by B. B. Hamel
“It’s a mistake,” was all I needed to say, and the blowup started.
Another fight, another black eye.
“Okay then,” I say. “Lean forward.”
A little hint of a smile. He leans toward me, scraggly, bearded face looming closer. “Go ahead, if it’ll make you feel better.”
I want to do it. I want to feel that rough, handsome cheek, but he’s practically a stranger to me now. Besides, I’m not angry, not at him anyway. I look away from him and he pulls back, smile getting wider.
“I thought you might do it for a second there,” he says.
“I thought I might too. But we’re on your home turf, so.”
“So you’d better be nice.”
“I guess.” I sip my tea, letting the warm bitterness run down my throat and fill my stomach with something other than bile.
“Ezra’s on the way,” he says. “You can hang out here as long as you want, eat or drink whatever you want. Except for the weed.”
“I don’t smoke,” I say.
“Good.” He smirks at me. “Shit’ll rot your brain.” He stands up and I watch as he walks away without another word.
I turn back to my tea, wondering what the hell I’m going to do with Jonas Larsen, bad boy of San Diego, drug dealer scum, skater asshole, playboy, bastard.
* * *
“What the fuck did he do to you?” Ezra’s in a strangely good mood as he pulls me to my feet and hugs me tight. I can’t remember the last time Ezra touched me, let alone hugged me.
“It’s nothing,” I say to him.
“Liar.” He sighs, holding me at arm’s length. “Royal?”
I nod a little, not meeting his gaze.
“This the first time?”
I shake my head. “I deserved it sometimes.”
He squeezes my shoulders, hard enough to make me wince. I look back at him and he’s angry now. “You never deserve to get hit, Lizzie. God damn it, what did that asshole do to you?”
I want to explain that it wasn’t all Royal. I want to explain about Nathan, how he’d talk to me like I was a dog, how he’d offer to share me with his friends sometimes when he got drunk. He never did it, but he always sounded like he would. I want to explain about mom, all her plastic surgery, all her insanity, the string of affairs with younger men, the pills and the new acting career, but I don’t. I shouldn’t need to explain any of it, because he should’ve known it all already.
I want to be angry at him, and I reach for it, but instead there’s just a hollow little nugget where my rage usually is.
“Can I stay with you for a while?” I ask, meeting his gaze and changing the subject. My half-brother, five years older, practically a stranger.
He hesitates. It’s hard to miss, that hesitation, and I know what it means. But he quickly recovers himself. “Of course you can,” he says, grinning big. “I wouldn’t let you go back to that house even if you wanted to.”
“Thanks,” I say, managing to smile back. It’s so obvious that he doesn’t want me here, but I don’t care.
He made a promise. I’m going to make him uphold it.
“Come on,” he says, swooping me away from the table. He grabs my bag and hustles me out of the café, out into the parking lot. He drives this old, beat-up Corvette, probably from the eighties. It looks like it shouldn’t even work, but the engine starts right up as he hops in and I climb into the passenger seat. It’s black and sleek with a long front and only two seats. The headlights pop up though they look like they’re permanently rusted shut. He pulls out of his parking spot way too fast, throwing the car out into the fast Jane as he speeds through traffic.
I have to grip the seat and clench my jaw to keep from screaming as flashbacks to that night come tearing through my mind. They always do when someone drives too fast.
“It’s a small place,” Ezra is saying over the music and the wind. His window’s down and he doesn’t look like he’s putting it back up. “Jonas and I share it, rent’s pretty cheap and it’s close to here, so we like it.” He swerves around another car almost casually, coming within inches of clipping the side. I feel like I might puke.
“There’s a couch you can crash on,” he says. “I’d offer you my room, but, well, it’s a mess, and I have some, you know, dates coming around.”
“That’s okay,” I manage to say. “Couch is good.”
“Yeah, couch is good,” he echoes, nodding and smiling like he’s hearing that for the first time ever. “You can crash however long you need, and anything you want, just ask. I’ll take care of it.” He looks over at me and I want to scream at him to keep his eyes on the road. “I got you, little sis. I’m glad you came to me.”
“Thanks,” I say through clenched teeth.
He practically flies into the parking lot of an old beat-up looking apartment complex. He parks and hops out. I stumble after him, my stomach in my throat. I want to puke but I keep it under control. If Ezra notices my discomfort, he doesn’t say anything about it.
“So the code is 7482, just type it in and bang, you’re set.” The door unlocks and we head inside. Vinyl flooring, echoing walls, white and scuffed. “Up the stairs, around this corner, and we’re home.”
He unlocks a boring-looking door at the end of the second-floor hallway and steps inside, pulling me along.
It’s surprisingly not horrible. I think I expected a huge mess of a bachelor pad, since my brother and Jonas aren’t exactly known for their clean-living lifestyles, but it’s the total opposite of that. The apartment itself is way nicer and completely different from the apartment building’s hallways.
The first thing that catches my eye are the plants. They’re everywhere, hanging from the ceiling, in giant pots in corners, on shelves and in buckets. The floors are gleaming cherry-red hardwood and the far wall is completely glass, opening out into a sunny little patio with large corrugated metal walls all around it. More plants are out in the courtyard, almost swamping it in completely.
“Don’t mind the mess,” Ezra says, stepping into the space. He tosses his keys into a dish on a table against the wall as I follow him inside.
“What mess?” I manage to say, looking around with my eyes wide.
“Fucking plants,” he says, grunting and waving his hand. “They’re everywhere.”
“Yeah,” I say, and then catch myself. “They’re not yours?”
“No,” he says, laughing a little. “Jonas likes that shit, not me.”
I frown a little bit, surprised. I didn’t peg Jonas as the type of guy to like gardening and plants, but clearly I was wrong.
“This is all you,” Ezra says, pointing at the couch. There are two couches next to each other in a little “L” configuration across from a large flat screen TV. Sleek, modern looking speakers flank the TV and the coffee table looks like it’s made from reclaimed pallet wood.
“Couch is surprisingly comfortable,” Ezra says, patting the back. “I think you’ll be good here. Gets sunny in the morning, though.” He waves his hand over at the glass wall before turning to his left.
“Kitchen over here,” he says, continuing the tour. I toss my duffel bag down on the couch and follow him. “You can have anything with my name on it.”
“You guys put your names on your food?”
He rolls his eyes. “Jonas,” he says, before moving on.
I catch a glimpse of a neat and orderly kitchen. There’s a picnic style table in the center of the space and clean, empty counters. I’m guessing all the neatness comes from Jonas as well, considering the way Ezra is stomping through the place.
I’m thoroughly blown away already as Ezra takes me upstairs. Tasteful paintings line the walls and little plants are placed along the stairs. Ezra stomps past it all, but I pause to take a look: cats in a really primitive style, a school bus without wheels.
“This is my room,” Ezra says, stopping at the first door. He pushes it open and gestures inside.
Sure enough, it’s a wreck. Clothes on the floor, bed unmade, tr
ash on the nightstand.
“Didn’t expect guests,” he mumbles. “Would’ve cleaned up.”
“Sure,” I say.
“Bathroom over here.” He quickly shuts the door and moves on. “It’s the only one, hope you’re okay with that. Real pain in the ass that you have to go up steps every time to piss.”
“I’m fine,” I say.
“And down there is Jonas’s room.” He gestures at the left room at the end of the hall. “I’d show you, but he’d notice I opened his door and he’d probably make me have some stupid talk about it.”
“Do you guys not get along?” I ask him, a little surprised.
He hesitates a second. “We get along fine,” he says finally. “Just been stressful, opening Half Pipe. Things are strained right now.” He perks up a little bit. “But we’re doing great.”
“Really?” I ask, almost skeptical.
“Really,” he says. “Even though he’s annoying, Jonas runs that place like clockwork.”
“Yeah? What do you do?”
He glances at me as he walks past, back down into the living room. “Big picture stuff,” he says vaguely, gesturing around him like he’s trying to swat some bugs away from his face.
We come back down into the main space and he sighs, turning toward me.
“Listen, Lizzie, I’m sorry to do this, but I have to go.”
I blink, surprised. I expected him to at least sit down and talk to me for a little while, maybe ask a few more questions. We’ve barely spoken in years, except maybe once or twice when he popped into my life to check on me. Mostly he just ignored me, but now I’m in his apartment, and he can’t ignore me anymore.
Or maybe he can.
“It’s business,” he says, by way of explanation. “You understand, right? Make yourself at home, do whatever, we got Netflix and HBO.”
“Okay, sure. I get it.” I pause, glancing at the patio and all the plants arranged neatly. “Will you be back later?”
“Later,” he says, nodding. “Jonas should be home later, too.”
“Okay, cool.”
He looks at me and frowns a little bit. “I’m sorry you had to come here,” he says softly, the first sign of genuine human emotion crossing his face. “Really. I know it sucks. But it’ll be better soon.”
“Thanks,” I say, feeling a stupid lump in my throat. It’s pathetic, someone’s briefly nice to me and all I want to do is cry.
“See you later, little sis.” He grins at me and leaves without another word, grabbing his keys on the way.
I stand there alone in the middle of a strange apartment, not sure what to think. My eye throbs, my feet are sore from walking, and all I want to do is curl up in a bed and go to sleep. But I don’t have a bed anymore.
I just have this couch in this beautiful, immaculate apartment, and I have no clue what I’m going to do with myself anymore.
3
Jonas
I pull a deep drag of smoke from my vape pen and hold it in my lungs as Don speeds toward the five stair rail.
I slip the pen back into my jeans pockets just as Don hits his jump, the board leaping up with his feet. It looks almost superhuman and impossible, this little Vietnamese guy leaping through the air like this, but his front trucks hit the rail and slide down. He stands balanced, small body compact and tight, and as he reaches the end of the rail, he leans back slightly, kicking his back heel down.
I let out the smoke as Don overcorrects. The board hits the ground and he swerves before the board kicks out and he slams backwards onto the pavement.
“Oh, fuck,” Shrink says.
“Keep filming,” I grunt at him. He glances over at me but listens. The lights are bright overtop Don as he slowly gets to his feet. Everyone’s tense and quiet as Shrink gets the shot, moving around Don in a slow circle. The little man finally gets to his feet, hand touching the back of his head and coming up red.
“Shit, man,” Shrink says, his eyes wide and staring back at me. “He’s bleeding.
“You good, Don?”
Don looks back at me. He looks at his fingers once before wiping them on his jeans. “I’m good,” he says. “I gotta hit that before we finish.”
“Good man.” I look at Shrink. “Get back in position. And make sure those fucking lights are right.”
Shrink hesitates, but Vinny’s already moving, going to reset the lighting. Don grabs his board and walks slowly back up the stairs as Shrink follows him, filming the whole time.
Don’s the toughest fucking bastard I know. If I had said that we should stop filming for the day, he would’ve been pissed for a week about that. Any sign of weakness from him is like the end of the fucking world, and I know better than to assume he’s hurt before he says so. Shrink’s relatively new to this whole thing, although he’s a good skater himself, he doesn’t put his body on the line like Don does. He’ll never get to that next level like Don will because of it.
Fuck, most of us won’t get to that level. Don has that special something, that unique mix of raw talent and incredible disregard for his own well-being that allows him to go for tricks that most people would be terrified to even consider.
Don lines up again and I feel the weed working in my skin, a soft tingle along the hairs on my arms. I don’t let myself get baked out and stupid, but I like a nice, easy buzz keeping me in the zone and concentrating.
This is going to be fucking incredible when it’s finished. The shot of Don looking at his bloody hands before going for this trick again is going to be the opening scene to this whole film. I can close my eyes and see it all already, and I know it’s going to be fucking fire.
Don lands the trick on the next try. Shrink gets it all, since he’s probably a better cameraman than he is a daredevil. Don grins at me with those crooked teeth.
“See, boss,” he says. “I got that shit.”
I nod and hand him my vape pen. “Good, man. Keep that.”
He grins again, taking a big hit.
“And Don,” I say more softly, “you might want to see a doctor.”
His grin falters. “You think so?”
“Shit, man,” I say, laughing and shaking my head. Shrink and Vinny are breaking down the lighting, so they can’t hear this bit. “I’m pretty sure you have a concussion. I have no clue how you got up, let alone landed that shit.”
“Magical abilities, boss,” he says, grinning again.
“Just go see the doctor.” I slap him on the shoulder as I walk away. “Later, boys,” I call out, waving at Shrink and Vinny.
They wave back. My Jeep’s parked not far away. I climb in and fire up the engine before sitting there a second, watching the guys joke around as they finish cleaning up from the shoot.
It’s only a ten-minute drive back to the apartment. It’s been a long fucking day, between all the usual shit at the weed shop and shooting this with Don and the two idiots, I’m pretty fucking beat. All I want to do is smoke some more weed, play some mindless videogames, and pass the fuck out before I have to do this all over again tomorrow.
I know I can’t do that, though. I know what’s waiting for me back at home, and I don’t know how I really feel about it.
I pull out slowly. I keep thinking about Lizzie’s black eye, the way she kept trying to hide it with her hair and failing miserably, and the way she stared at me when I told her to slap me. She was thinking about it, but not in an angry way. I think it excited her, to imagine touching my face, and that sends a thrill down my spine. For once, the chills I’m getting aren’t from the drugs, but from picturing my fingers grazing along Lizzie’s skin.
Fucked-up thing, though. She’s Ezra’s sister, five years younger than us, and she needs help, not dick. Shit, maybe she needs dick too, but not right now. She needs to sleep, ice that eye up, and figure her future out. I’m pretty far from what she really needs.
I pull out slowly and head home. It’s around nine when I finally park and go inside. I type in the pin and open the front door, walking
up the old, creaking steps toward the second floor. I unlock the door loudly, trying to make as much noise as possible before stepping foot into my apartment.
I don’t know what I expected. I step into the room and look around, but it’s empty. She’s not on the couch, which I guess is where I thought she’d be. I check the kitchen, Ezra’s room, even my room, but nothing.
Finally I go out onto the patio, and stop in front of a little body wrapped in a blanket, curled up in a corner near my cannas.
I crouch down near her and don’t say anything at first. I watch her stir a little bit and after a few seconds, a face appears from the blanket, her wide eyes blinking at me.
I stare at her in silence. After a second, I reach into my pocket and take out a joint I was saving for tonight. I light it and draw deep as I watch her. She shifts her weight, sitting up, her back against the corrugated steel wall, her eyes watching me warily.
“Where’s Ezra?” she asks.
“I thought you might be dead,” I answer, ignoring her comment.
She shakes her head. “Not dead. Just tired.”
“Long day?”
I can’t help but smile at the way she arches an eyebrow. “You could say that.”
I let the smoke drift from between my lips and sigh with the last bit of air in my lungs. She cocks her head and I stand up, stretching a little bit.
“Never pegged you as a plant guy,” she comments as I turn away.
I look back at her. Those wide eyes almost look like they’re floating in space, the way her black hair blends in with the night. I have the sudden urge to walk over to her and curl up in that blanket next to her body.
“Calms me,” I say. “Plus, they’re pretty.”
She snorts. “Pretty?”
“Beautiful. Gorgeous. Sexy.” I smile a little bit, not sure if she’s mocking or genuinely enjoying this part of me. I don’t normally share my love of gardening with people, since I don’t need the fucking comments. I have an image, and that image doesn’t include growing shit on his patio. People picture me smoking weed and cracking skulls and selling drugs and getting tattoos, and that’s all they care about.