Brothers South of the Mason Dixon

by Abbi Glines

  She stepped toward me. “Are you sure about that, sugar? I’ve shown many young hungry guys your age a thing or two.”

  “Then they were fucking desperate,” I said bluntly.

  She jerked back like I had slapped her. “You little bastard.”

  “Can I have Scarlet’s things or should I contact her father to get them? I can explain I tried to get them from you but was unsuccessful.” I had no idea what their agreement was. The man had to know his wife was a whore, but I imagined she didn’t want me calling the man to tell him about this encounter.

  She rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t know or care where her shit is,” she said now sounding annoyed. “The crap is in the shed out back. It’s locked. The code is 123456.” Simple and easy enough. She went to close the door in my face but hesitated. Her eyes did a quick scan of my body again. “You have no idea what I could do to a boy like you.”

  I should have walked away then. Ignored her. But this woman needed reminding how old she was. “I’ve had older women before. Like you, worn out but once attractive. Still holding on to the fleeting beauty. And no ma’am, I didn’t enjoy it. And I would regret it.”

  With that I walked away, then circled around the house to the shed she was referring to out back.

  “Rude little shit! I have married men begging me for this pussy! BEGGING ME!” she yelled loud enough for neighbors to hear. Hopefully it wasn’t those married men she had mentioned. Dumbasses.

  I kept going and found the shed and sure enough that inane code worked. Why even have a lock if the code was going to be that stupid.

  The large door swung open and I found the light switch easy enough to the left of the door. There were three cardboard boxes sitting in the center of the room. Each had the letter S on them in a black marker. I walked over and opened the top one to see a shirt I remembered Scarlet wearing. The contents were hers. I checked around to see if there was anything else but this was it. How did one teenage girl’s belongings fit in three boxes? The bitch had to have gotten rid of her stuff like Scarlet said she had.

  Disgusted with this reality and how little they cared about their daughter, I took the boxes out to my truck and put them behind the seat. One last time I went out to the storage and made sure there was nothing else out there that could be Scarlet’s. Standing in the shed I scanned the walls. Dusty tools that looked like they’d never been used hung neatly on the walls. A wheel barrow that still had tags on the handle sat in one corner. A large wooden box sat in the other corner. I walked over to the wooden box and lifted the lid. A few dolls that looked too old to have been Scarlet’s were inside. A blanket that had been handmade, and from the discoloration it too couldn’t have been Scarlet’s. I started to close it when the corner of a book caught my attention. It was peeking out from under one of the dolls. I reached in and took it out.

  It wasn’t that old. The pink shiny materiel on it was worn and appeared dirty from use or handling. The silver letters on front said My Diary. It belonged to a child. The style and material wasn’t like the other items in the box. It didn’t fit the time frame. This book belonged to someone else. Someone who wasn’t forty-five years old. But more like twenty.

  I held it a moment. Not sure if opening it was fair. I knew it was Scarlet’s. There was no one else’s it could be. Fighting with my morals and fucking curiosity, I finally decided I would open it. I’d make sure it was Scarlet’s, then take it to her. She wouldn’t want this left here with these people.

  Slowly, I lifted the cover and inside I saw a childish cursive handwriting. Like someone who was just learning to sign their name. It said Scarlet North. It was hers. I’d done what I said I’d do. Now to close it and take it to her.

  I had good intentions. I did. I wasn’t planning on letting my eyes roam to the first page to see how she started her entries. Or even if she had ever written an actual entry in it.

  She had. And the first words grabbed me so tightly I stood there unable to move. Or stop reading.

  December 25, 2003

  Sparkle,

  It is Christmas today. My dad gave me this diary. He said it was to write stuff in. I knew what a diary was. My friend at school Tabatha has one. She writes in hers all the time then brings it to school to read it to us on the playground. I think Tabatha lies in hers though. I also think it’s silly to write Dear Diary. She should name her book. Books have names. Everyone can’t have the same title of a book. Your name is Sparkle. I like that name. It makes me think of stars and at night I like to count the stars.

  Scarlet Eleanor North

  6 years old

  * * *

  January 7, 2004

  Sparkle Rose,

  I started school again today. I like going to school. During the holiday’s my mom drinks a lot from the wine bottle. And she takes those little pills that she keeps under her bed. She hits and gets mean. But at school Mrs. Washington is nice. She has a baby in her stomach. She looks fat but she’s not. I added Rose to your name because you should have two names. It’s prettier. Tabatha brought her diary to school and read about her presents. She got a pony. A white one. I think that’s a lie. But I didn’t say so.

  Scarlet Eleanor North

  6 years old

  * * *

  March 16, 2004

  Sparkle Rose,

  Dad came home yesterday but this morning he was gone again. He wasn’t here for my birthday. Mom slept that day and forgot. Mrs. Washington gave me a cupcake at lunch. It was pink. I like pink. I told Dad that I named you Sparkle Rose. He just nodded and kept reading the paper in his hands. I think he heard me. I wanted to tell him about the man Mom keeps letting in the house. Tell him about what happens. But my chest gets tight. My lips freeze shut. I feel sick in my tummy. I didn’t tell him. Now he’s gone.

  Scarlet Eleanor North

  Seven Years Old

  * * *

  July 9, 2004

  Sparkle Rose,

  It is summer time. I lost you but I had forgotten I hid you in my closet under the blankets in the corner. I remembered while I was eating my cereal. Mom has been gone for a week on a cruise. That’s a big ship. It goes to another country. Ms. Bianca is here at the house with me. She is nice. She makes me clean my room and she taught me to cook chicken noodle soup. We watch a station with cartoons every day. I like those too.

  Scarlet Eleanor North

  Seven Years Old

  * * *

  September 13, 2004

  Sparkle Rose,

  Tabatha invited me to her house yesterday. But she said today that I couldn’t come to her house. Her mom said my mom was a slut. I don’t know what that means. But when she said it she scrunched her nose. Then she didn’t talk to me anymore. And when she read her diary on the playground I didn’t get to listen. The other girls all turned their backs on me. Said I was bad news. I don’t know how I can be bad news. I’ve never been in the news.

  Scarlet Eleanor North

  Seven Years Old

  * * *

  December 25, 2004

  Sparkle Rose,

  It was Christmas today. I got a baby doll. I got an art set. And I got a set of dishes with food. It isn’t real food. The kind you play with. Dad was home for when we opened the Santa presents. He left after. Mom wouldn’t get up from the couch saying her head hurt. I think he got mad at her. He left. I wanted him to stay. I wanted to make him cinnamon toast. Ms. Bianca taught me how this summer. I made some for Mom but she was back in her bed. I ate all of it and put it on my new dishes. It didn’t fit good. My dishes are small and have kittens on them.

  Scarlet North

  Seven Years Old

  * * *

  May 3, 2005

  Sparkle Rose,

  I want to be a grown up. I want to live in a house by myself. I would like a cat. I would also like a dog. But just me the cat and dog in our house. I don’t like my house. Mom took the lock off my door. She was mad because I locked it. Now I have no way to get away. When she sends him in here and
he calls me baby doll and princess I can’t get away from him. Mom said I had to be good or she’d tell the police what I let him do and they’d put handcuffs on me. I don’t want to go to jail. I don’t think I do. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

  Scarlet North

  Eight Years Old

  Bray

  THE SICK KNOT in my throat was choking me. The entire drive I struggled to breathe past it. Air was limited. My jaw ached from how tightly it was clenched. Locked. Unable to loosen. Fury was there burning just under the surface. The only thing stronger than the fury, the need to kill someone with my own two hands, was pain. A debilitating pain. A pain that ran deep and raw.

  Not for the first time I slammed the steering wheel with my hands and cursed loudly. To God. To Scarlet’s fucking parents. To every goddamn church going hypocrite in that town that turned their back on a kid. The roar from my chest didn’t ease the agony.

  It hadn’t been my words to read. They’d been her secrets. But the first entry I glanced over made me smile. It had been so innocent. Sweet. A side of Scarlet I didn’t know. The next page was hard to resist. Instead of a smile, the mention of her mother being mean and hitting caught my attention. I couldn’t stop then. And as sick and fucking horrifying as the reality was I needed to read it. I knew with each soul shattering page that Scarlet had never told anyone.

  “JESUS, SCARLET!” I yelled into the truck. My chest felt as if it had been ripped completely open. How was I supposed to keep from killing someone? The monsters all deserved a slow excruciating death.

  And the things I’d said to her during sex. The fucked up things I’d done. She’d let me and come back for more. Jerking the truck off the interstate, I slammed it in park then jumped out and doubled over just before vomiting. My body heaved and tears stung my eyes from the pressure. Once it stopped I stood there in the evening breeze. I closed my eyes and let the tears that I didn’t know I had in me begin to slowly roll down my face.

  The bitter taste of reality. The ugliness that went unnoticed. The little girl who became a survivor. Chills ran down my arms and I wished there was some way I could take all that pain away. Free her from the hold it had on her. Give her happiness. Not the forced shit I had seen in the past.

  Pressing the ball of my palms to both eyes to stop the flow I growled at the unfairness. The brutality. Abuse. Neglect. And lies Scarlet had been forced to grow up with. When she ran from me, I thought she was weak. A coward.

  I was angry at her for not being strong enough to stay. For not wanting me enough. I was so fucking wrapped up in myself that I couldn’t see it wasn’t about me. The whole damn thing hadn’t been about me. She’d not been so obsessed with me she chose to hurt Brent. Scarlet had been simply trying to survive.

  I climbed back in my truck and pulled onto the road. I had to face her. That meant I had to get control of myself. She didn’t need to see me like this. I wasn’t even sure how the hell I was supposed to tell her I knew . . . her darkest secret. The one she had only told a diary she named Sparkle Rose. I’d invaded her privacy. “MOTHERFUCKER!” I slammed my palms against the steering wheel again.

  Nothing in my easy ass life had prepared me for this. My father had died. We’d lost him. They think that’s what fucked me up. It’s what it had been blamed on. But Jesus, what a pussy I was. I had lost a parent, but I had a mother who would stand in front of a bullet for me—not that I’d let her—and four brothers that would do the same. My house hadn’t been a horror show. When I was eight my biggest concern was getting the last damn fried pie. Or who was going to clean the toilets that week.

  When I passed the exit sign I took a deep breath. This was not what Scarlet needed. My crying and agonizing over a hell she’d already lived through did nothing to help her. I wasn’t sure there was anything that could heal what she’d endured. I knew she wasn’t the only child on the planet to suffer in that way, but she was mine . . . fuck. She was. Scarlet was mine.

  Telling myself I didn’t love her and that I didn’t know how to love was bullshit. Because I realized that standing there in that shed reading words written by a child, that each word pumped through me and I clung to them. The funny things in the beginning to the small cruelties from other kids and their self-righteous parents. To the moment when her innocence was taken from her. She’d even stopped calling her diary Sparkle Rose. The entries had been short. To no one in particular. That was when it was definite . . . they’d finally destroyed her. The little girl from the first page was no more.

  I would stand in front of a bullet for her. I’d pull a goddamn trigger for her and that planning would come soon enough. I didn’t know that little girl. She was gone long before I knew Scarlet. The woman she’d become, the fighter, that was who I loved.

  Admitting it had made me feel weak before. I didn’t want to believe I could love a woman. I thought the only woman who was worthy of my love was my mother. I was so wrong. Scarlet was worthy of my love. I just wasn’t sure I was worthy of hers. When the world had continually let her down, so had I.

  The Robertsdale City Limits sign was ahead. I glanced at my phone to see she’d still be at work another hour. I wasn’t waiting to see her. I needed to see her now. To make sure she was okay and that abruptly leaving this morning hadn’t upset her. I fucking needed her alone so I could hold her. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to let go once I did. If I could wrap her up in my arms and keep her there I could protect her. No one would hurt her again. I’d be sure of it. She’d be safe. She may never forget the past, but her future would be full of happiness. I would spend my entire life finding ways to make her smile. Real ways to make her smile. The kind that meant she might have broken inside but she could be whole again.

  I didn’t know if that was possible. Where did I even start? There had to be websites with helpful information. Something I could read and get resources to guide me through this with her. Because she hadn’t faced it. She’d overcome it and gotten away from it, but not telling anyone meant she was holding it inside.

  Parking my truck, I headed inside, my strides so long and swift I should have been running. I wanted to run. Bust into that diner and grab her up and shield her from anything else this life wanted to hurl at her.

  I didn’t look at the few tables with customers left. My gaze swept over them as I scanned the place for Scarlet.

  “You can wait outside,” a male voice said with force. I shifted my focus to see Fuel or Gasoline or whatever the fuck his name was and frowned.

  “Where’s Scarlet?” It wasn’t a question as much as it was a demand.

  “I said, you can wait outside,” he repeated, and the motherfucker actually took a step toward me. Like he was going to force me outside.

  I continued to frown at him. More confused than anything. “I’ll stay here, thanks. Where is Scarlet?” I was doing my best to remain calm. It wasn’t easy with the way my emotions had been brutalized today.

  “That’s not your business,” he said, taking another step toward me. I didn’t move. I was curious if he was planning on getting in my face.

  “Scarlet is and will always be my business,” I informed him. The calm even tones even surprised me. It took me a moment to process why I wasn’t planting my fist in his dimpled face. But it hit me and I chuckled. I didn’t know I had it in me to fucking laugh at all.

  “You think it’s funny? What you did?” his voice raised and his eyes shot daggers at me. Still, I had no desire to hurt him. Not even an ounce of fight. I didn’t want to hurt him because he was protecting her. She’d had little to none of that in her life. Now that I knew just how badly she needed it and been without. I couldn’t be mad at anyone for giving that gift to her. He was there for her. He was wrong thinking he neededd to protect her from me, but he didn’t know that. My leaving had upset her this morning.

  Guilt for leaving her like that only made me more desperate to see her. “I need to see Scarlet. I realize you are trying to protect her and I thank you for that. But you don’t have t
o protect her from me.”

  The guy laughed this time. A hard, unamused laugh. His eyes remained cold and fixed on me. This was more than just a friendly protecting her situation. He had feelings for Scarlet. I couldn’t blame him there but, I’d be damned it I was going to let another man move in on my girl. “You’re an asshole that does nothing but upset her. Why don’t you get the hell away from her? Let her move on.”

  If this was the me that left this morning, the guy who was too fucking afraid to admit I loved Scarlet, then maybe I would agree with him. But I wasn’t that guy. Not anymore. It shouldn’t take stories of real life monsters and horror to wake me the hell up. Yet it had. My shallow life had been one with little resistance.

  How could I believe for one moment that I’d hurt my own twin brother for a girl I wasn’t in love with? That should have been one hell of a bright neon light flashing in my face. But no. I’d told myself Scarlet had been an addiction.

  “I’ve made mistakes. More than I have time to stand here and list. But I’m not leaving here. And I’m sure as hell not leaving her. Ever.”

  “You fucking left—”

  “Diesel leave it.” Scarlet’s voice cut him off and I quickly turned to see her standing behind us. Her hands on her hips. Her mouth turned down at the corners and pain in her eyes. Fuck, I abhorred seeing pain there. Never again. I never wanted to see her unhappy again.

  “Hey,” was all I could manage to choke out past the emotion squeezing my throat like a vice. I moved toward her and she put up both hands to stop me.

  “No.” Her voice was firm. It wavered but she was hiding it the best she could.