Chapter 7. Continuation 4
I definitely said something wrong. I'm so sorry, but I have no idea how to fix it, so I just shut up and wait for Sam's dark thoughts to fade like a tropical storm.
But that doesn't happen.
- Do you want to go to the salt lakes? Or on the way to the hotel we'll find a normal cafe and get drunk with Chinese noodles and sausages from the belly? - says Ding. I don't think he's planning this, but his tone of voice is pretty pitiful. - By the way, our hotel has a cool pool hall.
I can see from Sam's face that Dean is making a huge mistake.
- And then you'll tuck me in a blanket before I go to bed, Mommy? - Sam speaks out loud without looking at his brother.
Dean flinches like a slap in the face.
- Don't call me that," he asks.
- Don't act like her, - Sam parried. - Park, ice cream. Take me for a ride on the merry-go-round for a full match.
- You have no idea how she would behave! - Dean flashes and gets up from the semi-circular bench.
Sam looks up at his brother from the bottom to the top, and the look on his face scares me, just like the rest of their fight.
- Of course, you're the only one who knows what she was like, where I'm going," he says.
- Will you be jealous all your life that I remember her?
- I don't envy you! - Sam yells at me, jumping on my feet, too. - But you've been with her longer than I have, it's just a naked fact, Dean.
- But without her, I was just as long as you were! Except I had to worry about her death a hundred times worse. Because I don't just remember what she was like, I saw her die, burning our house with her. But for some reason you think I only remember her kissing me on the forehead before she went to bed.
Too much information in a minute. Thoughts were racing in my head, overtaking one another. They were kids when their mother died. And I'm poisoning their souls by looking for my...
- Let's get out of here, shall we? - Quietly, I ask. I'm so ashamed, I feel guilty that our walk ends like this. Although I understand that the brothers are in a state of siege all day long, I blew my maximum bubble on the stone hanging over the cliff, which was already on a hairline and collapsed into an abyss from the movement of air. But I'm still damn sorry.
- Do you want to know if I would trade places with you? - Sam asks more calmly, but his voice is bitter. - Yes, Dean, I would have. Because then I'd know how she wanted me to be when I grew up.
Dean laughed back at me.
- What for, Sammy? You're doing just fine without that knowledge. You take your word for it to everyone who tells you what she would have done and what she would have said.
Sam clenches her fists and comes one step closer to her brother. All we needed was a fight...
- Not "to all," but to my father, he hisses.
- He may have found your sick place and pressed you, but you fell for it like a jerk. I don't remember you being such an obedient son before.
- That's your opinion," Sam cuts it off.
- You don't like my opinion? Then why don't you blame it on all four sides? Stay in Michael's village, have a family, and have a dozen children. Live a lousy life thinking your mother would be proud of you. And I'm tired, Sam. Tired, do you understand? - Dean gives it away in one breath, and then turns around and leaves.
I'm totally confused, but asking Sam now isn't the best idea. It looks like a squeezed lemon, and the look is completely empty again, as it was this morning.
I can't believe he laughed at the way I got my ice cream on and sneaked into the dinosaur bones an hour ago.
Was that even there?
We're going back to Salt Lake in silent, oppressive silence. To distract myself from the nervous atmosphere in the car, I'm even starting to count the trees along the side of the road: one... two... three...
Forty minutes' journey? God, how long is it going to take...
Chapter 8.
When I arrive at the hotel I immediately hide in the bathroom and impudently wet there in a huge Jacuzzi for at least an hour, spitting at the fact that someone else, perhaps, is not averse to swimming. It seems that I even fall asleep for a while, enjoying the long-awaited peace after a very hard day, and when I am ready to get out of there, it is already dark outside the window.
There is no one in the room. On my bed there are clean clothes, carefully left by one of the brothers, and on the nightstand next to it - the second set of keys.
They knock on the door. It's strange, the service person shouldn't come in the evenings. I'm going to open up in a towel alone, so meeting a guy in a typical Mormon suit "white shirt, tie, thick book in a black binding and a smile to the ears" looks particularly impressive.
- Are you familiar with God? - he asks me, spraying happiness in all directions like a lawn sprinkler.
- Tell me you also know each other," I sniff. I should have slammed the door in front of his nose, but for some reason I'm slowing down.
- God loves all his children, even those who don't wear it in their hearts. Is there a God in your heart? - He looks me in the eyes faithfully.
- If I say yes, will you ask me to cut and show? And if I say no, will you put him there for me?