Losing Ruby
Copyright © 2020 Kelsa Dixon
All rights reserved
— • —
[Brody]
The air was heavy and humid. The sky hung low, the gray clouds bloated with a weight that seemed fitting for a day like this one. I drew the cigarette to my mouth and let my eyes slip shut under the pressure of it all. The remorse I felt for the past—the responsibilities that now lay before me—swirled with the remnants of last night's whiskey.
It'd only taken a pint to chase away the relentless dreams—nightmares that no longer preyed on me alone, but the people in this house, too—when it would've taken a handle in the years before. Shame filtered through the back of my mind and swelled into my system at the thought of how deep the spiral had gone for all those years.
I braced my forearms over the railing on the front porch and flexed my fingers. I studied each knuckle as if I could picture them the way they'd looked five years ago. Four years—even three years—ago. Bloody and battered. Skin ripped and peeled back. Gouges along the ridges of my hands. They ached for the searing sting now, only to distract from the heaviness I felt in my chest.
I went looking for those fights; the ones I spent month after month barely swinging before the round was called and I was hardly breathing, face first in the dirt pit. But they never let the guy finish the job. No matter how long I stayed there, no matter how I begged or provoked the opponent. They never let him end it.
At some point, that pain turned to a fury and I started to fight back. If I fought back, maybe the swings would come at me harder. The blows to the face would come around faster—swifter. More deliberate in their attempt to bring me down. I curled a fist and could imagine the skin tearing off the bone.
The scars had long since been covered in ink; invisible to the untrained eye—an eye oblivious to that part of my past.
The door behind me opened and I released my hand, pulling my gaze back to the cast of gray light across the yard.
"Hey." Chloe's voice was soft beside me.
I tried to find a simple breath, but it was scrambled in my engulfing history. Instead, I pulled in an inhale of nicotine and stubbed out the rest of the cigarette in the ashtray between a set of rockers. I took a seat in the one to my left. My weight fell over my knees and I waited for her to join me. But she didn't and I stared at her as she stared out at the yard just as I had.
I reached for her arm and tugged until she spun around. "How are you this morning?"
She held my gaze as though she wanted me to see something that I couldn't, and when my fingers laced around her forearm dropped I knew she could tell it wasn't conveyed.
Instead, she swept her hair behind her ear and said, "I'll be fine."
"That's not what I asked." I noted they were the same words I'd fed her yesterday morning. Her lashes fluttered and her gaze tipped up again. Gently, I said, "I asked how you are right now."
Her shoulders sagged, but her chin lifted. Without a tear or a twitch to her down turned lips, she took the seat next to me. "I don't want to do it, B. I don't want to have to do it. Not again." Who would? We'd already done this once before; it was too soon to do it again. But we didn't dwell there. Instead, she sank into the chair next to me, her grip laced the flat topped arms of the rockers. "Are you okay with everything that happened yesterday?"
YOU ARE READING
Losing Ruby
ChickLit[Ongoing] It took one tragedy to tear them apart. Another tragedy to force them to face their issues. And the scare of a third to finally mend what was broken. Brody has never been able to forgive himself for the death of their sister six years ag...
