Chapter 3
Creed
This. This is why I don’t drink.
My head’s pounding, my mouth’s dry, and there’s a fucking disgusting taste coating my tongue. As far as I recall, my drink of choice last night was whiskey, not battery acid.
I don’t remember crawling into my bed. I don’t remember undressing, either.
.. Maybe because I only managed to shimmy out of my hoodie.
It lies crumpled on the floor. My jeans are still on, the belt off, zipper down.
The light spilling into my bedroom pierces through my skull, amplifying my pounding headache.
“Goddamn it.” I cover my face with a pillow, then promptly yank it off, my eyebrows scrunching alongside my nose when I get a whiff of burned toast.
I better be having a fucking stroke.
The alternative means Hyde has decided I’m in desperate need of immediate supervision. And that means I fucked up. Again.
Jamming my fingers into my eye sockets, I sit up and swallow the pang of guilt before it festers.
Time to face the music.
Hyde’s a good friend. The best I ever had.
He’s my brother by choice, and despite being the same age as me, always does the big-brother act.
He’s got a higher sense of duty and a compulsive need to care for the people he loves, whether they want his care or not.
He’s patient, a fucking saint, but, as I think I’m about to be reminded, rub him the wrong way and he goes nuclear.
He’s probably fuming about the mess in the kitchen. Fuming that I ditched his calls yesterday. Fuming that when I finally did call, I couldn’t say his name without slurring.
Fuck. What did I say that brought him over? He knows why I drank myself into oblivion, he knows I’m fine, and yet the one time he needs me to hold it together so he can take care of his little sister, here he is.
Yeah, Hyde’s a great friend.
Me? Not so much.
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, grab the discarded hoodie and shove it over my head, zipping up my jeans as I barrel out of the room. Three Days Grace and “I Hate Everything About You” greets me in the hallway, coming from downstairs.
A little on the nose... Hyde’s way of saying he’s pissed without saying anything. He’s standing at the stove, sleeves rolled past his elbows, a spatula in hand. The mouth-watering scent of eggs and bacon wafting through the air turns my stomach.
“You would’ve had a choice if you showed up five minutes ago,” he says when I drop into a chair at the dining table. “Too late now. Scrambled it is.”
“Why are you here?” I ask, raking a hand through my hair. “I don’t remember asking you to come over.”
“I didn’t need an invitation.”
He slides the eggs and bacon onto two plates, adding sliced avocado and the slightly burned toast. Grabbing both servings, he finally turns, cutting me a look, his lip curling in disgust.
“You look like shit.”
“Feel about the same. Shouldn’t you be with Millie?”
I swallow hard, my mind rushing back almost a year and I see her in a hospital bed—blonde, pale, lips tinted blue, dark bruises under her eyes. I only saw her like that, never conscious...
And I haven’t stopped thinking about her since. I haven’t stopped asking about her, either.
How’s Millie doing, Hyde?
Is Millie talking more?
Have you called Millie today?
It’s a long weekend, you should go see Millie.
Millie, Millie, Millie.
Grinding my teeth, I focus on my best friend. “What did I say that made you come here?”
“A lot of incoherent bullshit.”
“I was celebrating.” I pick up a fork, my hand shaking. “I got it out of my system and now I’m fine.”
“Fine my ass. Eat, or I’ll force-feed you.”
I almost smile because he’s not bluffing. Hyde’s very particular about food. Skip a meal and he’s there with a lecture. Maybe that’s what I said. That I wasn’t eating.
Not for the lack of food.
When my father was pronounced dead some thirty-six hours ago, most of our neighbors had been drawn out by the ambulance sirens to stand on their front porches, watching, whispering, covering their mouths while sending me pitying looks as the paramedics wheeled out the body.
The next morning, Miriam, my next-door neighbor, knocked on my door, armed with casserole à la food poisoning. I tried it at a neighborhood BBQ five years ago and wouldn’t put myself through that misery again, even if I were starving.
It’s selfish, but as I stuff my mouth with eggs and my tongue wakes up under the salty, buttery taste, I’m glad Hyde’s here.
Still... “You shouldn’t have left Millie alone.”
“She’s not alone. Dash and Noah are looking out for her.”
That doesn’t change shit. Millie needs her older brother. He’s the only one she’ll speak to without a filter.
Hyde chases a mouthful of avocado down with a sip of water, peering up at me. “She sent me here.”
I pause mid-bite, something ugly twisting in my chest. She shouldn’t put me above her comfort. I don’t fucking deserve that after already failing her once.
Hyde thinks I’m worth saving but he’s wrong.
I break things.
I break people and Millie’s the perfect example.
I haven’t even technically met her and she’s already paying for my existence. For my instability, bad temper, and the thing I pretend isn’t a fucking addiction.
“What the hell are you doing, Hyde?” I drop the fork, the clank jarring the quiet kitchen. “Go back. She fucking needs you there. I’ll handle the funeral.”
“You’re not handling shit, Elias!” He bangs his fist on the table, then exhales down his nose, dousing his rising temper.
Oh, he’s pissed, alright.
He only uses my first name when he’s angry.
“You were comatose when I got here,” he seethes. “The house was unlocked and smelled like a goddamn distillery. It looked more like you were drowning in guilt than celebrating.”
I drop my eyes back to my plate. Holding Hyde’s stare isn’t easy. He has the kind of conviction, the kind of moral compass, that makes you hate yourself for not having any.
“Creed,” he prompts, forcing me to look back up. “Do you need me to call a lawyer? Will the autopsy show—”
“A heart attack. That’s what it’ll show.”
I glance out the window. The soft hum of rain pattering the windows pisses me off. It hasn’t stopped since Jeremiah Creed heaved his last breath. The sky mourns him because no one else will. Someone should, right? Death is a tragedy...
Not this one.
This one called for celebration, so yesterday, once he had definitively left the building, I raised one glass to his absence... and then one more, and another.
One for every scar he left me with.
One for every second I counted between blows.
One for every lie I told the school nurse, our neighbors, my teachers—fell off my bike, tripped on the stairs.
One for every meal I ate standing because sitting hurt too much.
One for the winter he left me outside, barefoot in the snow, because I didn’t salute him when he got home. I was six.
One for every sir I forced past split lips.
One for the nights he made me polish his boots with shaking fingers while he drank more than he could stomach.
And one for that little boy who learned how to stop crying before he learned how to write.
Boys like that don’t grow into respectable men. We grow into monsters... might be why I didn’t do a fucking thing.
I just watched.
“I stood in the doorway,” I say, pushing a piece of bacon around my plate. “Came down to tell him I was heading back to Gravemont in the morning. Not sure why I bothered.”
Hyde sets his plate aside, offering me his full attention while wearing the same patient look he wore the day we met freshman year. I walked into our dorm with a black eye, split lip, and bleeding knuckles after picking a fight with some random guy just to send a message: don’t fuck with me.
Violence became my defense mechanism the summer I hit puberty and grew into myself. From then on, I always hit first.
Not my father but everyone else.
I refused to become a victim ever again, so I lashed out at the smallest sign of ridicule or bullying. Dad stopped throwing fists when I came home bloodied in my sophomore year of high school. He knew I’d hit back.
Hyde was the first person who didn’t pretend he couldn’t see the rage droning around me. He didn’t look away like everyone else. He introduced himself, bandaged my knuckles, and made me a sandwich.
No one had made me anything to eat since Mom died.
“He didn’t reply,” I continue. “Just took a sip of his drink, turned red in the face and grabbed his chest...” I meet Hyde’s stare head-on.
“I didn’t kill him. But I did nothing as I watched him die.
I stood there, staring at his skin turning ashen.
I waited and waited and fucking waited. I only called the ambulance once I was certain the paramedics couldn’t bring him back. ”
Hyde mulls over my words, choosing his carefully. That’s the thing I like about him most; he doesn’t spew generic lines, doesn’t offer comfort for the sake of filling the silence.
“He got what he deserved,” he finally says, then crosses the room to refill my coffee. “Did you call your aunt?”
“Not yet. I’ll let her know once everything’s organized. Otherwise, she’ll request full honors. I don’t want a thirteen-gun salute. I don’t want some fucking stranger in a uniform calling him a hero. He was a coward.”
Runs in the family. I should’ve killed him myself years ago.
Hyde doesn’t argue. He sets the cup before me and by the time I burn my tongue on the first sip, he’s on the phone with the funeral home.
“We’re leaving in forty minutes.” He sets his cell on the counter. “You have to sign some papers and pick a casket.”
“A cardboard box would be too much.”
“That’s not an option. What about the obituary?”
I scratch my jaw, my week-old stubble masking the scar that runs from chin to ear, courtesy of my father’s wedding ring. It was the only thing he kept after he buried Mom when I was five.
“Jeremiah Creed. Fifty-eight. Finally died.”