I’ve been best friends with Jade for years, and yet, she still surprises me.
Jade curls her fingers between mine and jerks her head toward the rear of Chase’s truck. We watch the subtle orange of his indicator among the dusty gray blink in and out when he throws a left out of the trailer park. Squeezing my hand, she whispers, “I just wanted to prove to you that my brother cares about you, too. And see…” She pauses, throwing her hand in the direction he just left. “He does, and that’s why he’s coming tonight. He cares about you so much more than you realize, Laik.”
Her words had something twisting in my gut.
“You will survive this. I’ll make sure you do.”
It was what Chase had said to me nine months ago, the night we found my father’s body hanging limp from the tree.
And the words he spoke when I tore at his arms in agony,and he let me.
Chase Keller wore my pain with the scars I gave him.
I didn’t need Jade to prove it to me, but I can’t help but admit that it makes me feel good hearing it from her, the person closest to him.
Jade curls into my side, clasping my bicep, her temple to my shoulder.
“You have people in your life that care about you, Laik. Don’t ever let yourself fall blind to that.”
One single tear rolls down my cheek.
The hum of my tires quiet when I pull into the only gas station in town and climb out, making for the narrow-barred entry door riddled in decades-old fingerprints.
The bell chimes above.
The icy air spits loudly from the AC in the back.
I’m listening to both closely when my boss's low crispy voice joins the melody.
“Chase, Chase, Chase…”
Billy Johnson is pissed.
I hadn’t shown up for my shift yesterday, and I had received my final warning a handful of warnings ago.
I don’t look at him. I grin smugly, then parrot, “Billy, Billy, Billy…” Stopping at the fridges in the back with a squeak from my shoes, I snatch two cold cans of Red Bull, followed by a couple of bags of Doritos on my way to the counter.
I throw the shit down, along with a pack of chewing gum. But Billy doesn’t ring me up. He places both wrinkly palms flush in front of him, on top of the scribbled on and messy counter, and stares directly at me.
And I do nothing but grin wider. “What?” I try not to laugh when I watch his shoulders deflate, the breath in his lungs whooshing out of him.
“Oh, fuck,” I say, snatching up the gum I’d just placed on the counter and quickly unwrapping it. I extend the open pack toward him, holding the neck of my T-shirt over my nose. “Take one, you stinky?—”
He scoffs. “I’m not trying to impress anyone.”
“Yeah, well, you are definitely trying to kill ‘em. Take it,” I counter.
He huffs, unwrapping a stick.
Billy is in his late sixties, or maybe seventies, I don’t know, all I do know is that he’s a cranky old fuck and probably more forgiving toward me than he should be.
He chews on the gum, reaching to his side, returning to face me with the corded phone pushed to the side of his head.
“Ever heard of makin’ a phone call?” he asks, his dark, bushy and unruly eyebrows raising to his unfortunate receding hairline.
I slide my cell phone out of my front pocket and hold the black screen toward him.
“Dead, sorry, old man.”
