Page 20 of Liam

She clicks on the mouse a few times, but nothing on the computer screen changes.

I bite back a sigh, standing to full height. “Listen, I know you and Helmet are… whatever you are, but I’d appreciate it if you don’t invite him here again.” I pause a beat, make sure she’s listening. “I’m not saying that to be a dick, but I’m pretty sure you know the reasons I don’t want him near me.”

She doesn’t take her eyes off the screen, but I notice her brow bunch the tiniest bit. “He won’t come here again.”

The front door bursts open, and Lincoln yells, “Your dumb ass better be ready to work!”

Ignoring him, I keep my eyes on Adelaide as she turns her attention to me.

After raising her eyebrows, she asks, “You really let him treat you like that, huh?”

I shrug. “I letyoutreat me a hell of a lot worse.”

Addie

My parents weren’t just slaves to addiction. They became so rooted in that addiction that they became slaves to the person who supplied their addiction. In other words: They were drug dealers. The problem with addicts becoming dealers is that they plow through their supply before they can profit. So… my parents owed a lot of money to a lot of people.

Bad people.

I assume that’s why they left.

I tried to recall how it all happened, because I know for a fact that they hadn’t always been that way. Something changed when we moved here, and it was as instantaneous as it was confusing. And terrifying. And as Roman gave me the footnotes of their story, I started remembering parts of my childhood that I had locked away. There were pages in my journal dedicated to my experience, sketches of crystals and ribbons of smoke and needles andnames—names that never made sense to me… and still don’t. They were mere hauntings in my mind, things that would keep me up at night like a single piece of a puzzle on the never-ending scavenger hunt.

Roman didn’t know about their debt until he’d moved back into the trailer to take care of me. Just because my parents disappeared, it didn’t mean their problems went with them. He told me a man showed up one night while I was sleeping, threatened his life andmine, and didn’t give him a choice in the matter. My parents’ debt became his, and suddenly, he was living the life he was working so hard to take me away from. Minus the intake of drugs.

He considered running away, but he felt like that man would find us no matter what, and who knows what our fate would be then?

That same man would come by occasionally to collect what was owed, and Roman didn’t want me around any of it. So, he cut the wire on the fence behind our house, gave me a phone, and made sure I had enough time to run and hide.

And so I did.

I’d run onto the Preston property and hide out by an old VW bus.

My brother said he trusted the Prestons, even before he worked for them. He knew—even then—that if anything were to happen, they’d take care of me.

News flash: They didn’t. Not that I expected them to.

This went on for six years until he was caught.

And so was I.

He didn’t go into the details of what all went down with his arrest. He just said that it was complicated. I didn’t ask questions, too caught up with everything else he was divulging. And I don’t know if I purposely blocked out the memories of it all or if he wasreallyfucking good at hiding it from me.

I remember the gap in the fence, and I remember running and hiding, but I can’t quite recall if I knewwhyor if I just did it because he told me to and because I trusted him. Because I knew, deep down in my soul, that he’d ruined the entire course of his life forme… and I knew, even at eight years old, while I held his hand as he walked me out of the nurse’s office… I knew he would save me.

He always did.

And now…

Now that I know everything he’s given up for me, everything he’s done for me, I wish I’d never had the school call him that fateful day. But I was scared, and I was hungry, and I hadn’t seen my parents in days, and I just wanted… I wanted my brother, but?—

There’s a certain guilt the comes with being saved, especially when it’s happened multiple times by multiple people.

I swipe at my tears when I hear the quiet hum of a vehicle approaching, then look up at the trees in front of me, let the sunlight filtering past the leaves burn through my retinas.

Roman had called a few minutes earlier and told me he was on his way, so I came outside to sit on the porch steps and wait for him. Obviously, I hadn’t planned to get all up in my feelings while I waited, but here I am.

A golf cart pulls up at the front of the cabin, with Liam behind the steering wheel. He doesn’t greet me when he notices me, which is fine. I wouldn’t, either. Instead, he grabs the black gym bag sitting beside him, as well as a tripod, then hops off the cart and heads straight toward me. “You waiting on Roman?” he asks, and I don’t look at him when I nod.

---