by A. J. Logan
“What I really need is for you to get the fuck out of my way. I don’t need anything else from you.”
His face tightens but he steps to the side, finally allowing me to get into the Mustang. I don’t waste any time starting it up and speeding out of the parking lot. The hour drive home seems like the longest ever. And it’s way too much time to be alone with my thoughts—of Levi, of my dad, and of Dylan. The latter really pisses me off. He’d been a jerk all morning, then wants to be my savior. Not. Happening.
I go straight to the house but find it empty. Dialing Levi, my call goes unanswered again.
Me: Answer your phone now.
I waste no time pulling up the contact for Colton, dialing it as I walk out of the house.
Colton doesn’t answer so I go through every contact in my phone who might know where Levi is. My guess is they’re all either in class or somewhere together but not one of them answers their phone.
Thinking about all the places he could be, I start at the spots he usually goes. The good thing about a small town is everyone knows where everyone lives, so it doesn’t take but the second stop to locate Levi’s truck at Clay’s house.
Rushing to the door, I bang my fist on it twice before I throw the door open. Walking through the house, I call out to Clay and Levi, hoping to get a response. Every second that ticks by, every second I’m met with silence, my heart thumps a little faster against my chest. The house is neat and tidy but my head is in chaos as I imagine what I could find when I do finally locate Levi. There’s always the fear he’ll have had one too many drinks or take something and not wake up. I find most of the rooms empty until my stomach turns when I see Levi in a bedroom, lying facedown across the bed. Seemingly asleep, a closer look at the bottles littered around him tells me he’d had some help falling asleep. I’m glad he is okay, but then my fear morphs and I radiate anger now as I approach him.
“Levi.” I nudge his arm, shaking him, but he just groans. His clammy skin looks paler than I’ve ever seen. His eyes open, blinking in disbelief as he looks to me. The redness in his eyes make mine water. “What are you doing?”
I’ve seen him binge in the past, drinking himself to the point where he didn’t know where he was, but I’d hoped it was over. I’d hoped he was enjoying senior year, playing football, loving life. But he’s not. He’s in a deeper hole than before from the looks of it. I guess I have no room to talk. I might not be drinking myself into a coma, but I’m not loving life either.
“Sadie, what are you doing here?” Clay asks, taking in the sight of my brother passed out on his bed.
“How long has he been like this?” I ask.
“It’s on and off, but he was fine when I left for school this morning. He said he wasn’t going to drink, that he just didn’t want to deal with your dad today.”
“What is there to deal with? My dad lets him do as he pleases.” I shake Levi again. “Wake up.”
“I really think you should talk to your dad. Levi hasn’t been himself for a long time, but he seems like he’s so far gone now that he might not snap out of it. I tried talking to Frank but he said that was just Levi’s way of coping.”
“You told my dad that Levi was drinking like this?”
Clay nods, looking over to Levi. “He’s my best friend. I tried to be his, but I can’t watch him self-destruct any longer. I know the signs. I watched my dad do it for years.”
“I’ll talk to my dad,” I say, trying to comprehend that Dad is fully aware of Levi’s problem and still allowing him to do this. To be out all night. To skip school. Before, I’d thought he was simply overlooking normal teenager behavior. But now I see Levi is a ticking time bomb. “Levi, wake up now.”
“Why are you here?” His words are slurred as he sluggishly sits up on the bed.
“I’ve been trying to find you.”
“You found me. Now you can leave.” His eyes close as he shifts on the bed, causing the bottles around him to clank together.
“Come on. You’re coming home with me to sober up.” I grab his arm but he jerks it away.
He slowly rises into a standing position, swaying a bit. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Go back to your life before you fuck someone else’s up.”
“What are you talking about? I’m here for you. I came to check on you, and you’re obviously not okay.”
“Because of you.”
My breath hitches at the harshness of his tone. His words slowly registering in my mind. “What?”
“She’s dead because of you.”
“No. No she’s not.” My voice cracks as I shake my head. He’s drunk. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. It can’t be true. Even if the thought has crossed my mind, it can’t be how he feels.
“Little Miss Perfect needed her special ice cream because nothing else would do for her birthday. She was only there because of you.”
“Why would you say that?” A tear falls down my cheek as I stare into cold, dark eyes that I don’t recognize. The thought he spoke out loud is one that has crossed my mind more times than I care to admit. She was there because I only eat mint chocolate chip ice cream. She thought we had some but ran out at the last minute to get it before we cut my birthday cake. Instead of celebrating my eighteenth birthday with her that night, we received the call that she had been shot in the parking lot. A robbery gone wrong. It was shocking enough in a town the size of Staffordsville, but nothing about it made sense. How someone could take her life in a split second, forever changing the world I knew, was unfathomable. All for money. They gunned her down in broad daylight to steal her purse. Something that she probably would’ve handed over; something she wouldn’t have been put in the middle of if not for me.
“Because it’s true.”
“No, it’s not. It can’t be my fault.”
“It is, and you know it.”
“Stop it.” Pressing my palms over my ears, I try my best to block out his words but they’re already in my head. “Stop it.”
I feel his fingers harshly grip my wrist pulling my hands away from my ears. I open my eyes, seeing the cruelest look I’ve ever seen in my life. “I blame you. You killed her.”
“No.” The word comes out as a sob, and my knees feel like they’re giving out. My brother blames me. He hates me. And the hardest part to accept is he’s right. It is my fault. She was only there because of me. I’ve pushed the thought out of my head a million times, but it’s front and center—it’s not only my guilty conscience, it’s his belief too. Does my dad blame me also? Is that why he doesn’t look at me the same? Why he’s so off around me? He blames me. They both do.
Bile rises in my throat as I bend forward, stumbling out of the room. I’m unsure where I’m going in the unfamiliar house, but I need out. I need air. Stepping into the daylight, I attempt to take in a deep breath, but I can’t catch my breath. Sobs pour out.
I hear a voice asking me what’s wrong, but it’s overpowered by the memory of my brother’s voice. By my father’s sad eyes. “It’s my fault. They hate me.”
The contents of my stomach empty onto the grass as my head spins. Falling to my knees, my hands hit the grass as the world around me fades.
I hate me too.
19
Sadie
Silence. Sometimes silence can speak louder than words, and right now, it is. At least that’s how it feels with the beeping from the heart monitor machine being the only sound slicing through the stillness. Dad sits in the only chair in the small hospital room while I sit on the bed just a few feet away. Other than his initial question asking if I was okay, he hasn’t said another word to me. He hasn’t looked at me either. His eyes study the bare walls of the room; only the necessities for emergency purposes hang near the bed.
Knock, knock. The sound interrupts my thoughts as the door pushes open, revealing Dr. Campbell who checked my vitals and questioned me a few hours ago. I couldn’t tell her much about what happened because I’m not sure either. My brother’s words are the only t
hings I can recall clearly.
Dad stands, crossing his arms over his chest as Dr. Campbell approaches my bedside.
“All test results came back fine.” Dr Campbell looks over to the beeping machine, pressing a button before the arm cuff steadily gets tighter around my arm. Reading completed, the cuff loosens, displaying my blood pressure on the monitor. She gives me a smile so she must be satisfied by what she sees on the screen. “Are you feeling back to yourself?”
Nodding, I avoid looking over to my dad, not that it would make a difference since he still hasn’t looked at me.
“Okay. We’ll get the IV out, then you’ll be good to go home. Take it easy for the next few days, and follow up with your primary care physician soon.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I respond with no intention of doing either. My primary doctor is local to Staffordsville, but I need to get back to school. To be precise: I need to get away from here.
She leaves the room, and we sit in silence until a nurse walks in, removes the IV, and gives me some paperwork to sign and copies of follow-up care instructions. A few moments later, my dad and I are walking out of the ER, and I recall the time I’d walked the same path with my mom when I was nine years old. She’d brought me in to the ER after I’d sliced my foot open. Levi and I had been playing in a field across from my dad’s shop, running through the high grass until I’d felt something sharp puncture my foot. It turned out to be a broken glass bottle concealed by the overgrown brush. I’d screamed at the sight of blood gushing out of my foot, but she’d remained so calm the entire time. She’d stayed with me, talking about random things to distract me as we sat in the room, waiting on the doctor to stitch up my foot.
Once the doctor arrived, my mom moved to sit with me on the stiff hospital bed, holding my hand with tender support. Her calm, strong reassurance that everything would be okay kept me from freaking out when the doctor held up the needle he intended to numb my foot with. It hurt like hell, and I cried as he poked my foot several times, but even as I’d sobbed, my mom reassured me how strong I was and how well I was doing. Afterwards, I’d told her I wasn’t strong because I’d cried through most of the thirteen stitches. I’ve never forgotten the moment she smiled at me and said, “It takes more courage to shed a tear than to flash a fake smile.”
Her words may still be clear in my mind, but I haven’t lived by them. I don’t want to pretend everything is all right, but even more, I don’t want to cry in front of everyone—especially my dad. It makes me feel weak to succumb to my emotions, not stronger.
Stepping to the passenger door of his truck, I pull it open and slide into the cab as he hops into the driver’s seat.
“Can you drop me off at Clay’s so I can get my car?”
“Clay dropped it off at the house earlier. He said the keys are on the kitchen counter,” Dad says flatly, keeping his eyes fixated straight ahead on the road.
“Oh, okay.”
The remainder of the drive home is done in silence. As we pull into the driveway, I note my car but Levi’s truck nowhere in sight. “Where’s Levi?”
“He decided to stay at Clay’s house.”
Decided. Seems like there’s plenty he’s decided to do that he shouldn’t. Even Clay acknowledges Levi is in a downward spiral. I guess we both are—Levi just doesn’t care to hide it.
Following Dad into the house, I grab my keys off the counter.
“Where are you going?” Dad asks.
“I’m heading back to school.” There’s so much I want to say, want to ask, but the words don’t form as I turn to leave.
“Sadie,” Dad says, stepping behind me, “you’re supposed to be resting.”
“I have class in the morning.”
“Class can wait. You need to relax for a few days, so you can stay here.”
“You want me to stay?”
He gives me a puzzled look before shuffling around the kitchen. “Of course I want you here.”
There’s sincerity in his voice, so it makes every word sound believable, but he still won’t look at me.
“It doesn’t feel that way.” My words are so low, I’m not sure he heard me until he halts.
Slowly turning, he finally looks at me as he says, “Why would you say that?”
“I don’t know.” I do but putting it into words at the moment seems impossible. How do I tell him that I understand why he blames me, why he’s so distant? “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“Levi blames me, and I understand if you do too.”
His eyes close as his hand covers his face, rubbing across the stubble on his face. He was always clean-shaven when Mom was alive. Finally opening his eyes, he steps in front of me, placing a hand on each of my shoulders. “Sadie, it wasn’t your fault.”
“But—”
“No.” His stern tone cuts me off. “Clay told me what your brother said. Levi was drunk or high, or both, but he knows it’s not your fault. He just wants to blame someone for the pain and him screwing up his life. You’re the easy target, but you are in no way responsible for what happened to your mother.”
“You wouldn’t even look at me, and you barely said a word to me at the hospital. Even before today you’ve seemed distant. It’s okay if you blame me … she was only at the store for my ice cream.” My words fade off as my dad’s hands grip tighter onto my shoulders. I’m not sure what I expected him to do, but I’m astonished when his hands release my shoulders and his arms wrap around them, bringing me against him for a tight hug.
“God, I’m so sorry, Sadie.” He leans back enough to kiss my forehead before squeezing me fiercely again, then shifts back to look at me. “I was scared.”
“What?”
“When Clay called me, I heard the panic in his voice. It scared the shit out of me. Your mom was hard enough … If I lost Levi or you, I’m not sure what I’d do.”
Tears stream down my face as I hug my dad. “I can’t lose you either.”
“You won’t. I just don’t know how to do this.”
“Me either, but we can figure it out. And we need to figure out how to help Levi.” Even if he hates me, I don’t want to see him continue on his path of destruction.
“Yeah, I know. But I’m not so sure there is any helping him.” The defeated look on my dad’s face makes my heart ache. “We’ll talk about it later. Right now, I want you to rest. Doctor’s orders.” Dad points down the hallway to my old bedroom.
“Yes sir.” Agreed. Mainly because I’m too exhausted to argue. Walking into my room, I grab an old pair of pajamas then head to shower. A break from reality sounds nice, but I already know shutting my mind off will be the biggest challenge of all.
20
Dylan
Even annoyed beyond belief, my fingers drum on the bar’s rough wooden surface as my ridiculous best friend belts out “Love Shack.” His captive audience is very high energy and, for reasons beyond me, they are eating up Bryce’s ludicrous dance moves.
“Is he always so shy?” Jett teases, motioning to the current shimming happening across the small makeshift stage.
“Always.”
Bryce goes in for his big finish as Jett chuckles, refilling my Dr. Pepper again before moving down the bar to help out another customer. A new customer, not one that’s been pathetically sitting here moping all evening.
Slapping me on the shoulder, Bryce takes a seat next to me, back against the bar, as he takes a generous swig of his water.
“So much for keeping a low profile.” I can’t be mad at him, but I’m also not in the mood for his antics tonight. I haven’t been in the mood for anyone’s shit since Sadie drove away, leaving me at the Dome looking like a pathetic chump.
“That was blown when you made a wager for a chick then whipped up on her boyfriend.”
“He’s not her boyfriend.” My attempt to keep my tone flat fails miserably when the words hiss out, the anger stewing inside me crystal clear.
“Neither are you.” There’s no bit
e in Bryce’s tone. Just amusement, which pisses me off even more. He’s enjoying this. I probably would be amused if I weren’t the one being twisted into knots first by her hazel eyes and then by her stubborn determination to make me see she doesn’t need me. But I need her. Fuck. It wasn’t supposed to go down like this.
Scanning Big Tobe’s, I come up empty in my search for her again. Shit, I really am in too deep where she’s involved. But I know I’ll keep spiraling further down when I spot Kyle and Andrew walking towards us.
“Looking for someone in particular?” Kyle says, the smugness in his tone making my fist clench. She was supposed to be a tool I used to get to him, not the other way around.
Bryce holds up his drink, motioning to the stage where the next singer has begun a rendition of “Party in the USA” for the primed audience. “Y’all planning to duet tonight or what?”
Kyle ignores Bryce, taking a step closer to me. “I told you … there’s no way you can compete with what we have. She’ll always come back to me, even her own father said so when he called me. He wanted to keep me updated on her well-being.” He leans forward, glowering as he whispers, “Me. It’ll always be me.”
Rage flicks through every corner of my mind, and my ears ring, furious at his words. I need to shut him up. Just as I lunge forward, Kyle shifts back and Bryce steps in front of me. “Low profile, remember? A trip to the police station wouldn’t help anything right now.”
It wouldn’t but that doesn’t stifle my need to put my fist through Kyle’s mocking face. The shitbag retreats, disappearing out the door as I stand there, fueled by hate. Hate for him. Hate for myself. Hate for this place and everything about it. The place my brother died.
“Dude, you’re gonna have to get control of your shit or this won’t end well for you.”
“It never was gonna end well for me. My brother is still dead. I’m not here for a happy ending. I’m here to make him pay. I need to make them all pay.”