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When Gus was a kid, people always told him he looked just like his father. He would beam at that, say, “And I’m almost as tall as him, too!” and people would laugh, pinch his cheeks.
People didn’t say that about Lars, because he always looked like Mom, and nobody wanted to say that to their dad. So they would say “What an adorable little boy,” and Lars wouldn’t say anything, because he didn’t talk til he was five years old. He would just stare at them, and they would say “He’s got lovely eyes, hasn’t he,” with strained little chuckles.
Having a little brother was weird. When Mom had told him she was pregnant, he’d been ecstatic. Visions of playing catch and building forts and being a cool older brother like his friend Gabe’s brother Mike, who took them to Culver’s sometimes and had his own car, danced around his head. But when Lars came, everything else crumpled, and Lars was too quiet and far too small to do anything fun for a long time.
He’d tried to bring Lars out to play a couple times, but it never worked right. Lars didn’t have the coordination to play catch, for one. He always dropped the ball. He cried about having to hook the worms when Gus tried to take him fishing, and he had a breakdown in the woods once when a leaf got into his sock. Gus had been forced to cut the day short and take him home.
It seems incredibly selfish, looking back, that he’d never invited Lars to come hang out with his friends, but he wasn’t… he wasn’t a cool little brother, and Lars was a lot of work. Gus had an odd certainty that having him around would’ve led to one or both of them getting picked on.
When he got a little older, he’d convinced himself that Lars must be getting bullied at school, because he didn’t seem to have any friends, and he was the sort of kid who got bullied. Gus cut class once and ran over to the elementary school to watch the kids at recess, expecting to see a bunch of bigger, older kids ganging up on him, half-fantasizing about running in and saving the day.
It wasn’t that dramatic, though. All he saw was Lars sitting by himself on the edge of the playground, drawing aimlessly in the dirt with a stick. And Gus knew it probably wasn’t ideal that Lars wasn’t playing with the other kids, but maybe Lars just liked being by himself. It was a nice thought, right? That nobody was leaving him out, that he was happy in his own little bubble.
It made it easier for Gus to escape, at least. His teenage years were spent running from that sad house and his sad father, and when he finally left home for what he thought would be forever he breathed out for the first time in years.
Sure, he felt guilty about it. He felt like a piece of shit. But hadn’t he done enough? Years of getting Lars ready for school every morning and heating up canned ravioli for dinner when Dad shut himself up in his room should buy him a little bit of grace. He needed to get out.
So he went to college and met a girl. Karin was, of course, the best thing that ever happened to him. She was such a bright spot, so effortlessly kind. Their wedding was quiet and sweet, and even though he got the awful phone call from Lars just before they left on their honeymoon, she never complained about having to cancel. She'd held him through his father’s funeral and quietly agreed to move to a place she’d never been with a man she’d barely met living in the garage.
Karin loved Lars from the moment they met, which was a relief. Gus had worried about Lars since the first time he’d been placed in his arms, back when Dad could barely stand to look at him. It was nice to let someone else take over.
And sure. Fine. Gus knows there’s more. He knows that something must have happened to Lars, knows that the way Dad treated him wasn’t right. But there’s no proof, and it’s so much easier to think that Lars withdrew because he was going through a rebellious phase, or because he’s always been weird and different and Gus never really got him anyways.
He was just too busy resenting Lars to follow that trail, because Lars didn’t get that Dad was still a good guy who was trying his best, even though Dad’s best was enough to drive Gus out of the house the second he turned 18. And Lars had never once complained or badmouthed Dad, he’d never do that. He just never knew Dad, not real Dad, and the way Lars would go quiet when Gus would say something nice about him sparked an indignant fire in his chest just the same as when the ladies at church would peer at them over the pews and whisper oh, those poor boys.
It’s always been enough for him to ignore that time he came home late at night and Dad was drunk and crying, and he had Lars on his lap, still and trembling, and Dad was whispering to him about how he looked just like his mother. He always tried to forget how uncomfortable it made him feel, and how he’d had to tell Dad hey, let go of him. He doesn’t want you to do that. How Lars had run away to the Pink Room, where Dad never set foot.
He thinks about it now. He thinks about how Bianca is clearly just a conduit for Lars to express himself. He thinks about how Lars insists on everybody treating the sex doll like a human being.
He thinks about it, but it doesn’t mean anything without proof, and he can’t ask. So he says something else instead, something true.
“I shouldn’t have left you alone with him.”