Heat Damage

Something uncomfortable rises in the man’s chest in time with his cup as he lifts it from the table’s surface. It builds behind his sternum, hot and aching, like a sunburn, one unreachable by fidgeting hands eager to pick and peel.

The scalding liquid inside the cup has seeped through the bottom, leaving a half-ring of lightened wood in its wake. He suddenly has no desire to drink his tea, only an overwhelming need to flee, to run through the screen door leading to this unfamiliar house’s backyard and into the surrounding woods, where only the flickering fireflies and screeching crickets can bear witness to him.

He pulls his sleeve over his palm and wipes at the mark, but it remains, stubborn and damning as ever. He can’t tell who he’s angrier with: himself or his host.

He’s not usually this careless; he knows better. This is precisely why he had requested a coaster right away, when he had been handed his cup of tea (unprompted, piping hot, a heavy dose of cream but no sugar) upon entering the home. He had simply been dismissed with a wave over the shoulder and a cool “Don’t sweat it.”

He scrubs even more vigorously at the wooden crescent moon, remembering. Had that been a pun? He has only met his host on this one occasion, but given their messages leading up to this ill-conceived rendezvous, he wouldn’t put it past the man.

“Alright, Benj?” Benjamin’s host calls out as he re-enters the kitchen, now with a thick photo album in hand.

The man, Arthur, is four years Benjamin’s senior and, for all intents and purposes, a stranger. Yet, the two are carbon copies of each other, with their twin clouds of dark hair, round brown eyes, and sloped noses.

Benjamin tucks the offending cup of tea into his lap and lays his palm flat over the damage so Arthur won’t see. Arthur’s mouth quirks up at the edge, and the sunburn externalizes, creeping up Benjamin’s neck now.

“It’s Benjamin,” he says after another beat.

Arthur crosses the room and falls dramatically into the dining chair opposite him. Benjamin has only another beat to pull back his palm before the weight of the entire album falls upon it.

The loud thwump it makes momentarily takes over everything else, and the sounds of summer recede into his mind until there is only stillness and the undeniable sensation of walls all around him. There’s a sliver of light between the panels of a door.

Then, the crickets return, and so does Benjamin. He blinks down at the book’s cover instead of meeting Arthur’s calculating gaze.

The cover is quilted, dusty blue with tiny white polka dots and lace frills along the border. A picture of a little boy sits in a small cutout in the middle, and Benjamin can’t tell for a moment who it is. Dark hair, brown eyes with distinct epicanthic folds, a huge smile with a chipped front tooth.

Behind his lips, Benjamin runs his tongue along the gumline where his new adult tooth sits. The tea burns hot against his knee; the threat of scalding his thigh is the only thing keeping it from bouncing.

“You were so cute,” Arthur coos, jokingly scrubbing a finger over the school photo, as if tousling the child’s hair. His front teeth are square and whole, too. “What happened?”

Benjamin flattens his expression when Arthur searches it for any traces of humor. It doesn’t matter, anyway, because Arthur is plenty amused by his own joke for both of them.

“Your birthday is coming up, yeah?” Arthur continues, his lips curling at the edges. “Might be time to buy you that sense of humor you’ve been eyeing.”

“Have you always loved the sound of your own voice this much?”

Benjamin has no idea what possesses him to say such a thing, and with such vitriol. Arthur blinks. Benjamin looks once more at the wide-open back door.

Then, Arthur snorts and he says, “Ouch, little brother.”

And the words come so easily, like breathing, like he doesn’t care that he’s stolen all the rest of the air in the room away from Benjamin in a single second. Benjamin can still remember the confusion that washed over him when he read the subject line of Arthur’s first email as he was leaving his Chem final. He remembers what it felt like for the confusion to grow and grow until he felt suspended, sucked beneath an impenetrable surface and unable to fill his lungs.

When had he started drowning?

He shoves his chair back to put distance between them. How long has it been since that first email? Three weeks? A month? Searing pain blooms in his lap, and he and Arthur hiss in unison. He glares at the darkened material of his jeans, the agitated skin hidden beneath.

“Watch it,” Arthur barks, shoving paper towels into Benjamin’s line of sight. Benjamin hadn’t seen him get up to grab them from the counter. Arthur tugs the cup from Benjamin’s grasp and slams it down next to the book.

“You’re going to ruin your table,” Benjamin mumbles as he presses the paper towels to his leg.

With a dramatic scoff, Arthur brings the tea to his lips, drains it in one go, and throws the cup back onto the table, hard enough to make the ceramic rattle when he lets it go. “There,” he snaps.

Benjamin cringes. He hates the fuzzy, inescapable static of a burnt tongue, and Arthur’s is surely now scorched.

“I only meant,” Benjamin starts, but he abandons the sentence halfway, letting his aimless, noncommittal gesture toward the finished wood bear the burden of communication.

“I don’t give a shit about the table, Benjamin.” The words, despite the colorful curse, come out breathy and worn.

Arthur slumps back in his chair, and his previously carefree mannerisms now look tired; the effortless drape of his limbs, forced.

“Alright,” Benjamin says, at a loss. He twists the unused sections of his paper towels into tight spikes.

“You don’t—” Arthur licks his lips. Tries to sit up a bit taller. “You really don’t remember anything?”

Benjamin considers his napkin spires. Two are on opposite corners, curving apart. He tears one away and rubs it between his forefinger and thumb.

“Anything” refers, in Arthur and Benjamin’s case, to events that transpired between them seventeen years ago, when Arthur was eight, Benjamin was four, and they both lived under the same roof with the same mom and dad and a prickly, orange cat named Peach.

When Benjamin searches his mind for these events and parents and pets, he comes across soft, gauzy thoughts made up of never-ending lens flares. The close pressure of closet walls upon his back and golden light seeping through the door.

Arthur is the only one who remembers “anything.”

Benjamin doesn’t know that he used to call Peach “Pinch” or Arthur “Artie.” He doesn’t know that his mother was a great singer and would hum to herself all of the time, even mere seconds after reprimanding the boys for splashing water out of the bathtub or running in the house. He doesn’t know that they lived in a big yellow house with a detached garage, where they would watch his father fix up old cars and would fight to see who could help him refill the lawnmower’s gas tank. There’s still a stain on the concrete from when Arthur once filled it too fast, in that garage so many miles and years away.

Well, Benjamin knows now, but only because he has Arthur’s detailed emails to reference.

“I really don’t,” Benjamin confirms for the nth time.

Arthur can’t stop asking because Arthur still doesn’t believe him. Benjamin was four when they were separated, not an infant. How can he not remember? Benjamin has been asking himself that question for a long, long while. Everything before he was ten years old is one big Gaussian blur.

“You’ve always done that.” Arthur nods toward the shrapnel in Benjamin’s hands. He flushes again and balls up the paper in his fists.

Yes, Arthur is, technically, Benjamin’s older brother. This revelation, however, has not dissuaded the voice inside Benjamin’s head that continues to scream: I’m alone, I’m alone, I’m alone. He’s been feeding it with proof for seventeen years, after all.

Arthur squirms, seemingly unable to take the silence that has fallen over them, and he turns the album on the table once, twice, and then again. When Benjamin makes no move to ask to see inside, Arthur shakes his head and flips it open anyway.

There’s a page with a pale blue decorative certificate, complete with the stamped imprint of an impossibly small foot, and a photo of a baby that Benjamin can’t make out from this distance. It’s like Arthur’s forgotten about him, like he picked this up for his own Saturday evening entertainment.

It’s Benjamin’s turn to squirm when he notices the pink seeping into Arthur’s lower lashline, even though there’s no way Arthur himself could remember Benjamin that young. Benjamin has no idea what to say to comfort this stranger, but he’s quickly relieved of the daunting responsibility when Arthur snaps the book shut and hops to his feet. Benjamin releases a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“I was thinking about making cookies,” Arthur announces. “Or, maybe, soup! Or—I know.” He snaps his fingers and points at Benjamin, whose eyebrows are now knitted tightly together. “You’re a whiskey man, aye? I can always spot one of your type from a mile away. I know I have some around here somewhere…”

“Erm,” Benjamin hesitates. Arthur is a manic buzz of movement, flitting from one cupboard to the next in a frenetic game of hide-and-seek, as if he is the one who doesn’t live here. “I don’t drink.”

Never has, not after living with his mom—the one he does remember.

“Right! Did I say whiskey? I meant milkshakes. Unless you don’t drink those either?”

“What? You’re going to make milkshakes? Now?”

“Uh.” Arthur pivots on his heel to face Benjamin, a large glass blender clutched desperately in his arms. It looks brand new. “Yes?”

Benjamin huffs, and it’s so close to being a genuine laugh that Arthur startles, almost losing the appliance to the tile floor. The kitchen looks like a small tornado has blown through it, every cupboard and drawer flung half-open.

“You have bread?” he asks impulsively when he spots two jars in the exposed pantry.

“Huh? Oh, sure.” Arthur roughly deposits the blender back into its place, hidden in the dark recesses of a bottom cabinet. “Yeah, I do.”

Benjamin gathers two butter knives, easing the drawer closed with his hip as he pulls down two plates and the jars of jam and peanut butter. Then, they’re standing side by side, staring at each other with wide eyes, and Benjamin finally assesses his own brash actions with an inarticulate, garbling stammer.

Arthur waves his hands out between them, wiping away Benjamin’s mortification as easily as condensation from a glass. “I got carried away. Sammies. I should’ve known. I’m a big fan, too.”

Benjamin can’t seem to get his lips and teeth to cooperate with his tongue, so he mutely hands over the jam jar. It’s peach-flavored.

“You know, we had a cat called Peach,” Arthur muses, the metal lid popping faintly beneath his twisting hands. “You chased her all around the house, yelling ‘Pinch! Pinch!’ Menace.”

Benjamin nods. Arthur must not have agonized over memorizing their email threads as Benjamin had, every last word and punctuation mark. Still, the repetition of information softens something inside him, especially when he glances up at Arthur from the corner of his eye and notices the reminiscent smile he is wearing as he scoops out a glob of the orange jelly.

Benjamin starts with the peanut butter. When each of them is done with their slice, toppings spread as close to the edges as they dare without going over, they switch jars. He takes out his own generous portion of jam; the knife catches every so often as remnants of peanut butter snag on pockets of air.

As they move, the kitchen itself takes on a warm, amber glow that matches the jam’s hue, the setting sun bleeding through the screen door onto every available surface. Benjamin delicately places his peanut butter slice on top of the other, mindful of lining up each side just right. Jam and peanut butter spill out from all sides of Arthur’s when he slaps the two halves together too quickly.

Turning to rest the small of his back against the counter, Arthur sinks into his first bite. “Yeah,” he sighs, and even closes his eyes. “Good call.”

Benjamin holds his own sandwich loosely in both hands, but he’s too distracted by the golden sunset outside to eat.

“There is this one… feeling I get,” he admits after a moment, choosing his words carefully.

He does not look away from the fire on the horizon, even though his eyes sting. Arthur lets the silence settle.

“I’m in a closet.” Benjamin sucks a bead of jam from his thumb. It’s overwhelmingly sweet. “There’s this loud noise, and I’m tucked in the corner of this closet, and I keep watching the crack of light in the door. It’s… It’s a good feeling, I think.”

Arthur hums. Benjamin wonders if Arthur notices that he doesn’t stop at one note. A soft melody emanates from Arthur as he sifts through his memories.

“You’re sure it’s a closet?” Arthur asks. His voice is gummy with half of an unswallowed bite, and Benjamin has to clear the disgust from his expression.

“I mean, no, I’m not sure. I’m not even sure if it’s real. It’s just a feeling.”

Arthur sets down his sandwich and dusts off his hands before going over to the baby book. He flips through until he finds what he’s searching for. He comes back to Benjamin’s side and holds it open for him.

In the picture Arthur points to, there’s the tiny boy from the cover, this time tucked into the small confines of a carved wooden box, clearly meant to house the toys strewn recklessly around it. The boy is smiling sheepishly up at the camera from beneath the lid, held only partly open by an older boy wearing a smug expression. He looks like he doesn’t even feel the small toy cars he’s directly standing on with his bare feet.

“We were allowed to take that toybox with us when we left Mama’s house.” There’s a darkness in Arthur’s voice that Benjamin’s never heard as he says her name. That’s what Benjamin calls the mom he does remember, the one he had to go back to while Arthur got to stay in that yellow house. He wonders, for a moment, if Arthur would want to meet her again, too, one day.

“When Mom and Dad couldn’t find you, you were always in there.” Arthur pokes four-year-old Benjamin’s nose. “I thought it was hilarious. Mom and Dad thought it was sad. You loved that thing.”

Benjamin flicks his gaze between the boys’ matching smiles and hair and eyes. Their fingers are touching where they’re curved over the lip of the box. He finally takes a bite of his sandwich. When Benjamin is ready, Arthur moves his hand out of the way so Benjamin can turn to the next page himself.