Sunburnt

by Joey Jameson

  He was still hard, as was I; my erection pressed up against my trousers. His hands sunk to my ass, gripping it tightly and squeezing as if testing out the firmness of a melon.

  “You’ve got me fucking horny,” he moaned between kisses.

  I let my hands explore underneath his shirt and find his abs, brushing over them with my fingertips before gripping onto his waist and drawing him into me even closer.

  Then his hands found the dreadlocks and he ran his fingers over them, pulling at my head and forcing my eyes open.

  He doesn’t want you.

  I heard the words come from somewhere in my head. I could feel my expression changing as the truth behind them hit me and the playful lust I was swimming in switched to blind rage.

  Stark realisation set in and something deep in my belly snapped. I lashed out, pulling away from his mouth and slapping him across the face as hard as I could, dragging my nails across his cheek until I could feel the hot sensation of blood under my fingers.

  “What the fuck!” he shouted as he recoiled from my slap. He grabbed his face as he teetered backward out of shock.

  I lashed out again, kneeing him in the groin with all my might. He let out a muffled cry as he fell to the sand, buckled over and curling into a ball.

  “You fucking bitch,” he groaned through clenched teeth as the feeling no doubt shot up from his crotch to the rest of his body.

  Again, I attacked, kicking him in the ribs while he was down.

  “You don’t want me…Guys never want me. You want Lyric!” I screamed as I kicked him again. “They never want me. They always want him!” The tears came now, clouding my vision that had become shrouded in a red mist. “Everyone always wants Lyric. But none of you are good enough for him. None of you,” I screamed into the night.

  I kicked him again and again, before I heard some sort of sickening crack coming from his sides. He was loosening up at my feet, becoming slack beneath my attack, perhaps losing consciousness.

  “You’re fucking filth. You’re scum. You’re always attracted to him, but you’re never good enough for him.”

  I sunk to my knees and straddled him, forcing him onto his back by twisting his shoulder away from himself until he was staring up at me through a dazed and pained expression.

  “P-please…” he pleaded, spitting out blood and staring up at me.

  I reached behind me and grabbed hold of a rock the size of my hand. I raised it above my head.

  “Everyone always wants Lyric. Everyone always wants Lyric. When will it be my turn to be noticed? When will boys start to want me? When?”

  I brought the rock down on his head, hitting him hard across the cheek. His face whipped to the left as a stream of crimson blood shot from the wound. His head rolled back to neutral, a gaping gash now staring up at me from the impact.

  As I held the rock in my hand, there was another shift, as if I could feel myself being pulled away. It was almost magnetic, as if something had gripped me from the shoulders and was yanking me back. I looked down at the blood on my clothes and the rock in my hand and could only watch and observe as the rage melted away into a sort of core-shaking fear like I had never experienced before in my life.

  Then I was gone.

  Chapter Thirty

  NOW

  “Cedar…” the female detective said as she orchestrated her next approach. “It’s nice of you to join us tonight.”

  The male officer sat back, more taken aback than his partner at having witnessed Lyric’s other personality manifest itself before his very eyes. The hairs on the back of his neck were visibly standing on end and he had one hand under the table, presumably close to some panic button in case he felt the need to call for backup.

  “You’ll have to excuse my colleague,” she went on. “He’s served on the force with me for over a decade, but when it comes to psychological disturbances, he’s as green as they come.”

  “I wasn’t sure he was going to let me through,” Cedar whispered, feeling his voice return for the first time in a while. He looked around the room, shaking his head as he realised where he was. “I see our boy Lyric has gotten us into a bit of a pickle…”

  “Don’t you mean, you both have?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

  Cedar’s gaze met her own and he assessed her quietly.

  “Little old me? Why, whatever do you mean?”

  “It seems that whenever you come around, Lyric ends up in trouble.”

  “Lyric’s always been the naughty one…” He studied his hands, turning them over as if seeing them for the first time.

  “That’s not exactly true, now is it?” The female officer was choosing her words carefully, like talking to a small child so as not to frighten it off. “For instance, the night of the accident…”

  Cedar’s left eye twitched and he tilted his head as if trying to rid his ear of water.

  “I don’t want to talk about that…”

  “From what we’ve gathered, there was a bit of an incident that night.”

  Cedar touched the crown of his head and ran his hands down the length of the blond dreadlocks, taking one in between his fingers and inspecting it with a furrowed brow.

  “Do you not remember the man you attacked?”

  “Attacked.” The word came out of his mouth as though it had a bitter taste.

  “Left for dead, actually,” the male officer interjected.

  “It was lucky for him that there were some passersby who heard all the commotion and came to help,” she continued. “They found you, or should I say Lyric, standing over the body of a Rodriguez Sanford, covered in blood and clutching a huge rock. If they hadn’t arrived when they did, who knows what you might have done.”

  “He’s alive?”

  The female officer made a show of checking her records before answering with a nod. “You put him in a coma for two months.”

  She must have hoped that her comment would hit him hard, but he just stared at the wall behind them as if in some sort of a trance.

  “Cedar, do you know why Lyric got sent away to the Institute in Catalonia?”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “Cedar, your brother was diagnosed with Dissociative Personality Disorder. He displayed multiple personalities. After the incident on the beach, the one you were responsible for, he was deemed too unstable to stand trial and sent to the Institute to undergo intensive psychotherapy. He remained there until, apparently, he was released at the age of twenty. If Rodriguez Sanford had died, he might still be there, but the judge was lenient on him, on the proviso that he sought the necessary treatment for his condition.”

  Both officers studied his expression which remained unchanged; still and unblinking, with only the corner of his lips twitching slightly.

  “Apparently, he made such incredible progress during his time there and his condition stabilised in such a manner that his doctors deemed him fit to return to everyday life as long as he continued his therapy sessions and stayed on his meds. But I’d wager that Lyric has stopped taking his meds and that you,” she paused, making sure he knew she was referring to Cedar, “have been making more appearances as of late.”

  “He tries to keep me down. Hidden. But I’ve always been stronger.”

  “Cedar…I’ve got something to tell you and I need to make sure you’re listening to me. Are you listening to me?” she asked, waiting for his gaze to make contact with hers before she continued. “You’re not real.”

  Another twitch, this time one that seemed to affect his entire face.

  “Did you hear me, Cedar? You’re. Not. Real.”

  His lips were twitching further now, not into a smile, but rather a snarl of sorts.

  “You’re. Not. Real,” she repeated for emphasis, making sure she looked him square in the eye and accentuated each word so he felt the weight behind them.

  “Fuck you,” he snarled in a tone that was almost otherworldly. His pupils were dilated, making his eyes seem like two vast pools of black.
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  “You materialised as a way for Lyric to deal with the passing of his brother and family. You died that night in the car along with your mother and father.”

  “Fuck you. Stop it.”

  “Lyric was traumatised by the accident; felt responsible for allowing you to drive the car after he had crashed it. He was so deeply hurt by what happened that something inside him snapped. He started speaking like you, acting like you, and even wearing your clothes. It was his brain’s way of coping with the guilt and the grief and the loss. But it wasn’t something new. It was something he had been dealing with since you both were kids. You know what I’m talking about now?”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but then hesitated before finding the words. “He was always a little off…”

  “It started with sleepwalking. Waking up in strange places with no memory of how he had gotten there or what he had done. Then as you both grew up he got involved in crimes, drugs…started acting out. There may have even been other personalities, as well, but somehow, he managed to deal with them for a while. They were never really strong enough yet. But after the accident, your accident, the one he felt responsible for, something shifted and he lost control.”

  Cedar stood to get up, but the male officer was quick and managed to grab hold of his arms. He cuffed Cedar’s hands in front of him—for his own protection or Cedar’s, he didn’t know—and forced him back into his seat.

  “Fuck you, get off me! Get him off me!” He squirmed and shouted as he was forced back into his chair. But he gave up fighting after a few seconds, knowing it was a losing battle as the male officer dominated him easily in both size and strength.

  “But you were strong. You had more power over him. Tell me something, Cedar; why is it you seem to want to see your brother suffer?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Every time you come around you seem to cause trouble for Lyric.”

  “I love him.”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course, I do. He’s my brother. I only want what’s best for him.”

  “Even if that means potentially sending him to prison?”

  “Of course not. Why would you say that?”

  “Because that’s where he’s headed, Cedar.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Why would you attack Rodriguez Sanford?”

  “That filthy thing? He wasn’t good enough for my brother. He was scum.”

  “Not good enough, Cedar?”

  “No one is ever good enough for Lyric. No one.”

  “I think there’s more to it than that.”

  “I’m done talking.”

  “I think you’re jealous.”

  “That’s preposterous.”

  “Is it? I think you’re jealous and that you don’t want the best for him at all.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You’ve always been the wallflower, haven’t you, Cedar? Always second fiddle to Lyric’s charm. His charisma. You never had any of that, did you? And that made you mad. Made you crazy, actually.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Always sitting back and watching while Lyric got the guys. While you sat at home, wishing and praying that one day someone would notice you for who you really were and what you had to offer.”

  Cedar was getting riled up now, and she could tell. His face reddened and he writhed in the chair as if he would implode if he had to sit through any more of this.

  “But it never happened, did it, Cedar? Lyric always outshone you in that department. And you died without ever really getting to shine…”

  “I hate you. All of you.”

  “And now this is your way of getting back at him. Now that you’ve got power over him you can have your moment. You can finally see what it’s like to be your brother. Have his looks, his charisma. But it didn’t really work for you, did it? You may have thought it was what you wanted, but it started working against you when you realised they didn’t want you. They wanted Lyric. They always have.”

  “Stop it. Please.” He raised his cuffed hands as close to his ears as he could in an attempt to block out her words. “I can’t listen to this anymore. Please.”

  “So you’d get angry with them. Just like you got angry with Rodriguez Sanford.”

  His shoulders were heaving with silent tears as he dropped his head and looked down at his feet.

  “But not every guy was as lucky as Sanford, were they? There were times when you weren’t interrupted like you were with him on the beach. Three other times, in fact.”

  “Please stop…” he murmured.

  “Tell us about Lenox, Cedar.”

  There, she’d said it. Her ace in the hole. The name she must have been withholding for precisely the right minute, knowing the effect it would have on him.

  And sure enough, it did. He stopped squirming and looked her dead in the eye for the first time in minutes, his face red and blotchy and his eyes glazed.

  “Lenox…” he repeated back to her, the name rolling off his tongue and lingering in the air between them.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  THEN

  As the iPhone screen unlocked itself with a swipe of Lenox’s finger, he instantly regretted it. He always hated it when his ex used to creep in his phone, checking his pictures and texts. It screamed distrust and Lenox had always promised himself he would never betray someone else’s privacy like that.

  But sitting there in Lyric’s bed, with his phone unattended, he began to realise that perhaps he had some trust issues after all. He listened for Lyric in the toilet to gauge how much time he had to snoop, and before he knew it he had clicked on the pictures icon. An album list displayed itself for his choosing.

  Scrolling through, he saw one dated a couple of days ago. When he opened the album, hundreds of miniature thumbnails came up on the screen; a load of crowd shots from the beach or somewhere sunny, the blue skies unmistakable even from the tiny squared images. He enlarged one and studied it intently, his mind working to make sense of what his eyes were telling him.

  It was a group shot of Lenox and his friends on the beach.

  Odd. I don’t remember that being taken.

  A swipe to the right revealed a second snap from another angle, just far away enough for the photographer to be inconspicuously out of eyeshot. Another swipe revealed a picture with a different date; with only Lenox and Bambi in the shot. Again, the picture seemed to be taken from a slight distance down the beach, so far away he had to pinch the picture to zoom in and make out their figures. But it was them. Sure as anything.

  Another swipe revealed a group of people in a dimly lit room, dining from what he could make out.

  It was that night at Las Dos Lunas.

  Lyric was there?

  The next one was another group shot of all of them that night on the beach. Just before they spotted Lyric in the water.

  Lenox’s heart was in his throat, beating like a snare drum in his ears. The blood circulating through his body throbbed a similar rhythmic drumming in his temples as he continued flicking through the pictures.

  Each and every one was of him or one of his friends. Hundreds of them. All taken without Lenox or any of the others being aware.

  Lyric’s been following me. But why?

  He turned his attention back to the toilet and he could hear the tap running now, but it didn’t stop him. He was like a thing possessed.

  The beach. Dinners they’d had. Their villa. Close-up pictures of the front of their apartment. Them arriving from the airport.

  How the fuck?

  His mind was reeling as he exited the photos and clicked on the green messages icon. He recognised his own number at the top of the first message. As soon as he clicked on it, he wished he hadn’t.

  Stay away from him.

  The words were plastered across the screen in the blue message box.

  Jesus Christ. It was the text he had gotten on the beach that first night with Lyric.

 
; It was sent from Lyric.

  Stay away from him.

  Why would Lyric send that to him? And how? It didn’t make any sense. How would he have even had his number that first night? They had only just met…

  But then realisation dawned on him as the chips slowly began to fall into place before his wide-open eyes.

  He had lost his phone. On the beach. Lyric had found it. He must have gotten his number that way.

  But why would Lyric send Lenox a text warning Lenox to stay away from him?

  Seconds passed as the wheels in his head turned so loudly he could almost hear the sound of them working. He racked his brain trying to make sense of what he had just seen.

  Then he smelled the vanilla.

  Sweet and yet so pungent. The same scent he had smelled the first night he and Lyric had sex. It was so strong it forced his gaze up from the phone.

  The sight of Lyric’s broad frame standing motionless in the doorframe made him jump.

  “Jesus,” he cried out in surprise.

  But Lyric didn’t move. He just stood there, still, his face shrouded in shadows, his hands hanging limply at his sides.

  “Lyric…” he began, not knowing where he was prepared to take the conversation.

  Lyric took a step out of the shadows, revealing his face. It was twisted into a scowl of some sort, as if he had just smelled something horrible and was investigating the source.

  “Your phone…” Lenox’s gaze dropped to the iPhone in his hand as though he was unsure how it had gotten there.

  “Are you looking through his phone?” Lyric asked, his voice more mocking in tone than upset.

  Lenox was surprised to hear that voice coming from Lyric. It sounded different. Deeper. Grittier somehow.

  “I’m sorry. I…” He couldn’t disguise his confusion. “Your phone was beeping. And then…”

  “I had a bad feeling about you right from the beginning.”

  Lyric’s words seemed to tumble quietly from his open mouth, as if he had said them all before.

  “What did you just say?”

  “I tried to tell him, but as always…” He took another step closer.