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“We grew up together, Conor,” Nick said, still hidden from me as I craned my neck. “I knew you better than anyone. We were going to rule our little underworld together. We were trash, but we were to be kings of the trash. We weren’t meant for shining green lawns and fancy dinner parties and stylish apartments. No, no. We were the lowest of the low. We had nothing. But it was ours. It was our nothing.”
Nick was smiling at me as he emerged from the shadows. Our eyes held as he took slow, meditative steps around me.
“I wanted more,” I said.
Nick’s face twisted in anger. “That’s her talking! You wanted what I wanted. You wanted to be who you were born to be. You wanted to be what you were always meant to be.”
I could hear Shannon’s voice in the art room during those late nights when the school was long empty, the hallways dark. Her long red hair spread across her balled-up cream cardigan. My fingers trailing down the freckles of her sweat-slick stomach. “You can be whoever you want to be, Conor,” she’d tell me. “You have the talent to go anywhere. To do anything. To be anyone.” She had been twenty-eight. Me, eighteen. But what was age, when there was the whole world there before you.
Nick calmed himself as best he could, dragging a shaking hand across his face. His voice still shook. “It was clear I was losing you. Don’t think I didn’t know about the art school applications. I went through your trash. Don’t think I didn’t know you were accepted. I watched the night you opened the letter with her. I watched her give your cock a celebratory ride.”
With a bellowing roar, I lunged at Nick’s legs. He easily shoved me away. I hit the concrete floor hard. I could do nothing but gasp for breath.
“What was I saying before being so rudely interrupted? Ah, yes. It was clear I was losing you and it was clear that there was only one way to save you. To tarnish your new little life, I had to tarnish the woman who had given it to you.”
I shook my head as I watched Nick in horror.
“She was such a lightweight, you know?” he said, concealing a giggle behind wretchedly tattooed fingers. “Such a goodie two-shoes, your sweet Ms Calleary. Didn’t know cocaine from powdered sugar, now did she? Not like us. She didn’t know the real world like us.”
I saw in my mind the light from beneath that bedroom door, my hand pushing it open. I saw her beneath him, hair spread out on the pillow like it had been for me, eyes black as she stared at me without recognition.
“You’re not human,” I said.
Nick only laughed.
“Of course not!” he shouted, throwing his hands up into the air and casting wild shadows on the broken windows behind him, on the shards of night. “I’m a dog, Conor. A dog.” He pointed a finger at me. Wagged it. “But so are you. So are you.”
I tried to shake my head, but wasn’t he right? Shannon had given me the hope of something more. Because of her I was getting out of that shite hole. Because of her I had gotten into art school. Because of her I had a chance to rise above. But given the first chance to show who I was, what did I do?
I beat Nick to within an inch of his life like an animal. I ignored Shannon’s tearful pleas and crashed my motorcycle driving away. Shattered my leg. Shattered my life. He was right to label me a dog. A rabid fucking dog.
Nick was close to me again. Bent over me. Smiling. Fucking smiling.
“You might not believe this, Conor,” he said in a soft voice. In a voice that was almost gentle. “But I will always be your friend. When you lose your way, I will always be there to remind you who you are. Who you truly are.”
I winced as Nick patted my cheek. It only got worse when he cupped his hand. When his thumb brushed across my cheekbone.
“No, no,” he said as I tried to pull away with a whimper of pain at my cracked rib. “Please, don’t thank me.”
I spit up in Nick’s face and it contorted in fury for only the fraction of a second.
“You look tired, Conor,” he said. “That little Aurnia must be keeping you up. I can get her to stop, you know?”
I grabbed for Nick’s collar, but he swatted my hand away easily.
“Sleep,” he cooed. “Sleep, sleep, sleep.”
I just caught the sight of his lifted boot. Then there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Then again, when was there really anything more?
