Torpid

When Oscar woke up on the following Saturday, he was surprised to see the dark head still buried comfortably on the bed beside his. Since the unfortunate move in three days ago, Oscar had the good fortune to wake up alone. Eli's bed was always ruffled beside him but other than that, there was no indication that they'd been in the same room. It had been a relief knowing that they could go on as normal, seeing each other only when they absolutely had to.


But Eli hadn't woken up as usual, and Oscar figured he must have been out late Friday night. He'd fallen asleep before the other boy had come home.


Pushing aside his covers, Oscar sat up and, awkwardly, rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He half-expected Eli to spring up in bed, his sneering voice surfacing along with him. But, a few minutes of absolute stillness assured him he was, at least consciously, alone.


It wasn't until he pulled himself out of bed completely that Oscar heard the mechanic whir of Eli's laptop on the bedside table. After a brief stretch, he reached over to shut it off and frowned. Eli, he knew, was selfish, and didn't concern himself with the family's declining financial state. David, for instance, had become quieter than normal, all his energy spent at the office sorting case files and supervising interns, and his mother, though she worried about Audrey, had already begun to search for a new job. The last he saw her applying for was management at a restaurant, which was kind of a fall from her job at a homely publishing company just three years ago.


But, unlike Oscar, Eli refused to make his own money, and as if carrying resentment toward his father to this day, sucked him dry of everything he could. He also didn't realise that the electricity bill was climbing with his refusal to turn off his computer... the TV, the lights and so on.


Suddenly feeling bitter, Oscar just about slammed the laptop closed when he caught sight of the glaring page still open. It looked like real estate, somewhere in Pennsylvania, and curiously, the boy began to scroll down to see pictures and pictures of flats and condos, exhaling a bit more slowly thanks to his nerves.


It was risky, leaning over Eli's bedside table, looking at the homes that the smaller boy had marked down and taken care to bookmark, with that very person sleeping next to him. Especially when the only thing that could come from getting caught was an animalistic argument. Eli was the only person that could consistently rouse Oscar's normally calm spirit into something hot and unruly. He and his mother would display their anger through cold glances, or isolating themselves in their rooms and chilling out, but with Eli, everything was magnified and embodied into a hatred he never thought he'd possess.


“Knott?” Eli's groggy voice couldn't exactly retain any actual anger, but it startled Oscar into letting the laptop fall closed noisily, and the younger boy sat up at once. “What the fuck?”


Aware that he'd been caught, Oscar immediately tried to divert the blame. “You left your laptop on,” he muttered dismissively, “you know how much that costs. Not that you'd care until David's wallet is completely empty.”


Eli snatched the computer away, tossing it onto his bed rather carelessly. “Shut up. Like you care about my dad.” He said the word scornfully, and Oscar rolled his eyes. Eli had never shown any affection whatsoever to his dad, and it was puzzling to the other boy who got on decently well with the man. Oscar would have thought it was because David remarried, but Eli's relationship with Ellen was different, a bit less outwardly hostile and somewhat amiable.


Deciding he'd never understand, Oscar wandered over to his drawers. “I know I care about him a lot more than you do,” his tone was judgmental, and Eli seemed to catch that. He laughed a bit crudely, shoving aside his covers and standing to his full height, still a few inches shorter than the other.


“That's fine. You can care about his sorry ass all you want,” his blue eyes, and Oscar could only ever describe them as mean, or even distasteful, narrowed. “Meanwhile, I'm going to go shower and you're going to keep your hands on your own shit.”


Oscar was already changing, and by the time Eli's intimidating little speech was over, he snorted and zipped up his jeans. Then, just before walking out the door before the other boy, he gave a sardonic smile and flipped him off.


///


“I like this one,” Ellen slid her glasses up her nose as she and David huddled over what looked like retail magazines. “Four bedrooms, it's perfect.”


Oscar leaned against the kitchen counter, grimacing as the autumn chill seeped through his shirt. Crossing his arms, he watched the display a bit like an intruder would, eyes straying to Audrey's form sitting restlessly on her chair.


“I don't want to move to Pennsylvania,” he said simply, turning to the fridge. “Anyway, I'm graduating at the end of this year, and I'd like to do it at the same school. Definitely not all the way in the States.”


Oscar had lived in Toronto all his life, and though he despised the weather more often than not, didn't see why they'd want to suddenly pack up and leave to somewhere as random as Pennsylvania. His mother laughed suddenly, somewhat astonished, and Oscar raised a brow.


“Pennsylvania? Oscar, honey, we're going to stay local.”


David looked more startled than anything, his brow crinkling, before he too smiled. “Don't worry, Oscar,” he said gently, “why did you think there of all places?”


In the middle of grinning at Audrey's face as he tried to get her to eat the disarray of food in front of her, Oscar shrugged. “Dunno, thought you'd mentioned something to Eli about it and he was helping you look.”


Ellen became uninterested in that conversation, and smiled brilliantly as she scooted back her chair. “Oscar, don't move! I'm going to grab the camera—you two look so cute like that.”


It wasn't that Oscar felt Eli deserved to be a part of the family he so obviously disliked, but knowing the dejected boy was upstairs alone, while the rest of them sat laughing in the kitchen, made him feel decidedly uncomfortable.


///


“I'm going out!” Eli called, his baseball cap ruffling his neat black hair.


“Eli, Ellen's just finished dinner. Eat with us,” David's handsome face appeared from arched doorway to the living room, watching Eli pause in pulling on his shoes.


Oscar watched from the stairs, his lanky body hung somewhat over the banister. Eli looked like he was considering it, until he caught sight of Oscar's curious expression. The latter couldn't help the taunting look, coupled with disbelief that Eli would consider the request, and so the pale boy shook his head.


“We'll save you dessert,” David insisted as Eli left, leaving his father staring at an empty foyer.


“Nah,” Oscar soothed, mustering a kind of half smile. “He hates pie, especially apple.”


David nodded, as if just remembering, and walked to the kitchen with the same rueful stride as usual. Eli had the ability to alter everyone's mood, Oscar realised. Not just his own indifferent one, but David's cheerful countenance as well.


When Eli came home at midnight, Oscar was in the living room with the lights off, flipping channels. The weekends were always a little strange, the predictability both boys usually found themselves in diminishing with the lack of academic obligation. Obviously tired, Eli walked into the kitchen and the sound of a soda can opening alerted Oscar to his presence.

“Anything good on?” he mumbled, sliding over a can of Dr. Pepper toward Oscar. The mood changes, though rare, were not met with alarm anymore. Oscar understood that when Eli wasn't yelling, or threatening, or pouting, and instead was as quiet as himself, sometimes even amiable, it meant the younger boy had an exceedingly bad day.


“Nope,” Oscar mumbled back, scanning Eli through his peripherals. The odd, melancholic mood wasn't one Oscar preferred. The last time they'd been in this situation, with Eli a seemingly whole different person, was at least a month ago. His girlfriend had dumped him, and it was no secret why. Eli, though athletic and pretty, was the least friendly person Oscar had ever known. And no girl had managed to elicit anything caring from him.


Oscar had the inkling that it wasn't actually about girlfriends, or lost sports scholarships, or bad grades that brought him down to this new low. But he didn't say anything as the two of them watched the discovery channel without really seeing anything, the light of the TV flickering against their impossibly different faces.


“Alligators are fucking scary,” Oscar muttered, and turned to look to Eli, wondering if he'd agree. But instead, he was horrified to find Eli's eyes coated with a dangerous sheen. He wasn't crying, but his arms were crossed stubbornly as if he was just holding himself back from that edge.


Knowing better than to question him, Oscar let out a breath he didn't know he was holding and turned back to the television.


“Yeah,” Eli agreed after sometime, his voice surprisingly strong for someone on the brink of sobbing.


They stayed like that for a while, until Oscar fell asleep, his can of soda still half full. And when he woke up, disheveled and uncomfortable on the leather couch at six in the morning, Eli was already gone. His shoes, trademark hat, and coat were missing as well, leaving Oscar settled wonderingly on the sofa and without any answers of where his step-brother was.