by Ashley Love
“You know my brother, right? Lex? You’re that girl who lived with my brother?”
Sam is looking at him like he has three heads and a string of his little friends stand not too far away, watching curiously. I want to run away.
“Something like that.” I turn to Sam pleadingly and just hope to God that she won’t ask any questions for now. “Can you get us a table? This will just take a minute.” I mouth the word please as an afterthought, or more along the lines of begging.
“Where is he? His phone is off and he wasn’t at his house when I went the other day.”
I snap my head around to the little brat and start to grit my teeth but I hold back as I grind out, “I…haven’t talked to him in a while.”
Okay so it’s a lie, but I’m trying to keep my cool, turning back to Sam and giving her an apologetic look. She just nods and retreats inside and I’m sure I’ll catch hell for all of this later.
“You used to live with him. How do you not know what happened to him?”
Okay, this kid is nothing if not insistent. Must run in the goddamn family. I stare at Sam’s back until she’s inside and the heavy wooden door closes and I whip around abruptly to face Damon.
“Look, I said I haven’t talked to him,” I snap, then pull back my claws, so to speak. He’s grating on my nerves already but I can’t help but feel sympathy for him when he gives me those goddamn eyes. I sigh. “You said yourself his phone is off.”
“Just ‘cause you haven’t talked to him doesn’t mean you don’t know where he is. Did something bad happen?”
No. Something the very opposite of bad happened. “I’m sure everything is fine. Lex does this…he disappears for a while—”
He cuts me off. “To where? Where could he go without his phone and completely abandon his house? If something bad happened—”
“Nothing bad happened! Jesus.” I shake my head. The kid is smarter than he looks, and I have to wonder if Lex was this manipulative at his age. No wonder he was in so much trouble all the time. Although he’s not quite as cute and innocent looking as his younger counterpart. Makes it harder to be pissed at the little brat right now.
“Where is he? I know you know,” Damon says, and I sigh, looking at him disbelievingly. “I don’t care if he wants me to know or not.”
He says the last part quietly and it hurts a little because I know the relationship with Lex and his brother has always been one built on secrets and lies. It’s hard to look at the kid and know that he’s thinking his brother doesn’t want to be found, at least not by him.
I soften a little. “It’s not that he doesn’t want you to know. He just…he needs to be alone right now.”
“Why?”
“Jesus, Damon…” The little bastard is crumbling my resolve. Lex would shit himself if he knew I was running around blowing his cover, but it’s his brother for chrissake. I’ve been begging him for years to just treat the kid like more than a stranger. “Lex’s in rehab.”
“Drug rehab?”
“Yes, drug rehab.”
“How long has he been there?” He looks just as stunned as I expected but something like relief washes across his juvenile features and when hope starts to bloom in his eyes I wonder if this was a bad idea, the whole true confessions bit.
“Just a week.”
“Have you seen him? I mean, is he getting better?”
Shit. I can see the fantasies manifesting in this kid's head already and I don’t want to crush his spirits but it’s in his best interest to hit him with a big dose of the truth right now. Lex isn’t going to get sober and run home, and I need to put those thoughts out of Damon’s head before this gets really out of hand.
“I’ve only seen him once. He’s fine. He’s gonna be fine.”
“But he’s gonna be sober, right? I mean, he’ll be there for a while but then he’ll be off drugs?”
“That’s the plan. You can’t know for sure, though.”
He doesn’t miss the coolness in my voice, and when he suddenly gets defensive on me I think to myself I should’ve seen it coming. Unlike his brother, Damon still hasn’t given up the dream of their happy family.
“He’ll get better. I know my brother…he’ll get better.”
Something about it seems odd when he says it, and I’m sure the words have to feel foreign in his mouth because the truth is he barely knows his brother at all, which is heartbreaking enough in itself, and I see him instantly shrink back as the last word leaves his mouth, his demeanor totally changing as he continues. As much as he wants to believe that what he said is true, somewhere in him he has to know it’s not.
“Well, that’s good then. I need to go see him. They can have people come visit, right? I mean, you went.”
“Look, I’m not gonna lie to you, Lex’s gonna have a coronary if you show up.”
“But I’m his brother.”
“Yes, and that’s sweet, and I know you want everything to be all hunky dory and shit but he’s got enough going on without you showing up begging him to get better and come home. I think your best bet is to just wait and—”
“No. I don’t wanna wait. I wanna see my brother.”
I eye him hard and his eyes soften and my heart twists because he turns into a ten year old right before my eyes. A ten your old whose big brother is still his hero even if the asshole wants nothing to do with him.
“You’re the only person that knows where he is.”
For a nanosecond I think to myself that I’m the only person standing in the way of this poor little kid getting to see his brother again, but then just as quickly I dismiss the idea, shaking my head in disbelief. Holy guilt trip. He almost had me for a second. “You’re so playing me right now.”
“Just tell me.” He sighs, forlorn, and I don’t give into his plea, but I don’t dismiss him either, and the longer he stands here and gives me those fucking puppy eyes the harder it is for me to tell him to give it up and move on with his life. I don’t know what the fuck I think I’m doing, like keeping Damon away is protecting Lex somehow. If anything he needs a person or two in his life who actually gives a shit about him, and the longer it takes me to turn this kid away I realize I can’t do it. What a manipulative little shit.
“Fine. Fine.” I throw my hands up before pointing a finger at him accusingly. “But when he bites my head off for sending you over there I’m blaming this entirely on you.”
“God, that kid is a fucking nightmare,” I mutter as I slide into the booth seat across from Sam and she lifts an eyebrow at me imploringly. “Sorry.”
“Do I even wanna know what that was all about?” She smirks bemusedly and it surprises me because I figured she’d go right into a lecture of some sort or give me the awkward silent treatment. I’m pleased to see she’s lightened up a little, or at least she’d pretending for my sake.
“Just…drama.” I shake my head before laughing disbelievingly. “No surprise there.”
She smiles. “So how have you been? Really, I mean.”
It feels good to hear her ask, because she really wants to know, not because she feels obligated. Sam has always seen through my bullshit, and I’m kinda realizing that I need a person like that in my life right now. Lex has enough of his own problems, my mother is always right, and Aimee is coming around but she still has too many strong opinions about the whole situation, because it affected her emotionally. Sam wasn’t there for any of it, and maybe an objective point of view from someone who cares about my best interest will suit me for now.
“I’m making it, you know. It’s not easy, but I’m a hell of a lot better than I was, I know that,” I explain, and she just nods, listens. I keep explaining because I want her to understand, to really know what it’s like being in my head now. I think the more she knows the less judgmental she will be about the whole thing. It’s hard enough trying to understand why I got into this mess in the first place, but understanding where I’m at now, and that it’
s a completely different place than I was before, it’s imperative for her to get that. “It doesn’t really get…easier everyday. You just find different ways to make it through, I guess. Different things to get you through the day.”
“Do you still think about it a lot?” She takes a sip of the water the bus boy brings, and our conversation falls quiet for a moment as he arranges chips and salsa on the table before wordlessly slipping away. “I know I sound stupid asking all these questions…” She shakes her head sheepishly and I wave a dismissive hand.
“No, I get it. It’s fine. I would rather just tell you how it is than have you assume, you know. But yeah, I think about it. Just…walking down the the street sometimes…I forget where I am for a minute and I’ll put myself back in those places, those places I used to walk to. I have to really make an effort to…stay present, I guess. I always have to be aware—where I am, where I’m going, what I’m doing and why. I just have to keep reminding myself I’m not that person anymore, and that I’m not doing those things I used to do.”
“I’m glad you’re better. I really am.” She nods and there’s a sincerity in it that I didn’t realize I’d been missing until now. At the center everyone was on my side but they didn’t know me like Sam knows me. It wasn’t a relief for me to get better, at least not the same way as it is for her. It makes me feel good knowing I not only did the right thing for me, but that it affects other people, too. “I know we haven’t talked in so long, but when I heard you were still…you know, after all those years, I just knew it was going to be harder and harder the longer you waited.”
“Who did you hear from?” I sink back into myself a little. I’m not stupid, I know people talk, but it’s always sort of like a slap in the face to hear that people have been gossiping about my current state of existence. It’s always such a bitch to realize that I’ll probably be judged for a long time because of all of this, but I guess in no uncertain terms it’s the least I deserve for being such a moron.
“My mom, of course.” She waves a hand flippantly. “And Randy told me pretty much every time he ran into Lex, so I knew he was still around and I figured you weren’t far behind.” Her expression is a little guilting and it makes a flash of bitterness rise in me. I’m so sick of everyone's goddamn digs under the table about Lex. The ability of people to be so passive-aggressive and non confrontational really astounds me. “I just kept waiting…I kept waiting for that call, Leala, to say you were clean, or that you wanted help…”
“It wouldn’t have done any good to call you.” She senses the snap in my voice and retreats immediately, her voice shrinking to keep me from feeling like she’s crossing me.
“I could’ve helped you.”
I know it’s bullshit to some degree. Everyone always wants to be the hero once the work has been done. Shoulda, coulda, that’s what I say. No one wants to get blood on their hands when the shit is actually happening.
“No one could help me, Sam! I didn’t want help. Don’t you get it? You know how bad it is with the drugs.”
And it’s true, she knows. About a month after I moved in with Lex, a few of us in the old gang used to hang out still, before shit went overboard. Sam got into a good batch of coke with me and Lex and she almost got hooked, until she got really sick with pneumonia that winter and they found all that shit in her system. Her mother threatened within an inch of her life to tell where she got it, but she wouldn’t rat me out. At the time I was grateful, but now I figure maybe if she would’ve just snitched on me things never would’ve gotten this fucked up.
“I never should’ve let you keep hanging out with him.” She looks down at the table and I sigh.
“Oh come on, he wasn’t a bad guy.” She gives me a disbelieving look. “He wasn’t!” I reply defensively. “By the time shit got bad you were way out of the picture.”
“I shouldn’t have been.”
“This isn’t your fault,” I answer, annoyed that she’s trying to play the victim here.
“We wanted all the same things…” she trails like I’m dead and she’s speaking at my funeral. If there’s one that that hasn’t changed about her, it’s that she’s unnecessarily dramatic.
“Oh Jesus Christ, Sam…did we really?” I sigh exasperatedly. “I mean, part of me knows we did, but I wanted freedom more than any of those things.” I lean in for emphasis. “And I found something that made me feel free in an instant, more free than any of that.”
When she looks up I can tell she’s a bit off-put by my honesty but I’m really fucking sick of beating around the bush about all of this. I did what I did, and I’m not doing it anymore, and not an ounce of that truth speaks anything of her merit. She didn’t help me with a goddamn thing, and that doesn’t make me feel indifferent or even resent her, it’s just the fact, and she needs to get over it.
“How bad did it get, really? Do I even want to know?”
“Probably not.”
She shakes her head. "I should have just said something. I should have told someone, just ratted you out. You would’ve hated me for a while probably, but not this long…and we would’ve worked it out. It could’ve been over a long time ago.”
“But it’s over now. Sam, it’s just a different means to the same end. I had to do it my way. I had to do it for me...you know, it has to stick,” I reply, and we both soften a little, getting back to that place where we’re just two friends talking, two people who’ve missed each other and are trying to find a place in each others’ lives. “It does no good to do this for someone else and not be happy in the end.”
“Are you happy?”
I shrug. “I’m getting there. There’s still a few things out of place, but…that’s life, I guess.”
“So what are you gonna do now?”
“I don’t know. I’m kind of ready to go back to school. I feel like I’ve been getting dumber for the past five years.” We both laugh for the first time since we started this conversation. “I’m just getting back to that place where…I want a degree and a job. I feel like I’ve done absolutely nothing of merit for all these years and it’s like…I’m almost twenty-four years old and have nothing to show for it. That’s hard to swallow after the productivity that I had for so long you know.”
“But that doesn’t mean you have to throw yourself back into that. That won’t help anything. I don’t know how your parents are taking all of this, but I know how you and your mom are,” she says sympathetically and I roll my eyes. “Just…don’t think that everyone has all of these expectations for you now that you’re getting better. You can take your time. You have time.”
I take comfort in the reassurance of her voice, as if she’s trying to mend my fear that I’ve really gone and screwed up my life more than I imagined. It’s nice to hear a voice of reason, but also a voice of encouragement, someone who wants me to accomplish everything I want instead of just wishing me luck.
“You wasted a lot of crucial years that you need to get back before you start doing the whole the grass is greener thing. Denying yourself that is only going to hurt you.”
“Since when did you get a psychology degree?”
She laughs. “It’s called common sense.”
“Oh yeah, that thing,” I grumble under my breath, and when I look up she’s looking at me knowingly. “So what have you been doing?” God knows I’m ready to talk about someone besides myself.
“Well, I’m back in L.A. for work. I was at UC-San Diego, graduated this past summer, and I worked in La Jolla for a while, but opportunity here in the city is a lot better…for me and for Michael.” She smiles a little when she says his name.
“Yeah, so tell me that story.” I lean in with interest and she looks down bashfully.
“Okay, you’re probably never gonna believe this…he’s in a band,” she finishes quietly and I sit straight up in my seat, blinking at her dumbly.
“What?”
She blushes but her smile shows she's anything but emba
rrassed. “I know, right! That’s how we met. I mean, he went to UCSD, but I met him at this random club show. You would never know if you actually saw him though. He looks like your average suit and tie office guy, but he played bass for this local band that was actually really popular.”
I shake my head, still processing. “And you met him in a bar and now you’re a band girlfriend? I don’t freaking believe that shit. You of all people.” I laugh and she just nods.
“I know, I know. Trust me, it’s all I hear from everyone I know. But we all just laugh about it.”
“That’s crazy and kind of amazing at the same time.” I smile at her and she laughs. It’s good to know she hasn’t lost her adventurous streak, and part of me is really painfully happy that she’s with someone who makes her as happy as she appears just when she says his damn name. “So he’s cool though? Like…this is a good thing?”
“It’s a very good thing.” She’s absolutely giddy and I catch myself eyeing her engagement ring again.
“So when’s the wedding?”
She sighs, mostly content but theres a lilt of stress in it. “September. We had pushed it back, but then we decided to move back here earlier than we’d originally planned, so we should still be settled and okay to plan for September and it shouldn’t be too hectic…shouldn’t be.” She raises her eyebrows and crosses her fingers and we laugh.
“Aimee’s getting married Saturday.”
She slaps her palms against the table and her jaw drops. “You’re kidding?!”
“I wish I was.” I slump back against the booth seat and she asks like she’s afraid she already knows.
“How’s that going?”
“It’s just…my sister’s getting married.” I don’t mask the pain in my voice and she tips her chin down, looking at me knowingly from the tops of her eyes. “And now one of my friends is getting married.” I sigh. “But I guess that’s all that’s really left, huh? Marriage and kids…”
“You can still do a lot, Leala.” She shakes her head at me. “Just because this is what I’m doing doesn’t mean anything. And your sister is freakin' old...it’s about time she got hitched.” She waves a hand dismissively and smirks.