The warm water cascades down my back and pools at my feet, the half an inch of water constantly remains while the shower is running but I never take another shower for granted after living 6 months without one. I may not be the multi-millionaire I once was but I won't spare any expense when it comes to having hot water in Alaska. I step out of the shower and wrap a towel around my waist, when I look up to see my reflection staring back at me it still shocks me sometimes how different I look. My hair has grown back to the shaggy mess it once was in my youth, I can't remember the last time my head was shaved and soft like peach fuzz. Brings back too many painful reminders. My beard has grown in fuller and fuller as the years have ticked by, as each new strand pokes out of my face it seems more and more of them are grey. They add a salt and pepper effect that goes all the way up to my cheek bones and makes me look like an old man. I examine the tip of one of my scars that pokes out from my beard, it is no longer risen the way it once was and has softened over time but I know I'll never forget. I turn my head away from the mirror and walk out of the bathroom into my bedroom to find something to wear, opening my closet always makes me chuckle to see all the winter clothes. It is almost like an inside joke with myself, living in Albuquerque our winters were short and nowhere near as brutal as Alaska, I remember how much I shook like a leaf my first year here. As I pull one of my many sweaters over my head I have to shake the memory, because Matthew Driscoll has never once stepped foot in the state of New Mexico. Born and raised in the great state of Alaska where he has never left but once to go on a family vacation when he was much younger to Disney, the Florida one of course. That was of course before his parents tragically died in a car accident when he was 20 years old, Matthew was in that car that day and became the sole survivor, but not before he was left permanently scarred from that fatal day. With no siblings left behind to keep him company and no one to fight over the inheritance of the house with. Life was good for Matthew, a quaint and quiet life, and the most important part was that it was the complete opposite of Jesse Pinkman's life.
I venture out into the cold but soon am in my car and drive down the road in the search for some lunch. It's small freedoms like this that I used to take for granted, being able to drive down the street without fear of getting caught, being recognized. In the 20 years I have lived here I have never once taken anything for granted, never once taken my life for granted for a single second. I pull into a parking spot at my favorite pizza place and go inside to order. "Matt, long time no see. When was your last pizza, sometime this week?" Don laughs as he teases me about my pizza addiction. I laugh along knowing there are worse additions to have.
"You know me, I can't get enough of it" I play along, the old me wouldn't be caught dead having a repour like this with some guy old enough to be my dad, Mr. White was the only exception. But Don is genuinely a good guy and he doesn't ask too many questions. He is friendly enough but we both speak the universal language of a clean cut business transaction and nothing more.
"Let me get a large peperoni going for you, should only be a few minutes" Don says with a smile and I follow him over to the cash register to pay. "One of these days you are going to have to find someone to eat all this pizza with you" One thing I have learned about Alaska is how nosy people can be sometimes, but I guess that's what happens when everyone knows everyone around here.
"You are probably right" I keep my voice cheerful when I answer back but deep down I despise hearing that. I had something like that twice and both times they died horrible deaths, things that were my fault. I stopped thinking a long time ago that I was meant to find someone to love me. Jesse Pinkman was like a house, you can strip it down but if the bones are no good underneath you can't ever fix anything and Matthew Driscoll is simply a remodel. The scars along my back, face, and hell even my head only have made me know that there is really no way to explain what happened. A car accident story only tells so much, and I could only say so much that I couldn't ever truly share my life with anyone, it's just easier to be alone indefinitely. I find myself caught up in a memory yet again, I've been doing that so much lately. I don't know if it is because its been 20 years now and my feelings are finally catching up with me or something else entirely. I'm definitely more afraid it will be the latter.
"That will be $12.58 for the large pizza" Don's voice snaps be back and I hand over a $10 and a $5 to pay, he hands me the pizza and I leave my change and an additional $20 in the tip jar and wave as I walk out. The drive back to my house is quiet and only the low hum of the radio makes any sound, even with all the practice of driving through the snow over the years I never let myself get distracted when I drive, life is too precious for some careless driving mistake to take me out. I often worry my deceit about a car crash will one day come back to bite me in the ass. It seems like Jesse had so many second chances that there shouldn't be any left for Matthew. I always cherish the feeling of walking through my front door, its a feeling of accomplishment that crashes over me to look at my stuff, I used to buy stupid shit and take everything for granted and break it without a care in the world. My house that I left behind I never even bothered to buy a real couch for my living room, but that was 25 year old Jesse and I'm not the same person anymore. I set the pizza on the coffee table and turn the tv on, I mindless flip through the channels with the remote in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other. This is what a typical day looks like for me now, the art of hiding in plain sight means that I never did much with my life out here in Alaska. I became a ranch hand for a farm for the past 15 years and just saved all my money to be able to retire at age 40, with no payments on the house to make and drugs not clearing my pockets out daily I didn't need to work anymore, I built myself a mini fortune yet again, but this time without royally fucking up my life or anyone else. The phone begins to ring and I set down what remains of the slice of pizza in my hand along with the remote in my other. I turn slowly to face the landline that continues to ring, I must be the only person who only has a landline but the types of phones we have now aren't easy to just take the battery out and snap it in half anymore. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to know that the government tracks your phone, that is the last thing someone who disappeared wants to have on them, a way for someone to find out exactly who they are and why they are hiding. But that doesn't make sense, because I have no one to call and no one that should have my number that would call me out of the blue like this. I stand up and wipe the pizza grease on my jeans before picking up the phone, I can feel my heart beating in my ears after pressing the answer button.
"Hello?" The voice on the other line says, his voice is eerily familiar but I can't quite place it. "Hello, is anyone there?" I am still too scared to say anything back.
"Who is this?" I lower my voice to try and make myself sound menacing while simultaneously disguising my voice.
"My name is Jake Pinkman, I'm sorry if I have the wrong number but I was looking for my brother Jesse, I was told this was his number" It seems like time has stood still, my brother was 14 years old the last time I saw him and hearing his voice over the phone makes me come face to face with everything I left behind. He sounds like a man, no longer the young boy who I covered for after hiding a joint at mom and dads house. But underneath that deep voice and the initial shock of everything he really is my brother.
"How did you get this number?" I manage to choke out a sentence now that reality is setting in, I disappeared and yet someone still was able to track me down. I begin to feel nauseous and sit down with the phone still in hand anxiously waiting to hear his response.
"Jesse's friend Badger gave me his number. I'm really sorry to bother you but do you know what his forwarding number might be?" I know it seems like a fucking idiot to give out my new information to people from my past but Badger and Skinny Pete are my boys. They helped me out to get here and when social media became a big thing years back I couldn't help myself and friended them on social media. My profile is just my name without any followers and not even a profile picture but it helps me private message them and I was able to give them my landline in case of emergencies. I trust them and know they wouldn't have just given out my number without a reason. I listen to Jake and he sounds stressed out and my guard goes back up. He may be my brother but the last time I talked to our parents they were urging me to come forward and turn myself in. Maybe this is some sort of ploy to get me to say something on the phone or even track my address. I expect to hear sirens pulling up to my doorstep at any second.
"What do you want from him?" I try to stay calm and keep my voice from shaking, I had gotten away from this so far but it could all come crumbling down in an instant.
"I'm trying to contact him to let him know our dad died" My heart sinks at his words.
"Dad died?" I can't help myself, the news of my father dying makes me unable to think of anything else. This whole day I've been reflecting on lost time and yet here we are with that fact hitting me right in the face.
"Jesse?"
"Yes, okay its me. I didn't know why someone was calling or even how the hell you got his number but jesus christ dad is dead" I let my voice shake this time when I speak.
"Jesse what happened to you?" His question catches me off guard, his voice sounds emotional but I still can't be too careful.
"That's not important, what happened to dad?" I try and steer him back to the conversation at hand, I still have to make sure he isn't trying to corner me into a wall I can't back out of.
"He died of a heart attack, it was sudden and out of the blue but he's gone now Jesse. I just thought you had a right to know, he was your dad too" Jake's crying by the end of his sentence and I can feel my own heart sink. There's no way he is calling me to trap me for some cop or DEA agent, our dad is actually laying dead in some morgue somewhere. Besides, who would even still be around there that remembers me at all. Hank and Gomez were the only two people in the DEA who knew I became a rat and that secret died with them out in the desert. Hell, everyone who knew what I did is dead, the fucking nazi's, Todd, Mr. White. Everything should be dead and gone in the past and it shouldn't ever catch up to me, but here I am considering going back there.
"Jake, I'm so sorry" I can't find any other words to say, my brain won't let anything else come out. I never was especially close with my brother, our age difference didn't help, by time he came around I was already a problem child. I would say our relationship was doomed from the start but I stopped blaming everyone for my problems a long time ago.
"Jesse, what happened to you?" I can hear him crying on the other end of the line now, he is all alone in his grief and he just wanted someone to share it with. The way real brothers are supposed to.
"Does mom know you called?" I would have assumed that if mom had died already I would have received another call like this years before.
"I didn't tell her, she grieved for you a long time ago and I didn't want to upset her further by giving her some hope you might still be alive out there. I didn't even know if I would have been able to reach you" Jake's words bounce around in my head, mom really thought that I was dead? I mean I guess she still thinks I still am.
"Mom thinks I'm dead?" The thought of having to speak to her, let alone having to come face to face with her absolutely terrifies me, but I can't help trying to piece together what has happened with them the past 20 years.
"Yeah, I mean I don't know the whole story because after a while she just wouldn't say anything. All I know is shit hit the fan 20 years ago and you were on just about every news station and then one day it just stopped. I guess she just assumed because you were never found that whatever you were wrapped up in got you killed" There's still so much that everyone doesn't understand. I tried to find inner peace for my past a long time ago but I can't control the anger that bubbles up inside of me when I think about the way my name was smeared through the mud on tv for god knows how long. I wasn't the poster child for being a model citizen, I'll admit that, but I was a fucking victim too. I didn't ask to get tortured and be heled in a fucking cage for 6 months, when in reality it felt like 6 lifetimes. By the end of it all everything just felt like it was a casualty of the shit show started when Gus died. Everything was a casualty of Mr. White's greed and power hungry attitude, but I often think about his last day and how at the end of it all he came back for me. He saved my life in a way. I can't help but think about that. Our relationship was fucked, he was a fucked up individual and honestly maybe it was the cancer coming for his brain but his last day on earth gave me my freedom. That isn't something I can just forget about.
"Well I'm not dead, but it would be easier if she just kept believing that I was" I mean every word I say, I punished my mom her whole life and it seems like her knowing the truth would only punish her more.
"Okay, I won't tell her" There is a pause at the end, there is more he wants to say. "But I did call you to let you know there is going to be a funeral for dad at the end of the week. You don't have to come but I just wanted you to know it was an option"
"I don't know" Now my voice is the one leaving a pause at the end now. I truly don't know what to do. I would be stupid to willingly show my face around Albuquerque but something feels like it is pulling me back there. The question I have to ask myself now is if I can ignore that pull inside of me that wants me to go back home.
"Can I still reach you at this number for the future?" He sounds so innocent when he says this, all I can picture when I hear his voice is how he looked the last time I saw him. So many things go through my mind about him, is he tall? Does he look anything like I do? Does he look like dad? Fuck, dad.
"I don't know about that either Jake" That I know is the truth, this line is compromised now. But does that even matter if I throw everything away to go back to Albuquerque?
"I hope you are doing well Jesse" Jake tells me before he hangs up the phone and just like that I am all alone again. I set down my phone and without even thinking I rush into my bedroom and pull out a duffle bag from my closet. Opening a duffle bag full of money feels like a blast from the past, the only difference is this money I earned without a single drop of blood being spilled. The only thing Jesse and Matthew have in common is the fact that neither of us trust banks, any money that can be traced can always lead back to the truth. Living in rural Alaska and working on a farm has helped me avoid having to ever open a bank account, with the technology now its even more important to stay off anyone's radar. I look down at the money and feel tempted to take it all, I get this intense feeling taking over me that it might be the last time I ever live here anymore. It can't be safe to leave and come back, but I mean with how long its been maybe it won't even matter anymore. I grab fistfuls of clothes and start putting them in a suitcase, even owning a suitcase makes me feel like an old man. When I'm done packing the suitcase I settle on just zipping up the duffle bag and slinging it over my shoulder, the whole thing is coming with me. I grab my jacket with bags in hand and can't help but stop to look around one more time, I came here to leave everything behind and yet here I am racing right back to it all without a care in the world. I jump into my car and make sure I have the GPS turned off, with cars now its basically impossible to find one that doesn't have one in it but turning it off should help make sure I'm not tracked, at least that is what I tell myself to keep going through the motions. It's like I am in autopilot as I begin my drive, with how long it will take I should just barley make it but that is all I need, planes are too risky but I need to get back. I know this drive like the back of my hand, I've only ever done it once 20 years ago but a day like that I'll never forget.