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Chapter 3
Mikel
Mikel turned the television up before taking a long sip of his cold beer. His pocket vibrated. He pulled his cell phone from his pants. The screen flashed an unknown number.
Unknown number: Is it safe to text you? Or is this too dangerous for me as well?
Mikel: Depends. Who’s this?
Unknown number: Remy.
Surprise laced with concern spiraled in his belly. Vicious hope clawed at his insides as his chest tightened.
Mikel: You should stay away from me.
Remy: I thought we were friends?
He chuckled. Where had the shy little girl he used to know gone?
Mikel: We are.
Remy: Friends have conversations, no?
Mikel: What could you possibly have to talk to me about?
Remy: I could think of a lot of things.
She was persistent, he would give her that. Telling her “no” was the right thing to do. But since when did he ever choose the right path in life? Those choices had been taken from him when he was born as an Evans. When he’d discovered his father’s putrid secrets. When he’d taken a life.
What harm could friendly banter be?
Mikel: Fine.
Remy: Is owning a business everything you hoped it would be? What else do you want for your life?
Apparently, she was jumping right into the deep end. But what he wanted and what he was capable of were two very different things.
He’d go with a safe answer.
Mikel: That’s two questions.
Remy: Humor me.
Mikel: I love being a partner in our own business. It’s more than I could have ever hoped for. In the future, I want tobe successful with our contracting business, like your brother and I always talked about. You?
Remy: I love to bake and read. I’m working at a bakery for a year to see if that’s what I want to go to school for. I like the idea of being my own boss. I’ll take this gap year and then attend college for business.
Of course she did. She wanted to bake treats—sweet things, like her.
Remy: What is your best childhood memory?
Pain clawed at his chest, eviscerating any lightness he’d had a moment before, shredding it into pieces. There were no happy memories from his childhood at home. Just abuse, loss, abandonment, and traumatic violence.
Fuck this.He threw the phone on the cushion as his rib cage tightened, making it harder to draw breath.
Mikel rose from the couch, switched the television off before walking up to his room. Lying on the bed, beer in hand, he dug under the mattress and swallowed the last two pills. He would need to go to Isaiah’s later for a pickup. After draining the last of his beer, he set it on the ground before sinking into his sheets.
Sleep came, and for once he had a good dream—a memory. Darkness broken by the pinpricks of millions of stars. He was on the roof of his old house, peering at them with a telescope he had rigged by himself. It wasn’t perfect, but it got him just a little closer to the light in the black void of his life. The book he had stolen from the library was open, guiding him as he searched for the Phoenix constellation. The story of the bird resonated with him, and provided him an escape for a little while. When he focused on the stars, he could leave his broken world. He pretended he was among the myths and legends painted in the sky in stardust, planets, and galaxies.
