Lia

  Things have always been rather awkward between my brother and me, but the awkwardness is way more uncomfortable now that I am confronting it head-on.

  After my conversations with RJ and Yuna, I texted Romeo about hanging out. His reply was ckluster, but at least he agreed to it. And so, I am now back home for winter break and driving the two of us to a nearby mall in our parents’ car.

  Unsurprisingly, we are silent in the car, with only my pylist—Taylor Swift on repeat—filling the void.

  “I hope the restaurant is good,” I say. “I heard good reviews.”

  Romeo grunts in response.

  “If we don’t like the vibes of it, we can always default to a safe choice like Cheesecake Factory?”

  Another grunt.

  I tap my fingers on the steering wheel. It has been a long time since I had a proper conversation with Romeo, and he is not making it easy to start one.

  “So… how’s the, uh, college applications coming along?” I ask.

  “It’s December.”

  “Uh… What about it?”

  “UC applications ended st month.”

  “Oh. Right. Sorry.”

  And we are back to awkward silence.

  It’s hard to believe college applications are over. It was the only thing our family ever talked about for the entire year or more. I don’t even remember what we used to talk about before that. And now, I don’t know what else to talk about with Romeo. Maybe this is a bad idea…

  I want to turn up the volume of the car audio, but I don’t know if Romeo even likes my music. I don’t know anything about him.

  “I’m not going to college,” Romeo whispers.

  “What?” I peel my eyes off the road to look at him for a split second. His expression is solemn. He was not joking.

  “You’re serious…” I mumble. “Wow, I… I didn’t know. And Umma is okay with that?”

  “Of course not. But there’s nothing she can do if I don’t apply.”

  My mouth drops. After a year of fuss and preparations… he didn’t even apply?

  There’s so much we have to catch up on.

  “So, what’s your pn after high school?” I ask as I drive into the mall.

  He sighs. “It’s all in the family group chat, you know?”

  His accusatory tone stabs me in the heart. Ah yes, the family group chat that I have muted and never check.

  “Sorry. I’ll… read through it ter,” I say.

  After parking the car, Romeo hops out of the car immediately. The Californian sun is warm and bright, but the tension between the two of us is still ice-cold. We quietly make our way to the restaurant.

  “Get anything you want. It’s my treat,” I say. “Take it as an early Christmas present?”

  Romeo leans on the table as he looks at the menu. “You’re generous this year.”

  “Well, it has been a while since we’ve hung out...” And I figured I needed to bribe him to come out with me. To talk to me after years of avoiding each other.

  “Did your girlfriend ask you to do this?”

  “My—” The menu drops out of my hands. I stare at my brother, mouth agape. “H- How do you know?”

  Romeo rolls his eyes. “You introduced her as your roommate.” He air-quotes the st word with his hand.

  “Apartment mate,” I correct him, although he is technically not wrong about us rooming together. “And we are just apartment mates at the start. We only got together like, uh, a few weeks before Thanksgiving.”

  He raises his brows at me before reading the menu again. “She’s nice. You were fighting a lot with her though.”

  My cheeks burn. I didn’t expect him to notice that—or cared enough to notice that.

  The waiter comes by to give us water and take our order. We return to awkward silence once again.

  I take a sip of water as I ponder what to reveal to Romeo. “Well, Yeju and I… are on a break now.”

  “Huh? Like a holiday break?”

  “Uh, I guess? Yeah, she went back home too… Anyway, she- she likes you. She asked me to talk to you.”

  Romeo’s lips twitch into a small, fleeting smile. His first smile in a long while.

  “You can smile, you know,” I tease. “You don’t have to be so sullen all the time.”

  “Eh. Nothing to smile about.”

  “Life’s that bad for you?”

  He shrugs. “Yeah.”

  A bitter ugh escapes my throat. “Can’t be that bad…” The resentment buried deep within me seeps into my voice. “I mean, you get all of Umma’s and Appa’s attention.”

  “Yeah. Good for you.”

  “Good for me? I’d kill for them to spare me a crumb of the attention they give you. No matter how hard I try to do all the right things, all the things they keep harping on about, I get no recognition. No acknowledgment, not even a simple ‘good job, Lia’. I’m just… so tired of it.”

  Romeo frowns. He pauses as he pys with the condensation on his cup.

  “But you got the freedom to do whatever you want,” he mutters. “You’re always leaving home and hanging out with your friends. You went to UCLA because you liked the campus, not because Umma told you to. You didn’t have a curfew, and you didn’t have extra lessons you were forced to go to. You didn’t have to be monitored twenty-four-seven by Umma. I’ve… always been jealous of you.”

  I blink. He’s right. I did leave home a lot to hang out with Eunice. I was always escaping the house that made me feel small and insignificant, but I never realized he could not escape. He didn’t like it there either, and yet, he was trapped there.

  I scrutinize Romeo’s face. For the first time, I notice the little bags under his eyes. The way his shoulders droop. The way he tries to hide in his baggy sweater.

  He’s tired of it all too. We’re both tired.

  I sigh. “I wish they’d bance their attention a bit better.”

  “Yeah, if only. And you know, it got worse after you left for college. At least when you were here, you talk to them and take some of their attention away from me. But with college, you basically… disappeared. And I’m left to fend for myself.”

  My stomach twists into a knot. Was that what happened? I can’t believe how much Romeo suffered in silence. How much we both suffered in silence. And how much we could’ve helped each other if we weren’t so silent about our pain.

  “I’m… I’m so sorry, Romeo,” I croak. “I’ll come back more often from now on. I promise.”

  “Oh, I go by Ro now. Romeo’s a shitty name.”

  The sudden change in topic draws a small chuckle from me. “Ro’s nice,” I say.

  “And sorry about what happened with Eunice, by the way. I heard about that. It’s, uh, it’s been going around in school.”

  “Oh.”

  “People support you, you know, if that makes you feel better. The general consensus is that she’s the asshole.”

  A strange mix of dismay and warmth dances in my chest. What happened with Eunice st summer has always felt like such a shameful personal problem—a dirty secret I wanted to hide from everyone—that I did not expect people in my high school to know about it.

  But not only do they know, they are on my side.

  Tears well in my eyes, and I blink them away. “That does make me feel better. Thank you for telling me, Ro. And… it’s okay now, I guess. It’s over. Our friendship, I mean. I think. I don’t know.”

  Ro huffs. “That sucks. You two were so close. But whatever, she can fuck right off. Also, sorry for not standing up for you when you came out to us. I fully support the LGBT community, by the way, I just… I don’t know. I guess I was too shocked by Umma’s reaction to say anything.”

  The warmth takes over now. I never realized how much I needed to hear my brother’s support for me.

  “Umma’s utter ck of reaction, you mean,” I say with a ugh.

  “Yeah. Like, what the fuck, your daughter is trying to tell you about her sexuality, and you want to talk about my stupid college apps? Priorities, woman!”

  We burst into ughter.

  Wiping my tears away, I ask, “So, you’re really not going to college?”

  “Nah. There’s a trade school ten minutes away. I’ll get a diploma in something useful like computer technology or something, and then try to find a job from there.”

  “What made you choose that diploma?”

  He shrugs. “That was the only subject I can say to get Umma to stop crying about my decision.”

  “I’m sorry for not helping more with your college apps. I don’t know if that might have influenced anything.”

  “Not really. There’s nothing you could’ve done to help, honestly. My grades are dog shit.”

  “That’s okay. Hey, grades aren’t everything, and this is coming from the person with a 4.0.”

  Ro groans. “How the fuck are we reted? I can barely pass my csses and meanwhile, you’re working with Ph.D.s for your science project.”

  “It’s not a science project.” I giggle. “And I’m actually working directly with my professor now. It’s been fun.”

  “Directly?”

  “Yeah!”

  The food arrives at the table. We spend the next hour eating and chatting. I tell Ro about what I’ve been doing with Professor Song, and he tells me about the community college he’s pnning to go to. We talk about our high school, about our mutual friends, about our new friends.

  I know I miss my brother, but I didn’t realize how much I’ve been missing. And I’ve been missing out on so much.

  The sky is still bright and sunny when we leave the mall. And even as we return to the house we both hate, it does not feel as dreadful and alone anymore.

  We have each other now.