“I want to read it myself. I want to read what she wrote aboutmewith my own two eyes." I swear, he sounds like a twelve-year-old boy having a tantrum because the ice-creamery ran out of sprinkles.
When he charges for me, I push him away, accidentally shoving him into the coffee table. Numerous empty bottles of bourbon join his ashtray on the floor when he lands on his backside with a thud. Even without a heart, my intuition remains spot on. He isn’t just hiding an addiction to marijuana from me; his drug usage goes way beyond an occasional joint.
"Fuck, Chris. What the fuck are you doing with your life?" I ask, stepping closer to him as my eyes absorb the numerous baggies filled with white powder, a burnt spoon, and a crack pipe.
I'm so torn. I feel bad for shoving him, but I'm so angry he is throwing his life away like this, I want to push him for the second time. Chris has always been a mischief maker. If there was trouble to be found, you could be sure he was first on scene. But this extends beyond recreational drug usage to forget a shit week. This isn't an addiction. It is a life sentence to a miserably bleak existence. I know this all too well, as it is the exact path my brother is traveling.
“Why are you doing this, Chris? I know you lost your brother. I know you’re hurting, but this shit won’t solve anything. You can’t bring Michael back. He is gone. He’s dead. He can’t come back from that. But you can, Chris. You can live a life worthy for you both.”
The anger in Chris’s eyes switches to panic when I grab the bags of powder from his coffee table and storm into his bathroom.
“No, Ryan. No!” he screams, following after me. His cries remind me of the ones he howled when I told him Michael had died.
“I won’t let you follow in your dad footsteps, Chris. You deserve more than the life of an addict.”
Using his thick, long arms, Chris wraps me up in a bear hug. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He isn’t holding me for comfort. He is using his body weight to stop me from flushing his drugs down the toilet. “My dad is a brilliant man. He had a great life.”
“Was a brilliant man, Chris.Was.Until alcohol took everything away from him. He killed your brother.Hedid that. Not your brother who asked for a ride. Not the driver of the van who was found not to be at fault.Hedid it! Your fatherkilled Michael.”
“No! No!” Chris shrieks on repeat.
I don’t know if his screams are because he doesn’t want to hear the truth, or because I’ve just flushed over six ounces of drugs down the toilet.
I realize it is the latter when he snarls, “Why the fuck would you do that, Ryan? What the hell is wrong with you? Do you have any idea how much that shit costs?”
He drops to his knees bowl-side, seeking any evidence of drugs in the circling water. The manic pulse of the vein in his neck grows when the cistern stops flushing, revealing not a single particle of white dust.
“That was my freedom! My way out! I don’t want to live like you, miserable and fucked up over a woman who left your sorry ass.”
Before I can stammer that being a drug addict isn’t living, Chris continues his obnoxious rant, “Savannah fucking left you, Ryan.Sheleftyou.How about you go deal with those facts before fucking with other people’s lives?”
"I'm fucking with your life?" I bang my fist on my chest, increasing the wild thump of my heart. "I saved your life!Me.I did that. Not that pathetic man sitting in jail for getting behind the wheel intoxicated with his four-year-old son in the back seat. Me!"
Chris rises from his crouched position and fists the scruff of my shirt before I complete an entire blink. His stability is so off-balance, we crash into the wall in the far right corner. My body doesn’t register the discomfort of the towel rack digging into my back; my brain is too busy processing the agony in his eyes to register something as weak as pain.
“Take it back,” Chris roars, his alcohol-laced breath hitting my face. “Take back every word you just said about my dad, or I’ll smash your teeth into next week.”
"No," I reply, shaking my head. "I'm sick of you defending people who don't deserve your sympathy. I get it, I do. I understand why you want to protect them, but there comes a point in your life where you have to realize some people aren't worth saving. Your dad isn't worth it, Chris, and neither is your mother. She is an abusive, manipulating, two-headed bitch who treats your brother like scum. And your father. . . your father. . . he's not even your fucking father."
The instant the words leave my mouth, I want to ram them back in there. I didn’t mean to say my last sentence. I was angry and upset and saying things I should never say. God, I hope Chris didn’t hear my last sentence. Please let this be one of the many times his addiction has him mistaking my words. I don’t want him to find out like this. He doesn’t deserve to find out like this. Not today. Not on the anniversary of his brother’s death.
My silent pleas go unanswered.
“Chris. . .” I barely whisper when he releases my collar from his fists.
“Chris,” I repeat when he turns on his heels and stalks to the other side of his living room.
"Chris?" I question in confusion when he snatches his keys from an entranceway table covered with empty beer cans and over-stacked ashtrays.
“Chris!” I shout when he charges out of his home like he has a missile strapped to his back.
When the loud growl of his engine rumbles through my heaving chest, I push off my feet. I make it into the passenger seat of his car by the skin of my teeth. His anger is so white hot, I doubt he knows I am sitting next to him. His focus remains on one thing and one thing only—seeking clarification to the secret I just exposed.
We travel across Ravenshoe at a record-setting pace. Remarkedly, Chris’s intoxication doesn’t hinder his driving ability. His skills are as hair-raising as ever.
Dust billows around us when he takes the dirt track of his parents’ property at the same speed he did the gravel road. We come to a stop mere inches from a side entrance hidden by large hedges. Chris's perfect parking is compliments of him yanking on the parking brake at the same time he spun the steering wheel.
"I didn't mean what I said. I was talking smack."
