Breaking Her Bad by Michelle Mankin
Kyle
Same old shit, only sadder.
From the corner of the apartment’s living room, I surveyed my sad realm. Crystal lay naked on the coffee table, a couple of guys snorting a new shipment of blow off her tits. It was late, well after midnight. But they hadn’t started playing with her like she was a blowup doll.
Yet.
Over in the dining room, glassy-eyed rich chicks with their designer tops thrown over chairs made out with guys from their social stratosphere they deemed worthy. Elsewhere, jocks were with jocks, cheerleaders with athletes, popular girls with student-council leaders. Even high, everyone had their pathetic standards. No one overreached.
Except me.
But that was then. This was now, a night just like every other. It shouldn’t bother me any more than it usually did, but it did. It wasn’t the shit hole or the people inside it who were different. It was me.
Don’t think about Claire.
My lungs seizing though my ribs were healed, I forced myself to take in air. I only lacked rehab to regain full strength in my leg. But I still hurt. I resigned myself to always hurting when I thought of her.
Burying that pain, I crossed my arms over my chest and turned my attention to those in the kitchen. The large group packed into it had a game going on, mixing booze and pills. Through the open shutters on the pass-through, I could watch them.
From my corner, I could see most of the staircase and downstairs. I needed to see it. Jocks and nerds, losers and thieves, every single person there—including me—rushed at reckless speed toward an unavoidable dead-end barrier. The collision was inevitable, but I felt like it was my responsibility to diminish the damage the best I could. I bore that responsibility alone. I had no protection for myself.
Randy Rhodes, former linebacker and my bodyguard-in-training, was upstairs. He stood watch in front of the master bedroom. My uncle was inside it with Missy. With the condo in Renton sold, Bob and I lived here now.
As much as I could, I tried to prevent this life from touching Bob, while pretending I didn’t feel more trapped than ever in my role, that my leg didn’t hurt from standing all night, and that I wasn’t fucking depressed by the prospect of doing this shit again, over and over, night after night.
Gary stopped beside me after slipping through the throng gathered around Crystal. “Hey, Kyle.”
“Hey.” I lifted my chin, making eye contact with my number two. “Thanks for holding things together while I was recovering.”
“You’re welcome.” His gaze drifted from mine as Crystal let out a fake moan, and he stared raptly. After a notably long moment, he lifted his head and brought his Solo cup to his mouth and chugged from it. Apparently, his throat was dry.
“You okay?” I asked, my brows raised.
“Yeah, huh.” He nodded. “Boss man called.”
“Yeah?” My gut clenched. Since my ass-kicking, Martin kept even closer tabs on me than before. “What’d he want?”
“Take numbers.”
“They’re good.” I’d counted the cash myself before sending runners out.
“Yeah. But he had a bunch of questions.” Gary dug a finger into the collar of his T-shirt that was already stretched out from him repeatedly doing that.
“Questions about what?”
He licked his lips before replying. “He asked if you’ve been acting differently. And if you go anywhere without telling anybody.”
Shit.Martin didn’t trust me. “What’d you tell him?”
Gary grinned. “I told him you’re the same old Kyle. Up to the same old shit.”
“Good.” I nodded, and my tension eased a little.
Gary remained reliable and loyal. Like everything else in Southside except me, he was unchanged.
“No problem, man.” He gave me a furtive look. “But is everything really okay with you?”
“Yeah,” I lied. I just needed more time. With more time, I should be able to sell that lie more convincingly.
Gary gave me a longer look. “If you say so.”
Before I could dredge up the motivation to redirect him to another topic, movement by the stairs drew my eye.
“Kyle.” Randy beckoned me. “I need you to come upstairs.”
“Gotta go,” I told Gary. “Watch things down here. Okay?”
“You got it.” Gary stepped into my corner as I exited.
Stiff from standing in one place so long, I moved awkwardly to the stairs. One of my goals with rehab was to get rid of that stiffness. Grabbing the rusted handrail, I leaned on it and slowly climbed, weaving my way through the blitzed-out heroin junkies slumped here and there on the steps.
Upstairs, Randy moved down the hallway faster than me. At the end of the hall, he stopped and knocked on the door. Missy Rivera opened it.
“Come in,” she said.
“Stay out here,” I told Randy as I reached him.
“Roger that.” Randy crossed his arms over his chest, resuming guard duty.
Entering the room, I shut the door after me. I glanced around, my panic from the summons receding. There didn’t appear to be any emergency. The secondhand furniture was undisturbed. My uncle remained on the bed that had a new mattress and linens for it that I’d purchased before we moved in.
“I don’t like it here,” Uncle Bob complained, not for the first time, and I didn’t blame him.
“I don’t either.”
“Then why do we stay?” Bob asked, leaning against the headboard, and his gray eyes narrowed. They were the same color as mine, only his slanted upward. “I want to go back to Renton. I miss the park with the birds, and my old room. I don’t like sharing this one with you. It smells bad.”
He tucked his short neck into his shoulders like a frightened turtle. His protruding tongue emerged as a male grunt and a loud orgasmic female moan broke out from the smaller bedroom next door.
“I’m sorry, Bob.” I moved closer and sat on the end of the bed. “I don’t like it here either, but I don’t have the money to pay for another place right now.”
This was the only arrangement I could afford where I could work and keep an eye on Bob at the same time. It had taken six weeks to get my leg cast off. Six weeks of zero income. To afford the ridiculous rent Martin was charging me for the master bedroom in this shit hole, I was working double time.
For the foreseeable future, I would be paying and then some for my misstep with Martin. But I would be suffering for it in ways no one else but me could know much longer.
I missed Claire, and I missed who I could be with her. I didn’t just leave her. I’d left a part of me behind—the better part.
I rubbed my chest, trying to alleviate the ache that remained from splintering my heart. It was a useless endeavor. Nothing eased the pain. Not when I saw her in my mind and felt the shape of her in my hands. Just thinking about her, I broke into a cold sweat. Longing swept through me.
She’s not yours. She was never mine to keep.
I repeated the phrases that kept me from going back to see her just one more time. Losing her messed me up more badly than what Strader’s guys did.
“We would have more money if we lived in Renton.” Bob scrubbed his flat face with his undersized hand.
My father’s older brother had been born with an extra chromosome, and had physical deformities and intellectual challenges because of it. When he was irritated like now, his misshapen ears twitched.
“We can’t live in Renton anymore,” I told him again, carefully placing my memories of Claire back inside the watertight box in my mind. “We can’t afford it. We’re out of money.”
While recuperating, I’d done some clever accounting to make ends meet. I’d explained the direness of our situation multiple times to Bob since we’d moved to Southside. But one of the unfortunate side effects of his Down syndrome was a limited ability to retain information.
“I made good money as a garbage collector.” Bob’s bottom lip jutted out. “I liked my job. I worked hard. They liked me there.”
“I know, bud.”
I felt terrible again that we had to move, and Bob lost his job. He didn’t mind hard physical labor or the stench of rotting garbage. He liked being productive and appreciated.
I envied him that. I’d been working for Martin Skellin since my parents died in order to support Bob and myself. I was good at my job. I worked hard and was productive, but it wasn’t honest work. Martin threatened me all the time, and he certainly never appreciated me.
“This room is small.” Bob scrunched his nose. “I don’t like it when you’re gone.”
“You like watching your shows on your laptop.” I gestured to his computer. It was paused on a National Geographic episode on raptors of the Pacific Northwest.
“She doesn’t like me.” He glared at Missy, who stood by him.
“That’s not true.” Missy shook her head, and her long, inky-black hair swayed. “I like you, Bob. We have fun together while your nephew works.”
Her ice-blue gaze turned to me, and I exhaled heavily.
I didn’t like her knowing about Bob. It wasn’t safe for anyone to know what Bob meant to me, or that he wasn’t qualified to be my guardian except that Skellin had pulled strings. Bob was a secret that I kept out of necessity. But with him here, it was difficult to keep my secret anymore. Even with Missy’s help.
“It’s loud.” Uncle Bob frowned as bass from the sound system downstairs rattled the walls upstairs.
“Put your headphones on.” Rising, I took them out of the nightstand drawer and handed them to him.
“Thank you.” He gave me a grateful look.
“You’re welcome, Uncle Bob.” I was a sucker for that look.
“I love you, Kyle. You’re the best.” Giving me his usual heartfelt smile, he took my hand. “I know your leg still hurts, and I’m sorry. I don’t want to be trouble for you.”
The splintered socket where my heart should be flushed with warmth.
Bob cares about me. His care, his approval is all I need. I repeated those words to myself constantly, wanting to make them true.
“You’re no trouble,” I told Bob. “You’re my uncle and my friend. I love you.”
I hugged him, and he returned my hug.
Pressure built behind my eyes, emotional shit I couldn’t afford, but I lived for moments like these with him. They were the good I had. The only good I was allowed. Bob made my life worth living. I would do anything for him, anything to protect him. The tough part now that he was in Southside would be keeping those who wanted to hurt me from knowing how much he meant to me.
In the past, I’d managed to keep him secret by having two separate lives. But that was over now, and if anyone cared to dig, they would uncover that I had more than one vulnerability now.
But at least Claire was safe where she was. Safe away from me. Safe in Lakeside where she belonged.