This Is a Dark Ride

by Melissa Harlow

  “What about you?” Brody asked.

  “What about me? I’ve enough to do on my own place.”

  Brody leaned against the house, legs shaking.

  “What’s wrong?” Sam asked. He’d never seen Brody look this way.

  “I don’t know if I can do this. I left to get away from this place…this life.” He laughed wryly. “I left ’cause I was going to be somebody, and I couldn’t do it here, not on this farm, not in this town.” He ran a hand through his messy hair. “Didn’t work, did it? I’m back here with less than I left with, and now Mom’s gone.” His voice quivered, and Sam just wanted to hold on to Brody and soothe away the ache.

  “It doesn’t look like you’ve less than you had when you left,” Ruth Ann said. “I see two other people standing here in the cold with you.” She sighed. “You’re so goddamned selfish, Brody Redlinger, and I just don’t understand why. You weren’t raised that way. Lord knows your mother would have done anything for you.”

  “I know that,” Brody said. “She was just the first in a long line of people that I let down.”

  “Poor me,” Ruth Ann snapped. “That’s all you do. Poor me!”

  “It’s not poor me. She kicked him out. She made him go—because of me. And what did I do? I left her to die here by herself.”

  Ruth Ann’s eyes narrowed. “She kicked your father out because he was an abusive asshole. She didn’t love him anymore, and she was tired of the way he treated you both.” Ruth Ann put her hands on Brody’s shoulders. “You were a good son. Don’t you let anyone, in this town or anywhere else, tell you different! May knew you didn’t want to stay here. What the hell good are big dreams in a small town? She understood that. She left for a time when she was young.”

  “Yeah. I was a good son, wore clean underwear every day just in case I got in an accident. Put the dishes away every morning before school. Decided I couldn’t stand being here another minute, and then I left and never came back!”

  “She was proud of you, Brody. You know she went up to some place called the Palace to see you sing? She was so excited!”

  Brody’s face paled. “She went to Chalpin? To the fucking Palace?”

  Ruth Ann smacked the back of Brody’s head, and Sam tried not to laugh.

  “You watch your language. Yes, she went to Chalpin. She’s got a scrapbook in there full of newspaper ads and pictures from every place your band ever played.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you were her son. Because you gave her something to be proud of.”

  “I never knew,” Brody whispered.

  “She didn’t want you to know.” Ruth Ann laughed. “She knew you’d be embarrassed if you knew your mom was there. She thought it was funny the way you shook your ass up on that stage in those tight pants.”

  Brody smiled a little.

  “May didn’t change anything, you know? I think she knew in her heart you’d want to come back home one day. I told her a million times that she should get someone to haul that old relic of a piano away, but she wouldn’t. She left it right there in the living room, taking up space.”

  “It’s really still here?”

  “It’s still here. Here waiting for you, I suppose. You gonna stay, Brody? You gonna stay here and show this town that your mom was right to be proud of her boy?”

  “I might.” Brody looked over at Sam. “It depends. Sam and Angel have got a stake in this too. We’re all in this together.”

  Ruth Ann smiled and nodded. “That’s the way it should be. When you love somebody, what they think matters too.” She hugged him. “Oh, Brody…you finally grew up.” Eyes shining with tears, she handed Brody a ring of keys. “The big brass one is for the front door here. The little silver one is the back shed. I have no idea what the other two open. There’s a private viewing at Furmanall’s Funeral Home at one p.m. For family only. I assume you will all be there?”

  Sam’s stomach twisted when Brody said yes. He’d botched coming out to his own mother, and now he was going to be paraded in front of a whole town as part of this…this, whatever this was between Angel, Brody, and him.

  And then Ruth Ann looked directly at Sam. “And you are family. Don’t you forget that.”

  Family. That sure had a nice ring to it. That’s exactly what this was between him, Brody, and Angel. Family.

  Ruth Ann walked down the steps and went toward a little red car. She turned before she opened the vehicle’s door.

  “I’m glad you’re home, Brody, and I’m glad you finally found what you needed to be happy.”

  Brody had found what he needed to be happy, hadn’t he? He wasn’t wasting away on drugs anymore.

  And Brody was home.

  Sam stared out across the fields, wishing he could keep his mind on the present. Lately he’d been unable to stop thinking about the past.

  Anger swept through him, more directed at himself than at anyone else.

  He was still letting RJ control him, still letting RJ fuck his life up. Everything in his life was poisoned by RJ. All the memories he had tried to tamp down inside of him had come bubbling back up to the surface when he’d read that note Angel had written.

  “Hey?” Brody said. “You coming inside?”

  Sam nodded, but his feet didn’t move. He stood on the porch looking in the front door of the house where Brody had grown up. His gaze drifted to the surrounding fields. They were covered in snow, but in his mind Sam could imagine them lush and green in August sun. It was like being on another planet.

  “I’m not sure I should be here,” Sam said.

  “I’m not sure I should be either,” Brody said. “But this is where we are, and we’re together. That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “It’s just like at the apartment.”

  “It’s nothing like the apartment here, I promise you that.” Brody held his arms out wide. “Listen. It’s quiet. Look. It’s peaceful. It’s like when the town was shut down ’cause of the snow, except it’s like this all the time.” Brody shook his head. “It used to drive me crazy, hearing nothing but crickets and birds.” He took a deep breath. “I’m not sure how I feel about it now. I think…I think I like this.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Sam replied. “This is your place…your home.”

  “It’s yours too,” Brody said, frowning. “Angel’s too. This is our home. Wherever we are together, we are home. “

  Sam took a step toward the door. This is your home. He took another step. This is your home.

  Brody wrapped his arms around Sam, and it began to feel a whole lot more like home. The warmth of Brody’s body, the scent of him—that was home. “Wherever we are together, we are home.”

  “Thank you. For coming here…for doing this. For just being here for me,” Brody said. He glanced over at Angel with half a smile on his face.

  “She looks happy.”

  “She does,” Sam said.

  “What about you, Sam? Do you want to go back to Chalpin, or will you stay?” Brody kissed him softly. “Please stay. I’m not much on begging…but I will. For you.”

  Sam could see the love he’d always wanted, right there in Brody’s eyes.

  “I have to go back,” he said, and his heart broke to see the pain those words caused Brody. Sam stroked Brody’s jaw.

  “Just to turn in the key,” Sam said.

  Brody beamed, tears sliding down his cheeks.

  “Promise?” Brody whispered, clinging tight to Sam, making him forget just about everything except for how much he loved the two people that were right here. Just about everything else…

  Chapter Twelve

  Wiping cobwebs from the corner of the apartment windowsill, Angel could see the window of the empty apartment up the street that she had once called home. The plastic film fluttered in the wind. For a moment she was overcome with bad memories, but she swallowed hard and shook her head. She turned her attention back to cleaning the glass, not wanting to remember life before. Before Brody, before Sam, that wasn
’t life—that was existence.

  The paper towel was yellow from tobacco smoke as she wiped away the window cleaner. Harder and harder she rubbed, polishing the glass until it sparkled.

  Life sparkled now. Brighter than that glass. Brighter than diamonds.

  She didn’t lay blame anymore. Not on her mother, her stepfather, and not even Bobby. Brody had been right: if things had gone differently, if one little detail of her life had been altered, perhaps she would never have ended up meeting Sam and Brody. How much lighter her heart felt, unburdened with the weight of rage, hatred, and blame.

  Brody was in a good place now. He was clean and he was sober, and perhaps the same hand of fate that had led him to find her that night had taken Brody back to where he had always belonged.

  Sam was the one she worried for now. He still refused to make any attempt to contact his mother, and often when he sat quietly, his face showed the stress of his inner chaos. Angel wondered what he thought about when he sat out on the porch step of the farmhouse, alone in the cold.

  Sam carried a trash bag from the bedroom and let it drop on the floor. Glass broke and jingled inside. The bag was mostly full of liquor bottles. Empty reminders of the demons that had plagued Brody.

  “I don’t think we’ll get the security deposit back,” Sam said with a heavy sigh. “But at least we tried getting things cleaned up.” Sam took a deep breath through his nose. “I think I still smell cat piss.”

  Angel sniffed the air. The only scents she could detect were window cleaner and air freshener. “I don’t smell it.”

  He shrugged, staring out the window, looking anxious and exhausted.

  “I think we did a really good job,” Angel said, feeling pretty tired herself. She turned and gave the nearly empty apartment a sweeping glance. It was downright spotless compared to how it once had been. “The bathroom is even clean.”

  “I know. There’s a miracle, huh?”

  “I think he’s going to be okay,” she said. There was no need to explain what she was talking about. Angel knew Sam would understand.

  “He is,” Sam said.

  “We all are.”

  They both looked around the silent apartment. Angel wondered what Sam was thinking. She hoped they were good memories of happy times spent here, but the sadness in his eyes suggested his thoughts weren’t all happy ones.

  “Is something wrong? You’ve hardly said a word to me all afternoon,” she finally asked.

  He caught her in a hug. “I didn’t want you to come. I’d planned on doing this myself.”

  “Wasn’t it more fun with company?”

  Sam smiled. It was just a lazy little hint of a smile, but it was there. “Everything is more fun with your company.” Her face heated knowing exactly what he meant by everything.

  His lips were so close. So warm and full. And tempting. Hesitantly she licked the bow of his upper lip.

  His breath quickened, but he didn’t take over. He allowed her to kiss him just the way she wanted to. She slid the tip of her tongue over his teeth. Nibbled on his lower lip and then his upper lip, and then she kissed the corners of his mouth until he smiled.

  Finally a smile. Same sad eyes, but he did smile.

  “I patched the wall,” he said, pulling back from her. “I probably did a shitty job, but the wall was shitty to begin with.”

  The same anger she’d seen in his eyes on the day he’d punched that wall was back. It was darker now, gathering like a storm. His fleeting smile was a distant memory.

  He straightened his arm and looked at his watch. “We gotta go.” He tossed the cleaning supplies into a box and began gathering up the rest of their things.

  Everything seemed rushed. Something was different. Something was wrong.

  Sam pulled the door closed, and the lock clicked. They dropped off the key into a slot on the manager’s door. Sam remained silent as they walked down the hall and descended the stairs to the foyer.

  “I think it’s too cold to snow tonight.” Angel tried to think of something else to say, no longer feeling comfortable in the silence.

  “Still might.” Sam said nothing else, and she couldn’t understand why that bothered her so much.

  “I have to take the trash around back,” Sam said, glancing at his watch again. “Go on and get in the car.”

  She didn’t go to the car; instead she followed him, and his pace increased.

  She realized as she looked down the narrow alley and saw the trash cans that this was where she’d been the night Brody had found her. She’d never been back here since that night.

  This was where she’d been left to die.

  She stopped abruptly, unable to walk another step. Angel pressed her hand against the rough brick of the building. Mouth watering, stomach churning, she tried to swallow a gag. The taste of bile in her mouth made her cough and heave.

  Sam turned back at the sound. His initial look of concern faded, and he appeared angry again. “I told you to wait in the car.”

  She took several deep breaths, trying to settle her stomach.

  Movement in the shadows, far beyond the row of garbage cans, caught her eye. Someone stood there, near the end of the alley. In the recess of a doorway, a shape moved.

  Angel lunged forward and grabbed hold of Sam, tightening her fingers nervously around his strong arm.

  “Someone is down there,” she whispered. “Let’s just leave the trash here and go.”

  Sam’s sole focus seemed to be on that figure. For a long time he stared down the alley, his jaw clenched tight. Finally he looked over at her. An emotion she had not seen him have before swirled in his eyes: hate. “Go wait in the car.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’m meeting someone. There’s something I need to take care of.”

  “What?”

  “I have unfinished business here. It won’t take long. There’s a few things I need to take care of.”

  “There’s nothing you need to take care of! You need to take care of Brody and me. Nothing else matters. This place…these people. It’s the past. Nothing can change the past.”

  “Go back to the fucking car, now!”

  His angry tone startled her, but then he softened a bit and touched her cheek delicately.

  “It would be best for both of us,” he added.

  “No, I want to stay with you.”

  Sam shook his head. “You don’t. You shouldn’t. I’m meeting RJ.”

  “What? Why! That part of your life is over. Let it be over.”

  “It’s not over.”

  “It is, Sam. It’s over when you let it be over; when you let it go. You’re not like him. You can’t—”

  “He’s the one that hurt you too, Angel. He’s Bobby.” Sam faced her solemnly.

  Her breath caught in her throat, and she was unable to speak for a moment. Why didn’t he tell her? How long had he known this? How could he be sure?

  “No, it can’t be.”

  The figure moved forward a few steps, and the streetlight overhead gave her a glimpse of dark, familiar blue work clothes. Her heart sped up.

  “I want to stay with you,” Angel said. If Sam had to face this, then goddamn it, she had to as well. “I love you, Sam.”

  “I love you, Angel.” Sam gave her hand a squeeze. Angel squeezed back, but she wondered if he had even noticed since he just let her hand go.

  Sam slammed the trash bag into a can, and the man in the work clothes turned toward the sound.

  “RJ.”

  The figure froze, and Angel cowered behind Sam.

  “Sam? Jesus…Sammy, is that you? I didn’t think you were going to show.” He laughed, and it seemed like an eerily familiar sound. God, she couldn’t look at him, couldn’t stand the thought of looking into that ugly face again. Details about that night that she thought she’d forgotten came rushing through her mind.

  “I was surprised you called me. I mean at first I was, but after I thought it over, I figured you were probably missin
g me. I knew it would happen sooner or later. I’ve missed you a lot too, Sammy.”

  “I said I wanted to see you.” Sam’s arms were oddly positioned at his sides, hands balled into fists. His body seemed rigid. “I didn’t say I missed you.”

  “I thought you’d come alone,” RJ said. He was looking at her. She couldn’t see his face in the shadows, but she could feel him staring at her.

  “So what’s the deal, Sammy? You like girls now?” the man said with a chuckle. “Poor kid. You just never could decide what you wanted to be. Last I’d heard of you, you were playing bottom to some washed-up junkie who thought he was Jim Morrison.”

  Sam moved toward him slowly, head held high, appearing more confident than she had ever seen him.

  “I tried to keep tabs on you. It’s not that big of a town. I hear shit,” RJ continued.

  “I hear shit too,” Sam said in a low voice. “I hear that girl…the one you beat to death? I hear her crying, at night when I’m trying to sleep. I hear…I hear Angel, asking you to let her go, before you beat her and dumped her in the fucking snow like trash.”

  “Angel? Who’s that? What’s wrong with you, Sam? What are you talking about?”

  Sam grabbed a handful of the man’s shirt and slammed him hard up against the building. His body crashed into the brick with a dull thud, and Angel heard the sharp exhale of his breath.

  “You don’t even care what their names were, do you?” Sam shouted. “They were nothing to you! Nothing!”

  Each word he spoke was punctuated by a heavy jab from Sam’s large fist into the man’s face and head. When Sam let his shirt go, RJ lolled back against the brick, his head bowed limply forward, chin against his chest.

  Then Sam unleashed a flurry of punches onto RJ’s body, one after another, in rapid succession. Sam didn’t stop until RJ fell to his knees.

  The man made an attempt to stand, but instead he staggered forward and fell in a heap at Sam’s feet.

  Angel wasn’t sure what she expected to happen next, but it certainly wasn’t for Sam to begin kicking and stomping him. The Sam she knew had always struck her as gentle and kind, but what she now witnessed was far from either. It was brutal and it was violent, and yet as snow began softly falling around them, it was surreal and, in a unique way, incredibly beautiful.