Count On Me(9)

Problem is, I can’t do it. Even walking in and finding my brother passed out in his own filth isn’t enough to get her and what happened out of my head. So what do I do? I pull the damn paper out of my pocket, unfold it and start reading.

There scrawled across the pages are her words to me, answers to my questions, but even more than that, jokes and things that still make me smile. Standing out like neon lights, are the happy faces and even though I turned on her, treating her like shit before kicking her out of my car, I’m still smiling every time I see one of them on the page.

Those happy faces remind me of the way things used to be and despite not wanting to focus on the past because of everything that happened with my mom, I can’t help it. It’s not my mom I remember though. It’s her.

She used to talk to me when I was over at her house. It wasn’t much because her mom said she was a little slower than me with her speech, but the words she did say, I always understood. I actually remember the first time she spoke to me and the way her voice sounded. It had taken so long for it to happen that I actually believed back then that she didn’t have a voice at all.

Guess I know where all the deaf mute comments came from.

Dean told me things about her before, but I can’t remember much of it now, other than that she’s got some issues. I want to go back out there, wake him up and ask him about it, but his rage kills that idea quick. He’s the only one I can ask though, so maybe when he screws his head on straight and lays off the booze, I’ll bring it up.

My phone vibrates, so I stretch out across my bed in an effort to get it out. There’s this part of me that hopes it’s her so I can try and fix what I did, but I know it won’t be. She doesn’t have my number and even if she did, I’m pretty damn sure I’d be the last person she’d want to talk to. As I look at the screen, I see it’s Amy.

Have a nice time with your girlfriend? I bet the smell was a real turn on huh?

Tossing my phone across the room after reading the words, it smashes up against the wall and I hear sounds from the front room, which means Dean’s up and moving. It’s always easy to tell when he wakes up because it sounds like a herd of cattle moving through the house. How one person can make that much noise is beyond me, but it’s Dean, so of course I don’t get it.

It doesn’t take long for him to stumble down the hall and appear in the doorway. As I watch, he leans his body on the door in an attempt to stay steady, a snide looking smile on his face.

“I got a funny call earlier about your dumb ass.”

Indulging Dean when he’s like this is never a good idea, but since I’ve already managed to screw my entire day up just in the span of a couple hours, I go for broke. If he wants a fight then I’m more than willing to give it to him.

“Oh yeah, what did I do this time?”

“Word is you fucked up Dillon’s face pretty bad and that it was because of the freak across the street.”

“Don’t call her that.” I seethe, not understanding where the sudden urge to protect her comes from, but running with it. “She’s not a freak. She’s just got issues, something I figure you both got in common.”

“What are you trying to say boy? That me and that crazy bitch are the same?”

“She’s not a crazy bitch. You’re the one that told me that remember?”

“I don’t like your tone.”

“Well I don’t like that you smell like a brewery, so I guess we’re even.”

He stumbles across the room and the thing is, I could easily have cut him off at the pass considering how utterly wasted he is, but I don’t do it. I want him to hit me, in fact I want him to do to me what I did to Dillon a couple hours ago.

He grabs me and it’s not long before I’m back up on my feet and being tossed across the room. That’s another thing about my brother. It seems that while the liquor makes him unsteady, it also gives him superhuman strength.

I feel the pain shoot through me the minute my body crashes into the wall. It’s almost like a script with us. The location is the only thing that changes. I should be thankful he’s doing it in here instead of out where all the bottles and cans are, but I’m really finding it hard to care about much right now. I just want it over with.

“You’re a disrespectful son of a bitch, you know that, Kayden? I fucking bust my ass, going to work every day so we can keep living here and all I get for thanks is your smart mouth. No wonder Mom took off and left us.”

Again, this is not something new to me. He says this every single time we get into it. I’m always the reason mom bailed, even though I’m pretty sure it was the dude at the strip club that’s actually the cause. I don’t bother telling him this though. My smart mouth has already gotten me into enough trouble today.