The Cult of Rohesia: Michael (2/3)

Of three things I'm certain: one, Dora is pissed. Like, more than usual. Two, she absolutely has a thing for Michelle. Three, Nicolas is being intentionally selective about what he tells us.

For one, I just watched him specifically avoid telling Dora he'd die if she stopped coming to dinner every month. Which, I mean, fair? If she knew all she had to do to stop the “blackmail” (which Nicolas basically admitted to, though he still insists that it's not blackmail) was not show up, then that seems like exactly what she would do.

But he also outright refused to tell us how exactly he and his buddies from the last group managed to find out so much about the five of us. Of course, if we do what he says and keep coming to these dinners and dying, then he'll tell us. But only if we do this thing for him first.

And when I pushed back on that, he let slip something about me running screaming if I knew more about what's coming.

Here's the juicy part: it doesn't apply to Dora and Michelle. Just me, apparently. If he were me I'd think he was flirting with me, but he's not me. And he doesn't exactly strike me as horny, or into teenagers. (But hey, maybe he's just really good at hiding it. And ready to blow after a year of not getting laid. God, what kind of face would he make if I said that? I'd ask if I weren't looking for answers to more important questions here.)

"So why am I different from Dora and Michelle?"

"Are you hungry, Michael? Because I am. Why don't we eat first?"

Normally he's at least a little less openly evasive than that. "You're not answering my question."

Nicolas fake-smiles at me as he gets up. "I'll lose my appetite." And then he heads for the kitchen. I guess Louise had somewhere else to be. Mark follows him, presumably to see if he needs help. What a good boy.

"You know, that really doesn't make me want to come back next month," I tell Nicolas when he sits back down, after placing a casserole with a spoon in it in the middle of the table.

“Then don't,” Nicolas says while Mark serves himself.

It has ground beef in it. There are no side dishes. Was Louise being practical and assuming Dora would do what she always does, or does she have metaphorical beef with her? Who knows? Gotta focus. "How come you don't care if I don't come, but you do care if Dora skips?"

Nicolas takes a long sip of wine. “Let's not be facetious anymore tonight, Michael. I really don't have the energy for it.”

<<>>

"You can stay in my room, you know," Emilie says, later that night, book in hand. I've been playing games on my phone. Mark's sleeping in the other room. Nicolas went home right after we washed the dishes. It's past midnight, going off her alarm clock—like, the cartoon-looking kind with actual bells on top.

I kind of love her room in general. Lots of pink, but not to the point of being overwhelming. The background color on the wallpaper is this off-white that looks yellow in the lamp light. Delightfully creepy dolls and stuffed animals all over. Very busy-looking, but meticulously tidy at the same time. No dirty clothes on the floor or her desk chair or anywhere. Hell, no clean clothes either, everything is hidden away in the dresser or closet (which is also meticulously tidy, by the way).

I hadn't noticed the time slipping past us. "Oh! Fuck, I bet you wanna sleep, right?" If she's trying to make a move on me, she's going to have to try twice. I cannot allow any awkward misunderstandings that could lead to her hating me.

She shrugs. "Not for a while. I can go on my laptop if you want to, though."

Shit. That really didn't make things any clearer. Maybe it's time we had this conversation, anyway. I don't know where to start, though. This is both the best and worst time for it. "Uh, look. I'm dumb. Care to spell out why you'd deign to share your bed with me when there's another one right down the hall?"

She laughs, once, breathily. "Nevermind why. If you don't want to, then don't."

Mmm. I think she's making a move on me. "Don't get me wrong. I want to. But I want to know why you want me to first. Because I'd hate to disappoint you."

"Tip your head back."

I'm sitting on the floor with my back to the side of her bed. She's been laying on the bed for—I don't even know how long, now. Doesn't feel like very long, but I can hardly trust my sense of time after the sight of her alarm clock a minute ago. But I'm pretty sure I know what's coming next, given where I am and where she is. Exciting. I close my eyes and do what she says. Her hand curves around my throat, gently, just under my chin, and I gasp, and then her lips are on mine. Just like I expected, but better. It's hard to kiss back from this angle. Bet it'd look fantastic in a movie, though.

Damn. Now we really do need to have that conversation. Best not to let myself get too riled up, anyway. Especially not with Mark in the other room. "I'm aromantic." There. I spat it out. Blunt and to the point. I hope she'll appreciate that as much as she usually does.

"What does that mean?" She's playing with my shirt collar. It feels unreasonably pleasant. I should tell her to stop, but I don't want to.

"It means I don't fall in love with people. Not that I can't love them, just that I'm never in love with them. So, like, no dating. No marriage. No girlfriends or boyfriends. Just boys—or girls—who are friends, that I may or may not end up having sex with at some point, if we're both up for it."

"But do you like me? As a friend?"

That's easy enough. "I adore you."

"And did you like what I just did?"

I pull her fingers out of my shirt collar and press her hand against my pounding heart. "Yes." What can I say? I like that she likes me.

<<>>

“Michael.” I'm really not liking the tone of Emilie's voice here. I think this is the first time I've ever heard her sound less than confident. “This could be a problem.” She shows me Michelle's inbox.

Michelle, by the way, is still conked out on the couch next to us. “Read it to me,” I tell Emilie. Why waste the effort reading those tiny little pixelated letters in a situation like this? I might need to think fast here.

The gist of it is, Michelle's mom called the friend we said she was staying with this weekend and, uh, turns out that friend is visiting family in Halifax. Now she's threatening to call the police.

“I told you this was a bad idea,” Mark says when I look his way.

“Okay,” I say. “She already thinks Michelle's here. We can work with that.”

Mark's raising his eyebrows but clearly resisting the temptation to object until he's heard me out. I love him.

“Why would Michelle choose to stay here for the weekend?” I'm half thinking out loud.

“Concern?” Emilie suggests. “We could say I died and you two were both really upset. You're all friends, right? She's trying to distract you until I wake up on Sunday.”

And then she kind of flattens out her voice and speaks a little louder. Stronger. More like Michelle. “But she said she was at Delia's because she didn't want her to get mad she was here? And her phone died, and she just now plugged it in to charge and saw the messages? She already ate dinner, and she's very sorry for lying.” The uptalking at the ends of her sentences seals the deal. Emilie goes back to her regular voice. “Plausible?”

God, she's amazing.

“Please tell me you're joking,” Mark says.

“Not plausible?” she asks him, then looks at me.

“Plausible,” I say. “More than plausible. That was—” Ehh, but there's still a chance Mrs. Simard won't buy it. “—I think that's as good as we're gonna get. Let's call her.”

“This isn't going to work,” Mark insists.

“Well do we wanna try, or do we wanna wait until the police get here? What if they take Michelle to the morgue and she wakes up there?”

Mark holds up his hands and won't look at any of us.

Emilie bites her lip, then calls Mrs. Simard. “Mom?” She pauses. I can't make out what Mrs. Simard is saying. “Yeah, I'm so sorry, my phone's been dead all day—”

Well. I can hear what she's saying now. “Who is this? Who is this? You are not Michelle—”

Emilie goes pale, but not pale enough to match the whites of her eyes, which I can see all around her irises now. Panic-stricken, her mouth hangs silently open. Mark takes the phone out of her hand.

He spends an eternity talking to Mrs. Simard. Finally, he hangs up. “She's not going to call the police.”

<<>>

“So when were you planning to come back from Canada?”

That's my Aunt Sandy. This is the first time she's messaged me since I left. It's been well over three months. Guess she's been watching my profile, at least.

“dont know” I tell her. “y?”

“Your father thinks there's a gang of perverts out to get you and wants you to come home.”

I laugh so loud Mark hears me. We're supposed to be washing the dinner dishes. He volunteered us both because Grandma's back was acting up and she needed to lay down.

“Do I want to know?” he asks.

I almost show him the message, and then I remember: I haven't told him shit about Dad. And I'd rather tonight wasn't the night, now that I'm thinking about it. “Nah. You'll think it's gross.”

<<>>

Fuck fuck fuck fuck waiting to tell Mark was a bad idea—

Convincing him to come outside even though Nicolas's taken his keys hostage (we're at his house) is a task and a half on its own. And our dad's illness just became twice the time bomb it was before we learned that the only way to ensure it didn't affect us short of suicide is letting Nicolas fuck us as part of a ritual.

(Not that I'd believe him if it weren't for what I've already seen. Mark was dead. Michelle was dead. Emilie was dead. Michelle wouldn't let me within three feet of Dora but she did not look alive. I was dead. We're all alive now. I'm not counting Nicolas out of respect since he apparently identifies as Dead, which isn't a flavor of genderqueer I've heard of before but I guess applying to everyone eventually whether they like it or not makes it kind of androgynous so whatever.)

I close the door behind us and sit on the cushioned wicker bench on the screen porch. Mark crosses his arms and looks at the door. Still wants his car keys, I bet. When I pat the cushion next to where I'm sitting, he relents.

"I need to tell you about our dad," I say, just to make sure I can't weasel out of this in a few minutes.

"Yeah, you do," Mark says. "You haven't said a word about him since you got here. Why?"

So kind of him to notice but not push for six whole months. He must've been really curious, too. I wish I knew what our mom was like. The photos were nice to see, but she died when we were four, so Mark didn't have much to tell me about her. I don't know how to feel about that brief window of time where I knew I had a brother for real but didn't know I really didn't have a mom. There was definitely some hope and excitement there, but not enough to ruin me when I learned the truth.

"He's—uh—he's not doing so well." Understatement of the fucking century. "I can't really remember a time when he was doing well. He's got younger-onset dementia. It's genetic—happened to his aunt, too. And apparently our great-grandfather. It started for him around when he turned forty."

"So, what," he says after a few minutes, "you're saying if we don't do the sex ritual, we're going to get dementia when we're forty?"

"We won't know for sure until it's too late."

"So we might be fine. We could, theoretically, just live our lives and not do the rites and maybe not get dementia either."

"You could. Personally, I'm not willing to risk it."

I can hear him breathing. He's speeding up. "What do you mean, you're not willing? What does that have to do with me?"

"Nothing, Mark." I'm smiling because I'm trying to reassure him, but he won't even look my way. "You do whatever you think is best, okay? I just—I thought you should know."

"Great. Thanks. Can we go now?"

Not without his car keys, we can't. Unless we're going to walk back down the highway to Emilie's. "Yeah. I'll go make you some coffee, then I'll see if I can get your keys back from Nicolas, okay?"

Nicolas is nowhere in sight—must be in the bathroom—and neither are Mark's keys. But a quick search of the kitchen turns up a pour-over cone, coffee beans, and filters. I'm not actually good at making coffee, but he can just put a ton of milk and sugar in it if he wants. I do my best.

Nicolas comes out of the bathroom looking pale and wretched while the coffee is brewing. And it hits me: he's going to die. I can't do anything to change Mark's mind that I haven't already done. I should—well, the thing to do is make sure I don't have any unnecessary regrets. Anything I want to make sure I tell him, I should tell him now.

"Hey. Um. Thanks." Good enough?

"What for?" Nicolas asks, softly, as though speaking is a chore.

"None of the stuff you've done for the past six months—not the dinners, not putting up with—" I don't want to pick on Michelle or Dora here, "—any of our shit, not the discussion we just had—none of it. You didn't want to do any of it, but you did. Thanks."

He leans against the counter behind me and crosses his arms. Shrugs. "You're welcome."

Awkward silence. I throw out the coffee grounds and put the cone in the sink. Time to find out if this coffee is terrible or undrinkable.

"How's Mark doing?"

"He's cooling down, I think." I hold up the mug of coffee. "I'm gonna give him this. Can I have his keys back?"

He looks like he's thinking about it—nope. Shaking his head. "Give him at least a half hour to process the caffeine." Maybe he's hoping we'll get tired and want to sleep here by then. Un-fucking-likely, with the mood Mark's in. I've never seen him like this befo—

Oh fuck. He's hyperventilating. Coffee is the last thing he needs. "Mark?" I'm not going to belittle him by asking if he's okay. He clearly isn't. "Hey. Mark."

Not answering, either. Okay. Okay. What would I want him to do if he walked in on me having a panic attack? I don't—I mean, I haven't had one since I got here.

It was being at home with Dad that did it. Not the yelling itself. I was kind of used to that. It was when it really hit me that one day I'd probably be just like him that I had my first one. I was fourteen. I knew before then that it was hereditary, but that day I was just sitting in my room, listening to my aunt trying to talk my dad down after she took the remote away from him because she caught him chewing on it. I felt like I was drowning, and their voices were the water in my lungs.

I got up and ran. Out of the house. Down the street. Someone honked at me. That made it worse. I should've been looking where I was going. Guess I'm lucky no one hit me or anything.

Anyway, I already felt like shit before I started running, so I kind of just... didn't stop for a while. Not until I came to a park. An empty bench in the park, I mean. I don't know how long it took me to calm down enough to notice where I was (it was practically a mile from my house. I still don't know how I managed to run all the way there).

It started getting dark, but I was too exhausted to even stand, and I almost had another attack. But then I noticed how hungry I was and made myself get up. And I stumbled home and put a piece of bread on a plate and drowned it in chocolate syrup and ate it with my fingers even though it was a sticky mess.

That entire time, no one noticed anything was wrong. Or if they did, they didn't say anything. Even my aunt hadn't noticed I was gone.

"Hey, Mark?" I go sit next to him on the bench. "Mark? You okay?" No one ever asked me if I was okay, but I can ask him even though I know he's not, and he'll remember I cared enough to bother. "Uh. You're having a panic attack. Probably. Uh, not dying. Not crazy. It's gonna be okay. Just—just breathe with me, okay? Breathe in for four, hold it for four, let it out for four. Try to breathe with your stomach. One. Two. Three. Four." He exhales on two. "That's okay, try again. One. Two. Three. Four."

Eventually, he manages to slow his breathing down. I notice Nicolas lurking in the doorway, but he seems to know he should keep his distance. At some point, he takes the cup of coffee I left on the table back inside.

"What the fuck just happened to me?" Mark finally asks. He's soaked in sweat. I shouldn't have waited to tell him about Dad, but he insists it's not my fault.

I get up to get him some water, but Nicolas's way ahead of me. He was on his way outside just as I was on my way in, and he's got toast with peanut butter, too. He must have been listening to us even if he was staying out of sight. Sounds kind of creepy on the surface, I know, but actually it was the best thing he could have done. No need to give Mark an audience, after all. Especially since he was probably also reacting to what Nicolas told us.

"I'm sorry," Mark tells him after taking the glass of water. "I shouldn't have gotten angry with you."

"I would have been a lot angrier in your place," he says. When Mark puts the glass of water down, he gives him the plate with the toast. Then he hands me Mark's keys. "I'm giving Michael your keys, but if you two change your mind about staying, you can have the guest bed. It's the last door down the hall to the left. I put clean sheets on it this morning." Then he heads back inside.

Mark takes a long, shaky breath after finishing the peanut butter toast and water. "I can't drive like this. I'm sorry."

"It's not a problem," I tell him.

"I'm gonna get some more water and see if I can sleep," he says.

"Okay. I'll be in in a little bit."

He leaves, and I take a deep breath of my own. Fuck. I still don't like any of this. I don't want to think about all the things that have happened since we left Emilie's house that I don't like. Too bad I don't have a license, American or Canadian. Could I drive with an American license here? You'd think I could. Pointless. I don't know how to drive. I probably shouldn't anyway with the alcohol in my system.

I wanna talk to someone. There are actually people here to talk to. I've been spoiled. At home, I'd just play a game on my phone until I fell asleep. I could do that here, too, I guess. It's almost midnight. That would be the considerate thing to do.

It's not what I'm gonna do, though. But I don't want to talk to Emilie, because then I'll have to tell her Mark had a panic attack and it was—ugh, I mean he said it wasn't my fault, but I can't shake the feeling that it is. And I don't know what Emilie will think. At the very least, I'll have to tell her about our dad, too, and I don't want to talk about him anymore. That leaves Michelle. At first, she doesn't pick up. So I call again. Still no answer. Third time's the charm. There she is!

"Michael." She sounds sleepy. I almost feel guilty. Almost. "It's 11:43. What do you want?"

"You're never gonna believe this, Michelle." I sound tired too, actually. Still don't feel like I can sleep. "You were right."

Pause. "Right about what?"

"Nicolas hiding something." I'll keep drip-feeding it to her. It'll be fun. Was Nicolas having fun like that, too?

"Did he—" Another pause. "Wait. He was drunk. You guys took him home. But that was hours ago."

"Yeah, I don't think he was really that drunk."

I can practically hear her thoughts racing through the phone static while she hesitates. "Where are you right now?"

"Still at his place. Little cottage in the woods. Green and brown decor on the inside. Very cute."

"Okay?" Nothing else. I wait. "You gonna tell me why?"

"Oh. One thing lead to another. He gave us gin, and I can't drive anyway, so that's why we're still here."

"You do realize you sound just like him now, right?"

That gets a laugh out of me. "Okay. Okay, fine. Sorry. Uh. So the thing he was hiding, was that—those rites he mentions every once in a while? Me and Mark have to let him fuck us for those to work."

That's a shocked silence. I don't know why I think I can tell the difference. Or how to describe it. "So—uh—that's it, right?"

"What do you mean, 'that's it'? It sounds like a pretty gnarly secret to me."

"No no, I mean, that's it. It's over. You're not going through with it, are you?"

Interesting that she jumps straight to that conclusion. Is that how she'd react in our place? "I wouldn't say that. I mean, I'm fine with it." Ritual aspects aside, it's nothing I haven't done before. "Mark didn't take it so well, though."

"Yeah, I'll bet he didn't," she said. "Uh, so—are you okay? Is he okay?"

"Yeah? I mean, could be worse."

"Okay. Uh, was that it?"

"It." There's that word again. I thought she'd be more—I dunno, satisfied? She likes being right. I'm not ready to hang up. How do I keep her talking? "I was gonna commit suicide, you know." I've never told anyone that before.

I tell her about the dementia, too. She sounds worried, but isn't quite freaking out. It's nice to have someone to talk to. Then she offers to wake Emilie up to come get us and my stomach does a flip.

Fuck. What have I done? What the hell was I thinking?