by Emjay Soren
“I don’t understand the pull of heroin Noah, I don't know why it's what you turn to in your darkest hour knowing I would help you.” Her eyes are glistening with tears as she speaks through trembling lips.
I want to tell her not to cry. I want to cry, every minute. But, I suck it up. I lean forward and take her hand in mine and keep my mask in place. “I wish you could hate me sometimes Sissy, I really do. All the strength I possess is because of my fight to see you happy. I won't ever degrade that fight by bringing that filthy habit to your door. I wish that I could split myself down the middle and let you have the good and never see the bad, but we both know we are all or nothing. My addictions were never hidden I know that neither of us can hide shit from each other, but to come to you high and in an endless darkness? No sissy, I am sorry but that just isn’t me, never me. Feel me?”
“Yeah I feel you.” She says and I nod, letting her hand go as I sit back. I wanted to tell her much I missed her, needed her, but the truth would bring on another endless pain to share and she needed saving from me.
“Did you call the cops on the bikers?” She asks and I almost laugh.
“Snitches get stitches." I say and smile though she doesn’t find my dark humor funny. She never has.
"You got stitches, Noah." She replies pointedly.
"I'm not a snitch Carrie. I knew the gamble of seeking it out, no way am I gonna cry about it to the fucking cops after the bastards beat me. That type of scum exists in any dealer and I risk a beating and death every time I anti up for it.”
She looks at me and I know she wants to push, but lets it go for now. “Touché.” She says and glances down at her list.
“Stop with the list. If you forget something then call me or ask me the next time I’m here. I know we haven’t talked about this stuff but it’s not like I haven’t been here every day Carrie.”
“I know.” She says and sets the list aside. “What’s the deal with Jenny?” I knew, I knew it was coming and I know Carrie hates that Jenny knows what she knows. I know that no one trusts her and I know they are all waiting on Jenny to show that shitty side she is known for. What they forget is that I am just as bad. We all are better than our worst moment, but it is that worst moment we are all stacked up against. I don’t defend Jenny’s choices or fuck up’s any more than she does mine. I just support her need for a friend.
“What deal?” I ask because I can’t help but toy with her. She knows better than to be quick to judge so if she wants answers where Jenny is concerned I will make her come around the hard way. I might be a dick for it, but I taught her better than that.
“Noah, she is almost always with you every time I call you. It’s like she only leaves when you come here.”
I lean forward so she can feel the discomfort of my disappointment.
“Damn straight she does. Why the hell would she want to come here and sit before a jury?” I hold back nothing with Carrie when it is about being good. I prove it now when I let the soft edge of my words let her know she is on thin ice so chose her words carefully. Only problem is, Carrie isn’t afraid of me in the slightest. We are as close as two souls can be, but we know how to fight one another too, and it is a battle of wills.
“Well dear brother, she has earned that judgment. She sits at your side as you fight the biggest battle of your life and expects me to forget that she has her own demons beating her down? She has a track record of bad choices its Olympic Noah. It makes me nervous to see her being your safe place. I don’t think she has the stability to enter your bad place when hers is probably dank as shit.”
“What would you know about it? I admit I judged her from the get go. I have fucked her multiple times and never so much as said goodbye when I left. Chad, Shame and Cal too. We looked at it like we were straight with her, she knew the score so if she wanted to play we would play. I didn’t know her story and I didn’t care. When Tay found out about Axe I was the first to judge against Jenny in Cal’s defense. But, when given the opportunity to see someone for their truth I can’t in good faith keep judging so you all will still like me. She matters Carrie and she has a story that could have killed her but she fights.”
“And Axe? What about Axe Noah? He didn’t deserve her mistakes.” I knew she would go there, hell I went there too in the beginning. I know better than anyone how innocent a child is and how it isn’t a request to be brought to this world. It is a choice that the parents make and it is their responsibility to protect. I judged Jenny, I did and I do not pretend to forget or to act like there was a reason behind it.
“She fucked up. I get it and I don’t condone it, but I know where she has been and what she has done and I know there was little clarity at the time. I know she loves Axe more than she loves herself. I know because I listened when she talked to me. I’ll swear that on my dying breath.” I use this moment to hope that my sisters loyalty is truly to me because what I am about to tell her is to never be repeated.
“What is it?” She asks me and I realize I am almost staring her down, my intense eyes on her.
“You never breathe a word of what I am about to say.” I say and my voice is calm though I am not. I do not pride myself on breaking someone’s trust, but I need Carrie and to have her fully understand she needs the truth. I break that confidence in Jenny only for that reason.
“Really Noah? Like I would betray you.”
“Not even Chad, Sissy.”
“Done. What is it?” Like that and I believe her. Trust is an entity to us, not a word. It’s the code we have lived and survived by so I know that she will be a vault. It doesn’t matter that I have been distant, trust is trust to us.
“When she came clean about Axe, it was about money. Jen is a functioning addict and her drug is anything. She was spinning, no different than I was when I hit rock bottom. Jenny had taken Axe along with her to one of her many parties on a night off at Skin and Axe was asleep in his car seat. Jen was raped by four men while Axe slept beside the bed, in the room. When they were done they tossed a gram of coke and two rocks on the bed. Four men brutalized her for a hundred bucks worth of drugs. When she woke up the next morning Axe was crying and she realized what she had done. She took him to the Dorian’s and ran and went on a four day bender. By the time she tracked you guys down at the mall she was strung out and desperate. What had been her attempt to save Axe became her way of getting her next fix and she wanted money. I went into Skin that night and took her to a VIP room. There I offered her five hundred thousand dollars to sign her rights over and get the fuck out of Washington.”
“What?” She whispers and I nod.
“She agreed to take the money and said she would sign in court. I told her that if she didn't I would hunt her down and make sure she would never see Axe again. I offered her the one thing I had always hoped for us. Save your kid. Point. Blank. When she started crying I told her to save her tears and to disappear and waste away.”
“Noah, I can't believe you paid her.” Carrie is stunned stupid and I know she is trying to make this some grand gesture of loyalty to Cal. She has no idea.
I shake my head because she is not getting it. “The minute she agreed to take the money I knew it was the addiction talking so I asked her a simple question. I asked her if she loved Axe. She looked at me forever Care, the most defeated and yet determined look and told me he was the only thing she valued in this world. This, I don't know, levee inside of her broke then and she told me everything. The parties, the drugs, the fight with trying to get Axe the care he needed without the state finding out how unfit she was. She didn't want to be without him, but she knew when she woke up that morning that anyone of those men could have killed him, or taken him and sold him. It was her mirror moment, where she saw herself in the true light and she rushed to the Dorian’s before she lost her nerve.”
Rolling her eyes she looks at me like I am some gullible chump. “She gave the rights over though, at court so it was about the money Noah. It still is. Only now she gets to play a
nd be fun mom while Cal and Tay get the stress and the worry. It isn’t fair to any of them, but my concern and support lies with Tay, Cal and Axe. I am sorry Jenny had it so hard I don’t wish that on anyone, but as a mom I know nothing would come between Noelle and I.”
Valid point, I don't deny it.
“She never took the money. Before I left that night she asked me for a ride. I agreed and she ended up having me drop her off at detox. She asked me to pay for the treatment instead. I agreed and I walked her in, sat down as they checked her vitals and asked her questions. When they were taking her to her room she looked me dead in the face and told me I saved her life that night. I told her she was fucking nuts because she had no clue, and she didn’t. I left that night and shot up in the parking lot. I visited her every day and let her talk when she needed too. We became friends and it was easy because she didn’t know me like everyone else. It was refreshing to have an opinion that someone wouldn’t counteract. She let me be me, addict and all. I was the first call the morning of court after she signed her rights away. It was me she ran to and fell apart scared she would never see him again. When I was beat down at Skin, she called Cal and Tay and then she left with Sam and I and did for me as I had done for her.”
“I’m glad she has you Noah, I am but I know Axe and the fight he has before him.” Carrie said and I wanted to scream.
“You don’t get it Carrie, I have her. Huge difference.”
“You have everyone if you would just realize it. We are all here supporting you but it’s a stranger you let comfort you. You don't come to me like you used to.”
“To you!” I yell in frustration. “She is a stranger to you, but a friend to me. A precious and valuable one. Do you know what it’s like for me Carrie? Can you even possibly comprehend what my world is like these days? I have no peace. I think of dad and I think of Candey and I think of the band, Noelle, Axe and you. I think of Cory coming after Cassa, I think of Shame and his guilt. I think of all these things and rarely do I get a glimpse of something just for me. I can’t tell you how my heart aches or how I am lost and overwhelmed by guilt, but I can tell Jenny. I can tell her because she wasn’t there Sissy. She only has the glimpse of what the media shared. She wasn’t there to see me wake up and learn that Candey was dead." I see her flinch at my harsh words, but I am to frustrated to care right now.
"She wasn’t there the night I lost my mind on Shame or the nights I sat vigil at your bedside waiting for you to wake up from what dad did. She wasn’t there as Cassa tried to heal her broken pieces or as Shame and Cal fucked their way through America. She knows what I tell her and what I want to share and she places no judgment. It is so fucking valuable to me to have something outside of this group.”I bow my head in the silence that follows my outburst.
“She understands what trust means to me. There is nothing fake between us. There is brutal honesty and unyielding support and there is trust and she understands the game trust me. You all value my trust in you and your trust in me because you all, you most importantly, know that it is everything. She is the only person in this world I have trusted on my own with no limits or expectations. It was a huge risk to give her my friendship and support and she accepts me with nothing more than trust. It is so powerful Carrie and I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks because we help each other.”
“And what happens when she wants you to open up to her Noah? What then?”
And this is the moment that changes how she views me. This delicate moment where my sister learns that with my sobriety came a change in the very fabric of who I am. It shows that yes, we are fractured and I prefer us stay fractured to keep her clean from my shit for once.
“She knows everything Carrie. Every last bit.”
It took time, more than I would have liked, to pull her crazy ass back from the ledge she was teetering on. I knew my sister. I know it isn’t easy for her to allow a new person into our very tight knit fold. Add to that, the person is someone not only her husband, but also her brother and closest friends have slept with, to then top that cupcake with the truth that Jen knew my secrets and that meant she knew a glimpse of Carries?
I remember having the same emotional stand off when Carrie brought Candey home for the first time.
“Hey bub, this is Candey my roommate. BTW she knows all our secrets. Can I have twenty bucks?"
That was one of our biggest fights and yet, looking back it was one of my most grateful moments.
By the end of our conversation she had agreed to invite Jenny to dinner tomorrow night. She agreed to this because I put my foot down and told her she had no choice.
I was meeting the labels sponsor tomorrow and I wasn’t doing it unless my family was with me and Jen is family to me.
As I pulled in to my driveway, the same house I rented at eighteen, and bought at twenty-one after scraping pennies together for an entire year doing every tat I could at Slave to the needle. My Uncle Seth co-signed with me and allowed Carrie to live with me under their watchful eye.
They never knew the full extent of what we survived until the night my dad confessed to his fellow officers and almost killed and raped my sister. Before that though, Seth and Lilly only remained in contact with our dad because of Carrie and me…
12 years ago
“Now listen to me and listen good!” Dad was seething mad and had his fierce grip on my jaw made sure I was listening with rapt attention. I could hear Carries soft cries from the living room where he had just finished with her. Bile rose in my throat as the sounds he made while assaulting her played in my mind. “Seth and Lilly are coming to see you for Christmas and as far as they are concerned we are going to Disneyland for your Christmas break. Say a single word or even make them think you aren’t happy here and I will slit Caroline’s throat and let you watch.”
I flinched from the mental image he painted, as well from the spittle that flew from his mouth. I knew all too well the line to tow. My bruises, cuts and even broken bones were from my latest obsession with skateboarding. What I didn’t know was that Christmas was in a few short days and that our pretend vacation was to hide the obvious fact there were no decorations, or presents under the non-existent tree.
“Got it.” I say, my tone just shy of seething. I felt the burn from the back of his hand, but didn’t care. I was beyond caring. Soon we would be gone. Soon I would have enough proof to keep us safe for our entire lives.
“Watch it Noah. I have no problem keeping you hidden, bound and gagged in my condo and telling them you went with Sam and Dale to California to see his parents. I can keep Caroline to myself. Just tempt me.”
The threat was evident in his tone, but I knew what it meant for my sissy to be alone with him. “Yes sir.” I said, my tone one of the utmost respect to a man I hated.
I am pulled from memories I would kill to forget when I see Jenny walk out my front door. I look around the street and my driveway and don’t see her car. “What’s up?” I hit the lock on my FOB to my Porsche 911, the sound making me smile. I may live in a small and modest home, but I had a fuck ton of cars. I had a thing for muscle cars, but the Porsche was an impulse buy I have yet to regret.
“Where’s your car?” I ask and hug her in the same fashion I do Carrie. I am reminded of not too long ago I was toying with the notion that I was attracted to her. Jen is gorgeous, drop dead, but when heartache, loneliness and withdrawal are the cocktail in your brain you get confused easily.
“I took the bus. It broke down again.” She shrugs and poor’s peanuts into her palm and slams them in her mouth.
“Then why come over? Or at the least call and tell me to grab you?”
“When you called me after talking to Carrie… I don’t know I could hear the stress in your voice. I figured you needed a friend.”
“Again I could have picked you up.” She drove a 1984 Plymouth Reliant that was broke down more often than not. I made the decision then and there to handle this car bullshit once and for all whether she liked it or not
.
“Stop dodging the question. How are you really?” This is one of the many reasons I need Jen. She is a true friend and being that she’s a chick it’s easier than calling one of my boys to vent and end up looking like a vagina.
“Shit… over all it went okay and I am ok. I know Carrie too well. She makes shit harder than it needs to be so I have to wait for her to clear her head out and calm the fuck down before she’ll see reason.”
“I’m sorry I keep adding stress to your life Noah.” Jen isn’t the self loathing type so the fact she thinks she brings problems into my life means she believes it.
“Jen you don’t. I swear. We aren’t the most welcoming people.” I say it with a cringe knowing its Carrie and Cassa that are holding off. Everyone else has accepted her in our world for the sake of Axe, minus two defiant brats.
I look back at the Porsche and feel like a piece of shit knowing Jen took the bus. I swear to God, I would have given her the Porsche if it was fitting for Axe. I make a mental note to have my Escalade dropped off at Skin tonight and leave no room for arguments. I would give her it now, but I know Jen and she would refuse. I am pretty sure I can spin it somehow so that she thinks it’s for Axe.
