Page 41 of Crew
Jordan laughed, clapping Race on the shoulder. "You're shit out of luck." He gestured to Channing. "You met the big brother tonight. He gets different treatment when he's in that role. He's not just Bren's brother."
"Who is he?"
Zellman began laughing, but Cross spoke over him, looking right at Channing. "He's the godfather. If he says you do something, you do it. Bren's the only one who can talk back to him. Because, you know, family."
Race's shoulders fell. "Okay." He nodded to my brother. "I'll take you back."
They moved toward Race's vehicle, and as they opened their doors, my guys went back to where I'd been standing. Except I was gone.
Cross had glanced at me, and I gave him the look. I'd mouthed, "I'm out" before stepping away.
I only needed to take one step back, and I was in the shadows. I didn't wait to see Cross' reaction. Not wanting to hash it out with the guys, I headed back through the walking paths. I knew how to criss and cross until I came out to the road a couple miles north of where Cross lived.
That firefly had come back. I felt its presence enveloping me like a warm blanket. There was no one else but me out here, and I tipped my head back, drinking in the night. The silence was peaceful. I used to yearn for it when my mother wasn't sick, when Dad was drinking. I hated Channing for leaving, but he'd been the smart one. I was the only one who heard her yelling, him yelling. I had to wait until something shattered, then there would be thumps, thuds, things crashing to the floor.
The cries came next, but not from me.
I was always either under my covers, silent tears rolling down my face, or slipping out the window. I took lessons from Channing early on. If he could leave, so could I. I was six when I'd first walked across town by myself to Cross' house.
But over time those sounds had faded at our house, and different sounds took over.
The beeping of whatever medical device she had in her room. The sound of her vomiting, moaning, groaning, weeping. And the sound of his cursing, the crinkle of the brown bags he'd use to carry booze into the house.
When she got sick, they stopped fighting. She suffered in her bedroom, and he drank in the basement.
But even those sounds eventually went away.
She went into the hospital...and there was nothing.
Absolute silence.
Dad didn't even stay in the basement anymore.
Channing was gone, and so was he. He went to his bar, or his friends' house. If I wasn't at the hospital with Mom, I was home alone. That was a silence I hated until it became a part of me.
I blended with it.
From time to time I felt that same silence again--the firefly type. It rose up in me, wrapping around me.
It kept me company for about a mile until a truck pulled up next to me.
I heard it coming, the engine rumbling and the light growing like a slow-glowing candle. It chased away the firefly, and as the window rolled down, I felt my insides stop bleeding too.
Cross slowed the truck to my pace, but he didn't say anything.
I didn't either.
I wanted to keep walking, and he let me for a little while--until my insides had completely dried up. It was time to rejoin the world, and with a small exhale, I reached for the door handle.
Cross nudged on the brakes and waited as I got inside. Like so many other nights, not a word was spoken. He lifted his foot from the brake, and we drove the rest of the way into town to pull up outside his house.
No lights were on, and the house was quiet as we walked in. We proceeded as we always did.
He went to the kitchen where he would grab two bottles of water for us. I went up the stairs and to his bedroom, going into his bathroom. Nudging the door closed, I got ready for bed, using the toothbrush I kept here.
When I was done, I opened the door.
He was sitting on the bed, a pair of boxer shorts and sleeping shirt folded up next to him. A bottle of water lay next to them, and as I stepped out into his bedroom, he stood, and we switched places.
