by Brandi Aga
Leylah: Weird things keep happening and it’s getting old.
Me: Weird how?
Leylah: Flat tires, broken windows, cat’s missing.
What the fuck? I abandon texts and hit the dial button on her contact.
“Hey.”
“What do you mean flat tires and broken windows?”
“And my cat is missing.”
“Why isn’t Ryan doing anything about it?”
She scoffs, “What do you think he’s doing? There is nothing to do. We installed an alarm and called the cops when it happened, but nothing ever came of either incident.”
“You got a gun?”
“Yes, why?”
“Just making sure. I like knowing my daughter is protected in her own home.”
“I was only asking to see if this shit was you, I don’t need a safety lesson.”
“It’s pretty low you think I’d do that, but nope, you’re all clear, it’s not me. Anything else?” Just when I think things might be looking up with her attitude toward me, she comes at me with something like this. We’ve all established I’ve been a shitty human being, but I’d never do anything to physically harm them. The fact that she thinks otherwise is insulting.
Leylah sighs in defeat and I don’t care. I don’t feel bad about the way she makes me react. “I’m sorry. I’m just exhausted and need a good night’s sleep.”
“Hey, can I ask you an odd question since we’re already talking?”
“Okay…”
I scratch my neck, unsure of how to ask it without sounding so shady. I decide there is no good way to sugarcoat it without coming outright and blabbing about the whole thing, so I just do it. “Did Blaze ever give you what I left for you and Maddilyn?”
“No? What do you mean?” I already knew the answer, I just needed to hear it straight from the source.
“Don’t worry about it. I just needed to clarify some things.”
“Are you going to do something stupid again?”
“Gotta give me a little credit, yeah? Tell Mad I love her.” She’s quiet for too long. I pull the phone away from my ear to see if I lost her call, but she’s still there. “Leylah.”
“I’ll tell her. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Be safe.” The call ends from her end before she has a chance to hear me. Well, if I thought things couldn’t be any more weird, I was wrong.
“You want me to help you out?” Veronica’s sitting against her headboard with her hand shoved down the front of her underwear. She says nothing but doesn’t have to.
She crawls to the end of the bed and I meet her there to lift her up against me. She rubs herself against my jeans, searching for friction to ease her arousal.
I replace my hand where hers was a minute ago, and her head falls back at my touch. Every time we’re together she lets loose a little more. I’m slowly peeling back her layers one at a time and I don’t hate it. We seem to skirt around all our issues and end up fucking every time, but whatever floats her boat.
Everyone is too quick to put a label on everything. Everything always has to be something. We don’t work that way. We just are what we are. Two people brought together by an unusual second chance and all the chaos that goes along with that.
We’re just adults that have unexplainable feelings that like to touch each other more than most friends probably do. And the sex is rad, so why would I complain?
“God, you feel so good.”
“Yeah? How ‘bout now?”
She gasps as I add a finger to her ass and assault her clit with my thumb. I don’t get a warning other than her muscles tense up around my fingers and her body shakes in my arms.
She leans forward on me once she’s finished until she catches her breath. Her sweaty skin glows in her post-orgasmic state.
“What about you?”
“Nah, I’m good.” I kiss the top of her head as she climbs down my frame on shaky legs. “I can’t stay.”
She cringes at her wetness left behind on my t-shirt.
I laugh. “I’ll have you with me for the rest of the night, I guess.”
“That’s kind of nice, in a really disgusting way. But still, coming from you, nice.”
“You’re welcome. Come lock the door behind me.” She grabs a towel off the floor and wraps it around her to see me out. She doesn’t ask me where I’m going and why I can’t stay, though I can see the want to all over her face. “You headed to bed?”
“Yeah. I work early.”
I nod and kiss her on the lips one last time. “I’ll call you.”
She stands there in her towel and watches me leave. I don’t even bother changing my t-shirt.
I told Leylah I’d fly in to pick up Maddilyn this time. I’ve got some business to take care of while I’m here so I might as well kill two birds with one stone.
I stop by their apartment before I head over to her house. I don’t need her with me to deal with this bullshit.
B’s bike isn’t here and that’s just my luck. I knock on their door and give it a shot anyway. “Erin! It’s me. Open the door.”
She opens the door but leaves the chain on it and doesn’t look too surprised to see me standing here. She looks tired. Nothing like the Erin I’ve known. “He’s not here.” She starts to close the door in my face but I’m stronger than her by a hell of a lot and just my hand against it holds it open long enough for me to talk.
“He say when he’ll be back?”
“No. He left two days ago. I haven’t even gotten a text from him.”
“You sure he isn’t home?”
“I’m sure. I’m not an idiot.”
“Okay, okay. Just let him know I stopped by?”
“Okay.”
“Thanks.”
The door closes and that’s the end of the conversation.
I go to leave and just as soon as I do, Blaze’s bike pulls up in the parking lot. He doesn’t recognize me in this rental. I know he doesn’t know I’m here or he probably would have kept on driving.
I hop out of the truck to cut him off before he has a chance to hide from me. “Where you been, man? Everybody’s been looking for you.”
“Everybody?” He claps me on the back in a bro hug that doesn’t feel genuine. He’s just going through the motions.
“You look like hell.”
“Yeah,” he sniffs, “I know.”
“What are you doing, B? You can’t live like this.”
“That’s rich, coming from you.”
“I’m not the one coked out of my Goddamned mind for days on end. You’ve been acting crazy. Crazier than normal which is saying something.”
He tsks me and doesn’t want to hear it. They never do, trust me I know an addict when I see one. I step to the side just as he does so he can’t run from me. “What’d you do with it all, B?”
“I swear I had every intention of doing what you asked. But one thing after another just kept falling in my lap and I met Erin and once I moved here, I fucked everything up.”
“Where is it?”
“I can get it back for you. I promise. I just need some time.”
I shake my head and go to leave before I kill him where he stands.
“Have I ever done you wrong, before now?”
“I don’t know, have you?”
“I haven’t. I fucked up. I told her where you were, but I kept the money. She was already fucking with him again and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t give her what was meant to be yours.”
“That wasn’t for you to decide.”
I’m too pissed off to drive over to Leylah’s right now. I need some time to cool off before I go over there. I don’t think I should leave town yet, not with things like this. He needs help and I know Erin’s not going to be able to get it for him.
I’m at a war with my mind over this. I can tell myself he’s not my problem till I’m blue in the face, but it still doesn’t change the fact of who he is to me. How much he means to me. And damnit if I don’t sound like a pussy, bu
t it’s true. You don’t run out on your family when they need you the most. And he is very much that, family.
Me: I’m gonna pick Maddilyn up in the morning, something came up.
Leylah: Oh. Okay. Is everything okay?
Me: It will be. Changed my flight out. Hitting up a hotel so she can just stay with you for an extra night. Cool?
Leylah: Cool.
Once I finish with her, I call Veronica.
“What’s up?”
“I’m still working.”
I glance over at the clock and it’s 9:58 here.
“Shit, sorry. I forgot about the time difference.”
“It’s fine. I’m probably about to shut down for the day anyway. I’m overly tired already and I’ve got a client court hearing bright and early in the morning. Tell me what you’re wearing.”
She makes me smile. She’d give me shit if I asked her that. “I’m not so sure how I feel about these roles being reversed as you say.”
“They’re not reversed anymore. They’re…even.”
“Even. I like that.”
“Are you on your way back?”
“No. I missed my flight.” I cringe when the lie escapes me so easily, but it doesn’t matter the technicalities. It won’t do anything but make her worry and get me lectured. I’m leaving in the morning, that’s all she needs to know.
“Alright, well I’m about to finish up here. Call me when you’re situated tomorrow?”
“Sounds good.”
I can’t bring myself to say the L word. Not again. I don’t know if I ever will. This girl brings me close to it, though, and that’s good enough for me. I just hope it’s enough for her, too.
A loud bang from somewhere at the front of the house wakes me with a start. I lay here another second, listening for the sound again. Maybe it was just in my dreams.
Please, not again. It’s been a hot minute since anything out of the ordinary has happened and my paranoia was just starting to dissipate. I glance over at the clock and it reads 3:48 A.M. Great, I have to be up for work in two hours tops. Now that I’m awake I might as well go pee. I’ll never be able to go back to sleep if I don’t.
I’m mid-pee when that same bang I thought I heard happens again and Maddy immediately starts crying. “Ryan!” I yell out into the bedroom hoping that he hears me. He’s a heavy sleeper and can sleep through anything. Luckily, he does. He must have heard it, too.
“Leylah, where are you?”
“Here,” I call out into the darkness while I tie my robe around me and run out into the hall after him. I didn’t even finish peeing when I heard her cry out. I make it to her room first, while he went the other way to find out what we heard. I don’t know what I’m expecting. Broken windows again, everything thrown about, or the Boogeyman himself, maybe. My imagination is running wild, but I don’t expect to see nothing. She’s still in her crib and everything is where it’s supposed to be.
I pick her up and she instinctively wraps her legs around me and sits her butt on my belly. “It’s okay,” I coax her to stop crying.
Ryan flips the lights on in the hall and living room. I walk out to meet him. “Nothing?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t see anything. Alarms are good.” He types the passcode into the panel by the door and checks the video and that’s when we see it. Blaze walks up to the door and taps it once with the end of a bat.
“Not this shit again.” Ryan flips the locks to open the door.
“Ryan, wait.” He looks over his shoulder at me and Maddy standing in the foyer behind him.
“Go to the bedroom. Lock the door. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“What? No. Don’t open it, he’ll go away.”
“Leylah, I’m tired of running. The threats. He’s not going away.” Our eyes silently dance, an unspoken conversation running strong between us. It’s my fault. I caused this. His admission confirms my fears. I wasn’t going crazy. He was putting us through this all along.
I look to the panel once more and there he stands, like a statue in a hoodie and jeans. He looks normal except for the fact that he’s holding a baseball bat to our door in the middle of the night.
“I’m not going in there without you. Please.”
He sighs and disarms the alarm, flipping the last lock keeping him outside.
“What’s going on?” Ryan asks Blaze and I can’t hear what he says in response. I’m standing just far enough out of earshot and Ryan is blocking my view. Ryan opens the door and steps to the side so Blaze can come inside.
Blaze looks to me but doesn’t say anything. His eyes are an empty void, his clothes wet with sweat. I squeeze Maddy a little bit tighter to my chest. I look to Ryan again for some guidance on what to do but he’s as dumbfounded as I am.
I clear my throat and search for the right words. “Blaze.” He stops pacing and stands in between the couches in the middle of the living room. He still doesn’t say anything but looks to me as if daring me to continue. To say the wrong thing. I’ve got his full attention, don’t blow it. “What’s wrong? Is Erin okay?”
“None of this was supposed to work out like this. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, you know?”
Okay. Something is clearly off. Beyond off. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out here. I realize what we’re dealing with is that of a sick person. I see this all the time. It’s extremely different, though, when they’re on this side of it, in the middle of your home with your husband and baby girl. Not strapped to a bed or an orderly nearby to help hold them down while I administer a sedative in their IV. This is much, much different.
His body language is defensive and erratic. I turn my nurse mode on and talk to him like I would any other patient. “Well, let’s talk about it then, okay? Tell me what’s bothering you. I’ll just listen.” I softly bounce Maddy back and forth on the balls of my feet to keep her quiet. I can’t tell if she went back to sleep or not without making it obvious and I don’t want to call any extra attention to her. Not with him here watching me so closely.
My phone is lit up on the counter, a phone call coming through. I had set it there when we walked in here before Ryan opened the door. I hope it’s the alarm company like last time. I take one step at a time as Blaze talks. Slowly. So painfully slow that time stands still. I feel like he can feel every move I make. Every breath I take.
“He’s always fucking me over. Always ruining everything for me. Just taking, taking, taking.”
“Who?” Ryan barks out. I cringe at his tone, because it’s nothing near the gentle voice I’ve been trained to use. The compassion I’ve learned you have to give while treating even the worst of people. But he doesn’t see what I see. A broken, hurt, lost person in pain. That’s what I see.
Blaze lets out an unamused laugh. “Who? That’s funny. Who?” He looks around the room as if we’re complete morons and should know exactly who he’s talking about. I do. I don’t know if Ryan’s caught on but I’m well aware.
“The asshole that demands me to do his dirty work for him. Has all his life. And what did I do? I did it. Because he’s my fucking brother. But I can only take so much. The motherfucker that took your wife. The motherfucker that got my sister killed. He hands me all this money and says do this, do that. I tried. I really did. But I just can’t do it anymore.”
He walks over to the barstool closest to me and Maddy. I would have made it to my phone had he not walked over here. I pray that it doesn’t light up again or else he will see it too.
“B…”
I gasp at the sound of his voice behind me. Ryan is standing in the doorway just behind a sad looking Roman. I guess he let him in during Blaze’s outpouring cry for help. His eyes jerk over to where all of ours are and he’s quickly on his feet again.
He shakes his head over and over. “No, no, no. You’re not going to come in here and do this and be the hero all over again.”
“What are you talking about, man? I just want to help you.”
&nbs
p; Upon further inspection, I realize his hands are shaky, his skin is see-through, his eyes bloodshot. He’s on drugs of some sort. Most likely coming down off something. Hence the freak out. It’s all starting to become clearer. But I still don’t see why he came here.
“You have any medicine here?”
“What? No. What kind of medicine?”
“Come here,” he growls to me and waves his hand for me to stand before him.
“Can I just put her down first?”
“No.” The rims of his eyes are almost purple. Spittle flies from his mouth as he seethes in anger.
“B, don’t do this,” Roman intervenes and I just want to run away. I would if I was sure I could make it without him catching me. I should have gone to our bedroom when Ryan told me to. One day I will learn to listen to him. But today is obviously not that day.
Blaze pulls a small pistol out of the back of his waistband. He waves it around carelessly and it scares the shit out of me. Not the fact that he has a gun, but the fact that he has one in his condition. I think he’s going to point it at me or Roman for telling him to stop but much to my surprise, he points it at Ryan.
“Isn’t this what you wanted, brother?” He taunts Roman, spitting the word brother as if he means nothing to him. The words seething from his mouth like a rabid wolf. My heart drops. I look to Roman with my jaw on the floor.
“Leylah. It’s not what you think.”
Now I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place, who to believe and who to trust? Obviously not Blaze, the lunatic threatening to shoot my husband, but what he said can’t go ignored.
“Shut up.” Blaze pulls the hammer on the gun and just when I think he’s going to use it, Roman manages to get a grip on Blaze’s hand at the last second before it fires and aims it down, away from the rest of us. His force of fighting Roman off causes him to pull the trigger on himself, shooting him somewhere in his midsection. It all happens in the blink of an eye and I can’t tell which way is up and which way is down.
As soon as the gun goes off, Roman steps back, eyes wide in regret. “I didn’t…He pulled the trigger.” Blaze turns around and puts his back to the side of the island. He slinks down it slowly, his butt hitting the hardwood floor with a thud. Blood seeps out of his shirt and onto his hands.