Red Star

Now Part 8

Three days later, they get another call from Ralph and they leave the bustling city of New York, the familiar skyscrapers flashing away behind them. 

They don't tell anyone; they just go. And sure enough, their faces are blasted on the television screens that they see at the gas stations. Douglas laughs when he first sees them and makes a comment about how they picked a picture with his old hair.

His current hair looks identical to the hair in the picture. Frank makes a mental note to talk to Douglas later about his denial later. 

At present, they have been driving for fourteen hours and seventeen minutes.

Douglas and Brandon have not addressed each other once since they started travelling. Douglas drives, and Brandon glares at him from the back seat through the front mirror. Frank has spent the last thirteen hours making light conversation and brushing invisible dirt off of his clothes. 

It isn't everyday that you are stuck in a car with two of your former therapy patients, who are former lovers, in the pursuit of two more former lovers, one of which just came back from the dead, to solve a case that has spanned five years. 

On the nineteenth minute of the fourteenth hour that they've been driving, Brandon breaks the silence.

"Douglas, did you know?"

There's a pause before Douglas answers. He swallows.

"Yes."

Another pause. Longer this time. 

"How the fuck could you keep something like that? From me? From Rosa?....You did that to her." 

Brandon's words echo Frank's thoughts almost word for word. 

Douglas works his mouth, before he opens his mouth to speak. Frank stops him.

"Before you speak, I also have a question," Frank says, picking off the last piece of non-existent dust on his shirt to make himself seem idle. "Why did you lie to me two times? You told me that Ralph died. Twice."

"Wait, what?" Brandon sticks his head through the gap between Douglas' and Frank's chairs to watch Douglas' reaction. 

Except Douglas doesn't reply for a while. He keeps his eyes on the road until he pulls over a few miles later.

"Alright," He says. "Let's have it out."

And the car explodes into a crescendo of shouting and yelling.

Forty-seven minutes later, when all men's voices are hoarse and sore, when Brandon's tears of frustration cease, there is finally silence once more. Douglas takes a deep, shuddering breath and restarts the car. He pulls out into the road and they drive away once more. 

Frank watches the scenery of the city blocks morph into trees. At every toll booth, they put on hats and sunglasses in order to get through. Douglas even changes his accent. 

And finally, in the twentieth hour of driving, Frank sees the beach, with clear blue, cerulean skies, which bleed gracefully into grapefruit tones towards the horizon, running above their heads. He checks his watch: 9:46pm. He's never seen such a beautiful sunset.

When the car stops, parked outside the motel address they were given by Ralph from a payphone in whispers, Brandon steps outside, takes one breath, then tackles Douglas to the floor in a quick succession of punches and slaps. 

"Woah, woah, woah!" Frank slams his car door behind him, then runs round the car to try and pull Brandon away. No luck. 

"Come on, Brandon! You're better than this!"  

"No I'm not." Brandon gasps as he leans back, an in one punch, breaks Douglas's nose. 

The ensuing crack flips Frank's stomach as he tries to regain a hold on Brandon's shirt, continually slipping out of his fingers. Brandon is too quick to be caught, and moves in a flurry of scratches and punches now, his hands red with the blood of Douglas. Douglas, who just lays there, looking up into the face of his former lover, his eyes sad, brimming with tears. 

Frank wouldn't need to be the trained and experienced therapist he is to know that Douglas believes that he deserves the assault or that he gives up. Perhaps both, or knowing Douglas, the latter. 

It takes a further four minutes and thirty seconds of the physical assault until Ralph, swooping in like the hero Rosa always made him out to be like, intervenes and physically carries Brandon off Douglas and away, restraining him once he returns Brandon to the ground. 

"Get off me!" Brandon screams, writhing and shrieking. "Get off me, liar!" 

Frank looks up, his eyes meeting with Ralph Castano, unrecognisable from the man who held a knife to his throat over a year ago. Frank cannot even imagine what this man has endured in the last three years, but the scarring to his neck, face and arms gives him a pretty good idea. 

"Let him go," Frank says, laden with urgency. He's holding down Douglas, who is wincing in pain at every breath. "We cannot afford to make a scene like this."

Ralph sighs and releases his hold on Brandon, who immediately falls to the floor in shaking sobs. Without a word, Frank and Ralph swap positions, Frank moving to comfort Brandon, and Ralph attending to Douglas. 

It takes thirteen minutes to sate Brandon and to get Douglas to a sitting position, taking them to the rooms that Ralph had already reserved for them. 

When they get to the rooms, something is missing. Someone. 

"Oh shit!" Ralph says, frustrated. He turns to leave, but the door opens, revealing a blonde woman wearing sunglasses and a straw hat, clutching a plastic bag. 

"My disguise isn't that good, guys, stop looking so surprised." Rosa says, unsure, flinging the wig aside and pushing the sunglasses up into her hair, balled up into a unruly bun. 

"Rosa," Brandon breathes, standing and pulling her into a tight embrace. Frank sees Brandon bite his lip, looking upwards as if fighting tears. "I am so glad to see you." 

"You are forbidden from leaving like that again." Frank says, surprising himself. This catches her attention, and she looks up, eyes wide.

"Jesus Christ, Frank, all I did was go to the store to get some snacks while you were all fighting in the lot like children! Calm down, I won't do it again, okay?" Rosa defends, moving towards the door at the other side of the room. "I'm going to bed." 

And with that, the door opens, she steps through, and it slams shut. 

"She didn't even look at me." Douglas says, the first thing he's said since the attack. 

"Do you blame her?" Brandon counters, moving to another bedroom, that door also slamming. 

Frank, Ralph and Douglas remain. Douglas sits on a bed, dabbing his wounds with a wet cloth, Ralph paces and Frank watches them. Both broken men, in more ways than one. 

"They'll come around." Ralph says, and Frank isn't sure if he is trying to reassure Douglas or himself. 

~ 

The song of the chapter is '20/20' by The Vaccines