Nash
When I was young, my father wore a Bulls ball cap. It was red and black and had Jordan’s number twenty-three taking up much of the right side. He’d won it from a work raffle. Five bucks for a Bulls swag pack and a chance at airfare and two tickets to the Bulls/Celtics game that season. He’d spent twenty bucks that day; five on the ticket and fifteen on a case of Bud he’d polished off before his lunch break ended.
I only remembered that because he’d been fired for drinking the Bud and my mother threw the cap out the second-floor window when he came home that night. I’d found it the next morning on my way to the bus stop, stepping over my father, who’d passed out on the front porch and stayed there the whole night.
That morning, I’d looked down at him, face pale and hollow, lips chapped and white and realized for the first time in my brief nine years, that my father was a loser. He wasn’t the cut-up he pretended to be when he and Mom drank during the Falcons games, laughing and teasing each other when the dirty birds won. He wasn’t the guy that would stay sober for a couple of weeks, meeting me and Nat at the bus stop, fixing our dinners when Mom worked late or took a night class. He was the guy who’d passed out on the porch with a brand-new Bulls cap twenty feet away from him near the garbage can. He was the asshole who made my mother cry when she thought we were asleep.
More than anything, I was petrified of turning into him.
It was the main reason I’d kept to myself, had stayed clear of any drama that might contribute in any way in making me more like my father.
“You gonna sleep all day?” Nat called, pulling me from my thoughts and what remained of my sleep and damn Sookie and her drama that locked me down each night. There had been the boy again, Dempsey, and the asshole who’d tried attacking her. It felt like metal had lodged itself in my chest when I thought of that little girl—something about her made me rage with anger, something made me sick with guilt. I couldn’t place her, couldn’t do more than blink away her face, the fear she’d felt and the sweetness, how that boy had made her feel when he… I was losing it. I was losing my damn mind.
The scent of bacon and pancakes hung in the air, making my mouth water and I got up from the sofa, a little disoriented by the thick blanket on the floor and the pillow on the other end of the room.
“Bad dream last night?” Nat asked, pouring a mug of coffee for me as I flopped onto the stool in front of the island. I shrugged and my sister shook her head. “You were fussing all night. Woke me up twice.”
She’d had brought dark roast with her, and the smell, the taste, reminded me of milk coffee my mom let me make when I was ten and wanted to drink with her before she left for work. It made me feel grown to watch her move around the kitchen, getting ready, packing her lunch and complaining about all the things she’d never finish up before she had to leave for her office. Now that coffee was an elixir I needed it to be more human and damn sure more awake.
“You wanna talk about the dream?” Nat leaned on the island, pushed a plate in front of me and I dove in, shaking my head as I shoveled a forkful of pancake in my mouth so I couldn’t talk. “You’re such an ass sometimes, Nash.” I looked up at her, eyes squinting to glare at her, but she only smiled back, laughing at me because she knew I was aware I could never get her to back off with some punk ass frown. “Boy please. Put away the grump face and tell me about the dream.”
I swallowed, grabbing a paper towel from the roll to clean the syrup from my face. “Nothing to tell really. It’s stress. I’m under a deadline and distracted. That’s all it is.”
“Didn’t sound like…”
“Jesus, Nat, I’m fine.” I didn’t mean to snap at her, or make her my voice go all loud and bitchy. By the rigid lines along her mouth I got the feeling Natalie didn’t appreciate my tone no matter if I meant it or not. “I’m sorry…it’s just, that girl?”
“The one you wanted to make jealous?” She smiled when I shook my head. “What about her?”
“She’s…the distraction and it’s messing with me bad. It’s a damn fog I can’t clear away.”
Nat polished off her coffee staring out the stretch of windows to my right, her long red nails tapping against the handle. It took her a minute to gather her thoughts, form an opinion about how much of a mess I was at the moment, but then she rinsed her cup and leaned against the sink, watching me eat, staring hard as though she needed to consider her words carefully before dishing them out.
“Maybe that’s what you need, Nash.”
“A distraction?”
Natalie shook her head, resting on her palms in front of me. “This girl. From the way your eyes go all bright and round when you talk about her, and how you looked at her last night, how hurt she seemed when she saw me, I don’t think she’s the fog.”
“What the hell else could she be?”
Nat’s smile came back just then, and it loosened the tension that had set up inside my shoulders and chest since I saw Willow with that guy the night before. It was kind of uncanny how she could do that for me, but I loved her for it. “Girl like that, she isn’t anyone’s fog, Nash. She’s the light that clears all the bad away. You might want to admit that before she realizes what a mess you are.”
Twice in two days I’d gotten the advice to pull my head out of my ass. Roan spoke it because he was old and thought he knew best. Nat did it because she thought I’d never realize what was in front of me without a little push. I didn’t even want to stop to think if they were right or not.
It was both their voices I tried to block out as I got dressed that morning, as Nat went on and on about me coming to visit her out in Cali, though I knew she only asked because she wanted to “accidentally” run into our father while I was in town. I wasn’t an idiot.
“Maybe next year, when things are a little more settled with my company,” I’d told her, holding open the door for her as we left the lobby.
“You said that last year. And six months before that. It’s been almost two years since you came to visit me. That’s three times now I’ve flown out here to see you, little brother.”
“You said you only came to town to check out a new designer. Don’t play like you came here just to see me.” But that frown was tight and the glare was lethal. Nat might have added me to her itinerary but I was not afterthought. “Sorry.”
It really had been that long, though I would have sworn she was wrong. Stuff gets messed up in life, promises are made, then broken, intention paves every path you make, even the one that leads to hell. I’d spent so much time focusing on my own stuff that I forgot there were people who needed me. People like Nat who lived on her own in California. People like Roan who pretended he didn’t need anything but a good book, his birds and a windless day. No matter what I’d tried to make of my life, no matter how many times I promised myself I didn’t need anyone, I forgot that people still needed me.
“Hell, Nat, I’m sorry. Really.” She lost the small wounded look on her face and her expression softened, head tilting as she watched me. “I honestly don’t think…I mean, the business and investors, God I’ve been working so hard on getting ready for this meeting next week that I forget to eat or sleep or even check up on you.” She smiled then, waving her hand to hail a cab as I shook my head. “I got to be the worst damn brother in the world.”
“Nah,” she said pulling her bag up on her shoulder. “Just sometimes remember the world doesn’t need conquering. Plenty of fools have tried and failed at that.” Nat’s eyebrows went up and she looked over my shoulder, smile lethal now. “And try to remember that even if you manage to rule the world, the view from the top is a little boring when you’re sitting up there all alone.”
“Sis…”
“You think, maybe, when you’re ready, when you come to see me that you’d be up for seeing…”
“No.” I hated to have my sister leave with my frown and that sharp bite in my voice, but there are some things you can’t squash so easy. Natalie shook her head, like she was amazed by me and how tight my grip was on the past, how close I kept my anger. But sometimes, hating my father was the only thing that kept me warm at night. “I’m sorry. You…you know I got you, no matter what. But this, Natalie? I just…I can’t…”
“I know,” she said, stopping me to pull me close and hug me. “I know. Just, instead of ‘no’, say ‘not yet’, okay? For me.”
She held me a little, right there out on the sidewalk and for the first time in weeks, my entire body relaxed. I hadn’t felt that since the night in my apartment when Willow worked her wild juju on me. My sister pulled away, touching my cheek and pushed the smile back on her face. “I’ll see you, Nash.” She kissed me then, pulling me into another hug that threatened to break my bones before I opened the cab door for her and she was off, back to her life away from me.
It was only when I turned around to head toward the station that I noticed Willow on her cell, glancing away from me, then back up again. I wanted to stop her before she walked off. I wanted to tell her I was sorry for being a punk, for trying to make her jealous. I thought about just grabbing her and kissing her and doing my best to forget all those walls I’d built to keep from failing myself or anyone else that came along.
Willow’s face was drawn, her skin paler than it had been last night. She carried a white box under her arm, more magical cupcakes I guessed, and from the way her hair fell more tousled than normal, I guessed she’d spent the night in her kitchen baking, because it helped when she was restless, because it distracted her from the things she didn’t want to face. Same as me, Willow deflected.
She still had no clue that Natalie was my sister, and now she had just seen me say goodbye the “morning after”...
I wondered just then if Willow would talk to me, or if I’d messed things up with my childish jealousy so bad that she wouldn't have anything to do with me again, and I would have messed up any chance I had with her, whether I wanted it or not.
But before I could make a move, Willow’s phone rang, and she looked down at it, turning away from me, disappearing out down the street before I made it to the front entrance, and something knotted deep inside my chest, something I didn’t think I could loosen on my own. Something I knew I’d put there by being a coward.