by Milly Taiden
He spit on the ground. “Well, Junior. What the fuck am I going to do now? Should I see if Jasper has it in him to take a licking?”
Fear laced my rushed words. “No. Leave him alone.” This was the only thing I could do for my little brother. I wasn’t strong enough to take him and escape, wasn’t smart enough to find a way out. But I could keep him from this, the only thing our father would ever teach him: how to fear. I could protect Jasper from this pain with every breath I took; it had been my mother’s last request and I would honor it if it killed me.
“Keep your brother safe. That’s your job now.”
“Well, Jethro, I do believe we’re about done here,” my father said, spitting on the ground again, a glob of tobacco splashing in front of my face.
I lifted my eyes, not moving any other part of me, hoping he’d had enough and we truly were done. My father smiled down at me, his eyes lit up with whiskey and fury, the glint of his hunting knife in his right hand. He used it to gut and skin the deer he hunted, the edge honed to a paper-thin razor that you never felt, even when you nicked your finger.
Fear nothing. Her voice, my mother’s, whispered the words to me, words that would become my life. Don’t fall to his rage, don’t let him shape you. Be better than what he’s showing you.
My mother, what was left of her, was right. I would never use my fists to get my way, would never let myself be the violent man my father was.
Never.
I smiled back at him, gathered my tattered courage, thought of Jasper, and flipped my father off.
“Fuck you, asshole.”
Something shifted in him as the words left my mouth. A tension, a creeping darkness in his eyes told me another side of him was coming to the surface—a man I’d met once before, the one who’d stolen our mother from us. This was it; he’d gone over the deep end. I suddenly knew in my gut I had to make a stand now or die. I refused to be afraid anymore, refused the pain that coursed through me.
If I thought he’d been vicious before, it was nothing compared to wrath he unleashed on me then.
That was the day of the steel cable, the whistle of it through the air, the sing of my skin as it stripped from my back long tears of flesh.
That was the day I finally found the strength to stand up for myself.
The day I learned to hide behind the laughter so no one saw what lay beneath, just under my skin.
That was the day we escaped.
Jasmin
Some moments leave you empty of anything good, of anything beautiful and right. They sear your heart closed, staying with you forever. Those moments of pain and loss burrow under your skin and lay, quietly waiting, for the day you think your life is better. And then they remind you in a blinding flash of memories that it isn’t.
I wasn’t sure I could face another one of those moments. Wasn’t sure if I could add more memories of that sort to those I already carried like a weight across my heart.
But here I was, fighting the inevitable reality. My brother was dying, hooked up to machines that beeped and hummed and kept him alive, though just barely. He was not even twenty-eight, his birthday a few weeks off, and his number was being called, his final set being played. His fingers were cold against mine; his once dark hair had fallen out long ago, after the first round of chemotherapy. I stroked his arm, avoiding the I.V. dripping painkillers and fluids into him, feeling the jut of bones and tendons under his skin. His body had wasted away, so that he no longer looked twenty-eight, but closer to eighty. I prayed these minutes weren’t our last, yet I knew the seconds ticking by stole what was left of his life. He slept peacefully. The high-powered drugs the doctors gave him did that at least, even if they couldn’t save him.
“Jazzy, where’s Mom?” Ryan’s voice was reed thin, a bare whisper of what he’d once been able to do. Singing had been our lives, our hopes, and dreams. His heart had been his music and now even that was gone, and without him, my music had been silenced too. The cancer had eaten away everything he’d ever looked forward to, stolen it before he’d even had the chance to live. Six months ago, Ryan had been healthy, fine, a normal twenty-seven year old with his whole life ahead of him. I still couldn’t believe we were here, that this moment had come so quickly. Six months ago, Seattle had seemed the perfect place to be for Ryan, as he started his professional singing career, and me as I performed with him, and built my photography portfolio. Now all I could think, as the rain pounded down on the roof, was that the city’s sky wept with us, as I clung to what was left of my brother’s life in desperation.
“Ryan, Mom and Dad have been gone for three years. Remember?” God, this was the worst part; his memories were slipping and the past sometimes became the present in his mind. I almost lied to him, almost told him that she was just gone for a bit, out for some food. But I couldn’t do that. He’d asked me to never lie to him about anything, even if it was hard.
“I remember now. The car accident.” He shuddered, his thin frame trembling under the even thinner white sheet. “Who was here? I was sure someone else was here.”
I slid closer to him, my knees brushing against the metal side rails. “Lily was here. You know, the girl whose ponytail you used to yank? The one with the big blue eyes—the one who moved halfway across the country to stay close to us?”
We weren’t the only ones who didn’t have any family left. Lily only had us now, after a string of foster homes had left her unable to trust anyone else; so when we’d moved to Seattle, she came with us without a second thought.
His chest lifted up and down as he struggled for breath, but a smile ghosted across his lips. “Lily. Why’d she leave? I’d like to see her.”
“She went home for a bit, to shower and sleep.” I stroked the side of his face, stunned to see a tear slide down his cheek. Ryan had only cried in front of me once since his diagnosis and he’d been drunk to the point of not remembering it the next morning. “You should try and sleep too.”
Ryan took a shallow breath, the hollow of his throat collapsing with the effort. “Call her back. Please. I have something to tell her. Something I should have said a long time ago.”
“She’ll be here in the morning.” I continued to stroke his face, wishing I could do more than just . . . sit.
“But I don’t think I will be here then.”
His words were soft, but they dropped like a bomb inside my head. Oh God. Not now, it couldn’t be time already.
I fumbled for my cell phone, clicking it on. It didn’t matter that it was three in the morning; nothing would stop Lily from getting here in time. She had to. He needed us both; I couldn’t let him go, not by myself.
The phone rang through and she picked it up right away.
“Lily, you have to come back to the hospital.” I choked the mixture of grief, fear, and the inevitable knowledge that my brother was dying in front of me. “Right now.” She didn’t answer, just hung up the phone. There was no time for answering, not a single moment could be wasted. We both knew that all too well—prior experience had taught both of us that death came quickly, and if you wanted a final moment with your loved ones, you had to move fast. Fifteen minutes, surely Ryan could hold on that long.
I went back to his bedside, my older brother, my confidant and protector. Staring down at him, I couldn’t imagine my life without him by my side, without him laughing at my stupid jokes, without him teasing me about my bad hair days, without him singing alongside with me. There was not a day in my life that didn’t have an aspect of him in it. What was I to do when he was gone? How would I stand on my own two feet without him urging me forward?
“Jazzy, are you still here? Tell Lily, when the time is right, tell her I love her. I just thought I had time, time to be everything she needed, time to tell her. I was wrong,” he whispered, another tear tracking down his cheek.
“I’m here. I won’t leave you. And you can tell her all those things yourself. She’s coming, Ryan. She’ll be here soon,” I said, sniffing back my own tears.
I had to be strong in this moment, he needed me to be his rock, and I could do that. I had to. I crawled into bed beside him, thinking back to our childhood when he’d done the same for me when my night terrors had grown too much for me to handle on my own.
“Do you remember when I fell out of the tree and broke my arm? Mom was so mad at us for climbing the old maple. Of course, I never did tell her you pushed me,” I said, slipping my arm around the back of his neck and cradling him against me.
I felt him smile. “I carried you three blocks. I thought . . .”
Neither of us said the words, but both of us knew what he’d been about to say. He’d told me later he thought I was going to die, I was wailing so badly about the pain. I was nine, Ryan was thirteen, and the memory of him telling me it would be all right, that he would get me home and Mom would take care of it seemed frozen in my brain. Of course, it was nothing more than a broken arm. This, though, what Ryan faced, even Mom—if she’d been alive—couldn’t have fixed, no matter what she tried.
“I thought you were going to drop me, the whole way I kept waiting for you to let me go,” I said, the words slurred with the pain that wrapped itself around my heart.
He opened his eyes, still a vibrant green—just like mine—and so full of life that if I looked at them, I could forget the truth; I could believe for a minute we were still kids, having one of our late night talks over a shared chocolate bar stolen from Mom’s stash. Not curled on a tiny hospital bed, whispering our last to each other.
“Jazzy,” he said. “Don’t let this stop you. You have to live, really live. Don’t be afraid to love because you might get hurt, because you might lose someone. Keep dreaming, keep believing. Promise me. It’s important to me. Don’t just do what you think you should, do what your heart wants. Please.”
Lips pressed tightly, I nodded. I didn’t want him to spend his last few minutes worrying about me. But I couldn’t promise him anything; I couldn’t see past losing him. His sickness and imminent death were like a tsunami wiping out my life as I knew it; there was nothing past the destruction for me that I could see. So I changed the subject. “Do you need more painkillers? Maybe it’s just a bad night.”
I stared down at him, and his lips trembled as he tried to keep smiling. “It’s not just a bad night. I can feel my body just . . . letting go . . . shutting off. Tell Lily I’m sorry. I wish I could have been more to her, that we’d had more time.”
I clung to him, his breathing slowing with each inhale, his body twitching in small spasms as if to give me a visual to go along with his words. Shutting down. Turning off. Over. Gone.
No, no, no. Not yet, I wasn’t ready yet to say goodbye, not again, not so soon.
“Ryan, Lily is on her way and you can tell her yourself. Please, try to hang on.”
“Trying . . .” he whispered, his eyes closing once more. “I’m sorry I’m hurting you Jazzy, I am. You were always my best friend.”
I let out a choked laugh. “Even when you duct taped me to the kitchen chair?”
“Especially then . . . most especially . . . love you . . . .”
He sucked in a lung full of air, his body stiffening, and I held him tight, unable to stop the sob that escaped me. With a last release, his body slowly sunk into the bed, a final shiver running the length of him.
“Ryan?” I touched his face, turning his head toward me. The pulse in his throat was gone, the beeping of his machines slid to a steady drone, flat-lining. Ryan’s pain was over, his body done with this world and all the heartache it inflicted on people.
And mine. Mine was just beginning.
1
Jasmin
I needed this job. Ryan had been gone six months and the bills had continued to pile up. They’d climbed higher while Ryan was in the hospital and now they were overdue. The house we’d bought together was in jeopardy of being foreclosed.
The bigger problem for me though, more even than the foreclosure, was that I was broke. I had less than ten bucks in my bank account, and my credit card was completely maxed out. I’d lived on it the last six months—stupid I know, but I’d been too buried in my grief to care. I hadn’t realized I was making things worse until it was too damn late.
If I didn’t get this job, I would lose everything.
My right knee jumped and vibrated as I sat in the uncomfortable chair next to the other applicants who’d already gone through. I was the last of the bunch, except for a guy about my age sitting on my left. Glasses and mussed up light brown hair that looked as if perhaps there was gum stuck in it somewhere, he had a smattering of acne across his forehead and a pair of ears that were bright red along the rims. Like a permanent blush.
I couldn’t still the bobbing of my one knee, and the applicant next to me gave me a look over the top edge of his glasses. “Nerves will shoot you in the foot, you know. Not that you’ve got a chance at the job, not with me in the running.” He gave me a smile that was a bare tightening of his lips, and a whiff of too much cologne, used to cover the fact he obviously hadn’t showered lately, spilled off him.
“I’m Paul, maybe I can hire you as my assistant.” He smiled broadly at me, a greasy smile that I had to stop myself from smacking off his face.
“Thanks, I think I’ll pass.” What a jerk. I half-turned my body so I didn’t have to look at him and concentrated on more important things. Like keeping my body from shaking; I was not weak. This would not break me. If I could bury both parents, and my brother, I could damn well deal with an interview. I let out a slow breath. The fear slowly subsided to a dull roar in the back of my head.
Forcing myself to be still, I looked around the hallway; Wild Child was a relatively new magazine for extreme stunts, stuntmen, and daredevils. All of them crazy, in my opinion. Not that I was all too keen on taking pictures of people deliberately putting themselves in danger, but I was running out of options. My gut clenched at the thought of seeing people in death defying situations, and I gave myself a mental shake. Wild Child was growing fast and I’d been lucky to get even this far in the application process.
Of course, that had nothing to do with me and more with the fact that my best friend, Lily, was the receptionist for the manager doing the hiring. Thank God for BFFs. Not that I’d ever say that to Mr. Acne next to me.
My camera bag at my feet, a meager writing sample and the small portfolio were all I had to prove that I could hack it as the fledgling magazine’s full-time photographer/interviewer. I was praying that no one actually asked to see my camera. In its glory days, it was the best on the market, but that was years ago. Now it would be considered mediocre at best and it had developed a finicky attitude. Like erasing pictures at random, or deciding not to turn on. Or off. Oh, I knew I was in too deep on so many levels; I had absolutely zero experience with a magazine, let alone one of this size. With only a handful of photography classes under my belt, I didn’t have a lot to put on my resume. There hadn’t been much extra money after Mom and Dad passed away, neither one of them even had life insurance. They couldn’t afford it. So Ryan and I had to make do with what we could, paying off the debts with the sale of our parent’s house and then starting fresh together with the little bit of money left. The house we’d bought was small, old, and needed repairs, but the price had been right. We’d had just enough for the down payment—and nothing for the repairs—but neither of us minded. A place to call home was what it was, and to Ryan that had been more important than anything. He didn’t want to be a drifter, floating from town to town, as so many musicians did. Ryan wanted to have a real home, a place to lay his head at night, a place that was his and no one else’s. At least he’d had that for a little while.
But his cancer had pushed me into a hole that I was going to have to dig myself out of on my own. I could do it; it would just take time. There was no quick fix, no wealthy relative to help me.
Desperation did wonderful things for motivation. That, and the pittance I got from my retail job, had combined to bring me to this poin
t. I’d even considered selling Ryan’s car—his baby; it had meant more to him than anything else. He and Dad had worked on it for years, putting it together a piece at a time, weekends and evenings spent tinkering in the garage. The car was not only a piece of Ryan, but a piece of my father too.
At the last minute, I’d convinced myself to hold off. The cherry red ’69 Falcon was the final piece of the men in my life, and I couldn’t bear to see it go. Besides, even if I sold the car, all it would do is hold the bills back, not pay them off.
The rush of heat and tears started, and I bit the inside of my mouth. No, I would not cry, damn it! Mr. Acne had moved so I could see his face again, and he gave me a smug half smile. I gritted my teeth and again kept my hands still so I wouldn’t lash out and slap his stupid face. If Lily could function, so could I.
I thought about my best friend and wondered if she was lying to me about all the dates she was supposedly going on. My suspicion was she was told me what I wanted to hear. The problem? She’d loved Ryan her whole life, and losing him before she could even tell him . . . I think it broke what was left of her heart. I hadn’t been able to tell her yet what he’d said at the end. Ryan had said to tell her when the time was right, and right now, Lily was still grieving too hard to hear his final words to her.
Swallowing hard—I forced myself to think of other things like flowers and puppy dogs, anything that had nothing to do with Ryan—I jerked upright when a gruff older man I knew was Kevin McCall, the department manager, called my name. Grabbing my bag, I breathed in through my nose, out through my mouth, which was supposed to be calming—at least according to Lily. All it did was leave me light headed and I wobbled in my heels as I walked toward the office door. Mr. Acne chuckled under his breath, but I heard him loud and clear, the slimy, conceited jerk. Plastering on a smile, I stepped into the office and lowered myself into the seat my—hopefully—new boss indicated.
