by BB Easton
“You’re so much like me. I was always attracted to the cool guys with the cool hair and the cool clothes—the bad boys, the musicians—but this is what they turn into.” My mom rolled her eyes in the direction of the living room. “Your father hasn’t worked in almost three years.”
I blinked at her. “Really?” I hadn’t realized it had been that long.
“Mmhmm. And before that, he hardly kept a job longer than a year. I didn’t want to be an art teacher. I wanted to sell my paintings in galleries, but somebody had to pay the bills. Damn sure wasn’t gonna be him.”
“If it makes you feel any better, you’re a really good art teacher.”
My mom smiled. “Thanks, baby. It’s fine. It’s a good life. I can’t complain. But I want so much more for you. Do you know why we named you Brooke?”
“Why?”
“Because Brooke Bradley sounds like a movie star’s name. When your dad suggested it, my exact words were, ‘It’s perfect. If she becomes a movie star, she won’t even have to change her name.’ Then you came out, singing and dancing and being outrageous and making people laugh, just like we knew you would.”
My mom squeezed my hand again, the warmth in her heart making up for her ice-cold fingers. “You have always been the brightest thing in the room, honey, but you dim your light so that your man can shine instead. Don’t do that, okay? You deserve someone who is going to support you, not the other way around. You’re so focused on helping Hans achieve his dreams, but does he even know what yours are? Does he help you achieve them? Does he help you around the house? Does he help you study?”
She kept talking, but I tuned her out for a minute while I thought about what she’d said. Help. Achieve. Study. The only person I could think of who actually knew what my goals were and had offered to help me achieve them was that cold, joyless, defiant, Gatorade-drinking, workout-clothes-wearing smart-ass whose hugs I had to steal.
Ken.
I didn’t even know his last name, yet he’d been more supportive and helpful than my boyfriend of a year and a half.
How depressing.
“I know he’s sweet,” she continued, “and I know he’s exciting. But sweet and exciting don’t pay the mortgage. They don’t sweep the floor. And they damn sure don’t change the diapers. If you’re doing all the giving and he’s doing all the taking, I’ve got news for you, honey.” My mom cast one last knowing look at my father then met my gaze with one of sad acceptance. “You’re not his girlfriend. You’re his mother.”
I’d lost count of how many hours it had been since I slept. Thirty-something? Forty? I was physically depleted. Even my tears had run dry. Yet there I was, wide awake, staring at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers on the ceiling of my former bedroom. They bothered me. I’d been gazing up at those greenish plastic constellations since middle school, but with my bed moved to a different wall, their familiar pattern looked as random as gravity-defying confetti.
Fitting, considering that my whole fucking life had been turned upside down.
I didn’t know which way was up anymore. My head told me that my mom was right. That if I went back to Hans I’d be responsible for everything, my dreams would be put on hold, and my role would shift from muse to maid.
But my heart begged me to do something, anything, to take away the pain. I longed to go back to the days when I’d merely been lonely and worried and jealous. Lonely, worried, and jealous felt like an adorable little wading pool compared to the typhoon of grief I was struggling to stay afloat in.
My heart whispered, Go back. Apologize. End this misery. Please.
So, they negotiated—my head and my heart.
My head said, Okay, but only if he calls and really grovels. He’s got to work for it. If we go back now, he’ll never change. He’ll come around. Just be patient.
My heart sniffled and nodded.
That was it. I’d made up my mind. If Hans called and begged me to come home, if he promised to change, I’d do it. I’d give him another chance. The resolution gave me the peace I needed to finally doze off.
I awoke with a start sometime around midnight to the sound of my phone ringing. A burst of hope flooded my bloodstream. I threw my right arm out to grab the device off my nightstand, but the back of my hand slammed into an unexpected wall instead.
Motherfucker!
Rolling over, I grabbed my whining cell phone off the table that was now on the left side of the bed and answered it on the final ring.
“Hello?”
Anxiety ate away at my anticipation with every millisecond that I spent waiting for a response.
“Hello?” I asked again.
“You picked up.”
The voice was not soft and apologetic. It was not groveling or choked up. It was harsh and deep and clear and sliced my hope to shreds with only three little syllables.
“Knight.”
“Punk.”
I froze, irrationally praying that, if I didn’t move, he wouldn’t know I was there.
“I didn’t think you’d answer.”
I swallowed. “And yet you keep calling.”
Knight exhaled a drag from a cigarette. I’d know that sound anywhere. “Guess I’m just an optimistic drunk.”
I laughed. I hadn’t meant to—I’d wanted to be bitter and bitchy and blunt—but it was the first funny thing I’d heard all day.
“How’ve you been?” Knight asked, his voice severe again.
“Shitty,” I answered honestly. “What about you?”
“Shitty.”
Something in his tone sent shivers down my spine. I’d become hyperaware of Knight’s moods over the years, as a means of self-preservation. They were basically all just shades of anger ranging from everyday irritability to blind, blackout, homicidal rage. And I’d seen them all. Repeatedly.
“Shitty, like the last time you came back from Iraq shitty?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
Fuck us all.
The last time Knight had come back from Iraq, he’d attacked a complete stranger with a broken beer bottle, destroyed his own tattoo station at Terminus City, and ran my ex-boyfriend’s car off the road and into the path of an oncoming dump truck while I was inside of it.
All in the span of a weekend.
I tried to force my exhausted brain to tap into the section that housed all of my psychology coursework, but all that came out of my mouth was, “Shit, Knight. That’s bad.”
“Yeah.” He exhaled another stream of smoke.
“Are you seeing anybody for your PTSD?”
“Nope.”
“Are you on meds?”
“Fuck that shit.”
“Do you at least have somebody you can talk to, when it gets bad?”
Knight didn’t answer, and that was when I realized exactly why he’d kept calling me even though I never picked up.
I was the person he wanted to talk to when it got bad.
“Hey, it’s okay. You can call me. Okay? I’ll answer next time, I promise.”
Knight didn’t respond.
“Is it bad right now?”
“Not anymore.”
I smiled, happy that I’d been able to help somebody, even if it was the same abusive, murderous psychopath who’d given me my own case of PTSD.
“Good. That’s good. Do you wanna tell me what happened?”
Knight groaned. “Fuck.”
I waited. Whatever he was about to say was going to have to claw its way out of him.
“I…I don’t even fuckin’ remember.”
“Was it a bar fight? Were you hanging out at Spirit of Sixty-Nine again?”
“No, it was a biker bar. I’ve been ridin’ with a guy from my platoon and his MC.”
“You got some new friends. That’s good.”
“I don’t know for how long though. I think I fucked one of ’em up tonight. I can’t even fucking remember, but my knuckles are busted, and I know it was bad.”
“I’m sure those guys are used to the o
ccasional bar fight. Maybe you can talk to your Marine buddy about it. He’ll understand what you’re going through.”
“Your boyfriend gonna be okay with me callin’ you?” Knight asked, shutting down my line of questioning.
I sighed. “We just broke up. Today actually.”
I could almost hear Knight’s smirk. “Well, aren’t we just a couple of sad sacks of shit?”
I laughed at the truthfulness of that statement. “Yeah, we are.”
“Come by the shop tomorrow night.”
“Knight…I don’t—”
“You’re eighteen now. I’ll give you some free ink.”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll draw something for you.”
“Maybe.”
“Or I could come see you at work. Where do you work now?”
I fucking knew it. He’d gone by Pier 1, looking for me.
“I don’t know if I’m gonna go in tomorrow. I haven’t slept in a few days.” I deflected. “Maybe I’ll come by the shop if I get some rest.”
“Cool.”
Neither of us said anything, not knowing how to end the conversation or if we even wanted to.
“Hey, Punk?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry. About last time. About everything.”
“I know you are, Knight. I know.”
The good news was that I did finally get some sleep.
The bad news was that all that sleep had completely replenished my tear supply.
Thankfully, no one ever shopped in the Urban Street Wear section of Macy’s on Tuesday mornings because, if they did, they would have left with black mascara smeared all over their new Sean Jean jeans, receipt, and shopping bag. With the entire department to myself and nothing to take my mind off my shitastic situation, except for the ten Christmas pop songs that had been playing on a loop since fucking October, all I could do was think and fold. And cry.
When my manager came over to check the supplies at the cash stand, she took one look at my face and sent me home.
Home.
Like I even had one.
I’d been wearing the same clothes for going on three days, so I decided to go by the apartment to pack up my stuff. I grabbed some empty boxes from the Macy’s loading dock on my way out the door and prayed that Hans wouldn’t be home. I figured the odds were in my favor. He was never around when I lived there, so why should he suddenly turn into a homebody now?
As I drove toward the Midtown Village apartment complex, I cranked up the heat in my car and tugged on the zipper of my flight jacket, even though I knew it was all the way up. I was trembling, and it had nothing to do with the weather. I tried to calm myself down by chain-smoking and visualizing Hans being gone, but when I pulled up to the building and saw his black BMW parked in front, half-lurched up onto the sidewalk with the front windows wide open, I knew all of my positive affirmations had been for naught.
On the verge of a full-blown panic attack, I considered just leaving and trying again later. I wasn’t strong enough to handle another fight. I wasn’t strong enough to handle the one we’d just had. But when I went to shift my car into reverse, the clock on my car stereo told me to stay. It told me that the universe had delivered me to that exact spot at that exact time for a reason, and all I had to do was take the final steps. It told me that it was 11:11 a.m.
Showtime.
I parked and walked over to my door in eerie silence. The birds had all flown south. The crickets and cicadas had hunkered down for the winter. The kids were at school, and their parents were at work, and the autumn leaves that used to crunch underfoot had all been turned to ash. It felt like the entire world was holding its breath as I fumbled with my key and opened the door.
And once the door was open, once the secret was finally out, the earth let out a collective sigh behind me. Car alarms and barking dogs and highway traffic roared to life as I stared at a pair of black patent-leather high-heel boots lying in a heap at the bottom of my stairs.
I’d never truly lost control before. No matter how drunk or high or upset I got, there was always some small part of my brain that stayed awake to babysit the rest of me. To take my makeup off before I passed out. To bite my tongue before I said anything too hurtful. To tell me to pull the car over before I killed somebody.
Evidently, that bitch was off duty.
I raced up the stairs and stopped at the top, swinging my head from left to right. The place was quiet. There was no one in the kitchen or living room. And my art installation of lies had been pushed to one side of the coffee table to make room for an overflowing ashtray, a dozen empty beer cans, and my now-empty bottle of Jack.
That only left the bedroom.
I turned left and darted into the open door a few feet away, then stopped dead in my tracks when I saw my worst fear, played out in black and white. Black hair—his shaggy, hers long and straight, fanned out over her creamy white skin. My black comforter draped haphazardly over their sleeping bodies. Our generic white apartment walls glowing in the mid-morning sun. And his ripped black jeans in a pile by the door.
The sight of Goth Girl in bed with my boyfriend hit me so hard and so fast that I felt as if I’d been physically assaulted. Everything hurt. Everywhere. Shock socked me right in the gut. Rejection delivered a roundhouse kick straight to my head. Betrayal stabbed me in the back, as it does. But it wasn’t until I saw Hans, surreptitiously peeking at me from under his long black lashes as he pretended to be asleep, that outrage cut open my chest and surgically removed his very presence from my heart.
Rushing over to the bed, I yanked the comforter and sheets off in one motion and slapped Victoria as hard as I could on her bare thigh. “Get the fuck out of my bed!” I screamed.
Her dark brown eyes popped open just as I hit her again. Smack! My hand left a satisfying red welt on her ivory skin.
She sat up in a panic, flailing as she tried to scoot backward, clearly not problem-solving well in her hungover, half-awake state.
“I said, get the fuck out of my bed!” I reared back and got one last good hit in, turning her milky thigh into ground beef, before Hans’s strong arms clamped down around mine.
He dragged me, literally kicking and screaming, out of the bedroom, then turned the lock on the doorknob and shut it behind us. I was locked out of my own bedroom. And Goth Girl was locked in.
I don’t know if he even spoke to me. If he did, I was too far gone to hear a word of it. All I remember is screaming obscenities and chucking everything I could get my hands on directly at his head. The heavy crystal ashtray. The remote control. A candleholder. A bigger candleholder. A framed picture of us standing in front of Bigfoot’s tire. Hans’s textbooks. My empty Jack Daniel’s bottle. My ring. I completely destroyed the apartment I’d spent so long cleaning, and Hans just stood guard in front of the bedroom door, deflecting the flying objects with his hands.
Once everything had been thrown and every glass had been smashed and every insult had finally been flung, I collapsed in a heap on the couch, clutched a pillow to my chest, and cried.
Slowly, the rush of blood in my ears subsided and words began to filter in again. The same words, over and over.
“Nothing happened. Nothing happened. I swear, BB. Nothing happened.”
He didn’t call me baby. I wonder if he calls her baby now.
“Hey, will you look at me? Please?”
I peeked over the top of the throw pillow I was hugging. Hans was sitting on the couch next to me and looked me straight in the eye. He hadn’t shaved in days. His eyes were sunken and bloodshot. And he smelled like the bottom of a whiskey barrel. But the emotion pouring off of him was pure and sad and sincere.
“Nothing. Happened.”
“You expect me to fucking believe that?” I pointed in the direction of the bedroom door. “Y’all talk on the phone all the time while I’m gone. Why not fuck while I’m gone, too?”
Hans kept his voice calm and steady, as if he were negotiating a
hostage situation with an escaped mental patient. “Victoria and I have been friends since middle school. She and Steven broke up a few weeks ago, and she needed somebody to talk to.”
“I’m sure she did,” I huffed, turning my head away from him.
He was so fucking naive. Goth Girl wanted somebody to talk to, so she called Hans almost every day for two months instead of me or Juliet? Yeah, okay. She clearly wanted his cock, but Hans only ever saw the good in people.
Especially attractive female people in distress.
“BB, look at me.”
“Stop calling me that!”
“You told me to stop calling you baby. Now I can’t even call you BB? What the fuck do you want me to call you?”
“You can call a cab for the fucking whore locked in my bedroom!” I cupped my hand around my mouth and shouted that last part at the locked door behind him.
“BB…”
I glared at him for using my name, and he put his hands up in surrender.
“Nothing happened. I swear. I went to a bar where my buddy works and got hammered. I called Victoria for a shoulder to cry on since she’d just gone through a breakup, and she came up there. We both drank way too fucking much, so I told her to crash here and I’d take her to get her car in the morning.”
“You expect me to believe that a girl who’s been secretly calling you for months got drunk with you, came home with you, and didn’t try to fuck you in my bed?” I yelled that last part in the direction of the bedroom too.
“Look at me. I still have my clothes on.”
It was true. He was wearing boxer shorts, a T-shirt, and even socks. Everything but the jeans that I saw on the floor. Hans never slept with clothes on.
“I gave Victoria a T-shirt and a pair of shorts to sleep in and we passed out.”
Just then, my bedroom door opened a tiny crack, and a pair of raccoon eyes peeked out. “It’s true,” Goth Girl rasped, her voice sounding like glass over sandpaper.