Frosty Blues: A Westbrook Blues Novella

by Thandiwe Mpofu

  I screamed at Mom to help me, to come help with Aiden, but she didn’t.

  I called my asshole of a father to come home, but as usual, his phone was answered by a sultry sounding whore, no doubt enjoying her after-hours work perks of sucking his dick, literally.

  I shake my head, trying to erase the image of Aiden, lying on that cold floor, his body cold to the touch, his breathing short and labored like he was taking his last and the fear in his eyes…

  Over the years, I’ve experienced a lot when I looked into his eyes. There was sadness mixed with anticipation. Happiness and joy clouded by pain. Excitement and cleverness coupled with anxiety and shyness.

  But goddamn it all to hell, this is fucking different! His fear and mine are different, much more heightened and on another level, and neither one of our parents are here.

  “Fucking hell!” I bellow. With a burst of anger, I kick the damn chairs neatly placed by the wall, sending them tumbling down. They scrap the floor with a loud screech that I’m sure will draw attention, but no one would dare throw me out. Not if they know what’s good for them and their funding.

  It shouldn’t shock me that my parents aren’t here, but it does. I’m stunned at the level of selfishness my parents have sunk to.

  So, I kick the chairs again and again, all my pent-up rage and frustration that I never allow myself to feel when I’m around my family comes bursting out from within, like a volcano erupting. White hot anger blinds me for a second, demanding to be felt. Demanding to be expressed with immediate effect and the hospital hallway is my best outlet.

  I grab an ugly painting hanging on the wall and throw it as far as I can. I hear the glass shattering, but all that noise isn’t enough to drown out the noise in my head. It’s not nearly enough to relay how twisted and fucked-up the Fitzgerald family is.

  Headline after headline, my father always finds a way to drag our family through one scandal after another; and my mother, ever the sensitive heartbroken, money-loving woman she is, forgives him.

  I ball my palm into a tight fist and drive it into the wall beside me.

  Blinding pain shoots through from my knuckles up my hand, but for some reason, that felt good.

  Because I’m a fucking unfeeling jerk and a glutton for punishment, I do it again. And again, aware that I’m hurting myself and that what I’m doing is stupid, pointless, and reckless.

  My knuckles start bleeding. I feel some satisfaction as I watch the metallic red staining the otherwise unharmed white wall, dismantling this clean façade that hospitals carry.

  Breathing hard and fast, I can still hear the loud beeping of machines they hooked my brother on in his hospital room.

  But then it’s the look on Aiden’s face when he woke up two hours ago, looked around the room, a look of hope and optimism on his face, only to find the large hospital room empty of the faces he wanted to see. It was just me, without a good explanation for the absence of his family.

  “Fuck!” a hoarse whisper escapes my lips like a litany. There’s a ball in my throat I can’t get rid of.

  “Are you done?”

  A sweet, amused, and sarcastic voice speaks from behind me. I spin around, ready to tell her off. I don’t need anyone’s sympathy, let alone if it’s someone from my school. Worse if they’re from our rival school, here to get some dirt on me to exploit me.

  Paranoia or caution? I don’t know, they both kind of bleed together for me.

  When I turn around, words fail me when I come face-to-face with her, the girl I saw dancing in the rain earlier today.

  She was twirling around and spinning in puddles, her delicate arms reaching up to the heavens, as if she was trying to catch raindrops. She had her beautiful face upturned to the sky, as if to let the rain wash away the sadness in her eyes. But as I look at her now, I don’t think the rain did a good job—though it tried.

  She’s still sad. Pissed, curious, annoyed, yes, but still sad.

  My chest expands, I stand there frozen, knowing better than to breathe because if I so much as breathe wrong, she’ll disappear. I mutely stare at her for a full minute, as if I’ve just seen an angel, but the more I stare, the more I notice the devil’s glint in her eyes.

  “What?” I grunt.

  “I said are you done punishing the wall for your sins?” she questions, this time walking toward the chairs I kicked. “Because if you are, then you should apologize to the wall. It did nothing to receive your wrath.”

  For some fucked-up reason, that annoys me and intrigues me all at the same time; the fact that she somehow thinks whatever’s going on is my fault makes me stop and frown at her. That I sinned and now we’re here, makes me suck in another breath, watching her because it’s true. I did cause all of this. I wasn’t there when Aiden needed me.

  “Who are you, the hospital hall monitor?” I mock, rolling my shoulders back, standing at my tallest, knowing that my height intimidates almost everyone, and I’m still growing.

  “Please, I last did that in middle school.” She places a hand on her hip, still watching me like I’m a feral, wounded animal. But the thing is, she’s not afraid. Not one bit. “And I was quite good at it if I remember correctly. I never allowed a slip-up, from anyone.”

  I narrow my eyes at the raven-haired beauty with aquamarine eyes, there’s a hint of yellow specks in them that make her look like the perfect devil’s advocate—since she’s talking about sin and shit.

  “Aren’t you still in middle school?” I question, studying her. She’s young. Maybe even Liam’s age. She’s tiny, petite, with a hell of a lot of promise to the way her body curves. She’s gorgeous, this girl, and the tragedy is, she’s fully aware of her beauty. And mine is I notice it.

  “How old are you?”

  She perks up, puffing her slightly flat chest out, flipping her hair over her shoulder twice. She’s definitely nervous but going for brave anyway.

  “I’m about to be a freshman, just FYI.”

  Figures. She looks like she’s clingy and nosy with her pink training bra peeking through her white Saks shirt.

  “Here’s some free advice, freshman. Go mind your own fucking business.” I keep my voice low, trying to control myself from lashing out at her. “Or else your lifetime accomplishment will remain, and will always be, a fucking hall monitor.”

  I’ve seen a lot of spineless douchebags and bratty girls immediately make themselves scarce when I use that tone, but she doesn’t do any of that. Instead, she lightly shakes her head, a cold smile on her face.

  How can a girl like her have a cold smile so early on in life?

  “You’re rude,” she counters.

  It’s the way she turns down her nose at me, looking unimpressed that makes me pause. It’s not a look I get from girls at all.

  “I’m not here to impress you with fairytale manners,” I grit out, wanting to piss her off.

  “Yeah, you’re just here to punch an innocent wall and be rude to strangers, got it,” she counters, folding her arms.

  She’s got a lot of body movements like she has spasms or some shit, but I know it’s because she’s a dancer. Do dancers always have to move any part of their bodies all the time? Or maybe it’s just for sad-eyed beauties who can’t mind their business?

  “What’s your fucking problem?” I demand, my words clipped.

  “You.” She points at me, then at the discarded chairs all over the place, then at the broken frame at the end of the hall. “You are my fucking problem.”

  “Cry me a river, freshman.” I turn away, the pain in my hand now throbbing. “And while you’re at it, why don’t you try shoving your nose in someone else’s business, not mine.”

  “See, I would do that with a happy spring in my step if you even bothered to realize you’re not the only person in this hospital, and you’re certainly not the only one with problems.”

  I stop, then turn around. She starts picking up the fallen chairs, lining them up against the wall with grace. From one chair to the next,
she puts back order to my chaos, her shoulders tense with anger, or is it worry?

  “I don’t have problems,” I counter.

  “I think you have some major issues there, bud. Do yourself a favor, keep your mess to your damn self. The rest of the world has enough going on already.”

  She’s snippy and nosy sure, but in her eyes is worry that I’ve seen so often in Liam’s eyes when he looks at Aiden. It’s also a look I see in the mirror every single day.

  But this girl, she’s too young to have that look. The look of burden and uncertainty. And the fact that a girl like her is butting in my shit, picking up chairs, tells me that she’s a pathetic little thing and so damn lonely.

  “I guess you’re also a part-time do-gooder, charity volunteer, annoying twat?” I mock. “Does that make up for being so nosy and shaping out to be a bitch?”

  She gasps, but I know it’s not the first time someone has called her a bitch. But it’s definitely the first time a guy has called her out on her shit.

  Her eyes widen, and she stops picking up the next chair.

  “Excusez moi?” She flips her long locks over her shoulder. “Did you just call me a bitch?”

  “Are you hard of hearing?” I raise an eyebrow, feeling this inexplicable need to push her buttons, see how far she’ll go. Will you snap, Little Minx?

  “Let me tell you something, jerk,” she starts, stepping closer to me with each word. “I’m not shaping up to be a bitch and even if I was, you, with all your messed-up testosterone, don’t get to call me names when you’re the one who just caused a ruckus out here. There are patients in this hospital trying to get some rest, hopefully, without any disturbance. And I’m guessing one of those patients in here, is related to you.”

  I tense up all over again. The little pocket of fresh air I just had with enjoying her anger, dissipates without a trace.

  “What do you know about who’s related to me?”

  I don’t mean to be so harsh, but the topic of Aiden has always been sensitive for me. At school, no one knows that Liam and I have an older brother, and the few people in this town that do, I don’t know, they just never mention him.

  I prefer it that way. He’s none of anyone’s business but mine.

  “Hmm, I didn’t know before, but you just confirmed it.” She smiles, shaking her head.

  “Don’t toy with fire, it’ll burn you,” I warn, though in the back of my mind I somehow suspect she’s the one who’s going to burn me to hell and back.

  “Oh honey, I was conceived in flames,” she counters, but it lacks conviction, tasting instead, of that sadness creeping back into her eyes.

  “Did you get that line from a fairytale story, too?” I question, keeping my voice low.

  She sighs heavily, glancing down the hall at another hospital door. “It’s what my mother used to say.”

  I don’t miss the way she uses past tense, or the way her tiny frame trembles. It’s her mother in that hospital room.

  When I don’t have anything to say, she resumes picking up the next two chairs, her shoulders still tense with the weight of problems we would both rather not talk about, filtering in like storm clouds over us.

  I notice the way she carries herself, to the way she moves; so graceful, so delicate, so secretly vulnerable, like she doesn’t want the world to know—let alone me—that she’s in pain. She has to be the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. You’d never guess that she has a sharp tongue in her arsenal. Lethal and cutting deeper than a double-edged sword.

  But when you look closer, beyond the well dressed, flashy, sassy exterior, you’ll see her.

  “What’s your name?” I know she’s not going to tell me. This girl has defiance in her very core. She huffs, shaking her head.

  “That’s none of your business now, is it?” she mocks, enjoying her upper hand.

  “It’s just a name.” I tilt my head to the left, pressing my bleeding knuckles to the side of my leg so she doesn’t see the blood.

  “Will you tell me the name of the person you’re here for, first?” She looks at my hand that I’m trying to hide and smirks. The Little Minx knows I’m in pain.

  “No.” Aiden’s identity is definitely out of the question.

  “Well then, no.”

  She turns around, a wicked glint in her eyes. It’s better than the emptiness that’s threatening to take her under, like it’s done to me.

  “Is it possible that you don’t want to tell me your name because it’s something stupid, like a color or maybe you’re named after some spring flower.”

  “Some spring flower?” She smiles coyly, eyeing me.

  “Yup, like Daffodil.” I try my hardest not to laugh at the horror on her face. “I mean, your high school life is about to be fucked if that’s your name. They’ll be calling you Dumb Daffy.”

  She stops, places her hands on her hips, her button of a nose scrunched up in a condescending frown.

  “Seriously? Dumb Daffy?” she mocks. “That’s all you can come up with?”

  “I can keep going if you’d like,” I offer, feeling a lightness in my chest I haven’t felt in a while. “Though I suspect it’ll hurt your little feelings.”

  Her eyes flash with anger and something else I can’t place. Leaning in, I stare at her, but she blinks, and it’s gone in the next second.

  She grabs the last chair, taking her time to respond when I’m all but hanging on her next words. Turning around, she pretends to be calm when I know she’s close to smacking the lights out of me, but instead, like a master of resting bitch face with a touch of faux southern sweetness, she smiles but it doesn’t reach her wide eyes.

  I wonder what her real smile would look like if the fake one makes her look this stunning, fiery-tongued bitch.

  “You know what I think of you?” she starts, eyeing me.

  “That I’m rude?” I shrug. “Yeah, you mentioned that one already. Are you running out of material?”

  “You’re not just rude, you lack a personality.” I’ll take that, only because Liam says the same thing.

  “Sure, and you need to mind your damn business,” I counter.

  “Nope, that’s not it.”

  “Oh, did you think of more material?” I wave at the floor dramatically. “Please, do go on Daffy.”

  “I think you’re a mental case. I heard they’re looking for a patient that escaped the psychiatric ward a few minutes ago.” She takes a step closer to me, tapping her chin. “They described the poor thing as big, tall, angry as hell with a chip on his shoulder. I think that’s you, sir.”

  Her voice is airy, sarcastic, and soft, as if she’s been serving up disses all her life and knows how to insult someone without breaking a sweat.

  “I’m not mental.”

  “Ah, denial. I guess the next thing you’ll say is you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be?” Two delicate eyebrows are raised, her lips puckered like she’s waiting for a kiss.

  “I am exactly where I need to be,” I counter, and she shakes her head.

  “This isn’t your floor, so why don’t you go to level five and ask them to take you back, or better yet, commit you to one of those psychiatric prisons in a faraway land where you can enjoy your anger by punching walls. You’re already on the right track.”

  No one has ever talked to me like that. Does she know who the fuck I am?

  “Speaking from experience?”

  She takes a seat on the last chair, crossing her legs like a little debutante deviant, her eyes steady on me. I hate to admit it, but that little speech just stole my breath away and makes me angry all over again. It’s a heady combination that shouldn’t make me want to talk to her more—albeit get a rise out of her.

  “I saw a documentary once,” she shrugs. “Trust me, it would really be beneficial for you.” She glances up at me, her eyes clouding for a second. “I think.”

  “You think?” I growl, more from the pain shooting through my arm than her words. “Besides being a pain in some
one’s ass, what do you do?”

  “What do you mean by that?” She tilts her head to the left, looking at me like I’m an idiot.

  “You’re too young to be in here, roaming the halls like a lost puppy,” I mutter, searching for a parent that might be with her, but we’re alone.

  “I’m not lost.”

  “You’re too young to be here.”

  “So are you.”

  “I’m old enough.”

  “Not for a hospital.” Her eyes narrow, watching me like she’s trying to figure me out. “That’s a burden you shouldn’t be carrying by yourself.”

  A burden?

  I frown at her, the pain in my knuckles bothering me more than I thought it would, but I can’t help but translate that in anger.

  “My brothers are not a burden. Taking care of them and looking out for them, is not a burden.”

  Especially for Aiden.

  “No, it’s not,” she mutters softly, her eyes growing even sadder like I just struck a nerve close to her heart. “Taking care of the ones we love shouldn’t sound like a death sentence.”

  “And yet for some people, it is,” I grit out, looking away from her. Aiden’s care has felt like a death sentence to our dad right from the start.

  “Can I speak freely?” she mutters after a while.

  “You don’t seem to do anything else.” I glance down at my knuckles, discreetly checking the damage.

  “You’re in pain.” Again, her airy voice is like a punch to the gut. “But I think they can still help you over at the psychiatry ward.”

  Even though I appreciate the humor, I know that no amount of psychiatric help can fix the fact that my older brother with Down syndrome is suffering, and his parents don’t care.

  “You seem to know a lot about mental institutions. Is that because you have firsthand experience?” I fire right back, wanting to push her buttons, needing to temper the pain she’s trying her hardest to hide. “Is level five where you spend all your time, besides looking pretty and sharpening your claws for a confrontation?”

  She frowns then, an uncertain look in her eyes; the first sign that she might be just a girl after all. Not a sad angel with a wicked tongue.