The Beginning and End of Everything

by Stevie J. Cole

  It's been over a week since I've seen Poppy, and the second I lay eyes on her, it's like I can breathe properly again.

  She sits at a small table next to the window in the visiting room, her gaze trained on the world outside. Her teeth gnaw at her bottom lip, and I can practically feel the anxiety rolling off her from here.

  "Hey," I say, taking a seat opposite her.

  "Why didn't you tell me?" Her voice is shaking, her eyes turbulent.

  Taking one of her balled up fists into my hand, I smooth her fingers out and brush my lips over her knuckles.

  She snatches her hand away and glares at me. "Don't try to charm me, Brandon. Answer my fucking question."

  I have to stifle a laugh because damn she has a dirty mouth when she's pissed. "Didn't Finn explain this?" It was shitty of me to leave it to Finn to tell her, but I knew she’d fight me.

  "Are you serious right now? I didn't want Finn to explain it to me." She stands and snatches her purse from the table.

  Pushing to my feet, I grab her wrist and yank her towards me. We collide before my lips slam over hers. Her body goes rigid, and then she softens and becomes pliant in my arms.

  When my heartbeat slows and my mind calms, I pull away, resting my forehead against hers. "Please don't go," I breathe, stroking over her cheek.

  “Sometimes, I hate you." She sighs. "You should’ve told me."

  "You wouldn't have let me do it, and I needed to, poss. For us." I force myself to step away from her and sit down. "This might be the only time in my life that I actually made the right decision. Don't hate me for it."

  She falls into the chair across from me, her shoulders sagging with defeat. "How long do you have to stay here?"

  "No idea. It all depends on what the shrink says."

  "Oh God, I'm sure the doctor is having a field day with you."

  "I don't think she likes me."

  "You better not be an asshole to her." Poppy gives me a stern look. "You've been an asshole, haven't you?"

  "I'm a delight!"

  "Great, they'll never let you out in that case. You know..." Her gaze falls to her lap, and she begins fidgeting with a loose string on her sweater. "I talked to Fergus, one of the military guys at work. He said that since you have PTSD, they should let you go as long as you agree to treatment."

  "Who the hell is Fergus?" I scowl across the table. What kind of stupid name is Fergus? "He sounds like a prick."

  Throwing her head back, she groans and drags a hand down her face. "That's all you heard? He's one of the guys that rotate through Headley Court. He gave me some books on PTSD to help me—"

  "Yeah, I'm sure that's what he was doing, helping you."

  She rolls her eyes. "Stop. Focus on the issue at hand. PTSD.”

  "I don't have PTSD. The army just wants to stamp my forehead and move along."

  Poppy looks at me like an abandoned puppy on one of those TV adverts. "It's not a bad thing to have,” she says. “You can’t help it, Brandon.”

  I tilt my head back, focusing on the harsh fluorescent lights above me. "Possum..."

  "For me. Just be honest with her; let her help you. Please."

  I swear to God, I should just hand her my balls for safekeeping. I've almost finished growing my vagina anyway. "Fine," I huff, meeting her gaze.

  A smile lights up her face, and she leans across the table, placing a chaste kiss on my lips. I reach for her, but she backs up quickly. Letting out a groan, I grip the edge of the table. A week without her, and I'm feeling particularly uptight.

  "I have to go, or I'll miss my train, but I love you."

  We both stand, and I pull her close. I inhale the scent of her perfume deep into my lungs. "I love you."

  54

  Brandon

  November 2015

  I turned myself in, fully expecting to spend months, if not years locked up for going AWOL.

  I didn't go to prison, though, because I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. There, I admitted it to myself. It feels cliché and whiny, a blanket diagnosis for every guy who has demons. But whatever it is, it is real.

  The rage is real, and according to the doctor, it always will be. This is permanent, an altered aspect of my personality that I now have to live with. It seems daunting and damn right depressing, but I have Poppy. I have a reason to fight this, a reason to be better.

  I scowl at the reflection in the full-length mirror. This is what normal life looks like apparently, a twat in grey polyester trousers that clearly were not made for a guy of my build. I'm going to have thigh chaff within the hour. I leave the bedroom, and Mort runs over, his bell tinkling with every step. I scoop him up, stroking the little ginger tuft on his head and I think how he looks like one of those troll toys that Poppy used to collect when she was a kid.

  In the kitchen, I find Poppy singing along to a song on the radio. Her tiny body is swamped by one of my T-shirts.

  "Good morning." Her gaze sweeps over me, and her smile deepens. "You look really hot in that uniform." She bites down on her lip before grabbing my tie and yanking me down for a quick kiss.

  "You're a bad liar," I say with a glare.

  "Are you excited about your first day?"

  She looks so hopeful, but seriously, who the hell sits down and thinks: My grand ambition in life is to be a security guard? No one. "Sure."

  "Your work isn't far from mine, maybe we could do lunch?"

  "Sure, poss.”

  Since I got home, I can see this sense of hope in her eyes. As if everything will be okay, and maybe, just maybe I'm fixed. Hope is such a tenuous, yet powerful emotion, and I haven't felt it in a long time. So, I smile. I allow her hope to infect me because perhaps this will all work out. This job could be just what I need—what we need.

  I eat breakfast and down my coffee. It's not the same without whiskey in it, but normal people don't drink Irish coffee before they go to work. I'm told I should be living rather than surviving, and some twat told me alcohol is simply a mask… Well, right now, this doesn't feel like living; it just feels like shit.

  I glance at my watch for what feels like the hundredth time. How the hell can anyone get paid to just sit and watch a door? The lobby is filled with classical music that repeats on a loop. I throw back my head and stare at the ceiling, ready to go and jump off the nearest bridge. For the first hour or so, I struggled to deal with all the people, the crowds. But after a time, I guess I got desensitized. Now, I'm desensitized to everything. I want to bash my head on the desk.

  "Brandon."

  I blink and look up at Poppy. “Hey," I say.

  "How's your day going?" She glances around the lobby then back at me.

  The truth: It makes me want to stab myself in the eye with a paperclip. "Great," I lie and hope she didn’t see my eye twitch.

  She holds up a paper bag with a little panda on it. "Got you that crispy seaweed you love."

  There is a God. The highlight of my day is going to be that seaweed. "See, this is how I know this is true love."

  55

  Poppy

  February 2016

  Hope lies on the couch, her head hanging off the edge, her feet on the wall. "Come to Auntie Hope, Mort." She clicks her tongue, and the cat goes prancing over to her. “Where’s the pikey?”

  “The gym.”

  “So…” Hope waits for a second before blowing a hard breath through her nose. “How’s he doing?"

  "Fine."

  "No, really?" Her legs drop from the wall to the couch, and she sits up, static causing her red hair to shoot out in all directions. "Brandon O’Kieffe has never been fine as long as I've known him."

  "Hope…" I sigh.

  Every once in a while, she does this. She thinks I'm hiding something from her or lying to her. She refuses to believe that Brandon’s doing okay, even though there’s no more fight ring, no more rage. He still has his ups and his downs, but he’s much better. We’re much better.

  "Look, I'm just saying, somethi
ng's going to give at some point."

  "Why does something just have to give at some point?”

  "You do realize he has done a complete one-eighty, right?" She stares at me, chewing at her lip the way she does when she wants to say something she thinks may piss me off. "People relapse. It's part of life, Poppy, and I just don't want you blindsided when it happens."

  "He. Is. Fine."

  "Brandon was beating the shit out of lads twice his size when he was fourteen. By sixteen, he was winning money, and by seventeen, he was a bare-knuckle boxing champion. He joined the army where his job was to kill people.” She stares wide-eyed at me for a moment, as though those statements should bring me to an epiphany. “That boy is a hot-blooded male through and through. He lives to fight, and he's damn good at it, and now, he's a security guard?" She shakes her head. "I don't buy it."

  I take a breath, then grab the remote from the cushion beside me and turn on the TV, pressing the button hard when I flip through channels. I know she’s trying to help, but she’s not, so I hope she’ll just drop it if I don’t respond.

  "All I'm saying is, don't be naïve.”

  That strikes a nerve, and I toss the remote onto the coffee table before shooting her a glare. "Who the hell are you to give me any kind of life advice? Your dad gives you money whenever you want it. You get to flounce around and do whatever suits your fancy. Just…" My face grows hot. "You have no idea what real life is like, Hope."

  She flinches like I just slapped her, and in a way, I guess I did.

  "You can hate me for it, but I will always tell you the shit you don't want to hear." She scoots Mort out of her lap, shoves her feet into her heels, and slings her Hermes handbag over her shoulder before she crosses the room with a huff. “Because God knows, someone needs to.” Then the door slams behind her.

  I stare at the wall, my skin tingling with adrenaline. And guilt. Guilt because a small part of me knows Hope is right, but I don’t want to believe it. So I pretend I don’t see the way Brandon glances at the alcohol behind the bar when we go to a restaurant or the way his leg bounces under the table. I tell myself it’s nothing to worry about when I feel his body tense beside mine anytime we ride the subway or go to a museum or movie.

  Because things are better. They have to be.

  56

  Brandon

  March 2016

  People meander through the park, smiling and laughing while I sit on the bench and watch a woman throw a ball for her dog. I fiddle with my phone and skip my music to a different song just as a text appears on the screen.

  Finn: U around today?

  I chuck my phone back inside my pocket without responding. As far as Poppy is concerned, I'm with Finn now, training at the gym. I've been doing this normal, everyday bullshit for three months—the stuff every other person on the planet seems to cope with just fine, but all it does is bring me down.

  When I first came out of therapy, I used to hang out with Finn a lot, go to the gym and work the bag. Hell, I even used to spar with him just to feed that desire for a bit of violence, but as the months have gone by, I find myself feeling more and more alone, and instead of reaching out, I recoil.

  I pretend to Poppy that everything is fine, but I just don't have the energy to pretend for anyone else. I can't let her know that I hate this because a normal life is what she deserves. She deserves a guy who has a stable job, who doesn't fly into a rage all the time because he's fighting, exasperating the very thing that threatens to consume him. But that job is unfulfilling in every way, and to make matters worse, the pay is awful. I could make more in one fight than I make in a month as a guard, which means Poppy had to take a different job at a private hospital to make up for it. Sure, it’s a promotion for her and her pay is better, but it means she works nights. Because I'm not good enough. Because I can't provide for her.

  When I see Poppy, I smile, I kiss her, I want her, but I'm ashamed of the man she’s stuck with. I'm terrified that one day she will look at me and realize I'm not worthy of her love, and I never really was.

  That sense of worthlessness is a constant, weighing me down until each and every moment feels utterly inconsequential. Fighting is all I’ve ever been good at, all I was ever good for. Without Brandon “The Breaker” Blaine, I'm just a guy with no prospects, no dreams.

  Sometimes, I think about going back to The Pit. Just a few fights here and there couldn’t hurt, right? But Poppy would work every hour God gives and sacrifice everything to keep me out of that ring, and doesn't that make me a selfish bastard for wanting it back?

  A little girl runs over, crouching beside the bench to pick a dandelion. She closes her eyes, then huffs a breath like she’s blowing out birthday candles. The seeds catch on the breeze and scatter in all directions before she runs off. Maybe that’s how life is—short with a hundred little wishes, a hundred moments…I remember the time Poppy gave me that dandelion; how special it made me feel, and I think, maybe that was the moment I fell in love with her—maybe that was the beginning of everything between us.

  With a sigh, I get up to make my way home.

  Poppy is lying on the couch, wrapped in a blanket with some program blaring from the TV when I walk in and drop my gym bag to the floor. Her face breaks into a smile when she sees me, and she manages to make me feel like the most important person in the world for just a few seconds.

  "Hey, poss." I quickly kiss her before heading to the kitchen.

  "How was the gym?"

  "Good." I grab a plastic tub out of the fridge and peer inside, inspecting the contents. Something with tomato sauce. I shrug and pop it into the microwave. When I turn around, she's leaning against the door frame, her arms folded over her chest.

  "How was Hope?" I ask.

  “Fine…”

  I can tell something is off by Poppy’s tone, and by the way she shifts her weight from side to side. A small line sinks between her brows before she moves forward and wraps her arms around my waist. "I love you."

  Something in those three words sounds so desperate, and there’s a hint of sadness in her eyes, but I don't ask why. Maybe I don't want to know. "I love you, too."

  "Tonight's my last shift this week, which means I get four nights of sleeping with you." She tightens her hold on me and looks up with a smirk. "Naked. We're sleeping naked."

  "Are you trying to corrupt me? I'm a full pajamas guy these days, you know? A steady job, normal life. If you're not careful, I'll start scheduling you in for Friday night missionary."

  "Brandon O’Kieffe, you could never be normal."

  Isn't that the sad truth? "I'm telling you, stripey pajamas and slippers. Give me a few months, and there will be slippers."

  "You start wearing slippers, and we're going to have problems."

  The microwave beeps, but I ignore it. These moments of happiness are what I live for with Poppy. "You'd still want me."

  "True." She grabs the waist to my tracksuit bottoms and tugs me to the bedroom, undressing me as we go.

  "Didn't even need the slippers," I mumble.

  Gunfire echoes around me like the crackling of fireworks. I don't even know which way the bullets are flying. Shell casings tinker against the hard, desert ground, skittering over the toe of my boot. I aim, fire. Aim, fire. Methodical, precise, robotic. Faces of men appear in the rifle sights, but I pull the trigger before I can lock on, and then I'm onto the next. Refusing to look at them. Refusing to commit them to memory, the second I do, they become more than a target. They become a person with a family, a wife, kids.

  I swing my gun to the next target, and Connor's face stares back at me through the sights. I try to move away, take my finger off the trigger, but I can't. My limbs feel like lead. A sad smile crosses his face, and then…I'm pulling the trigger. Bang! He drops to the ground.

  In the blink of an eye, the scene changes. I'm on my knees in the back of that truck, my hands pumping over his chest; cold, dead eyes staring at me, mocking me, accusing me. I feel like I can hear h
is voice in my head: You should have died, and I should have lived. You're living my life. You stole her, and you aren't good enough for her. You'll never be me, Brandon.

  "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." I say the words over and over, needing his forgiveness, willing him to wake up even though I know he never will. I need him. She needs him.

  I jolt awake, gulping air into my lungs while the dream clings to me. I’ve had these same dreams ever since Connor died, reliving that moment over and over, but this is different. This is more. It's mixed in with the fighting and the shooting, the nameless faces, and the guilt. And for the last few days, I’ve heard him. He's there, in my head, taunting me, his presence in my mind like a soft caress.

  I don’t want Poppy to know I’m still having the dreams. I don't want her to know that I'm still messed up in the head. That what she's left with a shitty stand-in for the guy she married.

  I stupidly clung to that futile hope that the therapy would make everything better, never even realizing how much I needed that possibility.

  But this is it.

  This is better. As good as it gets, and while I don't want this life, I have no choice, but she does.

  She does…

  57

  Poppy

  April 2016

  "What the fuck!" Brandon shouts, waking me from a restless sleep. Something in the living room crashes, and I glance at the clock flashing: 1:08 in red.

  Glass tinkers like it’s being swept into a pile, and I climb out of bed, warily making my way to the living room.

  The blue haze from the TV puts off just enough light that I can make out Brandon’s body, huddled over, sweeping up the remnants of whatever he broke into the dustpan.