Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
ONYX
When I wake up, my phone is still in my hand. The screen is flashing with a rainbow of colors, letting me know that there was a notification that took my phone out of sleep at some point.
Picking my head up, I see Benson on my floor. He’s lying against the wall with his hood over his eyes, arm draped over his face.
He showed up at two this morning, saying his parents kicked him out. It wasn’t his fault, of course. Cash was being a shit.
I didn’t believe him. Not because I’m biased and make excuses for Cash’s behavior. But because Benson is fucking out of his mind.
However, I didn’t know what happened. I was tired. I thought he probably did get into a fight with his parents, and maybe they did tell him to leave for the night. So I let him in.
Since I have to piss anyway, I get out of bed and take my phone to the bathroom with me. My stomach jumps when I see I have a text message from Cash. It’s been more than a week since he’s spoken to me.
Opening the messages while I piss, I’m almost giddy when I see that his text is a voice message. Fuck, I’ve missed his voice.
However, as I listen to the message, my gut clenches. My chest tightens. What. The. Actual. Fuck? I listen to it a second time, and while I’d like to say it’s to hear Cash’s voice again, it’s because I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
By the time I step back into my room, Benson is sitting up. His back is to the wall, knees bent, and arms resting over them. His hood is still over his head, shadowing his face. His eyes meet mine.
Any sympathy I might have had for this man is gone. Long fucking gone.
“You need to leave,” I tell him, hearing the ice in my voice.
Benson’s face scrunches. “Why?”
“You not only bullshitted the reason for being kicked out last night, but you left out the part where you wished your brother would die.”
He immediately becomes defensive.
“Why is everyone always on his fucking side? Just because he’s fucking gay? Seriously?”
“Are you telling me you didn’t tell him you wanted him to die?” I ask.
Benson doesn’t deny it.
I cross the room and haul him to his feet by his arm and shove him toward the door. “Get out.”
“What the fuck, Onyx?”
“Out!” I yell. “Get the fuck out.”
“This is bullshit. Get your hands off me.” He rips his arm from my grip, but I’m still shoving him down the hall toward the front door. “What the shit, Onyx?!”
He stumbles once outside and looks up at me with anger. “Why is everyone always sticking up for him? He’s not perfect!”
I let him bitch and carry on about all the things Cash isn’t in hopes that maybe something gives me an insight as to why the little brother he once adored is the single target for all his rage.
But it’s nothing new. Cash is perfect. Cash does nothing wrong. Cash is always protected. Cash, Cash, Cash.
All things that he sees through rosy glasses. Nothing real. I’m not sure he’s even living in this reality and actually sees Cash instead of this person he created in his head.
When he’s finished spewing the shit, he looks tired. Silence lingers between us. He watches me. Sways slightly on his feet.
For just a minute, the sky-high walls he’s barricaded himself behind since we were fourteen turn transparent, and I can see the weight of his anger dragging him down. He’s tired of being angry. He’s tired of the animosity. He’s cracking under the weight.
What I don’t see is an actual answer. Unless he allows those words to come out of his mouth, all I can see is his struggle. A struggle he clings to as if it’s a life raft, and keeping him afloat. Something clings to his ankles all the same, trying to pull him under.
“Don’t come back,” I tell him, voice quiet. “You’re not welcome here anymore.”
For a split second—so quickly that I’ll likely question later whether I actually saw this—his face crumbles. Then it’s gone quicker than it was there.
He shakes his head in disgust.
I take a step backward, over the threshold, and inside.
“Are you still going to play our gigs?” he asks. There it is again. A tiny glimmer of vulnerability.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Being around you sucks, Ben. I miss the guy you were before…” I can’t find the words because I don’t know what broke. So I just gesture at him. All of him. “If you ever find that guy, let me know.”
“You can’t just quit!” Benson commands. “Whiskey Horizons is our ticket out of here.”
I sigh. “Just another delusion that you’re convinced of,” I mutter. “Don’t touch my drums, Ben. I swear to shit if you touch my drums, I’m going to break you in half. I beg that you fucking try me.”
A rainbow of emotions flits across his face. Mostly various stages of anger. I don’t wait for him to say anything. Instead, I close the door and lock it. Then I send my mom a text to tell her that Ben is no longer allowed here anymore.
She answers almost immediately with a thumbs up and a text.
Mommy Mom Ma
I respect that, but I’d like to know what happened when I get home.
I heart her response and then do the thing Cash told me not to. I call him. The call rings and rings and rings. Goes to voicemail. I call twice more, and on the third call, he answers.
“I told you not to call me!” he says.
“I told him to leave,” I say because I know I have less than a minute to get words out before he shuts down. “I told him he’s not allowed back here anymore. I told him not to touch my drums. I told him I didn’t know if I’d still play in Whiskey Horizons.”
Cash is silent. Eventually, he says, “Eight years late, but I suppose that’s better than never.”
“Are you okay?”
“Don’t call me, Onyx,” he says. “This changes nothing.”
The call ends, and I let myself fall back against the wall. Fuck. How do I fix this?
Ignoring his demand, I call him right back. It takes another three calls back-to-back for him to answer again.
“I swear, I’m going to block your number,” Cash says when he answers.
“Are you okay?” I ask again.
“My brother wants me dead. What do you think?”
He hangs up. This time, I don’t call him back. I scroll through my phone, finger hovering over Lie’s number. If someone will know what to do to fix this fuck up between me and Cash, it’ll be Lie.
My finger remains hovering over his name. I imagine he’s going to tell me off, too. Not that I blame him. Cash is someone who deserves the loyalty of his best friend. He deserves someone who will be furious on his behalf, which Lie will be.
I may see Cash with the bias of my heart, but I know that he never deserved the nastiness Benson directed his way. I’d have seen it. I’d have witnessed the event that broke the brothers.
It’s not a break that took them both, though. Something in Benson snapped. That open crevice is now infected to the point where I’m not sure the boy he was before it appeared even exists or ever will again.
Unsure what to do with my day, I do the laundry.
I clean the entire house—every room. I go to the market to restock our pantry and fridge.
It’s not even noon at this point, so I take a deep dive into cleaning the den where I hold classes.
Moving all the furniture, cleaning the baseboards, and shining the metal of my drums.
Once the entire room smells lemon fresh and practically shines, I drop to my ass on the floor where I’d been kneeling beside my drum set to put it back together. I’ve never felt so fucking lost in my life.
I kicked Benson out. It was long overdue.
It doesn’t change the fact that I just ended a nearly twenty-year friendship.
We met when we were three. The week my family moved to Kala.
Mom took me to a playgroup, and Benson was there with his baby brother.
They’d just been adopted and had only been on Kala for a few months at that point, recently celebrating Cash’s first birthday.
All of this I learned in later years. As a three-year-old, I saw a little boy exactly my age to play with.
I lie back on the floor and close my eyes. I don’t exactly remember that day. There are vague, blurry memories of the playgroup. I have an ambiguous memory of Cash in his stroller while Pops moved it back and forth.
When my mother shakes me, I realize I fell asleep. The room is bright, and I blink rapidly through the fingers of sunlight. Mom looks concerned.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
My breath catches because those are the exact words I asked Cash hours ago.
“Yeah. I cleaned the room.”
“And you wanted to prove that the floor was clean, so you took a nap?” she asks.
I snort. “No, I…” I don’t even remember lying down.
Mom gently brushes her fingers across my forehead. Then she lies beside me on the floor. “What happened with Benson?”
Before I can stop myself, words come flying out of my mouth.
Everything that’s happened over the last eight years.
Some she knew. Maybe things she didn’t. I take her through the nights at the bar.
His belligerent cruelty towards Cash. His ugly homophobia to the patrons at the bar—and literally anyone else who looks in his direction for too long.
I end with last night, but I leave out everything that took place between Cash and me.
Mom listens quietly. She doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t ask questions. Doesn’t commiserate. Doesn’t even add that she knew all this because Kala is one big gossip chain. She simply listens.
When I stop talking, she curls her arm under mine and leans her head against my shoulder. “I know this is hard to hear, but I’m proud of you for finally kicking him to the curb, Onyx.”
“I feel guilty,” I admit. “It’s obvious to everyone that he’s going through something, and I just abandoned him.”
“Honey child, he doesn’t deserve this level of loyalty.” She rubs my arm for a minute. “I’m going to say something, but please understand that I’m not judging you.”
I sigh and nod.
“Sticking by his side for this long has only allowed him to become more of a menace. Because he’s always had you.
You were an unwavering force at his back, no matter what he did or said, or how he acted.
His behavior isn’t your fault, nor should you ever take responsibility for it, but because he’s always had you, you’ve helped to enable his vile behavior. ”
“I know,” I admit.
“Do you think he’d extend you this same level of friendship?”
“No.” I don’t even have to guess the answer. “I’m not sure he even knows what friendship is,” I confess.
“I agree. I don’t think he does, either. Not anymore. Sometimes the hardest thing you will ever have to do is cut ties with the people you love the most because they’re not good for you. It’s going to hurt, but I would wager that you’re going to feel immensely lighter in the coming days.”
Under different circumstances, I’d agree, and maybe to some extent, I do.
But that’s not what’s going to happen in the days following.
Cash will still be shutting me out of his life.
Benson getting kicked out of his house won’t change that I fucked up what we were building.
I realized too late how much I want him. How much he means to me.
I recognized far too late that I love him.
“How about some dinner?” Mom asks.
I nod. “Sure.”
Mom gets to her feet and holds her hands out to me. I give her my hands, and Mom tries to pull me up. She laughs as she stumbles forward a little. “You’re a lot heavier than the last time I did this. Work with me, child.”
Grinning, I bring myself into a sitting position with her help, but stop there when my back protests. I groan as I stretch my back. “I’m going to need a minute. Apparently, I’m too old to take a nap on the floor.”
Mom shoves me playfully. “You’re twenty-two, Onyx James. Do not tell me you’re too old for that shit.”
“Ew. You’re not allowed to middle name me.”
Mom swats me again, but I dodge her hand, laughing when she practically dives at me. “Do not ‘ew’ me. That’s your father’s middle name!”
Laughing, I hug my mom tightly for a minute. We settle and I sigh.
“Thanks for the talk,” I say when a minute has passed.
“I’m sorry I’m not around as much as I should be,” Mom says.
“Why do you still work two jobs?” I ask.
“I’m three years from paying off this house,” she says.
“Really?”
Mom smiles. “Yep.”
“Then you’ll slow down?”
She hums. “My plan is to pay off the house and then work five more years in the same capacity so I can fill my coffers. Then I’ll slow down to three-quarters time at a single job until I retire.”
“Work hard so you can relax harder,” I muse.
Mom nods. “When Dad first died, working two jobs became a necessity to keep up with the bills and make sure you had everything you needed. It meant I wasn’t around as often as maybe you needed me, but it also meant I didn’t have to interrupt the life you’d already built.
Even when I stopped needing two jobs to support us, I continued because I was afraid that something might happen one day and I’d once again be struggling with a sudden change.
I never wanted to struggle like that again. ”
“I hate that you’ve had to work so hard for us.”
“Don’t be.” Mom kisses my nose. “You’re the kid. It was never your job to worry. That’s my job as Mom. I figured it out.”
“Thanks.”
“You were a good kid,” Mom says. “So thanks for that. It made working so many hours a little easier because I didn’t have to worry about you getting into shit or starting fires or something outrageous.”
I snort.
“Alright. We’ve had enough serious talk. What do you want for dinner?”
“I bought fresh shrimp and scallops at the market. And bacon.”
Mom grins as she pushes herself up. “Say less. I’m on it.”
“Mom?”
She stops at the door as I push myself up to sit again. “Love you.”
Mom smiles. “Love you too, Onyx.”