Page 48 of Catcher

My mouth goes tight. “You turned it off,” I repeat, each word carefully. “You turn off my porch light. The one that’s there so I can see if someone’s on my porch. The one that makes it harder for someone to sneak up on my house. I’m a single woman who lives alone, Robby.”

I step to the side, reach for the doorknob without taking my eyes off him, and yank the door open. “Get out,” I order.

Robby stares at the open door and swallows. “Ruby, come on.” His voice drops. “Don’t do this. You don’t understand.”

“I understand enough,” I say calmly. My voice is steadier now, which surprises me. The fear is still there, but my resolve is louder and unwavering. “I understand you came here because you think I’ll be easier to manipulate than Mom and Dad. I understand you think you can scare me into helping you. And I understand that if I say yes tonight, you’ll be back tomorrow with another emergency and asking for another handout.”

His eyes harden again. “Right. Because you’re perfect.” He lets out a short, cruel laugh. “Miss Responsible. Miss, I’m perfect. Miss, I’m Mom and Dad’s favorite. You always act as though you’re better than me.”

The old wound in me that he keeps reopening since we were kids, throbs. I force myself not to react the way I used to, not to scramble for his approval or soften my voice so he won’t hate me. “I’m not better than you,” I say. “I’m just done. I’m done paying for your choices.”

Robby’s gaze slides past me toward the open door. “Fine,” he says, jaw clenched. “If you won’t help me, I’ll go to them.”

My anger intensifies. That’s the lever he always goes for when I won’t bend—Mom and Dad, guilt packaged as inevitability. I step forward, putting myself between him and the doorway. “No, you won’t,” I say with power. “You leave them out of this.” My voice shakes, but I don’t back down. “They have spent your whole life cleaning up after you,” I remind him. “They lose sleep, lose money, lose years off their lives worrying about where you are and what you’ve done. Dad doesn’t deserve another call in the middle of the night. Mom doesn’t deserve to have her own son steal from her. You don’t get to pull them into your mess because you can’t handle the consequences of it. It’s time for you to grow the hell up, Robby. Stop playing the victim… time to get your life together. And for God’s sake, stop blaming me for your shitty life. We had the same loving parents growing up and the same opportunities. It’s not my fault I took advantage of those opportunities, and you didn’t.”

Robby’s face flushes red with either anger or embarrassment for having the truth thrown in his face. But again, he ignores my words and instead resorts to his troubles, rather than owning up to his responsibility. “You think I’m doing this on purpose?” he snaps. “You think I like being chased? I’m asking you for one thing, Ruby. One. And you’re standing there acting like I’m some stranger.”

“You are a stranger,” I say, the truth, the words tasting bitter as they roll off my tongue. “You disappear. You take what you want, and then you vanish. And now you’re back because you need something again.” I take my phone from my purse, not dialing yet, just letting him see it in my hand. “Walk out that door right now, Robby. Or I’m calling the police. I’m not playing.”

For a heartbeat, I think he might call my bluff. His eyes narrow, his mouth twists like he’s choosing between rage and survival. Then something outside—just a car passing, headlights sliding across the front window causes him to flinch hard, shoulders jerking up. I look past my shoulder, my own panic setting in.

“You’re always like this,” he mutters, more to himself than to me. He snatches his phone off the table beside the couch, his movement fast and nearly tipping over the lamp. “Fine. Whatever. Enjoy your little safe life.”

“Robby,” I say, and his name stops him half a step from the threshold. I don’t soften it. I don’t dress it up. “If you go to Mom and Dad, I’ll call them first. I’ll tell them you’re in trouble, and I’ll tell them not to open the door. Do you hear me? They don’t deserve to be put in the middle of whatever you’ve done.”

His eyes flick to my phone again, then to my face, searching for the crack he can wedge his way into. He doesn’t find it, and his mouth pulls into a hard line. “Yeah,” he says, voice flat. “I hear you.” A second later, he’s gone, slipping out into the dark as if he’s never been here at all.

I stand in the open doorway and watch his silhouette move down the walkway, swallowed by the night before it reaches the driveway. The porch light stays dead above my head, leaving me with nothing but an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach because I know that whatever mess my brother has gotten himself into can’t be good. And despite my harsh words toward him tonight, I love him.

I shut the door and slide the deadbolt over. Only after the lock clicks into place do my knees threaten to give out. I lean my forehead against the wood, eyes squeezed shut. The ache in my heart feels heavy. Behind me, the takeout bag lies on the floor, sauce soaking into the rug, dinner ruined in the same careless way Robby always ruins things.

I look down at the mess and realize, with a slow, sick clarity, that this thing with my brother is far from over.

11

CATCHER

The back alley behind Twisted Throttle reeks of spilled liquor, hot asphalt, and the kind of night that hasn’t happened yet but is already waiting, coiled up in the cracks between bricks and busted bottles.

It’s that in-between hour where the city stretches its limbs before it decides what kind of chaos it’s going to bring. The sky still has a smear of daylight in it, but the streetlights are already buzzing, and the neon out front bleeds through the doorway cracks like a warning. Somewhere on Bourbon Street, the first bass line of the night is starting to thump, a low, restless energy that crawls through plaster and pipe and settles in your body whether you want it to or not.

I lean against the brick beside the back door, cigarette burning slow between my fingers while heat rises off the pavement in waves. The brick is rough against my shoulder, grit catching in my shirt like the place is trying to mark me as its own.

Almost forty-eight hours back home, and somehow it feels like I lived ten damn years in two days, and every mile traveled scraped something raw off my bones and left me bleeding on the inside.

My old man’s garage, oil and metal, still has that familiar rattle of tools in a drawer, like the place never noticed I left. My mother’s voice drifts through the kitchen, soft but sharp the way a woman gets when she’s loved you through hell and refuses to let you pretend you didn’t. And my brother acts like I never disappeared in the first place, as if the years I spent gone were just a long-ass day shift that finally ended.

The ghosts are still there, hanging in corners, tucked behind family photographs, hiding in the quiet moments when nobody is talking, like they’d had nowhere else to go but into me. Some things never stop waiting for you. They just sit patiently until you’re stupid enough to come back and look them in the eye. And that’s exactly what I did.

I drag smoke into my lungs and stare down the alley while the ache settles heavy behind my ribs again. It’s the kind of ache you can’t stretch out or drink away. You carry it like a pocketful of rocks. That old familiar feeling that whispers, maybe I should have died back then too. Maybe the man I used to be already did, and I’m just what’s left walking around with his name.

Hannah.

Lily.

That house.

That life.