by Flatman, NJ
“Gladly,” I announced, standing and grabbing my jacket from the back of the chair. “There’s nothing I’d like more.”
“I don’t know when you boys are going to learn,” my father muttered as we passed him on our way out.
“Good luck with that girlfriend dear,” she spat as Kevin and I walked out the door. “You’re going to need it once she realizes how worthless you are.”
With that she slammed the door behind us and we made our way to the car.
“Spence, I—”
“Don’t,” I snapped. “Don’t even talk to me.”
“I just thought— “
“Don’t fucking talk to me!” I snapped.
While the suburban home our parents lived in was really only about forty-five minutes outside of Chicago, with traffic it could sometimes take hours. The first thirty minutes of the ride we sat in utter and complete silence.
I felt bad. I knew that Kevin didn’t mean for things to go the way that they had. Hell, he was probably having his own issues. As he weaved in and out of traffic, scaring me with his driving, I closed my eyes and remembered a time years ago that I’d just as soon forget.
I had been playing quietly. I knew better than to make noise. Whenever our mother was locked in the bedroom all day we knew to be quiet. Bothering her would only make her angry and nobody wanted to see her angry.
I had some of my toy cars on the carpet in the hallway and was pretending to race them. Kevin, being the older brother, thought he was being funny when he kicked one of them. I was still young and didn’t think before I screamed at him.
That was when she appeared, slinging open the door to her bedroom and screaming. She wanted to know who had been yelling. I thought it was sad she couldn’t tell the difference in our voices. I remember watching her face, the way she twisted it until she looked like a monster.
I could hear her words. Demons. Devils. She wished she could be living the life she’d always wanted to live. She was stuck with us. Had always been stuck with us. Kevin looked terrified. Standing in the corner, frozen and unable to speak.
“I did,” I answered her, trying to make myself sound sturdy and strong. “I yelled. I’m sorry.”
Her gaze directed at me. Her words flung at me like weapons. Worthless. Piece of shit. Should have never been born. Her hand raising into the air. Then I heard Kevin speak up, suddenly finding his strength.
“You’re an evil fucking bitch!” I couldn’t believe my ears. Why would he have said something like that? We both knew what that would mean. “Go do what you do best and pass out.”
She stopped dead, turning to Kevin with a look I’d never seen before. Something that could have easily been put in a horror film. No cold blooded killer could have looked more terrifying.
I watched Kevin’s hands shake as he stood calm and waited. There’d never been a time I’d admired my brother more. He’d showed a courage that I didn’t think I would ever find. He’d stood up to the biggest monster I’d ever known.
She was walking towards him, screaming vile words as she moved. Soon she lifted her hand back and began to hit him. He wasn’t but about ten and she was beating him repeatedly.
I sat there, staring at my brother and listening to his sobs. One blow after the other. I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t stop her. I was afraid. I wanted to help him, but I was scared.
When I heard our father come in I thought everything would be okay. He’d stop her. He’d save Kevin. But he didn’t. He walked past the scene and went to his bedroom, where he stayed until she had given up and went back to bed. Only then did he return, standing over Kevin and looking down at him. That was when he said his infamous phrase. We’d never learn.
Two days later we were driven to aunt Dee’s and neither of us had been welcome at home again. Not until we were adults.
“What’re ya doin’?” Kevin asked as he watched me pull out my phone.
“Calling Avery,” I answered, my voice tight to hide the pain in my heart.
“Yea,” he nodded. “What time is she comin’ over tonight?”
“She’s not,” I answered.
“Oh,” He sat for a minute. “I was lookin’ forward to meetin’ her.”
“I know,” I put the phone to my ear and motioned for him to be quiet.
“Hey!” I could hear the smile in her voice and it killed me. “So you did remember tonight?”
I looked at Kevin, watching him shake and knowing he was headed home to the only comfort he had. Drugs. I thought for a moment about my parents and what we’d just been through. And I felt every part of me ache, knowing what I had to do.
It was for her own good. This wasn’t what she deserved. This wasn’t what she needed. This world would destroy her. I would destroy her. She would see the cold and dark side of me and it would kill her. And I loved her enough to never hurt her on purpose.
“Of course I did,” I said through a strained voice, knowing that I was about to say goodbye to the only thing that had ever mattered.
Chapter 11
“She checked out,” Colby shrugged as if what she’d just said was no big deal.
I hated the way she was so nonchalant about things. We’d just paid a damn fortune to fly halfway across the country. We’d barely made it without one of us killing the other. We only had one piece of information and that’d been where Avery was staying when Colby left and we’d just learned that she wasn’t there. It wasn’t a shrugging kind of moment. It was a big deal. A very big deal.
“So we came here for nothing?” I asked, throwing my hands up and beginning to pace. “Now what?”
“Just because she checked out doesn’t mean she left,” Colby tried to remind me. “This place was fucking expensive.”
Somehow that didn’t make me feel better. So she could still be in this town— a place hotter than I’d ever imagined— and we had no idea where. How the hell was that supposed to help?
“Well that’s better. She could still be here,” I was being sarcastic but the bitch didn’t get it.
“Yes!” her voice rose about three pitches. “She probably is.”
“Great,” there was no patience or niceness left in me. “If only we had any fucking idea where here she might be. Because as I look around,” my body turned and scanned the strip of hotels in front of us. “I see a damn lotta places she could be.”
“I doubt she’s at a hotel,” Colby offered, only making me feel worse. “She didn’t have a lot of money and she doesn’t have a credit card.”
“Oh that makes it better,” she was pushing all of the wrong buttons. “She could be here, but somewhere that she didn’t need money to be. Or homeless and sleeping on the street. Or in a hospital. Or hell, dead. That narrows it down tremendously. Thank you for the help Colby.”
“Did anyone ever tell you that you have a knack for being dramatic?”
“Thanks Kev,” I huffed.
“What?”
“My brother,” sometimes I forgot that no one really knew him. “He always says that.”
“Least there was a smart sibling,” she laughed and leaned against the rental car. “There’s an answer. And we will find it. I know her pretty damn well,” she looked at me. “And I guess you know some things too.”
“At least you acknowledge something positive about me,” it was obvious she was as upset as I was. There was no point in arguing. “So what do we do from here?”
“Got any of that money left?” she asked, her eyes raising and a smile playing at her mouth.
“Yes,” I was almost afraid to ask. “Why?”
“Well, we can’t live in a rental car while we look,” she rolled her eyes. “And I’m famished. Someone wouldn’t let me eat before we left.”
Leave it to Colby to finally arrive and be concerned with where we were staying and how soon she could eat. Always one to think about herself first. Damn.
“So now that we are here you want me to give up? Go grab a room and chill for the night?”
“No,” she snapped at me. “But why don’t we eat. Then we can eliminate the worst case scenarios.”
“Such as?”
“Call the hospitals and make sure she’s not there…things like that,” she opened the car door. “But we can’t do anything if we don’t stop, breathe and eat.”
“I’m not hungry,” I climbed in on the driver’s side and started the car.
“That makes one of us,” she answered. “There’s a cheap motel just up the road. I met someone that was staying there.”
“Wow. The great Colby Strickland is willing to stay in a cheap motel?”
“I didn’t assume we had a choice?” I turned back out onto the road that drove through the strip of motels. “Do we?” she asked, hopeful.
“No,” I answered, lying. I didn’t want to tell her. It was more fun to make her suffer.
“Then let’s go do cheap,” she replied, leaning back and closing her eyes. “But please Spencer, no McDonald’s.”
“Okay,” I smiled to myself knowing she couldn’t see. “Burger King it is.”
She hadn’t been kidding about the motel being cheap. It was only two stories tall and had less than 50 rooms altogether. I’d guess that what I paid for three days was less than what they’d paid for one at the resort we’d hoped to find Avery at.
As we walked into the room, decked out with shag carpet and drapes that looked fresh from the seventies, I felt a little bad that I was making Colby stay here when I had money. But since I wasn’t aware how long we’d be there looking for Avery or what might come up, I decided it best to be frugal, even if that meant a bathroom door that barely shut and did not even lock.
I watched as she turned her nose up and scrunched her face. It wasn’t the cute face that Avery made. It was condescending. Judgmental. She felt she was better than this. I felt I was better than to share a room with her. Shit happened.
“This is the worst place I’ve ever stayed,” she pointed out as she carried her bag into the dark and dusty room. “Avery owes me big time.”
“Maybe you owe her,” I reminded her, pointing out that she had failed her best friend. “Maybe we both do.”
Colby ignored me and sat on the edge of the bed, the look on her face showing that she didn’t exactly feel safe doing so. As I watched her I understood. In that moment I knew what it was about her that made me crazy. I knew why I got annoyed with her comments and mostly her attitude. She reminded me of someone.
My mother.
They both seemed to flutter around through life doing whatever they wanted and acting as though they were entitled just by birth to be hateful and mean. She turned her nose up at the same things my mother had. It made me wonder why, and if she’d ever get better, or if someday she’d have kids that hated her just as much as I hated my mother.
“So what do you want to eat?” I asked, hoping we could get that done and get started looking for Avery.
“I suppose fresh seafood is a no-go?” she asked.
I watched her eyes plead with me to give her something besides this crappy room. She was miserable, and she was with someone that made her more so, but she was here. It was probably the only selfless thing I’d ever seen her do. I supposed she deserved a little something for the effort.
“We could do that,” I caved. What the hell. Maybe making Colby happy for a minute would help me achieve my goal.
“Oh my God,” she exclaimed. “Really?” I saw the excitement and almost felt a soft spot for her. Almost.
“Yes,” I answered. “If we can make it reasonable.”
“I know the perfect place,” she jumped up, grabbed her purse and opened the door.
“Well by all means,” I followed her outside. “Let’s go right this minute.”
“My thoughts exactly,” she giggled.
We drove in silence to a seafood buffet she’d either heard about or tried before. While it wasn’t exactly what I’d considered reasonable, it wasn’t expensive considering the food available. Besides, I’d told her we could so I just went with it.
The place looked like one that would normally be busy. Probably very busy. Fortunately we seemed to hit them at just the right time to be almost the only people there. I was not in the mood for crowds, and didn’t want to end up angry at people I didn’t even know, so this was a good thing.
After our first trip to the buffet, Colby sat and mostly picked at her food, spinning it around on her plate.
“I didn’t pay this much money so you could stare at your meal,” she looked up when I spoke and ended the silence. “We could have done this at McDonald’s.”
“It’s my fault,” she mumbled, almost making it impossible to hear her. “I did this.”
“No,” I countered, knowing how she felt in that moment. “We both did.”
“I was so angry,” she started talking, refusing to look at me. “You had her. Completely. I had lost my best friend.” I watched her twirl the shrimp she’d gotten. “She was happy with you. I didn’t have that. With anyone. She was the only person that never left. Then she did. She left me. No matter what she said, she always chose you.”
I wanted to console her, but I thought she probably needed to say it all. I knew that there were times I wanted to say what was on my mind. Besides, we weren’t close like that. And she was right. It was partly her fault.
“She kept forgetting what we’d planned. Canceling. It seemed like all that mattered was you.” She took a sip of her drink to wash down the food she wasn’t eating. “Even my birthday…”
“She didn’t mean to do that,” I interjected. “It was my fault.”
“I know. But she thought you walked on water. You were perfect. She thought I was just jealous,” she finally looked at me. “I wasn’t. I was hurt.”
“I know,” that much was evident. It didn’t excuse her being a bitch, but I knew what it was.
I had to admit I’d thought the same thing. That Colby was jealous. It wasn’t the right word. It was envy. She wanted something she didn’t have. It was hard to tell exactly what that was— Avery’s attention, the attention Avery got from me— I didn’t know. But I knew that she wasn’t jealous. She was hurt. She was lonely. She was sad.
“When you left,” she looked back down as if she were ashamed of her words. “I was happy. She was broken and I was happy.”
What was I supposed to say? She was happy because she was vindictive. Because being happy for someone else’s pain was easier than creating her own happiness.
“I forced her to come here,” she kept talking. “Then I made fun of her for not wanting to be here. I made her do what I wanted.”
“We all make mistakes Colby,” I tried to add something sympathetic, but it was void of any real emotion. It was empty.
“It wasn’t a mistake,” she snapped. “I wanted her to forget you and I was forcing her to pretend she had. I thought she was just being childish. I hated it. Her crying. Her oh I’m so fucking sad. My God,” her face became angry. “She’d been through it so many times. How could she be surprised?”
Those words made me flinch. I felt anger when she spat them out, but I held it inside. I let her vent. I let her have her say.
“She was crying,” she didn’t seem to notice. “She’d been sleeping. She woke up crying. Screaming. I was mad. Even on our trip she was thinking about you. Only you. Always you.”
“She loves me,” it was all I could muster, still hoping that it was true.
“Right,” she rolled her eyes. “So I told her she had to tell me if she’d leave with you if you came to get her. I made her choose.”
“And she chose me,” the words were a relief, but I spoke them quietly. They were also a surprise.
“Yes,” she nodded. “And she left the room and I was gone before she came back.”
“You were hurt,” I offered, still thrilled that Avery had chosen me.
“I was mad. I wanted to hurt her. I wanted her to feel as alone as I did.”
“It ha
ppens Colby,” I wasn’t doing good at reassuring her. Mainly because I didn’t mean what I was saying. She was wrong.
“And now we don’t know if she’s okay,” she was winding down. “If she’s not, it’s my fault.”
“Our fault,” I corrected. “We both did it.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” she made a feeble attempt at laughing. “You left her at home. I left her across the country.”
“But we both left her,” it was the point we needed to face. “We both abandoned her when she thought we loved her.”