by Jay McLean
I pick up the discarded cupcake from the counter and relight the candle.
Then I close my eyes and finally let the tears fall. I inhale a breath, hold it for as long as my lungs can handle, and then I let it go.
My wish?
I wished I’d never lived to see my twentieth birthday.
Three
Dylan
I didn’t bother trying to get back to sleep. I knew I couldn’t. Instead, I went out to the garage, praying it was the one room in the house Dad and Eric had left untouched. It was exactly how I’d left it before I moved away to college. My truck was there, covered with a huge cloth shielding it from the dust. So was the engine Dad had bought me for my sixteenth birthday—something we’d worked on together.
I flicked on all the lights and removed the cover, then sat in the driver’s seat and got reacquainted with my one true love. I ran my hand across the dash and rested my cheek on the steering wheel. “I missed ya, girl,” I whispered, then laughed at myself because I might possibly be insane.
When the sun started to rise I stepped out of the garage and brought the smaller engine parts with me, tinkering away in the semi-light of a new day. I’d spent months doing that exact thing, only now I didn’t have to keep looking over my shoulder, jumping at every sound.
The sun came up, the birds chirped, neighbors woke, and slowly, people’s lives started over again.
Mine didn’t.
There were no distinctions between the days. Just an endless fucking cycle of barely-awake semi-consciousness.
* * *
Dad steps out from the back door, his eyes on the parts in my hand. “You been here all night?” he asks, walking toward me.
I squint from the sun when I look up at him. “Yep.”
He nods once and glances at the garage. “I kept her clean for you. Made sure to keep her runnin’ while you were gone. Had to hide the keys from Eric.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Was that you and him yelling last night?”
“Sorry.”
“He got a girl in there?”
“Yeah,” I say, focusing on my half-ass job of cleaning the piston ring in my hand.
After a few seconds of silence, Dad sighs. “Listen, I’m supposed to work today, but I can call in—we can spend the day together.”
“It’s fine,” I say, a yawn taking over my entire body. “I’m probably just gonna sleep anyway.”
“Okay, son. You’ll be here when I get back?”
I shrug, or at least attempt to. “I don’t plan on going anywhere.”
Without another word, he goes back into the house and I sit, my shoulder aching and my mind going places I don’t want it to go.
My eyelids become heavy. So does everything else. I go in the house, grab the blanket from the recliner where I’d left it the night before and ignore the banging and moaning sounds coming from Eric’s room. Then I head back out to the garage, throw the blanket in the back of the truck and make a new temporary bed for myself. I pop another painkiller and I lie down, my eyes focused on the metal beams making up the roof of the garage. The sounds outside are loud, or maybe I’m focusing too much on trying to hear them.
Old habits.
My phone sounds and I reach into the pocket of my discarded pants and retrieve it, swiping my finger across the screen to read the text.
Dave: Fucking sucks here without you, my friend. Take all the time you need. I’ll just cry myself to sleep at night missing your gigantic arms around my frail tiny body. I miss you, big spoon. Seriously though, make the most of it. Get money. Fuck bitches. All that shit.
Dylan: I’m sure you canxfindxsomeonexelse to offer your catina to.
Dylan: Catina.
Dylan: Vagina.
Dave: Dude. Do you even technology?
I drop the phone and lie back down, feeling the effects of the pill as well as no sleep for the past forty-eight hours completely take over. But just as I’m about to pass out, loud music blares, rattling everything inside the garage, including my fucking truck.
I kick the blanket off me, reaching a new level of frustration, and jump down from my truck. My fists ball at my sides as I listen for the source. It’s not in my house so I press down on the button for the garage door, shielding my eyes from the sun when the door lifts high enough for it to get to me. I march, in nothing but my boxer shorts, down the driveway and search up and down the street, looking for the car causing the disruption. I imagine walking up to it, pulling the driver out, and then beating his face in because fuck—I’m beyond tired, beyond exhausted, beyond giving a shit. Time + deployment + getting shot + lack of sleep = not caring + murder. Or at least in my case.
I pace the sidewalk, focused on finding the source of the music. But it’s not a car. It’s a house. My next-door neighbor’s house. The same neighbors who shined their headlights on my house on my return home from my fucking war.
And now I’m back to insanity.
My strides are long, bare feet stomping through the grass of my neighbor’s front yard, my anger rising with every step. I bang on the door, not caring how I look or who I upset.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Nothing.
I knock harder.
Still nothing.
I peer through the window next to the door, feeling it shake from the base against my hands.
I knock again.
Louder.
Stronger.
Whatever the fuck the song is, it sounds like a drowning cat, clawing its way out of a chalkboard bathtub.
Insanity is an asshole.
“Yo,” I shout, along with more banging.
Finally, the door swings open, the volume doubling.
There’s a girl who I kind of recognize. Her feet are bare, just like mine. So are her legs—long and lean and pasty white. Her dark blonde hair’s a complete mess. So is everything about her. She’s wearing an over-sized shirt that goes past her hips and nothing else. She’s holding a bottle in one hand, a cupcake in the other. She’s older than I remember, not that I had a lot of interaction with her before. “Riley?”
She pulls a phone from somewhere inside her shirt and taps it a few times. The music stops. “What?” she snaps, dropping the phone onto the hardwood floors. She takes a sip from the bottle and cocks her hip to the side, her eyes on mine the entire time.
It’s barely nine in the morning and the girl’s drunk off her tits.
And it just makes me pissed. Or pissder. More pissed? What the fuck ever. “Turn the music down. Or off. Preferably.”
She takes one final swallow before pulling the bottle away and holding it to her chest, her eyes unfocused, lids heavy. “Can you go away? Or fuck off. Preferably.” She slams the door in my face.
“What the fuck?” I whisper, banging on the door again.
The music returns, louder than it was, and I’ve fucking had enough. I kick the shit out of her door. And I’ll keep kicking the shit out of it until the music is off and I can finally sleep.
The door opens again. “What?!” she shouts, spitting food out of her mouth. Half the cupcake is gone. Half the icing is smeared on her lips. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
I ignore her question and step into the house, pushing her to the side as I search for the source of the sound. It doesn’t take long. A few steps down the hallway, second door on the left and I’m in a bedroom. Her bedroom. Whoever is singing now sounds like she’s drowning while strangling the clawing fucking cat. I find the speakers set up on her nightstand and try to switch it off but I can’t fucking find the power button. Now Riley’s yelling from behind me, asking me what the hell I’m doing. I find the cord, follow it to the outlet and yank until the music dies.
Silence.
Sweet, sweet, silence.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she yells.
I pick up the speaker, lift her window, and throw the source of my insanity outside.
“You can’t do that!”
I
slam the window shut and finally face her.
Her eyes are wide. So is her stance as she glares up at me, her nostrils flared, her lips pursed. “I hope you die a rotten death and go to hell for all of eternity.”
As weird as a time to think it—she’s real pretty. Not that it’s relevant. In fact, the irrelevance of it makes me even angrier. Because pretty girls have ugly hearts, and I’ve had enough of both. “I asked you to turn it down,” I seethe, towering over her.
“You didn’t ask me, asshole. You told me. And no. Fuck off. It’s my house. My rules. Now get out!”
“My pleasure,” I yell back, walking around her toward her door.
“Wait!”
I don’t.
“Fucking wait!” she yells again.
I still don’t.
Then something soft hits my back.
I turn swiftly. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
The cupcake’s gone now, but she’s still gripping that bottle like it’s somehow saving her life. “You better get my speaker and bring it back to me.”
Now I lose it. Beyond lose it. And I don’t even care if she knows. “Look. I just got home last night. My room is gone. The couch is gone. I couldn’t even sleep on the floor of my own fucking house. I tried. Oh, how I fucking tried. But everything’s fucking changed since I’ve been gone. I can’t fucking sleep at night because I hate the dark. I hate the sounds. Every fucking sound. And the only way I can sleep is with the help of the fucking meds they got me on to somehow deal with being shot in the goddamn shoulder. But that doesn’t change the fact that I close my eyes and I’m fucking back there again, listening to the gunshots going off around me.” Pause. Breathe. “I don’t care who you are or what your problem is that has you drunk off your ass at nine in the goddamn morning because right now I’ve got a bed waiting for me in the back of my truck, and it’s the best I can do, and I need to sleep because if I don’t I’ll probably end up killing somebody so please, please, for the love of God—” Pause. Breathe. Calm. “Please, just let me sleep.”
She hasn’t moved.
Hasn’t said a word.
Hasn’t even blinked.
I doubt she’s even taken a breath.
But her eyes are wide and on mine and for a moment it’s like she can see right through me—through the bullshit anger I’ve just shown and she can see the fear because I couldn’t restrain it like I did with Dad and with Eric. Quickly, her chest rises with her intake of breath, as if she’s coming up for air after being left to drown.
She takes a step back, and then another, away from my form of crazy. The back of her knees hit the side of her bed and I think she’s about to sit down… about to let me walk away with a win. But she doesn’t. She turns around and pushes her covers aside. Then she faces me. “Take my bed. I’ll wake you in a few hours.”
“What?”
She’s staring at my bandaged shoulder. “You won’t even know I’m here,” she says, moving around her room, only half closing the blinds and the door to her bathroom. “You’re Dylan, right?”
I nod once. “I don’t need your pity. I just needed some quiet,” I tell her, sighing as the reality of what I’ve just done sets in. “I’m sorry about—”
“It’s not pity,” she says, pointing to her bed. “It’s understanding.” She takes another swig from the bottle then offers it to me. “It helps take the edge off… keeps the nightmares away.”
I take the bottle from her and take a few sips, ignoring the foul taste as it goes down my throat. Then I take her offered bed, watching her watching me with a frown on her face—but something tells me it isn’t pity. It’s exactly what she said. It’s understanding.
She sets herself up in the corner of her room where cushions are scattered along with jars filled with pieces of paper. Then she starts silently writing in a notebook.
I turn to my side and face her, watching without really watching, feeling the exhaustion start to take over again. “Riley?”
She looks up.
And though barely awake, I ask, “What was with the cupcake?”
It takes a few seconds for her to answer. “It’s my birthday today.”
“Is that why you’re drinking?”
“No.” She goes back to writing. “My alcohol is like your medicine. It dulls the pain.”
Four
Riley
I wake up the next morning to Mom’s standard routine: the shower switching off, her movements in the next room, and then the clicking of her heels as she leaves for the day. I sit on the edge of the bed and stare at the full bottle of wine sitting on my dresser, wondering why it is I didn’t feel like drowning myself in it last night. I mean, a part of me knew. Of course I knew, but I didn’t really know why. I was only awake a couple hours after Dylan—the boy (or more like man, now) next door had fallen asleep. I got comfortable on the floor, surrounded by cushions and an empty bottle of wine. I’m not sure what time he woke himself up, but when I finally came to, my speaker was back on my nightstand and the empty bottle I fell asleep with was next to it, two small flowers placed inside and a note that read:
Thanks for letting me use your bed. I promise I’m not crazy. Just tired. And happy birthday, by the way. It’s not much of a gift, but I thought you should know… you look real pretty when you sleep.
That was a whole lot less creepy in my head.
I pick up the note and read it for what feels like the hundredth time and each time leaves me with the same feelings. Butterflies first, then emptiness, and then guilt. The guilt is the worst. The guilt is what has me putting the note back down. But the butterflies—they’re what have me picking it up again. Over and over. Like the stupid song I have on repeat from the moment Mom leaves to the moment she returns. The same song I had playing when he showed up at my door wearing nothing but boxers and an anger in his eyes that I only ever show myself.
And it’s because of that anger, I’m positive of one thing: he doesn’t know.
That fact alone gives me the courage to do what I do next.
I turn on the speaker, switch the volume to as loud as it will go, and use the Bluetooth on my phone to start the song, filling my ears with the words of weep-inducing lyrics.
Then I pick up the bottle, take the first sip of the morning, sit down on my bed and I wait.
The song plays once.
Twice.
And by the third time, half the bottle is gone and so is my confidence and once bright mood because I’m dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. And seriously, by the way, why the hell would I even think he’d show up? Here, Riley, says dumb brain, play that shitty music that got him so mad he basically kicked down your door and told you you were the Worst Human Alive and holy shit I’m drunk already.
I scoff at myself and stand quickly, swaying on my feet while I take another sip. I tilt the bottle too far and it pours out of my mouth and onto my chin… drip drip drip down my neck onto my shirt. I laugh. Because in times like these, there’s no other cure but laughter, and more alcohol—which I’m now out of.
The song ends and then starts again. I drop the bottle to the floor and shuffle my feet across the carpet toward my door. I step out and start for the kitchen where Mom keeps the wine and before I’ve made it two steps… knock knock.
I stand in the hallway facing the door… looking at it—no, glaring at it… waiting to hear the sound again.
Knock knock.
My one sock covered foot glides across the floorboards, moving closer to the door.
“Riley!” Bang bang bang.
I open the door, my head lowered, eyes squinted at my one bare foot. “Where did you go?” I ask it.
“Home,” Dylan shouts, and I look up at him. He looks nice. Not as nice as he looks almost naked but still… he looks nice. His dark buzz-cut hair—I assume mandatory for whatever military branch he’s part of—does nothing to lessen his general good looks.
“My sock is at your house?”
“What?”
“Huh?
”
His eyes are tired, which takes nothing away from the blueness of them. But he’s tall. So tall I have to crane my neck to look at him. He still wears the same clothes I’d seen him in through the years he lived next door. White tank, often grease stained from working on his or his friend’s car, and a flannel shirt over it. It’s the same way his dad dresses, and even his brother. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t have a woman living with you. You dress in whatever you can buy in bulk for cheap and move on.
He rubs the few days’ growth on his jaw while he watches me look him over. “Your what is where?” he shouts, then rolls his eyes and steps inside, carefully placing me to the side so he can march to my room. I follow behind him and watch as he unplugs the speaker from the socket. Why doesn’t he just turn it off?
He spins around, his eyes immediately locked on the empty bottle on my floor. “How drunk are you right now?” he huffs. “And where is your other sock?”
I scoff, a little confused. “You said it was at your house.”
He lifts his gaze. “What?”
“Huh?”
He shakes his head. “You’re a hot mess, Riley.”
I shrug. “Thank you for my flowers.”
He looks from me, to the flowers, then to his note sitting on my bed. He huffs out another breath, his shoulders dropping with the force of it. “So listen,” he says, sitting on the bed and moving the note to my nightstand. “I know it was probably a once off for you but can I crash for a few hours in here? My brother—”
“Yes.”
His smile is instant. It’s also hot. I’m pretty sure I hate his smile. And I’m definitely sure I hate him—or, at least, how he makes me feel.
He kicks the bottle on the floor and watches it roll away from him and toward me. “I take it you had a good time last night… celebrating your birthday and all.”
“No.”