frenching on some concrete steps about now?”
“I would be if it weren’t for this.”
I sigh, taking the phone from Ethan’s hand. “What could possibly be so—”
Oh. As it turns out, it’s not Big League Burger’s page I’m looking at. It’s Big League Burger’s branding on the header image, and a picture of Big League Burger’s “Grandma’s Special” on the profile avatar, but it is very much the Girl Cheesing Twitter handle. Well, what’s left of it — the name on the page has been changed to #1 BLB Stan.
“Pepper.”
“You better fix this before Dad sees.”
My fingers clench around his phone. “It’s not like we’re locked out of the account. You could have just fixed it yourself.”
“This is your job, remember? I’m not supposed to touch the precious account without your permission.”
And then, just like that, a table I never thought was capable of turning has shifted. Ethan’s not angry because of Pepper’s little prank. Ethan’s been angry.
It should probably strike some sort of empathetic chord in me, but it doesn’t. For seventeen years now, I have stepped to the side for him and never once made him feel bad about it. I can’t believe he won’t do the same for me over something this stupid.
“What’s your problem?”
Ethan’s nostrils flare. “I don’t have a problem,” he says, with an edge that says he very much does.
The irritation surges up in me like a live wire, like something I have spent too much time trying not to ignite. “You’re really this pissed off because for once Mom and Dad are counting on me for something instead of you?”
That stuns the anger right out of him. His mouth drops open. “Are you kidding?”
There are people walking past us. Classmates, probably. But if Ethan isn’t going to budge, then neither am I. “You can’t stand it, can you? That for once, you’re not the golden child.”
Only after I say it do I realize I’ve been waiting to say it — not just since this whole Twitter thing started, but for years. Years of Ethan and his academic awards and his student government nominations and being surrounded by friends on all sides, years that pushed the two of us to where we are now: Ethan, poised to leave the nest, and me, tethered to it with a rope.
Especially because this Twitter war ultimately means the same thing it always has: my parents still have way more faith in Ethan than in me. The only reason I’m the one running the account is because we all know I’m the kid who’s going to get left with the deli while Ethan takes over the world.
But then his anger is right back, twisting into something ugly in his face, something more immediate and deeper than I ever expected. “You think I’m the golden child?”
I don’t think he is, I know he is. I open my mouth, but suddenly my throat is too tight to say any of it — all the things that have been brimming under the surface are all coming up at once, fighting each other on the way out.
In my head I’ve had this conversation with Ethan a thousand times. In my head I’ve been angry, indignant, and firm. In my head I’ve rehearsed it so many times that I should be more prepared to defend myself than I have for anything in my life.
But of all the things imaginary Ethan said to me, it was never that. And of all the times imaginary Jack confronted him, I never felt as conflicted as I do right now.
In the end, I swallow it all down. I don’t understand the look on his face, and I don’t want to. My own hurt is too much to take on his too. So I hand him back his phone, with a little more force than necessary. “Don’t worry about it. It’s under control.”
Ethan lets out a snort and stays rooted to the sidewalk, looking at me like he’s waiting for one of us to take one last shot. After a moment we both turn away at the same time, with identical scowls, stalking off in opposite directions. But I’m still seeing his twisted expression long after he walks away — not just because I’ve never seen it on his face like that before, but because I think I saw more of myself in it than I ever have.
Jack
I assume I won’t get to see Pepper gloating about her handiwork until tomorrow morning, but when I walk out of the community center, there she is, leaning against the wall and oh-so-casually drinking from an enormous Big League Milkshake Mash. She turns her head so slowly to look at me that for a moment I am stricken with the weird unfamiliarity of being seen — no, not seen. Recognized. It’s rare enough someone knows I’m me and not Ethan without getting a good look at me. It’s straight up weird when someone can tell without fully turning around. The only person I know who can do that is Grandma Belly — my parents still mix us up so frequently that there’s about a 50 percent chance I am Ethan, and someone switched us along the way.
In any case, her swivel of a stare hits its mark with an impressive landing, her eyebrows raised just so and the straw still puckered between her lips. The effect of it is absurd enough that it pierces through my bubble of self-pity.
“Did you — did you sprint to the Big League Burger on Eighty-Eighth and come back, just so you could wait for me here with that?”
She answers by lifting her other hand, which has another massive milkshake in it. “Cookies and cream?”
I’m starving, but I have principles. “How’d you do it, Pepperoni?”
She takes a noisy slurp of her shake. “Do what?”
I walk over and lean on the wall next to her, kicking my foot onto the brick with the same faux-casual pose. “You know what.”
She presses the milkshake into my hand, and I take it on reflex. “Same way you did.”
“You took my phone.”
That wipes the smug look off her face. “So you did steal mine.”
“Uh — wait, what? No.”
Pepper narrows her eyes at me.
“For like, a second,” I concede.
I didn’t know it was possible for someone to angrily sip a milkshake, but then again, making the impossible possible is kind of Pepper’s MO. “What the hell, Campbell?”
It would be easier to take her seriously if there weren’t ice cream on her upper lip. My hand flinches just before I realize I’m lifting it like I’m going to wipe it away or something.