The Imperfections
“Don’t,” I say, shaking my head mildly. “Don’t try to convince me it’s what’s best for my sister. I told you, be a fucking man, own what you did, and own what you’re asking me to do for you. Don’t put it on Bri.”
Another long, silent minute passes, then he licks his lips, gathers his courage, and tells me, “I need you to deal with Alyssa. I need you to…make her disappear before she blows up my whole life.”
I look across the table at this miserable fucker. “Do you love my sister?”
“Yes,” he says vehemently, looking like he wants to hop across the table and tattoo the word on my left bicep so I’ll see it every day and believe him. “I do. I made a selfish fucking mistake, Brant, that’s all. I know I fucked up big time, I know this is bad, but I do love your sister. I don’t even know why I did it. I didn’t mean to, man, it just happened somehow.”
“It happened because you let it happen,” I tell him, not letting him off the hook that easily. “It happened because you’re a selfish dick who decided to stick his cock into the pretty teenager who came around every now and again. If I fix this for you, can you guarantee me nothing like this ever happens again?”
“Yes,” he swears, nodding. “Yes, I promise.”
“Nothing,” I say again, pointing at him across the table and narrowing my eyes. “You’ll be as faithful as a fucking Labrador until your dying day, and if you’re not, you’re done.”
“I swear to God,” he tells me, like that means anything coming from him. Bet this fucker doesn’t believe in jack shit, but still he says it. “You have my word, Brant.”
Ha, his word—only thing that means less.
He’s a sorry sack of shit and I don’t want to help him. I’m tempted to kick him out and deny him my assistance on this sensitive matter, but then I think about my sister crying into her pillow over this little asshole. If she finds out, she’ll be heartbroken, plain and simple. Even if she leaves him, she’ll be devastated for so long, by the time she moves on it might be too late to have that little princess she has her heart set on.
And here’s this asshole, knocking up someone else.
I shake my head at him and hunch forward, grabbing the whiskey. He watches me pour some into the glass, then throw it back, and put the glass back down with a clink that makes him swallow again.
“I’m gonna tell you something, Theo: you better not make me regret covering your ass.”
Relief transforms his features and his whole being lightens. “I won’t. Brant, thank you.”
“I’m not doing it for you,” I tell him, despite having told him he wasn’t allowed to say this is for Bri. “I’m doing it for my sister.”
He nods, eager to agree with anything I say now, even if it’s contradictory. “Of course.”
“You’re gonna put another baby in her if I let you go home tonight,” I warn him. “A little girl,” I add, like he can control that.
“I’ll do my best,” he promises.
“You’re gonna treat my sister like a fucking queen, and you take this betrayal to your grave. You put it out of your head and pretend it never happened. She’s not going to suffer for your stupid-ass decisions.”
“No,” he agrees, shaking his head.
“Once trust is broken, there’s no getting it back. You can try gluing it back together, but it won’t work the same. You keep your goddamn mouth shut and do better going forward.”
He accepts my berating and practically thanks me for it. I’m sick of this asshole, so I get the girl’s relevant details and then I send his sorry ass home.
Once he’s gone, I start debating how best to attack this. Time is of the essence. He told me he choked her the day after his anniversary, and that was a few days ago. If the girl hasn’t gone to the police yet, she probably won’t, but just because no cops have shown up yet doesn’t mean she hasn’t.
I need to find out if she reported him first. As long as she didn’t, I can make her disappear.
If she already did, he’s in a world of shit, and even I can’t bail him out of that mess.
With a heavy sigh, I haul my ass out of the booth, put the whiskey back behind the bar, and head out.
2
Brant
I’m surprised by how easy it is to get into her house.
For some reason, when my suburbanite brother-in-law started telling me about her, I assumed she’d be a pampered middle-class princess.
The house he gave me the address for is nothing like that. A rundown shack, it has a brown flaky exterior; a rusted, once-white pick-up in the driveway; and a screen door that looks like it’s been through a few tornados, but is still hanging on.