Page 4 of The Placeholder
Felix snort-laughs, his bass rumble making my wine ripple like that dinosaur scene in Jurassic Park. “Remember when Captain Clueless tried explaining cryptocurrency to me?” He taps his chest with one bear-paw hand. “To me. The guy who literally forecasts market trends while Jared was still trying to figure out how to use the office coffee maker.”
“Oh God,” I groan, sliding so far down in my chair I’m practically melting into the upholstery. “And then he did that thing—you know, where he leans in like he’s about to share the nuclear launch codes—and asked if you could ‘hook him up’ with some investment tips. After mansplaining Bitcoin to you for forty-five excruciating minutes like you were a golden retriever trying to understand calculus.”
Liana nearly chokes on her wine, a merlot mustache forming above her upper lip. “Classic Jared move. Allconfidence, zero competence—like a rooster trying to lay eggs.”
The warm bubble of our laughter pops like a champagne cork when my front door suddenly transforms into a percussion instrument. The thuds reverberate through the apartment like a drunk octopus playing the bongos with all eight limbs.
“DELLA!” Jared’s voice—slurred and furious, with that distinctive whine that always made him sound like a leaf blower running out of gas—crashes through the door. “OPEN THE DOOR! WHY ARE MY KEYS NOT WORKING?!”
My phone lights up with his call, followed immediately by another, then a barrage of texts that make my screen flash like a strobe light at a panic attack convention hosted by caffeinated hummingbirds. The notifications pile up faster than laundry in a college dorm during finals week.
Felix straightens, his expression darkening into something primal and protective—the look of a teddy bear suddenly remembering it’s actually a grizzly. Liana shoots me a look that says “I told you so” with more eloquence than Shakespeare after his fifth espresso.
“I’ve got this,” I say, my voice steadier than a surgeon’s hands but my insides doing the cha-cha slide, as I type out a response with thumbs that somehow feel both numb and electrified:
It’s over, Jared. You no longer serve any purpose in my life. Time to cut loose the dead weight you’ve become. Your things are by the entrance.
I hit send just as another thunderous round ofknocking rattles my door like a caffeinated woodpecker on espresso.
“WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?!” Jared shouts, his voice cracking like discount store glow sticks at a middle school dance. “YOU CAN’T JUST CHANGE THE LOCKS! I LIVE HERE!”
My phone buzzes with increasingly desperate and angry texts, each one more unhinged than the last, the notifications stacking up faster than pancakes at an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet.
You can't do this to me.
After everything I've done for you??
You're nothing without me
OPEN THE DOOR
Felix rises from the couch with the fluid grace of a predator who’s watched too many nature documentaries about himself, all six-foot-six of him unfolding like an origami nightmare designed by a paper-cutting sadist. His shoulders block out my ceiling light as he passes beneath it, casting a shadow so massive that my electric bill probably just decreased by 15%.
Felix, wait—” I begin, but there’s no stopping him. The look in his eyes reminds me of when Tommy Berger pushed me off the swing set in third grade, and Felix appeared like a flannel-wearing avenging angel. Tommy peed his pants right there on the playground and transferred schools the following week.
My brother yanks open the door with enough force tomake the hinges squeal like tiny metal dolphins caught in a tuna net. Jared stands there, fist raised mid-knock, face flushed with alcohol and entitlement, his hair sticking up like a rooster who stuck its comb in an electrical socket. For a moment, he looks confused, his eyes widening to the size of cocktail onions, like a man who ordered a puppy online and received a timber wolf raised on protein shakes and spite.
Jared’s “What the f—” dies mid-syllable as Felix’s hands—each one roughly the size of a holiday ham—lock onto his jacket lapels with the precision of a bear trap finding an unsuspecting ankle. He hoists Jared upward until his feet dangle a good six inches above my “Home Sweet Home” welcome mat, his designer sneakers kicking at empty air like a cartoon character who’s just realized there’s no ground beneath him.
“Hello, Jared,” Felix says, his voice carrying the deceptive tranquility of a kiddie pool concealing a great white shark. “Grab your trash bags and remove yourself from my sister’s orbit before I fold you in half.”
Jared’s face performs an emotional gymnastics routine worthy of Olympic consideration—shock widening his eyes to full moon status, fear draining his complexion to the color of undercooked pasta, indignation flushing his cheeks like a toilet with anger issues, before finally sticking the landing on wounded outrage, complete with quivering bottom lip. “Put me down! This is between me and Della!”
“She’s tired of your freeloading bullshit and useless ways,” Felix continues, giving Jared a little shake that makes his teeth audibly click together. “There is no ‘you and Della’ anymore.”
“She owes me an explanation!” Jared sputters, his legskicking ineffectually in the air. “Seven years and she just?—”
Felix hoists him higher, bringing their faces inches apart. “She doesn’t owe you shit.” Each word drops like a stone. “She was a saint for tolerating you as long as she did.”
I stand frozen in my living room, torn between horror and a perverse satisfaction at seeing Jared dangling like an ornament from my brother’s grip. Liana appears beside me, her phone discreetly raised, clearly recording this for posterity or potential legal evidence—with Liana, it could go either way.
“I’m calling the police!” Jared threatens, though his voice has climbed several octaves higher than his usual mansplaining register.
“Go ahead,” Felix says with terrifying pleasantness. “I’m sure they’d love to hear how you’ve been living rent-free while emotionally manipulating my sister. But first, they’ll have to figure out why your legs are broken. Such a mysterious accident that would be.”
He sets Jared down with exaggerated gentleness, smoothing his rumpled lapels like a tailor concerned about wrinkles. “Now, take your bags and leave before I decide to demonstrate what happens when you mess with my baby sister.”
Jared’s gaze darts past Felix to find me, his eyes ping-ponging between us like a caffeinated squirrel at a tennis match. “Della, you can’t be serious. Where am I supposed to go?” His lower lip juts out in that practiced pout that once made my heart flutter but now just makes me want to flick it like a light switch.
