Bad Son (Wild Men 3.50)

I snort. “What do you think?”

“I want you to tell me.”

“Like it will make a fucking difference?”

“Language, Jarett,” she says.

Fuck that. “There’s no fucking point.”

She sighs. “Tell me.”

“I got into a fight. That what you want to hear? Beat Nelson Wells to a pulp. I broke his nose. Fucking shit deserved it and more.”

And there it is, the disappointed look in her eyes.

Didn’t take long.

But strangely... she doesn’t send me away. I wait and wait for her to corner me and say something, for Mr. Lowe to come up, too, and have a talk with me, but nothing.

In fact, by the next day she seems to have forgotten the whole episode. I have no idea what it means.

It took a while to connect the pieces, and by then, it was too late. Truth is, it was too late all along.

For her, and for me.

***

It’s some days later, and I’m smoking in the school yard after classes when I hear Gigi call my name.

“Rett? What’s up?”

I’ve been avoiding her but here she is, approaching me warily, her backpack slung over one shoulder, her red coat making her face glow.

I don’t wanna look. I hate that she’s calling me that, that she has a nickname for me.

I like it.

It’s ridiculous.

It’s nice.

Fuck it, it doesn’t matter, cuz I don’t wanna talk—to her or anyone. The goddamn anniversary is coming up, the date Connor died, plus things have been sort of weird at the Lowes’ house. I don’t know if I’m imagining things but I somehow have a bad feeling in my gut.

I trust my bad feeling. It always comes true.

“Rett,” she says again, low and patient, and it only fuels the low-level anger that’s been simmering in my chest for the past few days, fanning it into fury.

Funny how my fear often turns to anger. It’s a well-worn path in my mind.

“Fuck off.” I throw my smoke away and turn on my heel to go, resisting the pull she always has on me. It’s a sweet rope around my neck, a grip around my goddamn dick, tying me to her. “I’m busy.”

“Come on. Don’t do this.” She’s coming after me, and I wanna stop and grab her in my arms, bury my face in her neck and draw in her sweet scent, hold her until my world stops spinning out of orbit and it all settles.

But the damn anniversary is tomorrow, the anniversary when I lost everything for the second time in my life, and everything I lost is a weight in my chest, in my heart, a lump of lead that I can’t shake.

Or maybe it’s a premonition of more bad things to come. Who can tell? I always expect bad things to happen. They tend to rain down on me on a semi-regular basis.

“Rett, stop.” Her small hand latches on my arm, and then I’m dragging her along in my flashflood of anger and sorrow. “Stop!”