After that, Will remembered meeting up with his brother.
John was much like him—just a few years older and bigger—but more round and fatty. John didn't work out like Will did, but John was still big, and at seventeen, in a room of kids his age, John was usually the biggest person there. Notable too, John had blond hair and blue eyes like their mother. Not even eighteen years old, John was six foot four and still growing.
The football team had tried to get John and Will to play because of their natural size, but Will preferred the gym and John preferred his books.
They walked home together.
John talked the whole way, hands moving as he explained it. John was on engines lately. John said he was going through a combustion phase, and he kept circling back to the same point like he was trying to get it to click for Will. John explained how air and fuel mixed, how compression mattered, how the spark had to hit at the right time, and how pressure did the actual work. John made it sound straightforward, like if you understood the order of it, you could understand why things failed.
Will wasn't dumb. Will did good in school without really having to extend any effort. Mostly Bs. A C if the class was hard. As long as the school didn't call their father, their father didn't give a shit. Will preferred the gym, so there was no reason to study beyond what kept him out of trouble.
All Will's effort went into mixed martial arts.
Will and John kept walking until they got home.
John looked at Will and said, "You know, you could try and not look at him like you want to fight him."
Will blinked. "I don't do that," Will said.
John was talking about their father. Will had gotten a habit of challenging him lately. Their father was an asshole, and no matter how many times he hit them, Will was refusing to surrender more and more. It just wasn't in Will to take a beating. Will despised the man.
"John," Will said, "please. Just let it be." A pained, wore-out look came onto John's face. John always looked tired when they talked about their father. John was tired of the man.
John's grades were perfect, his testing scores were perfect, and John stayed busy with extra-curriculars—STEAM, chess club, National Honor Society. John had at least three full rides sitting there waiting, and John talked about degrees like they were already planned out. John wanted engineering and the medical field. John said improving the human body still had so many unknowns, and John talked about combatting disease and viruses.
But John was hesitant to leave because of Will.
Will knew that. Will also knew what it would turn into if John stayed. Will and John fought about it for weeks. Not fists—words. Will told John straight that if John didn't take the full ride, Will would leave home and never be heard of again. Will meant it too. John had finally capitulated and decided to go to MIT.
As for how Will responded to their father, Will just shrugged like it didn't matter, but Will knew it did. To Will, it was up to their father. If their father beat them, Will would stand strong. Will refused to cower to the man.
They opened the door and found their father passed out drunk in his chair with the TV on. The volume was high enough that the sound filled the small living room. One arm hung off the side of the recliner. An empty bottle sat on the floor near his foot like it had tipped over and stayed there.
Their father hadn't worked in years. He got injured on a job—one which Will was sure he either faked or made happen—and after the lawsuit he could just drink, watch TV, and be an asshole.
Their father was a very large man. Six and a half feet, over three hundred and twenty-five pounds, most of it in a bear belly, but he could still move even at his size. He was built strong from manual labor, thick through the shoulders and hands. Will hated it, but Will was his father's spitting image.
In fact, Will would probably be bigger than John and their father. Their mother had marked their heights as they grew, and Will was already a couple inches taller than John had been at the same age.
Thinking back, Will remembered very little about that house past the little details, but he did remember the mark in the hallway wall.
Will had been twelve and John fifteen. It was a few months after their mother left. Will and John had been playing—play fighting, wrestling on the old carpet, just being teenager boys. They weren't trying to break anything. They weren't yelling. Their elbows and knees bumped, the carpet rubbed at their forearms, and they whispered insults under their breath like it was a game.
Their father came in yelling.
"Shut up," their father shouted.
Will remembered the look. A shaggy, wild beard. Sweat on his neck and along his hairline like he hadn't showered in a week. Eyes red. The smell of alcohol hit before he even got close, sour and heavy. He barged over with heavy steps, shoulders forward, a hulking man filling up the hallway.
"Why are you being loud?" their father yelled. "I need my sleep." Spit flew as he talked.
Will and John hadn't been loud. They were just messing around.
John tried to speak up for them. Big mistake. John lifted his hands a little, palms open, trying to explain, trying to calm it down.
Their father pointed at them like he was catching them doing something criminal. "What is this?" their father yelled. "Fighting in my house?" Their father cut John off and shoved a finger into John's chest hard enough to make John rock back a half step.
Before John could even get a word out, their father slapped John across the face. John's head snapped to the side and John's cheek flushed fast.
Their father leaned in on John. "You're the oldest," their father yelled. "I expect better." Their father delivered another slap right after, like he was proving the point with his hand.
That's what John did. John made their father focus on him, not Will. John did that on purpose.
Will remembered seeing red. John was his person. John was his caretaker. John was the one who cooked when they had food and stretched it when they didn't. John was always there. John was more than his brother.
Will moved without thinking it through to defend John.
Life wasn't fantasy. Their father just kicked Will in the chest. The kick hit hard enough that Will's breath jumped out of him and his balance went sideways. Will threw his hand out to catch himself. His fist slammed into the drywall with enough force to punch a hole clean through it.
Pain shot up his arm fast. White-hot. Will felt a crack in his wrist as it folded wrong and then held wrong. Will knew it was broken before he even looked. His fingers went weird, his grip wasn't right, and his forearm trembled like it couldn't decide what to do.
Their father still slapped him. Not once. More than once. Their father stepped over him and slapped him over and over, shouting, "Come at me again. My house, my house!"
The sound was sharp in the hallway. Will's ears rang with it. Will kept his eyes up anyway. Through the pain, Will still glared at him, jaw clenched so tight his teeth ached.
That was his life. Shitty.
Will and John refused to settle. They learned that not being present worked the best. They stayed out when they could, stayed quiet when they had to, and kept their heads down until their father burned himself out.
Most days, by the end of the day, their father was just passed out somewhere with the TV on, or too drunk to even walk.
Will remembered the hole in the wall more than anything because of the pain and the story it carried.