Which is where I’m headed now. To beg Rory to save my sorry ass from this hellhole I’ve landed myself in, at least for a little while, until I can save up some money and figure out my next move. I’d hoped to bail on Tuesday, the day after this horrendous decision, but Rory went MIA, and I’ve been stuck way longer than I wanted. Brody said he had to go out of town for an emergency and would be back in a couple of days, then Rory finally messaged me this morning that he was back, working a double shift.
Shaking my head with exasperation, I finally just pick her up and move her out of my way, setting her down on her bed. “No. I don’t want you to beg. I don’t want anything from you. I’m leaving.”
“Come on! I know you want to again!” she yells as I throw the door open and stalk out of her room. “I got a Brazilian yesterday, just for you!”
The minute I step into the hall, the pungent scent of weed smacks me in the face and my thoughts immediately drift to Hudson. A sharp ache of what might have been shoots through my chest, causing my breath to hitch and my entire body to tense. God, what the fuck has happened to my life?
Continuing my path to the laundry room, I casually glance inside Beckham’s room as I pass by, expecting to find him with one of the other Half Pipe waitresses he’s had on rotation. I freeze when my gaze lands on the crystal blue eyes that haunt both my days and my nights. Shockwaves rip through me, tearing me apart at the seams.
Hudson.
She’s here.
In his fucking bed.
I blink, enraged, and then my fists are pounding Beckham’s face over and over again. There’s a roaring sound filling the air. Me? My eyes focus and I realize what I’m doing, but I don’t stop. I can’t. How fucking dare he touch her? He’s not fighting back anymore, but I continue, my arms relentless. I feel nothing, say nothing, just bury my knuckles into his limp body again.
A piece of blond hair drifts across my eyes and I pause, shaking my head furiously. Hudson is clinging to my back with her lips pressed to my ear. I exhale harshly, trying to hear her words through the haze.
“…have to stop. Caleb wouldn’t want this…”
His name. Coming from her sweet voice.
My arm is pulled back, ready to strike again, and I freeze, suspended in indecision.
My eyes race over the scene in front of me.
Blood. Deep, dark red. Everywhere.
Beckham’s face.
The bed.
The floor, where we ended up.
My hands.
Caleb.
His body, his head, floating in a crimson pool of blood.
Dead.
Yanking my arm away, I shrug Hudson off me and stagger backward, my trembling hands raised in surrender, overwhelmed with memories. Tasha rushes past me to Beckham’s side, hyperventilating as she checks on him, and as I retreat into the hallway, my eyes lock firmly on Hudson’s thin frame. Kneeling on the floor, her shoulders hunch with despair as sobs rack through her body. Her focus is neither on me nor Beckham. Instead, she’s staring down at her hands resting on her lap and the shattered cigarette case lying flat in her palm.
“Hey, man. Sorry I had to bail on you the last couple of nights. I had to take care of some things back home.” Rory offers an apologetic smile as I approach the bar, my mind still encased in a dense fog. “Brody said you were looking for me. What’s going on? You look like shit.”
I sit on the stool and stare at him, but say nothing. It’s all I can do to not breakdown right now.
“Crew? You all right man? What happened?” he asks sharply, leaning over the bar toward me.
“I need…I was wondering, uh…” Fumbling over my words, I stop and shake my head, attempting to clear my thoughts before starting over. “I’m looking for a place to stay for a little while, and I was hoping I could crash on your couch. I’ve got a little money saved up, and I don’t want to waste it on a hotel while I try to figure out where I’m going permanently.”
“You plan on sticking around here, man, after everything that’s happened? You’re not going back to Texas?”
I hesitate, opening and closing my mouth. “There’s nothing back there for me,” I finally manage.
“Something for you here?” He cocks his eyebrow with interest.
Hudson’s face flits through my mind and my heart lurches painfully.
“Not anymore.” I grip the hair by my temples with my fists, my head suddenly pounding.
He glances down at my bloody knuckles, which I tried to wipe off with a napkin in my car, and sighs heavily. “Did you do anything that’s gonna land you in jail?”
I shrug. “I guess if he wants to press charges it’s a possibility.”
“Whose blood? Yours?”
I can’t help the smirk that tips the side of my mouth. “Beckham’s. I’ve been staying at Tasha’s.”
Without bothering to hide the scowl on his face, he slams his hands down on the polished wood and releases a string of curses, garnering the attention of the handful of customers in for an early lunch. “Fucking shit, Crew. What did I tell you about messing with that girl?” he roars. “I warned you repeatedly, and yet you still ignored me. I knew…I knew when you left here Monday, something just like this would happen. I wasn’t trying to be a cock-blocking asshole. I was trying to be your friend.”
After hushing him and glancing around, I give him the short version of what happened. After staring at me in silence—judging me, I know, but I deserve it—he sighs and slides a bottle of water over to me and opens one for himself, swallowing nearly half of it in one gulp.
“I’ve got a spare couch for you, but you’ve gotta get your shit together, Crew. My life here is drama-free, and I really fucking like it that way,” he says more calmly, though his tone is full of conviction. “I know what happened to your brother really fucked you up. I can’t even pretend to imagine how you feel, but you’re spiraling out of control and don’t even realize it. You need to stop being so goddamn selfish and face your demons. What happened was an accident. You could spend the rest of your life playing What If, but the truth is you’ll never know, so stop punishing yourself and the people who love you. Your mom has already lost one of her sons. Do you really want her to lose both? Is that what Caleb would want?”
His last sentence echoes in my head as I choke on the shame thickening in the back of my throat.
Is that what Caleb would want?
Is that what Caleb would want?
Is that what Caleb would want?
I have to get out of here. He’s right; it was past time to man up. “I gotta go, but I’ll be back to take you up on that offer,” I call out over my shoulder, bustling toward the exit with one destination in mind. My family’s apartment.
My confidence shrinks with each passing mile, and by the time I’m fitting the key inside the lock on the front door, I’m moving at a snail’s pace. I don’t know if I can do this.
All of the moisture disappears from my mouth as I let myself in, the stale smell of death lingering in the frigid air. Sluggishly placing one foot in front of the other, I eventually make my way down the hall to Caleb’s bedroom and stop in the doorway, sucking in a deep, agonizing breath as my eyes dart around the small space.
Looking around, I can’t comprehend it’s been almost four weeks since my little brother fell and cracked his skull open during a seizure, which eventually led to him bleeding to death. The autopsy showed therapeutic levels of marijuana in his system, so we’ll never know what went wrong. The autopsy showed he died of blood loss, but the lack of marks on his hands indicate he was unconscious by then. If he’d be clawing his way to the door, there would have been evidence. Mom found comfort in that. I didn’t. I should have been here.