“And she spent the last year of it complaining we had no money,” I grumbled.
“Because you were stealing it from her emergency fund,” he said, his voice sharp enough to slice through my bullshit. I glared at Paul. Since when was he the voice of reason? One stint in rehab and suddenly he was… insightful? I hadn’t lectured him when he gave up on his rock star dreams and then risked his sobriety by taking a job bouncing drunks at a bar.
“Whose side are you on anyway? You’re supposed to be my brother.”
“Yes. And I’m trying to help you, but you’re testing my patience.”
“Then go, and take your cigarette with you,” I said, sinking deeper into the couch.
Paul hooked an arm over the back of it. He wasn’t going anywhere. “I’m not a big fan of single Scott.”
“Join the club,” I said. “You think I wanted any of this? I’m being blackmailed, Paul. I can’t sleep. I can’t think. Every time a car slows down outside, I think it’s him coming for money I don’t have. And then she just walks out… leaves me, like we were nothing at all.”
Paul took a drag, watching me. “You done?”
“Give me a minute. I haven’t even hit the childhood trauma portion yet.”
He exhaled smoke through his nose. “There’s an easy solution to all this.”
“There is?”
“Move.”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“Move,” he repeated. “Take your family and move away from here.”
I stared at him like he’d lost his damn mind. “I can’t move. My whole life’s here. Mitchell. My friends. My job.”
He scoffed. “Your job? You mean the one that you are going to lose because you’ve been stealing from them?”
“Yeah, Paul. That one! Why are you so fixated on the tiniest, least flattering detail?”
“Sorry. I’ll try not to be so laser-focused on the felony,” he said, lifting his boots off the table one at a time. “Here’s how Isee it, bro. You’re too comfortable here, smoking pot with your high school buddies and surfing as the sun comes up. You want to show Michelle that she’s married a grown-up? That she’s safe? Get her out of Venice Beach. Get a government job that pays benefits, like Michelle wants.”
I scoffed, pushing back against his verdict.
“Don’t be me, Scott. I’m too old to grow up now. But you’re only twenty-five. You’ve still got time to turn things around. But you’ve got to get out of here, or you’ll lose everything you love.”
I stared at the floor, jaw tight. His words were truer than I wanted to admit.
“Moving doesn’t change who I am.”
Paul stubbed out his cigarette in the can, eyes still on me. “Maybe not. But it changes what you do next.”
I looked up, meeting his stare. There was no judgment there; just truth. And I let myself wonder if maybe he was right. I glanced around the apartment. The stack of past-due bills on the counter. The broken lamp Michelle had taped together because we couldn’t afford a new one. The extra pillow she wanted but never bought, stuffing a sweatshirt under the case instead.
This was the life I’d built—one busted thing held together by another, the illusion of stability. Michelle was right to be worried. The question was why I hadn’t been. She’d never asked me for luxury. All she wanted was a solid foundation on which to build her family, something I’d failed to give her.
Paul got up and grabbed his jacket from the chair. “Think about it,” he said and walked out without another word.
I sat there a long time after he left, staring at Keith’s kid-size surfboard and worrying that I might never ride a wave with him again. And for the first time since Michelle walked out, I wasn’t angry. I was terrified. Terrified that Paul might be right, and that staying here meant there’d be nothing left to come home to.
The line moved slowerthan death, but I had to start somewhere, and that somewhere was the United States Post Office. It was a government job, I liked to walk, and desperation had a way of narrowing your options. By the time it was finally my turn, the clerk, an older guy with thinning hair and glasses sliding down his nose, looked up at me with the bare minimum of enthusiasm.
“Can I help you?”
“Yeah,” I said, sliding my hands into my pockets. “How do I apply for a job?”
