HELLO MY PEEPS! How are all y'all doin'?! Well, I'm back with another chappy for you guys and I hope you enjoy!
DISCLAIMER: FUCK. YOU. DISCLAIMER.
18 DAYS BEFORE DEATH
CONTINUATION…
Three weeks. Three weeks of no Fang, three weeks of growing fears, and three weeks of watching Jeb fall back into old habits.
Booze.
At first he didn't bring home a lot of it, just one or two bottles every once in a while. But once his slump hit, I'd see him trudging into the house, three cases in his hands, pointedly averting eye contact with me. I can't say I was surprised. If he had looked at me, he probably would have seen how my eyes were full of rage and run for the hills. After all, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And I had good reason to be. Jeb—may the devil condemn him—was a lying, cheating, back stabbing, betraying, worthless piece of shit who was a complete waste of space and everything else synonymous with the word "asshole". He had wormed his way into Ari's heart and now he was breaking it into a million pieces.
"Max." Ari whimpered. I looked up and to my right to see Ari staring through the railway at Jeb, cradling his booze like a child. Taking one final glance at my old man, I ran up the stairs and crouched by Ari's side.
"I'm here, Ari. Let's go into your room, okay? We can do something productive, like, like read a book!" Before he could protest, I grabbed his hand and dragged him into his room. Shutting the door, I tried to shut out Jeb, shield him from Ari, keep him from hurting him. But as much as I tried, I couldn't protect Ari as much as I wanted to. After all, how can you protect someone from breaking when their hearts already broken?
But you can't say I didn't try.
With an enthusiasm that I didn't know I possessed—and if anyone else was as enthusiastic as I was in that moment, I probably would have hated them on the spot—I grabbed a book that I had loved when I was his age, a book I still loved to this day. Cracking it open, I looked expectantly at Ari. He had been pacing and he paused in his mission to make a hole in the rug to hold my gaze. Sighing overdramatically, he resigned to his fate of reading, and plopped next to me on his bed.
"The Cat in the Hat," I read aloud to him. "The cat in the hat is a mysterious cat, who knows pretty much everything and all of that! He loves to…" And from there I droned on, telling about a pedophilistic, know-it-all cat who loved to mess with stuck up children for his own enjoyment and "pleasure". Oh, did I say that I loved this book? What I meant was that I loved burning books like these for their crimes humanity! But I digress.
By the end of the first sentence, I had had enough of this to last a life-time, but for Ari's sake, I forged on with this torturous book. By the end of the sixth page, however, it seemed that Ari was done too.
"Why the hell are we reading this dumb book?!" In his anger, Ari slapped the book out of my hands, and stood up.
I was shocked. I'd never seen Ari get mad like this. Unfortunately, it got worse. "Ari watch your language!" I said.
"Why should I? I mean, it's not like this family isn't going to hell, because it is Max, it is! You may not see it or you may not think that I see it, but I do!" Ari was giving me a death glare worse than any I could have ever made. It wasn't just the anger resonating from him that caused a chill to run through me, it was the fact that those angry eyes had once looked at me with expressions of love and support, not anger and rage. "I know that Jeb lost his job and now he's a boozer again, I know that I'm terrified, and I know that we're cooped up in this God forsaken house when you should be honoring your promise!"
I didn't know what to say to all of that except, "What promise?"
For a moment, Ari's face relaxed, the calm before the storm. Then his expression morphed into rage I had hoped to never see on him. "I HATE YOU!" Shoving past me, he ran out of the house. I flinched upon hearing the door slam shut. I waited for Jeb to yell because of the noise, but he was too drunk to care, I suppose. I waited for Ari to come back and run into my arms crying for forgiveness, but he was too drunk with rage to do so. This left me alone with my thoughts, regrets, and tears.
Promise? I thought to myself. What promise? I couldn't recall what exactly Ari was talking about. There were so many promises I had made to him. Promises that we'd go for ice cream, promises to help him with his homework, promises that everything would be okay, promises that we'd be safe. Empty promises, all of them. And although my head was overflowing with these empty promises, I couldn't think of the one that really mattered.
I waited for hours for Ari to come back. I was waiting as Jeb fell asleep from his drunken stupor. I was waiting as midnight came and gone. I was waiting as the sun rose over the horizon, proclaiming a new day. And I was still waiting when the doorbell rang.
Thinking that it was Ari, I raced downstairs. Looking to my left, I saw that Jeb was still sleeping in the kitchen, with his head down on the table and big, heaving snores erupting from his throat. With a tad bit more caution, I fast walked to the door and swung it open. Standing in front of me, wearing ripped, dark jeans, a tight t-shirt, leather jacket, and looking sexy (per usual) was Fang. I couldn't help but to sag with disappointment. Unfortunately, Fang noticed.
"Oh," I said awkwardly. "Uh, hi, Fang. I was, er, expecting someone else." Not the smoothest thing I could've said, but then again, I'm not the smoothest person.
"Sorry to disappoint you," Fang grumbled.
I sighed heavily and rubbed my face with my hands. "Sorry. That came out wrong."
"How else was it supposed to come out? It sounded perfectly fine to me." So Mr. Sunshine was all dark clouds today, huh? Well two could play that game.
"Did you come here for a reason or to just brood?" Folding my arms over my chest, I stared him down.
His frown deepened, but then he just shrugged and started to walk away. "I guess you don't want me to take you to your brother…?"
My heart stopped. "What?" Within a moment, I had forgotten my stubbornness and rushed out to Fang. "You know where he is?"
Trying to hide that know-it-all smirk of his, he said, "Yeah. He showed up at my house in the middle of the night, crying. He said that you two had had a fight and that he couldn't go home."
"Take me to him."
Fang looked at me and gave me a smile. There's the adorably, snarky pearly whites of his that I loved. "I thought you'd never ask."
The walk to Fang's house was awkward, filled with silence and uncomfortable glances at each other. The two of us reminded me of a pair of awkward ducklings, neither of us knowing what to say or what to do except to walk.
When we arrived at Fang's house, I was relieved, and not just because I'd be able to see Ari. "Where is he?" I asked as we stepped inside.
"Upstairs in my room." As I was about to run up the stairs, Fang grabbed my arm. "Just…be careful what you say, Max. I know you mean well, but sometimes you say and do things that can irritate even the calmest of people. And the kid's pretty upset, so…"
"I know. And I will." I was happy to see that Fang wasn't taking his promise lightly. Smiling my reassurance, I tread up the stairs lightly and walked to Fang's door. Pausing, I took a deep breath and knocked. "Ari? Are you in there?" Silence. "It's me, Max." Some more silence. "I'm gonna come in-"
"NO." I stopped just short of turning the knob. "I don't want to see you." Ari's voice was muffled through the oak wood door, but I could still tell that he had been crying.
"I just want to talk," I would have sounded soothing, if not for my voice faltering.
"I don't want to talk to you either."
"Then just listen okay?" Silence. "I know that you're upset and you have every right to be. I've been a lousy protector and an even lousier sister to you lately. I've hid things from you, I've lied to you, I've made empty promises to you. I told myself that I was protecting you, but I never realized—I never wanted to realize how grown you are, and you don't need to be protected from the truth anymore. I know that now. And I'm sorry that it took me so long to realize it." By this point, Fang had shuffled behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder for support. I nodded my gratitude to him and he nodded back.
Silence. Then came thudding footsteps and I could tell that Ari was right at the door. If he'd only just open it…
"If you're really sorry, then you'll keep your promise!" I could hear Ari shouting through the door and it broke my heart. "Oh wait, you forgot what it was, didn't you!"
"Ari, please open the door. Let me talk to you-"
"NO! ALL YOU EVER DO IS TALK, IN FACT YOU'RE JUST THAT: TALK! YOU SAY YOU'LL PROTECT ME, BUT YOU CAN'T EVEN PROTECT YOURSELF!" Ari swung open the door and I finally saw his tear streaked face. "I DON'T NEED THAT KIND OF SHITTY PROTECTION! I'D BE BETTER ON MY OWN!"
SMACK! Ari's head whipped to the side and a red, hand-shaped splotch formed on his cheek. I lowered my hand and stared Ari down. I could feel that my eyes were steely and my voice was even and without emotion as I said, "No, you wouldn't be. But if you feel like proving me wrong, then by all means go ahead." I stepped aside and indicated for Ari to walk past me. Reluctantly, he did so. When he paused, I snapped, "Go." Hanging his head low, he trudged down the stairs. "Fang would you give us a moment?" He nodded and stepping inside his room and shut the door. Ari was nearly out the door when I said, "But before you go, let me ask you something." He paused. "Where will you go? You and I both know that you can't go back to the house. It's not safe for either of us there. So where will you go?"
"Anywhere but here." Ari whispered.
"How, with what money?"
"I don't know."
"What will you do once you get "anywhere but here"?"
"I don't know."
"Where will you live?"
"I don't know!"
"How will you survive-?"
"I DON'T KNOW, OKAY?!" Ari's eyes were crazed and he was breathing heavy. I knew that look well enough. He was having a slight panic attack. Time to seal the deal, Max, the Voice said.
Walking down the stairs towards him, I said softly, "I don't know either, you know. You may think I do, but I don't. I'm as clueless as you are." Standing next to him, I practically towered over the poor kid. "But what I do know is that we need each other, you and I. We need to stick together, and we need to get the hell out of here."
At this, Ari's head jerked up and he looked at me incredulously. "You mean it? Are we really leaving?" He searched my face as I nodded. I don't know what he saw, but whatever it was convinced him otherwise. "No, you couldn't possibly leave, could you…" His head hung down again and he walked out of the house.
"What are you talking about?" I had said we were leaving, hadn't I? "I promised you that we would go, so we'll go."
"No, we're not." Ari slouched down the sidewalk like a defeated man—er, boy.
"What makes you so sure of that?" I placed my hands on my hips and I was growing tired of all this sulking.
"BECAUSE OF HIM!" Ari screamed.
I cocked an eyebrow. "Him? You mean Fang? What about him?"
"You wouldn't leave him behind and he wouldn't leave his family behind, so the both of you would stay, which means that I would have to stay too." Ari's puppy dog eyes were in full bloom and it seemed almost like he wasn't asking me for anything, but that he was begging his tears not to show. Too late for that.
"Ari…" I didn't know what to say.
"I'm right, aren't I? I've always known." Tears spilled down his cheeks and his little shoulders shuddered. I silenced his sobs with a hug.
"No, Ari, you're wrong. We're leaving." Ari pulled away to look at me skeptically. "I mean it. Even though you're right that I don't want to leave Fang, you're wrong about one thing: I always put you first. Not Fang, not Fang's family, not my own feelings. You are my responsibility, so therefore you are my priority." I felt tears spill down my own cheeks. "I love Fang, but I love you more, and you know why?"
"Why?" Ari hiccupped.
"Because you're my favorite brother."
"I'm your only brother, Max."
Standing up, I ruffled his hair. "That's the beauty in it, little bro."
Wiping stray tears from his cheeks, Ari asked, "When do we leave?"
"The night of my eighteenth birthday."
"Alright!" As we walked down the sidewalk back to our house, Ari did little jigs and hops and skips and jumps for all of his excitement.
"But one more thing, Ari. You can't tell anyone that we're leaving."
Ari stopped midstride and gave me a puzzled look. "Why?"
"Because we can't tell anyone that we're running away or else we'll get caught."
"Well…you don't know that." Ari's rebound back to positivity always astounded me.
"Remember the last time we had a "family trip" with Jeb?" Just the memory of said occasion sent a tremor throughout my body. Looking at Ari, I could see that the memory had the same effect on him. "Do you want to repeat that?"
"No." Ari hung his head in defeat. "So does that mean we can't say goodbye to anyone?" I shook my head sadly. "Not even Angel, or Fang?"
It pained me to say it, but "No. Not even them. I'm sorry, Ari, but that's just the way it has to be."
He looked like he was about to say something, but Ari shook in sadness and said, "I understand."
We walked in silence the rest of the way home. There was nothing left to say except for the one thing we couldn't say: goodbye. That night we began packing. We were set to leave in a week.
SO THAT'S MY CHAPPY FOR ALL Y'ALL PEOPLES. TWO CHAPPIES IN TWO DAYS IS PRETTY GOOD I THINK SO BE GRATEFUL! JK, JK. Anywhoooooo…I hope you guys liked this chappy and if you did, don't forget to R&R and F&F. I HOPE YOU GUYS HAVE AN AWESOME DAY!
Watch the skies,
Doctor Bessy