Stripped From You: (Stripped Duet #1)

by M. Never

  He didn’t seem to be spiraling when I left for LBI, but his episodes come on fast sometimes, and he’s crashing before we even know it.

  “I hope not.” She takes a drag of her cigarette solemnly.

  Bipolar disorder is a mind-fuck of a disease. Watching my brother bounce all over his emotions is unbearable sometimes. But the way he deals with his episodes is even worse.

  “I’ll call around, see if I can track him down,” I tell her as I sit down at the table. She kills her cigarette in the cheap gold ashtray.

  “Okay,” she huffs. She looks worn out. Her hair is oily and needs to be washed, her face is pale, and she smells like booze.

  “How is your girlfriend?” she asks randomly.

  “Good,” I answer, and I can’t keep from smiling.

  My mother stares at me vacantly. Her blue eyes the same color as mine, but lifeless.

  “You like this one, huh?”

  “I love her,” I correct, working my jaw. I don’t know why admitting that makes me defensive.

  She shakes her head, but says nothing else. Her silence is almost oppressive. She doesn’t approve one bit, and I have no idea why. Then she stands and wraps her ratty pink bathrobe tightly around her.

  “I have to be at work at three. Find Sean,” she mutters before walking out of the kitchen.

  If I didn’t look for him, no one would.

  I have called every one of Sean’s boys, and no one has seen him, which is making me crazy. I’ve been driving around all day checking out his regular hangout spots. Nada. I even paid a visit to Tasha, his, well, “friend”. Sean’s never been in a relationship, but he definitely has a soft spot for her. I understand why he keeps his distance; he’s unstable. Never knowing which direction his mood is going to swing, or how he’s going to handle it. It kills me that he’ll never be normal. That there’s nothing I can do to change the fact that he’s sick. Or how he turns to heroin to deal with his disease.

  I need to get to work, so the search will have to cease for now. Usually, one of two things happens when Sean takes off. We find him, or the police do.

  The last time he went missing, they found him passed out in the bathroom of a fast-food restaurant. That was eight months ago.

  There’s a ton of traffic tonight. It’s a warm, breezy late July night, and I think everyone and their mother is taking advantage of the comfortable weather. Driving along the promenade, the sidewalks and restaurants are packed with people, and the cars in front of me are rolling along at a leisurely pace. I guess I’m the only one who has somewhere to be. As I sit impatiently in my Jeep, fiddling with the radio, a limo catches my eye. It’s parked in front of one of the higher-end restaurants that has a killer view of the Atlantic. I watch as one person after the other emerges dressed in designer clothes without a care in the world. I bitterly wonder if any of them knows what it’s like to be penniless.

  But what really floors me is when a gorgeous blonde goddess, dressed in a tight black top and flowy pink miniskirt, gets out and puts her arm around the Giorgio Armani model waiting for her on the curb. It feels like all the oxygen has been sucked directly out of my lungs. I catch her looking up at him and smiling just before they walk into the restaurant together. I’m frozen. My mind is racing, trying to grasp the notion I am not the only man in Alana’s life. It registers painfully why she won’t say “I love you”. It isn’t because we’re moving too fast or because she’s afraid of her emotions. It’s because she doesn’t love me. My chest feels like it’s caving in.

  I’m nothing.

  Nothing to her.

  Just a toy to pass the time with.

  I’m about to snap the steering wheel in two from the rage when the jerkoff behind me lays on his horn.

  “Fuck you!” I yell into the rearview mirror, then let up on the brake and start rolling along with traffic. This day has turned to shit. My life has turned to shit. Not that it was any great shakes before I met Alana, but losing her just makes it all the more pitiful now. I am going to lose her. I guess I always knew that somewhere deep down. She’s too smart, too rich, too out of my league.

  Someone like me doesn’t deserve her.

  I drive past the restaurant, and in a vain attempt, I try to spot her though the windows, but it’s too crowded and dark.

  “Fuck!” I punch the steering wheel as the pain slithers up and takes hold. Strangling me. Suffocating me. Destroying me.

  Just as I pull back onto the main road, my phone rings. It’s a distant, faraway sound. I almost don’t notice it as my thoughts drown in the image of Alana with another man. A man who makes her smile. A man who can give her everything.

  I can give her nothing.

  “Hello?” My voice is tight. Thick with emotion.

  “Ryan? It’s Tasha. I found him.”

  “Where is he?” I ask immediately.

  “With Jobe.” Her two-word answer nearly sends me over the edge. Jobe. Resident crack head and drug dealer. We went to high school with him. He used to be a great kid, just like Sean. Then they got involved in that fucking shit, and both their lives went to hell.

  “Is he still in Asbury?”

  “Yes, same house.”

  Crack house.

  “Fuuuuck. Okay, thanks Tash.”

  “No problem, Ryan. Glad I could help,” she finishes sadly. I feel sorry for her. She has it bad for him. I hang up and text Mac immediately:

  Sean

  The four-letter word is all I have to say. He’ll know what it means, and he’ll cover for me. I won’t be going to work tonight. Or probably any other night for the rest of the week.

  I drive through Asbury Park. And not the nice part either. Not the part the tourists visit by the beach with dining and shopping. No, I’m going to the part they never see. The part you shouldn’t drive through without a bulletproof vest.

  I know where Jobe lives, or should I say squats. It’s a rundown old house with boarded-up windows, peeling paint, and no electricity. Not that you really need any when you’re doped up on heroin. I park outside and do a quick job of putting the windows and doors back on my Jeep. It’s not a great deterrent, but at least it doesn’t scream “steal me”.

  I hop up the front steps and bang on the door, probably scaring all the crack heads half to death. I smile to myself.

  “Jobe! It’s Ryan!”

  I bang again. If he doesn’t answer, I swear I’ll bust it down.

  A few slow seconds later the door creaks open, and Jobe peeks his head out. He’s a scraggly motherfucker. How anyone can live like he does is beyond me. My skin crawls just looking at him.

  “Where’s Sean.” No, it’s not a question. It’s a demand. And he knows it.

  Jobe looks at me vacantly through dark eyes, and then cocks his head back. I push through the door and walk into the disgusting house. It’s dirty, dingy, and stinky. Nothing’s changed. There are people passed out on the cold wood floor, and those who are conscious look at me with the same removed stare as Jobe. It makes me so sick I just want to punch through the walls until the structure crumbles to the ground.

  I make my way to the back of the house and into the room where I know I’ll find Sean. This isn’t our first time at the rodeo. And he’s exactly where he usually is, passed out on a grimy mattress with a dirty needle on the floor. I want to puke and weep all at the same time. This is my brother. The guy who used to be my best friend. The one who stole cookies when we were hungry, and talked to girls when I was too shy. The guy who shares my DNA and looks exactly like me, but couldn’t be more my opposite.

  “Hey.” I kneel down and shake him firmly. “Sean?”

  He’s out for the count.

  I run my hands through my hair, grabbing the strands tightly between my fingers. I know what I have to do.

  I pat him down, making sure nothing is going to poke me by surprise. Then I grab his arm and haul his dead weight up and over my shoulder. I walk back out through the house, praying my Jeep is still there. Once outside, I du
mp Sean into the passenger side and recline the seat. I quickly hop into the driver’s side and take off, out of one nightmarish ghetto and straight into another.

  Scars and Surprises

  “Can you at least puke in the bowl!” I wipe my foot off with a wet towel.

  Yup, this is my life.

  “I’m sorry.” Sean hurls violently into the toilet bowl. He’s suffering somewhere between the fifth and sixth circle of hell. Detoxing from heroin sucks. How do I know this? It isn’t our first time at this rodeo either.

  He’s butt-naked, pale, and shivering. He’s been puking and pooping furiously for the last three days. And when he’s not doing that, he’s complaining of body aches and restless legs. All symptoms of withdrawal.

  I run a hot bath as he empties the contents of his stomach. Not that there’s much left. He’s brutally dry heaving now.

  The first time I saw Sean go through withdrawal, I thought he was dying. I called 911. I was seventeen years old and had just come home from a night of clubbing in New York City. He was sprawled out on the bathroom floor convulsing. At least that’s what I thought; turns out he was just so cold he was shuddering.

  Once the doctors assured me he wasn’t dying, I received my first lesson in drug addiction and withdrawal.

  The nurses gave me pamphlets on what could be done to make him comfortable. Turns out hot baths, warm blankets, and some Valium are just about it. Other than that, the severities of the symptoms are just something the user has to endure. And they are severe. After that night, I never touched drugs again. I used to like to pop some X every once in a while when hanging out in the city. Now, just the thought of drugs makes me ill. Turns my stomach, literally.

  I help Sean up when he’s finished puking — for the moment — and place him into the bath. He moans and groans as he lays down in the hot water.

  “Think you can hold down some Valium?” I ask. “It will take the edge off and help you sleep.”

  “Maybe.” He grimaces. I want to feel sorry for him, and on some level, I do. On another, the stupid motherfucker did it to himself.

  “Open up,” I tell him, and drop two pills into his mouth. I don’t give him water. I don’t want to set off his stomach again. Hopefully he can keep the pills down long enough for them to work.

  I sit with Sean as he soaks in the tub. His face is tight with the misery he’s going through.

  “How’s your girl?” he rasps with his eyes closed.

  I don’t answer. I don’t want to talk about it, or her. I’ve been avoiding Alana since Saturday night. Not only have I spent the last few days with Sean in withdrawal hell, my soul has been silently bleeding ever since I saw her with that other guy.

  Sean opens his eyes, and I just stare back at him blankly.

  “Is there a problem, bro?”

  “Nope.” I drop my head. “I just don’t think that’s going to work out.”

  He grunts. “She’s a stupid slut if she doesn’t want you.”

  I snap my head up. “Sean—”

  “What?” He doesn’t give me a chance to finish my sentence.

  It makes me wonder if he’s beginning to feel better. “If she’s fucking around, don’t waste your time.”

  I think that was Sean’s attempt at brotherly advice.

  I sigh. “I just think we’re too different.” That’s about the extent I’m talking about it. And isn’t it ironic that he used the term “fucking around”, even if it’s not how he meant it.

  “That sucks.” He inhales a heavy breath, and his arms loosen around his body. I think the Valium is starting to kick in.

  I pull Sean out of the bath and wrap him up in a towel. I just about manage to get him into a pair of sweats and a hoodie before he’s knocked out for the count.

  Finally, for the first time in three days, he’s sleeping peacefully. I drop down onto my bed, exhausted, and try to relax. The calm doesn’t last long. My phone beeps. I know who it is. She’s been texting me tirelessly. I guess I can’t blame her. If she was ignoring me, I’d be a stark-raving lunatic. I read the text forlornly:

  Ryan, this is the last text I’m going to send you. I don’t know what I did, or what’s going on, but I get the message loud and clear.

  I toss my phone across the room and groan. This is so fucking difficult and painful and agonizing. I don’t know what to do. I want to see her, and I don’t. I also get the message loud and clear. She isn’t going to chase me. Nope. I wouldn’t expect her to either. That’s not Alana’s style. She left a line of communication open, and I ignored it. So she’s done.

  I should be done.

  But I’m not.

  I’m a glutton for punishment.

  And I love her.

  I get up and walk across our tiny room with posters of Derek Jeter and pinup girls hanging on the drab white walls.

  I snatch my phone, glance at Sean, then reluctantly text back:

  Our spot 2 hours?

  I wait for a response.

  And wait.

  And wait.

  She would fucking torture me.

  Finally:

  See you then. <3

  That little heart makes me and breaks me all at the same time.

  Fuck.

  I take a quick shower and get dressed. I check on Sean, and then go on a hunt to find my car keys. I finally find them in the pair of pants I was wearing Saturday night.

  I walk into the hallway and peek into my mother’s room. She’s up. I make my way into the kitchen to find her in her usual spot, sitting at the tiny table with a cigarette in her mouth and a bottle of Jack Daniels a quarter of the way gone.

  Brown liquor. Never a good sign.

  “Going somewhere?”

  “Yeah, out,” I tell her.

  “Do you think that’s a good idea?” Her tone is abrasive.

  “I need to go see someone.”

  She looks up at me, tanked. Not that that’s anything unusual, but when she drinks Jack, she gets violent. Like, abusively violent. I keep a safe distance in the doorway of the kitchen.

  “You’re going to see your little whore, while your brother is inside half dead.”

  I compulsively chew the inside of my cheek. Don’t lose your shit. Don’t lose your shit.

  “Sean’s sleeping,” I grind out. “And if you’re so concerned about him, why don’t you go and stay with him for a while?”

  My mother doesn’t like that answer one bit. She glares at me with bloodshot eyes and a menacing scowl.

  This.

  Happens.

  Every.

  Time.

  She can’t handle it when Sean goes off the deep end. She’s never once nursed him through a withdrawal. Instead, she holes up and drowns herself in a bottle of booze until he’s better. It’s sickening. She’s the one who’s supposed to take care of us, but we’ve always been the ones who take care of her. And when Sean was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, it left me taking care of everyone.

  I start to feel enraged. Like all my emotions are bubbling beneath the surface.

  “I have to go,” I announce before I explode.

  Wrong move on my part.

  “You can’t leave!” she screams, chucking the bottle across the room barely missing my head. It explodes against the doorframe, the jagged shards of glass hitting me in the face like shrapnel.

  I don’t even have a second to react before she comes after me. I see the drunken rage in her eyes just before she hits me. Bam. A direct shot right to the mouth. I taste blood. Then she begins to claw at my face, incoherently muttering profanities as she attacks me.

  It takes me a few seconds to gain some stability as four different kinds of pain sears through me; glass stabbing me in the face, nails ripping through my skin, a throbbing lip, and an ache in my chest from my true reality.

  With an animalistic snarl I pick her up and throw her over my shoulder while she kicks and screams, making a beeline straight for the bathroom. Without losing momentum, I drop her into the
tub, flick on the shower, then leave with her writhing under the ice-cold water.

  “Ryan!” she shrieks just as I slam the front door behind me.

  I really wish I never had to come back to this fucking shit-hole again.

  There are pieces of glass in my face, my lip is bleeding, and my heart is broken.

  I’m pretty sure this is the worst day of my life.

  I drive through the entrance of Sandy Hook toward the beach where Alana and I have spent most of the summer. The one with the killer view of the city and the amazing sunsets. I’m confident this is the last time we’ll be here together.

  I drive down the stretch wiping my mouth with my T-shirt in a last-ditch effort to stop the bleeding.

  The newest pop sensation is crooning through the speakers about zip code envy, and it’s pathetic how much I can relate to this song. I punch the music off and glance at myself in the rearview mirror. It looks like I was in a car accident.

  But as bad as I look on the outside, my insides are way worse.

  A dirt-poor pauper on his way to meet his picture-perfect princess so she can land the final blow that will completely shatter his heart.

  At least knowing the truth will put me out of my misery and spit me back into the reality I belong. Which — wonderful for me — is a really messed-up, pitiful existence.

  I see Alana pacing next to her Audi as I pull up. She’s wearing tight blue jeans that stop at her calves, with a loose white top and a long, gold necklace with charms dangling on the end.

  She looks like a model.

  I look like a crash-test dummy.

  I hop out of my Jeep, and of course her first question is, “What happened?” She goes to touch my face, but I grab her wrist. “Don’t.” It’s not a terse response, but it’s not exactly welcoming either. Her face falls; she’s trying to understand.

  “What’s going on?”

  What’s going on? You’re cheating on me with an Armani model, my brother is going through withdrawals in my bedroom, and my mother just beat the living shit out of me.