by Coralee June
I’d fucked my brother’s murderer. I’d learned things about William that made me feel guilty and broken. I blackmailed Young’s lover. Worked with William’s drug dealer.
Then, I learned all the things that led to his death but still found myself trying to prove that I wasn’t crazy. I was admitted. Released. Beat down. I fell in lo—. No. This wasn’t love. This was survival.
All things considered, it was about time for the anger, restlessness, grief, and sadness in my soul to bloom into a spiraling tornado of tragedy. Maybe Noah was right. Maybe I shouldn’t have stopped my meds cold turkey. I wasn’t helpless or meek, so why did I struggle to lift my head from Young’s pillow to glance at the clock?
The full moon was high in the sky by the time Young came home. Normally, I would wonder about where he’d disappeared to, but I couldn’t bolster enough care to—well—care. I was staring at the glow of street lights outside through his bedroom window while picking at my nails. I didn’t answer when he yelled my name; I simply listened to his voice as he stomped throughout the penthouse, then went stiff when his bedroom door opened. I could feel his shadowed presence hovering over me.
“Octavia? Have you been in bed all day?” he asked. I squeezed my eyes shut and felt the mattress dip. “Octavia? What’s wrong?”
Everything.
I didn’t answer him. I simply opened my eyes and stared. “Is this about last night? Look, I wasn’t in the right headspace. I should have listened and…” his voice trailed off. “I was just trying to do what I thought you wanted, you know?”
Again, I didn’t speak. I just stared. I stared past Young, past this room, and past this existence.
He kept talking. Most of it was apologies I couldn’t comprehend. Concern was pouring from his serpent lips. Each syllable a plea to react.
I kept still as a statue.
More time passed, and I snuggled deeper into the bed. My stomach growled in protest, but I was too exhausted to do anything about it. My body felt like it was on its last energy reserves, but my head was wired with questions about purpose, heaven, and hell. Young, or Nathaniel, or the devil left the room for a little while, and I felt my shoulders slump.
When I used to get like this as a kid, William would crawl into bed with me. He’d bring me food, brush my hair, and paint my nails. Even those precious memories dripping with pain seemed tainted now. Did William help me because he couldn’t help himself?
I heard the bedroom door open, and I prepared myself for another round of feeling guilty for not lashing out. “She’s been like this since I got home. I don’t know what to do here.”
I blinked once, twice, and on the third time, my blurred vision focused on a concerned looking Noah. “Octavia? How long have you been in bed?”
Not long enough.
Silence.
Silence.
“Do you know where you are?” Noah asked. My eyes flickered to Young. He was standing to the left of Noah with his arms crossed over his defined chest. I knew I was in his bedroom. I also knew that sometimes the worst place you could be was in your own head.
“Yes,” I choked out. I hated this. My alter ego was pounding against the glass separating my spirit from my debilitating sadness.
“Good, good. You stopped your medicine, right? Sometimes it takes a few days, but it can really throw you off. You’ve had a lot of drastic changes lately. I’m concerned, okay?”
“Don’t send me away, Noah,” I whispered.
“Never, Babe. Never again,” he promised. Noah stroked my cheek with his calloused fingers. “I warned you this would happen if she stopped taking them,” Noah hissed in a low whisper at Young.
“She seemed fine. I-I didn’t think this would happen,” Young replied while gesturing towards me.
“She needed to be weaned. She’s lucky her dosage wasn’t higher, or she could have had seizures.”
They argued a lot. I tuned it out. I cried a little when Noah pressed his index finger to my neck. My skin felt clammy and numb. There was an unsettling chill beneath my tendons, muscles, and bone. It was one of those soul-deep feelings you couldn’t shake.
“Did anything happen that could have triggered this?” Noah asked.
“I beat up Samuel yesterday. Then we had sex. Afterwards, she kind of seemed in a fog, but it wasn’t abnormal. We spent the day together, watched TV, then fell asleep. I left to speak with Samuel’s internship coordinator to have him removed from the program, and when I got back, she was like this.”
Noah fumed. “Did she want to have sex?”
“She didn’t say no. I didn’t fucking rape her, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”
“We had goodbye sex,” I whispered.
Both of them snapped their heads to me in surprise. It was like they’d forgotten I was there. I couldn’t even blame them.
“What do you mean, Babe?” Noah asked while sitting on the mattress next to me. He gathered my hand in his, and normally I’d fight the touch, but I didn’t have it in me to remind him that he was a piece of shit therapist and that I was still hung up on his betrayal.
I sat up and wiped at my eyes, wincing when I saw makeup on the pads of my fingers left from my smeared mascara. “I’m done, Noah. William is gone. Mrs. Mulberry is gone. You’re gone. I’m gone.”
“Babe, I’m right here, you aren’t making any sense,” Noah insisted.
Of course I wasn’t making any sense. No one ever understood what I meant. My motives were always interpreted with biased eyes. Explaining your feelings to someone when you can't even explain them to yourself was the hardest shit ever. I didn’t understand how I could want to die one moment and then find a reason to live the next. I didn’t understand how sex could heal me and break me. I didn’t understand how my heart could yearn for someone when it wanted to push everyone away.
Everyone responded differently to sadness. It turned some kind, some bitter, and some resigned. It just turned me into everything at once. Maybe I lost myself in seeking answers. Maybe I was so caught up in finding out who to point the finger at, that I lost the will to heal. This entire process was meant to help me cope with the painful loss I’d endured, but it just made it worse.
I was spiraling. Spinning. Trying. Dying. Fading. Shading. Painting vibrant deaths with my mind. I hadn’t held a paintbrush in months, but my fingers had blood-red paint splatters all over them.
More time passed. They debated on what to do. Where to take me. A thousand times, I screamed in my head the demand for silence, but not even a whimper could break through my clenched teeth. I heard the front door open in the distance, and I prayed it wasn’t Samuel.
“Who is that?” Noah asked. Young let out a huff and threw his hands up.
“I didn’t know what to do. He’s another one of her…friends.”
The bedroom door opened, and in walked Renon. He looked like he’d just gotten here from the bar. His eyes were lazy and red. His clothes were dark and rumpled, but the idle grin on his face was addictive. “Crazy girl. If you wanted another orgasm, all you had to do was ask,” he joked, ignoring the annoyed look on Young’s face and Noah’s obvious confusion.
I licked my lips and noticed how dry they were. “I don’t need your lackluster orgasms, Renon,” I rasped as he circled the bed and sat down. I watched, transfixed as he unlaced his boots and slipped under the covers.
“For fuck’s sake. Make yourself at home,” Young growled under his breath. I smiled a fraction. Renon smelled like whiskey and smoke, the tobacco invading my senses and making my nose wrinkle.
“Octavia the Vengeful,” Renon began while breathing me in. “You smell like sex and sadness. I’m a little drunk and a lot tired. Mind if I hold you until you’re you again?” he asked, and it was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard. It was something William would have said.
“Please,” I croaked, appreciating that he didn’t ask questions or try to fix me. He just wanted to be near.
Noah and Young exchanged looks, both obvious
ly confused about what I needed. After a long, pregnant pause, Noah finally spoke. “I guess we will check on you in the morning?”
I threaded my fingers through Young’s and squeezed. “Stay,” I pleaded.
Stay.
Stay.
Stay.
Did anyone ever really stay?
Young bit his lip for a moment of indecision but eventually slid into bed on my other side. He didn’t hold me like Renon did, but I felt his warmth flooding my skin. “I’m here, Tav. I’m so sorry.”
I didn’t offer him forgiveness or understanding. I just rubbed my foot along his calf. We’d have to talk about us and about the goodbyes bottled in my touch. But not now. That was a conversation for Octavia the Vengeful. Noah didn’t lie down in the bed or find a spot on the floor. He hovered over us all. Watching with those silent, protective eyes.
And again, I slept.
Chapter 16
Depression was like cancer. You had good days and bad days. Either way, it was eating you up from the inside out, claiming every cell in your body until you were nothing but your disease. I woke up a sweaty, exhausted mess. Renon and Young were both holding me tightly, making my body heat up from their fuming skin. I snuck out of their clutches before the sun came up and slipped past a snoozing Noah. My alcoholic therapist was sitting in his chair, his neck cocked at an odd angle as he snored.
I took a scalding shower, the type that erased the top layer of skin, making room for new. I was hoping that I could scorch the pain away. I scrubbed until my skin was raw and looked up at the spout, letting the water flow over my face and lick fire along my cheeks.
I didn’t get out until the water was cold, and even then, I let the icy chill seep in my veins. I welcomed the hot and cold contradiction, seeking metaphors in the pain for my own fucked up pendulum of emotions.
When I got out of the shower, the door opened, and in walked a restless Noah. His face was covered in concern.
“I didn’t kill myself in the shower, if that’s what you were worried about,” I deadpanned.
He looked me over, eyeing the way my skin bloomed red and my limbs trembled from the chill. “I just wanted to make sure you don’t need anything.” I watched as he took in my pussy and breasts. There was a reluctant way he stared, like he felt guilty for wanting me.
“I could use a towel.” My stomach growled. “And some food.”
He started searching the bathroom for a towel, and once he found one under the sink, he tossed it at me. “I’m going to make you breakfast, okay?” he asked before backing away slowly. Once the bathroom door was shut behind him, I let out the breath I was holding. After brushing my bleeding gums, I ventured out into the kitchen and paused when I saw Young and Renon sitting at the island. Renon was shirtless and scruffy; Young looked tired as fuck.
Noah was fluttering around the kitchen, opening cabinets and trying to make food out of the three eggs and old bread he’d found. I coughed so I wouldn’t have to announce myself, and as if on cue, Renon spun around to face me, a wiry grin on his face.
“Crazy girl, on a scale of pot to PCP, how fucked up are you today?” I let out a huff of laughter and sauntered over to him. Renon looked hungover and greasy, like he hadn’t showered in two days. Despite that, the bastard was still sexy. Young shoved him in the side and rolled his eyes for being insensitive, but I actually enjoyed Renon’s humor.
“I’m probably meth. Wired. Destructive. My teeth are falling out, so I don’t feel like chatting.”
“Meth is the worst,” Renon replied with a shiver.
“You’re a terrible salesman,” I replied before sitting on the stool beside him.
The three of them looked around like they were waiting on someone to speak first. I reveled in the awkwardness of it and felt the remnants of my old self surface to preen a bit. “Octavia? Can we talk for a second?” Young asked while shifting off his seat.
“Sure,” I replied, while keeping my ass firmly planted in my chair. If he wanted to chat, he’d have to do it here. He stared at me for a moment as Noah cracked open an egg and Renon took a sip of what looked like whiskey. Young was obviously uncomfortable with having an audience. He never really liked being center stage; it was just sort of thrust upon him. I wondered if that was why he loved Samuel so much. That boy craved the spotlight. I also wondered if that was why Young gravitated to me. I had the sort of personality that overshadowed everyone else. I demanded to be seen—to be heard.
Letting out a sigh, Young began his little apology. “Look, I’m sorry for what happened here. I’m sorry for not believing you sooner and then for fucking you when you were obviously in a bad state of mind—”
“Don’t apologize for fucking me, Young. If I didn’t want your dick inside of me, I would have pushed you off. I don’t do anything I don’t want to,” I interrupted.
Young seemed relieved at my comment, his stress-filled face relaxing a fraction. He then continued. “I think I knew all along that Samuel was a trash friend, but he was right. I was too scared to do anything about it. I’ve always been the martyr. I believe you, Octavia. And not just because I heard how much of a shit person he was or because Renon is sitting here in my fucking kitchen confirming the story. I believe you because you said it and I know you’re honest. You might be in a dark place, but you’re no liar. I know that.”
His words comforted me some, but it still felt wrong. Everything about Young and me would always feel wrong, I supposed. It was just in our nature to not fit correctly. We were too burdened by William for it to be any other way.
“So what are we going to do about Samuel? I already went to the police, they think he’s just a pusher and want his supplier,” I admitted. Maybe I shouldn’t have been admitting that I went to the police to Renon, but I didn’t care. I didn’t give him up.
Renon turned to look at me with a smile. “An informant of mine at the PD said you didn’t give me up. I guess you enjoyed that one and a half orgasm, huh?”
Of course the rat bastard would have an informant at the police department. All legitimate drug dealers did. At least he wasn’t mad that I almost got him caught. Cocky motherfucker. “I just didn’t want you behind bars before I could cash in on your debt.”
“Conjugal visits, baby! You like me. Admit it,” he teased with a wink.
“Whatever. So what do we do? They’ve already proven they don’t give a shit about Samuel, and if we turn him in, he’ll give up Renon.”
“She totally cares about me,” Renon whispers to Noah before biting his lip. I blinked. Who the fuck was this guy, and what did he do with the elusive, take-no-shit drug dealer I met a couple of months ago? Wasn’t he the one terrified I’d tattoo his name on my pussy? Now he’s acting like he’s about ready to burn my name into his skin.
“I’ve canceled his internship. I called my father, and he’s planning on contacting a couple people at the health department to get a few of the Smith restaurants shut down. I’m going to ruin him and ruin his family,” Young replied in an ominous tone.
Noah cracked another egg and mumbled under his breath. “Great, now there are two Octavias.”
“I thought your families were friends?” I asked, remembering how Samuel bragged about it when we first met. Their parents were in the same circles, Samuel and Young attended the same private schools, even went on the same vacations. Why was his father on board?
“My parents never really liked the Smiths. They were always intruding on our lives. They tolerated them because I was friends with Samuel. Dad was happy to finally have a reason to sever that friendship.”
Interesting.
“Why are rich fuckers so determined to ruin people the hard way? That just takes way too much scheming and effort. Look, I don’t want to go too much into detail, because my employers have a strict don’t ask, don’t tell policy when it comes to murder, but he’s pissed off a lot of bloodthirsty assholes. Samuel has become too much of a liability. Handing out tainted drugs. Crying to his daddy. Skirting h
is debts. The fucker thinks he’s the only person that can sell to our high-class clientele, but he’s a dumbass.”
“Y-you’re gonna kill him?” Young swallowed before inching away from Renon.
“Is that a problem?” Renon replied.
“I need a drink,” Noah mumbled.
I let out a shaky breath. “I want to watch.” Everyone paused at my unsettling words and turned to stare at me. I could feel their judgmental stares, and it didn’t sit well that even now, they were surprised by my wishes. It wasn’t like I’d hidden my agenda from them.
“Okay. Let me talk to my people, and I’ll see what we can arrange,” Renon lied. I knew damn well that he had zero intentions of actually letting me watch. Witnesses were a liability drug lords weren’t allotted. Everything served a purpose, and they wouldn’t let me participate unless I was in their fold or they had something they could hold over me.
“Jesus Christ, you’re really going to have him killed? Can you even do that? Are we accomplices to murder?” Young asked, and I snorted.
“Young, you’ve been living with a murderer for the last year. You’ve seen the proof of how easy it is to get away with killing someone. We’re talking about professional criminals. If they want Samuel dead, he’s dead,” I answered stoically as Noah slid a plate in front of me. I stabbed the rubbery egg with my fork and placed it on my tongue. It was salty and disgusting, but my body was thankful for the food.
“I just think murder is a bit extreme…”
“It has nothing to do with you. That asshole knew the risk when he got involved with my boss. He’s been walking on thin ice since William died. Tough shit. I just suggest you don’t let him back in this house. If and when my people end him, you won’t want to be anywhere near.”
“How involved are you in this organization exactly?” Noah asked while propping his elbows on the counter top and looking at Renon. “Is it really safe for Octavia to be associating with you?”
“I’m not your kid, Noah. You don’t get to vet the men I fuck,” I sneered.