Inherent

When I make it into work the very next day, Alex sports a black eye.

But his dishevelled hair, rumpled clothing, chapped lips, and simply the way he paces anxiously around the floor of the book store tells me the swelled, ugly contusion with bruising traveling down the length of his cheek is the least of his worries.

Exhausted from a sleepless night spent without Harry in my bed and crying pitifully for the broken mess my life became in the span of a few short minutes, it takes me a moment to process the sight before me. Harry’s outburst is still fresh and painful, and for a few seconds I process nothing but the memory of last night. With just one sentence which echoes through the dark recesses of my weary, numbed mind, uttered in anger I still don’t understand, all our progress came undone.

I can’t help but to halt in the entrance, when I come back to reality, however. The large steel door shuts with a slam behind me, leaving me totally stunned by Alex’s appearance so much it catapults me straight out of my consuming heartache and to the present—if only temporarily—and after a great amount of hesitation, I drag my feet in his direction with a lump steadily gaining at the base of my throat. Closer now, it is easy to see the discolouration of his skin also covers the bridge of his nose. With an inward wince, I realize the fragile cartilage must have been broken in a mighty, gut-wrenching blow delivered to the side of his face.

Stopping at a hopefully safe distance though still mere feet away from him, Alex doesn’t even acknowledge my presence. For certain, he’s been either punched ruthlessly or beaten with a blunt object to have sustained an injury of this magnitude. From my perspective, I can easily see his eye swollen nearly all the way shut. I manage to stifle a gasp, but he doesn’t look at me anyhow.

“Alex?” I call out. He doesn’t falter in his pacing, his elbow braced in one hand while he has the other tucked under his chin, head ducked as he stares a burning hole into the floor. My voice is tentative and soft, as in such a situation as this and already vulnerable, I am unable to help my sympathetic, nurturing heart. “Alex.”

He stops finally when I repeat his name more firmly, looking up to me briefly, but his dull blank gaze sees straight through me, as if I’m not even really here. Then he absently shakes his head, the action tired, before he swivels around and strides off deeper into the rows of bookshelves, totally ignoring me. This is certainly different than his reception reserved for me over these past weeks… but I don’t take his cold shoulder as a good sign. At all.

Something has gone terribly wrong.

Dumfounded, I hike the strap of my bag higher up on my shoulder and walk in a dazed confusion to the employees’ room. Just like last night when Harry didn’t have to ask who caused the marks on my arm, I know without much of a doubt exactly who gave Alex the unsightly, horrid black eye.

Harry is smart and suspicious on top of being a cunning, quick-thinking business man, and so I figure he pieced things together quite quickly. He knows Alex was the one to hurt me, however superficially in my own mind.

His anger had to be released in some form after I ignored his third phone call last night, too, and from his point of view perhaps Alex might have deserved this. Being far from a fighter or confrontational, however, I feel as if this is the last thing Alex needed.

And me, too.

It had taken a whole lot of willpower I wasn’t aware I even possessed last night not to pick up the phone, or to reply to his array of text messages sent minutes after I left The Castle, having longed to hear the only voice that is capable of soothing me to sleep… not the one which planted doubts in my already fragile mind the night before. But I know I can’t have my Harry back—all there is left is the man who broke his most important promise and sufficiently snuffed what confidence I managed to build, along with the will to tell him of my heart once and for all.

And so my phone remained on silent, face down on my dresser after Vivian and I got a cab home. His apologies, though, remain on a constant repeat in my mind. He was sorry, sorry for everything that happened. And it was so, so hard not to just let it all go. But it’s all gone now; everything we built is tainted by those few words, the opinion I placed faithful trust in Harry not to harbour toward me. While it has only been mere hours since it all took place, I feel as if I lost a piece of myself, emptier than I felt before he entered my life.

The only good thing about today, I ultimately decide, is that it marks the start of the book store’s summer hours—and this will be the only Saturday I have to work before another student takes over this day of the week. So I’ll only have to be near Alex until four instead of five, and I don’t have to come in until ten. But still… my job keeps me busy, and this change will only provide me more time to think. About Harry. About what happened last night, what caused him to snap and break under some invisible pressure he couldn’t seem to get a hold of, about Alex and his black eye… and how he warned me about Harry.

Should I have listened? After all that has happened, I would still say no. I would take Harry’s word over Alex’s because in reality, the hurt Harry caused me is nowhere close to the magnitude Alex has inadvertently caused in my life through Caleb. More than that, while Harry’s words cannot be changed and my trust in him has been totally destroyed, it still feels lesser in comparison to what I have had to put up with from Alex these past weeks.

After I went to find Vivian last night, still at the booth where I left her when all the trouble began, she assumed something happened just from one look at me. Before approaching, though, I tried and most likely failed to wipe away the evidence of our confrontation through the non-stop tears trickling from my mascara-run, bloodshot eyes. I had to literally pull Vivian forcefully out of the club because she had been bent on going back up to The Solar to confront Harry. Something I could not have handled in any way, shape or form. So I hauled my intoxicated, furious friend out of the club with more strength than I ever thought I could possess and called our cab with shaking fingers, having ignored the first text from Harry urging me to come back while I did so. I don’t understand anything of what happened after he left to go downstairs last night—what happened in the hallway, his sudden intense anger, or his evasive, promise breaking answers to my concerned questions. I don’t understand why he felt so cornered that he had to… even while in his uncontrolled state. He didn’t have to throw his promise, the one which held my fragile heart together at its newly mended and fragile seams, in my face and use it against me.

I could have dealt with anything, stayed through it all—expect for that. It felt as though he ripped the entire world we built together, through trust, right out from under me.

Once in the employees’ room, I clock in and spend entirely too much time sipping at a cup of tea, then neurotically tidy the kitchen area before working up the nerve to start the work day. Alex is nowhere in sight still, which doesn’t bring me any sort of relief like it might have any other time.

Instead, it keeps me even further on edge.

The whole day passes with no instructions from him—not even a single appearance, though every now and again an audible bang is heard from down in the basement, signalling his presence. So I stay upstairs and away from him, assisting customers whenever they venture in, but these summer days are always slow for the store and so I end up sitting at the sales desk with not a whole lot to do, staring down at the counter listlessly.

Throughout the whole time in my wandering, disoriented state, two texts from Harry are received. One tells me to answer my phone, which is still left on silent, and the other tells me he is sorry and that I will need to talk to him sooner or later. He is right, of course, but I feel sick at the thought of facing Harry, at the mere possibility of losing him, of more truth I won’t want to hear being unearthed.

Conflicted more than ever, my vision loses its focus as I come to terms with all the events taken place. The harsh reality is that I miss Harry, a hell of a lot, and I hate the way things were left between us. Unresolved, tense, and angry. And it hasn’t more than twelve hours since it all happened. For now… for now, I ignore his messages and phone calls, because if I hear even the sound of his voice I am too aware I will let all this go.

At this point, when my mind is filled with memories of how things were before last night and all but blocks out what happened—or tries to at least—I wonder if there even is anything to be so upset about. I don’t know if Harry has a reason to be sorry, if I deserve an apology. Several long, hopeless seconds are spent staring down at the texts messages and missed call notification, eyes blank as I think about nothing but him. Maybe I deserve what he said to me. The truth. Maybe I waited far too long. Maybe Harry has every right to keep whatever he wants from me.

Yet again, I wish to go back and change everything, and curse myself for not telling him sooner. Perhaps then he wouldn’t have been so angry last night, when I stupidly pressed for details. With my total trust finally placed in him he might have been comfortable enough in return to talk about what happened, what kept him away for so long. About Lucy. I feel sick thinking about her, now.

None of this really matters, though, my thoughts and worries especially. Because this has all already happened; I can’t change the past, can’t force Harry to take back what he said. Not only that, but he shouldn’t anyway. Because he obviously meant it; it had to have played on his mind often enough for him to bring it up.

A small part of me considers the possibility of coming clean to him about my ‘secret’ as he also referred to it… but now, I don’t even know if I could find the right words to say without breaking down in tears. It’s that bad. Maybe this is what he wants, right? Perhaps he just said it to avoid talking to me at all—maybe he knew breaking his promise to wait as long as I needed would stop me dead in my tracks, drive me away.

It is just as plausible as any other half-baked explanation my exhausted mind has concocted through my sleepless night and comatose morning.

When it comes time to clock out, I have not had one single word or interaction with Alex and long ago turned my phone off altogether so as not to be tempted to reply to Harry.

Space, maybe, is what we might need.

Deep down I know it is the furthest thing from the truth, but this is what I do when I am hurt, especially by someone else. Usually my reaction manages to hurt me in one way or another also, but this is what I have come to learn is the way where no one else gets hurt. I withdraw, even if it might mean losing Harry.

My trudging footsteps and half-hearted attempts to fix my hair all leave me feeling like a zombified mess, sad and so scared of the future and what it might hold that for once I won’t allow myself to think at all. I’m taking Harry’s advice, issued so long ago at the Uptown, and giving it an ugly twist.

I am so out of it, in fact, that I end up plowing straight into Alex after blindly opening the door to leave the employees’ room for the last time today. He must have been coming from around the corner for me to have not seen him at all—well that, and staring numbly at my shoes surely didn’t help in any way to avoid him. We both stumble backward form the impact, and my hands instinctively reach out to keep his frail stature steady when he teeters even more than I do, but as soon as he stands on his own I instantly retract them to safety at my sides, fear coursing through me as soon as I register the harsh impact. If this were only yesterday, Alex would have quite possibly bitten my head off for being so clumsy and careless. He would probably accuse me of being too distracted by ‘personal issues’ to work again. Today, however, Alex looks as if he has just made the worst mistake of his life and with an avoidant, flickering stare he takes several steps backward, one hand rubbing the back of his neck.

“Sorry,” I mumble, quiet and without much effort to the single word before my feet propel me forward once more and I brush past him, intent on getting out of here as soon as humanly possible.

“Hold on a second, Julia,” he calls back abruptly, finally finding his voice. “I’m sorry.”

I bitingly want to ask since when? Last night? But after unwillingly turning back around to face him, I am shocked to see he does look truly apologetic. Instead of saying anything regrettable, my lips remain sealed until he squirms under my impartial, numbed stare. Such anger toward Alex is deserved, though perhaps some of it is transferring over from my grief and frustration with Harry. Again, I can’t help but to suspect Harry very much has something to do with this, with Alex. This anomaly. Not that his fierce presence has begun to rub off on me, but the welt on Alex’s cheek might have caused him to see me in a different light.

And that, I’m not sure how to feel about. Especially now—I sure as heck don’t want Harry fighting my battles for me. Though obviously weak, I want to solve my own problems. Preferably without violence.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you for a while now.” He looks past me into the empty employees’ room with an almost nervous, uncomfortable awkwardness. “Do you have a minute?”

Every last one of my whispering instincts urge me to run in the opposite direction, but then I really look at him. And I don’t see the man with a problem and a rapidly decreasing grasp on reality, I see my brother’s best friend. A person who has felt the same loss as me, and for him I feel pity. While not near the best example of how to deal with the death of a loved one and the grief which comes with it, Alex has clearly fared worse than even I have.

Not long after his pleading question, I find myself sat uncomfortably across from him at the break room table, the environment cold, sterile and lacking in light as the rest of the building has been shut down for the day. The creepy atmosphere doesn’t do much to help ease my nerves.

Overly quiet for someone who claims he wants to talk, Alex fidgets in his seat and absentmindedly traces the large crack which runs diagonally up the screen of his phone—damage which wasn’t present yesterday. Straight away I correlate it to the ugly bruise marring his boyish features. Still, I remain undecided when it comes to how I feel about the strong possibility of Harry doing that to his face.

Did he deserve it, really? At this point I’m not sure of anything anymore. But if it is the case, it further enforces the small amount of violent behaviour I witnessed last night from Harry.

The worst part of all is that it doesn’t scare me; it is the cause of his actions, his motives, the reasoning and possible truths and secrets behind them that frightens me. Not his anger. Though my wrist was irritated somewhat last night, I know very well Harry would never harm me physically. Mentally and emotionally, on the other hand… that is up in the air more than ever at this point, all but proven with the words I recall with such clarity.

You have your secret.

Alex clears his throat after an indefinable amount of time passes in silence. It’s only a matter of seconds, perhaps, but in that amount of time my mind is capable of running wild. The abrupt sound causes me to break from my dismal train of thought, but one last sentence recites easily within the tormented depths of my conscience.

Let me have mine.

I stare blankly at Alex, waiting for him to say whatever is weighing on his mind. Today of all days, I’m not in any mood to cut him any amount of slack.

“I want to say,” he says before taking a deep breath, as if bracing himself for some huge revelation. “That I’m sorry, for the way I’ve been treating you lately.”

Admittedly shocked by his sudden apology, I stiffen, unsure if this has only been spurred because of what might have transpired between him and Harry within these past few uncertain, guilty hours. I don’t even get the chance to form a reply, however, before Alex continues in an apparent rush. “It was wrong of me to take my shit out on you. I have a lot going on right now, but it’s no excuse to treat you like crap too.”

Not nearly as eloquent as I had hoped, I lean back and stare at Alex, totally dumbfounded. The man I thought I marginally knew because of his involvement with my brother, the man I had no choice but to grieve with, and the man who has caused me more heartache than he even knows. That is partially my fault, too, because I never had the courage to voice any of the resentment I harbour toward him over his luring Caleb into such a life, for—in my mind—leading him to his ultimate death. Regardless of this realization, I still feel no desire to be truthful with him, fearful it might set him off and ruin the small amount of the supposed progress we have made.

“I… I don’t know what to say, Alex,” I admit, visibly shaken. This is hard to deal with, already having so much on my mind. “I’m not sure if I can forgive you, but I do appreciate your apology.”

After this morning with the way he wouldn’t even look at me, the last thing I expected was for him to come to me with a blackened eye and a seemingly heartfelt apology. Already I feel mentally exhausted, so much having changed in such a small amount of time I wish that this was Harry coming forward, not to apologize but to try and fix things… then I remember that it isn’t Harry ignoring my calls. It’s the other way around. I am ignoring him.

My relationship with Alex… if one can even call it that, is damaged beyond repair. There is no hope of ever going back to the way things were before, when we were kids. Even back then I never had any special liking for Alex, anyway, having been aware of his heavy influence on my brother. But Harry… things with Harry I am desperate to fix.

“I don’t expect any more from you,” he replies earnestly, and perhaps relieved I didn’t decide to totally disregard his apology like he might have expected. And I might have considered. But today, of all days, I don’t need the drama. He shifts in his seat again, as if there is an increasing spark of a fire underneath him, and looks at me briefly before he returns to staring down at the table. I watch with an undeniable curiosity, unable to figure him out entirely. Alex’s motives are never totally clear, but I feel that maybe this is one of those rare moments where they might not be too bad. “Thank you for listening.”

“It’s no problem,” I say, genuine, as a small shift can be felt between us. No longer do I feel quite so on edge around him or as if I might have to pull out the pepper spray Harry gave me, still sat thankfully useless in my bag. What little friendship we had before may not ever be repaired, but at least now things might just be bearable—bearable would be a welcomed changed from how things have been, and this small talk with Alex gives me hope that all of this might work out, after all. With Harry.

Nothing seems quite as hopeless as they did this morning. Maybe I can actually start to like working at the book store again, too. At this point, even if we reconciled at this very moment, Harry’s job offer is absolutely impossible.

“And I’m sorry for all the shit I’ve been giving you, about your boyfriend,” he says suddenly, his risen voice causing me to flinch backward after I stand up to leave, having thought the conversation was over. Alex looks frantic, desperate for me to stay. I have no idea why, but his behaviour causes me to become even more suspicious and wary.

“It’s fine.” My quiet response is forced, because it is a lie. Alex has quite literally made my life a living hell over these past weeks, and while I appreciate the effort, one apology which might have only been offered because of the possibility of another black eye isn’t enough. He nods, though an equally frantic look passes through his eyes when I continue on my way to the exit, the obscure emotion darkening his hazel irises even further. I speed up, stung at the mentioning of Harry enough, and I don’t want to talk about him with Alex. Neither do I want to find out the reasoning for his change in mood—why he seems so desperate.

“Wait, Julia,” he finally calls out breathlessly, and the metal legs of his cheer screeches against the white tile as he hastily stands. I pause, heart in my throat while I wait for him to speak again, my back still turned to tense form.

Still facing the open door looking out on the empty, dark floor of the book store, my voice is so soft with my explanation it quivers on each syllable. “I really need to get going, Al.”

In reality I am only in such a hurry because of the strong chance that whatever he is about to say will thoroughly squash our newfound truce before it has even begun. “There’s something else,” he says hoarsely, no longer as subdued and respectful in tone. He sounds as tormented as the look in his lifeless eyes portrayed not moments ago.

When I turn around, Alex suddenly doesn’t look like the man who brings trouble everywhere he ventures. No—right now, he resembles my brother. The last time I saw him, a week before he died. Totally given up, void of life. The sight alone and the connection my self-torturing mind makes has my shoulders locking and my eyes water with all the unshed tears I have been holding back since crawling out of bed this morning. But I refuse to cry as I sit back down, figuring to have done enough of that over these past hours to last me a lifetime.

“What is it?” I prod lightly after all he does is run his hands up his face and into his messy, golden hair, elbows braced on the edge of the table. Finally he looks up at me, and his own glossy eyes just about make me lose my composure once and for all.

“Something bad,” he speaks after another beat of prolonged hesitation. His voice is so hoarse I can hardly understand the small words—but I do, and my stomach drops in disappointment. I knew this was too good to be true; now he is going to tell me he was right about Harry, he is going to explain all about how he got beaten in the last twenty four hours even though I already have drawn my own most likely accurate conclusion.

Shaking my head, my spine snaps straight as the rest of my body forces me to stand on wobbly, unsure footing, unable to take more bad on top of what I’ve already received. Especially from Alex.

“Wait, JT. Just hear me out. Please,” he pleads, standing too, and grasps my forearm to keep me from moving. Unlike the last time we found ourselves in a similar position, his hold isn’t painful. My attention, however, is still drawn to the connection and possible physical power he holds over me. “It’s—it’s about Caleb.”

As soon as he utters my brother’s name I gasp, it being so unexpected my reaction is as transparent as the pain I still feel over his death. Before I can wrench my arm away and flee, Alex continues with a distinct, chilling hysteria. “I—I didn’t know who else to come to. Please.”

Narrowing my eyes, I slowly pull my already bruised arm from his grasp and attempt to move forward, ignoring everything he says, but he simply walks backward in front of me. Obviously, this is a desperate man, and I know he shouldn’t be tested in such a state—but neither should I.

“I can’t deal with this right now, Alex.” He groans at my stubborn, unfeeling response, sufficiently blocking the doorway and my only chance of escape. This is the first time Alex has ever willingly brought up Caleb since he died, and whatever this is… it cannot be good.

“I know, I know. If I didn’t have to put this stress on you I wouldn’t, believe me… but I have no one else to go to. I’m in trouble, J.”

“With what? Who?” I ask instantly, still unable to figure out how on earth this could be connected to my brother. He’s been gone for so long, now.

Alex pauses a beat too long, eyes as blank as ever while he constructs a reply within his mind. My pulse picks up until it is audible and pounding in my head, my breath held.

“He owed people money,” he finally confesses, shoulders drooping as soon as he utters the admission. When all I am capable of forming as a response is staring dumbly at his downcast expression, Alex tacks on a fate-sealing sentence. “For drugs.”

“For drugs,” I echo eventually, my hollow voice unrecognizable even to myself. I sound as bleak as my new outlook on the future.

“Yeah.”

“Jesus christ, Alex.” I swear with exhaustion, no passion or fight to my tone. Another problem of substantial importance has just been piled on top of everything else, and I find it increasingly difficult to care. This—this is also what happens when things get to be too much. In order to protect myself in some faulty form, I shut down.

“And the people he owed it to…” Alex’s soft voice drops off until he’s totally silent for a second, trying to find the right words to simultaneously explain and not send me running again. “Well, they’re not anyone you want to cross. They’re coming after me now, Julia, for his debt. Because I’m his only known connection.”

This is Alex’s roundabout way of letting me know I’m not involved in any of this, what is happening now… and it’s all because Caleb had enough of a conscience to keep me out of the dark part of his life, so long ago. Toward the end, Alex was all Caleb had left. He would never have dared to involve me in something like this, like Alex is trying to do. He would not have gone to me for a problem he caused for himself. And now, I suppose, Alex and I will both pay his leftover mistakes.

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask in a daze, though one would have to be a fool not to realize what direction he is going with this conversation. Even still, I harbour enough sense not to grow angry. Angry at Caleb and Alex for being so stupid in the first place, angry at likewise stupid drug dealers. Alex doesn’t reply to me, as if he wants me to figure it out for myself because he is too much of a coward to admit it aloud. I narrow my eyes at his slight, hunched form. “After all this time? Why are you only telling me now?”

Something, clearly, isn’t right. As a naïve outsider looking in, even I can see at least that much. Alex isn’t telling me the whole truth, and it still is not clear if he will at all.

“Because,” he blows out a puffed, desperate breath through his mouth and doesn’t look me in the eye, which makes me both uneasy and a little suspicious. To me and my paranoid, overthinking mind, I swear it looks as if he’s trying to come up with a viable excuse. “Because I didn’t want you in this, okay? I know it’s a lot, Julia. I do. But I’m in so much fucking trouble.”

He repeats it again for added effect and the claim finally sinks in for me. In trouble. At his last words, muttered under his breath in apprehension, for a single second I almost believe my heart stutters to a deadly halt, but then it picks back up on an unsteady, dangerous rhythm.

“What do you mean, in trouble?” I demand loudly, my voice rising and becoming shrill. For the sake of my health if nothing else I wish that he would just be honest for once. It seems as if my lying over the last months has had a ripple effect on everyone around me. I don’t know who is genuine and who is just putting on a good show. As much as I resent Alex, however, the last thing I want to see is him ending up hurt, or worse… for my brother’s mistakes.

“I mean, I’m on a lot of bad guys’ shit lists. And fuck, I’m scared and I don’t know what to do.” For as long as I can remember Alex has never admitted to feeling any emotion as vulnerable as fear, and the admission only serves to incite another jolt of uncertain dread throughout my abdomen, my stomach rolling in uneasiness. He rushes it all out, so desperate I can feel his fear, palpable just like the comfortable tension idling between us still.

“You have to know I wouldn’t dump all this on you if I had a choice. You’re the only person I have left,” he says softly, returning his glassy gaze to meet mine, which has long gone as blank as his own.

After a long minute and a whole lot of hesitation, I pose the only question left to ask. “How much?”

With Grandma’s health care and everything else on top of that while living on just my book store salary at the moment, this is the last thing I need. Trouble and a debt to a bunch of drug pedaling goons. Just another stress to add to my rapidly growing list. Setting his lips in a thin, firm line, Alex stares into nothing, muttering the amount so quietly my ears don’t even catch it.

“Alex, how much?” I repeat, sharper to get across that I’m not in the mood for his usual games.

“A few grand.” He clears his throat and now he purposely won’t even look in my direction, stare focussed again on the white tabletop. I gasp in shock at the huge sum, a serious amount of money. While I don’t know much about the drug trade, I know people’s lives could very easily be lost over this kind of money—money I don’t have. Alex is in trouble. We are in trouble.

“Alex,” I say his name with despondence, turning away to cover my mouth to keep any panicked phrases from being spilled. Suddenly his erratic behaviour makes sense. Maybe it wasn’t totally because I was dating Harry, after all.

“I know,” he replies croakily, and though I’m not even looking at him I can tell he is near tears himself.

I whirl around and drop my hand to wring with my other one, frantic now too. “You know I don’t have that kind of money.”

On a tense nod, he sighs. “Fuck. Obviously. Of course I know, JT, but I’m desperate. These guys don’t really have a whole lot of patience.” This whole time Alex remains quiet, shameful and defeated, and not once does he raise his voice or glare at me like he has so much over these last several weeks. Yet in his eyes there seems to be some form of relief, like this might be what he has been keeping in for so long now and he is simply comforted to have someone acknowledge his problem, what he’s going through. I myself know the feeling—but thinking of that, of Harry and the relief he brought me, only serves to make my blood pressure rise a few more degrees.

Yes, I know the feeling all too well. Despite the circumstances, I feel a stab of sympathy for Alex, a man more lost in life than even I am, and I fear he might never find his way. I want to help, but what good can be done with the state of my three digit bank account? Not much at all. If anything, my efforts might only make things worse.

“I was thinking…” he leaves the sentence hanging on another rough clear of his throat, expression queasy and knowing, anticipant without even having voiced whatever plan he might have concocted. “About your mom.”

“What about her?” I ask harshly, even though it’s obvious already where Alex is headed. As soon as he mentions her, my hands clench into tight fists and my legs itch to jump into action, to ask Alex just who the hell he thinks he is.

“Please don’t freak out. Let me explain,” he begs, eyes pleading and watery as he gazes at me with pure anxiety. With a continually constricting heart and a monstrous lump now firmly lodged in my throat right behind the flood of blocked tears, I hold my breath and wait for his explanation. It takes him several long moments to gather his wits and try and dig himself out of the colossal hole he’s already dug. “It wouldn’t be a huge hit to her bank account, Julia. My plan was for you to borrow the money from her… and then I’d pay it back to her through you.”

For a stretch of time I stare blankly at Alex, and I conclude that he has finally lost his mind. The absolute worst part of his insanity is the fact that he believes his half-cocked plan is actually plausible, and a trill of fear runs through me at the thought of his reaction when I have to tear down his self-made reality.

Even still, it has to be done. “You know I barely even talk to her anymore—she’s been on the freaking edge of going off the deep end since he died, Alex. How do you think she’d react if I came to her and asked for help to pay off her dead son’s drug debt?”

“You don’t have to tell her that,” he tries, relentless in his case, so desperate he didn’t even pause to process what I said, my logic. It hurts to even think about asking my mother for anything of this nature, and I refuse to cause her any more pain than she has already endured. Losing Dad, while they were still separated, was still as hard on her as it would have been if they were still together at the time. He was the father of her children, her first love, and no one could really blame her when she opted to run away from her family and simultaneously her harsh reality. And then to lose Caleb… in retrospect it was good for her to break nearly all contact with me, to flee with her new fiancé, to get away from every possible reminded of a son she will never see again, even if it meant abandoning her daughter in the process.

Alex doesn’t even care about any of this, I realise. He doesn’t give a single shit—he just wants the money. That’s all; he doesn’t feel bad for involving me, he feels bad for having to ask when he already knows what my answer will be. He is sorry for himself and no one else. “Just make up another reason. Or something. Just—she doesn’t have to know what it’s for.”

I can’t take it any longer. I can’t sit here and listen to crazed pleas from someone who has already caused so much heartache in my life, who is intent on hurting me more. Hastily taking a long step toward the door, I pause to whirl around once, nervously throwing my hair over one shoulder to get one last glimpse of his pitiful state, resolute and as sure as I can possibly appear in such a panicked state, my eyes wide and wild. Before uttering just one word, I steel myself for Alex’s probably explosive response.

“No.”

Alex keeps his eyes trained on the table and sniffs once, noisily and expression vacant. Otherwise, he doesn’t react at all to my sudden blunt refusal. He is so still, in fact, that for a moment I worry I might have broken him and his fragile state of mind once and for all. Then, finally, he shakes his head—but not in disagreement. It appears as if he is accepting whatever fate has been thrust upon him.

“I’m sorry,” he says, the two words choppy and hardly audible. He crosses both arms over his chest while still refusing to look in my general direction. With the far-away look in his eyes still it makes me wonder what exactly he is apologizing for… this one instance, or everything? For Caleb, for dragging me through every single one of his problems by taking them out on me in some form over the past year. For Caleb.

Yet again my eyes sting and my head begins to throb from the overflowing amount of withheld tears, and it feels as if I am about to burst. Alex apologizing with such sincerity I didn’t expect, and now I feel worse than ever. The truth is I would help him in one of my own mistimed heartbeats if I had any scrap of the means, but I don’t… and I refuse to lie to my mother—our relationship is strained enough as it stands. On one hand I can’t even believe he asked me to do such a thing, but on the other… it’s Alex. And looking at him right now, I can tell that I am his very last resort.

But he knew before he asked. He knew I would say no. Now I have to share in the grief and stress such a debt brings, and he can’t care less.

With not a single idea as to how on earth I could reply to his third apology, I blow out a puffed breath through my mouth and stalk past him with short, rushed footsteps. After everything that has happened last night involving Harry and my life turned upside down in shambles, the stress of Alex breaking right in front of me is too much to bear. He is hurting, and for a split second I feel a pang of remorse for not being able to help him recover from my brother’s mistakes, but Alex was the one to lead Caleb there in the first place. I have paid the price for my brother’s death in huge, vast amounts of guilt and heartache many times over.

I don’t deserve this—of that much I am sure.

For a long time now I thought I deserved all the things I had come to me, but maybe it’s the new light Harry has made me see in my own constructed world of darkness. I don’t deserve what Alex has forced upon me.

“Tell them to get bent,” I spit out as I wrench open the door, between anger, desperation, and anguish now myself. “They took Caleb’s life. That should be enough for them.”

Notes

So. I have a few days off in a row, which is basically a miracle, and I've done nothing but write and write. To get this up for you, pretty much. I'd have had it posted sooner but I have been having internet issues! So I do apologize for that. I just want everyone to know that I would never abandon this story. :)

Okay. I kind of hate that Harry wasn't in this chapter, but the scene with Alex had to play out this way as a transition to a little more drama and the next part of the plot. I think this is the only chapter that will not have him in it for the foreseeable future, so please don't be disappointed! In fact, after the next chapter, there will be one entirely in Harry's POV. So you can look forward to that and a look at everything from his side, plus an explanation for his anger and off behaviour.

So, what did you think? Of Alex.... is Julia right in her assumption that maybe Harry caused his black eye, or too quick to make the call? But let's be real... Harry can be Harry haha. It wouldn't be a surprise. And was Alex sincere in his apology, or is there something more to this sudden attempt at amends?

Please consider leaving a comment! It gives me so so much motivation to write and therefore post! Thanks everyone!