by Anna Brooks
Erik’s body is torn from me, and I’m struck with a chill from the mood in the air. Smith blocks my view, but his arm swings and the sound of skin hitting skin makes me cringe.
He turns and frantically searches my face. “Mellie, look at me, baby.”
“I’m fine. It’s fine.”
“I can’t believe you think I’d do that,” Erik says, as he wipes some blood from his lip.
“Get gone, Erik.”
“Smith,” I plead. He did nothing wrong. I was giving him a hug. He’s lonely and so unbelievably upset; he was just looking for some comfort. I’ve never seen someone so messed up.
“Out,” Smith screams, right before he physically turns and throws Erik out of the living room. “I fucking trusted you!”
Erik just holds his hands up and shakes his head. “Yeah, I see that.”
“Smith,” I whisper, through the tears clogging my throat. I want to tell him, but I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do. I don’t know what the hell to do right now. It’s not my place, and Erik isn’t saying anything, obviously upset by the fact that his best friend thinks he was doing something inappropriate to me.
“Fucking drunk piece of shit.” He follows Erik, grabs him by the shirt, and shoves him against the wall.
“Smith, stop.”
“Get the fuck out of my house and never come back. You hear me?” He releases him, and Erik looks at me. “Don’t look at her.” In a move I didn’t see coming, Smith pushes Erik so hard he falls on the floor. “Get out!” Smith screams.
“Smith, maybe—”
“No, Mellie. Nobody touches you. Ever. Not even him.” He shakes his head and points at Erik. “I never want to see your pathetic ass again.”
Erik’s head stays down the whole time he stands up. I can’t keep my mouth shut anymore. This whole situation is just not okay. I appreciate Smith sticking up for me, and I love knowing he cares about me so much that he jumps to my defense without a second thought, but he needs to know the truth.
“Your sister was pregnant.” I blurt it out, and they both whip their heads at me.
“What did you just say?” Smith asks with an eerily calm tone.
“Erik told me, Smith. About your family. God, I’m so sorry. I wish it would have come from you.” I swallow through the lump in my throat, not sure if I just added another log to the fire or finally doused it with some water. “Your sister. She was pregnant with Erik’s baby.”
Chapter 18
Smith
I’ve seen a lot of movies where everyone is so damn surprised when they reach the plot twist. And I’m always amazed at how stupid they are because it was so obvious. From miles away, you could tell what would happen.
This. Them. I never saw it. Didn’t even think it was an option. Maybe I was too consumed with my own grief to notice. Maybe he was just that good at hiding it. Either way, my heart stops beating momentarily, and my legs feel like they’re about to collapse on me. “What?”
After running an angry hand through his hair, Erik stutters before he actually speaks. “I-I was too scared to tell you, man. I knew you wouldn’t get it, wouldn’t understand what we had going. She wanted to tell everyone and I wasn’t ready to. We... we fought that night.” He clenches his eyes closed. “She left my goddamned bed to go die in hers.”
“Shut up!” I scream. “Shut up!”
“It’s the truth!” He yells even louder than I am.
“You’re lying. She would have told me. I would have known. I would have known if my best friend was fucking my sister.”
“It was more than that.”
“Shut the fuck up!”
Apparently accepting defeat, Erik apologizes again. “I’m sorry. Both of you.” His footsteps fade as he gets closer to the door and farther away from me. I should let him go and forget he was ever a part of my life. But fuck me... he’s my best friend, and he was with my sister. She was pregnant. They lied to me.
“Did you love her?”
He stops walking away but doesn’t turn around. “I did. So much. I still do.”
“How far along was she?”
“Eight weeks.”
“Was she happy about it?”
“Yeah, man.” He turns around and hesitantly steps closer. “She had names picked out.”
“Really?” I wipe my eyes with the palm of my hands. “What were they?”
“If it was a boy, she wanted it to be Erik Smith. And if it was a girl, Liberty Smith.”
I laugh, but it comes out more like a cry. “That’s an awful name.”
“I know. But she liked it.”
Time is a funny thing. It seems like it’s standing still right now... stagnant and bleak. But somehow, it’s flashing, too, showing me bursts of light so bright I’m blinded. My sister was pregnant. She and my best friend were... together. I’m racking my brain trying to remember if she told me anything the last time we’d talked. It was so long ago. I was working in Chicago and hadn’t been home in a few months. We talked on the phone, but she didn’t sound like anything was wrong.
I knew she was dating someone, but my sister didn’t ever bring any boyfriends home. My dad and I tended to chase them away because nobody was good enough for her. Sophia was the most kind and beautiful soul I’d ever known. She loved animals and volunteered at the senior center. Her life was cut unbelievably short, and I’m constantly plagued with survivor’s guilt... even though I wasn’t actually there when it happened. If I was experiencing happiness, she wasn’t, and therefore, I didn’t and don’t deserve it. I closed myself off from experiencing joy.
“I like the name.” Mellie links her arm through mine. “It’s different, and I think it’s sweet that she wanted to include you.”
Erik laughs, and I wrap my arm around my girl, the one who finally gave me permission to be happy again. A memory or an awareness rises, and things click into place, finally making sense.
“I thought I had the flu.” I remember vomiting in the morning a couple of times and calling in sick to work. Sophia had called me, and before I could give her time to talk, I whined about how I thought I was going to die. She called me a big baby and said to call back and talk to her another time. I didn’t speak to her again or see her until three weeks later when I identified her body. That guilt will forever plague me… I never called her back. “Whenever one of us would get sick, the other got it, too. Weird stuff like that happened. Guess it’s normal for twins.”
“She was your twin?”
I look down at Mellie’s shocked face. “Yeah.”
“I have a picture of her.” Erik hesitantly steps closer, and Mellie walks away from me to meet him halfway.
He pulls out his wallet, removes a photo, and then hands it to her. “Wow.” She looks over at me and smiles. “She’s, like, a pretty version of you.”
I can’t believe I’m laughing right now. See? Happy. “We heard that a lot growing up.”
“Remember when you dressed as each other for Halloween that one year?” Erik asks.
“Yeah.” I rub the knot on the back of my shoulder. “I was so pissed people actually thought I was her.”
“They did?” Mellie laughs. “Now that is something I’d like to see a picture of.”
“I have one. A whole album, actually.” I step into the living room and lift the top of the coffee table.
“I didn’t know that opened.” Mellie sits on the couch, and I grab the photo album out of the storage unit then sit next to her.
Erik stands off to the side, and I nod at the empty seat next to me. He hesitates.
“Don’t make me hurt you again.”
He rolls his eyes and sits down but gives me a wide berth. We both know he let me kick his ass. I can definitely hold my own, but he has a natural ability to inflict pain on someone. I turn to the first page and cringe at our baby pictures, because of course, my little penis is hangin’ out.
“Aww.” Mellie leans closer, and I flip through the pages. Showing her these pict
ures gives me probably the most acceptance I’ve felt since and with their deaths. Sharing this part of my life with someone who I love just as much, if not more than I loved my family, is liberating. Erik laughs and adds to something I say about one photo. When I reach the Halloween picture, we all laugh at it.
“Is that you, Erik?” Mellie points at the little boy standing next to Sophia.
“Yes.” He laughs. “That was Sophia’s idea.”
“It was actually brilliant.” Sophia told him to dress up like my dad. So he wore a Porter and Son shirt, a salt and pepper wig, a tool belt, and my mom drew a mustache on his face. I joked around and called him ‘Daddy’ all night.
As I continue to flip through the pages, I notice that Erik is by Sophia or looking at her in almost all of them. He and I were, no are, best friends... yet he paid all that attention to her. I never noticed it before. How did I miss that? “When did you guys start, um... dating?”
“We were on and off since we were sixteen.”
“Fucker.” I nudge him with my shoulder. “You guys should have told me.”
“She wanted to. That’s what, um... that’s what we were fighting about. I knew she could do better than me and I just... shit.” He wipes his face off on his shoulder. “I miss her so fucking much.”
It takes this one second, this raw display of agony, for me to understand where he’s at in his life and how he got here. It puts everything into perspective. “I do too, brother.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “I do too.”
* * *
As I hold Mellie and wait for her to fall asleep, I try to shut my brain off. But a hundred questions and a thousand potential memories won’t stop playing on repeat. Like when CDs used to be a thing, and there was a scratch. Back and forth the song goes. Repeating, skipping, taunting. Most importantly, though, more than anything, I’m worried about Mellie.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“He was... he had his hands on you.”
“Yeah, I’m really okay. It was just a hug. He was telling me about her and… Smith, my God, I’ve never seen a grown man so torn up. He was sobbing on the floor, and I was the one who hugged him first. I couldn’t just watch him fall apart like that. I swear, it was nothing, and I’m totally fine.”
When I breathe a sigh of relief, her hair flutters. “Okay. But please tell me... promise me you’ll tell me if you ever become uncomfortable or anything.”
“I will. Promise.”
“Thank you.” I hold her tighter and sink deeper into the mattress.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She whispers so quietly I almost don’t hear her.
With my lips close to her ear, I tell her the only truth I know. The lie I’ve been telling myself for seven years. “If I pretend it didn’t happen, if I don’t talk about them, then it doesn’t hurt.”
“I understand.”
“I should have told you. You opened up to me about your past, and unfortunately, your tragedies allow you to understand me probably more than I do myself. And maybe, on some level deep in my soul, I knew that. There isn’t a reason why I feel so connected to you, but I just do. I should have told you.”
She rolls to her back, and I place a hand directly next to her so I can keep myself propped up.
“That seems like a logical reason to me. I mean, what I’ve been through and what I’ve lost… I absolutely hate that you lost your family, too. It’s just awful, and I’m so sorry. But knowing that you understand makes me fall for you that much more.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” I lean down and kiss her, something that gives me more satisfaction than any words could describe.
“Oh, I almost forgot to say thank you for the flowers.”
“What?”
“The delivery earlier today.”
“I didn’t send you flowers.” The hairs on my skin stand up.
“Maybe Jay? The card just said miss you, but they were roses. Why would he—”
My body stiffens to a damn block of concrete, and the bed shakes with its effects. “They’re not from your brother, baby.”
Panic of an unprecedented measure courses through her. I can’t see it, but I can feel it, sliding through her damn veins. Her eyes frantically search around the room, and she tries to talk, however, nothing but a jumbled mess comes out.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. Listen to me.” Trying my best to put on a façade, I run my fingertips along her jawline until she focuses on me. “Right now, at this exact moment, you are absolutely one-hundred percent safe, all right?”
“Uh-huh.”
She trembles while I try not to. Not from fear, though; rather, from the damn fury digging in my gut that one of those motherfuckers has finally made his move. Shit’s about to get real ugly, real fast. I’m done. Fuck waiting for Jay to give me reports from his sources. The legal route Gerald is taking is about to get so far crossed I might not find my way back. I’m not letting some sick, twisted excuse for a man touch a single strand of hair on Mellie’s head.
My fingers rub along her scalp and down her hair. Forcing myself to remain calm so she will fall back to sleep is torture. When her breathing evens out and her breaths become deeper, I slide out and pull the covers over her nice and tight. For a minute, I watch her, and even asleep, I can tell she’s stressed. The lines between her eyes shouldn’t be there, and her fingers clutching the sheets should be relaxed.
I’m going to take that away. I have to. I have to do whatever it takes; I will do anything for her. Before I met her, I was simply a robot existing and dragging my way through every day. I cared about very little, even myself. But what’s worse than a man with nothing to fight for? A man with everything to lose... and I will not lose her.
“Hey, man. Wake up.” I give Erik a little shove, and he swings at me.
“Crap.” As he’s waking up, he wipes his eyes. “Don’t do that shit to me.”
“I’m going out. I need you to keep an ear out for Mellie. And by that, I mean wake up and take watch.” I’d trust this man with my life. Knowing what happened and knowing the kind of person he is gives me the confidence he wouldn’t do anything to Mellie. I overreacted.
He shoots up to a sitting position. “What happened?”
After a brief rundown, he’s right on my heels as we walk downstairs. I grab a baggie out of the drawer and take the card out of the flowers I missed during the chaos earlier. I’ll take it in to have it dusted for prints, but I doubt they’ll get a hit.
“You gonna tell me where you’re going?”
“Nope.” I grab the vase of roses and toss it in the trash.
“Okay.” He sighs. “Be safe, brother.”
I nod and grab my Glock out of the silverware drawer and my Bowie knife from under the kitchen table, securing them discreetly under my clothes. “I’ll be back soon. If she wakes up, tell her I went for a run.”
He follows me to the door, and I listen for a beat until I hear the alarm being set. I open the garage door and wait for it to rise all the way. I do a scan of my surroundings before getting in my truck and driving to one of the worst parts of town.
Pleasant Valley has a hill separating the two very different classes our city has. Of the sixty-five thousand people living here, about a quarter of them live at the bottom of the hill. The only reason you come down here is to buy drugs, guns, or pussy.
It’s almost four in the morning, but the man I’m here to see works the graveyard shift. I park my truck around the corner, and before I even enter the building, I’m met by two men who stop directly in front of me. “Pigs ain’t welcome ’round here,” Jimbo—or is it Jimmy—says.
“I need to see Dirt.”
“You make an appointment, old man?”
These thugs would put a bullet in me with no hesitation, so as much as I want to take out my aggression on their punk asses, I bite my tongue. “Nah, but he’ll want to see me.”
Jimmy nods at the other, a
nd he pulls out his phone then puts it up to his ear. “You’ve got an unwelcome visitor. Porter. Yeah.” When his eyes widen, I know he’s getting his ass chewed. “Okay. Right away.” He puts his phone away and glares at me. “Come on.”
I follow him while the other man follows me, and he takes me through the front door of the dimly lit strip club. I scan my surroundings to find the other exits just in case things go bad, even though I don’t anticipate that happening. Women and men lie around, passed out. Some with cigarettes still hanging out of their mouth. Sex in the corner, a blowjob on stage. Weed being passed around the small space and causing a fog.
Once through the main room, he leads me to a hallway and knocks on the first door. “Come in.”
He turns the knob, and the three of us walk inside. Dirt nods at me and shoos away the two men. “Boss?”
“Don’t question me.”
They hang their heads and close the door behind them. Dirt stands up and holds his hand out to me. I take it, and we slap each other on the back.
“My man. What the fuck brings you to these parts?” He sits back in his leather chair and grabs the lit cigar from the gold ashtray.
I sit in the chair across from him and slide a piece of paper across the mahogany desk. “I’m calling in my favor.”
With raised eyebrows, he unfolds the paper and studies it for a second. “Who’s the girl?” His guess is spot-on, even though the paper mentions nothing about her.
“The only one I’d do this for.”
“You want me to take out both of them?” He nods at the names written on the paper.
I want to be the one to take their asses out, so I shake my head. “If you happen to stumble upon them, I won’t be mad about it. But really, I just need you to do what you do best.
Dirt nods; he didn’t get his nickname for no reason. He buries people. Makes them vanish. “Let me see her.”
When I hesitate, he shakes his head. “You know I’ll just find out for myself.”
Taking out my phone, I scroll through and find a picture I took of her when she was at her computer one day. Her hair’s up in a messy bun, and she’s chewing on the end of a pen. Fuckin’ sexy as hell.