Learning Curve

Tuesday, October 29th

Finn

I flip through my copy of The Winter’s Tale and wait for Scottie and Nadine to get to class and take the two empty seats next to me.

The ripped page from my dad’s journal burns a smoldering hole in the pocket of my pants, and anticipation makes my heart race even though I’m sitting down. I spent last night while Ace was out with Julia pulling some prank on his parents reading through it again and again until I found the perfect page to leave on Professor Winslow’s desk at the end of class.

The time has come for someone other than me to feel the pain of reality.

I want him to see the truth for himself and wonder, like I spent two years wondering, what it all means for his life. I want him to wonder who I am and how long I’ve known, and I want him to feel as helpless as I’ve felt my entire life living under the abuse of our asshole dad.

Scottie flops down in the seat next to me, and I jolt out of my daydream. It’s one of the darkest parts of me—these horrible thoughts I have about people who don’t know me at all—and it scares me a little that I can’t rein it in immediately when Scottie sits down. I shift in my seat and swallow to clear my throat, but I still feel like I’m burning alive from the inside out.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”

I shake my head and look down at my lap. “I’m fine.”

She laughs. “Yeah, okay. Come on, Finn. Can we really not even manage to be friends? I mean, we worked together Friday night, and we’re all two thousand dollars richer because of it.”

“We can be friends,” I say. Though, even to my own ears, it sounds against my will.

“Convincing,” she says teasingly, bumping her shoulder into my own so many times, the tension in it finally leaves.

I crack a small smile. “You’re right. We can be friends.”

“Well, thank fuck for that. I was starting to think I was going to have to do this project with two people who hate me.”

“I could never hate you.” It’s simple. It’s fact. Scottie, for me, is the kind of person who lights up your soul. She’s happiness and wholesomeness and the sort of girl you cherish. I just don’t live the life of a guy who can give any of those things.

Nadine sits down before Scottie can reply, annoyed immediately. “I don’t understand why we have to sit together just because we’re working together.”

“Probably so we can work together,” I remark, saving Scottie the trouble of dealing with her.

“Then he at least should have let us pick our groups,” Nadine whines, looking back at Dane. He’s been paired with two other girls, and from the looks of things, he’s absolutely eating up the attention.

“All right, guys!” Professor Winslow calls from the front, making the rest of the chatter stop and effectively saving Scottie and me from having to say anything back to our apparent hostage. “I can see that you’ve all taken seats with your groups like I told you to last class, which I appreciate. I’ve done this for a reason, but before I get started, I want to bring out a couple volunteers I’ve wrangled into helping me out today.”

The classroom door opens, and my whole chest locks in on itself. Remington and Flynn Winslow—two of my other brothers—are dressed in jeans and blazers and sporting smiles despite the incredibly ridiculous fact that they’re spending their morning at a freshman literature class.

I recognize them immediately and with ease after all the research I’ve done on all of them, but even if I didn’t, the family resemblance is striking. In every feature of their faces, I see a little bit of my father.

I see Scottie watching me out of the corner of my eye, but I can’t seem to steady my breathing. She reaches over and squeezes my hand.

My fingers tingle as she applies pressure, and I stare at the front of the room.

“My big brothers have agreed to be my partners for today, good sports that they are, even though I’m pretty sure neither of them has ever read The Winter’s Tale before…or read anything, for that matter.”

Remington and Flynn both laugh, and my whole body shakes with the need to get the hell out of here. Seeing three of my brothers here, in the flesh, with the irony of my dad’s sick sense of fun names said out loud for all to hear, I want to crawl out of my skin. My dad probably thought it was poetic, starting all our names with the same letters as the kids we didn’t know about, but it’s not cute when the situation is as fucked up as this—it’s bullshit.

Scottie squeezes harder, and I do the only thing I can do without making an obvious scene; I squeeze her hand back.

If I can make it through this fucking class, I can finally free myself from the powder keg of this secret. It’s only one page of my dad’s journal, but I know it’ll be enough. The passage I’ve chosen is unmistakable.

“King Leontes has no trust for anyone in his life. His wife, his best friend, even his newborn by proxy—because of that, today, we’ll be exploring the idea of the opposite with our group members.”

Remington chuffs. “Pfft. Who wouldn’t trust a baby?”

Ty laughs. “See. I told you he hadn’t read it.”

Flynn smiles at the floor, and I have to work to keep myself from grinding my teeth down to nubs. I hate that I feel this way, but I can’t help it. Everything my siblings and I’ve been through has been for nothing. We could have been like this.

Scottie smiles at the brothers, but I don’t miss how closely she’s watching me too. I never wanted to put her in the position, but I can’t seem to help it.

I’m unbearably jealous of the life I didn’t get.