Page 4 of Gorgeous

No, I could never forget Major Cade Jameson as I blinked back tears and mourned the once strong and fearless leader my brother looked up to. There, in black and white, was a man in tattered rags, slumped in an alley, his head down as he ate something that looked like soup from a can.

My heart spasmed in a painful beat as I looked on, reading the article about not enough space or resources to get the homeless off the street. Tears spattered the thin paper as I cried for my brother’s hero. I cried for a man who gave everything for his country and was left hollow and empty inside.

I tried for a couple years after Bennett’s death to find Cade but never could track his whereabouts. His parents hadn’t seen him in years. It was like he disappeared until I found him by chance, in the Madison Times, a freak happening I can only describe as fate. I received an email, meant for my father, about the possibility of buying up property in the small town of Madison, Georgia.

I intended on forwarding it. I really did. But something about the headline stopped me. I had been searching for him and he was there the whole time.

He was homeless.

And that’s when I knew what I had to do.

I owed it to Bennett.

I owed it to Cade.

I would give up my life here in New York and help Cade find a chance at a new one.

Because Bennett would want me to.

Glancing down at the newspaper clipping in my hand, I read it one more time because I’m a straight-up masochist, and I feed on the hurt that looking at this image makes me feel.

Poverty on the rise in Madison. Many investors turning away from restoring the historic downtown due to a high volume of break-ins. Are the homeless to blame?

The headline judges me, night after night, as I lay awake with a roof over my head and clean clothes on my back. Not that I live lavishly or anything. Jess and I share a squatty two-bedroom apartment in New York City, no thanks to any of my family. My father, fuck his soul, is a greedy piece of shit and keeps his money for himself and my mother. Ever since Bennett and I moved out, Bennett going into the military, and me going to college for culinary arts, they abandoned us like the trash they thought we had become. “Brannon’s don’t join the military. Brannon’s go to Georgetown like their ancestors and become wealthy businessmen and fuck people over at every opportunity.” Okay, he didn’t say the last part, but that still doesn’t make it any less true. Even after Bennett’s death, my parents still ignored me like both of their children died from that bomb.

Jess’ sigh pulls my head up from the article. Her tortured expression breaks my heart. I don’t want to leave her. She’s the only family I have left. I’ve worked so hard here at the Culinary Institute of America to make something of myself. Top of my class, I scored the coveted internship at À Votre Goût after I graduated, working with head chef Philipe Christianson. It’s my dream come true and I’m giving it up. I know Jess thinks I’m crazy, and maybe I am, but I feel it deep in my heart that this is what I am being called to do.

“Can you just wish me safe travels?” I beg her, as tears clog my throat. My best friend sniffles, folding my Batman socks and placing them silently in my suitcase. Reaching across the mound of clothes, I pull her hand into my lap. “And call me every day? I can’t do this without you.”

Jess’ chest heaves and silent teardrops trail down her face, taking the mascara she applied perfectly this morning with them. “I love you, dumbass,” she sobs, pulling us together atop the mound of clothes. We lay there, crying in each other’s arms until the tears dry and Jess says, “Come on, let’s go look in my closet for something for you to wear that doesn’t look like you came from Comic Con.”

Laughing, I lift off her chest, noticing the remnants of our cry-fest on her silk shirt. “My clothes are fine,” I argue, but she waves me off, already up and headed to her room across the hall.

“B, if you want to score a piece of ass like Jameson, you’re gonna have to up your game.”

I don’t tell her I’m not going to fuck him. I want to help him. But it makes no difference to Jess. Help him or fuck him, either way, you dress with the intent of seduction. Wiping the last of my tears, I tuck the newspaper clipping in my pocket and follow her to her bedroom where we inevitably cry again while promising to grow our small movie blog. Along with our online friend Milos, our blog, The Three Musketeers, has been with us through everything. It’s important that we keep it going.

It’s not long after our cry-fest that Jess drives me to the bus station and refuses to tell me goodbye. I kiss her on the cheek anyway and wave at her from the window of the bus.

She flips me off.

Text me back, bitch!

Breck!

I swear, I will come find your ass!

I’m getting really scared, B. Please call me.

My phone buzzes with hateful love messages from Jess, but I can’t bear to answer her right now. All I can do is watch them. He’s healthy and vibrant, laughing at something she says from across the table.

I’m too late.

I should feel grateful that someone found Cade and got him off the street, but I don’t. Something like jealousy burns in my throat and tastes bitter as I swallow it back down. I know I said I came out here for Bennett, but the damn romantic in me dreamed up all these scenarios on the twenty-hour bus ride here of Cade and me living together and helping each other cope with our losses.

But’s that’s not what I found when I finally made it to Madison, Georgia.

What I found was a small town buzzing about a local physician named Anniston McCallister taking in six homeless veterans. The locals at the diner I stopped in were all in agreement that her boyfriend, a pro baseball player, was not happy about her recent life change, and they were all placing bets on when he would lose his shit publicly and bring the media to their small, quiet town.

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