Running With Scissors_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [67]
In her hand, she held a raw hot dog.
“Take it easy, sister,” Bookman said, adopting a condescending tone. “We were just discussing your love life. Or lack thereof.”
“My love life is none of your beeswax,” she huffed. “Besides, haven’t the two of you got better things to do than sit around all afternoon talking about me?” She bit into the frankfurter.
“Seriously, Hope,” Neil said, leaning back against the sofa and placing his arm around me. “Being in love is fantastic. It’s the best thing there is. You should try it.”
Hope sneered. “I’d hardly call you an expert.”
His hands slammed down on his thighs and I could feel his muscles tense against mine. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She leaned against the windowsill and chewed slowly, casually. “It means I’d hardly call you an expert on love, that’s all.”
“Are you saying my relationship with Augusten isn’t love?”
“I’m saying your ’relationship’ with Augusten, who is fourteen by the way, is not a mature love, no.”
“Bullshit,” he screamed. “Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.”
I hated being caught in the midst of their sibling rivalry. And they weren’t even real siblings.
I had been having a good time sitting on the couch next to Neil, just talking. I liked feeling his grown-up arm against my skinny one. And I liked that he didn’t seem interested in anything except me. But when he got intense like this, when he got crazy, shaking like he was now, I didn’t like him. It was like there were two Bookmans. The one I liked and the other one that was hidden.
“No, it’s not bullshit, Neil. It’s the truth. And if you’re not man enough to take the truth, you have no business being with a child.”
“I’m not a child, Hope,” I snapped. “I’m fourteen.”
“I’m sorry, Augusten. I know you’re not. I didn’t mean it like that. You’re very mature. I just meant that, well, it’s different when you’re older. Love is different. More mature.”
Neil burst into a riot of malicious laughter. “And what do you, Miss Iceberg, know about mature love? When was the last time you had anything in your twat besides a tampon?”
“That’s enough, Bookman,” Hope shouted. “I’m not going to listen to you when you’re talking like a teenage boy—and acting like one.” She stormed from the room, fuming.
Neil leaned back against the couch and put on a fake smile. “That shook her up. She’s such a prude.”
“Yeah, she can be,” I said. “But I like her. She’s pretty normal and everything.”
“You think Hope’s normal?”
“Well, yeah. Pretty much.”
“She’s thirty. She lives at home. She works for her father. And she hasn’t had a boyfriend since she was twenty-two. You think that’s normal?”
Well, when he put it like that.
But I wasn’t talking about those things. I meant, she had a good heart and she wasn’t insane. The not being insane part, that was a lot around here. “I like her,” I said.
“I like her too. She’s my spiritual sister for crying out loud. But she pisses me off. She really gets under my skin.” Then he faced me and his eyes softened, pupils dilating. “I don’t like anybody saying my love for you is anything less than miraculous.”
I liked his attention. But I also felt like there was something sick and wrong about it. Like it might make me sick later. I thought of my grandmother, my father’s mother. How when I used to visit her in Georgia she would always let me eat all the cookies and frozen egg rolls I wanted. “Go ahead, sweetheart, there’s more,” she would say. And it seemed okay because she was a grown-up, and I wanted all the Chips Ahoy! cookies in the bag. But I always ended up feeling extremely sick afterward. I looked at Bookman, his eyes swollen with emotion. “Thanks, that’s sweet.”
“It’s not sweet, my man. It’s the truth. The love I have for you is every bit as valid and as powerful and as healthy as the love any man would feel for any other man.”
“Yeah,” I said, not quite believing him, but also not wanting to question him because I didn’t want him to fly into a rage.
“Did you read my letter?”
He was talking about the sixteen-page letter he’d slipped under