by Devon Ashley
“It was Brad,” I said glumly, and he let loose a knowing sigh. “He came by at closing. Drunk, wanting Joyce’s money. When I wouldn’t give it to him he jumped me.”
He didn’t even waste time, simply asking Marisa if Mike had checked in from the bar yet. She nodded, saying, “The perp was gone before Mike got there. He called Sully and asked him to come in to see if anything’s missing.”
Turning back to me, he asked, “Any idea where he’d go?”
I shrugged and replied, “Back to Shane?”
“Where’s Shane?”
I shrugged again. “He’s been spending a lot of time with Matt Delaney. You can go ask him.”
“And your son?” he asked. “Where’s he right now?”
“Jake stays over at my neighbor’s until I get home. Susan Leighton. Brad doesn’t know that.” I paused, my eyes widening as I realized… “But my purse. My license. I left it in the office. And the employee files there will have my address too.”
My face must’ve been relaying the panic growing inside me, because Sheriff Litskin was quick to remind me, “It’s okay. You said he won’t know where Jake is anyways. We’ll have Sully locate the files and check on your purse. He may not’ve had time to find those things.”
I nodded weakly. He was right. Of course he was right. Brad’s mind was on the money. It wouldn’t occur to him to go looking for my whereabouts. Not with the alarm piercing the air. He would’ve been panicking. He didn’t know that the alarm wasn’t actually monitored by a security company. That was why I had to hoof it here myself. No one was ever going to come unless someone nearby heard the siren and reported it.
“Get her to the hospital, Charlie” he told the EMS guy. “Make sure someone’s always with her until we find out what he got his hands on.” To me, he added, “Don’t you worry about your son. I’ll have Thomas go over and tell your neighbor what’s going on, make sure Jake stays for the night.”
I whispered my thanks, biting back the tears that continually threatened to leak. My arm stung, my feet were frozen and my head hurt, and I couldn’t help but fear what Brad would do next.
“Psst. Shane!”
My eyes felt heavy, but I fought against them, forcing my eyelids open. I was pretty sure it was Matt leaning over me, shaking my shoulder. “What?” I grumbled.
“The sheriff’s here.”
My body snapped awake, all haziness dissipating as I untangled myself from the twisted sheets. I snatched my shirt off my bag and pulled it on as I stumbled out of the dim room. “What happened?” I asked, my mind immediately thinking of Mel. I noticed the sofa was empty, the pillow and blanket on the floor. I scanned the room, noting a certain absence. “Where’s Brad?” I asked Matt.
“That’s what I came to ask you,” the sheriff said.
“What happened?” I repeated. Brad, what the fuck did you do?
“He got into an altercation with Melanie over at Sully’s.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, a sharp pain punching my chest as I did. I whipped towards Matt. “Did you tell him?”
“What? No! I said nothing!”
“Well, I didn’t fucking tell him she worked there!” I couldn’t help it. I just kept yelling.
“Well, he found out somehow, didn’t he?” Sheriff Litskin said calmly.
“Or he fucking knew all along and played me!” The fucker. I yanked on my hair and sat on the edge of the sofa, my mind just figuring out what the sheriff said originally. Altercation. Melanie. “Holy shit, is Mel okay?”
“She’s fine. But I need to know. Where would Brad go from here?”
My poor damn heart finally had a moment’s peace hearing she was okay, just to be upturned all over again. “You mean you don’t have him?” I didn’t even wait for an answer. I just charged back to my room, flipped on the light and tossed everything in my suitcase looking for my keys. Of all times for them to hide. “Where the fuck are my keys?!” I yelled in aggravation.
“Uh, probably with your truck, dude,” Matt said from the other room.
“What?” I replied, heading back out. Matt was standing in the entryway, looking back at me, Sheriff Litskin right beside him. “Didn’t you park next to me tonight?”
“Yeah,” I answered, making my way over. “Son of a bitch.” My truck was gone. That fucker took my truck! “Well, Sheriff. I guess that answers your question. He’s got no money but my tank was three-quarters full.”
“Oh, he’s got money now,” the sheriff replied. Matt and I looked curiously between ourselves, then back at him. “He got out of Sully’s with whatever was in the cash register. Don’t know the full amount yet, but Sully says the register isn’t supposed to have more than five hundred in it at one given time.”
Enough to get the fuck far away from here.
“I’ll put an APB out for him and the truck. Let’s hope we get lucky.”
I pulled my car insurance out of my wallet and passed it to him so he’d have my truck’s information. He tipped his head and put his hat back on. Before he could completely leave, I had to ask. “Sheriff? What about Mel?”
“She’s fine, Shane. Little shaken up, a few stitches on her arm, but she’s fine.”
Stitches! He cut her?! I was going to fucking kill him!
I hustled back to my room and grabbed my phone off the bedside table, quickly dialing Mel’s number. Nothing. It just rang and rang until her voice mail picked up. So I dialed again. And again. Nothing but voice mail. I groaned and sighed all in one. I wanted to hold her in my arms and comfort her, comfort me. Because if I didn’t have that, I was tempted to walk the streets for him. And right now I truly wanted to kill my childhood friend. The same man who stuck with me through thick and thin, who played with me side-by-side in high school, who always had my back.
I thought I never saw the deceit coming with Mel. I sure as hell never saw it coming from him.
I couldn’t fall back asleep. I kept dialing Mel, kept sending her text messages, begging her to get back to me. I was so fucking confused. I didn’t have a flippin’ clue what was going on. There was so much bullshit going on I didn’t know the truth from the hole in my ass.
Did he know? All this time? Or did Brad just figure Mel would be the one? All it would take was asking a local who knew her if she had a kid, or find out where she worked. I told Matt to keep his mouth shut, but I honestly didn’t think about the rest of town. So many people had turned their back on him long ago. It didn’t occur to me there might be a few still willing to give him the time of day. The poor saps probably didn’t even know he was playing them. All he had to do was casually ask how his ex-girlfriend was doing. Simple as that.
“Amber!” I screamed. Matt came rushing in from the next room. “Amber,” I repeated. “Mel said Brad knew she was pregnant when he left. If he figured it was her all along, Amber would’ve been more than happy to tell him everything she knew.”
“I’ll let the sheriff know. Maybe Brad’ll be stupid enough to try and stay with her.”
I nodded and fell back onto the bed. Fucking bitch. If I hadn’t wiped all trace of her off my phone I’d be calling to bitch her ass out right this very second. God, if he did find out from her, it would mean he’d known all night and day. No wonder he didn’t want to leave yet. He wanted his chance to go after Mel.
My body jerked when my phone emitted that jingle, telling me a text message had arrived. With trembling fingers and a shaky breath, I swiped along Mel’s message.
And I kind of wished I hadn’t.
You brought that monster back into my life. Leave me the hell alone.
Sleep just wasn’t something I deserved apparently. I was up all night after that. I went from worrying about Mel’s safety to worrying about whether she’d ever forgive me. Funny how that worked out. Just a week ago I was trying to find a way to forgive her. Now here I was. I was the one hanging precariously off the edge.
The worst part of all, I still didn’t know the t
ruth from the lies. I suspected my previous ratio of untruths – which favored heavily in Mel’s corner – had now shifted the other way. I began to wonder exactly how much Brad really knew all these years. Maybe he really did tell me she was a cheater just to keep me away from her. Maybe he really was the one who knocked her up and bailed on her. And that pissed me off more than anything – getting her pregnant and running from his responsibilities. And if he had done that – left her alone in this world to deal with it – I just wanted to smack the shit out of him.
I glanced at my phone again. Nothing new. I had messaged her back once telling her how sorry I was. Never in a million years would I have thought Brad was capable of physically hurting her. And she was right. I brought him back into her life. I did this, and it twisted and wrung my stomach in so many ways that it constantly ached. I was the reason she got hurt.
Karen wrapped my stitches with a fresh bandage. It wasn’t really necessary since it was easy enough to do myself, but I think it made her feel more important, like being able to take care of me justified her sticking around a few days. Truthfully, the skin had begun healing, so I didn’t even need the bandage anymore, but I had this fear of getting one of the stitches caught on something and ripping it open. Gawd. Just thinking that could happen sent an uncomfortable vibration through my body. So I was more than happy to let her wrap it up for me.
What really bugged me were the pieces of glass that hadn’t been removed from my skin. They were so tiny they were damn near impossible to grab with the tweezers. So every time I rubbed my skin the wrong way, they pierced me and lodged in a little deeper.
Karen had been incredibly helpful with other things too, like cooking and keeping Jake entertained. It left me plenty of time to ponder the past few days. Brad was just fucking out of his mind. I always figured he’d remain a drunk, but I never thought he’d be that unstable. What the hell was he thinking, coming to the bar like that? That dumbass was going to land himself in jail over some money?
Scary thing was, I wasn’t sure if he came to Sully’s knowing he was going to attack me, or if he did it on the fly. Which was scarier? Premeditated or desperate acts? And why the hell hadn’t Shane kept a better eye on him? He was flanking him twenty-four-seven, how could he not think Brad was unhinged enough to do something like that? I suddenly felt really low on his list of priorities, and I began to wonder if I even made the list at all now.
“Stop that already,” Karen said, interrupting my train of thought.
My automatic pilot looked her way, sitting beside me on the sofa, but I already knew she was referring to my obsessive need to glance at my phone. I couldn’t keep from checking to see if it had died or if I had a weak signal. She could tell by my twitchy hand that I was about to reach out and activate the screen again.
“I’m pathetic, aren’t I?”
“No,” Karen replied flatly. “Just stubborn. And proud.”
“Stubborn?” I mocked. “Proud?”
“Yes, and yes. I know I was against it in the beginning, but hell, that shithead attacked you. Just tell Shane the truth about everything now. He’s the one in the middle. Whatever that dumbass has told him over the years, Shane has to be questioning by now.”
“I always thought it was best to let him go, you know? The jerk totally bailed on us but he had weird abandonment issues.” Quite honestly, he wasn’t fit to help me raise Jake.
“Which is why I find it odd that he abandoned you physically after his grandmother did it to him emotionally,” she muttered.
“I know I was the one who was pregnant and the one forced to move forward with it and find a way, but I just felt sorry for him.” I was totally shaking my head at that. Such a stupid way to feel, especially since I was more of a victim than he was these days. “Shane was the last person he had left. And the way I never heard from him once he moved away, I just figured he was primarily Brad’s friend. Like he put up with me because I was with Brad all those years. Yeah, I liked him and I wanted him, but it was like he wasn’t mine to take.
“But now… Did I tell you Shane was the one who wanted to ask me out in high school? And that Brad did it first just to spite him? It’s made me hurt ever since I learned that. I’ve missed out on something that really feels right.”
“Well, I guess Brad’s been a dick all along then. And you haven’t missed out completely. You can still have him if you try.”
I let my neck collapse to the sofa cushion, rolling my head her way. “I thought you didn’t like him.”
Her face twisted into multiple expressions, all of which humorously screamed you’re going to make me say it, aren’t you? “Alright. I’ll admit he wasn’t my favorite guy in high school, but I don’t really have any feelings about Shane. If you want to like him, I’ll like him. If you want to hate him, I’ll hate him with you. Just, for the love of God, decide already. Even I’m beginning to suffer from emotional whiplash and I’m not even the focus of your attention! I can’t imagine what it must be like to be the mangled heart you’ve been beating into a bloody pulp.”
I huffed and shook my head. “It’s not like he hasn’t been doing the same thing to me. One minute he’s ready to strip me down, the next he’s yelling at me over Lord knows what.”
“Again, he’s only got Brad’s intel to go by. Gotta give him your side. I mean, seriously. That schmuck just tried to attack and rob you. Stole his truck and disappeared.” Sarcastically, she added, “I think you might be able to sway him in your favor now.”
My gaze focused in on the silent phone again and I quietly asked, “What if he doesn’t want me anymore?”
“You told him to fuck off and leave you alone, and he’s actually doing it. That right there tells me he wants you. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about what you wanted. He’d be hounding you until he got what he wanted.”
“Wouldn’t really be fair to him though, right?”
“What?” she asked, curiously looking my way.
“To take us on. He’s about to start law school somewhere. I don’t even know where. Having us in his life would just be a distraction.”
“Don’t you think he should get to decide that for himself?”
“I just don’t want to hold him back or mess up his life the way I’ve done with mine.”
“Hey,” she said strongly, reaching out to cover my hand, “don’t even. So you got pregnant earlier than you ever planned on. You’ve worked your ass off to support yourself and that little cutie. And be honest right now. Could you seriously picture a life without Jake at this moment?”
My laugh got caught in my throat, and a smile shot out of nowhere. “No.”
“You didn’t mess up your life, Melanie. You just had to take a different path. Sure it was harder, but you can’t seriously make me believe you’d go back and do it any differently.”
I roughly squeezed my face with my hands, sighing deeply. She was right. As much as I wished Shane and I had gotten together years ago, I never would’ve had Jake if we had. And that was just something I could never give up. He was the one right in an epic string of wrongs.
“You’re right. I know you are. It’s just hard to let someone in. I mean, this has been my life. My kid. My burden to carry. I don’t know how to share that responsibility, even with someone who might be willing to take it on.”
After a moment of silence, her foot playfully kicked my thigh. “Hey. Your mom and dad would be real proud of you, girlie.”
Tears began to well around my eyes, threatening to flow. I missed them so freakin’ much. “Don’t. You’re going to make me cry.”
“Good!” she burst loudly. “Maybe some good cryin’ will lighten your mood and soften that stubborn heart of yours.”
“It’s not my heart that’s stubborn, it’s my head.”
“Well, tell the damn thing to shove it already. I mean, what? Are you supposed to live the life of a nun just because you had a kid? I don’t think so!”
I formed a teepee over my
nose and mouth and exhaled loudly, the warm air heating my fingers, sending a shiver down my spine. I needed to just sit down and think. About everything. About me and Jake. About Shane. God, even Brad.
No. Fuck Brad. I used to worry about him and that mental instability of his, but that fucker who jumped me a few nights ago, that wasn’t Brad anymore. He was colder. Darker. So worried about how he was going to obtain that next high he no longer cared how he went about it. I was done wasting my sympathy on him.
But Shane. Shane I seriously wanted to think about.
“Hey, man,” I said, making a show of putting his extra house key on the table. “I appreciate you letting me stay here.”
“So you leaving?” Matt asked, following me to the guest room to watch me gather my things.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Think it’s time. Thanks to Brad I’m going to have to get a job just to buy a new truck before fall semester.”
“Dude, I don’t even know where to start with that. That guy’s a fucking punk. Stealing another man’s wheels. I don’t know what the hell he was thinking.”
“That’s the problem. I’m not sure he is thinking clearly these days. And stealing my truck is one thing, but going after Mel like that? That pisses me off.”
“Sorry, man. But that just isn't Brad anymore. Whoever it is, he doesn't seem interested in being the guy we grew up with."