A Flicker in the Dark(100)

I glance at the clock on the wall, the hour hand pointing at seven. The overgrown branches from the magnolia tree outside are scratching at my window, nails against glass. I can almost feel the knock on my door before I hear it, that moment of anticipatory silence hanging heavy in the air like the seconds after a lightning strike as you wait for the thunder to roll though. Then that quick, closed-fisted pounding—always the same, unique like a fingerprint—followed by a familiar voice.

“Chlo, it’s me. Let me in.”

“It’s open,” I yell back, my eyes staring straight ahead. I hear the creak of the door, the double chimes from my alarm. My brother’s heavy footsteps as he steps inside, closing it behind him. He walks over to the island, kisses my temple before I feel his posture stiffen.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say, sensing his eyes on the pills. “I’m fine.”

He exhales, pulls out the barstool next to mine and takes a seat. We’re quiet for a while, a game of dare. Each of us waiting for the other to go first.

“Look, I know these last couple weeks have been hard on you.” He gives in, placing his hands on the counter. “They’ve been hard on me, too.”

I don’t respond.

“How are you holding up?”

I lift my wine, my lips grazing the edge of the glass. I hold them there and watch as my breath comes out in little puffs before disappearing again.

“I killed someone,” I say at last. “How do you think I’m holding up?”

“I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”

I nod, take a sip, put my glass down on the counter. Then I turn toward Cooper. “Are you really going to make me drink alone?”

He stares at me, his eyes searching my face like he’s looking for something. Something familiar. When he can’t find it, he reaches for the second glass and takes a sip himself. He exhales, stretches his neck.

“I’m sorry about Daniel. I know you loved him. I just always knew there was something about him…” He stops, hesitates. “Whatever, it’s over now. I’m just glad you’re safe.”

I wait silently as Cooper takes another few sips, the alcohol starting to course through his veins, loosen his muscles, until I look at him again, my eyes square on his.

“Tell me about Tyler Price.”

I watch a shock wave ripple across his expression, only for a second. A tremor like a miniature earthquake before he pulls himself together again, his face like stone.

“What do you mean? I can tell you what I saw in the news.”

“No.” I shake my head. “No, I want to know what he was really like. After all, you knew him. You were friends.”

He’s staring at me, his eyes darting back down to the pills again.

“Chloe, you’re not making any sense. I’ve never met that guy. Yeah, he was from home, but he was a nobody. A loner.”

“A loner,” I repeat, twisting the stem in my hands, the rotating glass making a rhythmic swoosh against the marble. “Right. Then how did he get into Riverside?”

I think back to that morning with my mother, at seeing Aaron’s name on the visitor pad. I had been so angry, the prospect of them letting a stranger into her room. I had been so angry that I hadn’t been listening, the words hadn’t registered.

Sweetheart, we don’t let people in who aren’t authorized.

“God, I keep telling you to stop taking these fuckin’ things,” he says, reaching for the bottle. He picks it up, and I can sense the weightlessness in his hands. “Jesus, did you take all of them?”

“It’s not the pills, Cooper. Fuck the pills.”

He looks at me the same way he looked at me twenty years ago, when I had stared at my father on the television screen, hawked those words through my teeth like dip spit, gritty and foul. Fucking coward.

“You knew him, Cooper. You knew everybody.”

I picture Tyler as a teenager, scrawny and awkward, almost always alone. A faceless, nameless body trailing my brother around the Crawfish Festival, following him home, waiting outside his window. Doing his bidding. After all, my brother was a friend to everyone. He made them feel warm and safe and accepted.

I think back to my conversation with Tyler on the water now, talking about Lena. How she was nice to me; how she looked after me.

That’s a friend, he had said, nodding. Knowing. The best kind, if you ask me.

“You reached out to him,” I say. “You sought him out. You brought him here.”

Cooper is staring at me now, his mouth hanging open like a cabinet with a loose hinge. I can see the words lodged in his throat like an unchewed chunk of bread, and that’s how I know that I’m right. Because Cooper always has something to say. He always has the words, the right words.

You’re my baby sister, Chloe. I want the best for you.

“Chloe,” he whispers, his eyes wide. I notice it now—the pulsing in his neck, the way he rubs his fingers together, slick with sweat. “What the fuck are you talking about? Why would I do that?”

I picture Daniel in my living room just this morning, that necklace tangled between his fingers. The hesitation in his voice as he started to tell me everything, the sadness in his eyes, like he was about to euthanize me—because he was, I guess. I was about to undergo a humane slaughtering right there in my living room. Put her down gently.