And then, finally, when I know the bare walls of my apartment won’t break me, I go home and wait for my monster.PhoenixPeople used to think we were twins, Jake and me. They wouldn’t think it now.
He’s lost weight. A lot of weight.
His broad shoulders look sunken. His arms look lean and wiry. His eyes are darker than ever as he slams his truck door behind him and I slam mine.
We meet in no man’s land. In the middle of the car park we used to pull into every morning. The tower is a black hulk looking over us, the burned-out roof jagged in the shadows.
I contemplate the odds that he’s going to charge me down before we’ve even said a word. That we’ll end up grappling on the cracked tarmac while Mariana’s ghost screams. Or laughs.
The seven months since we last faced off haven’t been kind to either of us, that’s for sure, but today he keeps his fists in check. At least for now.
He reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a cigarette. I don’t move an inch as he lights up. He takes two long drags before he jabs a finger in my direction.
“Take the fucking offer.”
“Fuck the fucking offer.” My voice is calmer than I feel.
He gestures to the maw of concrete and rubble behind us. The doors are warped and gaping. The ground still littered with broken window glass. “What fucking good is it to you? She’s fucking dead! Let this fucking place die with her!”
“I’m not selling.”
“Why the fuck not?!”
I don’t have an answer to that. I don’t fucking need an answer to that. I stare past him to the darkness inside.
I can still feel the heat. Still smell the stench as the pallets went up. Still hear my choking screams as I bellowed her name.
“The business is almost back on its feet. If I was gonna sell I’d have done it a long time ago, when we fucking needed it,” I tell him.
“Nobody fucking wanted it then.”
I shake my head. “Think what you want, Jake. There’s always some fucking vulture looking to make a quick buck. It would’ve sold.”
His shoulder lands square against mine. “It’s Ash.”
I turn my face to his. “I’m the one who lost her.”
I recognise the rage in his glare almost as much as I recognise the pain behind it. His emptiness stirs mine. Grief bubbles in my gut.
“She was mine,” he hisses. “You fucking know she was. I’m the one who fucking lost her.”
My fists clench on instinct, a whisper away from pounding my hate into the sack of shit who shares the same fucking blood as me.
I’m one man battling a fucking storm, shaking my fists at the fucking lightning. I’ve been here before, so many fucking times.
But tonight I am victorious.
Because of her.
Because of a stranger.
Because I feel alive.
I step away. I loosen my fists. The grief stops bubbling.
“I’m not selling,” I say, calmly. “I’m going to redevelop.”
“Redevelop? What the fuck?”
“You heard me.”
He looks like I jabbed him in the jaw. Part of me wishes I had.
I notice how tired he looks, even in the half-light. I notice how much longer his beard is now than mine.
And in this one long moment, I wonder if it’s really grief that’s still crippling my older brother, or whether it’s guilt.
“Why were you really here?” I ask him. “What was she doing in that storeroom on her own?”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “I don’t fucking know. I came here to work, she was already–”
I cut him off with a shake of my head. “Enough of the fucking bullshit. You tell me the truth, and I’ll talk about fucking selling.”
My heart pounds but I stand firm. My pulse is in my temples, but I don’t move a muscle.
Not until he does.
“Sell this fucking place, or I’m selling my shares,” he says, and he’s already retreating to his truck.
It’s so tempting to go after him, but I don’t.
Cameron and I had a great time feeding the ducks today. I’m not going to be explaining to my boy why Daddy’s got torn-up knuckles in the morning, not for anything.
“Don’t be a fucking dick,” I shout as Jake starts the truck up, but he doesn’t even look back.
I watch until his taillights turn the corner at the end of the drive, and then I take a breath.
I lean against my truck and allow myself a minute, just me and this burned-out hole, and Mariana’s secrets. The ones she took with her.
And then finally, when I know I’m calm enough to look Serena in the eye without tearing her a new one for bringing Jake into my shit, I go home.AbigailI’ve been staring at my inbox for an hour when the circle next to his name finally blinks and turns green.
I chew my thumbnail as the tick appears against my message. He’s reading. Right now.