Chapter Four
729 Words
I opened my eyes at the sound of grass crunching.
When I looked up, Cross stood over me, but he wasn’t watching me. He was looking at the reason I’d come out here.
He sighed, sitting next to me. “How’d I know you’d be here tonight?”
“You tracked my phone?” I sat up and grinned at him.
He chuckled, reaching for the whiskey in my hand. The cap was already off, and he took a drink, hissing through his teeth. “Fuck.” He handed it back. “Why do you drink that s**t?”
I smirked, taking a drink. Unlike him, I enjoyed the burn. “Why do you?”
“Because you do.”
He said that like it made the most sense in the world.
I laughed, taking another drink before lifting my head. Below us, at the bottom of the hill and across the street, was my old home. I had no idea what time it was, but it was after dark and the house had been silent since I got to my spot. I hadn’t expected otherwise.
I didn’t know the people living there. They were new to Roussou, but I knew they were a young couple, maybe in their thirties, and they’d moved into my house when the bank sold it again. They had little kids, and they’d left some of the toys on the front lawn. I wanted to go down and put the toys away, place them on the porch and inside the toy chest there, but that was a bad idea. Talk about stalking. That was a line I couldn’t cross, not yet anyway. Right now I just came to watch my old home.
“How was the party?” I asked.
Cross shrugged, hanging his arms over his knees with his hands looped together. “It was okay.” He gave me a half-grin. “I’d rather hang, looking at your old house instead.”
“That’s total bullshit, and you know it.” I handed him the whiskey.
He took it.
“You and Monica break up again?” She was his on-again, off-again girlfriend, but I knew they’d gotten back together on Friday. Seemed right they’d break up tonight, just in time for school to start tomorrow. The relationship was really one-sided anyway. Cross tended to sleep with whoever he wanted, though not a lot of girls talked about their time with him. Cross liked his secrecy, and I was one of the few privy to his freewheeling whoredom. Monica was the other. Cross had never kept it secret that if she wanted exclusive and steady, she needed to go somewhere else.
And how I knew so much about Cross’ s*x life was lost on me. We never seemed to talk about it.
He shrugged again, reaching for the whiskey and taking another drink. A second hiss, and he returned the bottle.
I took it, throwing my head back for a shot.
Goddamn.
The burn was still there. Good. It hadn’t dulled yet.
“Bren.”
I tensed, hearing the question in his tone. I heard reluctance too. Neither of us wanted to go where he was going with his next question.
“Why do you come here all the time?”
It wasn’t all the time. Maybe two out of seven nights.
I focused on the whiskey. “You know why.”
“No, I don’t.” He turned to watch me.
I hated when he did that. It was like I’d let part of the wall slip and he could read me.
I took two shots of whiskey this time. “I don’t know.”
I did, though.
I came to look for her, to see if she was moving around inside that house. I wanted a glimpse of her, even though I knew she was dead, even though I knew I was looking for a ghost. I still came.
I wanted to see her one last time.
“You’re not supposed to lie to me.”
I heard his disappointment and breathed in.
I let the air circulate through my lungs and then back out. One steady breath. Then I murmured, “You know why I come.”
“For your mom?”
I frowned. Why did he have to say it? I didn’t want to hear it. I just wanted to feel it.
I nodded.
“I figured.” He took the whiskey from me again, drank, and handed it back. “I wanted you to say it. Just once.”
My throat burned, but not from the alcohol. I wiped at the corner of my eye. “So, the party sucked then?”
“Yeah.”
A small grin tugged at my lips. “Now who’s the liar?”
He laughed and reached for the whiskey again. “Yeah. Maybe. Still rather be with you.”
I nodded.
I was glad.
- Writer
