Page 26 of Fighting for You
I’m on my fourth beer of the night, right around the point of starting to feel the effects, the point where the constant buzz of doubt quiets. I can almost push all thoughts of Margot’s unopened texts to the back of my mind. The little red circle indicating how many unread messages I have waiting for me never bothered me before. I could ignore it for days, weeks even. But knowing one—or more by now—is from her makes the stupid little number feel as though it’s taunting me.
I left my phone in the bedroom, knowing if it’s too close, I might get brave as the night goes on. I still could. It’s only in the other room, but in the moment when I made the decision, it gave me some hope I could avoid the temptation if it wasn’t right next to me.
“What the fuck is wrong with me?” I ask myself out loud, running a hand down my face and letting my head fall back on the couch. I’m staring at the ceiling when there’s a knock on the door. I ignore it, it’s probably the same kid from earlier trying to sell shit.
Grabbing my beer from the coffee table, I bring it to my lips just as there’s another knock, more forceful this time. “Fuck this,” I mumble as I push off the couch, pissed I have to tell this punk to fuck off for the second time.
I stomp over to the door, flinging it open, prepared to scare the kid shitless when I see Thea standing there instead. My face instantly softens. I haven’t seen her since the night before Thanksgiving. I was too drunk to care about how broken she looked that night. Cary had been the reason, but I’d thrown gasoline on an already out of control fire. I’d used her as a way to get back at my brother, and I hadn’t felt the gravity of what I put her through until now.
“It’s just me. Jesus,” she says as she pushes through me and into the house.
I run a hand over my buzzed hair. “Sorry, Thea. Some guy pushing solar shit came by earlier, and I just assumed it was him again.”
“No worries.” She brushes me off, peering around the room, judgment seeping out of her. “So, this is what you’ve been doing?”
Of course she sees some beer bottles scattered around and assumes this is all I’ve done in the almost two weeks since she’s seen me. For a second there, I was happy to see her. Happy to maybe talk to her like we did the last time she was here, right before everything got even more fucked than it already was. But it always comes back to everyone assuming the worst of me.
Everyone but Margot.I push the thought away as quickly as I can.
Letting out a huff in response, I walk over to the couch and pull a pack of cigarettes from my hoodie pocket. “Did you come here to lecture me, Thea?” I ask, grabbing a smoke from the pack and bringing it to my lips as I reach for my lighter on the table in front of me.
The sound of her purse hitting the counter echoes through the room before she answers. “Would that help? Because you missed the memorial. You’ve got Margot asking questions. You didn’t even say goodbye to Cary before he left. And now I findyou… surrounded by beer bottles with more bruises on your face than the last time I saw you.”
Her response halts my movement, the cigarette hanging from my lips, Zippo aimed and ready. I pull the lighter back and put the cig on the couch beside me. “Margot is asking questions about me? Why?” I ask, knowing there was probably something else she said I should have latched on to, but the second Margot’s name left her lips, I didn’t hear anything else. She walks into the living room, sitting down on the couch across from me.
She makes a face like she wants to roll her eyes, but she’s holding back. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because she had to bandage up wounds you refuse to talk about, and then you apparently neglected to answer her texts? She said she was trying to check on you and make sure your face was healing okay.”
Right. She is a nurse after all, of course she’s just concerned with how I’m healing. I pick the smoke back up, bring it back to my lips, and finally light it. I shake my head, internally scolding myself for thinking it could be any more than that. I should have opened the text instead of torturing myself for days thinking it was more.
“You know your mom hated that you smoke, and now you’re doing it in her house?” Thea says, her voice laced with incredulity.
I make sure to take a nice, deep inhale of the toxic fumes before exhaling them in a ring of smoke. “Not like she can stop me now that she’s dead.” I know it’s a shitty thing to say. And based on the look on Thea’s face, I hit the nerve I was aiming for. None of them realize I don’t need their looks of disappointment, I feel it enough without seeing it on their faces.
“Cool. Good talk, Brooks,” she says as she stands up, clearly done with my shit. “Listen, either tell us what’s going on withyou, or figure out how to get your shit together on your own. You’re like a fucking bomb ready to go off, and I can’t deal with another explosion in my life.” She walks out of the living room toward the kitchen.
I don’t have anything to say in response. I just sit there, slowly inhaling and exhaling the smoke of the cigarette, watching as it burns down to the filter, imagining it’s the bomb she mentioned and how much longer I might have before it explodes. I wish I could ease her worries, tell her I’m fine, and everything will be okay, but the one thing I’m not is a liar. I won’t sit here and lie to her face when I know damn well the other shoe is soon to drop. I’ve felt it for weeks. It’s kept me on edge. Cary may be gone for now, but he opened old wounds by coming back—and not just for Thea.
“What are these?” Thea asks, pulling me from my thoughts. I think back for a second and remember I put the papers from Elsher on the counter.
“I don’t know. A bunch of shit Elsher gave to me when I signed whatever bullshit got me the golden key to this humble abode,” I say, taking another puff, doing my best effort to blow smoke rings and make it look like I’m anything but falling apart at the seams.
“Brooks…”
“What?” I ask, slightly annoyed she’s going through my things like she owns the place.
“There are letters here,” she says, but her voice is emotionless, void of the lilt I usually love to hear. The one I spent years waiting to come back after she all but broke in front of my eyes.
“What?”Letters? What letters?Within a second, I’m off the couch, pulling the cigarette from my lips, and walking toward her to see what she’s holding. Sure enough, there are two letters in her hand. One is addressed to me, and one is addressedto Cary and Thea. Together. Not separate. Not that I have the capacity to think about that part right now. “What the… I swear, Thea, I didn’t know these were here. I fucking swear.”
She doesn’t say anything, she just stares at the envelope with her and Cary’s names on it. I wait for her to say something, but when she doesn’t, I decide I need to see what’s inside the envelope more than I need my next breath.
I snatch the one with my name on it from her hands and head for the room I’ve been staying in for the last two days, slamming the door behind me. I snub the smoke out in the ashtray on the bedside table, my eyes never leaving my name written in my mother’s cursive lettering.
I turn the envelope over, feeling the weight of it in my hands, focusing on the texture of the material. I don’t know what to expect from her last words to me. If it’s her telling me how disappointed she is from the grave, I’m not sure I’ll survive. The thought makes me wonder if I should even open it.
Somewhere in the distance, I hear the front door close. I know Thea probably needs someone right now—I just can’t be that person. Not with this grenade resting in my hands.
I’m not sure how long it’s been when I finally decide to grab my dad’s pocket knife from the bedside table, slicing open the seal. I pull a single sheet of paper from the envelope, slowly—like it might attack me. It’s folded in half, but I can already see the ink that’s bled through the page.
