by Shen, L. J.
Orphan. A mistake. A monster.
I didn’t know how much time passed before they walked into my room.
I pretended to be asleep. I didn’t want to talk. All I wanted to do was to lie there with my eyes closed, scared that they’d decide they didn’t want me after all or that they were going to tell me something I didn’t want to hear.
I felt my bed dip as Sparrow sat on its edge. I had Boston Celtics green and white linen, a PlayStation, a TV, and a Bill Russell jersey hanging on my wall. My room was painted green and full of framed pictures of me with Troy, Sparrow, and Sailor at Disney, Universal, and in Hawaii.
My room back in Cat’s house was just a bed, a dresser, and a trash can.
No paint. No pictures. No nothing.
I never asked myself why.
Why the Brennans took me in.
Why I was a part of this fucked-up arrangement.
“We know you’re awake.” Troy’s whiskey breath fanned my hair over my eyes, making my nose twitch. “You’d be an idiot to fall asleep on a night like this, and my son is no idiot.”
I cracked my eyes open. His silhouette took up most of my room. Sparrow put her hand on my back, rubbing it in circles.
I didn’t shatter.
I released a breath.
I’m not a pillar of salt after all.
“Are you my real pops?” I blurted out but wasn’t brave enough to look at him when I asked. “Did you knock Cat up?”
I should’ve asked this long ago. It was the only thing that made sense. “You’d never give me the time of the day otherwise. You can’t let me hang out here just because Grandma Maria once scrubbed your toilets. Am I a bastard?”
“You’re not a bastard, and you’re not mine,” Troy said point-blank, averting his gaze to the window. The Boston skyline stretched out in front of him. All the things he owned and ruled. “Not biologically, anyway.”
“I’m a Greystone,” I insisted.
“No,” he hissed. “You’re a Brennan. Greystones don’t have the heart gene.”
I’d never heard about that gene. Then again, I skipped school most days in favor of smoking cigarettes outside bars and selling whatever it was I stole that day to help pay for my next meal.
“I ain’t perfect,” I sat up, glowering. “So if that’s what you want, some perfect yes-kid, kick me out now.”
“We don’t want you to be perfect.” Sparrow rubbed my back faster, harder. “We just want you to be ours. You are Samuel. A gift from God. In the Bible, Samuel was gifted to Hannah after years of praying. She thought she was barren. Do you know what barren means?”
“A woman who can’t have kids.” I shuddered. To have kids, you first had to make them, and I knew exactly how people went about making them—I caught Catalina practicing a bunch of times with her clients—and it was damn gross.
Sparrow nodded. “After Sailor was born, the doctors told me I couldn’t conceive again. Turned out, I didn’t have to. I have you. Your name means ‘The Lord Hears’ in Hebrew. Shma-el. God heard my prayers and surpassed my every expectation. You’re exquisite, Samuel.”
Exquisite. Ha. That was a word I’d use for a famous painting or some shit, not a nine-year-old ex cocaine addict, recovering alcoholic, who was an active smoker, and half the size of kids my age.
My childhood was such a bust, my innocence and I no longer shared a zip code, and if she thought a few home-cooked meals and some back rubs were going to change it, well, she was in for an unpleasant surprise.
“Tell me why I’m here. Why I’m not in an orphanage. I’m old enough to know,” I demanded, balling my fists really hard, clenching my jaw. “And don’t talk to me about the Bible. The Lord may have heard Hannah, but He sure as shit ain’t been listening to me.”
“You’re here because we love you,” Sparrow said at the same time Troy answered, “You’re here because I killed your father.”
Silence descended. Sparrow shot up from my bed, her eyes really wide and really big, staring at her husband. Her mouth hung open like a fish. Troy carried on.
“He said he deserves to know. He’s not wrong, Red. The truth, Sam, is that shortly before your father died, he kidnapped Sparrow with every intention of killing her. I had to save my wife and did so without thinking twice. I wanted you to have a father figure. A person to look up to. The plan was to take you to basketball games every now and again. Provide guidance, advice, and a fat college fund to kick-start your life; getting attached was never in my plans, but it happened, anyway.” He looked me right in the eye. “Very early on I realized you were not a project. You were family.”
“You killed my father,” I echoed.
I knew Brock Greystone was dead, but Catalina and Grandma Maria always said it happened in an accident.
“Yes,” he said simply.
“Who knows?”
“You. Me. Cat. Aunt Sparrow. God.”
“Did God forgive you?”
Troy smirked. “He gave me you.”
Depending on who you asked, that could be seen as a punishment.
Now Brock was dead, and Cat was gone. The Brennans were my only shot at survival, whether I liked it or not.
“All right?” Troy asked. With his Southie accent, it came out as “Aight?”
I stared at him, not sure what to think or do.
“I’m going to go get some dunks now.” He leaned down to grab my shoulder bag, retrieving Cat’s pack of cigarettes from it. It was close to midnight. He was definitely going to one of his “businesses.”
“Donuts always make everything better,” Sparrow pointed out, carrying on with the lie. “Be safe, honey.”
He bent down to kiss the top of her head. “Always, Red. And you…” he tousled my hair with his massive palm “…no more cigarettes. This shit could send you to an early grave.”
That was the moment I decided I was going to smoke until my lungs collapsed. Not because I wanted to defy Uncle Troy, but because dying young didn’t seem like a bad idea.
When he left, I turned to Sparrow. My nerves were shot. I couldn’t trust myself not to vomit again, but this time in her lap. And I never vomited, never cried.
“He didn’t want to take me,” I said.
She ran her fingers through my hair, brushing it back to normal. “No, he didn’t. But only because he didn’t want your mother to walk out of your life.”
“But you didn’t give a shit about that. Why?”
“Because I know no mother is better than a bad mother, and every day you were with her made my heart hurt.”
“Grams left, too.”
“She didn’t leave, honey. She died. It wasn’t up to her.”
“I don’t care. I hate women. I hate them.”
“One day you’ll find someone who changes your mind.” Sparrow smiled privately, like she knew something I didn’t. She was wrong.
Grams died and left me with Cat.
Cat almost killed me multiple times.
Women weren’t reliable. Men weren’t either, but men I could at least punch in the nuts, and men never made any promises. I didn’t have a father or a grandfather to get mad at.
“I will never change my mind,” I muttered, fighting my heavy eyelids that demanded I pass out.
I crashed in Sparrow’s arms hours after Troy left.
When I woke up the next morning, I found a golden chain on my nightstand.
I scanned the Saint Anthony charm on it. My initials was engraved around the coin.
S.A.B.
Samuel Austin Brennan.
Years later, I’d learn Troy and Sparrow petitioned to legally changed my name from Greystone to Brennan the same hour they filed for full custody of me.
I knew who Saint Anthony was, the Patron Saint of all lost things.
I was lost, but now I’d been found.
Next to the necklace was a paper plate with a glazed donut and a hot cup of cocoa.
I was a Brennan now.
Boston underworld aristocracy.
Privileged, respected, and feared above all.
A legend in the making.
I intended to live up to my namesake at any price.
I would never be lost again.
My parents failed, but me? I’d prevail.
I would rise from the ashes and make them proud.
Would soar into the sky.
This was the first time I felt this way.
Certain.
Age 17.
The heart was a monster.
That’s why it was locked behind our ribs, in a cage.
I’d known this all along, from the moment I was born, but tonight I felt it, too.
Twenty minutes after taking the Mass Pike out of Boston, I finally came to terms with the fact that I was lost.
I drove with the windows rolled down, the humid summer air whipping at my wet cheeks. The tears kept on coming.
The scent of spring’s blossoms lingered in my nostrils, heady and sweet, mixing with the crispness of the night.
She is never going to smell spring blossoms again.
To smile lopsidedly, like she is holding the secrets of the universe between her lips.
To press a dress against my chest and shimmy her shoulders excitedly, exclaiming it’s, “Tres you!”
Why’d you have to do this, B?
I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.
In the distance, neon lights flashed from striped yellow and red tents. There was a giant sign in the middle of a glittering Ferris wheel.
Aquila Fair.
Drown.
I needed to drown.
In lights and smells and noises, with simple lives that weren’t mine.
I took a sharp turn right.
I parked among the SUVs, beat-up vehicles, and sports cars, stumbling out of the Volvo in my black hoodie, cut-off shorts, and sneakers. The Daisy Dukes were my doing. I took scissors to an old pair of jeans and cut them off so that the curve of my ass was visible even from space. My attire usually resembled that of Kate Middleton. Prim, proper, and princess-like. But tonight, I wanted to piss her off for dying on me. To give her the middle finger for not sticking around.
“American girls show skin like men don’t know what awaits under their garments. You, mon cheri, will make a man earn every inch of you, and dress appropriately and demurely, you hear?”
My feet carried me forward, the mouthwatering fragrance of cotton candy, buttered popcorn, and candy apple trickling into my system.
She didn’t like it when I ate junk food.
Said Americans were in the habit of eating themselves into type 2 diabetes. She had a lot of ideas about Americans, all of them bordering on xenophobic, and I used to spend half my time arguing the merits of America with her.
Tents that offered live shows, vendors, and a small arcade surrounded the rides, serving as a border. The ding-ding-ding of machines, peppered with the mechanical noises from the rides, reverberated in my empty stomach. The Ferris wheel sitting in the center was bathed in an ocean of lights.
I bought myself pink cotton candy and a Diet Coke and walked around.
There were couples making out, laughing, fighting. Clusters of teenagers yelling and hooting. Parents screaming. Children running. I was irrationally, maddeningly angry with all of them.
For being alive.
For not grieving with me.
For taking for granted the rarity of their precious condition: alive, healthy, and well.
I tossed the remainder of cotton candy into a trash can and looked around, deciding what ride to go on first. From the corner of my eye, I noticed a giant sign.
The Creep Show: A Haunted Mansion Experience.
Haunted mansions were my playground.
I lived in one, after all—my house held the secrets of seven generations of Fitzpatricks—and I’d always been drawn to ghosts and monsters.
I took my place in line, shifting from foot to foot as I checked my phone. My mother and brothers were all looking for me.
Cillian: Where are you, Aisling? Call me back immediately.
Hunter: Yo, sis. You okay? Sounds like you were involved in some heavy shit. Sending hugz from Cali.
Mother: I heard what happened. Quite terrible, dear. Please come home so we can discuss this. So dreadful that you saw this.
Mother: You know how bad my anxiety gets when I can’t get hold of you. You need to come back home, Ash.
Mother: Oh, Aisling, what am I to do? You didn’t even make my herbal tea before you left. I’m a wreck over here!
That was my mother. Self-centered even when it was my world imploding into miniscule pieces. Always worried for her own well-being before mine.
I tucked my phone back in my pocket and craned my neck to look at the carts as they slid back from the jaws of an evil, laughing clown. Muffled screams bled from the inside of the ride. The people who came out stepped out of the carts with wobbly knees, buzzing with excitement.
When I was finally put in one of the wagons—it looked like a rickety pod with red paint smeared all over it to symbolize blood—I was alone, even though there was enough space for two people.
I knew nothing would happen to me on a fair ride.
Still, I felt lost, fragile, and unbearably lonely tonight. Like someone had peeled away my skin in one go and left me to carry my bones and veins and muscles in a messy heap.
I’d just lost my best friend. The only one that counted.
I grabbed onto the shirtsleeve of the guy manning the ride, tugging.
“I want to get off.”
He gave me a slow once-over, his gaze lingering a second too long on my bare thighs.
“Hell, sugar, I’d like to get you off, too. But you’ll have to wait till the end of my shift. I need the money,” he slurred, sounding stoned.
I clutched onto his Hurley hoodie sleeve, throwing fourteen years of etiquette lessons out the window in one moment of desperation. “No! I want to get off the ride. Unless you can put someone in the cart with me?” Hope trickled into my voice.
“Bro, it’s, like, a ride anyone four feet or over can get on.” He shook my touch off, frowning. “You’ll make it out alive.”
“I know. It’s not that I’m scared. I just—”
“Look…” he raised a hand to stop my stream of words “…if I don’t press that red button over there every three minutes, I lose my job. You getting out or sucking it up?”
I was about to answer that it was fine, that I was just being silly, when someone stepped forward, cutting the entire line behind them.
“She’ll suck it up, Sir Smokes-a-Lot.”
A curtain of unshed tears blocked my vision, and I knew if I blinked it away, everyone would see I was crying. I was so embarrassed I wanted to die. Blurry Stoner Guy pushed the metal rail open obediently, muttering a quick hello to the stranger approaching us, ducking his head down.
The person slid into my cart, pulling the metal bar against our waists, flicking a cigarette sideways, an umbrella of smoke cocooning us together.
I wiped my eyes, mouthing a mortified thank you. When I looked up, our gazes collided, and my insides crushed like a glass ceiling shattered by a supernova.
Him.
I didn’t know him, but I dreamed of him.
I’d dreamed of this man every night since I was nine.
Since I’d started reading kissing books under the covers about brave knights and the princesses who loved them.
Beautiful and princely, with eyes that could see through your soul.
He looked to be in his early twenties. With tawny, wind-swept hair tousled in untidy sexiness. His eyes were two silver moons—the kind that change color in different lights. His skin glowed, like he’d been dipped in gold, and he was so tall his knees poked out of the cart. He wore a black V-neck that clung onto his muscular chest and biceps and black jeans ripped at the knees.
A Saint Anthony charm was wrapped around his neck, held by a tattered leather string.
“I—I’m Aisl
ing.” I stuck my hand out to him. Our cart jerked forward and whined as two girls my age jumped into the pod behind us, gossiping hotly about a girl named Emmabelle who used to go to school with them and apparently had sex with half the football team then sucked off the other half.
He ignored my outstretched hand. I swallowed, withdrawing my hand and dumping it in my lap.
“Bad night?” His eyes lingered on my puffy eyes.
“The worst.” I didn’t even have the good manners to smile politely.
“I highly doubt that.”
“Oh, I’ll bet you anything my night is going worse than anyone else’s in this carnival.”
He offered me an arched eyebrow, showing me his handsomeness had a devilish quality to it, the kind I suspected very few women could resist.
“I wouldn’t bet with me.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“I always win.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” I murmured, starting to think he was a little too confident for my liking. “I bet you anything I’m having the worst night out of all the people in this carnival.”
“Is that right? Anything?”
“Within reason.” I straightened my back, remembering myself. She always told me to behave a certain way. If she was a ghost hovering above me right now, she would not appreciate my attire. The least I could do was not lose my virginity to this handsome stranger in a stupid bet.
“I’m guessing you’re the sensible one.” He twisted his lighter between his long fingers, back and forth, a movement I found oddly soothing.
“One, out of …?”
“Your siblings.”
“How do you know I have siblings at all?” I felt my eyebrows rise in surprise.
He stared at me boldly, his eyes saying things no stranger had any business telling me. It was like the world was his, and since I was a part of it, he could have me, too. Suddenly, I realized whatever was happening here was very odd and at least somewhat dangerous.
I wanted to strip for this man, and I’d never wanted to strip for any man, for any reason, especially not romantic reasons—and I didn’t mean just my clothes.
I wanted to make him explode like a piñata, clawing into his gut, unearthing every single quality, trait, and bad habit that he had. Who was he? What was his story? Why did he talk to me?