by A. M. Brooks
The room is quiet, more than normal, and eeriness I’m not used to fills the void space. Blindly, my hand searches for the light switch, hitting all the buttons once I find it. The room flooded with light causing my eyes to squint. A single piece of pink paper sits on the countertop next to a yellow receipt.
Blaise-
The lease is paid for up till next month. That gives you the time you’ll need to make new arrangements. I’m leaving today. I need this time to work on myself. Feel free to get rid of whatever you don’t want to keep.
Sorry.
Mom
Bile coats my throat as I swallow repeatedly, keeping the emotional vomit locked down. What kind of mother does that to their child? All my life, she’s kept us at an arm’s length, never putting us before herself. The only reason I made it to adulthood without being in the system was because of my brother. Sobs start to escape before I slap a hand across my mouth to hold it in. My eyes dart around, noticing for the first time the missing picture frames, DVD pile, and the afghan blanket that used to sit on the couch. Zero to sixty, anger that I’ve never felt before courses through my body. Stomping down to her room, I fling the door open. The bed is bare, the closet door is open and empty, as well. She actually freaking left. She left me like I meant nothing to her. I’m just the child she created and then abandoned.
Tears sting my eyes, moisture catches on my cheeks before making my way to my room. Everything remains untouched. Full-on crying, I slip my cell from my pocket and bring up Jay’s name.
Me: Can you come over please?
Nothing happens. Squeezing my eyes closed tighter, I give myself a little more.
Me: She left, Jay. She took her things and left me. Idk what to do.
Sliding down the door, I lay the phone out in front of me before pulling my legs to my chest. I let go. Everything I’ve been holding onto for the past week is cried into the bare skin on my arms. My body shakes from convulsing and my cheeks are sore from continuously wiping them. It’s ugly and lonely, and helluva therapeutic. My head throbs by the time I glance at my phone again.
0 Messages
0 Missed Calls
Picking myself up, something I’ve been getting better at the past half a year, I make it to my bed before collapsing again. My chest heaves and rattles with the last few fragments of my emotional breakdown. Making a deal with myself, I decide to call instead.
“This mailbox is currently full…” Straight to voicemail. A new determination settles in my veins and I’m up off my bed before I give myself the chance to think it through. Reckless, yes. I am only eighteen. Throwing on a pair of black leggings and a black Raiders zip-up, I tie my hair in a loose braid before shoving my feet in my running shoes. Remembering the feeling of being watched earlier, I decide to take a page from everyone else’s book and slide my window open. It’s a small fall to the balcony below, then from there a big stretch to shimmy down the fire escape. Blowing out a breath, I swing my legs out the window and over the edge. My body slides down the side and I let go before I can talk myself out of it.
My feet hit the ground without any accidents. I say a quick thank you to Blake before reaching the shadows. Thankfully, the streetlight is out tonight and makes it easier to move. Rowland’s mechanic shop is dark and closed. I search the windows at the top of the building where the loft is located. Seth’s messages earlier irked me knowing he was right. I haven’t been up there. Never has Jay even offered for me to come over. We usually split time between Señor Locos and my apartment.
“Hey,” his voice whispers next to my ear at the same time Seth’s hand lands on my shoulder.
“The fuck!” I whisper-yell at him, looking around to make sure we weren’t heard. We both wait a few seconds before talking.
“I told you no one was around. There was a huge race at Scar tonight.” Seth shrugs.
“How did you know I was here, I didn’t text you back,” I ask, feeling overly suspicious and leery right now.
“I’ve known you for how long now, Blaise,” he replies, dragging his eyes up to Jay’s window. I scoff.
“You think I don’t know the suspense would eat you alive.” He chuckles and I frown.
“Whatever,” I mumble. “Let’s just get up there.”
“Right,” Seth says, holding back a grin. “Wait up. I’ll be back.” He disappears around the back of the building. My neck cranes up, again contemplating how we’re going to get in. Even if I stood on Seth’s shoulders, we aren’t tall enough. The loft is above the vaulted ceiling of the garage.
In true Seth fashion, he answers my thoughts without speaking. A long black rope comes flying down the side and stops right next to the window. My phone vibrates in my pocket.
Seth: Go around back and use the fire escape to get to the roof.
Roof. My heart plummets just thinking about it. Sticking close to the building to avoid the cameras and motion lights, I finally make it to the fire escape. The climb up the ladder proves much easier than I anticipated. Seth waits for me by the ledge where we plan to hang down from. The rope is fastened to a hook that is locked against the wall.
“I’ll go first.” He nods before easing his body over the edge. At least it isn’t a far drop to the window from where I’m standing. His knife cuts through the edge of the screen, and I hear a beeping noise before the audible sound of a lock gives way. “I don’t even want to know,” I whisper to myself. Seth’s body disappears inside. Holding my breath, it seems forever before Seth’s head pops out meeting my gaze, a grim mask on his face. He waves me down. While my body is in shape from running, I very much lack upper body strength. My arms and shoulders ache by the time I shimmy into the window. I rub my palms against my leggings trying to soothe the rope burn.
“Ready?” Seth asks, standing in front of me, keeping my vision shielded from the room.
I nod. Slowly, Seth steps away from me until he’s back to my side. My vision tilts while the blood leaves my face. “That’s me.”
“I know.” Seth’s voice sounds like he’s in pain. Only his pain can’t compare to what I’m feeling.
I’m everywhere in this room. Large pictures, small pictures, candid pictures, posed pictures, my freaking high school yearbook picture. I’m laughing, talking, reading, running, working, and sleeping. Not an inch of wall is open. I walk over to the single desk against the other window in the room, the one that is on the front of the building, the one that faces my room. A very large, very expensive Nikon camera sits on top. A long tube sits next to it. I swallow.
“He’s been watching me,” I choke the words out. A plan of my apartment and the old high school sit on top of the desk. Stars located in various rooms where I spent time. Next to that is a framed picture of Blake, Trent, and Jay. A file with my mom and dad’s name is next to that and a picture of me blowing out my sixteenth birthday candles on top.
“I knew it,” Seth says, releasing a sigh. “I didn’t know it was to this extent though.”
“What do you mean you knew?” I ask, turning to face him. My guard comes flying back up. Jays voice echoes in my memories, Blake ended up almost here, he was dead and a bag of money went missing along with your friend.
“When Blake pulled me in, I wasn’t fully on board with McCall and Nichols. They just didn’t seem right. I get Nichols more now, he’s seen and been around some fucked up shit… McCall though just always rubbed me the wrong way. Like he was mad at me about something. That night…” His voice drifts off, his eyes haunted “That night Jay wasn’t in Vegas—”
“I know this already,” I interrupt.
“No.” Seth shakes his head. “Blake and McCall got into it a few days before everything was supposed to go down. About you. Blake said we’d talk after Vegas, but I heard your name a few times. At the last minute, Blake texted me that he had a bad feeling. We changed direction. Blake made that decision. He handed me the bag and said we’d meet up. He said McCall was already here and would meet up with us.”
“He was h
ere, like in town that night?” I ask, feeling confused. My mind spinning in different directions.
“That’s what Nichols said. Said Blake knew too, and that’s why we split and headed this way,” Seth explains. All his words are jumbled. My brain can see the puzzle, yet I can’t make the pieces fit.
“I need to leave,” I tell him, grabbing a few of the pictures off the wall and the framed one from the desk. At this point, I don’t care if Jay finds out. I want him to know that I know he’s been spying on me. Keeping tabs on me, and from the looks of it for a few years.
We have no idea what happened. There was a solid plan in place. We walked through every detail many times and we designated which hotel everything would go down at. I wasn’t going to be in Vegas with them that night. I was doing surveillance on another piece of important detail in case things did go bad. The whole plan was flawless. Somehow though Blake ended up almost here, he was dead and a bag of money went missing along with your friend.
Fragments of conversation float in and out, wreaking havoc on my heart. Why are Seth and Trent on good terms? Did Jay lie? Or is Seth lying?
“Do you want me to come with you?” Seth asks, at least he has the decency to look guilty. He literally just shattered the rest of any normalcy I had.
I shake my head. “No. I need to be alone.”
“You should contact Nichols. Go see him at Scar,” his voice says behind me. I don’t give him a response before making my way to the window. I waste zero time, grabbing the rope and using it to propel my way down to the ground. Screw climbing and Seth can go to hell to if he thinks I’m sticking around to help him.
Lies and more lies everywhere. Everyone is lying. Everyone has their own agenda and somehow I’ve been thrust into the middle of it. Why though? I know absolutely nothing. Blake kept me very secluded from his secret life. He also started to exclude me with his extracurricular activities in Vegas. He was a protector. He didn’t use me to further himself or trust me with all his secrets if he would have thought for one minute I would be hurt by it. These people have overly underestimated my brother.
I jog across the street, zero fucks given if I’m seen now. I want to be seen. I hope this is caught on whatever fancy device Jay has been watching me on. If the guys have some secret surveillance on me now, too, good, bring it. Loudly, I climb up the fire escape onto the balcony before jumping up to my window. I don’t even try to disguise that I’m sneaking in. My shoes scrape against the roughened siding, a small grunt leaves my mouth while I haul myself through the opening. Once I’m in, I let the glass fall back into place before locking it with a flourish.
“Take that, fuckers!” I shout into my room, shit, into the apartment because let’s face it, the place is all mine now.
“Hanging out with Baird now?” Jay’s voice floods my ears, sending adrenaline pumping throughout my body. I’m caught between wanting to run and being too scared to move. He would catch me anyway and easily.
Slowly, I turn my back to the window. Jay’s tall frame is rigid against my closed door. He looks wound up and ready to pounce as if he can hear the stream of words in my head. Everything I got is telling me to run. Even if I were to try and throw myself out the window now, I wouldn’t make it. Closing my eyes, I swallow down the defeat before pulling out the pictures I’d stolen.
“He showed me something interesting,” I tell him, laying it all out on my bed. Jay’s face stays impassive. “How long have you been watching me, Jay?” I ask, the burning need to know flares alive in my gut.
Without missing a beat, Jay’s chocolaty orbs swing to mine. “Seven hundred and twenty-eight days, fifteen hours and five minutes.”
My mouth goes dry.
“You aren’t even going to deny it?” I ask, watching him, looking for any sign that he might crack.
He shrugs. “I want those back,” he demands, nodding his head toward the pictures littered all over my bed.
“No,” I tell him, lifting my chin defiantly. “Why? Why do you have these?” I can’t stop the tears gathering on my lashes. I don’t want to break in front of him though.
“Why are you hanging out with Baird?” Jay repeats, pushing his body off my door, stalking toward me.
“He’s the only one helping me and not treating me like I can’t handle the truth,” I respond, refusing to back down.
“Is he?” Jay’s head tips back, laughing. “You don’t need help, Blaise. You’ve been dealing with all of this head-on for months and you’ve handled it. Don’t feed his ego that he’s helping you.”
“Fine. He’s not lying to me at least.” I shrug, feeling weary.
“Or, he’s telling you his version of the truth,” Jay states, his head tipping to the side. He’s studying me intently. “Guess I underestimated my worth, my mistake.”
“No, your mistake was underestimating mine,” I answer. Little does he know I’ve wondered the same thing. My heart leans toward Jay while my mind fights to believe the person I’ve known the majority of my life. “Tell me your version then.” The words come out even while my mind screams, No.
He chuckles. “Are you sure you want to go down that path, Blaise? Once you do, there’s no going back.”
I shrug. “I’ll take my chances.”
The silence in the room stretches between us, wound tight, ready to snap at any given moment. I’m prepared for Jay’s dark secret, prepared to hear mortifying information about my brother. What I don’t expect is the next words out of Jay’s mouth.
“I’ve been in love with you since Blake first asked me to watch you.”
I swear my heart stops at the same time my stomach drops. I swing my gaze back to Jay, who hasn’t taken his from me. “I don’t understand,” I say, my tongue darting out to my dry lips. My whole mouth suddenly feeling like I swallowed cotton balls.
“When Blake first came on, I told you, it was small stuff. Whatever happened between him and the others on that trip to Vegas freaked the shit out of him. He wanted nothing to do with it. He started working with Trent and myself. Just information, identifying names to the faces we picked up on surveillance. When it became obvious we were focusing on the cartel… I made the decision to start surveillance on Blake’s family. If anyone found out what he was doing, they would go after the family, as well. Blake was on board with this when I explained what we were dealing with. He couldn’t care less about his mom. Only the most important person to him, he wanted watched twenty-four-seven.”
“Me,” I acknowledge, more tears gathering, hearing about my brother. “Guess you took the surveillance a little too far though, huh?”
“You were wearing dark purple jeans, a black sweater, and those.” He points at my combat boots under the bed. “You didn’t even see me. You walked past, laughing with that blonde friend of yours.” Jay’s voice comes out strained. “I agonized for months over the feelings I was getting every time it was my turn to watch you. I told Trent, and he told me to come clean to Blake. He wasn’t too happy about it.” Jay shrugs, a guilty smile full of trouble passes his lips.
“I bet,” I scoff.
“We agreed to talk about it after the case,” Jay interrupts before I can say more. “Things were tense when it came to you, I took myself off your surveillance team to help.”
“Where were you the night my brother was killed, Jay?” I beg the question threatening to tear me apart.
“I should have been there.” His gaze leaves me for the first time, remorse slashing on his face. “Blake called me that morning and said something was off. He begged me to come here and watch you, because they’d find you. So I did. You went to school, came home, did homework, talked to your friends on Facebook, and then went to bed. He called me once and that was the last I heard until the news of the accident came through the radios.”
“If you had been there, would things have been different?” My voice cracks through my tears.
Jay’s eyes hold mine. Without saying a word, I know it wouldn’t have. They both would have w
anted to be here regardless.
“So this whole time, you knew who I was,” I repeat back what I’ve just heard. “You knew who I was the day of the funeral too, didn’t you?” I ask, even though I know the answer. Jay’s nostrils flare, his face flushing in anger. Not a hint of denial escapes his mouth. Fury swirls in my gut. I feel mislead, lied to, and exposed.
“Did you like knowing you were fucking a minor that day? Do you get off on that shit, Jay?” The words spew from my mouth, laced in acid. I want them to cut like barbed wire across his soul.
“It was your eighteenth birthday,” he reminds me, calmly, barely reacting to the bait I’m throwing and it pisses me off more.
“Screw you, Jay.” My lip curls. “You think you love me? You stalked me. You don’t know me!”
He’s on me before I can blink or I can finish giving him all my anger. I can’t contain it anymore. Unfortunately for him, he’s about to be collateral damage in my emotional tornado. He grabs for me right as I push at him, causing us both to lose balance and fall onto my bed. The pictures scatter while my mattress slams against the wall. Jay fights for dominance while I claw my way into his skin, hurling my body into his. I won’t beat Jay in strength. I go for the jugular, literally biting, and spitting sharp words instead.
“It’s all your fault. You should have known better. You liar.” The heat from Jay’s body rolls off onto mine when he finally pins my back to the bed. My legs instantly circle his waist to throw him off until he gets my hands above my head in a tight grip. His muscled arms strain against the material of his shirt, my own is starting to stick to my skin.
“Get off,” I grit out, my teeth clashing when he smirks.
“Keep fighting me, baby,” he growls into the sensitive skin on my neck. My body instantly shivers, a fierce need for Jay spreads from my toes to the roots of my hair. I should be disgusted, yet the dull ache between my legs is anything but. I’m aroused. I want Jay to take his aggression out on my body.