Hendrix
“Kellen!” Dominic yells as we enter his house. “I think she headed to your house to hang with Holiday.”
Dominic pops his head into the living room, bathroom, their Dad’s bedroom and then when confirming we’re alone, the two of us climb the rotting and aging stairs to the attic Kellen and Dominic share.
The house is hazmat clear, meaning their Dad is gone. Dominic carries too many physical and emotional scars from a man who is supposed to love and care for him. Hopefully the son of a bitch won’t return for a few hours because he could never keep his mouth shut around me, and I could never keep my mouth shut around him. There aren’t enough years in the forest that can heal me of that illness.
Once upstairs, the heat trapped by the roof causes my clothes to stick to my skin. Dominic kicks the small trunk that has held his belongings since we were kids in my direction. “Open it.”
I drop onto the thin twin mattress that serves as Kellen’s bed, and Dominic sits his ass down to floor level onto his mattress that doesn’t have a box spring or a frame. Resting my arms on my bent knees, I clasp my hands together because I don’t want to open this box. If Dominic didn’t do the crime, I have a sick feeling of where this is headed, and suddenly the truth doesn’t seem so important.
“I’m not talking until you open the box, and you’re not leaving until I talk.”
Because Dominic is stubborn, I undo the combination lock, flip the top back, and, after moving around the crap on top, I rake a hand through my hair. The gun Dominic bought on the street a few weeks before I was arrested is there, and so is a stack of cash.
“It’s only half the money. Kellen said she dropped the other half. Far as I’m concerned, it’s yours. It’s been tainted with the blood you bled this past year taking the fall,” Dominic says. “So tell me, what do you think the police do with guns they confiscate from crimes?”
Hell if I know, but that’s not what Dominic is really talking about. It’s a reference to the fact that the gun used in the crime was found next to my passed-out body, and last I heard that gun was still in police possession. Dominic still has his gun which means he didn’t do it, and he just basically said Kellen did the crime—damn. “Kellen did it?”
“Kellen did it.” Silence as we stare at each other until he finally looks away. “Look, I’m capable of stupidity so I don’t blame you for wondering if I could have pulled something that insane off, especially at the time, but how could you think I would let you go down for something I did? You’re my brother, and I don’t treat my family like crap.”
I drop the top of the chest into place and meet his pissed-off glare. “You want to go there?”
“I’ve been there, and I’ve been waiting for you to finally arrive.”
“You and I got drunk that night.” I spell out the play-by-play. “We smoked up until I couldn’t remember our names, and then you start pulling that dare nonsense. If I remember correctly, when I said no, you told me if I didn’t play along it’s because I sold you out for the band. You said if I didn’t shoplift, I was more concerned about myself, and not you.”
“I never said I wasn’t a jealous asshole.” Direct and brutally honest. Dominic and Elle would get along...either that, or hate each other.
“Jealous asshole or not,” he continues, “I would have never let you go down for a crime I committed. And if I had known in time, I would have never let you go down for Kellen either.”
I roll my neck, then lower my head as if that could help with the weight pressing down on me. “I would have never let you do that.”
“She’s my sister. My responsibility. It wasn’t on you to take that fall.”
I raise my head and see the truth tattooed on his expression, but there’s no point arguing. “It doesn’t make sense. They told me the guy who did the crime was the same height and same build as me. Kellen’s tall, but there’s no way you could mistake her for me.”
“Did you see the footage?”
I shake my head. The police only showed me a still frame, blurry image of the shirt—the type of shirt Dominic used to wear. When they described the person they had on video, I knew in that moment, or at least I thought I knew, it was Dominic. They found that shirt next to me, along with the gun. “It was your T-shirt.”
“The same one I bought at the dollar store? The same one they had a hundred of? They railroaded you into that plea deal, brother.”
Yeah, they did, but I still would have pleaded guilty for Kellen, and as much as I hate to admit it... “Accepting the plea deal was my best option. That public defender got my last name and case information wrong every time he walked in my room. My fate was in the hands of a man who couldn’t remember what I was being arrested for. I was screwed from the start.”
Axle had asked for another public defender, but all public defenders were overloaded with cases, and the lawyer I had was actually giving me more time than he did with his other juvenile cases. He wasn’t a bad guy—just underpaid and overwhelmed. As someone told me in juvenile detention, public defenders have so many cases that they “meet ’em, then plead ’em.”
“Why did you leave me behind?” I push. “When I passed out behind the convenience store—why did you leave me?”
“Honest to God, Drix, I thought you went home. I knew you were mad at me for daring you to shoplift, and when you staggered through the alley and made the turn for the store, I was pissed at myself for daring you. I did go after you. I checked the store, the parking lot and the alley, but I obviously didn’t check hard enough. I thought you abandoned me, so I went home.”
The two of us both screwed up, and it’s time to let that part of that wretched night go.
“Why did Kellen do it?”
Dominic rubs his hands together. “It’s my fault. Things with Dad were bad. Worse than normal. It was getting harder to keep Dad’s fists on me and not her. When I got home that night, Dad got me good. Cracked me in the back of the head hard enough to draw blood.” Dominic angles his head and the scar resembles grated skin.
I swear under my breath, and blackness tightens my muscles.
“I have to admit, I saw stars. I thought the bastard finally won and had killed me. Kellen dragged me up here, and she was a mess. Choking on her own tears. Pacing the floor. The kid was losing it, and I was in and out of consciousness. To calm her down, I lied. I told her I was going to get another job, save money, and when I had enough, we’d leave.
“She was scared. She knew there’s no way I could make that much money when I could barely afford to take care of the two of us. I passed out, Kellen stole Dad’s gun and went shopping for cash in an effort to speed up the imaginary timeline to get us out. You know me, Drix, I’m a disaster, but even I know not to steal from Dad. If you’re interested, I got a nice burn mark on my back for the missing gun. I considered shooting Dad in the head when he gave me the burn.” The frightening smirk on his face makes him look possessed. “But I obviously changed my mind. Two of us in jail didn’t seem smart.”
“You should have told me things were getting worse with your dad.”
“When?” Dominic’s eyes widen in a challenge. “When you were on the road playing in a band with your new best friends? How about the few times you came home and only cared about getting laid and getting high?”
I pop my neck to the side and hope to God Dominic can grant me forgiveness. I stare at him. He stares at me. He screwed me over that night, but I also screwed myself and let down my best friend. “Never said I wasn’t an asshole either.”
The right side of Dominic’s mouth turns up. “I guess that’s why we’re friends.”
Guess it is.
“I know you thought I did it,” he says, “and I know you thought you were saving me from hell in a small room. If thinking that kept you strong behind bars, I wasn’t going to take that from you.”
Dominic’s right. Though I had anger, on the nights I thought I was going to lose my own mind, I thought about what being behind those walls would have done to my best friend, and it gave me the courage to keep myself from fracturing.
“How’s Kellen?”
That weight I’m carrying appears heavier on him. “Messed up. Lost it for a bit after she found out you confessed to the crime. Cried all the damn time and that set Dad off. Kellen wanted to tell the police, get you out of jail, but I wouldn’t let her. You want to be pissed at me on that, I deserve it, but it’s Kellen. I couldn’t do that to her. You want to be pissed at me for not taking the fall for my own sister even after you took the deal, I deserve that, too.”
Dominic touches a faint scar on his wrist. That scar haunts me, and I don’t think there’s a day it won’t. “For months, I considered confessing, but I couldn’t leave Kellen alone with Dad, and then when I thought about being locked in a room...” He meets my eyes, and I see the same terror as when the doors are shut and the windows are closed. “I couldn’t.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” Kellen doesn’t have claustrophobia, but she wouldn’t have survived this house without her brother. She’s fragile to begin with. Juvenile detention would have done her in, and Dominic would have died. If not his body, then what was left of his soul.
“Kellen feels guilty, brother, and the longer you’re mad at me, the worse it’s getting. Life has got to get back to normal, or the kid is going to break. I can’t let that happen.” The desperation in his voice picks at barely healed scabs.
“Why not tell me all this when I got home?”
He works his jaw. A signal he’s weighing his words. “I was waiting.”
“For?”
“To see if you were the same asshole who left here a year ago or if I was getting my best friend back.” Dominic stands, relocks the trunk, shoves it in a corner and hides it under a blanket. “I knew immediately we didn’t get the asshole back, but you didn’t come back the guy I claimed as my best friend either. It took me a while to figure out who you are. I needed to make sure if I told you the truth, your focus would be on helping Kellen.”
It’s scary to hear him verbalize my fear: the terror of not knowing who I’ve become. “Who am I if I’m not who I used to be?”
His forehead furrows like the question surprises him. “You’re better.”
Better. While the word creates a sense of relief, it also feels a lot like the suits—makes me feel like I’m wearing a sign that points out I’m a fraud. “How do I help Kellen?”
“I promised her I wouldn’t tell. She’s not me and you. We can handle pressure. If she’s aware someone else knows what she did, she’ll crack. She needs her family back and acting normal again. Holiday and Axle do, too. We’re all on eggshells wondering if the changes we’re seeing are real or if you’re going to change your mind and go back down that dark road.”
No more dark roads. Not for me. “I’m in this.”
Dominic studies me, then nods. “Good. So you know, I’m clean more times than not. I won’t claim I’m sober, but I won’t do anything to ruin what you’ve fixed in your life.”
The drinking, the drugs... I don’t miss it. I didn’t have the same type of withdrawal other people in detention had, didn’t have an itch under my bones for a hit of any kind after I was clean. I met guys whose bodies and minds belonged to a substance other than themselves long after the drug was physically out of their systems.
But I liked the high. I liked feeling lost. I liked not feeling like me. While high, there were no emotions and no thought. While high, my life fell apart. There are no more highs for me.
Dominic leans back against the wall. “Why aren’t you playing the drums?”
“Not going there.”
“Me, you, Axle, Kellen and this Marcus kid could make money, but we need a drummer. Hell, Holiday would be a huge draw with her voice if Axle would let her onstage.”
I breathe deeply, doing what the therapist told me to do when anger creeps into my blood one drop at a time. He taught me if breathing didn’t work, to remove myself from the situation, so I scoot to the edge of the bed ready to bolt. “I can’t do it.”
“Why?”
Another breath. “Because you’re not the only one scared I’ll go down that dark road. I know the drums aren’t to blame, but I don’t trust myself. I felt high behind the drums, and I’m scared to let myself feel that high again.”
“Playing the drums is a part of you. A good part of you.”
“Next subject.”
“Drix—”
“I said next subject.” The words come out harsh, and I give him a warning glare.
Dominic only shrugs his shoulders like the ominous turn was comparable to an annoying fly. “Tell me about the girl.”
Not a better change of subject. “There’s nothing to tell. She’s the governor’s daughter.”
“We’ve been friends since we learned to piss in a toilet, and I’ve never known you to fall for a girl. There’s plenty to tell. Consider telling me about this girl as your first step in making us a family again.”