32. Oli
Oli
The Fight Within
J orge will not let go of my hand; he’s cried three times on the way here and will not stop begging me to change my mind. Kelly secured the little microphone pinned underneath my shirt like some spy, and I’ve connected it to the app on my phone. I’ll press record before I go inside the bar. My nerves are jacked through the roof, I feel like I have to piss, and my bravery is faltering with every turn of the car tires.
“ Please ,” he begs again.
“I need to do this.”
I glance in the rearview mirror, seeing Phoenix’s car behind me; Kelly and Michael are riding in Devon’s truck. “What are you worried about?” I ask.
Jorge wiggles in the passenger seat, gripping his vape in his other hand. His big brown eyes flutter as he sucks in a shaky breath. “When he showed up at your work, you…you wanted to use, Oli. You haven’t openly admitted to wanting that in so long. I had to talk you over the edge. What if I can’t this time?”
Ah.
So he’s worried I’ll relapse.
Admittedly, so am I. The cravings are there, the desire to numb myself stronger than ever, but I know it won’t solve a damn thing. The fact I’m doing this at a bar, of all places, is a recipe for disaster, given my state of mind. I could very well go get a drink instead of confronting Morgan. Honestly, that sounds way more appealing.
“It’s not your job to keep me sober, Jorge.”
“Then what is my job, then? Huh? Our entire relationship started because I helped you get sober. Isn’t that what I’ve been doing since? Keeping you so? Being your support system?”
“I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’m just going to say it.” I take a breath and stop at a red light. Facing him, I come right out with it. “Being an addict means I might relapse. Just because I haven’t doesn’t mean I won’t . I don’t plan on it; I’m doing everything in my power to make sure I stay clean. But fooling yourself into believing I’m cured of addiction is the wrong way to look at it, baby. I’m going to fuck up at some point. I guess…if you have one job at all, it’s not to hold it against me.”
“But…”
“Being with you gives me strength, that is true. You’ve shown me so many things I’ve missed because I was too high to care or too numb to feel. And I love you for it. I really do.”
“Yeah?” he whispers.
“Mhm,” I agree, pressing on the gas when the light changes. “So look at it that way, alright? You don’t need to fix me. The only thing I ask is that you stay with me. I think I’ll be okay as long as I have that.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Ever.”
I bring our conjoined hands to my lips, pressing a kiss to the back of his hand. “This is going to work, Jorge. I feel it.”
He doesn’t seem convinced but leans across the center console to kiss my cheek.
D espite Jorge’s protests and sad puppy eyes, I go in first. If Morgan sees him, it’ll ruin everything.
The bar is loud, and the smell of grease permeates the air. I didn’t think Morgan would go to a place like this, but whatever. Michael casually asked him what his plans were tonight, so that’s how we knew where to go. There’s a small dance floor, loud country music playing, and girls drunkenly line-dance on it. Using my height to my advantage, I peer over people’s heads, looking for Morgan.
Bile surges up my throat when I spot him sitting with a guy who looks like he’s maybe eighteen—definitely not of drinking age, that’s for damn sure. Morgan keeps pawing at the kid, grabbing his hips and whispering in his ear. The longer I look, the more warning bells sound off in my skull. There’s a glossiness to the kid’s eyes that I can spot even this far away. His shoulders keep slumping, head lolling into the wall of the booth.
Morgan picks up a cocktail and offers it to the kid. My hackles rise, goosebumps coating every inch of my skin.
The memories bang on their invisible walls, demanding to be seen and acknowledged. It takes everything in me not to get sucked back to that party—the first night—when Morgan did the same thing to me. He’d loaded my drink with something, got handsy, and eventually led me upstairs. But he hadn’t put enough of whatever drug in my drink. I was awake. I felt it all.
This kid looks like he might pass out…and soon.
Fuck.
My legs move, and the urge to defend and protect this kid has my heart racing, thrashing, and marring war paint. I can be afraid, hide in the shadows, or stop this. I will stop this.
I shove through bodies, not caring whose drinks I spill or what couple I interrupt. When I make it to the booth in the bar's back corner, Morgan doesn’t even realize I’m standing there, breathing like a bull. He’s too preoccupied with his prey for the night.
I swing my arm out in a swiping motion, sending the drinks toppling into their laps. Morgan hisses, jerks to attention, and my stomach plummets to the floor when his eyes land on me.
“ You ,” he growls.
The kid glances down at his wet crotch like he doesn’t know where he is. “Get away from him.”
People look, so Morgan collects himself quickly. “Why don’t you sit down? Join us?”
“Jake, what’s going on?” the kid slurs.
“Jake, is it? Using fake names now?” I am so angry. So fucking enraged that I can hardly contain it.
“Sit. Down.”
Despite my rage and knowing that he’s been doing this for the past decade, despite all my progress and bravery, that tone strikes my chest. Deep-seated fear takes root, and I drop into the empty side of the booth. Morgan smirks, grabbing some napkins and wiping his crotch. He never takes his eyes off me as he tucks the kid into his side.
“You won’t say a word,” Morgan says easily, as if this is a common occurrence. “Still my good boy, huh?”
The urge to throw up is strong. The knots in my stomach keep twisting, stones forming over them. Cold sweat drips over my brow as my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
“We are going to leave. And you’re going to stay right where you are.”
I nod immediately, just like I used to. “I’m sorry,” I rush out, afraid he’ll hurt me. Afraid he’ll make me go with them.
I’m fucking fifteen again, wishing the earth would reach up and swallow me. He leans forward a fraction, his hand sneaking under the table, and when it touches my knee, I flinch so violently that my head cracks into the wall behind me. I see spots, and I try to run, but he digs his fingers into my kneecap. I can’t breathe or hear over the sound of my own pulse.
“I’m sorry,” I cry, trying to jerk my knee away, but it won’t move.
“ Pinche violador ,” A familiar voice pierces through, and a loud crack.
My eyes dart up to find Jorge hiking his fist back, and it flies forward. Another loud crack echoes through the bar, and blood gushes out of Morgan’s nose. “I’ll fucking kill you!” Jorge roars, leaping into the booth and wrapping his hands around Morgan’s throat.
The kid screams.
Chaos erupts.
My legs thaw immediately at the sight of Jorge in Morgan’s vicinity. I scramble to my feet, lace my arm around Jorge’s torso and pull. He’s stronger than he looks and refuses to let go, all the while screaming endless profanity in Spanish. Violador is said over and over. I reach around, tugging on his wrists. As much as I want Morgan to hurt, I won’t risk Jorge.
“Let him go,” I beg.
He gets in another punch before I successfully remove him. I hold him back as he snarls, curls going everywhere. “ Hijo de tu puta madre! ”
I’ve never seen Jorge so violent before.
Security rushes us, and fight or flight kicks in when someone grabs my shoulder. I spin viciously, throwing a wild elbow out, and it connects with someone’s face. Everything goes blood red as hands touch and pull, poking and prodding while I scream, attacking anything that comes close to Jorge.
He’s not getting Jorge.
It might be too late for the kid, but I’ll die before he gets my kitten.
“ W ell, this is fucking peachy,” Phoenix drawls, sitting beside me and Jorge in a holding cell.
Yeah.
We got arrested.
Morgan did, too, since he fought back once Phoenix showed up. It was apparently the first and only bar fight that security had seen, and we were all in big fucking trouble. The metal bars are the only things separating us from Morgan; the cops thankfully had the foresight to keep us apart. I’m sure we’d still be trying to kill him if he was in here with us.
Morgan nurses his broken face. He looks like hammered shit. Good. Fucking rapist piece of shit.
I scoot closer to Jorge, who has a black eye forming. Phoenix is missing one of his plugs, and the thin skin of his earlobe is split and bloody. I’m sore everywhere. I probably don’t look any better. When we got arrested, the cops took my phone and the little microphone in my shirt. I don’t know what was said, and I don’t even know what it recorded.
“I’m pressing charges,” Morgan says, glaring at us with an ice pack on his face.
“So are we,” Jorge growls.
Morgan scoffs. “Like you could ever afford a lawyer. Does your gardener dad also sell drugs?”
I hold Jorge back as he surges to his feet, forcing him back onto the bench beside me. “The fuck you say about my dad?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t think you spoke English.”
“Are you fucking high?” Phoenix snaps. “Rapist, yes. But racist, too? You’ve really flushed your life down the drain, Morgan.”
“Shut up bitch boy.”
“Fuck you, you pedophile ass fucking monster!” Phoenix roars.
Yeah, he saw the kid too.
“SHUT UP!” A cop yells at us, and we all pipe down.
The hours tick by as we sit there, stewing. Jorge eventually starts crying because he’s so angry, so I tuck him to my side. Morgan makes nasty comments under his breath, but we all ignore him. The kid got taken away in an ambulance, and god, I hope they test his blood. I hope he presses charges for getting drugged and almost date raped. Eventually, light filters in through the window as dawn approaches. We all perk up when the door separating us from the rest of the station whips open.
I blink through the blur, coating my vision, and blink some more because I don’t understand who I’m looking at.
“You… assholes ,” some tiny ginger man groans.
He’s wearing silk purple pajama pants with white lace at the hem, fluffy black slippers, and an oversized black hoodie with a lace coffin stitched over the front. With his hands on his hips and auburn hair sticking up this way and that way, he glares at us with ember eyes. Even his freckles look red.
A cop comes in behind him. “That them?”
The short man nods in exasperation. “Lex…um…nice pjs?” Phoenix says.
“That’s our manager,” Jorge slurs sleepily. “He’s…really angry.”
“You made bail. Up and at ‘em. See the officer at the front desk.”
We all stand, and as a collective whole, we send death glares to Morgan, who stares with parted lips. I feel immense satisfaction that Daddy hasn’t come for him yet. Standing taller, we all hobble out, groaning as the night’s beatings shoot through our bodies.
Lex , Dreadful’s band manager, apparently contacted an attorney on our behalf and is lecturing us all the way out of the police station. The light is blinding as we step outside, and suddenly, the tiny tyrant stops scolding us and gasps.
“ Oh. My. God. EW! Your ear!” He points a dainty finger at Phoenix and gags.
“It’s not that bad, just a tear,” Jorge offers, but Lex isn’t having it. He bristles and marches away from us.
I can’t help but silently judge the guy. He’s a bit of an asshole, and while I’m appreciative he didn’t leave us in jail, he could be a little nicer to us. Well, at least to Jorge and Phoenix. We follow him, and when he stops in front of a rather small, bright purple Prius, Jorge and Phoenix groan.
“Not the clown car,” Jorge grumbles.
“How are we supposed to fit in that?” Phoenix points.
Lex, who looks thoroughly unimpressed, places his hands on his hips. “Stop being dramatic. It’s a car, just like every other one.”
Phoenix is an inch or so taller than me, and even I am skeptical. Not wanting to create more of a fuss, I go to open the back door so my brother can sit up front, and he hisses. Lex ignores us and gets in the driver's seat, starting the engine.
“Jorge, sit up front,” Phoenix whisper-yells.
“I’m not sitting next to him. You do it.” He goes to open the back door, but Phoenix growls.
“You owe me .”
I look between the two of them. “What’s the big deal?”
“I’m not doing it,” Jorge declares, while Phoenix whines, “He’s mean.”
I roll my eyes. “I’ll sit up front.”
Jorge whimpers. “No. It’s not worth it.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes!”
Phoenix throws out his fist. “Rock, paper, scissors.”
“Fine.”
I watch them play best out of three; Jorge loses and pouts. “This sucks,” he complains and begrudgingly opens the front passenger door.
Phoenix and I squeeze into the back, and once we are all loaded, Lex says, “I almost left your asses.”