Page 31 of Downpour

Maybe I’d grow my hair out and stop shaving, too. Go full outlaw.

“No. I had a run-in with her in town the other day. She was with some guy.”

The hairs on the back of my neck bristled.

“She said he was her roommate, but it looked like he was trying to shake her down for cash. She wouldn’t say anything in front of him. I wanted to make sure she was alright.”

My blood ran hot with rage. Why hadn’t she said anything about it when she showed up for her shift? Brooke just skipped through the house like her normal, babbling self and hung out.

“She should be here in an hour,” I said as I glanced at the clock. “Which means she’ll be here in two hours.”

Christian ran his hand down his beard. “Be nice to her. I don’t know what’s going on, but if it was one of my girls, I’d be worried.”

I really didn’t want him to bring up his daughters. I felt like shit every time I turned them away, but I couldn’t let them see me like this.

I wasn’t the uncle they remembered, or the one they deserved.

“Give me a call when she gets here,” Christian said. “I’ll come back and check on her.”

I didn’t need him to fucking check on her.

I would fucking check on her.

After my brothers left, I spent the next hour and a half watching the clock and combing through Brooke’s social media profiles to find out who this roommate was.

She mostly posted pictures of flowers and clouds with little captions about them being the prettiest she had ever seen. A few photos were of her. Those were the prettiest I had ever seen.

When she didn’t show at the scheduled time, or the tardy time I had come to expect, I started to worry.

Nearly four hours later, I heard the ker-thunk of her car engine sputter down my driveway.

My stomach was in knots. I stuffed my phone into the cupholder she had gotten for my wheelchair and grabbed one of the ropes I kept around. Acting like everything was normal was better than admitting I had been thinking about her every waking second.

The door creaked open, and Brooke shuffled in. I waited for her usual sunny greeting, but it never came.

Her head was down as she closed the door behind her. A waterfall of brown ringlets shrouded her face.

I waited, mindlessly tying the rope into knots as she shuffled around in the kitchen. Brooke unloaded my prescription refills, organizing them on the kitchen counter with the rest of the pill bottles.

Still, I waited. I had sent her a list of groceries to get in town, and watched as she unloaded them into the fridge and lower cabinets. Minutes passed, and she said nothing.

“Hey,” I said.

Brooke squeaked and smacked her head on the open cabinet door. She clasped one hand to the back of her skull and pressed the other to her chest. “You scared me.”

Still, she didn’t look up.

Something was wrong. Brooke was a disaster, but she was a predictable disaster. Whatever this was, wasn’t normal.

Her hair shifted, and I spotted the rim of her sunglasses.

“You can see better inside if you take those off.”

She laughed, but it wasn’t her normal, bubbly laugh. Something was definitely wrong.

Fuck it.

I pushed into the kitchen and trapped her against the cabinets with my wheelchair.

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