Losing Ruby
Copyright © 2020 Kelsa Dixon
All rights reserved
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[Brody]
The air was heavy and humid. The sky hung low, the gray clouds bloated with a weight that seemed fitting for a day like this one. I drew the cigarette to my mouth and let my eyes slip shut under the pressure of it all. The remorse I felt for the past—the responsibilities that now lay before me—swirled with the remnants of last night's whiskey.
It'd only taken a pint to chase away the relentless dreams—nightmares that no longer preyed on me alone, but the people in this house, too—when it would've taken a handle in the years before. Shame filtered through the back of my mind and swelled into my system at the thought of how deep the spiral had gone for all those years.
I braced my forearms over the railing on the front porch and flexed my fingers. I studied each knuckle as if I could picture them the way they'd looked five years ago. Four years—even three years—ago. Bloody and battered. Skin ripped and peeled back. Gouges along the ridges of my hands. They ached for the searing sting now, only to distract from the heaviness I felt in my chest.
I went looking for those fights; the ones I spent month after month barely swinging before the round was called and I was hardly breathing, face first in the dirt pit. But they never let the guy finish the job. No matter how long I stayed there, no matter how I begged or provoked the opponent. They never let him end it.
At some point, that pain turned to a fury and I started to fight back. If I fought back, maybe the swings would come at me harder. The blows to the face would come around faster—swifter. More deliberate in their attempt to bring me down. I curled a fist and could imagine the skin tearing off the bone.
The scars had long since been covered in ink; invisible to the untrained eye—an eye oblivious to that part of my past.
The door behind me opened and I released my hand, pulling my gaze back to the cast of gray light across the yard.
"Hey." Chloe's voice was soft beside me.
I tried to find a simple breath, but it was scrambled in my engulfing history. Instead, I pulled in an inhale of nicotine and stubbed out the rest of the cigarette in the ashtray between a set of rockers. I took a seat in the one to my left. My weight fell over my knees and I waited for her to join me. But she didn't and I stared at her as she stared out at the yard just as I had.
I reached for her arm and tugged until she spun around. "How are you this morning?"
She held my gaze as though she wanted me to see something that I couldn't, and when my fingers laced around her forearm dropped I knew she could tell it wasn't conveyed.
Instead, she swept her hair behind her ear and said, "I'll be fine."
"That's not what I asked." I noted they were the same words I'd fed her yesterday morning. Her lashes fluttered and her gaze tipped up again. Gently, I said, "I asked how you are right now."
Her shoulders sagged, but her chin lifted. Without a tear or a twitch to her down turned lips, she took the seat next to me. "I don't want to do it, B. I don't want to have to do it. Not again." Who would? We'd already done this once before; it was too soon to do it again. But we didn't dwell there. Instead, she sank into the chair next to me, her grip laced the flat topped arms of the rockers. "Are you okay with everything that happened yesterday?"
My head snapped in her direction. "Of course I am."
"You barely said anything all day. And after dinner you stayed out here—by yourself—even after we went to bed."
I leaned toward her, to be sure she heard me loud and clear. "Yesterday—it was a gift." I was given custody, by some twisted God above that I no longer believed in, my parents—my estranged father—gave me custody of Chloe. As well as management of all assets and accounts and allowances for Luca and Noah. He put me in charge of selling the house, their cars and all other belongings we wouldn't want. A written request from our parents that Luca—with one look at Chloe's raised brows and pinched confusion—instantly spat his disapproval on. We'd refuse to sell, and he'd been sure to have the last word as he tugged Chloe from her chair without room to banter an argument.
"The drinking...."
"Had nothing to do with you."
She bit her lip. "The nightmares."
I withdrew, sat back in my seat, and my gaze pierced through the trees, looking for anything to take away my attention.
"You can tell me—"
"I don't want to talk about them, Chloe. Please leave it alone." I felt her glare pierce the side of my face. She wanted me to turn and face it. To tell her point blank to back off, she didn't belong in the depths of my guilt-ridden subconscious. She didn't want in there—not even to dip a toe; to crest the surface of what I thought of myself.
"Why?" Her voice cracked and my shoulders went taunt.
I grit my teeth. My fingers had found a way together and they clenched, too. Flashes of Ruby bolted to the front of my mind, burning through that lingering haze of whiskey. Her body slumped in the passenger seat. Her head smashed against the window. The matted hair. The blood. Sometimes her vibrant eyes so similar to Chloe's sprung open and pleaded for my help. Sometimes they rolled back in her head. In every scenario, I was helpless; and I did nothing.
As my stomach rolled, I swallowed the queasy feeling. "Because I can't. I can't talk about it." I prayed she heard the underlying desperation. The way the words barely slipped past my lips in a whisper. I wondered if she noticed the sweat starting to bead along my upper lip or if she assumed that was from the stagnant air swirling in the misty morning.
"Chloe!" Her name thundered through the house. "Chloe?" Suddenly, the door burst open and Luca was standing in its place. "I've been calling your name for the last five minutes."
Her palms opened in an obvious display of inflection. "I've been out here."
His tense posture softened. Not once did he spare a glance at me. "Are you ready? We need to leave."
I frowned. None of us were ready for this.
She eyed the car that sat at the end of the drive. The one that would take us to say a final goodbye to our parents. Again, I noticed the slight jerk of her chin upwards. "I have to be, right?" A stoic expression cast over her features, each one set in stone.
My elbows hit the tops of my thighs and I scrubbed my face. I itched for another cigarette as no one said anything in response.
"Are we gonna stand around talking about it, or get it over with?" Noah appeared beside Luca, tugging the door shut behind them. With him involved we wouldn't so much as broach a meaningful topic of conversation.
Luca suggested as much. "Well, with you, we certainly shouldn't dare to bring up mom and dad, should we?"
Chloe shot to her feet and threw a pointed look at Luca. "Not today. Please."
"Yeah, Luca, please," Noah groaned mockingly as he sauntered off the porch. "Not today."
I stood to follow, but paused as Luca took hold of Chloe's arm. "Did you take your Keppra?"
Her face pinched hard and fast in distaste, but just as quickly the look dissolved.
"She's sixteen, Luca. She doesn't need you breathing down her neck," Noah remarked.
I watched Luca's lashes lay shut and his chest expand with an inhale, but his grasp on Chloe remained. If anything it tightened as he pulled her closer. When he opened his eyes again, they were desperate.
Chloe must've seen it too and her posture slackened. "Yes," she said simply. Just as she did when he asked each morning. And every evening.
"Maybe—for him—you could make a point of enacting the very moment you take it. Then we could avoid these intense, albeit brief, interrogations twice a day," Noah called over his shoulder as he strolled down the drive.
"I worry," was all Luca said as he released her.
It was an understatement. He worried about everything, but especially this. Especially her epilepsy. Especially when it came on strong and fast two years ago and the answers weren't nearly as instantaneous. When anything and everything was considered a trigger and her life now balanced on a well timed routine, precision to her diet and a simple pill of packed powder.
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• losing ruby •
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