Gun Shy(31)

It’s just for a second, and it’s so fleeting I’m not even sure she’s real, but there she is: curtains flung open, looking out into the orangey dusk as it rapidly turns black. My chest hurts when I see her. I think about going up there, to her place, breaking in, taking her away. She’d struggle, but Jennifer struggled, piece of cake. I’m stronger than Cassie. I’m stronger than ever. I could have her in the back of Pike’s car in under a minute, some rope around her wrists, duct tape to seal her protests away. I could drive her somewhere far away, somewhere out in the mountains where nobody would ever find us. Keep her there until I could make her understand how much I still love her. Keep her there until she loved me back.

Rage courses through me. I ball up a fist and slam it into the side of my skull, hard enough that I see stars for a second. Don’t you ever think about hurting her, the good part of me commands. I hit myself again, in the fleshy part of my temple. Don’t you ever show your face to that poor girl again.

I won’t. I will stay away from Cassandra Carlino, even if it kills me. Even if I have to kill myself to keep my greedy heart from trying to have her.

She will not be my vice. She will not be my forgiver. She will not be my redemption.

These are the promises I make to myself. These are the lies I cannot bear to admit.



* * *



Old habits die hard; old addictions, even harder. Because they just won’t fucking die. Like a moth to a fucking flame, I find myself standing in front of the refrigerator, the door flung open, my mouth watering as I look for my favorite poison. My eyes light up as I spy a six-pack of Budweiser, my tongue already wet and bursting with the flavor of something I haven’t tasted in nearly a decade. I grab at the glass bottles feverishly, the balm that will ease my suffering, the thing that will wipe away the scent of Jennifer, the memory of Cassie, the taste of Karen and the well. I put the six-pack onto the counter and rip a bottle from the rest, the twist-top popping away neatly in my palm like a sharp blade in butter, like a shovel in wet soil. It’s that easy, clink, and then I’m lifting the bottle to my lips, ready for froth and hops and cold relief.

I’m excited, but I’m afraid, as well. My hand shakes from the anticipation, from the knowing of what comes next.

“Leo.”

I’m so deeply entranced by the beer in my hand, I almost have a fucking heart attack and die, on the floor of the kitchen in my mother’s shitty trailer. I startle violently, spilling beer all down my shirt, my jeans, onto the floor, the hypnotic spell broken. Now, I just feel embarrassed. And sticky. And cold.

“Hannah.” She’s standing in the doorway that separates the living space from the bedrooms, and she looks like she’s been crying. I set the beer down, worry for my sister eclipsing my dirty drink cravings — for now, at least. I reach out to her, noticing the way she’s holding her swollen stomach, the fear in her eyes. “What’s wrong, kiddo?”

“I can feel something,” she says. “Here.” She takes my hand and places it on her stomach. Something inside my sister’s stomach hits me square in the palm and I jerk my hand away, staring at her.

“See?” she says, starting to cry again. “What’s happening to me?”

I put my hand back on the same spot, a smile just for my sister. “Hannah, that’s your baby. Your baby’s kicking. It’s saying hello.”

I guide her hand back to the spot where her baby is currently holding a boxing match for one. She’s awestruck, and I can understand why. I remember so many times, when I was tiny, Leo, give me your hand. When Ma had good days. When she was pregnant with Hannah, and she’d take my little-boy hand and place it on her stomach and say, Leo, your sister is saying hello. Can you feel her saying hello? And I’d always marvel at the way you could love somebody before they existed, when they didn’t even know the world yet. I’d always marvel at the way my mother was so cruel, so kind, so in love with her children from the moment she learned she was pregnant; and yet so determined to destroy us all at once.

“It’s okay?” Hannah asks uncertainly, her big eyes searching mine for reassurance. I nod, swallowing back the lump in my throat. Because she’s fourteen. And she’s my sister. And this shouldn’t have happened to her.

“Get some sleep, kiddo,” I say, giving her shoulders an affectionate squeeze.

“Thanks, Leo,” she replies, wandering off. That’s the beautiful thing about Hannah — you tell her something and she accepts it. I know she won’t worry now. She’ll probably spend the rest of her pregnancy poking her stomach, saying hello back.

I turn back to the beer. My sweet poison, the destroyer of worlds. Whatever runs through my veins, it calls out to the alcohol cells suspended inside the wheat-liquid brew, begging. Come back to me. Disgust holds me tight and slams me down, again and again. You are pathetic. I open the other five bottles and up-end all of them at once, watching blankly as beer froths up and pours down the sink.

I hear movement behind me and look over my shoulder. It’s Pike. “Hey,” he says.

I make a sound in the back of my throat. I would say hey back, but my eyes are burning and that lump’s in my throat and I can’t speak, so I just stare into the sink instead. The smell of the beer makes me want to vomit.

“Glad you’re back,” Pike says, edging closer. “You okay?”