Chapter Four #2
Harlen laughs, pushing the bottle to his lips and taking two large pulls. His golden curls hang over his stark blue eyes as Chase jerks his chin for it and Harlen hauls the bottle toward him, only for me to intercept, catching it before he has a chance.
Harlen watches us as he returns to his guitar, picking at the strings.
And I grin, giggling into the open neck, taking a sip.
Chase is shaking his head.
And I take a second pull, feel it touch the bottom of my stomach, then pretend to hand it over. “Here you…” But I snatch it back, taking off with the liquor cradled in my arms.
However, I don’t get far before Chase’s bicep coils around my waist, and he wrenches me into him, lifting me off the ground.
The alcohol sprays from my mouth. I laugh hard, my knees meeting my chest. Chase makes good on snatching the bottle from my arms and returning me to my feet.
“Brat,” he mumbles, taking a swig.
I run my thumb across my bottom lip, collecting the rivulets of liquor that had fallen to my chin, sucking it back into my mouth and releasing it with a pop.
“You love it.”
But Chase drops his chin to his chest and shakes his head.
He doesn’t look at me, and my cheeks heat…again.
He slips down next to Harlen, digs the base of the bottle into the dirt between his legs and busies himself instead by listening carefully to the notes Harlen is playing.
And I swallow, my mouth cotton dry, tasting the remnants of my unfiltered brazenness. I shove my hair behind my ears to help shift the embarrassment that colors my pale cheeks.
Then, I move for my best friend, sidling up beside her, taking a seat and burying my feet into the soft dirt.
Looping my arm through hers, I place my cheek to her shoulder, listening, when beneath Chase’s breath, he begins to whisper an entanglement of words; lyrics.
Goosebumps are sharp across Jade’s skin, leaching to mine as we sit, watching him.
It’s a moment now—and only a handful of times before—the four of us had been lucky enough to witness. Because Chase wasn’t one to share this part of himself. He gave it to us in small pieces, shards, that we all knew meant something.
When Chase wraps his trembling hand around the bottle between his legs and pushes it to his lips, Harlen picking at the last string, Jade straightens her back and jerks her chin toward her brother, then to Harlen.
“We should make a pact,” she says enthusiastically, drunkenly, though I’m still watching Chase as he takes another swig from the bottle, not looking at his sister. “Between the four of us,” she continues.
“What might this pact be?” Harlen asks with curiosity, shoving his guitar into his case and zipping it home. The bright-blue pick is pinched between his teeth. He flicks it with his tongue.
“Three years…okay…” She pauses, excitement wrapping around every word as she flicks her eyes eagerly between the three of us.
“Just hear me out before you shut me out.” Another pause, this time to swallow.
“In three years, when me and Laiken are nineteen, let’s leave Devil’s Peak, let’s go somewhere far away, across the country, to New York, the city of dreams, where you two…
” she’s staring directly at her brother and Harlen.
“Can get the fuck on a stage, and me and Laiken…” She turns to look at me.
My best friend is smiling. “Can just go along for the wild, messy, chaotic ride.”
“With what money?” Chase asks, voice bare.
He fists a handful of dirt and watches it slide through the cracks at his fingers, perhaps like his dreams, aspirations, everything he might want to be.
Jade smiles as if the answer is as clear as the night sky lingering above us. “The shit you’ll save in the next three years, lazy ass.”
Harlen shrugs, then turns to Chase. “I’m in. I’ve always wanted to go to New York. I heard the girls—” Chase punches his best friend's bicep, and Harlen curls his shoulders to his ears laughing.
“You’re so gross,” I fist a handful of dirt and throw it in Harlen’s seedy face.
He’s coughing and spluttering when Chase clears his throat. He takes another pull from the bottle, letting it touch his chest before speaking.
“Three years…New York.” Chase diverts his eyes from the dirt that lay in front of him and levels them with mine. “The four of us.”
I’m watching him as Jade curls into my side, squeezes my arm so tight, trying not to wake up the night when she excitedly whisper-squeals, “New York, here we comeeeee!”
I smile, but I’m still watching Chase, and when he nods at me, I nod back, then to Harlen, too. My best friend squeezes me that little bit tighter, watching on as the four of us seal the pact, before she lets me go, pushing to her feet.
Jade brushes the dirt and leaves off her ass. “You boys better get writing.”
Chase spears a hand through his wavy hair, runs his palms down the length of his face and lets go of a sharp, ragged breath. “Yeah, I might need your help with that,” he admits, and Jade just smiles at him like she knew, and maybe hoped he’d ask.
Jade is talented, the kind of musician that knows what note goes with what. She could play with her eyes closed. And yet, it’s something she never wanted to pursue. She’d always said that the stage would be her brother’s sanctuary.
“How is it already three in the morning?” Jade asks, her voice filled with bewilderment.
Her phone screen is bright and bold in the darkness, the light illuminating her blue irises, sharp brows and rosy lips as she thumbs around on her screen.
She flicks her gaze to mine. “Can I stay with you tonight?”
I nod. “Since when do you ask?”
Harlen pinches the bottle from between Chase’s open legs and finishes it off, standing and hitting him on the head. “Let’s goooo,” he hoots.
Chase’s wrists are hung over his knees. He curls his shoulders toward his ears, trying to catch the bottle when Harlen decides to return for round two. Only, Chase is on his feet before Harlen can make contact, pulling him under his armpit and dragging him into a headlock.
Jade slides her fingers between mine, pulling me to my feet, and we begin to skip down the river’s edge leaving the two idiots at our back.
Our arms swing, our half-dry hair trailing behind us in the wind.
The boys are a few feet behind us now and I gaze over my shoulder, watching Harlen stuff the sauces my father gave him earlier into his pockets, Chase spinning a stick in his palm as they laugh and shove each other, talking their usual garbage.
I turn back and squeeze Jade’s hand, my gut flipping over itself. “Why does your brother give me butterflies?”
She chuckles, slowing our rhythm until we are stumbling beside each other.
Jade slithers her arm into mine and curls into my side, righting herself. Her lips slide across my ear when she underestimates the space between her mouth and me, and I shiver as she whispers, “Because you have the hots for my…” Her voice rises, and I suck on my bottom lip. “brOTHERRRRR!”
My free hand shoots across my body and I pinch her arm, clipping her an octave. “Shut up,” I whisper-growl, laughing, feeling my glassy eyes pearl out of my head.
Her laugh joins mine, but then she slaps at my arm and uncoils herself, rubbing at the tender spot on her wrist. “That fucking hurt, you bitch.”
I snort, then I find myself glancing between my best friend and her brother, and when I catch his eye, he winks at me.
I quickly snap around and drop my chin. Heat simmers beneath the skin at my cheeks, flourishing to the surface. Jade is right. I have the hots for Chase Keller, my best friend’s older brother.
“Hey, do you see that?” Jade’s voice pulls me back to reality.
“See what?” I ask, squinting my eyes in the direction she’s pointing, trying to make out something, anything in the darkness.
“That.” Her voice rises, and this time I don’t miss the tremble on the edge of her tongue.
“What the…” I whisper, stepping into the canopy of trees that sit between the river and our trailer.
I move slowly, an apparition that has slipped out of my body. My eyes are locked on an object hanging from the thick branch of a tree.
I float toward it as it sways back and forth and before I can register what is happening, I run.
“DAD!” I scream.
He is limp, lifeless. The rope, a coiled, remorseless noose around his neck.
Chase and Harlen fly past us, Chase yelling to his sister over his shoulder, “Catch her for me, and don’t let go.”
I collapse to my knees, sticks and leaves crunching beneath bone as I fall into my best friend's arms.
“No, no, no, no.”
Feral cries rip out of me.
Searing hot tears burn in streams down my cheeks.
I watch Chase grab my father’s legs, lifting him higher, taking his weight, while Harlen climbs the tree, severing the rope.
And that's when everything goes black.
However, I’m still conscious because I hear one of the most frightening sounds I’ve ever heard. It cuts through the turbid fog of my disassociation.
Because it feels so close.
And I don’t realize it’s coming from me until I taste the warmth of copper sliding down the back of my throat.
I’m screaming, but this time, I’m calling out for Chase.
His name tears out of me in desperation.
And in an instant, trembling hands bracket my cheeks. The rough, yet gentle ones I’ve come to know as my best friends' brothers are around me, dragging me into his solid chest.
His hand clenches the back of my neck.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Laik. Fuck, I’m so fucking sorry.”
I grab hold of his arms, and I don’t realize that I’m cutting into his flesh, digging and clawing, until I feel the stickiness of his blood, the shreds of his skin beneath my nails.
He holds me together when I tear him to shreds, and he whispers over and over again, “You will survive this. I’ll make sure you do.”
I knew the moment I saw my father hanging from the tree that his suicide would be my mother’s demise.
I just wish I hadn’t been right.
I continue to stare at her bruised unmoving body on the sofa.