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One
When Noah is thirteen and Lee’s just turned twelve, their father packs them off to his old sleep-away camp. He’s been talking up this camp for years, about all the adventures he’d had and the lifelong friends he’d made. Noah wonders if the new kid hazing is a recent development or if Dad just forgot.
Noah has dealt with bullies before and it only takes a few hard shoves, well-timed to miss the counselors’ eyes, to establish himself. Lee isn’t so lucky. Lee is still baby-cheeked and short and always chattering about incredibly uncool comic books, and the older boys torment him. Noah stays out of it because Lee tells him to, until one day Lee makes the mistake of opening his mail in the presence of two of the worst of the bullies. Shelly sent cookies and decorated the box with cartoon stickers and glitter doodles, and her kind gesture is chum to the sharks.
“Ooooh, Lee has a girlfriend!” Aidan, the taller of the two, taunts as he snatches the package away.
“Like this loser even knows what to do with a girl! Is she hot, Lee? Do you jack off every night thinking about her?”
“She’s not my girlfriend - you guys are gross!” Lee has flushed scarlet as he tries to grab the box back.
“Awww, Lee thinks girls are gross! Dude, she’s not his girlfriend, he’s gay!”
Noah may not be as big as Aidan and Max, but he’s got the advantage of surprise as he launches himself at them. He knocks Aidan to the ground and gets in two solid punches before Max leaps on him. It’s not fair then, two against one, and by the time counselors pull the three apart Noah has a bloody lip and a nasty bruise blossoming across his ribcage. But no one bothers Lee again, and the burn of the scuffs on Noah’s knuckles feels like accomplishment.
Two
Noah has always been in the taller half of his class, but freshman year he shoots way ahead of the pack. Then a year of football workouts layers muscle atop his previously lanky frame, and suddenly he’s the biggest and the strongest, a sophomore that even seniors defer to. He’s always been quick to jump into a scrap, but now he’s always the winner, and yeah, it goes to his head. His fighting earns him a series of detentions and increasingly disappointed lectures from his parents and the principal, but none of that damps the thrill of being king and enforcer. Noah tells himself he never hits anyone who doesn’t deserve it, but there’s seemingly always someone who deserves it, someone who needs reminding of his place in the pecking order or payback for some offense.
So when he sees some jackass ripping down posters for the dance team fundraiser, posters Lee and Shelly labored over all weekend, Noah steps in as he always does, knocking the kid to the ground before letting him run away. It wouldn’t even register in the list of punches Noah has thrown lately, except this time Lee is watching.
“What the hell is wrong with you, psycho?” Lee shoves Noah into the wall, daring him to shove back. “They’re just posters. When did you become such a damn bully?”
And Noah wants to yell back and justify himself, but Lee is already walking away.
Three
Noah dutifully meets with the counselors his parents make him see. They talk about positive conflict resolution and channeling anger into words, and Noah nods and agrees at all the appropriate points. And it’s not that he’s lying or doesn’t agree he can’t keep coming at the world fists-first, but he also hasn’t forgotten the satisfaction of landing a solid punch. Noah mostly manages to keep himself from starting fights now, but he won’t apologize for his grin when someone gives him a reason to let loose.
But tonight Noah can’t claim any good excuse, just Warren being his usual shitty Warren self and Noah being drunk and angry. Maybe Warren said something, maybe Warren did something, or maybe Noah just needed a tangible target for his rage. He hasn’t seen his mom smile in weeks, and Lee has basically disappeared, always at Elle’s or barricaded in his room with his music at hostile levels. So maybe getting hammered at some random party isn’t the smartest way to spend his Saturday, but it beats hanging around his house and having to think about Mrs. Evans dying. The alcohol haze is just starting to drown out all the shit of this last week when Noah hears Warren cackle gleefully about something or other, and suddenly they’re whaling at each other and Noah can relax for the first time in weeks.
The next day, when Noah’s dad asks why the hell he got in a fight again, Noah will claim Warren swung at him first. But in truth, Warren’s only offense that particular night was having the gall to sound so goddamn happy. It’s far from their first fight and Warren always gives as good as he gets, and maybe that’s why Noah swung at him and not someone else. Now Noah has a hangover and a bruised rib to nurse, and for once the tomb-like quiet of his house is welcome rather than suffocating.
Four
By the start of senior year Noah thinks he finally has the line drawn correctly between righteous and gratuitous violence, and now Cam and his cronies are pushing right up into the red zone. They’ve been running their mouths about the new girl all week and are at it again after football practice.
“Ten bucks says those tits aren’t real. Too perfect.” Cam gestures crudely, as though his comment required illustration.
“You’d know, porn king,” Tuppen laughs back. “When was the last time you even saw real ones?”
“Flynn, you hit that already. You settle this - real or fake?”
Noah responds with a swift hook to Cam’s jaw, then slams him into the lockers and leans in, using his height to its usual advantage. “I wouldn’t know, and if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you, you leering asses.”
“Oooh, the mighty Flynn got shut down by the new girl! Don’t worry, I’ll do the research and fill you in.” Cam apparently needs more help learning when to shut up, so Noah shoves him against the lockers again before walking away.
“Man, it’s okay to admit you struck out,” Tuppen can’t help but pile on. Noah flips him a silent bird without looking back.
Except Noah did not strike out. Noah and the new girl enjoyed a lovely afternoon the details of which Cam and the others will never hear, because Noah Flynn does not kiss and tell. And if the forthcoming rumors about the new girl’s imperviousness to the legendary Flynn charms work to her advantage, all the better.
One
It’s the closest Noah has come to swinging at Lee in years. The idea that Lee believes he could hit Elle stuns and enrages him, and Noah risks proving Lee’s case by lunging at his brother. Elle may have faith in his ability to change, but clearly Lee does not, and maybe Lee is the wiser one here.
But it’s Elle’s faith that stops him, her voice that reels him back from the brink. This is Elle and this is Lee and these are the two people Noah least wants to disappoint. He lets Elle talk him down and then he breathes slowly and deliberately as she runs off to talk to Lee. When she comes back, he lets himself believe they’re on the verge of resolving this disaster, that she and Lee will talk things out and then he and Lee will talk things out and finally this well-intentioned secret will stop splitting the three of them.
But then Lee blows up again and Noah has to listen to his brother paint his relationship with Elle in the vilest terms. He knows there’s no good answer when Lee demands to know if they’ve slept together. He can’t say no and start another lie rolling, and saying yes will only encourage Lee’s worst accusations. But it’s a moot point, because his and Elle’s reactions answer Lee more clearly than any words could have. But Lee can’t, or won’t, read the whole story their eyes tell about the truth of their relationship. Noah might accept that his own brother assumes the worst of him, but he can’t accept that Lee has assumed the worst of Elle, too, that Lee believes Elle would tolerate, or could ever be pressured into, being with Noah if Noah truly were what Lee’s accusing him of.
And yet Noah still does not throw a punch, because this is Lee, and of all the lines and rules Noah has ever drawn around his fighting, none has ever made Lee fair game, at least not since they were squabbling kids. Instead, Noah lets Lee land his own punch before pinning him to the ground to keep the fight from escalating irretrievably. Lee needs to feel the satisfaction of pouring all his anger into one righteous swing, just like he also needs to learn the bitter aftertaste that inevitably follows. Welcome to the club, brother.