by Rina Kent
I pull up to Briar Mansion, Marcus following close behind in his big-ass SUV. We had football practice until five in preparation for a game happening this weekend — the last before we hit finals. I’m physically drained, but mentally my brain feels like it’s fizzing.
Sports always had a way to get me hyped up, especially football. No one cares how aggressive you get out there, long as you don’t cross the line. Surprisingly, it’s easier for me to do that on the field than in real life.
I guess that’s mainly due to Coach Carter. Because fuck knows, that man’s dressed me down until I was shaking with fury.
In real life, it’s so much easier to get away with shit.
No witnesses? No crime.
Marcus jogs up to me, and then falls in line, his backpack over one shoulder, and two six-packs dangling from the fingertips of his other hand.
He’s tall and thin and runs like a fucking Olympic athlete, but he doesn’t have the muscle to take down the bigger guys. We make a good team and coach knows it.
Marcus ruffles his short, dark hair and gives me a sheepish grin. “Gonna fucking feel this tomorrow,” he says, shrugging his shoulders and wincing.
“You say that now, but wait till the only action you get is walking the stairs at Prep.” Marcus loves letting off steam as much as I do, and I saw him on the field today — he was giving as good as he got.
I’m glad he has a healthy outlet for the shit he gets dealt on such a regular basis. My dad’s never here, but that’s a shit-ton better than if he was…and he was roughing me up every other night.
“So you decided if you’re going to MU yet, or what?” I ask as I key in the security code on the mansion’s front door keypad. I could have set up this place to work from my phone or smartwatch by now, but Dad’s super old fashioned when it comes to this shit. I mean, we’ve got cameras and stuff inside, but they don’t even get backed up to the fucking cloud.
Nope. DVD’s all the way.
If Marcus’s dad weren’t such a fucking douche bag, I’d have asked Marcus a long time ago to get us a quote for a new security system.
When Marcus doesn’t answer, I shove the mansion’s massive front door open and block the entrance. “You okay, man?”
Marcus is staring at the ground, his mouth in an unhappy line. “Yeah, it’s just…” He sighs, ruffles his hair again, and makes a face at me. “The old man seems to think I’m obligated to work at his company when I’m done with school.”
“What? Fuck.” I step aside, and Marcus trudges reluctantly inside. “But you told him you wanna be an attorney, right?”
“Man, he doesn’t fucking listen.” Marcus heads straight for the kitchen. I follow him inside, watching as he sets our beers inside the double refrigerator.
Natalie designed this space. A few of the rooms, too. She was a fully qualified architect, and actually fucking good at it. But she seemed to think this house would be brimming with kids. Everything feels two sizes too big — the massive kitchen with its long island, the dining room table that seats twenty guests, the excess of guest bedrooms.
“Dude, you gotta level with him,” I say, taking the can he hands me and cracking it open. “You can’t go do something you don’t—”
“I don’t have a choice.” He turns, staring out the window. “He’s holding my trust fund hostage.”
My eyebrows lift to my hairline. I’m speechless. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I thought at least in adulthood, Marcus’s dad would cut him a fucking break.
“Wow…that’s…”
“Cold,” Marcus mutters. He swings back to me, lifts his can, and takes several long swallows. “Here’s to the fuck-ups that call themselves dads.”
I shake my head, but touch my can to his when he lowers it before taking a sip.
“Hey…that Indi chick look familiar to you?” Marcus asks quietly. My eyes snap to him, my heart suddenly beating harder than before.
“What do you mean?” I ask, trying for casual. Fuck knows if I fool him — Marcus is staring off into the distance again.
“I dunno…maybe she’s just got one of those faces, but could of sworn I’ve met her before.”
Thank fuck. I thought he was referring to the fact that Indi definitely seemed to know me.
“I think she’s family of the Davis’s,” I say, coming around the island and leaning against it beside him. I’ve got about half an inch on him, but that’s never seemed to bug him. “Could be she resembles one of them enough.”
When Marcus doesn’t say anything, I glance at him from the corner of my eye. He’s gone all stiff, face leeched of color. “What…What’s wrong?” I say through a chuckle.
“Nothing,” Marcus says hurriedly, pushing away from the island. He grins at me, and I wonder if I was imagining things. The light in this place can be a little too white sometimes. “Thinking of something else.”
Fuck. What is it going to take to get his mind off his prick of a dad?
“Tell you what,” I say, lifting my beer can and pointing at him with a finger. “Let’s plan phase two.”
Marcus’s smile widens into something approaching manic. “Did you see the video today?”
I shake my head, gulping down more of my beer and Marcus rummages in his sweats for his phone. He beckons me with a finger, turning and resting his elbows on the marble counter of the island as a video starts playing on his phone’s massive touchscreen.
The shot jiggles a little, and then steadies.
“What the fuck are those—”
“Lenses, dude. Or filters, or some shit, I dunno. Dylan’s girl is fucking obsessed with the shit.”
I crane closer, a slow smile spreading on my lips.
Cindy must have been quite close to get such a good shot of Indi on her knees. But whatever she did to the video, it introduced a pair of dog ears and a shiny nose to both me and Indi’s faces.
It honestly looks like she’s begging, and I’m standing over her smirking like a fucking king.
I bark out a laugh, and then snatch the phone from Marcus’s hands, replaying the video.
“Fucking genius,” I murmur.
“I’ll send it to you,” Marcus says, retrieving his phone when the video’s done playing.
“Yeah, you do that.” I’m still laughing as I make for the stairs. “Throw your shit in one of the rooms and let’s bang out a few games of pool.”
Marcus grabs his backpack and follows me up the stairs, detouring to his favorite guest bedroom — the one two doors down from my father’s den. Apparently, he has a thing for balcony’s, and that’s the only guest room that has one. It doesn’t have much of a view, but beggars can’t be choosers.
While I’m changing into clean clothes, my phone vibrates on my bed. I go over to it, tugging a shirt over my head as the video comes through. I watch it again, but this time I don’t smile.
This time, I’m trying to see past the ridiculous cutesy fucking dog ears and shit Cindy pasted on Indi.
I want to see her eyes. Those fierce fucking eyes of hers.
Yup, there it is.
She fucking hates me.
“You coming, bro?”
My eyes snap up, and I toss my phone back on my bed. “Sure,” I say gruffly, charging out of my room.
What the fuck’s wrong with me? I should be elated that she hates me; it means my plan’s fucking working.
Instead, I feel hollow inside. I chug the last of my beer before we hit the entertainment center on the ground floor, and immediately head for the bar.
“Shot?” I yell over my shoulder as I slide around the bar and grab a bottle of rum.
“Make it a double,” Marcus says, taking a pool cue from the rack and weighing it in his hand. “Else you’ll never fucking win.”
I bark out a laugh, pour us a double rum and coke, and then add a shot of tequila on the side. I bring him the small shooter glass, and clink it.
“To fucking shit up,” I say.
“Amen, brother.”
>
Indi
I’m supposed to be catching up on a week’s worth of school work, but instead I can’t stop thinking about Briar. What he did to me in the woods last night. How it felt when he had me on my knees in front of him in homeroom.
I don’t think I’ve ever met someone as enigmatic as him. There’s danger in his eyes, but instead of running, I’m drawn closer.
My mother made a point of keeping me away from boys. She wasn’t expecting me to lose my virginity on my wedding night or anything, but she impressed upon me how important it was to wait for ‘Mr. Right’, like she’d done with Dad.
But I haven’t met my Mr. Right yet. Not even a Mr. Maybe. I’m starting to wonder why the hell I listened to her.
It’s disrespectful. Downright rude. But as much as I loved her, as big a role as she played in my life…She’s not here anymore.
I have to make my own decisions now. I have to decide who Mr. Right is, or if I even want to keep waiting around for him.
I slide that thin silver chain through my fingertips, a sad smile pasted on my mouth. I’m staring out my bedroom window while the smell of whatever Marigold’s cooking downstairs wafts up to me.
Mom had lots of jewelry, but Dad commissioned this necklace from someone right here in Lavish for their 45th wedding anniversary…which he knew they’d never get to celebrate when he was diagnosed with stage four terminal cancer. Blue was Mom’s favorite color, and he’d known the day he married her that he would get her a sapphire.
I would love to wear this necklace all the time, a way to carry her with me, but if all else fails…I might have to sell it to escape this place. It’s worth seven hundred thousand, this stone.
I’m a hundred percent sure this is what they were looking for that night.
I got home at two in the morning that night. My phone had been ringing, but I didn’t recognize the numbers. I’d had so much to drink, I didn’t even think anything of it at the time. Multiple calls from random numbers? A mere glitch in the Matrix. Nothing for me to concern myself over. Especially when a hot guy from my school brought me three drinks, and seemed fascinated by everything I said. I thought we’d be making out by the end of the night, perhaps even screwing.
We never did.
By two, I could barely stand unaided. I’m convinced there was a guardian angel with me that night. A really trendy angel — one that knew I’d be better off getting pissed than staying at home with Mom. Because that guy could have done anything to me that night, but instead he called me a cab.
I argued with the cab driver for a minute when he wanted to drop me off. I kept telling him he had the wrong house.
They’d extinguished the blaze about an hour before I got there. Smoke hung thick in the sky, and wreathed what was left of the upper levels of my home. My front lawn was littered with police, paramedics, and firefighters.
And then there was the crowd.
When I finally decided to get out the car and try to find a cab driver who actually knew Lakeview and could get me home, my next-door neighbor hurried over and threw her arms over me.
“My—God—Indi.”
Then, finally, reality consumed me like molten lava.
I remember trying to run into the house. Men grabbing at me, dragging me back. And then I don’t remember much at all, because they fucking sedated me. My friend at the time, Sara, arrived a few minutes later. Her parents ushered me into their station wagon and drove me away.
The shit they gave me was so strong, I fell asleep in the back seat and only woke up later the next day.
Mom had been dead for almost a day before I heard the news.
I lift the chain and run the delicate links over my lips.
According to the police, it was a botched robbery. The thief — they could only find evidence of a single person on the scene — must have burned down the house to hide his tracks. He tried to make it look like a gas leak, but despite how badly burned my mother’s corpse was when they recovered it, her autopsy revealed signs of a struggle and aggravated rape.
Mom was petite, like me. Father used to say she was his doll. He wasn’t a large man, but she only reached his collarbones. It wouldn’t have taken a strong man to subdue her, to force her—
A sob hitches in my throat. I squeeze my eyes shut and force away every last shred of emotion from my mind.
I’m just glad my father wasn’t alive when it happened. It would have broken his heart. Just like he broke my heart and Mom’s heart when he died from cancer. That was over five years ago. Sometimes I wonder which was better — Mom’s abrupt, brutal murder, or my father’s year-long struggle where we’d known weeks before that he would be leaving.
Guess it doesn’t matter.
They’re both gone.
But their deaths taught me the most important lesson of all.
Love is for masochistic fucks who enjoy the feeling of having their heart ripped out.
Right now, I’m free. I love no one, and I never will again. All that shit about it’s better to have loved and lost?
I’ve done both. And in my mind, love’s just not worth the fucking pain.
Briar
“So when you gonna grow a pair of balls and tell your Dad to fuck off?” I say. Well, slur is probably a better word. We’ve almost finished the bottle of rum; the tequila suffered severe collateral damage.
We gave up playing pool and went to go watch a rerun of the weekend’s game. The plan was to figure out a strategy and suggest it to the coach for our game this weekend.
But as soon as our friendly debate began heading toward a screaming match, we decided to finally order a pizza and wait for it to be delivered on the front lawn.
That was ten minutes ago. Pizza takes a while to reach us out here in the rich part of town — sometimes up to thirty minutes. But we slump in a set of garden chairs and watch the moon rise while we wait, passing the last bit of rum from hand to hand.
Marcus snorts at my statement, and taps out a cigarette from a brushed steel case. We both stopped smoking a while ago, but on nights when liquor seemingly flows from the fountain of eternal fucking youth, nothing beats a cancer stick. He lights it, tugs at it, and passes it to me before replying.
“You make it sound so fucking easy.”
“It is. You say, Dad…fuck off.”
He laughs. “Yeah, and then he’ll tell me to fuck off.”
“And? Then you fuck off. Just make sure you got some money, and you’re good to go.”
“Yeah, money. You forget, my dad’s a stingy fucking bastard.”
I let out a massive sigh. “Jesus, then you save up. You get a fucking job. Or you could stay there and eat up his shit for the rest of your life.” I wave a hand. “Your fucking choice.”
“So I get enough money to make a move. Where would I go?” Marcus asks, but his voice softens as if he’s actually really considering this shit. I’m fucking glad — it’s only taken what, ten years to get my point across? I get that despite how flush his dad is, Marcus hardly has any walking around money on him. But if I were him, I’d have gotten a job a long time ago.
Where would he go?
“Here.” I sweep a hand out behind me and take a drag of the smoke. “I got a couch in the living room that’s got your name written all over it.”
Marcus laughs again, trading rum for the cigarette. “Sure your dad will just love that,” he mutters.
“He probably wouldn’t even notice. I bet you could stay here for months, and he’d just think it was pure fucking coincidence that you’re here every time he bothers to swing by and pick up fresh clothes.”
“He still working so much?”
I press my lips closed. I don’t whine about my personal life, because what kid my age wouldn’t kill to be where I am? I’m one weekday-visit away from being an orphan. “I get the whole house to myself.”
“He working on a new project or something?”
I shrug. “Probably. If I see him again this year, I’ll let you know.
”
Marcus shakes his head as he laughs, and we trade again. “Might as well finish it, bro,” he says.
There’s about three fingers left, but I shrug and down it anyway. Not as if I’m driving home, and no girls around for me to assault.
My mood turns dark in an instant. I stand, aim, and throw the bottle as far as I can. Marcus lets out a cackle when it hits the side of a hedge. “So close.”
I slump back in my seat. “Give me a smoke,” I say.
Marcus must have heard the tone of my voice, because he doesn’t pass back the cigarette we’ve been sharing — he lights me a new one.
Kind of hate alcohol. The early stages are fine. But now, when I’ve just about reached my threshold, there are only two paths for me to follow.
Aggression or depression.
Guess Marcus and I have that in common. Except his highs and lows come regardless of how much rum he has pumping through his veins.
“Hey, so Zak’s throwing a party after the game this weekend.”
“Yeah?”
“Black-tie again.”
“Swishy fuck.”
Marcus laughs. “You gonna come?”
“What, alone?” I glance across at him. “Or are you offering to be my plus one? Forget it.”
“You’d be lucky to have me, you fucking prick.”
I wave away the comment. As if I could go to a fucking party like some normal kid. All those girls around, all that booze around. Even if I swore not to touch a fucking drop of liquor, not get close to a line of coke…I was perfectly fucking sober when I found Indi in the woods.
I can’t risk that shit.
“You ever wish you could just go back to the way things used to be?” I ask quietly, sitting forward and resting my elbow on my knee as I drag at my cigarette.
Marcus is quiet for the longest time. “Man, you gotta get Jessica out of your fucking head.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“It is easy for me to say.” Marcus sits forward in a rush, leaning forward until I look at him. “Get over her. Shit happened, we dealt with it, it’s done.”
I let out a soft huff. “So why the fuck does it keep coming up to bite me in the ass?”