14
Kevin
Ifumble with the keys in the ignition as music blares on the radio. Thoughts swirl around me, and I desperately try to drown them out. They prod at my mind, trying to burst through like a goddamn SWAT team. They’d need all the rifles and ammo to defend themselves from the demons lurking in there.
Smoke billows from the top of a building in front of me. It reminds me of the fires we started overseas. We’d burn our shit. The smell of jet fuel mixed with feces created a nauseating aroma of dust and bacon. I remember the black smoke as the trash burned, rising in a dark cloud that curled into the sky and hung over the camp. Every time I inhaled, the smoke went into my nose, buried itself in my sinuses, and leached the toxins into me. But we had no choice. It was “trash in, trash out.”
It’s probably still in there, irritating the impure lung tissue. Some of my friends ended up with lung disease. Others still have stomach issues. My body feels fine, thankfully.
My mind, though?
I’m an alcoholic.
I have PTSD.
And it’s clear I have some kind of personality disorder that makes me stalk Emily. This is completely unrelated to my PTSD. It’s just another symptom topping off the rest—a plump red cherry.
The car door opens and snaps me from my memory. Skye sits down with a huff.
“How was your new therapist?” I ask.
She groans. “Terrible. We stared at each other in silence for like, thirty minutes. It was real productive.”
“She didn’t ask you any questions? Try to get you talking?” I’ve been to enough therapy sessions to know they would have tried.
“Of course she tried. The first half was introductions. She had me do some kind of intake bullshit. She kept asking me things, but the more she pried, the less I wanted to be there.”
“Skye . . .”
“Don’t, Kevin. If you think I’m going to walk right into some strange woman’s office and spill all the secrets I’ve kept choked down for my entire life, you’re sorely mistaken.”
I have no argument, because I know that feeling. I lived it.
“Fine. But you have to try. Legally, at least.”
She rolls her eyes in the way only an eighteen-year-old girl can, and I fight back a smile. Her cigarette box shakes against her hand before she draws one out. She puts it in her mouth and lights it, lowering the window with the lighter still in her hand. Her lips pout as she exhales, letting the gray smoke curl out of her mouth.
“Can I have one?” I ask.
She looks at me with furrowed eyebrows. “You smoke?”
“Not usually, but I have.”
I put my hand out. She pulls another cigarette from the pack and hands it to me with the lighter. I put it between my lips and light it, watching the cherry glow as I inhale. I last smoked with Emily. The taste is a stranger on my tongue now. I savor the moment with a long exhale and leave the cigarette between my loose lips as I throw the car in reverse and leave the parking lot.
Not far down the road, Skye’s phone chimes. I watch her check the message from the corner of my eye.
“Stop!” she screams, and I almost swerve into traffic.
I drop the cigarette into my lap. “For fuck’s sake!” I snatch the cigarette and squelch it before placing it in the ashtray. I pull over on the side of the road. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s my dad.”
“Is he okay?”
“Unfortunately, yes. But he says he’s throwing out my shit if I don’t come get it.”
Great.
With a dramatic sigh, I turn the car around and head toward her picturesque neighborhood. Skye’s leg shakes as we turn onto her street.
“It’s the tan house on the left,” she says as she sits taller.
I pull my rickety car into the driveway and park in front of the garage doors. A Mercedes and a BMW probably wait behind those doors, and they’re probably worth more than the house when combined. Heat rises to my cheeks. My pride is dead and buried outside this home.
“I’ll be right back,” Skye says, breaking my train of thought.
I grab her arm and stop her from leaving. “You aren’t going in there alone. Not a chance.”
“Well, you can’t come in!”
“Who’s going to stop me?” I smirk and release her arm.
She gets out of the car, and I follow her. I shut the car door, slamming it twice before it finally latches. Rust particles break off and land on the pristine driveway. I follow Skye and when I look around, there are no other cars in sight. People with this kind of money don’t park their cars in the driveway.
I reach Skye’s side and find her fumbling with her keys. I take off my sweater and throw it over my shoulder. She finally twists the lock and opens the door, and we walk inside.
My eyes widen as I take in the sheer size of the home. It’s beautiful . . . aside from the cracks in the drywall and dried splatters of blood that have been mostly scrubbed away. Carrara marble tiles cover the floor. The pattern creeps across it like the cracks in the tall, arched walls. Giant skylights look down on the room, but no matter how much sunlight seeps through, this home is too dark and full of secrets to be illuminated. A chandelier hangs from the ceiling. A goddamn chandelier. Can they be any more cliché?
When I compare the rundown apartment I grew up in to this house, I realize just how different Skye and I are. We aren’t on the same planet. Maybe we aren’t even in the same universe.
Skye trembles as if she remembers how some of the cracks and blood splatter came to be.
“Hey,” I whisper toward her.
She flashes her eyes at me, her lips drawn together. I hand her my sweater, and she puts it on to hide the shivering. The moment her dad turns the corner and sees her, the whole room changes. The air is sucked out of it, and anger replaces the space it once occupied. It’s suffocating. I’ve met terrorists that emit less rage than I feel from her father.
He raises his chest and broadens his shoulders when he sees me. I fold my arms over my chest.
“This is who you’ve been staying with?” her father says as he takes a few steps forward.
I step in front of her.
“You’re shacking up with grown men now?” he continues. “How old is he?”
He doesn’t look at me as he speaks, but my eyes are locked on his, whether he cares to look back or not. They’re the cold and lifeless eyes I’ve seen on men who would slit the throat of a child and still sleep soundly that night.
“I’m thirty-one, sir,” I say.
“Thirty-one? Are you kidding me? Do you know she’s eighteen? She’s a child!” His tone rises.
“With all due respect, sir”—there is none—“Skye is an adult.”
He steps toward me and puts his finger to my chest.
I don’t recoil.