My Brother's Bad Best Friend

by B. B. Hamel

  I want to ask her how she ended up here, how she got through what happened. I heard about the accident, I think everyone in San Diego heard about it. Poor girl, poor wounded girl, that’s what everyone said. Ezra stayed mostly quiet, and as far as I know, he never once visited her in the hospital. I thought it was fucked up at the time. I guess I still do.

  I don’t get the chance though. The door opens and Ezra storms in, looking even more manic than usual as he throws his keys down in a dish.

  “Sister!” he calls out. “Sister!”

  I sigh and give her a strained smile as I slip out of the kitchen. Ezra comes rolling in, laughing and chatting like a madman, and it’s so obvious that he’s on fucking drugs that I can’t imagine she doesn’t notice. But she doesn’t say anything either, just goes along with his stupidity.

  I sneak away. I don’t want to deal with Ezra when he’s high. Let Lizzie take that bullet. It’ll be how she pays her part of the rent.

  I head into my room and find an old half-smoked blunt tucked into my sock drawer. I lie down on top of my comforter and light it, pulling in the old, dry weed. It’s rough and I cough, but it’s better than nothing.

  If I don’t smoke this shit now and pass out soon, I’m afraid I’ll end up sneaking out into the living room in the middle of the night and do something stupid.

  4

  Lizzie

  It’s a bright afternoon as I walk fast toward a nondescript strip mall tucked behind some palm trees. I’m pretty sure you can’t have a strip mall in California without at least one palm tree, but I haven’t checked the laws recently.

  I tuck my sunglasses back onto my nose. I don’t know why my mom insists on meeting here, at freaking Starbucks of all places. She loves Starbucks, is practically obsessed with them, although I’ll never understand it. There are a million better coffee places in La Mesa, an up-and-coming neighborhood west of Mid-City, little stores run by people that actually care about what they’re serving, but instead she insists on going to this megamart chain place.

  The fake sincerity and authenticity of the place always creeps me out. They want Starbucks to feel like that corner café it used to be years ago, but everything has a sheen of falseness to it. The chalkboard is expertly chalked, probably by some outside hire contractor that goes around and chalks tons of boards across the city. The aged-looking brass is actually spray painted aluminum. The mahogany countertops are covered in two inches of lacquer and the wood is probably really plastic.

  I hesitate for a second in the doorway. It’s crowded like always, which is so depressing. I guess I shouldn’t judge people on what they like, I just can’t understand this particular place. It doesn’t even have good prices or anything like that.

  I spot my mom sitting at a table alone, staring into her phone and jabbing at it with her fake nails. Her fake lips are turned down into a perpetual frown, although you wouldn’t know it to look at her, since the Botox has taken practically all expression from her face. Her eyes are unnaturally wide and her hair is bleached blonde with roots just starting to show. Her hair’s pulled back into a messy bun and she’s wearing trendy exercise clothes, which means she probably plans on taking a long walk while sipping her overpriced and insanely caloric-rich latte, probably in some crazy attempt to work it all off.

  I slide into the chair across from her and she glances up from her phone. “You’re late,” she says, lowering it down to the table with a sigh. “I was just liking, like, my fiftieth Insta post.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “I don’t know La Mesa that well. I got a little lost.”

  She makes a face. We grew up in La Jolla, a little seaside town where rich people hide away and pretend like the rest of San Diego doesn’t exist. My brother and Jonas ran away to La Mesa back before Mesa was getting big and expensive, so they got a little lucky with their apartment. I’m actually surprised I was able to get my mom to come all the way out here to meet me. Maybe that means she feels bad.

  “I don’t know what you’re doing out here,” she says to me, her frown deepening with some obvious strain. “I mean, Mesa is fine but La Jolla is… it’s home.”

  I shake my head a little. “Do we have to get into that right now?”

  “Honey.” She leans toward me, hand across the table, palm up like she wants me to take it. I ignore her. “You have to come home. Royal’s sorry, he really is. You know he’s been stressed lately and drinking too much. He’s getting the drinking under control, and we’ll work on the stress together.” She perks up a little bit. “I got him to promise to do yoga with me, and I’m going to get him on a more vegan diet, and—”

  “Mom,” I interrupt her angrily. “He punched me in the face.”

  That takes the wind from her sails. Mom has this strange denial when it comes to Royal. He’s a piece of shit, an abusive bastard, but because he never hits her, she thinks he’s not that bad. Really he just takes his anger out on her kids, and somehow that’s better.

  “Stop it,” she says, speaking low. “Don’t say that so loud.”

  “Say what, that your abusive asshole husband punched me in the eye?”

  She pulls her hand back suddenly like I spit fire. I watch as her whole demeanor tightens, her usual defense mechanism. She pulls into herself and builds a shell on the outside, which is maybe why she gets so much plastic surgery, like it’s somehow a buffer between herself and the world.

  “You know how I feel about that word,” she says softly.

  I sigh and shake my head, my dark hair spilling around my face. She absolutely hates the word “abusive,” thinks it’s too simple a term for some relationships. I think she’s delusional, but I doubt we’ll ever agree on that.

  “Okay, fine. I won’t say it again, but you have to know it’s true. He just can’t hit your kids—”

  “Enough.” She’s getting angry now. I had hoped she might be able to hold her temper back for a little bit longer but clearly this is going too far for her liking. I can’t say I really give a shit anymore, though. She lets her abusive asshole husband punch her daughter in the eye without saying a damn word, and I’m through with it.

  “Royal’s given you a lot,” she says. “When you had your accident, he took care of you. Everything you have, you have it because of him. And now you’re acting like he’s some kind of monster?”

  “He just opened his checkbook,” I say softly. “It’s not like he was ever there. He didn’t visit me once in the hospital, did you know that?”

  She blinks, a little surprised. “That’s not true. I remember he came.”

  “No, he didn’t. You Facetimed with him once when he was on a business trip and that lasted about ten seconds before he had to go. Mom, he never came once.”

  She screws up her face, or at least as much as she can. “I don’t believe you. But that doesn’t change my point.”

  “Yes, it does. He’s been avoiding me for years, pretending like I don’t exist. And when I say something he doesn’t like, he just—”

  “That wasn’t a big deal,” she interrupts. “That wasn’t just some small thing. Honey, you know why Royal got so angry.”

  “He was drunk.”

  She puts a hand on her stomach. “He was defending his children.”

  I glare at her, my eyes straying to the hand protectively covering her abdomen. The memory of that night comes back to me, fresh in my mind since it only happened a day ago. When she sat me down in the kitchen, Royal lingering in the background with a glass of whisky in his hand, I didn’t think my life was about to change drastically. But then she told me that she was pregnant, and my first instinct was to laugh.

  ”Don’t laugh at your mother, you little bitch.”

  Mom composes herself, letting out a slow breath. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I’m feeling?”

  “I guess,” I say.

  “Well, I’m feeling good. Doctor says I’m in good shape, for a woman my age.” She laughs lightly. “I think I’m in good shape for a woman any age. Hav
e you seen some of the ladies out on the beach lately? Oh my god, honey, they’re all so fat these days, and nobody seems to care! All because big butts are attractive.” She sneers at that, shaking her head.

  I want to scream in her face. I can’t believe how vapid and empty she’s becoming, and worst of all, she wasn’t always like this. Back when she first married Royal and we moved to La Jolla, she was strong and smart and independent. She ran for local office once, and even though she lost, I was so proud of her for trying.

  Things slowly changed over the years though. She got more and more surgeries, bankrolled by her scumbag husband. Things took a dive around the time I got into my accident, and never recovered since. Now all she cares about is looking good and judging other people.

  That and now, apparently, having a bunch of IVF babies.

  “How are you going to handle all these kids?” I ask her softly, pulling her back to reality.

  She laughs lightly, although I sense a discordant note in her tone. “Easy,” she says. “We’ll hire some help, and Royal will be a great father. These are his first kids, after all.”

  “But mom,” I say, not able to help myself. “You’re too old. Royal’s too old.”

  She looks so hurt. I hate it, but I can’t help myself. Those are the words that set Royal off, that made him go insane.

  ”Don’t talk to your mother that way, you ungrateful bitch. She’s carrying your siblings, and you’re going to respect her and me.”

  “I’m only fifty-two,” she says softly. “It’s not that old. It’s practically thirty these days.”

  I want to tell her, no, it’s not, but I keep my mouth shut and don’t break eye contact. Finally, she looks away and sips her drink.

  “Royal says you can come home.” The abrupt shift in tone means she’s done with discussing her pregnancy. “He says you can come back if you apologize to me.” She hesitates. “I can just tell him you did, if you want.”

  “No,” I say flatly. “I’m not coming back.”

  She looks exasperated. “Honey, please. You’re going to stay with your brother for, I don’t know, how long? What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “But I’m not living in a house with him anymore. I’m not letting him touch me again.”

  Her eyes flash angry. “After everything he’s done for us—”

  “No, Mom, don’t.” I push back from the table and stand. “You can carry his weird babies and get all this plastic surgery for him if you want, but I don’t worship the ground he walks on like you do.” I lean toward her, voice lowering. “He hit me, Mom.” I make sure she can see the bruise around my eye.

  She doesn’t answer right away, face fallen into pain and despair. “Just come home. We’ll figure it out. He can get anger management.”

  She’s desperate now. He’ll never, ever do that. “Sorry, but no.”

  I turn and walk away from my mother, away from the home I’ve always known, and out into the afternoon heat.

  “Is Ezra here?”

  Lane’s behind the counter again and she smiles sickly-sweet at me as she makes a latte for a customer. “Nope, sorry,” she says. “He’s been out all day.”

  “Oh, okay.” I look around, not sure what to do now.

  “You can grab a seat if you want,” she offers. “I can tell Jonas, maybe he can find your brother.”

  “I tried his cell,” I offer weakly.

  She gives me a sympathetic smile. “Yeah, he doesn’t answer that much anymore.”

  I smile back, feeling stupid. I don’t know when I reverted back into such a pathetic little kid. Probably around the time my thigh shattered into a million pieces and I had to learn to walk without a cane, back when I had to learn to live with pain.

  “Thanks anyway,” I say, and head over to a corner table. I sit down with a huff and pull out my phone, intending to stare at the screen until something in my life starts to make sense. I don’t know why I keep looking at all my old friends’ lives like it really matters anymore, like I even know them. After Nathan and the accident, it was like I was somehow responsible for what happened to him. Nobody talked to me, asked me how I was doing, how I was handling everything. I was a social pariah, an embarrassment, and nobody wanted anything to do with me.

  Two years have passed and I’m still nothing to them. Sometimes, when I’m at my absolute worst, I wish I was the one driving that car, that I was the drunk one without a seatbelt.

  Sometimes I wish it was my skull that smashed through the front windshield and broke apart on the pavement, fragments glittering in the headlights like steel dust.

  “Heard you leave early this morning.” Jonas’s voice pulls me from my dark thoughts. I realize I’ve been staring at the same Instagram post for almost a minute now. I put my phone on the table, face-down.

  “Went for a walk,” I say, which is only half a lie. I did go for a walk, but that’s not why I left so early.

  “Yeah? Where’d you walk to?”

  I hesitate a second. “Starbucks,” I say deciding to keep it simple.

  “Cool,” he grunts a little, although I can tell he doesn’t think it’s cool at all. I don’t either, and I want to explain to him why I walked for an hour out and back just to stop in a crappy chain coffee shop, but I don’t. I can’t talk about my mom’s pregnancy, not yet at least.

  “Heard you were looking for Ezra,” Jonas says. “I have no clue where he is, and I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  He shrugs a little, picking at the fingernails on his right hand. “He’s been coming and going a lot lately. Mostly just going.”

  I frown a little bit, fingers splayed out on the table, itching to grab my phone. “Last night, did he seem a little…”

  “High as fuck?” Jonas supplies. “Yeah, he did.”

  I bite my bottom lip. I knew something was weird with him but I couldn’t figure it out. I guess I haven’t been around people very much lately and I forgot what they’re like when they’re a little fucked up.

  Jonas sighs. “Look, don’t let it get to you. Ezra has his shit together.” He hesitates a second. “Or at least I’ll make sure he does.”

  “I know you will.”

  “Been taking care of his idiot ass for five years now. I can keep doing it.”

  I raise an eyebrow at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Your brother’s not exactly the most… responsible type.” Jonas laughs, a little bitterly. “Fuck, and neither am I, but one of us has to have their shit together or else all this would never happen.” He gestures around himself.

  “That had to be you?”

  “Pretty much. We were making good money, you know, dealing back when this shit was illegal. He wanted to buy jet skis and shit like that, but I made him save it. Kept telling him, something better will come along and we have to be ready.”

  “This is the something better?”

  “That’s right.” He grins at me. “This is the dream. This is Shangri-La.”

  “This is La Mesa,” I correct him.

  He laughs, crossing his arms. I glance at the tattoos, the muscles, and I wonder how Jonas the drug dealer turned into Jonas the responsible adult. I suspect he’s not all the way there, not yet at least, and for some crazy reason I want to find out just how responsible he’s become.

  He laughs softly, reaching up to put his hands behind his head, flexing a little bit in the process. I feel a sharp twinge at the way he looks into my eyes.

  “All right, little rose. I need to be careful around you.”

  I wince at the stupid nickname. “Do you have to keep calling me that?”

  “Nope,” he says. “I just like the way you blush and get pissed when I do. Makes you look even more like a rose.”

  I sigh. There’s no winning with a guy like him, especially when he doesn’t care what anyone thinks about him.

  “Yo, Jonas.” A big guy with a black shirt motions to him from the door.


  “Duty calls.” He stands up, stretching a bit. “If you got nothing to do, go help Lane make drinks.”

  I snort a little bit. “You gonna pay me?”

  “Probably not. Like I said, if you got nothing else to do.” He eyes me for a second. “But you probably need a job, don’t you?”

  “I can find my own job,” I grumble. “I’m not completely useless.”

  “Sure.” He grins at me. “See you later, little rose.”

  “Asshole,” I grumble as he walks away, following the big guy back out into the hallway.

  I sit there for a few minutes, starting at the back of my phone. I hate to admit it, but I kind of do want to get up and help Lane. She seems cool and down to earth and weirdly southern. I want to know her story, maybe figure out how I can get some of that coolness myself.

  Besides, it’s better than staring at my phone all afternoon, feeling sorry for myself.

  But I don’t want to give him the satisfaction. It’s like he’s both being nice to me and being a dick, and I have no clue which one is the genuine Jonas. Maybe they’re both him, part dick and part decent guy. He’s a dealer and an asshole and a gorgeous, kind human being. Or maybe I have it all wrong and he’s just the dirtbag most people think he is.

  I have no clue. I guess it doesn’t matter.

  I last ten minutes before I finally get up and go over to the counter. Lane gives me a little smile and motions with her head for me to come around and join her in the back. I guess Jonas already told her I might help out.

  I might regret it later, but I slip on an apron and try to be a normal person for at least a little while.

  5

  Jonas

  I follow Big John down the short, dark hallway toward my office. The huge man stops and motions with his thick neck toward the door.