“Oh, yeah. Her. Funny story, actually. I kind of saved her from becoming a hostage at gun point. The crazy terrorist guy was going to take her as a hostage, right before I smashed his face into my arm rest repeatedly,” I respond to her question.
Something still isn’t sitting right with me. I look at Cheza and finally notice what it is. Through Cheza’s white, glittery star t-shirt, I can see her bra: a white and turquoise striped bra. Still at little confused as to the why, I press the issue.
“What does it matter to you if she gave me her panties or not anyway!?” I sternly ask, making full use of my deep voice to sound loud and authoritative. Cheza flinches and then comes back with more fire than ever. Uh-Oh. Looks like I made the wrong move.
“BECAUSE I DON’T WANT MY STUPID BROTHER TURNING INTO A LOLICON!” Cheza shouts at me.
“A what?” I ask.
“A PEDOPHILE!” She yells as I remember what she is talking about.
I never should have let Jason introduce her to anime. It was bad enough when he got her that book for her thirteenth birthday. She went on and on about sparkly vampires for months. It took so much willpower not to interrupt one of her rants and scream ‘VAMPIRES DON’T SPARKLE DAMMIT!’ Thankfully, she got bored of it quickly.
“I ALSO DON’T WANT HIM TO GO TO JAIL FOR STATUTORY RAPE!” Cheza adds.
“WELL THEN, MAYBE I WILL JUST CALL HER, TAKE HER BACK TO THE HOUSE, AND HAVE HER SHOW ME A GOOD TIME FOR SAVING HER! MAKE SURE TO WEAR EARPLUGS OR YOU MIGHT NOT GET ANY SLEEP!” I yell, a little insulted that she expected I would do something like that.
“FINE! GO AHEAD!” Cheza screams with tears forming in her eyes. I nearly crack, but I stand strong to teach her a lesson.
“FINE!” I shout grabbing my phone from the table to my left, and the slip of paper with the number.
With my face expressionless, I act like I’m dialing the number, but I go over to my favorites list instead. I look up at Cheza, whose tears are close to falling. This damn phone better hurry up or I’m going to feel like shit later. A cellphone starts ringing a moment later and it takes Cheza a few seconds to realize it’s hers.
“You should probably put these back on or you will catch a cold or something,” I tell her expressionlessly and hand her back her panties when surprise registers on Cheza’s face.
I’m aware that she can’t get a cold by not wearing panties, but that explanation is easier than telling her that I don’t want to take the time to think up the female equivalent of free-balling… Free-petaling…? Free-lipping…?
“How did you know?” Cheza sniffles, back to her usually quiet demeanor.
“I can see your matching bra through your shirt. Since you obsessive compulsively match them when you fold your laundry, I figured that the chances are pretty good that you also match when wearing them,” I explain. “But this was pretty elaborate. I mean going to buy a bag specifically for this… it’s not something you usually do.”
My eyes are drawn to the door where I see Tia standing with the door cracked, holding a video camera and trying really hard not to laugh. I don’t remember her owning a video camera, which means she went out and bought a video camera specifically for this, but where in the hell did she get a video camera at six am…? Oh fuck you, Walmart!
When Tia sees me staring at her, she just starts laughing and then enters the room.
“YOU’RE BEHIND ALL OF THIS AREN’T YOU, TIA!?” I scream. “HAVE YOU JUST BEEN CORRUPTING HER WHILE I’VE BEEN GONE!?”
“Please, she’s a grown woman! She was mad about that cute little piece of ass and wanted to get back at you, just like before,” Tia responds, presumably referring to the time I learned that I shouldn’t try to date my little sister’s friends.
****
When I was seventeen, I flirted with one of Cheza’s friends, one that had a crush on me. Cheza got angry and then Tia helped her set up an elaborate revenge plot that involved getting everybody drunk, slipping me a roofie, Jason hooking up with Cheza’s friend because he’s an opportunist, and a hungover wake-up call that meant Cheza shouting at me saying that I got trashed and then raped her friend who was now in her bathroom crying and wouldn’t come out. She continued by saying “What the hell is wrong with you!? You don’t flirt with your sister’s friends and you certainly don’t rape them!”
Naturally, I started freaking out and asked Cheza what I should do. She responded by saying, “You should learn your lesson and stop flirting with my friends so I don’t have to set up this elaborate fake rape plot again!”
Jason started dying in the hallway saying, “CT, you should see your face!” along with Tia, who was laughing so hard that she just kept repeating, “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!”
****
Cheza had gone to the bathroom to return her panties to their rightful place and had come back while I was lost in my memory.
“Wait, so how much of this was just you guys?” I ask.
“Well, she came by with a card and asked me to give it to you and have you call her… the card got misplaced though…” Cheza quietly says.
“*Sigh* That’s fine. I’m not really partial to girls that are four years younger than me anyway,” I say to her.
“At least not for another two years…” I’m tempted to add, just to annoy her.
“Anyway, get dressed and let’s go home. Sara’s getting you discharged now,” Tia says as she walks out into the hall.
Tia returns with a wheelchair and helps me out of bed. I walk into the bathroom with my bag of clothes and change before exiting and taking a seat in the wheelchair. Cheza wheels me out of the room.
“Mr. Treyfair, you’ve already been discharged so you’re free to leave, but you may want these once the anesthesia wears off,” the first nurse says as Cheza wheels me past the nurses’ station.
“Thanks,” I reply as she hands me a bottle of pills that say ‘Hydrocodone 5mg /500 mg,’ which I immediately slip into my pants pocket.
“You’re welcome. Take care!” the nurse exclaims as we leave
We exit the hospital and Cheza helps me into the back seat of the Mercedes GL SUV that Sara has waiting in front before Cheza goes around the car and gets in.
The ride home is silent, thankfully so, as I’m still peeved at both of them and don’t feel like talking. Plus, my stomach still hurts and a forty-five minute car ride doesn’t help. Sara pulls into the three-car garage and I gingerly exit the Mercedes. I carefully walk from the detached garage, across the asphalt driveway, and up to the front door.
“Okay, so Cole! We have a lot to talk about, but that has to wait until tomorrow when Kira gets here,” Tia says as we walk through the front door. That’s fine by me because I really don’t feel like talking.
I walk through the carpeted living room to the right, in between the eight-person couch that borders the perimeter of the room and the seventy inch flat screen, barely staying upright in the process. When I reach the threshold of the tiled hallway, I stumble and slam my left side into the basement door, causing the pill bottle in my left pants pocket to rattle.
“Ouch,” I calmly say through gritted teeth.
Cheza rushes over and helps me upright. She walks me past her bedroom on the right, the guest bathroom on the left, and finally into my room on the right.
“I think I can handle it from here,” I say once I sit down on the bed.
Cheza manages a smile through the barely contained sadness in her eyes. She turns and walks to the door, stopping at the threshold.
“Sorry,” Cheza quietly says and leaves, shutting the door behind her.
Well that’s just great! Suddenly I’m the bad guy and I have to feel like shit about it when I’m actually the victim! I strip down to my boxers and carefully lie down in bed, every movement sending shards of pain through my stomach. I retrieve the bottle of Vicodin from my pants pocket and pop a handful of them into my mouth. Probably not all too safe but fuck it. I need some sleep free from this whole mess.
/> The Vicodin fairy grants my wish of sleep, but I guess I should have been more specific because instead it gave me the one dream I fear most: the memory of the night of Jason’s death.
****
Chapter 12: Painful Memories
It was Friday night. Jason and I were out celebrating, having finished our finals from our second fall quarter at the University of Washington. Jason was wearing jeans, a red flannel shirt, and a peacoat, which is appropriate dress for thirty-five degree weather. I was wearing jeans, a white t-shirt, and my favorite leather jacket with the broken zipper, which is not exactly appropriate dress for the weather for most people. It’s not a problem for me because my blood runs a few degrees colder so it takes quite a bit to make me feel cold, whereas I get hot fairly easily, which is not ideal for Phoenix weather.
(I know what some of you, who have read the ‘sparkly vampire’ type books are thinking: “that’s not right! Werewolves have higher temperatures than humans so they don’t get cold,” which anyone who has had a temperature of 103 can tell you, is asinine. When your body temperature is that high, the air around you feels colder because of your hypothalamus and relative skin temperature. That is why when people have high fevers, they feel cold. The author just wanted the hot werewolves to be topless, plain and simple.)
Jason and I were walking home from a party, and we were still pretty drunk. We were joking around and having a good time when some asshole stepped out from a dark alleyway and tried to mug us at knife point using a dirk. I mean an actual naval thrusting dagger, dirk. I immediately sobered up a bit, recognizing it as a threat despite the stupidity of it. Jason however, saw the dagger as a giant joke.
“Dude seriously? What fucking time frame are you living in?” Jason asked after taking one look at the thing.
“Jason what the hell are you doing!? Now is not the time for jokes!” I said to Jason.
The mugger didn’t appreciate the joke and herded us into the alley, making several thrusts in our direction. I held up my hands and slowly backed into the alley, trying to decide if I was too drunk to fight him without getting stabbed. Jason just trundled along like a reluctant child whose mother just told him that he couldn’t get any candy.
“Seriously, if you are going to try and rob somebody, at least use a weapon that they can actually recognize as a real threat like a butterfly knife or a switchblade or better yet, a gun!” Jason joked again.
That turned out to be a bad idea. I saw the look of malevolence in his eyes as the mugger stepped toward Jason and I realized he was about to stab him. I wasn’t about to just watch as my friend got stabbed so I sprang into action. The only problem was that I was too drunk to remember any disarming techniques so instead of positioning myself in front the blade to disarm the guy, I just ended up in front of the blade, watching as the knife plunged into my navel and then was drawn out.
One of my favorite comedians, Nick Swardson, said, “I don’t care if I go through life and don’t help a lot of people or save a million lives, I just don’t want to get stabbed! If I can get through life without getting stabbed, I win.”
It looked like I just lost.
I crumpled to the ground at Jason’s feet in shock as he screamed “COLE!” Jason punched the guy who stabbed me and started fighting him while dodging stabs. I just sat there holding my stomach and watching as blood seeped through the cracks of my overlapping fingers.
“AH!” Jason grunted as the knife swiped his left bicep.
Suddenly, the blood seeping through my fingers stopped.
‘Oh this is just fantastic! This means that my heart stopped which means I will be dead soon. What is it, like 6 minutes until brain death?’ I thought.
Then I felt my limp body rise to my feet, something other than my consciousness compelling my body to move. Jason watched me rise to my feet in the bizarre, puppet-like, fashion he had seen five years ago, before I put Dwight into a coma.
“Oh you are so totally fucked dude!” Jason informed the mugger.
I watched as my body rushed forward faster than I thought possible and picked the mugger up by his face using just my left hand. I slowly squeezed his temples until my fingernails broke his skin. Then something strange happened: the mugger’s eyeballs exploded, leaving blood and goo trickling down my hand. When blood started trickling in a fine stream from his ears, I heard Jason call out to me.
“CT? CT can you hear me? Cole? You can stop now, I’m pretty sure he’s dead. Cole? COLE STOP!” Jason shouted while grabbing my right shoulder.
I just sat there—the helpless spectator—watching as I spun and grabbed Jason’s left bicep with my right hand, while I tossed the mugger to the wall with a squishy sounding ‘thunk’.
Jason looked at me with shock and fear in his eyes. When his body went slack, I let go of his arm as he fell onto his left side. I was standing over him with my face emotionless until I regained control and immediately fell to the ground beside Jason in shock at what I had done. At the end, Jason gave a little half smile and made a “heh,” sound, as if he were trying to chuckle. As he closed his eyes, blood started to trickle out of the left side of his mouth.
I was too stunned to move as blood gushed out of my stomach. I sat there knowing that Jason was dead… knowing that there was nothing I could do about it… knowing that there was nothing anyone could do about it… knowing that I was responsible for killing him.
I slumped over and my vision faded as I heard sirens in the distance, part of me hoping they would get there too late to save me.
…
I usually wake up after this part, but this time was somehow different. Jason suddenly appears in the darkness and says “Finally! Okay, listen, I don’t have much time. I’m still alive, in a sense, and I need you to go t—” before my dream flashes white.
A naked Natasha walks up and says, “You can’t delude yourself, Cole. Jason is dead. This is the reality of it… this is the reality of what you did.”
My dream flashes again and a scene comes into view that I recognize as the events following Jason’s death.
…
I woke up in a hospital bed. My stomach should have hurt, I could feel the stitches from surgery, but it didn’t—nothing did. I was completely numb, but not because of painkillers.
Tia walked in the room wearing jeans and a black turtleneck sweater, leaned against the foot of my bed and asked “How do you feel?”
I responded by giving her a glazed over stare, not exactly by choice.
“*Sigh* Don’t worry. I’ve taken care of everything. Let’s go home,” Tia said.
I hung my feet off the side of the bed, stood up and retrieved my clothes from the bag at the foot of the bed. I slipped the hospital gown off and got dressed, not caring if Tia saw me naked.
We were home in seven hours: five hours spent at the airports or flying and two hours for travel by car. I spent the time focusing on anything and everything that would keep my mind off recent events, things like counting the number of alcoholic drinks ordered on the flight. Answer: 116. I assume that some people ordered multiple times because the plane could only seat 180 and it wasn’t a full flight.
We pulled into the driveway, got out of the car, and walked inside the house. The moment I entered the door, Cheza rushed up and hugged me tenderly. Still numb, I just stood there not hugging her back. Cheza pulled away, brow furrowed and pouting until she saw my expression. Her expression immediately changed to one of concern, but she didn’t say anything as I walked to my room and fell face-down on my bed. In the back of my mind, I was aware that it hurt and that it wasn’t a good idea to lie down on a recently opened stomach wound, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.
For the next five days I was a ghost—a shell of a person. I floated around the house, not speaking and barely eating. Then the day of Jason’s funeral came. I got out of bed at noon, showered, dressed in a black suit, and joined the girls at the kitchen table while they ate lunch. Cheza and Sara were dressed in appropriate black att
ire. Tia, on the other hand, was wearing a strapless ‘little black dress’ that ended at mid-thigh level. I should have said something, but I left it alone.
After I entered the car, I just shut down, few outer stimuli making it to my brain. I felt the car stop. I heard Cheza open my door and felt her grab my hand, indicating I should get out of the car. I allowed Cheza to take me to where ever it was we needed to go. Few details from the funeral made it to my memory besides the fact that Jason’s mother had requested that he not be embalmed. I also remember seeing Jason’s mother, Ms. Mathews, for the first time.
Ms. Mathews was in her early forties with a pale complexion, straight dark brown hair that was almost to her shoulders, about 5’6” tall, and slim. The thing that seemed off to me was her indifference to the death of her son. It looked like it hadn’t fazed her a bit—like her son wasn’t really dead. Then again, Jason and his mom had hardly had an outstanding relationship. There were only a few other people at the funeral and none that were recognizable.
Nobody said anything as Jason’s casket was lowered into the ground. I saw out of my peripheral vision as two tears fell from Cheza’s eyes as she whispered, “Goodbye Jason, my other brother,” I could tell that she was holding back her tears for my sake.
We got home and I went straight to my room, stripped off everything but my boxers, and went to sleep early. The problem is what happened while I slept. My dream had been recreated from my memory, forcing me to watch once again as I killed Jason. I jolted up right upon awakening, yelping and breathing heavily with my body covered in sweat. I swung my legs over the side of my bed and tried to throw up into my bedside trashcan, but nothing would come out.
I sat there for a few moments, elbows resting on my knees while the blue glow of my alarm clock told me that it was 1:13am. I heard my door creak open as Cheza walked in (wearing a large white t-shirt that might have been mine) while I realized that she had probably been watching me the whole time. She silently walked over to me and stood in front of me for a moment before she grabbed my head and brought it to her chest.
That Which is Unexpected Page 5