Bad Habit (Bad Love 1)

I’m a bastard for what I did that night—for what I thought about doing every night for months before then. I know this. But I also don’t plan to come clean any time soon. Briar fucked me over real good. Maybe that’s what I deserved for hooking up with my best friend’s little sister, but either way, I’ll never make that mistake again. And as far as I’m concerned, Briar Vale is nothing more than a bad memory.

I shouldn’t fucking stay here. I should keep paying eighty-eight bucks at the roach-infested motel down the street. I should go kick my pops’ old dying ass out of the house and stay there. I should do anything but stay in this house again. Yet, here I am, sharing space with my old best friend and his little backstabbing sister. Because I’m a goddamn masochist.

After digging myself out of the mess Briar got me into, I made a life for myself. I met some good people—a guy named Dare who took me under his wing. I worked on roofs with him during the summer and did snow removal in the winter. Eventually, he finally took the plunge and opened up the tattoo shop he’d been talking about for years, so I unofficially took over the roofing business. I’d put Cactus Heights—and everyone in it—behind me in exchange for four seasons and hard work.

I swore I’d never come back. There was nothing left for me here, with a deceased mother and a father who only saw me as the reason she died. Then, I got the call that my dad was in the hospital. Liver failure. I didn’t know what I expected to feel. Maybe nothing at all. Surprisingly, I felt a twinge of…something. Something I still haven’t identified. Guilt? Fuck that. I’m not the one who drank to the point of trying to provoke my kid into a fistfight and blacking out—in that order—night after night. Obligation? Probably.

I’m stuck in my own thoughts as I follow Dash down the lit pathway leading up to the house, when something colorful catches my eye. The sight of those damn succulents—the one with the fleshy purple and bluish leaves—has a bitter laugh slipping out of my mouth. If I’d only known how alike Briar and those pointy-tipped succulents were back then. Both deceptively beautiful and innocent, but full of hidden, dangerous needles when given a closer look.

Once we’re inside the house, the smell hits me like a ton of bricks—like cinnamon and fresh laundry—and I pinch the bridge of my nose to fight off the onslaught of buried memories that rush to the surface. Memories of a young Briar tending to my wounds with her usually plump lips flattened into a hard line and her eyebrows creased with concern. Memories of stealing her first kiss in Dash’s room and hating myself for it afterward. Memories of having dinner with the whole family and staring at a piece of corn on the cob like it was from another planet. My family had corn out of a can. I didn’t know what to do with that shit. Briar noticed my hesitation, reached over and grabbed the corn, breaking off the leaves and silky strands. She disposed of them before handing my plate back with a soft smile. She didn’t make a big production out of it, and I doubt anyone else even noticed. But that was Briar for you. A tiny little girl with a heart too goddamn big for her body. But then she grew up to be just like the rest of the entitled assholes of Cactus Heights, Arizona.

“You can take the media room. I’d offer you my parents’ bed, but, that’s fucking gross,” Dash says, shuddering. “And the guest rooms are more of an office and an exercise room, so they don’t have any furniture.”

“That’s cool with me. Anything’s better than the bed at the motel.” I didn’t come from a life of luxury. I don’t need the finer things in life, but that shit was grimy as hell and I had at least six springs jabbing into me at any given time during the night. I’d gladly take their cushy couch. If it was the same one from when I was around, it’s more comfortable than anything I’ve ever owned.

We toss a few back in the kitchen, catching up, but not really going into detail of the past couple of years. It’s the elephant in the room, but I’m not ready for that talk. He’s not ready. Not for the reality of what happened and where I went. Not for finding out that his precious baby sister was the reason for it all.

I didn’t say a word when I left, not to Briar and not to Dash. At first, I wasn’t sure if he was in on it, too. Once I was able to think rationally, I realized that Dash probably had nothing to do with it. He would’ve tried to fight me if he knew about Briar and me.

Briar was like this little naïve angel. Always trying to help everyone and fix everything. She felt everyone’s pain as if it were her own. I couldn’t fault her for that, even if I didn’t understand it. In fact, I envied her ability to feel so much, when I could barely feel at all. Not unless she was around, anyway. Briar loved with her whole heart. And somehow, she thought someone like me was worthy of being on the receiving end of that love. I don’t mean romantic love. She was just a kid. But in the way you love your family, or a stray dog, more accurately in my case.

But for what she did that night? All because she had a bruised ego? That, I could fault her for. And I’ll continue to do so.

It all happened because of a kiss...

“I can see your wheels spinning, Kelley. I don’t know what the fuck happened, and I’m not gonna lie and say that I wasn’t pissed that you left without saying shit. You crushed my sister,” Dash starts, and my eyes snap to his. What the fuck?

“You were like another brother to her,” he continues, and I exhale in relief as I realize he still doesn’t know anything. “When I was too busy fucking off and getting laid, you were here, hanging out with her. She didn’t handle it well when you left. She cried for weeks, man. Weeks.”

I can feel my anger rising with every word. She is the victim in all of this? Give me a fucking break. If anything, it was her guilt keeping her awake. Not my absence. I squeeze the bottle of IPA so tightly that my knuckles turn white. But I don’t say a word.

“Anyway, my point is, I know some shit went down. But you’re my brother. You’re always welcome here. And once you’re ready to talk about where you went, I’m here.”

I give a short nod, acknowledging him, and down the rest of my beer.

“Appreciate it.” And I do. But I don’t have anything else to say right now.

“All right, I said my piece.” Dash tosses his empty bottle into the trash, and it clanks against the others. “I’m going to pass out. You remember where everything is?”

I tell him that I do—I practically lived here before—and he doesn’t waste any time going to his room. I sit for another minute, collecting my thoughts, trying to figure out exactly how I got here. I press the heel of my palms into my eyes, suddenly exhausted.

I head toward the opposite side of the house and grab a throw blanket out of the closet on the way. I pass Briar’s door and pause. She’s in there, right now. Oblivious to my presence. I have the urge to take a peek. Just one, little peek. But I shake my head and continue to my temporary living quarters. Once I get closer, I see the TV flickering, casting a light show on the walls. The door is open, and right before I throw my blanket onto the couch, I see it. A tiny blonde form curled up into a ball on her side.

Briar.

She’s still in her clothes from earlier. Her shorts have ridden up even further, exposing her long, tanned legs. Her cheek is all smushed from resting on her palm, making her look even younger, and her pouty lips are parted slightly. She still looks like a goddamn angel—even in sleep—but she’s the devil in disguise.

I didn’t expect to see her at The Tracks tonight. I used to go there when I needed to be alone or to drink myself into oblivion. That’s what I planned to do tonight. In a moment of temporary insanity, I called Dash to meet me. He knew I was back and had been asking to hang out, but I kept blowing him off. I figured The Tracks were neutral ground. I just didn’t know it had turned into the chill spot for the whole damn high school.

When that douchebag walked in with Briar slung over his shoulder and his hand gripping her ass, I saw red. I don’t want her, but that doesn’t mean I want anyone else to have her, either. I’ve never been very good at sharing. Chalk it up to being an only child.

I watched her for a few minutes before she noticed me. She was laughing and talking with her friends. There was a sadness in her eyes that never used to be there, and I wondered if that had anything to do with me.

Three years doesn’t seem like a long time, but it made a world of difference for Briar. She has tits now, for one. Nice, perky handfuls and an hourglass figure to match. She’s always been beautiful, but grown-up Briar is straight-up lethal.

For some reason that I don’t even pretend to understand, I take a seat on the opposite end of the L-shaped couch. I have a perfect view of her from where I sit. I glance at the TV, and I almost laugh when I see what she was watching. Tombstone. How this movie is anyone’s favorite, let alone a teenage girl’s, I’ll never know.

I reach for the remote on the coffee table and start the DVD over again. I don’t really watch the movie. I mostly watch her. She sleeps so peacefully. Her chest rising and falling in a soothing rhythm, softly snoring, and I realize that I hate her in this moment. Why should she get to sleep so soundly after what she did? I’ve had three years of sleepless nights.