Break Me (Brayshaw High 5)

Speaking of my brother, where is he?

I pull out my phone, but we’re too close, I have to focus, so I stuff it back in my bag.

I sit on the edge of the plastic and felt-covered bus seat, staring out the window.

With each stop made, we grow closer.

I lift my hand to yank the wire lining the windows that lets the driver know to make the next stop, but as my hand wraps around it, I chicken out. My fingers rest on the cooled pull string, and then someone else tugs it down.

I guess it’s settled.

We’re making the next stop.

I could easily not get off, but I came all this way.

I step from the bus, walking down my old street for the first time in four years. A street that, the day I was finally off of, I told myself I never wanted to set foot on again. Never see or think about.

That only lasted a few months.

It’s like the saying goes, you want what you can’t have, only warped.

I didn’t want to see my home, but being sent away, unable to, I wanted the chance to stand across the street and stare at it.

I thought about it a thousand times, and each time, Bass was beside me.

The entire situation, and conversation, played out in my head.

We would wait here, across the street until the living room got too smoky and our dad needed fresher air to blow his piney tobacco into. He’d come out on the porch and freeze, spotting us there, in the light, during summer, for all the neighbors to see.

What he’d say.

What we’d say back.

What our dad would try to do, and how we’d stop him.

How I’d get behind the wheel of my brother’s Cutlass and hit the gas, paint the brown garage red, if he even bleeds the same way we do.

No, that’s wrong, he doesn’t.

Me and Bass, we bleed on the inside where no one can see.

Pain becomes pity, and we never wanted any of that, so we showed none.

We participated in PE with achy ribs and blank faces, because to show discomfort meant to raise questions, raising questions meant raising our dad’s fists.

Silence was best.

Secrets were necessary.

Trust was nonexistent.

We didn’t trust our father not to kill us, our mother to save us. We didn’t even trust ourselves, which meant we couldn’t trust each other. Not because we thought we’d do one another wrong, but because we’d do anything for each other. Anything. Always. No matter what.

People say all the time how they’d die for someone they love, in a heartbeat, they usually follow the statement with, but most have never and will never be faced with a situation where they’d have to put their money where their mouth is.

It’s easy to say I’d die for you in a moment of hyped emotion or an attempt to prove your love or loyalty.

But would they?

If you stared down the barrel of a custom, steel-bodied, Glock when the safety’s off, would they step in front of it?

Probably not.

“You okay?”

My elbow lifts, flying around with my body, but the guy jumps back before he catches it to the jawbone.

His hands lift and he takes a careful step back. “Hey, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you, but we got off the bus almost five minutes ago, and you’ve been standing there staring at the stop sign ever since.”

I turn back to the stop sign I had no idea I was looking at.

My dad banged my head against that once.

Bass taught me how to ride a bike. My mom came out pretending to be proud, and he followed.

I fell and he strolled over.

A perfect fatherly thing to do, right? Lift your little girl off the ground when she falls flat against it.

He did, my bike too. He even helped me out of my helmet, while Bass stood by warily watching, an apology in his eyes. And then as we crossed the street, my dad pretended to bump into me. My head “just happened” to knock right into the metal post, leaving a large knot in the center.

To anyone around, it was a harmless accident. I might have even thought so too, if he didn’t take the time to whisper, “Now you know what it will feel like next time you fall.” He threw my helmet in the trash that night.

The guy clears his throat and I blink out of the memory.

I say the first thing that comes to mind. “I don’t like this stop sign.”

He chuckles, his eyes quickly taking me in. “Yeah, I’m not a fan of that yield sign on the next block up,” he jokes. “You headed that way?” He points forward.

I nod.

“Well, I was a scout, and scouts are required to help people cross the street.”

“Old people.”

He grins. “I was hoping you didn’t know that.”