More if I can.
I always want to be alone, but then when I’m alone, I want to be with people. It’s a fucking curse.
Whoever built my mind needs to redo the wires and find better balance because I’m leaning all over the place. I’m tilted and sideways and so fucked up—this isn’t even half of it.
The weed is making you a paranoid shit.
I suck the joint one last time before passing it to Rachel, who hesitates before putting it between her lips. She takes one short drag and then coughs into her fist.
Nathan and two other guys give her a hard time. I don’t come to her defense—since she’s going to be in a sorority anyway. It’s not like she’s going to need to know how to smoke a joint.
“Your deal, Abbey,” Nathan tells me, stretching over the table to pass me the deck of cards. I begin to shuffle.
A girl clears her throat loudly, sort of adjacent to me. “Hi, um…” She taps Rachel’s shoulder. I’m not surprised. Rachel looks the most approachable.
Most of the guys are smoking and drinking, one even wears a gargoyle mask from a Halloween store, more stacked behind him on a leather chair. The other girls here have low-cut tank tops and nose piercings.
Rachel is the only one that looks like someone you’d take home to your parents. Though I’ve brought them all over to my house before. I don’t discriminate.
I barely make out the girl’s features among the smoke. All I can tell for certain: she’s wearing overalls, like the saggy kind you’d put on to paint a house.
I frown. She can’t live around here.
“Hi?” Rachel says uncertainly.
Not surprisingly, Nathan takes over, standing from his chair. “How’d you get in here?” He makes it seem like his party is invitation-only, when in fact most of Dalton Academy has been traipsing in and out all night.
“I…uh, the front door was open?”
“I mean the neighborhood. It’s gated,” he says.
The girl takes a step back, more towards me, but I stay still, as uncertain as her, as uncertain as everyone else. My eyelids are heavy, and it takes more control not to sink into my seat and just finish dealing slowly.
“The gate was open…someone was coming in, and I followed them through,” she explains. “I’m just trying to find someone. I know he lives in this neighborhood, and I thought you’d be able to point out his house—”
Nathan snorts, and two of my other friends start snickering. “Let me guess—you want to see Loren Hale.”
“Yeah,” she says softly.
I grimace and turn my head away from her. Fuck him, I think. Rich bastard. I swallow spite and something else—because if I look around, I see thousand-dollar paintings, an antique globe that probably costs a fortune; I see Rachel’s Cobalt diamond earrings, Henry’s Rolex watch—my Balmain designer jeans that purposely appear worn.
We’re all loaded.
Rich fucking kids. Fuck me.
I want to be alone right now.
But I want to be with people.
I don’t know what I want to be.
“So…” the girl says. “Can you help me?” I have to strain my ears to hear her quiet voice.
Help her. All I have to do is point at the house literally down the street. I know the one. I’ve been around it with my friends too much. But something keeps me quiet. Something keeps me tight-lipped and blank-faced.
“Are you a weirdo stalker?” Carly asks. She lets out a short laugh. “Like, are you going to bring him a locket of your hair?”
“Carly,” Rachel whispers and then ends up laughing with her.
The guys start in and laugh again.
They all stare at this girl. They all stare, and I keep my head down. I wish I had my hoodie. I wish I could just block everyone out for a second.
The cards slip from my hands, and I end up crouching to gather them, my reflexes fucking tortoise-slow from the weed.
“So you can’t help me then?” the girl asks one last time, sounding meeker than when she first arrived—which is hard considering how shy she seems.
“Are you dumb?” Nathan laughs.
My face heats beneath the table, grabbing a king of clubs. I wonder if I was paying enough attention, if I would’ve made the same comment, the same way. I hope not—but I’m not a good person either.
I’m just as foul, and I wonder if I’m the only one that knows how cruel we all are. How fucked up we all seem.
If I am—I must be doubly cursed or something.
She’s about to leave, but Nathan adds, “You want to play strip poker for the information?”
I glance back at the girl. Her lips part in hesitation, and she seems pallid and sweaty. I can barely make out the color of her hair. Light brown, I think, in a loose braid. These dorky black-rimmed glasses frame her small face, and she leans most of her weight on one foot—a nervous, slightly boyish posture that most cotillion, high society girls don’t grow up with around here. Their moms would shit a rock if they did.
And she keeps anxiously reaching for her shoulder, like she’s trying to grab a strap to a purse that’s not there. Jesus Christ, she looks really out of place.
The more she waits to speak, the more I think she’s considering playing strip poker with us.
And the joke would be on her. She’d get naked and Nathan would never give her the information. No one would, whether she won the right to it or not. They’d find that funny.
I collect the last of the cards and rise, my posture more assured than hers but I don’t look like I took years of ballet like Rachel or like I listened in cotillion. I’m definitely not what my parents wanted me to be.
And I say aloud, to Nathan, “I’m not dealing another fucking person in, man. I’ve already started.” And I start. Right now. Looking like a dick as I do so.
Before Nathan protests, the girl leaves, weaving between a sloppy drunken guy who spills beer on her shoulders. It’s like watching Bambi lose its mother or something. And I can’t help but feel like we were the ones that shot the deer.
What do I do about it? I finish dealing the cards and numbly begin the next hand.
* * *
Around 2:30 a.m., I finally leave Nathan’s. I grab my bike and slowly (so fucking slowly) ride down the dim street, lit only by lamps and the few houses that reside here. Instead of houses stacked closely together, each mansion has acres by itself, leaving the neighborhood mostly barren.
I bike past grass and a couple trees.
Not far down, I turn right onto Cider Creek Pass. I live in the same gated neighborhood as Nathan Patrick. As Loren Hale and the Calloway sisters. Ever since they moved in, paparazzi camp outside the gates, waiting for them to leave. It’s pitiful—on whose part, I don’t really know.
I take my palms off the handlebars and just peddle, trying not to think about those people.
There it is.
Floodlights illuminate my front yard, white rose bushes outlining a gray stone, out-of-place Victorian mansion. Like we’re some kind of English royalty.
The minute I see my three older brothers on the stone front stairs—unevenly lounged and leaning against the iron railing—I think about riding away. My problem: I have nowhere else to really go.
“There he is.” I hear the muffled voice of my oldest brother, Davis. He rises first, football in hand. “Where’ve you been?” he asks me straight. It’s not concern on his face as much as annoyance.
I peddle onto the yard and then slowly climb off my bike, knocking it down without care. “Out,” I say, wanting to climb the steps and bypass them into the house, but I gain five-feet before they all join me in the yard, silently saying you’re not going anywhere.
We’re all two years apart from the next. And somehow they all look the same: short haircut, collared shirts, khaki pants and Sperry boat shoes.
Davis is the twenty-three-year-old college graduate, striving for his MBA and a position at my father’s million-dollar tech company. He sucks at computers, b
y the way. Can’t even read code—but he’s charismatic and a real “guy’s guy” so whatever.
Hunter is the twenty-one-year-old athlete with anger issues that everyone blames on “pent-up testosterone” because he refuses to fuck or masturbate until lacrosse season ends. He’s a dick—and I say this with zero brotherly affection. He destroyed that when I was a kid.
Mitchell is the nineteen-year-old pretty boy with less charm than Davis but more brains, so he’s fucked. I’d like Mitchell more if he didn’t act like Davis and Hunter rode golden chariots.
And me, Garrison Abbey, I’m the seventeen-year-old degenerate who skips class more often than he goes, who’s yet to find a meaning in being here—in life. If I don’t follow their footsteps, then I see nothing else I could do right, but I can’t follow them and stomach it.
“Dude,” Mitchell starts in. “Mom wanted this to be a family dinner.” College summer break ended today, so they have to go back to the University of Pennsylvania.
“Sorry,” I say dryly, scratching the back of my head with mock regret. “I guess I missed the part where we break bread, hold hands and sing hallelujah—maybe next time.” I try to take a step forward, and Hunter puts his hand on my chest to stop me. I slap it off and back up immediately, my stomach knotting. “Don’t touch me, man.”
“Then don’t make Mom cry, dipshit.”
I stare at the night sky for a second and feel my eyes roll. I also feel Hunter let out an agitated breath and try to step closer to me, but I back up again, about to head for my bike.
“Hey.” Davis grabs my shoulder and spins me around, his fingers digging in. He raises the football near my head like he’s going to suggest a quick game. Instead he sniffs, and I turn and try to jerk away from him, my tousled hair falling in my eyes.
He grips harder.
“You smell like weed.” His annoyance only grows, probably thinking how badly I’m hassling our parents. I’m not easy like my brothers. I don’t know how to be and still retain a fucking soul.
“Really?” I feign surprise. My only real defense is dry sarcasm. “I thought I smelled like your girlfriend’s p—”
Davis slaps the back of my head, and I almost fall forward. And then he shoves the football in my chest. “Like you’d know what pussy smells like.” He messes my hair with a rough, irritated hand.
They treat me like a little kid. Like a little brother. I get that. I am one, but as I stand up and face Davis, Hunter, and Mitchell, I feel more like a toy they play with, one they’ve constantly broken.
I clutch the football. “You didn’t really stay up to play football with me.”
“Sure we did,” Mitchell says with a shrug and looks to Davis and Hunter for confirmation. Neither says a word in agreement. Their hard gazes just drill into me.
I don’t want to be here, so I drop the football and I turn around again and go grab my bike that lies sideways in the yard. Hunter chases after me, and I barely have my bike upright before he pushes me.
I drop the handlebars and stagger back. “What the fuck?” I sneer, my pulse quickening.
“We’re playing football. You couldn’t be here for dinner—you couldn’t do one thing for Mom, then you’re going to do this for us.” And he adds (like Hunter always does), “You motherfucking cocksucker.” It’s his go-to insult, one I know I might’ve picked up and used before—and I hate that I have. Because it’s lame as shit, among other things.
I grit my teeth and inhale once before I shrug stiffly.
Davis throws the football at my face. It hits my cheek before I can block it. The pain wells, but I stifle it by grabbing the football off the grass. The minute I straighten up, Hunter tackles me with his full weight. He’s two inches taller, fifty pounds heavier, and the wind immediately escapes my lungs.
I choke and try to push him off, but Hunter grips my hair and whispers in my ear, “You think you’re fucking cool? Get up, you pussy.” He slaps my face twice and laughs, like it’s funny.
When he stands off me with the football in hand, I slowly turn towards the grass, kneeling before I rise, my breath caged.
This is how brothers are, my mom always says. They tease the youngest one. You just need thicker skin, Garrison.
I wipe the bottom of my nose with the back of my hand and realize it’s bleeding. Hunter is only a few feet from me, and I’m surprised he doesn’t chuck the football in my eye.
“What? Are you going to cry?” he laughs.
I roll my eyes and just shake my head. I think this is his way of making me pay for whatever emotional hurt I caused Mom today, yesterday—whenever I became more of a nuisance than all of them.
And I’d like to think if I showed up for dinner, we wouldn’t still be “playing football” like this. But they would’ve found some other reason to go hard. They always do.
“Tackle me,” Hunter goads, arms outstretched. “Come on, pussy, let’s see what you’re made of.”
I narrow my gaze, my eyes heated, my nose on fucking fire, and I just think, I hate you. I really fucking hate you.
Davis lets out a short laugh. I hate you too.
Then Mitchell. Fuck you, Mitchell. Grow two feet and walk away from them.
Have I even grown two feet yet? Do I even have a head? I blink slowly, wondering if I’m still blazed.
“What are you, dumb?” Hunter’s smile fades, irritated, pissed. It’s an ugly ass snarl that I’ve met all my life. I remember one moment as if it were yesterday. My parents ordered pizza for dinner, and Hunter called “dibs” on the last slice. He was seventeen, and my thirteen-year-old-self didn’t know better.
I ate his so-called slice.
And then he wrestled me onto the floor, trying to force my finger down my throat so I’d throw it up. After his knee sat on my ribs for too long, I willfully stuck my finger down and vomited that last slice. He didn’t want to eat it. He just wanted to deny me the one piece that should’ve been his. Because he called dibs.
Brothers, right?
Fucking brothers.
Hunter growls under his breath. “Come on!” I learned about a year ago to stop giving into their games. I’d avoid them or just not play whatever they wanted to play.
It doesn’t always make things better, but it makes me feel like I stood up for something. Davis stares at me like I’m a little rebellious punk.
“It’s football,” he reminds me.
“Cool, you two play,” I tell them, heading for my bike again. “I’m out of—” Hunter tackles me, wrestles me on top of my bike, the metal digging into my kidneys. I grimace and thrash beneath him, cursing and trying to throw him off.
He lays his weight into me, his usual insult ringing in my ears. He smacks my face a couple times, the blows harder, and then I gather the strength to shove him off and roll out beneath him. I cough once, digging my soles into the grass, and then I stand up enough to grab my backpack and run.
“Garrison!” Davis yells. “We’re just playing!”
Fuck you.
I run faster, almost tripping as I reach the asphalt, and I look back once to see if they’re following, but all three of my brothers stay behind in the yard. I gather speed towards the main street, off Cider Creek Pass.
Then I slow down, my pulse never slowing with me.
I rub my hands through my hair. “What the fuck,” I whisper, hearing the sound of my shaking voice. Are you going to cry? Then I rub my throbbing cheek, the wetness apparent. “Stupid shit,” I mumble softly and then rummage in my backpack.
I collect a cigarette and lighter, putting the end in my mouth. I suck in deeply, and then I look up and realize how far I’ve sprinted and then walked.
I’m at Loren Hale’s house. It’s a mansion, not as ostentatious as my family’s. The lights are off, and the driveway is empty. I pace back and forth by the mailbox, smoking a cigarette.
I don’t know why I linger. My friends and I—we’ve pranked their house since they first moved to this neighborhood, and at first, we were just
curious. Who the fuck are these people? we all thought.
They’re not famous because they did something revolutionary or because they acted, sang, and entertained their way into peoples’ hearts.
They’re famous because Loren’s fiancée is a sex addict. The heiress of Fizzle—a soda empire—sucked a lot of cock.
You know, I met him—Loren.
He caught me after I shot paintballs at his house windows, and my friends—they just left me there, racing off with their own paintball guns, thinking he’d turn me into the police. Being loyal, I wouldn’t have ratted them out.
But that night, Loren Hale let me go.
I don’t get it.
I don’t understand why he didn’t turn me in. He seems like an ass. He’s always glaring in tabloid photographs, not more than his half-brother, but still. He looks like a fucking dick—and he let me go.
I don’t know why I do it now, but I reach into my backpack and grab a canister of metallic spray paint. With my heart banging into my ribcage, violently saying no with each beat, I spray the side of his mailbox. My nose flares, knowing it’s bad.
Knowing I should stop.
But I don’t.
The paint wets my fingers as I hold down the nozzle tighter, and on one side I write the word Cock and on the other, I write Sucker.
Maybe I should’ve just written help instead.
6 BACK THEN – September
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
GARRISON ABBEY
Age 17
Superheroes & Scones is packed.
Slouched in a red vinyl booth, I listen to Nathan prattle off reasons why he can’t stand this place—how it looks like Captain America took a shit on the walls, a red and blue and gray scheme. It’s a dumb complaint. We’re in a comic book store for Christ’s sake.
I take a swig from a bottle wrapped tightly in a brown bag. Shit. Sharp vodka slides down my throat, inexpensive and probably a cousin of rubbing alcohol.
This is the best I could steal from the liquor cabinet. My parents only stock shitty vodka, and they’d notice if I took their prized Scotch and bourbon.
Whatever It Takes Page 5
