Banish Me

Bren's Story: Make Me Bad

A/N: Ok so there is a soundtrack for this chapter. It's pretty intense, the chapter, not the soundtrack. Anywho, your track listing: Make Me Bad by Korn, Hurt by Johnny Cash, and Say You Like Me by We The Kings

Instead of getting into a car, Bren grabbed a set of keys from the lockbox on the wall and pointed to a four-wheeler.

“We’re not going far but it’s back in the woods some. Hop on and hold on.”

I got on and sat where the rack was attached to the back. Bren sat in front of me and started it up. I wasn’t comfortable putting my arms around his waist so I gripped the bars that made up the rack.

I got the feeling he’d done this before. He hit a clicker on the handle bar and garage door behind us opened. He backed out slowly, his feelings of unease getting just a tad higher. From what I knew about magical addiction, the feelings I was getting meant he was going through withdrawal.

That didn’t make me feel better on any account.

“Ready?” he yelled over his shoulder.

I just nodded, afraid that if I talked I would end up saying the wrong thing. He took a path just behind the garage, one that was muddy and pitted. It wasn’t traveled often but you could tell by the way it was carved into the woods that it used to be. But the months of no use allowed the wildlife to grow. At one point, Bren hit a tree root and I was forced to grab a hold of him so I wouldn’t fall off. I let go but he just shook his head and yelled over his shoulder, “It’s bad the rest of the way. You’re going to have to hold on to me.”

Oh that was not something I wanted to do at all. Yes, I considered Bren my friend but I was definitely not comfortable with this at all. So I made do with gripping the back of his leather jacket and prayed this fun ride would be over soon.

And it was. In less than five minutes, we’d reached our destination. The only reason I knew was because we came upon an area that looked like a bomb went off.

The trees and ground were scorched black.

Bren stopped and turned off the four-wheeler. I let go of his jacket but remained sitting as did he.

We both just stared at the destruction. The look on his face was of familiarity. It was like an old wound for him and every time he saw it, everything just came back. I guess it would be the same for me if I ever went back to the island where my mother died. That was the place where my life changed forever and this was where his changed.

Bitterness flowed off him along with anger.

“The whole thing was just…stupid.”

He got off and shoved his hands in his pockets. I remained seated and just let him talk. I didn’t interrupt him or ask questions.

I just let him talk.

“We’ve known each other our whole lives. My mom’s house is right through there.” He pointed at a path just on the other side of the blast area. “We, all three of us, used to meet here late at night on the weekends just to talk and hang out. There used to be a fire pit and tree logs…it’s all gone now.”

He turned and looked at me. His dark blue eyes, almost like sapphires, were dull and the circles under them were like bruises. His dark brown hair was flat, flatter than I’d ever seen him. Usually he was well put together, the perfect picture of a bad boy gone good, but today he looked exactly how I’d always seen addicts. Rundown, defeated, tired.

“We broke up. I don’t know if Peter told you that…it was stupid. The whole thing. I got pissed about something completely irrelevant and now, looking back, I can’t even remember what it was.”