Chapter 4 #2
Out in the hallway, I could hear the elevator open. Elijah’s voice boomed through. “I’m leaving the bags outside—I know you’re talking about me!” His tone was awkward. He was trying to be funny, trying to lighten the mood.
Zariah and I stared at each other, caught in the crosshairs of these fucked-up circumstances.
Elijah cleared his throat. “My handlers need to get acquainted; I get it! I’m heading to our room!”
The door to our dorm opened, and when it shut, Zariah dropped her voice to a hiss. “Don’t tell him anything.”
“I have to tell him—”
“No, you don’t.”
“You really want to lie to him?”
“Yes! He’d kick your ass if he found out, and he’s in enough trouble—”
“He wouldn’t go after me,” I said, surprised she’d even suggest that.
“Well, then, you’re still stupid.”
I cut the distance between us again. “Zariah—”
“Get your scraggly beard out of my face.”
“Scraggly?”
Zariah opened the door, leaving no room for argument. “Don’t tell him anything.”
I couldn’t think properly. I never could when it came to her, and now it was even worse.
Especially since there was a wide chasm between how we understood our summer together. Zariah hadn’t been a sex doll to me; it wasn’t surface-level, and I wasn’t a guy who had those kinds of feelings easily.
She was the walkway into the rest of my life. I had someone to love, someone who was so gentle with me, someone who carved out a part of her life to include me in it. I’d never experienced anything close, and it was addictive. Zariah was addictive.
But that wasn’t how she saw it. Not at all.
I had her letters at my parents’ place, so I knew who she was.
A teenager going through a grandparent’s terminal illness, panicking about not doing enough for her family, deeply homesick.
But who was I at fifteen? Was I some sleazy guy slinking into her grandfather’s house to feel her up?
When Zariah sent me letters pouring her heart out, was I writing ‘show your boobs’ in reply?
Oh, fuck.
I hesitated. “Zariah? I’m…sorry. About everything.”
“For that to mean something, you’d have to mean something to me.” She took the door from me. “You don’t, Denali.”
The door closed and I couldn’t move. I was ripped open once again, guts hanging precariously out of my body. My world shattered to pieces. We lived across from each other, but it might as well have been thousands of miles apart.
What the hell am I supposed to do?
The question plagued me as I headed into my dorm to rifle through the fridge. An apology didn’t mean anything to her.
How was I supposed to fix this? What the hell could I do? I had no idea.
I grabbed a beer from the back, head pounding.
Zariah Contractor called my beard scraggly. What kind of adjective was that—scraggly? I tugged on the ends, looping the hair over my finger. I refused to cut my beard. I always told reporters that I had better shit to worry about while hockey was in season. It was my commitment to the sport.
But scraggly?
Scraggly?
I cracked open the beer as Elijah thumped down on our leather chair. “Dude. It’s not even five.”
“I feel sick.”
“Beer isn’t a cold remedy.”
“It’s a headache remedy and that’s what I’m thinking about.”
“Can you grab me one? I’m coming to terms with being neighbors with my sister." He put his head in his hands, groaning. "How am I supposed to keep my lunch down when I see what art major dickheads she brings home to bone?”
I took the first swig of beer and choked, coughing it into the sink. “What?”
“That’s what I’m saying. Makes me want to vomit thinking about it.”
I grabbed him a beer too and slumped to the couch, feeling drained of life, blood, and happiness. “Is she—uh—dating anyone right now? Seriously dating?”
“Zariah likes to have fun.” Elijah took his beer from me. “I think she’s overcompensating.”
“What does that mean?”
“She had a shitty experience with this guy in high school.”
I forced myself to take another drink. It could’ve been sludge in the bottle for all I tasted. “How shitty?”
“Do you know how my Grandpa Herschel died?” He paused. “It’s, like…motor something diseases—”
“Motor neuron disease,” I said quietly.
“Okay, you know. The doctors gave him a two-year timeline, and we split our summers. Z wanted the first summer for a hockey camp there, I’d take the next one.
So Z flew to Colorado and I guess she met this boy.
” He shook his head in disgust. “Fucking asshole. She didn’t know anybody, and she was going through that—she must’ve looked so easy for him to pick off. ”
I flinched.
“The two-year timeline didn’t happen. Grandpa died in the fall.
I guess he didn’t have any friends in Colorado, so we had the funeral here.
” He took a long drink. “We’re Italian. My grandpa’s family’s Jewish, he was a Catholic convert because of my grandmother.
We have Lebanese family through our stepdad—I’m telling you this because you need to know funerals are the most important shit to my family.
We use funerals for family reunions, patching up fights–my great aunts bring in single girls from their neighborhoods to set up with my cousins.
I swear we treat every funeral like a national holiday. ”
I drew in a slow breath, eyes fixed on my beer. I knew where this was going. Hearing someone else describe it was an out-of-body experience.
“The service starts for Grandpa Herschel. There’s like two hundred people packed in the church.
” Elijah shifted forward. “This teenager broke in with a bloody shirt, and he was just screaming and yelling at her. Scared the shit out of Z, scared the shit out of everybody. The funeral came to a screeching halt. It was insane.”
I swallowed. “Did you see him?”
“The kid? He had a fucking mullet, Denali. I’ll never forget him.”
Holy shit.
“Here’s the craziest part. The kid lived in Colorado, right?” Elijah set his beer aside. “I don’t know how the hell he got to Houston, but his parents must’ve filed a missing child’s report or something when he disappeared. Five minutes after he stops the funeral, cops swarm the place.”
Memories pricked me. I remembered all of it. The fight at school, the two bus rides from Colorado, sleeping on the bench in the grimy stop in Amarillo while I waited for the transfer, the look on Zariah’s face when she saw me again…
Holy fuck. I am the bad guy in her story.
“That’s nuts,” I mumbled.
“She never gave me the details, our parents refused to tell me anything, but I’m telling you, fucking psycho.
” Elijah shook his head. “He plays hockey, I know that. One day, I’ll see him again.
Maybe in a game, I don’t know. But one day, I’ll recognize him.
The motherfucker who scared the hell out of Zariah. ”
I drew in a slow breath. “What happens when you meet him?”
“I’m on my best behavior, I promise, but this is my sister we’re talking about.” He toasted his beer, clinking it with mine. “You’d help me bury a body, wouldn’t you?”