Southern Chance (Southern 1)

“What detective?” he asks. I take a deep breath and turn. No matter how many times I thought about this moment, no matter how many times I role-played when I was drunk, nothing could have prepared me for being so close to him.

“This doesn’t concern you,” I say. “Nothing about me or my life concerns you.” It’s his turn now to take a step back, and I turn and walk out of the shop with Olivia by my side.

“Holy shit,” Olivia says from beside me. “Holy shit, did you just tell him to fuck off but in a nice Southern way?”

“I have no idea what I said. The only thing I was trying to do was block his smell.”

I pull open the truck door while my mother jumps into the front and makes sure we are all in before she pulls out of the grocery store parking lot. “We need to call your father,” my mother says as she speeds through town, and all I can do is close my eyes. Close my eyes and hope to God that it’s over, and I can leave here. That I never have to be that close to him again.

When we pull up to the house, my father and brother are walking around the house. They both look as if they are going to war with shotguns by their side.

“Oh my God,” Olivia says from the back, “is that a shotgun?”

“No,” I say, looking at her, “that’s two shotguns.”

I get out of the truck and wait for Olivia, who is still shaking. Trying to walk on the gravel in her heels, she almost trips, but surprise, Casey is there to catch her. “Careful, darlin’.”

“Oh, would you please put that shit away?” I look at him. “You can’t flirt with her. She’s not in her right mind.” I walk to the house, opening the door, and go straight to the cabinet in the living room where I know my father keeps his whiskey. “I need a drink.”

My mother, Olivia, Casey, and my father watch me unscrew the bottle and take a pull from it. The amber liquid hits my tongue and then burns all the way down. I cough after the second gulp, and I think I might actually get sick.

“Okay, if you gals don’t tell me what is going on, I don’t know if I can calm this one down.” My father uses his thumbs to motion to Casey, who stands there with his hands in his back pockets.

I hold out the bottle for Olivia, who walks over and takes it from me, spitting it out after a sip. “That’s not whiskey.” She’s coughing and trying to catch her breath.

“It’s like whiskey,” I say, looking at the bottle. “It’s just homemade.”

“I can’t breathe,” she says through her coughing. “It burns so bad.”

“Enough!” Casey shouts, and my mother sits on the couch and puts her hands in her lap as if she’s going to be watching a movie. Olivia looks at me almost like she doesn’t know what to say, and I just shrug.

“I think you just do it like a Band-Aid,” I say. “Just come out with it.”

“So I was in the gluten-free section at the grocery story, and my phone rings,” she says. I look at Casey, and I almost laugh at the way he is bouncing on his heels. “It was from an unknown number, and I didn’t answer the first time or the second, but then I got pissed.”

“Darlin’,” Casey says between clenched teeth, “can we go just a touch faster?”

“I’m trying, Casey,” she says, and he just nods at her. If it was anyone else, I think he would have swore, which makes this even more interesting. “So, I pick up the phone with an angry tone.” She motions with her phone to her ear. “And right when I’m about to tell the person I have no comment, he tells me his name is Detective Gonzalez with the LAPD.”

“Oh my God,” my father says.

“Well, it seems that our apartment was broken into,” Olivia says, and her hands start to shake. “According to the detective, walls were damaged. Every single drawer was thrown on the floor. It was a mess. Every single thing we had there was broken or vandalized.”

“Holy shit,” I say, sitting up. “What do you mean everything?”

“Well, he sent me an email with pictures, and it’s horrible,” she says, handing me the phone so I can see the pictures. Our couches are shredded like people thought we were hiding something in it. The television is shattered. The kitchen cabinets are empty with all the plates on the floor in little pieces. The fridge was tipped over, my bedroom destroyed. They slashed my bed with the same knife as the couch. My drawers are thrown everywhere, and then I swipe to Olivia’s, and I gasp. “It’s everything I have ever had.”