Song of the Fireflies

I went toward him, both hands clenched into fists at my sides. Bray stepped in front of me and I stopped.

“Don’t talk about her like that, Mitch.” My jaw was clenched painfully and the blood rushed to my head. “You f**king know better. And besides, she’s always been my best friend. Not you.”

Mitchell smiled fiendishly and shook his head. He glanced back and forth between me and Bray. I was ready to knock him over the back of that sofa. One wrong word or syllable was all it was going to take. Bray knew it, too. She kept both hands pressed against my chest and her little body in my way, hoping it would be enough.

“Mitchell,” she said before he had a chance to say whatever it was he was smiling so cunningly about, “I don’t care if you stay here, and Elias knows this. This has nothing to do with me. We’re just worried. Meth is some bad shit.”

“You don’t know shit about me,” he said. “But I know about you. Ain’t that right?”

The tips of my fingers were digging into the palms of my hands. But I waited, hoping he wasn’t about to go the wrong way with this. I really didn’t want to hit him.

Mitchell smirked and went on, “See, she and I talked while she was living in South Carolina. Yeah. She told me all about that guy—” he snapped his fingers “—what was his name? Garrett? In fact, Bray called me several times. But she didn’t call you, did she? Not once. Some best friend.”

“I only called you to find out things about Elias!”

I still wanted to hit him, now more than before. But I also wanted to hear this.

Bray stepped away from me and started to go toward him, but I reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her back before she got too far.

But that didn’t stop her from shouting.

“You’re such a prick!” she roared. “Don’t you ever try to make what I did out to be something that it wasn’t!”

Mitchell threw his head back and laughed.

“A game-playing little bitch,” he said and before he could get the rest out, I was pushing Bray to the side and going toward him.

“Elias, don’t hit him!” Bray shouted at me from behind. “You know it’s the drugs!”

I shoved the coffee table out of my way and grabbed him by the front of his shirt and started pushing him toward the front door; his heels were partially dragging the carpet. By this time, I did want to hit him, more than anything, but I knew Bray was right.

“I can’t even believe you took her back after what she did!” he screamed in my face, the smell of his meth-breath whirling cruelly up into my nostrils. “All that time, Elias! That hell she put you through! All those times I listened to you talk about her, all that childhood stuff, the stupid f**king firefly story! She’s got you whipped!”

I shoved him right out the front door. He fell on his ass, but stayed there on the concrete screaming up at me, his long bangs now disheveled around his face despite the oil.

“Unfuckingbelievable! I thought you were better than that, bro,” he said.

“Your shit will be on the sidewalk by tonight,” I said, glaring down at him. “Don’t ever f**king come in here again. You understand? After you get your shit, that’s it. Don’t come back here or I’ll beat the f**k out of you.”

“Whatever, man,” he said and pushed himself to his feet. “At least give me my car keys.”

I looked over my shoulder at Bray and she went into the living room, coming back seconds later with his keys in her hand. Mitchell reached out for them, but I took them from her instead and pushed her carefully behind me.

“Don’t go near her ever again. Not for anything.”

I dropped the keys in his hand.

“Yeah, f**k you,” he said casually and turned and walked toward his car.

“I’m so sorry,” Bray said after I shut the front door.

She stepped up to me, clasping her fingers gently around my hands at my sides.

“I did not expect it to go down like that,” I said, looking toward the wall, thinking about Mitchell.

“He’ll come around,” she said. “He’s just not right in the head.”

“I know.”

Bray helped me pack up all of Mitchell’s things, which wasn’t much, just boxes of his clothes and movies and CDs. Thankfully, the only furniture in the apartment that was his was a small TV stand and a bar stool from Dickey’s Bar and Grill that he bought at an auction after Dickey’s closed down. We carried everything outside and set it near the front door instead of on the sidewalk. I didn’t want anything to get stolen or rained on.

But two days came and went, and Mitchell never came back to get it.

Chapter Seven

Bray

Elias took the falling-out with Mitchell really hard the first few days. It was only to be expected, since they had known each other even longer than we had known each other. Despite everything, Elias knew that it wasn’t his fault, and he wasn’t going to sit around and blame himself. Mitchell had brought this all on himself. Eventually, Elias went from feeling bad about what happened to indifferent.

He still had me, after all.

By Friday night, we were debating whether to go to the river or not, because Mitchell would almost definitely be there.

“I say we go, Elias. Don’t let him ruin our good time.”

Elias kissed me on the forehead and squeezed me around the waist as I sat straddled on his lap.

“OK. We’ll go. Just stay away from him, all right?”

I draped my arms around his neck and then kissed his lips. “I’ll be too busy with you to worry about him,” I said suggestively.

Elias smiled and squeezed my butt in his hands. “How did we get like this?” he asked, studying my face and my lips.

“It was inevitable,” I said in a quiet voice. My fingers touched the contours of his cheekbones and probed him as if he were a beautiful, delicate statue. He hadn’t shaved in a while, but I found the growing stubble sexy on him.

“Do you remember our first kiss?” he asked, smiling at me.

“Of course I do,” I said. “The first night we met.”

He shook his head and his hands slid up my back.

“No, I mean the first real kiss.”

I swallowed hard. On the inside I was screaming as another memory infected my thoughts in that moment, but on the outside, I looked as blissful as he did.

“Yes. I remember,” I said distantly.

Elias’ blue eyes softened, not sensing the turmoil going on inside of me. I was thankful for that.