“Fiasco The Potato,” Liam answers deadpan, no hesitation. No regrets.
I blink, staring up at him. “What?”
His expression doesn’t change.
“You called your dog Fiasco The Potato?” The laugh that threatens to burst out catches in my throat, coming out as a disbelieving choke when I notice he’s dead serious.
“What’s the problem, Sara?” His tone is flat, like he honestly doesn’t get it.
“I just… I didn’t think you had even an ounce of humor. Or…” My voice wavers as my own words hit me harder than I mean them to. “Endearment. In you.” I eye him up and down. Something flickers behind his eyes. Amusement? It’s too fast to catch.
“Sara, there’s plenty you don’t know about me. Don’t confuse the fact that I don’t like you with the idea that I’m not capable of… anything else.”
I look back down at the puppy, needing the softness, needing anything but his eyes on me. “Fiasco,” I whisper with a small, broken giggle.
Finally, he turns away. “Fine.” A decision snapping shut. “You can stay in Joe’s room… for one night. Then you’re gone. I don’t need to show you around, do I, Sara?” he asks in a mocking voice, stopping midway to look over his shoulder.
My heart stutters, relief flooding through the cracks of terror. “No, that won’t be necessary.”
He nods and disappears into the house, leaving me crouched on the floor with Fiasco. I press my face into his fur, there’s something so healing about animals, and Fiasco looks at me like he knows I need a friend.
Sixteen
Sara
Every creak of my footsteps on the floor echoes with a trail of judgement as I follow the familiar path to Joe’s room. I step into the soft, sunlit room, and everything smells like Joe. The room holds him as if he’s stepped out for a moment and will return any second to take a nap or offer some popcorn and watch a movie. Impermanence is so, so cruel.
Fiasco now struggles in my arms, so I set him on the mattress, where he promptly circles Joe’s pillow and collapses, sighing with the relief of something like finding home.
I drop onto the end of the bed and sit, the weight of the pain too heavy to hold on to. I pull my knees to my chest and try to picture him, his faint cologne invading my senses while I conjure the version of Joe that belongs only to me. I can almost feel his arms, the scratch of his jaw against my neck, the infuriating way he blows air into my ear just to make me laugh. He would hate this. He would curl his body around mine until the sadness drained out of me, until the pain lessened. I put my face in my hands and let myself break, until the light shifts from gold to blue, until I eventually drift to sleep.
When I wake, it’s dark with a few shadows across the wall from the blazing moon. I roll off the bed and manage to stand, legs trembling and my hands aching from blisters, but the room tilts when I try to walk. I feel so disoriented from crying for too long and clumsily jab my foot onto something.
Hard.
I yelp, hop, and look down.
A sharp edge protrudes from under the bed, and I crouch as my fingers land on a black leather briefcase. When I tug it out, I hesitate and my breath slows, every sense narrowing, thinking that perhaps I wasn’t supposed to find this.
I sit back on the floor and flick the latches open. Inside is money—stacks and stacks of it, the kind I’ve seen in movies. I blink, convinced I’m hallucinating.
I rattle the cash, and underneath are poker chips. I stare at all of it, dumbfounded. This is too much in one day; one brother is a cold-blooded killer and the other… a gambler? Does Liam know about this? Joe has mentioned nothing about poker games…
Have I loved a liar, a thief, or something worse? What kind of life pushes two brothers to shape their existence into something as deceiving as it is dangerous, especially in a world already drowning in suffering? Yet I can't shake the thought thatperhaps they've simply survived in a world that has made them suffer too much.
My hands shake so hard I drop the briefcase, the chips dispersing on the floor like a roulette ball. No, no, no.
I rush to put everything back in the briefcase with my already painful hands. I squeeze my eyes against the immediate, aggressive images of today catapulting me; the man bleeding out, running away from Liam, the abandoned house, the fear… oh, God, the fear I felt…
My breath comes shallow, sharp, too quick. I claw at my throat, sure I’m choking.
The walls are closing in more and more, and the pressure in my head builds until I think I’ll pass out. The puppy yaps, but it all sounds so far away. I try to compose myself, but my hands feel clammy, and that alone gives me a rush of anxiety, convincing me I’m losing control, and the haunting, weightless feeling of my body slipping away overpowers my senses and terrifies me.
I’m not dying, I’m not dying.
I try to lie down, but I’m having a panic attack. I feel like I’m going to sink myself into the mattress and never come out of its claws.
I have sworn I’d never do this again.
