by Ella Fields
A hand fell on my shoulder, and I startled, then realized it was only Mom. “Leave them. They’re hashing it out.”
“Is he mad?”
“He was,” Mom admitted. “But mainly with me for not telling him.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice catching.
She squeezed my shoulder, then grabbed my arm, turning me away from the door. “Nothing to be done about it now.”
Anxiety rolled off me when I heard Dad laugh and mention my name, but I moved back down the hall, entering the living room with Mom.
Aiden scooted over on the couch, and I sank down beside him, his arm coming to rest around my shoulders.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Your boyfriend was telling me about how he met you,” Hendrix said, stroking his whiskered chin. “Smooth as silk, man.”
“You did not,” I said.
Aiden sipped his beer, tipping a shoulder. “Why not? It’s a great story.”
Hendrix fiddled with the pegs of his acoustic guitar, then tested the strings. “It is. Much better than the other one I heard.”
“Hendrix,” Mom warned.
“Chill, Mom.” He plucked a fast tune, then slapped his hand over the strings with a grin. “I’m dealing with it.”
“Deal a little faster. It’s over and done with now.”
Hendrix pursed his lips in a way that said he wasn’t so sure, and Aiden cleared his throat. “You hungry? We had lunch leftovers for dinner, but I didn’t want to wake you.”
I poked his dimple. “I’m fine, Prince.”
“What’d you just say?” A rough question from the entryway.
My hand fell from Aiden’s face as Everett’s paled beneath the Christmas lights strung from every corner of the room.
“What do you mean?” I asked, my spine pulling taut at the crazed look in Everett’s eye.
“Him.” He gestured to Aiden. “What’d you just call him?”
“Prince,” I said, my cheeks heating. “It’s, um, his last name.”
Aiden’s brows furrowed as Everett stared at him with an intensity that went beyond jealousy and resentment.
Then the beer bottle dropped from Everett’s hand, foam dribbling onto the red rug as he disappeared.
The crash of the front door hitting the side of the house reverberated, and we all sat still as stone to the sound of his shouted cursing until silence fell.
“What the fuck was that?” Hendrix stood, moving to pick up the fallen beer bottle.
Mom was blinking in the direction Everett had gone.
Swallowing the knot that’d formed in my throat, I got up and fetched some wet towels for the rug and patted it clean. Once done, I went to Aiden, who seemed more confused than any of us, and took his hand. I didn’t know what to say. That was an outburst none of us could explain away, so I tugged. “Come on. Let’s go to bed.”
“But…” Aiden hesitated, looking in the direction Everett had gone. “He’s okay?”
That this man had the ability to be concerned for the very same guy he felt threatened by made my heart crash and burn as it melted with tenderness. “Yeah,” I said, smiling through the tears that’d gathered. “He’ll be okay.”
“He’s been a mess more than usual lately,” Hendrix informed behind me.
I’d forgotten he was still there and turned around.
He set his guitar back on its stand, running his hand over his mop of blond hair. “Drunk all the time. And I mean all the fucking time. He’s never not got a drink in his hand. He stopped playing guitar midway through a set just three weeks ago, and the only reason we haven’t kicked him out is because we’ve built a following, however small, from his voice, and no matter how drunk he is, he never fails on that front.”
“You can’t kick him out,” I said, fear spearing through me at what Everett would do without his one remaining saving grace.
“I know.” Hendrix sighed. “I never could. I’d make him play the fucking harmonica before I did that.”
“I’ll meet you in bed,” Aiden whispered, kissing my forehead, then leaving the room.
I looked from his retreating back to Hendrix as he picked up pieces of wrapping paper and tossed them onto the coffee table. “Hen, I’m sorry. It wasn’t something I could help, even if I wanted to, but still, I’m sorry.”
Hendrix kept moving, and I wasn’t sure he’d heard me until he said, “It’s just him, Steve.” He straightened, dropping balls of paper to the coffee table. “He’s like my brother, so of course, I love him, but… he’s not for you.”
I nodded. “I know that now.”
“Do you?” Hendrix angled his head. “Because that guy”—he gestured out of the room—“Aiden, he’s the kind of guy you need. Not some drunk who can’t see past his own selfish bullshit.”
He was right. It didn’t negate that I’d love Everett anyway, no matter what he did, or that I couldn’t be with him. Love was love, no matter how undeserving the person.
I stepped forward, holding my arms out. Hendrix raised a brow, and I laughed. “Don’t leave me hanging.”
His cheeks rose with his grin, and then he scooped me up, hugging me tight as I wrapped my arms around his waist. “You smell like an ashtray,” I whispered.
He chuckled. “Don’t tell Mom and Dad.”
Aiden’s quiet snores did their best to lull me to sleep but failed.
Carefully moving his arm off my waist, I climbed out of bed and padded to the door in search of water.
A quiet voice had the glass slipping in my hand and almost crashing into the sink. “Did you fuck him in the same bed I had you in?”
I put the glass in the sink and forced the water that felt more like cement to slide down my throat before I turned around.
He was standing in the arched entryway to the dining room, his shoulder pressing heavily into it, night shadowing his features.
Resolved to dust off his question, I walked by him. “Go to bed, Everett.”
A warm hand snatched mine, pulling me back into his hard chest. “Answer me.”
His hand was tight around mine over my stomach, and he used the other to move my hair aside.
As soon as his lips hit my skin, whiskey on his breath and shudders ready to roll over me, I pulled away. “Stop it. Where’ve you been?”
“Didn’t think you’d care, Clover.”
“God.” I shook my head. “Okay, good night.”
“Wait,” he said when I’d almost reached the end of the hall. “I-I need to…”
I waited for him to say it, but I had no plans to make it easy for him this time.
“Please, just let me talk to you.”
“Why?” I spun back. “It won’t change anything. All it’ll do is cause trouble I don’t need.”
“It’s not about us.” He blew out a wet sounding exhale, the next word croaked. “Please.”
That did it, and I felt my shoulders droop. I adjusted my T-shirt and gestured for him to follow me into the living room.
He slumped on the couch next to me, and I scooted back, trying to put a bit of space between us.
His lips pinched as he watched me, and then his head flopped into his hands, fingertips digging into his scalp. “His name was Mason, my brother. He was only eight when…” He stopped, and I heard a strange buzzing in my ears, felt my pulse thud in my neck. “We were playing outside on the driveway where we used to live.”
My hand went to my throat, and I struggled to breathe while I watched his back heave as his head lowered even more.
“He was on his scooter, and my parents were passed out on the couch after the bender they’d had the night before. It was a Saturday morning, so it wasn’t so busy. I told him to wait while I went inside the garage to find his helmet. And next thing I knew—” He groaned. “Fuck.” He drew in three breaths and seemed to hold them as he rushed out, “I heard him scream, and it-it… just cut off. Then a woman was screaming, and then sirens were screaming.” His hands were squee
zing his head now, growled words gritted through clenched teeth. “Everyone was fucking screaming as my baby brother lay dead behind some woman’s SUV.”
Tears collected and pooled in my eyes, and I did my best to swallow them, but they slipped out, falling silently down my cheeks.
“There was so much blood, Clover. S-s-so much, and I tried.” He coughed, wet and loud. “I tried to wake him up, but people kept pulling me away from him, and then they took him in the ambulance. They took him away, and I never fucking saw him again.”
“Everett,” I started, not knowing what to say. If there was anything of value I could say.
Then he fell against me, his head landing on my lap and his arms winding around my waist. “You gotta understand. He was all I had, all I had that mattered.” He sniffed, his words tear-strained. “And then I met you, Hendrix—all of you.”
I ran my hand over his hair, feeling the grit, the sweat, and wondering when he’d last washed it. “Does this have anything to do with your outburst earlier?”
“Yes.” He was quiet a minute, the shaking of his shoulders crumbling my resolve. “Clover, his mom. Desiree Prince. She was the one who hit him. She was high, and I don’t even know. Apparently, she’s dead now, but she fucking killed him.”
My hand, my entire body, stilled, my eyes drying as all the dots joined.
Aiden’s mom committing suicide. High. The screaming. The guilt she would’ve felt… I looked toward my bedroom, to where Aiden lay sleeping.
Or did lay sleeping.
He was standing in the doorway, his expression unreadable in the dull lighting, staring at me and Everett.
Then he was gone.
Torn, I felt Everett shake again, his tears morphing into sobs as I gazed down at where his head was still buried in my lap. Aiden needed me, but Everett… he’d needed this for a long time. For years, given the way he’d kept running through life, running away from it, trying to outsmart the ghost’s intent on trailing him.
And so with guilt piercing thorn-laden tendrils into my heart, I smoothed Everett’s hair and rubbed his back while years of grief soaked my sleep shorts.
The rumble of Aiden’s Audi penetrated some minutes later, and I heard his car take off down the street.
“Hey,” Dad whispered, tapping me on the shoulder.
Forcing open my heavy eyelids, I squinted up at him and felt something draped over the bottom half of my body.
The lines around Dad’s eyes and across his forehead tightened with his scowl. His disapproval aimed at Everett’s snoring form. “What happened?”
“He didn’t tell you?” I whispered, remembering how they’d talked outside.
“Some, but judging by the noises he made with you some hours ago, not all.”
Everett groaned, rolling over and blinking his eyes open.
Shifting his hands to either side of my legs, he pushed himself up and to the other side of the couch with a loud yawn. “What time is it?”
“Time for bacon and eggs,” Mom called.
My stomach, after not being fed dinner last night, growled. The thought brought me back to Aiden, and I sat up, darting around Dad and down the hall to my room. I knew he’d left, but he would’ve come back. It wasn’t his fault, but I was sure it had upset him, more than upset him, to hear it all the same.
He never came back.
The sight of my lone duffel had me rushing to my purse to grab my phone. I had no missed calls, but I didn’t let that deter me and hit his name before pressing the phone to my ear. My hand dug into my tangled hair as I reached his voicemail three times.
Giving in, I knocked some stray tears from my face and sent him a text. I asked where he was and if he was okay, then I made sure the volume was up loud and put my phone down.
The smell of bacon and eggs floated down the hall, but I grabbed a fresh set of clothes and locked myself in the bathroom.
Everything Everett had come clean about the night before, everything that’d happened because of it, not only with him but with Aiden just leaving, coalesced into a storm that thundered through my veins and sent my ass sliding down the shower wall.
I sat there a long while, tears streaming and my chest heaving until a knock sounded on the door.
“You alive in there?” Hendrix.
I sniffed, standing and quickly immersing myself in the spray. “Yeah,” I called once I was sure my voice would remain steady.
I had to go. I couldn’t stay here when Aiden was God knows where feeling who knew what. Everett needed me, yes. And even though I longed to ease all that ailed him, I couldn’t. I’d given him all I could spare, and even that had probably been too much for Aiden. Besides, he had my family. I wasn’t leaving him alone.
Not like I had Aiden.
I washed and toweled off before dressing in jeans, a black T-shirt, and a long cream knitted cardigan, then brushed my teeth and packed my things.
Everyone had finished breakfast by the time I entered the dining room and nabbed a few slices of cold bacon.
“Thanks for using all the hot water,” Hendrix said, entering the kitchen with blue lips and a towel hastily wrapped around his waist.
“When did you get tattoos?” I asked, taking in the phoenix spread across his chest and the unfinished dragon head on his upper arm.
He stared down at them and shrugged. “On the road, few different places.”
“Can you do me a favor?” I asked.
“If you hurry up and spit it out. I’m fucking shrinking by the second here.”
“Ew, why?”
“Steve, come on.”
“I need a lift back to school.” As much as I loved Mom and Dad, I couldn’t handle being in the car with them for that long and potentially talking about everything that’d happened. I needed to sort through it all on my own. Preferably in silence.
“Ugh.” He scrubbed at his wet face, sighing. “Give me ten minutes.”
I set my things by the door, then followed the sound of an acoustic melody through the living room and out onto the back porch.
Standing against the doorframe, I stared at Everett’s back. He sat on the edge of the half-built deck, serenading the few birds in the trees lining the back fence with his abrasive, hypnotic voice.
It’s funny how your eyes once shone
Brighter than any sky
While we were riding lows
During downward highs
It’s funny how I can’t seem to care
When I look around
And find no one there
Because when my feet hit the ground
It’s just you
Yeah, just you
It’s not a game,
It never was
I’d always thought
All this lying and dying
Was for the most beautiful cause
Until you cut me, baby
Then watched me bleed
Sliced me deep
As you stayed my feet
You cut me, baby
And then you cried
Promising there would be
No more goodbyes
You cut me, baby
Sliced me wide open
Never knowing, never caring
Just what might happen
Oh-ohhh
I know I’m trouble
It’s written all over me
And I know it’s a fucking handful
When you’re only trying to
Live and love me
Really, it’s okay
How I’ll go and you’ll stay
Because nothing,
I’m sorry, not even you
Can keep me contained
We both know it’s true
Yeah, not even you
Until you cut me, baby
You just watch me bleed
Sliced me deep
As you stayed my feet
You cut me, baby
And then you cried
Promising there would be
No
more goodbyes
You cut me, baby
Sliced me wide open
Never knowing, never caring
Just what might happen
Whoa-ohhh-oh
Oh, you don’t get a say
Over whether I’ll go
Or when I’ll stay
No, not today
It’s not up to you to decide
How far I’ll sink
Or how far I’ll climb
Yeah, you should know by now
I’ll drift even if you’re mine
Until you cut me, baby
Then watched me bleed
Sliced me deep
As you stayed my feet
You cut me, baby
And then you cried
Promising there would be
No more lies
You cut me, baby
Sliced me wide open
Never knowing, never caring
Just what might happen
Ohh-ohhh but now
Hush, hear me, baby
Listen, don’t open your mouth
Next time you cut me
I’ll be sure to bleed
All over your shoes
Before I fucking leave
It was new, or maybe it wasn’t. It’d been so long since I’d seen them play.
Still, it scraped my chest raw. Every time he opened his lungs and his lips caressed words into song, words he’d never dare utter in everyday conversation, it moved me. This, though, this was different.
But even as that part of me that would always belong to him yearned and cried, the other part that belonged to someone else, someone who was probably hurting just as much as Everett, lifted my feet and carried me back through the house to the door.
His lyrics followed, stayed with me, until I closed the door to Mom’s car and Hendrix started the engine.
“So, you and Everett, is that over now?”
How like Hendrix to ask such complicated questions at the very last minute.
I unclipped my seat belt and opened the door. “We never really began.”
Leaning an arm on the steering wheel, Hendrix pondered my words, then nodded at the apartment building behind us. “That’s not your place.”
