Page 56 of The Spider & the Storm

He narrowed his eyes, their hue darkening by the second. A storm was rolling in. I could feel it, I could see it in the clenching of his fists, and I didn't fucking care. He could come at me if he wanted. He could pummel my face into oblivion, and I didn'tgive a shit because suddenly, this entire thing—going to the bar, the drink, the celebration—it no longer felt like something he'd done forme. He'd used me as an excuse to get a fix, and, okay, maybe he hadn't planned on his buddies being here, but he'd known exactly what he was doing when he passed our street.

He'd ruined my birthday, and he didn't give a shit.

“What's with the fucking attitude?” he demanded as his friends sniggered beside him, guzzling down their own beers.

Losers. They were all losers—my brother included.

“I don't have an attitude,” I fired back. “I just need to fucking piss, and I want to fucking go home. So, I'm going to the bathroom, and when I get back, you're giving me the keys, and we're getting the fuck out of here.”

Tommy snorted and leaned toward Rob's ear as he said, “Looks like Charlie boy finally grew a pair.”

“Go to fucking hell, Tommy.”

I stomped away in the direction of the bathroom, wishing I could be the one to send him there myself.

I threw the door open, slammed it behind me, and jabbed at the lock with my thumb. The small room was grimy, reeking of shit, stale vomit, cheap cologne, and piss. Yet I welcomed the calm I'd found inside. The noise of the bar was muffled within these graffitied walls, and without much thought to the diseases I was almost definitely contracting, I gripped my hands on the discolored sink's edge and stared at my reflection in the mirror streaked with only God knew what.

This is your fault, a little voice in my head said.If you'd taken the car to work this morning, if you had been the one driving, if you had picked Luke up, we'd never be here.

My lips pressed in a thin line as my head shook slowly from side to side. Dr. Sibilia's voice came to me, insisting that, no, this wasn't my fault. This had nothing to do with me—not really—and all to do with an illness Luke had contracted somewhere along the line. He was struggling. I'd known it, and Melanie had too. We'd questioned his strength every single time he was late coming home and every time he made a joke about wanting a drink.

Maybe I should've seen this coming.

I released a shaky breath and smacked the automatic faucet. A weak stream of tepid water sputtered from the tap as I pumped soap into my hands and scrubbed them until they ached. Then, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed Melanie's number.

***

I had thought it’d feel more like tattling when I called my brother’s fiancée and confessed where we were when we should’ve been at home. I had thought it’d feel wrong. But instead, I felt like I’d finally done something right in a string of wrongs.

I hadn’t convinced my parents to stay home from that concert when I knew something bad was going to happen.

I hadn’t kept Luke away from Ritchie before the damage could be done.

But I had called Melanie—the one person I knew who could make him leave the bar—andthatfelt good despite the way he glared at me when she showed up at Tony’s and demanded he get into her fucking car. Like a mother to a child.

He didn’t protest though, and I took solace in that. Even when his friends glared at me as I snatched the keys from the spot at the bar where my brother had sat.

“You’ve always been a little shit—you know that?” Rob muttered, his words loose and on the brink of slurring.

I stopped from leaving and looked at Tommy, waiting for whatever bullshit he was about to spew at me. And why I waited, I didn’t even know. Maybe I just wanted to see if their words could still knock me down or make me cry.

Tommy shook his head, struggling to stand up straight. “Some babies don’t ever fuckin’ grow up.”

“Too bad Ritchie isn’t here. He’d kick his whiny little ass.”

That was the last thing I heard as I walked toward the door, surprised that I was able to. Surprised that their bullshit hadn’t left me curled up on the ground, wishing my big brother would come along to save me.

And it wasn’t that it hadn’t stung, and I knew their callous comments would swarm through my mind and leave me sleepless. But I was able to walk away, and that …

That felt like something.

Or maybe I just hadn’t had the time to care about what Luke’s friends thought about me when I couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen once we got home.

***

“It was a few fucking beers, Melanie! I’m not even drunk,” Luke shouted, his voice ringing from upstairs.

I sat at the table, alone, eating the reheated cottage pie I’d requested for dinner.

---