by Vivian Wood
“What … what do I do?”
“Now? Not a goddamned thing. Don’t talk to him, and sure as hell don’t go see him. You understand me?” Don’t see him?
Sean considered admitting that he’d just come from the hospital, but thought better of it. “Yeah, okay,” he agreed.
“Good. Lay low. The police … shit, the goddamned police might show up. I don’t know, that prick of a D.A. probably has some things in motion that he’s keeping on the down low. If the police do show up, be polite but don’t talk. You got me? Say, ‘I mean you no disrespect, Officer, but I want my attorney.’ Just say that over and over. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” Sean said. “What are, I mean what do you think the odds are of the police coming here?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“Right.”
When Bill hung up, Sean stood up and paced from one end of his tiny apartment to the other. He couldn’t drag Harper into this, especially not after last night. “Hey, JK, you there?” He stared at the screen, willed Joon-Ki to reply, but nothing.
“Fuck,” he said and switched off his phone.
He couldn’t be tempted to text or call Harper. The last thing he wanted was to dump his shitty life in her lap.
The apartment shrunk before his eyes. Was it always this goddamned small? The murals and stacks of books made it cramped.
Unable to sit still, he grabbed his wallet and headed downstairs. The usual scent of baking dough made him feel sick. Bile gathered at the back of his mouth.
Sean ran across the street so he wouldn’t have to walk directly in front of the shop. Just one block. The liquor store was just one block away. He’d passed it thousands of times, but hadn’t been tempted in weeks. Not since Harper.
Once, he’d even walked inside. “Can I help you?” asked the short Indian man with the thick accent.
“Nah. I’m good.” He’d been so proud of himself that day. The ability to walk in, see those glistening bottles like gems, then walk right out? He’d told Joon-Ki, and they’d toasted with Americanos instead of house black.
The bells tinkled, announced his arrival. “Can I help you?” It was the same, squat Indian man, though he’d grown an impressive moustache.
“Fifth of Jack,” he said and pulled out a fifty.
The clerk rang it up and slid the amber liquid in the familiar square bottle into a slender paper bag.
“Keep the change,” he said.
“But, sir, it’s almost twenty dollars—”
“I said keep it,” he called over his shoulder. He couldn’t wait even another second. Getting change would just take up more time.
The lid was off before he was out the door.
“No open bottle—” the clerk called after him, but Sean was already in the bright California sunshine.
By the time he reached his apartment, nearly a quarter of the whiskey was gone.
“If it’s all gonna end, I might as well be drunk,” he said to the empty apartment.
Nostalgia washed over him, and a desire for ritual. Already numbed, he laughed at the idea of what a lightweight he was now. There was a time, not that long ago, that he could drink a fifth in one night and not be blacked out.
Sean pulled out his favorite shot glass, the lone remnant from the lost days that he couldn’t give up. “Cheers,” he said as he took a shot. The feral burn down his throat was sheer comfort.
He poured another and delighted in the fire at the back of his mouth.
Fuck it all. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that Connor believed in him. That he’d actually asked Harper to be with him. It was all over now.
“Shit,” he slurred as he watched his next shot spill over the edge.
Whatever life he’d started to build for himself, all the good stuff that had come his way, it was cut short. All because of that fucker Ashton, he thought. Still, there was another voice buried in his head. Because of what you did to Ashton.
“I wasn’t even the one driving,” he said aloud. It doesn’t matter. Harper will never want you now. Who would want a drunk?
He slammed the shot glass back down, but it continued to bang. It echoed through the apartment.
“Sean Cavanaugh? L.A.P.D.” The voice boomed into his brain. Slowly, he realized the pounds came from the door. “Open up.”
“Shit,” he said. He stumbled as he got to his feet. Anything to make that pounding stop.
He struggled with the handle, but got it open. Two huge cops stood before him, their chests like barrels.
“Sean Cavanaugh?” the cop asked. His black eyes glanced into the apartment.
“Yeah? You have a warrant?” Sean asked.
“Do I need one?”
“If you wanna come in,” he said.
“I don’t want to come in. We’re here to ask you about—”
“Yeah, yeah, I fucking know what you want to ask me about.”
“Mr. Cavanaugh, we have some questions regarding—”
What was it Bill had told him to say? He couldn’t remember. “I’m not talking to some fucking pigs,” he said.
“Mr. Cavanaugh, if you don’t watch your language, we’ll have to—”
It was like he’d elevated out of his body and watched the scene unfold below. Somebody else directed his body. Sean swung at the cop. His fast landed squarely on a hard, square jaw.
31
Harper
She watched the minutes tick by on her laptop. Netflix did little to keep her distracted, but she didn’t want to come off as totally crazy.
Did he work today? She couldn’t remember. If he was at work, it might be hours before he checked in with her. If he does at all. You acted like a fucking lunatic.
The brochures were like little beacons propped up on the vanity table. She’d come up with a rule for the day. Every time the words, “Are you still watching?” popped up on the screen, she would research one of the facilities.
In-patient was goddamned expensive. Harper depended on the expensive health insurance she had to buy herself, and she had no clue how much it covered eating disorder facilities.
Wait until noon. Just wait until noon, then you can call him.
It was ten o’clock when she couldn’t take it anymore. She grabbed her phone, the battery already half-dead from the constant checking. Just in case he’d texted and she hadn’t noticed.
Her heart pounded against her ribs as the clicked his name. It went directly to voicemail. “Shit,” she said. If his phone was dead, he obviously couldn’t call or text her. What if something’s wrong?
Suddenly, she knew. Something was wrong. She’d known it all morning and had stupidly decided to look for distractions instead of facing it.
Harper pulled on a loose tee-shirt and jeans from the hamper. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, her hair wild. There’s no time for this, she thought. As much as she wanted to primp and get pretty for him, there wasn’t time.
The collar. She could do the collar. Maybe it would make a difference, maybe it wouldn’t, but it was the only offering she had. Harper pulled her hair into a messy top knot and clicked the collar into place. The delicate clasps held tight against her skin.
Harper shoved her feet into the beat-up Converse and ran down the hallway.
“Harper! You see what I left you?” Helena called from the kitchen. “I don’t mean to pry, I just—”
“It’s okay,” Harper said as she sailed by the doorway. “Thanks! I just—I have to go.”
Her little car struggled to sputter to life. The gas. Fuck. The nearest gas station was just three blocks away. “Please start,” she said. “Please start.” Finally, it choked to life, though it immediately started to ding and cry for gas.
Of course there was a line. Harper pulled up, impatient behind the Prius, and put the car in neutral. The heat was already intense, but she couldn’t risk burning gas with air conditioning. Instead, she rolled down the windows and turned off the radio.
When it was fi
nally her turn, she tore out of the car and jammed the spigot into the gas tank. “Hurry, hurry,” she repeated to herself.
“Hey! Nice tits,” a man called. She didn’t even have to turn around to know it was directed at her. “Hey, come here, I wanna whisper something to you.”
A rage burned inside her. Normally, she didn’t mind. Men’s attention had been her validation for years. It was what she banked on. But suddenly, in Sean’s collar, it felt like an trespass. How dare this fucking loser decide if I’m fuckable or not?
“Why you so mad, huh?” he called again.
She looked at the numbers as they flew skyward on the gas pump. Another day, before Sean, she would have offered the man a smile. A silent thank you for his appreciation. Now, she had two choices. Either ignore him or fly at him with all the anger she carried. And she didn’t have the time to risk an altercation like that.
Instead, she held her head high and ignored his cat calls while she fired up the little sedan.
The drive to his place was relatively short, but packed with notorious L.A. traffic. Even the back roads had lines that snaked down the block. Pedestrians seemed to move extra slow, full of their power to bring giant steel machines to a half. Harper gripped the wheel until her hands ached. She turned on the radio but switched it off immediately. Now was not the time to let Rihanna’s sultry repetition of “S&M” pound through the speakers.
“Come on,” she said under her breath. She prayed for the light to stay green long enough for her to pass. “Please,” she begged.
Construction work slowed her to a halt, and she wanted to scream. Who the hell does construction work on a workday at eleven in the morning? She wanted to flip the woman flagger off when she was finally waved past. Whatever was wrong, whatever happened to Sean, it was this woman’s fault now. Like fixing one of the city’s dozens of pot holes was more important than getting to him.
She took a deep breath, and the swell of her throat made the collar tighten. Calm. It was like Sean was suddenly beside her. A blanket of calmness, of dark peace settled over her. It’ll be okay.
As she pulled up to Sean’s apartment, her eyes immediately went to the police cruiser parked outside. It seemed innocent enough. There were no light flashing. The cop could easily be at the pizzeria, but she knew where they were.
Harper flew into his building and cursed the yellow tape that criss-crossed over the elevator doors. “Out of service.”
“Sean?” she called as she started up the staircase.
She moved with a speed and agility she didn’t know she had. “Watch where the fuck you’re going,” a goth girl with a face full of piercings snapped at her. They nearly fell into each other.
“Fuck you,” Harper said under her breath.
When she reached Sean’s floor, she barreled through the stairway door and came to a halt. At the end of the hallway, his door was open. An enormous black cop was bent over Sean, who’s face was pressed into the floor. Another cop, slightly smaller but still huge, spoke into the black box strapped to his shoulder.
Sean growled at the cop on top of him, though she couldn’t make out the words.
“Sean!” she yelled as she raced towards him. Her voice made him still for a moment, and he forced his neck up to see her.
“You know this man?” the black cop asked.
“Yes, he’s … he’s my boyfriend.”
“He always like this when he drinks?”
“Drinks?” she asked, confused. She caught sight of the half-empty bottle of Jack on the table. “Oh, God.”
“Harper, Harper, I’m sorry,” Sean blubbered into the floor.
“Shut up!” the white cop barked. “For your own good.”
“It’s okay!” she said. “Just … stop fighting. Just let them do … whatever it’s … why are you here?” she asked the cops.
“We’ll ask the questions,” the white cop said.
Sean had gone limp, and the black cop tightened the cuffs. “Sorry, you’re not family, we can’t tell you anything.”
The black cop pulled Sean to his feel like he weighed nothing.
“I’m sorry,” Sean repeated. His lip was busted and cracked with blood. She couldn’t tell if it was from the scuffle with the cops or something else. “I love you.”
“I … I love you, too,” she said. “What are you doing? You don’t drink. Why are you—”
“We gotta go, ma’am. We’re taking him in.” The black cop sounded apologetic.
“Take him in? Where? What’s he arrested for?” She wanted to put her hand on the cop’s arm, to stop him from taking Sean away.
“Assaulting an officer,” the white cop answered.
“What? No, he wouldn’t—”
“I suggest you stay quiet, ma’am. Unless you want to get dragged into this, too.”
“Harper, I’m sorry,” Sean said. “I didn’t mean to …”
“I know! I know, it’s okay,” she said. That’s all she could get out. It’s okay. It’s far from okay.
“Not okay,” Sean said. He tried to shake his head, but the cop held him tighter. “It’s better this way, anyway.”
“Better this way? What do you mean?”
“I woulda just screwed it all up anyway …”
“Wait! Why are you guys even here in the first place? Why—”
“No more questions,” the white cops said. “Let’s go.”
“You can’t just take him! Did he hit you? Why are you even here?”
“Ma’am, if you don’t calm down it’s going to be bad news for both you and your boyfriend here,” the white cop said. “We got this. C’mon.”
“Wait, wait, wait. At least tell me where you’re going. Taking him in where?”
“The seven-five,” the black cop said. “Call in, that’s all we can tell you.”
Harper felt tears start to sting her eyes. As the cops hauled him down the hallway, he looked smaller than ever before. This can’t be happening.
She followed them outside, standing in the doorway as they put Sean in the car. Tears slipped down her cheeks, unchecked. She slumped into the doorway and stared until they drove off, vanishing into the distance.
Dazed, Harper turned around and walked back into the apartment. The place that had given her so much pain—then so much joy—but now it looked like nothing. The smell of whiskey filled the air and an empty shot glass was abandoned on the table.
She sat down on the couch and put her head in her hands. There were a thousand questions in her mind, but one rang louder than the rest.
What the hell am I supposed to do without him?
Obsession
1
Sean
Sean shifted on the hard metal bench. He rested his head in his hands and ignored the pinch that still lingered from the handcuffs. With a sigh, he raised his head and tugged at the uncomfortable tie that felt more like a noose.
Wearing a suit in a jail cell seemed like a joke. He’d never wondered how the inmates featured on television switched from street clothes to ill-fitting suits, but now he knew. Lawyers. They could make anything happen.
He’d been blackout drunk during the entire thing. Well, mostly. He remembered little glimpses of the arrest, sparks of light and recognition. But he couldn’t trust himself or his head. How much of it had really happened?
The reports his lawyer had gone over with him hadn’t mentioned her, but he knew she’d been there. Harper had appeared like a saving grace, but it had been too late. That had been two weeks ago, and the scent of shame still clung to him tightly.
He remembered being drunk, or getting there at least. It had been all shiny, fuzzy and warm, a safe cocoon that had felt like home. He vaguely remembered the police showing up, but not the finer details. Sean knew he should have felt some kind of fear when they’d appeared, but the whiskey had numbed it all.
It hadn’t been until Harper showed up, that look of horror on her face, that he’d started to come out of the stupor. It had shot him clean th
rough, straight to his heart. He’d tried to force out the right words, to apologize, but he couldn’t be sure he’d managed to say anything at all. And what does she think of you now?
Two weeks. It had been two weeks, and every waking minute since then all he could think about was how sorry he was. When Connor showed up, it had been all business. Sean sure as hell didn’t want to bring her up, and when Connor lightly broached the subject, Sean shut down. It was obvious Connor didn’t want to be there, was embarrassed of his mess of a family and was simply going through the motions. And who could blame him? Their family was wholly fucked up. If one of them were to get out, of course it would be Connor.
He stood up when he heard the boots of the correction officer down the short hall. Even though the suit was his, it felt wrong. It had been expertly tailored, but something had happened in the past fortnight that made Sean feel like his body wasn’t his. He felt like a phony.
“Cavanaugh, you’re up,” the officer said gruffly. Every time the bars of the cell opened with a loud groan, it sounded like a macabre announcement to the world.
His lawyer waited just outside the steel doors. She was one of the best in Los Angeles, but even though she was being paid a princely sum she always shifted restlessly like she was doing Sean a favor. Her name was something exotic, stuffed with sounds that were foreign in Sean’s mouth. He thought of her as T, T for tidy in her little black suit, and just didn’t call her by name aloud.
“Mr. Cavanaugh,” she said stiffly, “this way.” As they walked toward her car, another compact little machine just like her, she rehashed the charges. “ … assaulting an officer and being under the influence …”
Well, he knew that was right. He had punched that cop, but it had been right after Ashton had tried to blame him for the drugs. What the hell had they expected him to do?
“ … and the original crime of being under the influence, and possession with intent to distribute …”