Brawl: A Bully Romance (King of Castleton Book 3)

by Ellie Meadows

M: At 4 in the morning? Is everything okay?

  Yep. Early shift today.

  M: I’m so proud of you, Johnathan.

  Mom…

  M: Yeah, I know. It’s Silas now. Can’t you go by your middle name? I’ve always loved Thaddeus.

  Thaddeus Thatcher? I think I’ll pass.

  M: It’s a good name.

  Sure, Mom. Love you. Got to get ready.

  M: Be safe.

  Always am.

  Johnathan Thaddeus Thatcher. Talk about saddling a kid with a name. I’d gone by J.T. for a while. The record company thought it had a good sound. Stage presence. Headlining act—J.T. Thatcher! *canned applause* I couldn’t face that name now though. Silas had been the name of my childhood dog. Mom didn’t think it was appropriate, but the change was legal now. My driver’s license could attest to that.

  Looking back at the clock, I sighed. I was actually working swing shift today. Gobs of time to fill. And I needed to fill it, so my mind wasn’t in overdrive. Heading back to the bedroom, I put on a tank and shorts, then grabbed my wallet and keys. The gym always helped. It got the ‘need’ out and gave me a bit of the euphoria I missed.

  Not enough of it, though.

  Just enough to curb the bitter edge.

  Ping.

  M: Forgot to say I love you. So, anyways, I love you.

  This time, I didn’t respond. I’d already written ‘love you’. That’s all I could manage. Once. And it felt false. I didn’t love anybody. Not my mom. My dad. My sister.

  Not myself.

  Because watching someone you love die, shaking and foaming at the mouth and there not being a chance in hell that help would arrive in time, changes you. It kills the love in you.

  It killed the love in me.

  Silas.

  The gym was empty, save for one guy looking like he was about to die on the treadmill. I couldn’t imagine being one of those people who didn’t like to exercise. Shit, I’d die without that release. I’d go back to the land of fixes and instant-gratification and I’d die.

  I didn’t bother cleaning off the rowing machine before I sat down and started sweating out the need. The burn between my shoulder blades started almost immediately and I was grateful for that. It reminded me—You’re alive, idiot. You’re alive. You’re lucky. You’re alive.

  My mind didn’t need to go to that darker place—You’re alive and some people aren’t. He’s not. Asher had been… fuck, not like my brother. He’d been more than that, more than even a best friend. He’d been like my damn soul mate. From the moment we’d met, we’d clicked. Apples and apples, in a world of oranges. I’d grown up knowing I was different. I liked girls, just like the other guys on the football team, but I also liked the actual guys on the team too. I was an equal opportunist when it came to attraction.

  Asher had been the first guy I’d stepped over that line with though. And it had been good, in almost every way possible. Except one. A single kink in the cord stretched between us. He was a long time user, track marks for miles. And I was a clean kid from the country, never knew what it was like to miss a meal or wonder if my mom and dad loved each other. Our town hadn’t been active in the illegal substance market. The worst thing a kid got into was alcohol with a fake ID and maybe a stolen cig from their mom’s purse.

  He said it would make everything more intense. I loved him, so I believed him. I can close my eyes and go back to that moment—when everything changed for me. The prick of the needle, his face as he watched the heroin enter my body, his face as he watched me feel the first effects of the drug, and the way it felt when we floated on that cloud together. His body against mine. I can close my eyes and remember the way his five o’clock shadow scratched at my face when we kissed.

  The record company hadn’t known about our relationship, but they’d known about the drug use. They kept it under wraps, cleaned up our messes, paid off the hotels for the rooms we trashed. That was when we were really making money for them though, when our records were selling millions the first week. I may have been the headliner, the face they plastered on posters and across teenage girls’ chests, but I wouldn’t have existed without Asher, without him playing the guitar beside me.

  ***

  Always. Forever. The darkest slivers of past crept in.

  I’d pushed past the ache in my shoulder blades, into a clean rhythm that I could sustain for a long period of time, but I was bored, so I got up, wiped down the machine, and headed towards the treadmills. The one other guy was gone now. I had the whole place to myself, save for the brunette staffing the front desk. She was flipping through a fashion magazine, smacking away on bubblegum. I was pretty sure I could get mugged right in the middle of the fitness center and she wouldn’t bat an eye.

  I shifted the incline of the treadmill to mountainous and the speed to ‘can’t think’. Of course, no matter how fast I ran or how hard I was breathing, I’d never stop thinking.

  I worked out for another half hour, listening to the techno music that came to life over the speakers a few moments after I started running. I would have worked out longer had several other people not arrived. It was a small gym, easily crowded. I’m not bothered by crowds generally, but loud and tight and sweaty… that hit a little too close to home, like an arena full of fans waiting for the concert to start.

  When I got home, I restarted the washing machine, this time with soap, then I went to the bathroom and turned on the shower, as hot as I could stand it.

  I stood in the water for a long time, just feeling the way it scalded my skin. I realized, standing there, that someone could walk in, turn the heat to boiling, and I wouldn’t move. I’d stand there, burning to death.

  Because I honestly thought I fucking deserved it.

  That’s when I turned the water off and got out. Because I could feel darkness creeping in like a rolling fog.

  I was trying to make myself better, make amends for Asher dying. I’d gone to therapy for a while after. The lady had focused on the fact that Asher was a user before we got together, that me being the one to buy the heroin that killed him was a moot point. If not me, he would have bought it himself. If not me, someone else would have been in my shoes. Her point was, no matter what, Asher might have died. Users die, she said.

  I stopped seeing her after that.

  It took fucking forever for my shift to start. I spent the rest of the morning trying to clean the apartment and finish a book I’d started weeks ago. Time dragged.

  Not being busy is bad for me, for my brain, for my thoughts. Makes it impossible to keep the memories at bay.

  ***

  Memories

  Killing my brain like cocaine

  Want to lay my body down

  In the way of a fast train

  Kissing him was kissing fate

  And help’s a bitch that comes too late

  Anna.

  “No one will believe you.”

  “Your momma loves me, girl. You sure she loves you?”

  “This is normal, Anna. It helps you be ready.”

  “Shut up and enjoy it.”

  “You know you want this. Don’t lie.”

  ***

  His voice followed me across the country. All the way from New Mexico. I wondered if my mom was looking for me.

  Or I wondered if he was right.

  She loved him and she was never going to believe me. And maybe I had wanted it. Maybe I should have just shut up and enjoyed it like he’d said. I’d taken the hits and the bruises, the feel of his hand clamped around my mouth so my mom wouldn’t hear us and wake up. He didn’t do that on the nights she took sleeping pills. Nothing woke her after two of those.

  No, I couldn’t have shut up and enjoyed it. I shouldn’t have had to endure it at all.

  Tears welled up in my eyes and my hand went to my stomach, over the flat expanse of skin that would soon change and show signs of the truth, and I gripped my shirt roughly. I let go almost immediately, knowing I’d wrinkle one of the only good tops
I had with me if I kept kneading the material.

  I’d managed to hide my plans all through senior year. They’d never even seen the acceptance letter or the scholarship notice from the North Carolina college. I’d made sure to get to the mailbox first every day, before he was sober enough to walk and while mom was still at work. And I purposefully left the few college rejections and the one other acceptance from the University of New Mexico for them to find and read. He taunted me with the rejections; they both seemed pleased that my only option was to stay in state. I used one of the computers at the library to pay for a post office box in Lexington too and change my mailing address with the university. I’d almost not thought about that, about them sending school notices back home after I’d left.

  I’d made plans to leave before, to disappear and never look back, but I’d always changed my mind. My mom needed me. She didn’t know what he really was, how evil he was. I needed to protect her.

  Stupid excuses to stay, especially when he treated her like a queen and me like the prostitute on the side of the road begging for scraps.

  I might have changed my mind about running away this time, too, if not for him deciding he didn’t want to use a condom, that we’d both like it better without one.

  But here I was, standing next to a bus stop in Lexington with everything that was mine and only mine in a ripped Army duffel bag that had once belonged to my real dad. None of this would be happening if he were alive, if he’d made it back from overseas. Everything would be okay. None of this would be happening…

  I traced my hand over my stomach. I was always touching it now, as if willing the truth to not be the truth.

  “Okay, orientation.” I looked down at my watch, and bit my lower lip—a habit I was trying to break, because it made me feel like a kid. I had about forty minutes to get my bearings and figure out where I was supposed to check in. Crossing the street, I paused on the sidewalk to take in the sight of an impressive building boasting what seemed like dozens of columns. The brick was bright and relatively new-looking against the white trimmings, and the grass surrounding the school buildings was emerald, literally emerald, green.

  “Not in Kansas anymore, little bean,” I whispered. Immediately, I felt ridiculous for talking to my stomach, to the fluttering heart inside of it that would, eventually, have ears and a nose, and a mouth. I both had and had not come to terms with the fact that I was growing another human being. I should hate the idea—that part of him had taken up residence in me, that I would never truly be rid of him and his affection. But this girl or boy inside of me had changed everything.

  It had finally given me a reason to get away from it all. A reason to not back out of a secret plan to run away.

  This baby, this life inside of me, was a salvation. And I prayed that I could always separate the goodness of it from the wrongness of it. The ‘how’ from the ‘result’. It wasn’t the baby’s fault. It wasn’t my fault.

  I’m not ready to be a mom. God, I’m not ready. How can I be a mom when my own mom couldn’t be one? I don’t even know how to love it. Him… her…

  There’s still time to get rid of it. I don’t have to do this.

  No. He’d taken my youth and ripped it to shreds. I wouldn’t do the same thing to this child.

  It was warm, so warm that I wanted to shrug out of the hoodie I was wearing and tie it around my waist. But the tank top underneath was full of holes and spattered with bleach stains. Not a great first impression. Whereas the hoodie, though also old, was clean and only a little faded from washing.

  Patting a quick nervous hand over my hair, smoothed back in a swinging blonde ponytail, I took a deep breath. I could do this.

  Straightening my shoulders and hefting the bag more snugly against me, I started walking again, towards the school and my future. It was still so early in the morning that birds were singing in the trees dotting the landscape.

  And everything was going to be okay.

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