Crazy but Sweet, Sweet but Crazy

35: disposables

I couldn't deny that. "What did you mean by your father being 'held up'?"

"Technically, voluntarily held himself up. He went to the police to be interrogated. Let me ask the questions. Elliot Lockwood. You knew the whole time what my mother did, and you kept your mouth shut?

"You have some fucked up masochist tendencies or something? Did you enjoy seeing me think you made my mother like that because of something you did? You son of a bitch..."

Sitting just by his side, I could clearly see Landon's chin quavering, his eyes growing redder.

"I didn't know," muttered Elliot. "Just suspected."

"Fuck, and what was that all about? I saw the news. I saw the interviews- Ian Neil, Nicole Romano... What did mum mean, when she talked about all the...all the things dad did?

"It- I thought it was all just tabloid. Not just one or two times that some leeches accused dad of doing some things just so that they can get cash out of lawsuits and..." Landon glanced at me, and stopped.

As the car came to a halt at traffic, Landon pulled out the lighter from his pocket.

"I'll faint later." With a sigh, I pulled the cigarette from his mouth, and slot it into the cup holder of the car. "You can smoke later." 

"Some guts you have, Clare Horan." Landon's bloodshot eyes looked at me with more amusement than annoyance, as he put back the lighter in his pocket.

"You're not scared? Being in the car with the two of us? If what my mum said is true, we're the sons of people who should be behind the bars.

"Ah, more so for me. But too bad, seems like game's already over if my dad walked into the police station without even a warrant, free of handcuffs."

"What do you mean?" I looked back at Elliot. He was leaning against the car seats, his eyes closed.

"That means what you did was just child's play." We were driving into the parking lot of the hospital. Landon had driven us back.

Landon chuckled, and parked the car haphazardly into two parking slots.

"You tried to crack a rock with an egg. Nice try. Might've left a stain on the rock, but the egg's broken. A couple of days later, the stain won't even be visible. So, Elliot Lockwood. Couldn't be that you were putting up with me all these years because you're a saint. I know you.

"You know. No one in our family is a good soul, everyone's fucked up in some way. Insanity runs in the family. Our dear late grandmama Olive was the most fucked up. So tell me. What do you want? My shares? My apology? My life?"

Wearily, Elliot opened the car door. "Your arm," he said after a while, pointing to his leg in a cast. He smiled wryly. "I'm going to Doctor Doyle."

And looking only at his cast, raising himself to his good foot, Elliot said icily and briefly, "Clare. You should go home. You've done your job. I've done mine. Our use for each other has run out-"

The soft, but distinctive sound of a click came.

I turned my head sharply towards the direction of the sound.

It was a man who seemed to be in his mid-thirties, dressed in a green button-up shirt tucked into a pair of jeans. He must've thought he'd muted his phone camera sound.

When his eyes locked with mine, he didn't run away.

In fact, he came up from his position behind a pillar of the parking lot, and walked up towards us, sliding his phone into the pocket of his ripped jeans.