by Cora Brent
There’s nothing worse than what you come from.
“We’re not bad,” I said, hearing the quaver in my voice. “As for tonight, I’m real sorry, okay? It was my fault and I’m sorry. I’ll do whatever it takes to make it up to everyone.”
“Not enough,” she said flatly. “Not enough.”
“What the hell do you want?” Stone asked wearily. “Blood from the sand?”
“No.” She shook her head. “No.” She sighed loudly and started to leave the room. She said the last words with her back to us. “I’m done. You stay out of trouble and you can live here until you finish school. Anymore of this shit and you’ll find the locks changed and your crap in the street. Both of you.”
My brother and I listened to our mother shuffle away to her bedroom. We stared at each other as her door slammed, both of us feeling the same bleak symbolism in the gesture.
“It’s not true,” Stone said grabbing my shoulder and looking me straight in the eye. “It’s not true, Con.”
“I think she meant it all right.”
His jaw clenched. “I don’t give a shit what she meant. She was always going to find an excuse to slam the door. It’s not true what she said, that we’re no good.” He smirked vaguely. “Well, maybe it’s true of me. But not you, Con. You’re the best guy I know. And if she can’t see that then she’s as fucking blind as she is stupid.”
I flinched when my brother grabbed me by the back of the neck. Stone tipped his head close to my mine until our foreheads touched. Dimly I remembered how we used to stand this way when we were kids. Little kids. When the world was big and we’d wander carelessly past our boundaries, often getting lost, we’d stand together just like this and whisper, “strength in brothers,” to keep the panic away. It was from a movie about a Roman gladiator. The slogan in the movie was actually ‘strength and honor’ but we thought it was ‘strength in honor’. We changed it to ‘strength in brothers’ and everyone at school started repeating it even though they didn’t know why or what the hell it meant. There was strength that came from having someone to go through life with. But all these years later we still had a lot to learn about how to survive in the world. We’d squandered our opportunities at school, maybe past the point of no return. We’d gotten on the wrong side of far too many people, and now our own mother was ready to throw us to the wolves.
“Strength in brothers,” I whispered.
Stone smiled. “Strength in brothers,” he answered and gave my neck an affectionate squeeze.
We weren’t alone. We never had been. We never would be.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ERIN
Awful. I felt awful.
I felt awful when I saw that my father had been tiredly waiting up for me. I felt awful when I saw that he’d tried to call my phone at least nine times in the last two hours because he’d heard about Stone and Con’s Excellent Adventure and wanted to make sure I was okay. I felt awful when I caught his relieved sigh as soon as I was safely inside the house again. It would almost have been better if he’d yelled or grounded me or taken my phone away. But he just told me to put Katie to bed and get some sleep. I knew I wouldn’t hear anything more about it from him.
I fell asleep with a sour taste in my mouth that was still around when I opened my eyes in the morning. I used half a bottle of mouthwash and it tasted like sawdust as I swished it around and spat.
My head felt heavy with pressure.
Not real pressure.
The pressure I’d invented during the hours I spent worrying about Con and running around Emblem all evening, desperate for information about what would happen to him.
The pressure of anger towards that arrogant brother of his who acted like the whole ordeal had just been created for his amusement.
The pressure that came from the fact that I was a vital piece of this family puzzle, bound together by mutual loss and limping through the days. I couldn’t imagine how they’d survive without me here to mix casseroles and take action when Penny outgrew her gym shoes for the third time this year.
I pressed my fingers to my temples, rubbing, trying to ease the weight within. I knew a more effective way to ease it but Roe’s voice reached me as clearly as if she was in the room.
“You can’t be all things to all people, Erin.”
She’s said it with love. She’d said it when I reluctantly showed her the fading scars and explained why they were there. I knew other people did it too. All of them surely had their own reasons and no two reasons were likely to be identical. Roe was trying to let me know that it was okay to climb down when the mountain got too steep. My mountain was steep indeed. If I tried to take another step I’d surely fall.
Erin Rielo: Daughter. Sister. Cook. Maid. Stand-in Mother. Girlfriend.
I slowly rolled up my sleeve and looked at my bare arm, feeling shame, guilt. Roe was right. I was too many things. Somewhere in all those things I’d lost track of myself.
My fist closed and the muscles in my arm flexed. Roe had been begging me to tell my father for a while, even threatening to tell him herself if I didn’t stop. But it was an empty threat and we both knew it. I didn’t tell him because I couldn’t give him another moment of agony. I just couldn’t. And this would be agony for him. He would think I was headed down the same twisted road of forked tongues and sharp thorns that had claimed my mother. Sometimes I was afraid of that too.
The only thing that might be worse than my father knowing would be Conway knowing. All this time he’d thought he knew everything about me. As it turned out, he only knew the parts that I allowed him to know.
Slowly I opened the keyboard tray to my desk. The object I was looking for was all the way in the back. It made a harsh scraping sound as I withdrew it. Holding my breath, I stared at the thing. Such a harmless everyday object, small and utilitarian. I hated the sight of it ,but I liked holding it in my hand. I exhaled, feeling a dirty kind of relief as I pushed the sharp edge against my skin. I was used to the war that raged inside of me as the point broke my skin and left a trail of red in its wake. The pain was good and it was terrible.
But the pain was mine. I controlled it absolutely. I summoned it to replace the hateful pressure building between my ears. There were names for people who did this. I’d heard them before, just never admitting out loud that they applied to me. I gritted my teeth as the sting of the cut radiated. A sick feeling started bubbling in my gut. This would be the last time. I needed to keep my own promise to make sure it really was the last time….
“Morning, butterfly.”
I gasped at the sound of his voice and frantically shoved something underneath the copy of Anna Karenina that was lying on my desk. I pushed my sleeve down and weakly said a silent prayer to whoever was listening to please please please work this out in a way that Conway wouldn’t realize what I’d been doing.
“What are you doing here so early?” I’d spoken sharply. I hadn’t meant to. This was my fault for leaving the window open.
Conway, crouched in the window frame like an over grown Peter Pan, stared at me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Guests don’t usually climb through the window at the crack of dawn.”
Something like hurt flashed in his blue eyes. “It’s mid morning and I didn’t think I was a usual guest, Erin.”
“You’re not.” I sank down into my pink rolling desk chair. I felt like a bitch. “I’m sorry. It’s just, with my sisters always barging in I get kind of protective about my privacy.”
“Oh,” Con said quietly. He made no move to climb out of the window. He looked down at the peeling laminate floor that my father was always meaning to replace.
“Come in,” I told him.
A vague smile touched his lips. “Don’t think your dad would like it.”
“Give me a break. You’re halfway inside the room anyway.”
Con shrugged and hopped down to the floor. He sat on the corner edge of my bed and gazed around the room as if he was seeing everything in it
for the very first time. He looked tired, unshaven, all together a little off. He was probably still rattled by the hours he’d spent behind bars. Remembering it conjured fresh feelings of fury toward Stone. Con had denied that yesterday’s turn of events was Stone’s fault, but I’ve known those two my entire life. If Conway found trouble it was usually because Stone pushed him into it.
“You okay?” I asked, holding my hand out. He took it. He kissed my palm and gave me the same grin that had been stopping my heart for more years than he knew.
“I’m fine. Stone’s snoring kept me awake but even if it hadn’t been for that I would have been staring up at the ceiling for hours, wondering what the hell we’re going to do next year because our mother let us know we’re wearing out our welcome at home.”
“She’s kicking you out?”
Conway released my hand and rubbed his palms on his jeans, a troubled look on his face. “More or less. She says we’re no good and she’s tired of dealing with us. On the bright side, we can stay until graduation as long as we keep our noses clean.”
My dislike for Con’s mother instantly doubled. “That sucks.”
He looked at the floor. “Yup.”
I wanted to go to him. Hold him. Kiss him. Give him everything it took to put a smile back on his face. But I felt the tickle of a drop of blood traveling down my arm. It stopped me. I glanced down quickly, relieved that my sweatshirt was a dark color and would hide the evidence as long as I didn’t take it off. I rubbed my hands together and tried to become cheerful.
“You know,” I said brightly. “If you study hard this summer and take the college entrance exams in September you’ll have a great shot at getting into Arizona State.”
Con threw me a baleful look. “You know it takes more than that. I won’t be able to get my grades up enough to make it in there for next year. And even if I did, Stone would never get in. I can’t just leave him behind.”
“Why not?” I blurted out. Conway looked at me in surprise. I tried to stop the tumble of words but they just kept coming. “Stone would never even try. It’s a joke to him. Everything is. Don’t you see that? He is his own biggest problem and he’s just going to drag down anyone unlucky enough to be in his orbit.”
Con’s face reddened. I wanted to snatch my words back. Whatever misgivings I had about Stone I had no right to dump them all over Con. They were brothers. Their mother was a nasty head case, their father was dead and other than the cousins who’d shown up last night, no other family on the Gentry side had taken the slightest interest in them. They needed each other.
Con waited a full minute before answering. When he finally did his words were slow and tense, filled with undercurrents of emotion. “Stone is my family, Erin.”
“I know.” My hands twisted in my lap. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Conway still looked pained. He swallowed. “Stone talks tough but he’s not as bad as you think. He’s really not. He’s got a good heart.”
“Con, I’m really sorry.”
He nodded vaguely, then looked out the window. Coincidentally, Stone was outside, phone to his ear. He looked irritated with whoever was on the other end. He kept shaking his head, then finally gave up on the conversation and tossed the phone onto a cracked plastic patio table.
Con smiled and relaxed. He smacked a hand on his knee. “Let’s go swimming.”
I was startled. “What?”
“Pool is open.” He jumped up and held out his hand. “Come on. Grab your suit. Your sisters can even tag along if they want. Vending machine refreshments will be on me.”
I looked quickly down at my covered arm. The cut had been careless and far too long. I wouldn’t be able to cover it with a band aid. And there was no good explanation for a deliberate red line that ran from my elbow halfway to my wrist.
“We don’t have a ride,” I argued, feeling cowardly.
Con shrugged. “We’ll walk. It’s early, won’t be that hot yet. With shortcuts through the citrus groves we can make it to Main Street in twenty minutes.”
I folded my hands in my lap. “No, I can’t right now. But you go ahead. I’ll see you later.”
Conway wouldn’t accept that. “Come on, babe. Let’s go, it’ll be fun. You can admire my graceful diving.”
“They took the diving board out, remember? Really Con, I can’t.”
Con was quiet. When I looked at his face he seemed embarrassed. “Oh,” he said softly. “Sorry. I didn’t realize it was that time of the month.”
“I don’t have my goddamn period,” I snapped. “I just don’t want to fucking go swimming.”
He blinked. “Okay. Fine.”
“I don’t mind if you go.”
“Good. Because I’d like to think I still have some personal freedom to choose where the fuck I will and will not go.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
Con exhaled noisily and rubbed the back of his neck. “Look,” he said, moving over to the window. “We’re both in shitty moods right now so why don’t we catch up later?”
“Maybe,” I said darkly. “You go have fun at the pool.”
“I will. And you have fun sitting in your room by your lonely self.”
He jumped out of the window without another word and headed toward Stone, who was pacing moodily in the yard. He said something to his brother and Stone shook his head before lighting a cigarette. Conway seemed annoyed by their conversation and stalked through the Gentrys’ front yard, kicking the rocks as he went.
When he was out of sight I realized I couldn’t remember the last time we’d fought.
Or the last time he’d walked away without kissing me goodbye.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CONWAY
There wasn’t much in life I hated as much as I hated arguing with Erin. We didn’t fight often. She wasn’t like the other girls at school, always finding a reason to wallow in stupid drama games that no one could win.
I’d startled her when I came through the window. I could tell that right away. She shoved something into her desk drawer before turning on me all wide-eyed and guilty. No guy had a right to know everything about his girlfriend, but I wasn’t used to feeling like Erin might be hiding something from me. Even though I had shrugged it off right away, now that I was walking alone through the dusty streets of Emblem it bothered me. Maybe whatever she’d shoved into that drawer had something to do with why she was so irritable.
Or, maybe after having a night to sleep on it, she’d talked herself into being angry at me for yesterday. I had to admit I felt guilty for what I must have put her through. If she was sore about wandering around Emblem for hours, worrying over my fate, then she had every right. But then when we found each other in the parking lot of Dino Gas everything seemed all right. Erin had run to me full of kisses and love and relief. The only sore point was that she refused to believe that the whole mess had been my fault and not Stone’s.
Stone had been equally cranky this morning. He was that way even before Courtney, his non-girlfriend, called and lit into him for not paying enough attention to her, which was kind of an eye-rolling complaint all around. After all, she already knew what kind of a jerk Stone was when it came to girls so I don’t know what she was expecting when they hooked up. I’d never seen Stone go nuts over a girl, never afflicted with the kind of heart-singing passion that got a guy’s pulse racing and his mind fuzzy. He’d never felt the way about anyone that I felt about Erin. I really hoped someday he would.
I couldn’t help but grin to myself over the thought of Stone getting knocked over by a grand old-fashioned case of love sickness. It would take some kind of exceptional girl to manage him but with all the billions of females in the world there had to be at least one who could manage the job.
When I set out for the pool I’d been in a crappy mood and I’d planned badly. No water, no towel, no swimming trunks. Just me stomping through the streets of Emblem in my flip-flops and getting thirsty. I could get away with the
gym shorts as a swimsuit and in this dry heat towels weren’t a necessity. But it would be nice to have a way to clear the dust out of my throat. Around here kids got used to toting around their own water bottles by the time they hit kindergarten.
Reaching into my pocket, I was pleased to discover three rolled up singles. It would be enough to let me duck into Dino Gas and grab a couple of waters before heading to the pool.
Main Street loomed just ahead. Lately I’d been looking at it with more cynical eyes. I’d grown up thinking that the center of Emblem was quaint and homey and familiar as the back of my hand. Now it just looked demoralized. Shabby. Here was the rickety Dirty Cactus where the local bikers strutted their badass selves before peeling out in a blur of noise and leather. Over there was the squat structure of Earnshaw’s Drugstore where there was always a bowl of stale lollipops on the back counter. Carson’s Garage was beyond my line of sight all the way at the north end but I figured it looked how it always looked, greasy and run-down. Other than a smattering of eateries, a hardware store, and a beauty shop, plus the police station and jail, there wasn’t much that would make visitors take a second look. Besides being home to the state’s largest prison, Emblem’s only claim to fame was a brief status as the territorial capitol sometime between the Civil War and the decade when people started driving cars around. In honor of the town’s semi-historic past, a shuttered bank had been repurposed into a pathetic museum that showcased curled newspapers behind dingy Plexiglas. It was always manned by curator Mrs. Albomerit, who was roughly two hundred years old and smelled like that chemical shit my mom poured on her head whenever she treated herself to a home perm.
That was about all there was to Emblem. Yet, for all its shortcomings it was still home. The idea of moving up to the more exciting scenery of college town Tempe had its appeal. But no matter where I went or what happened Emblem would always be in the back of my mind.