by Scott, Eliot
I wasn’t going to let the man show up and surprise Jojo, that’s for damn sure. I was so relieved that he died before I finally got the balls to spy on him. I’d been ready to go to Ohio myself, but then Jojo surfaced here, keeping her promises. Looking at me with those damn beautiful blue eyes. Fucking my head more than it already is fucked—and sending my soul all the way down into hell where it belongs.
I know Jojo will be devastated all over again today. She’ll feel betrayed, confused, and she’ll be hurting. But once she cries it out, she’s going to understand that her mom planned all of it because she loved her daughter more than anything in the world. She wanted Jojo to leave here. For good. Forever. So she could be safe and get to live her life. So she could be free of the past—our families’ past.
When Will told me she’d actually stolen papers, the letter, and the entire transfer of deed documents, I was shocked, slightly saddened, but maybe relieved, too. That act meant that the good JoJo I once knew has changed. She’s gotten wiser—bolder.
But hell…we’ve all changed, haven’t we?
My stomach clenches as all of my parts in this—all of our parts that made this girl change—slam into me.
If she only knew; she would have never come back.
I picture her, stewing and pacing around her old farm lot. She’s probably burning with questions and hating us all right now. At least she’ll finally understand I wasn’t lying that night in the boathouse. When I told her about her mother and my father, she screamed at me to stop, and her eyes told me she would never, ever believe me.
I hear her voice from that night again in my mind: “Why…why…why…”
Back then, even I didn’t know about the water, or the oil. Now, like me, she knows why. It was more than a feud. It was soulless greed.
I pause my run to catch my breath and to pull some needed air back into my lungs because the pathway, as it gets closer to the edge of my woods and Jojo’s old property line, has become nearly completely overgrown. I’ve let the path disappear with neglect. But now I’m regretting that because this entire section is blocked with felled trees, massive ferns and these wicked, thorn bush weeds.
I pick my way through it all, annoyed at the delay, and worried I’m going to miss her visit here. I finally carve my own new path in order to exit the grove of trees, my last shelter before crossing into the wide open dust bowl of the once fertile wheat fields that used to make up the edges of the Wallace holdings, when I hear a shout—Jojo’s shout.
My eyes land on my brother’s truck, parked all haphazardly, but in just a way to block Jojo’s rental car. My pulse thrums with agitation and fear and even more annoyance.
What the fuck is Grady doing? How could I have missed that he was probably tailing Jojo, too? How could he have known she’d come here? Is he trying to hurt her? Fuck. Fuck!
The shouting escalates, and that’s when my head flips to slow-motion and fast-motion all at the same time.
I don’t quite hear much beyond the sound of my heart thumping into my skull and my feet churning and pushing against the dirt as I start running again toward Jojo. I know Jojo shouted at Grady again. I also recall the way he didn’t shout back, which really isn’t like Grady at all.
Because neither of them were facing me, their exact conversation stayed lost on the wind.
As I approach, JoJo looks calm enough. She’s clutching her bag and Grady has his arms crossed in front of him, making his usual smug-son-of-a-bitch expression.
In a beat, though, everything changes. JoJo backs away one step for every pace Grady walks forward. And suddenly, the world speeds up. Jojo starts to run, and my brother changes his stance. He whips toward her like a python striking at a mouse, and grabs her arm. Her cry of pain mixed with fear nearly does me in, and when Grady shakes her hard, I make my legs burn faster because I am still too fucking far away.
Jojo manages to squirm momentarily out of Grady’s grip and fumble a hand into her bag. That move is to yank out a gun! A gun that’s in JoJo's hand and now pointed at Grady!
I can barely contemplate that, because that bastard is suddenly all over her. Helplessly, I’m running and watching as he hits the side of her face with his fist and the gun tumbles out of her hand to land in the grass. I’m almost there, and he’s got her pinned against him, and the fucker is laughing while finally I can hear Jojo’s screaming at the top of her lungs. "No. Let me go, Grady! I won't. You can't make me!”
My brother's response is, “Oh, but I think I can—you’re going to need to shut the fuck up.” He tears at her blouse and yanks her hair hard so her head snaps back as she falls onto her knees.
She's twisting and scratching and fighting him with every ounce of her might, still screaming louder than ever for help.
My brother gets another good grip on her hair, and seeing that makes my whole body hurt. He drags her effortlessly around until he forces her onto her back despite how she’s digging her legs straight into the ground and twisting away. “Stop touching me!” Her screams are muffled.
I become white-hot fury, and I close in just when he’s managed to pin her down by using all of his weight to grind her into the dirt while still tearing at her blouse.
"I'm going to do way more than touch you right now you conniving, Wallace whore. And because you won’t stop your screeching, I'm going to shut you up by shoving my cock in your mouth."
Some of the fight goes out of Jojo’s limbs because Grady’s weight is pushing the air out of her lungs, but I hear her say: “I’ll bite it off if you try. You know I will—I’ll rip it in half.”
“Fucking bitch. You would, wouldn’t you?” He punches her face again, way too hard. And then he tears the rest of her blouse all the way off. “Unbutton your jeans, Jojo. Unbutton them, and do as I say!”
"No. No. Don't—don't! No."
Grady stretches to the side and reaches for the gun and trails the tip of it over her breasts.
“No,” Jojo sobs out, breaking finally.
I can't believe my brother doesn't hear me coming, but maybe he's just as amped up on head-pounding adrenaline as I am.
He clocks her with the gun so hard she crumples under him like she's made out of paper, and he starts yanking at the button on her jeans himself. But before he can have his way, I’m there, and I send him flying off of Jojo with a powerful thrust.
Wordlessly, he and I tangle like two rabid, wild dogs fighting over road kill.
My fists make contact with his face, and the asshole actually fires the gun at me while I'm wrenching it out of his hand!The bullet misses me, but I already know there'd be no way, even if it had pierced my heart directly, that I would have stopped breathing until I’d made sure Grady had died for this first.
“Alex. Don’t kill me. Please.” Grady’s voice, now that I’ve got the gun pointed at him, is whining like a baby’s. From very far away I hear myself growl and I land another punch.
“I’m sorry. Fuck. Don’t kill me, Alex! What would you say to Mom if you did?”
“I’d say you deserved it.” I front. “Everyone already suspects you killed our father so you could take over the business early. I’d say that it was true.”
“I didn’t kill Father. What the fuck! Why didn’t you say anything at the funeral—stake your claim to her then and there? This is all actually your fault for not doing that.” Classic Grady, blaming everyone else for his fuck-ups by using the same logic as a third-grader. “You wouldn’t even look at her. I just figured she could finally be mine. Father always joked that if she came back to town I could have her.”
Beyond triggered by that line, I nearly start choking—they used to threaten me with that joke. Because it was never a fucking joke! But I don’t utter what I would have screamed at them back when I was in high school. Things like, “I love this girl—you hurt her, you keep hurting her, how could you have done this to her?”
Back then, I hadn’t learned my lessons yet. I didn’t understand that Grady, my mother, and my father
fed off of phrases like that. This is why I will never let anyone in my family hear me utter words that would hint at the ongoing depths of my feelings about Jojo Wallace. Those words would make me their target again, and make her more vulnerable than she already is.
The feud, I learned the hard way, is not about Jojo being a Wallace and me being a Sinclair. It’s really a Sinclair being in love with a Wallace. That’s how the feud survives. That’s the blood that feeds it, forcing people to do terrible, terrible things.
Pain for pain. My family’s motto, in retrospect, means more than I ever thought. And it had been working. Keep the love hidden, she stays safe, and I get to hurt. I’d thought it was a fair price all of these years, but now Grady’s hurt her anyway.
“I didn’t think I had to explain, you asshole. Father gave Jojo to me!” I bite out. “Gifted her to me, as my own personal torture—for life. Just like how he gave you that fucked up broken shoulder to carry around for your entire life.”
I look away from the flash of true-hurt in Grady’s eyes as I bring up his shoulder and how my brother once dreamed of playing college football—maybe pro—but when he resisted our father’s plans to work for Sinclair Enterprises, our dad smashed Grady’s shoulder with a crowbar. Father paid for the top surgeons in Seattle to fix Grady’s “terrible accident.” Then he let Grady stay on the team. He was benched for all of senior year so he could still have fun with his friends. But Grady could never play again. He was so dejected he never even went to college. And after a lifetime of being called the dumb one, Grady started to believe it.
To keep my resolve, to make it so I don’t feel sorry for my asshole brother, I make myself flick a hard glance to Jojo’s crumpled body. She’s still blacked out on the dirt. I check again that she’s breathing, because that’s what’s most important to me here, then I turn back to Grady.
“I don’t share my toys, Grady.” I clip out the words. “And you can’t just rape random women. You’re supposed to be a lead partner in the company now. We’re the bosses, dumbass.” I say only words Grady will understand—words about the business, and about our family, and money and saving face. Greedy, selfish words. “We can’t fulfill Father’s legacy and the massive list of directions he left behind from prison.”
“I wasn’t going to go to jail.” He stands up, also flicking a glance to Jojo, his expression remorseless but still full of sick desire. “I would have cleaned up my mess.”
He wipes his hands on his slacks, thinking wrongly that it’s over between me and him. My heart has stopped cold. My throat hardly lets air in as I speak. “Do you mean you were planning to kill her after? Murder her? Truly?”
He shrugs like that idea is no big deal, and wiggles his chin back and forth as he adds, “I can’t believe you hit me so damn hard.”
I shake my head as my fury increases. Bile has lodged in the back of my throat at this latest example of my brother’s complete lack of humanity.
I’m still holding the gun, and I feel my index finger tighten and press against the smooth trigger. At this moment—and for the first time in my life—I want to be like him. Be my father. Because if I could leap the tiny thread that still separates me from them, I know I’d be able to shoot Grady. I think I’d find incredible joy in it, too. I know I would.
All of this makes me hate myself more right now, because I simply can’t do it.
I lower the gun, gripping it to my side, and step closer to him, acting like yeah, it’s over, we’re just chatting like this is fucking normal. Because for Grady, and my father, this shit is normal.
Grady has no idea, with our father dead in the ground, this new game—one he doesn’t even know about, and one that I’m going to lead—has only just begun. For now, I need this asshole to be clear about a few things, and the only way to do that with Grady is make him believe my bullshit, and of course to draw some blood.
I eye him up and down. He eyes the gun. “Is this where I say to you that I can’t believe you tried to shoot me?” I say to him, cooly, stepping even closer, gripping the gun tighter just in case.
He blinks, acting all innocent, and lies to my face. “Dude. That was an accident. The thing just went off. You were wrestling me for it.”
He never sees it coming when I hit him on the side of his head with the gun, just exactly how and where he hit Jojo, and hopefully just as hard. It sends him to his knees, but unfortunately it doesn’t knock him out how it did her.
“Fuck. Alex.” Grady clutches his head, and then leans the weight of it onto his vehicle. “What the fuck? Ahhh…damn that hurt!”
Because I can’t say what I want to say—or still do what I want to do—I stand over him like he’s an insect on the ground, just how my father would have done.
“You would shame us, risk the Sinclair legacy for a mother-fucking hard-on you’ve had for a girl that you’ve only ever wanted to fuck just because I fucked her first. Think about it, Grady. You know it’s true. It’s time for you to finally grow up. You have a fiancé. One that I’ve heard loves you—God knows why. A nice girl, and one I thought father had deemed ‘of privilege enough’ for you to marry. Don’t you have a date set and she’s already bought the damn dress? What would she have said about this?”
I gentle my voice some next. My father also used to do this. It made us feel as though he was on our side, when he never, ever was.
“I’m going to assume temporary insanity for you. Maybe we can even rationalize things more to say that you lost your shit here today, because you are grieving the death of our father.”
That last line was said sarcastically because he and I both know that’s not the case. We haven’t talked about it, but Grady has to be as elated as I am that Father’s gone.
“You won’t go near her again. The feud—this fucked up vengeance against anything and everything Wallace—it’s over now. I’ve been named head of this family, whether you like it or not, and I’m assuming not. But that’s the way it is, Grady. I’m calling the shots now.”
I lock gazes with my brother, trying to find a person behind his angry black devil’s eyes, and I add, “If you have any shred of soul left in your body after what we’ve been through, you’ll understand that it just has to stop. We’ve done enough to hurt this poor girl—and fuck, you and I’ve been fucked with enough. You have to decide who the fuck you are right now, and who are you going to be now that our dear-old dad is gone.”
I point at Jojo’s prone form. “You nearly raped her—even hinted to me that you were going to kill her. What the fuck, Grady!” I shout. “We’ve participated in some dark shit because of Father. We’ve been forced to field some big-time, horrible, fucked-up fly balls because of Father. But we’ve never actually been up to bat personally. Not on the level you just took it. Rape and murder. Grady. In one fucking day? Father still warm in the grave, and you’re going for rape and murder? Really?”
Grady tightens his hands over where I’ve struck his head and at least has the decency to look away from me as I finish, “For you and I to go forward at all…for me to let you live,” I flash the gun again. “Tell me you lost your mind here today. “ My voice accidentally comes out rough, showing too much emotion. “Please. Even if it’s a damn lie. Tell me what I need to hear.”
Grady brings himself up to his knees; the fact that he looks like he’s about to pray for forgiveness in a church makes me feel one notch better.
“Yes,” he utters, eyes on the gun in my hand. “Yeah. I—I didn’t think it through. Shit. Maybe you’re right. I lost my fucking mind.” This time when he glances at Jojo there is some regret there, and the lust has gone out of his pained expression. “I did lose it. I did, Alex. But Jojo—I know you know. I’ve just always wished…” He swallows. “Fuck…it wasn’t fair. Understand that I only ever wanted Jojo, too.”
I almost laugh then, because unknowingly my brother has just said my whole essence. My whole heart. My whole reason for being.
I only ever wanted Jojo, too.
Fuck. Why do I feel sorry for my brother all over again? He’s right. It wasn’t fair.What happened to him, what Father did to him, to me…to Jojo, to her whole family—none of it was fair.
Even more fucked up than that? This moment—this day—is the first conversation my brother and I have ever had about all the messed up things and all of the longing—the hurt we have in common.
We talk in shouts and grunts while Jojo Wallace’s wrecked body is broken and immobile at our feet.
Fuck! Father would have loved to watch and hear all of this unfold. He’d smile that pleased smile of his and be so proud that Grady and I were somehow bonding at the foot of a broken Wallace girl.
He did always want us to do that.
I want to scream. I want to sob. I want the earth to swallow me, Jojo and Grady whole with fire and lightning right now. That would mean the hurting—the horror of who we are and what we can’t help but do to Jojo Wallace—would finally stop.
As though even now her mind is connected to mine, she moans and turns on her side away from us. She reaches a hand into the dirt and scoots a half inch away before falling limp again. Even like this she’s still fighting, still so very afraid.
My chest twists so hard with that last thought that it’s easy for me to punch Grady again. He crumples back into his car, cursing and nearly sobbing.
“Jojo’s truly off limits, got me?” I say again, waiting for him to open his eyes before I say the rest. “You try to touch her again, you’re dead. You try to kill me again—ever—you die first.”
“Got you. Shit. Alex…okay. I’m sorry. Dude, I’m sorry. I said it—just stop.”
Grady must really think I’ve stepped into Father’s boots. At the reading of the will, they announced me as head of the family. He couldn’t believe it even though father had been hinting at it for years. I didn’t want it—something Father knew. I hinted to our mother that Grady and I could swap roles in the company eventually. I thought of stepping down from Sinclair Enterprises completely.