19. Shane
19
Shane
I sift through the coke on the bathroom countertop, lining up four thick rows as the sounds of Josiah’s urine hit the base of the urinal.
“Got a weird text today.” His voice carries over to me despite the loud rap music exuding from the bar.
I suck the first line into my nose, revving my engine, feeling the moment it hits my bloodstream. The deadness in me comes alive as it courses through my veins. My eyes wince as it shocks my system, tingling down my arms and legs to my fingertips and toes. I exhale slowly, realizing I've ignored Josiah’s attempts to fish for information.
“Yeah? That’s a great story, Sigh,” I taunt, bending over the sink to do another.
“Yeah, Mario Donnahue texted me this afternoon, asking if I could do him another favor,” he replies, his voice echoing against the cool tile toward me.
“How much?” I ask, before sucking up the third.
I stretch my jaw, wiggling my nostrils as my bloodstream fills with the emergent sensation.
“Didn’t say yet, but if it’s even half of what he paid me last time to cover his tracks, I might consider it.”
Josiah is the tech junkie of our group who fixes many various mishaps for people for the right price. Everyone on campus knows of his knowledge and power, which has gained him friends in every group imaginable. Even if I loathe his connection to the rugby losers.
Sniffing, I adjust the scattered remnants of the remaining coke, pushing it into one final line.
“Will he throw his sister in as well? Make it an actual deal?”
“That’s fucked up. She looks exactly like him but with a bad wig. I might as well save the energy and see if Mario will open up for me.”
I plug my nostril, falling back down to the counter, and suck the poison up into my skull.
“What’s the favor?” I slur, my face numbing as I wipe the counter clean with my palm.
“Making a shared file disappear,” he replies, sauntering up behind me in the mirror. He already looks accusatory. “Know anything about that?”
“Yeah,” I say, lifting my chin, a shit-eating grin growing on my face. The high hits just as the personal satisfaction for my little plan grows. Everything feels amazing. “Yeah, I think I do.”
Shaking his head, Josiah rounds me, grabbing some soap from the dispenser to wash his hands.
“What’s gotten into you, man?” he asks. “This isn’t like you. You’re falling back into the bullshit. You’re spiraling again, and I can't just sit back and watch it.”
I’m spiraling again. I’m not sure if it’s the coke or his invasive words that set me off, but whatever it is, my body aches for the carnage I’m about to unleash. I’m done with his side-eyed looks and masked judgment. I see right through him.
I grip the back of his shirt, pulling him from the sink and throwing him against the adjacent wall. His back thuds against the white tile, and the air leaves his chest. He reacts immediately, hitting me across the jaw with his fist. I don’t even feel the hit as my knuckles connect with his cheekbone. I’m in the numb where I belong.
He raises another fist, but I catch his wrist, pinning it above his head while my forearm presses against his chest. He fights me with all he has, our fronts rubbing together and our shoes squeaking on the floor as we push against each other.
“Tough words coming from you ,” I seethe, inches from his face.
“Ever since she came into the house, you’ve been different,” he spits.
“Different,” I reply, pushing so firmly into his chest that his nostrils flare with the inability to breathe.
“You’re using again, losing yourself to that same rage you had when we found you that night. I see it in your eyes, Croix. You’re back in it. Back in that place.”
“Aw, you mad because my full attention isn’t on you anymore?” I frown, mocking him. “Give it up, Sigh. It was never gonna stay that way.”
“Low as fuck, Croix.” He narrows his eyes. “Low as fuck. You know I’m not right anymore.”
Our rigid bodies and warm breaths meet between us. I can feel Josiah hardening against my thigh from our little scuffle. I knew this would happen. It always happens when I get rough with him. The contact, the misplaced intimacy he craves. I know exactly what he needs.
Josiah hasn’t been the same since Gabriella passed. He lacks the ability to form connections as he once did. He can talk all he wants, but this man can’t, for the life of him, commit to using a girl for sex after the traumatic events that unfolded. He’s too broken for a relationship, too traumatized for a one-night stand. He’s stuck. Glued to a present where the past continuously steers him, relying on the help of the only people he can trust himself with.
“So you rely on Wheeter and I to give you your reprieve? How long you gonna live your life like this? It never mattered to me, helping you out from time to time because I’m already ruined, but you’re fucking with Wheeter’s head. Making him think there’s more to this than just the inability to get yourself off. You’re gonna lose the only family you got left.”
“Wheeter and I have an agreement,” he retorts. “He knows what I need, and it doesn’t bleed into emotions or feelings. It’s purely physical—ass, mouth, hand, whatever he wants—it’s never been a problem.”
I scoff, sliding my arm down his chest and cupping his dick in my palm outside of his pants. His head drops back, and a pained moan leaves his throat.
“Well, you only get one here,” I remark, leaning forward to bite the top of his ear. “You wanna fuck my hand, Sigh?”
His jaw tightens, and he looks away from me. Trying to hide the pain, regret, embarrassment…all the things I hate seeing from my friend.
I release his wrist, his hand falling to his side, and use my forearm to press hard against his collarbones, sliding up until I’m holding him hostage by his neck against the wall. He finally looks back at me.
“Use your words, Sigh. This is what you want, what you need. Not me,” I say again. “You wanna fuck my hand?”
He nods reluctantly, his body curling into mine, still pinned between me and the tile behind him.
“Yeah, I do.” he finally mutters in defeat.
“It’s gonna cost you,” I whisper, leaning forward until our faces are level.
His weakness finds me, and he stills, contemplating my offer. I pop the button to his jeans, roughly opening his pants and pulling them down his thighs.
“That video isn’t going anywhere,” he swallows as he says it, concern on his face over my plans for Montana and her future.
“And you're gonna stop harassing me about using again or anything that has to do with Montana at all, got it?”
He stares at me, his black hair partially obstructing his vision, and nods, succumbing to his own need over morality.
“Stupid boy,” I rasp, staring through him with a maddening look as I spit into my palm.
Dipping my hand into his boxers, I grip his firm length, my saliva providing a slippery tunnel for his own personal pleasure as I fist his shaft. He jets his hips into me, and my forehead meets the wall behind him, our legs intertwined, my hips pinning him in place.
I hate that he can’t control his trauma. It’s maddening to see him lose the battle because I need someone in my life to defeat their demons. But if my best friend—the one who’s seen me through the torture I endured at the hands of my father, the one who helped me find a place to live after my father dropped his family because of my mistakes, leaving for the promise of a new life with some whore, the friend that picked me up from various concrete beds and random houses after searching the city streets for me all night, the one who’s always waiting outside the police station, ready to drive me home—if he can’t even emerge from his own darkness, how the fuck will I?
“Ah, shit,” he hisses, sucking in air through his teeth as his head falls back against the wall, the breaths falling hard and fast from his lungs now.
He fucks my hand while I whisper those vile things into his ear that he loves to hear so much.
“You’re such a dirty boy.”
“You like fucking your friend’s hand? Huh?”
“Come for me, you weak bitch.”
Seconds later, Josiah spurts into my palm, his body shaking against me. His form wilts and soft groans escape his lips. He acts depleted, chest heaving, as I bring my hand to his face. He shoots me a glare and sighs before his tongue laps at my palm, cleaning up his mess.
“Good now?” I ask, pushing off of him to head toward the sink. “Maybe you can start thinking straight again and stop applying yourself to my business. I got my shit handled.”
He catches his breath for a moment, slumped back on the wall, the guilt for enjoying what he does silently eating away at him. He’s confused about his sexuality while simultaneously dealing with a dumpster fire of trauma. I see it.
“I just—” He stops himself, shaking his head and looking down at the old chipped floor. Taking a deep breath, he looks up at me, his expression still masked by that ridiculous look of concern. “I just know that something’s off,” he says.
I scowl at him, drying my hands on a paper towel.
“You're still talking about this?”
“You’re headed back.” He nods to himself, knowing. “Back where no one can save you. Not even us wolves.”
Anger radiates from deep inside me at the affectionate term used to describe us three outcasts. The endless madness that is now amplified by the drugs. My face is numb, but my body burns like the makings of a volcanic eruption, ready to release and destroy.
“It’s her, isn't it?” he asks with an exasperated tone, piecing it together. “Who is she to you?”
I gaze at my reddened eyes, the pupils blown and the dark browns sinking deeper, reaching a menacing black. I find his reflection in the mirror, steadying my glare. I grip the edge of the counter, needing an escape. I want to run. I want to fuck him up for even knowing. I want to punch this fucking mirror so the image of his empathetic face can shatter before me, allowing my torrid blood to burn it all down. He didn’t need to pick me up when I was down, but he did it anyway. I don’t want him or anyone to save me. I just want to hurt someone more than she made me hurt myself. I want to hurt her.
He raises a brow, waiting for me to answer. It’s clear he’s not leaving this bar to head to the party until I do.
“Everything I once was,” I finally admit, pushing my palms roughly into the door to leave.