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 to be 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.
Mikel woke several hours later, rested. He couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t had a nightmare in his sleep. It was flashbacks or nothing. He never dreamt.
He picked up his phone—seven in the evening. He needed to get some dinner and then head over to Isaiah’s. He clicked Remy’s message open, finally having something to answer her with.
Mikel: Stargazing. I built a crappy telescope and tried to find the Phoenix.
He set down his phone and jumped in the shower to get ready. He checked it one more time before he got in his car.
Remy: Did you ever find it?
When Bently hadn’t been home, their father, Paul, would take his rage out on him. Mikel had been a willing sacrifice if it meant keeping that bastard away from Jasmine. He had closed his eyes and imagined he was looking up at a sky that mapped out the stories of Greek tragedies and made his family seem a little more normal. Some had given him hope that there were at least a few happy endings—like the Phoenix. But even in that story, inspiration had been born from the ashes of pain and grief.
Mikel: Nope.
* * *
He didn’t bother to knock at Isaiah’s. He walked into the house, past the neatly organized recycling bin full of beer cans and glass bottles. The rooms were clean and modern. Several people were spread throughout the place, their stoned, glassy-eyed faces smiling as they rocked to the beat of the techno music. You would never expect the nice house in this suburban neighborhood to be a drug den. Moms, dads, husbands, wives, daughters, sons, people with different backgrounds all coming together for the same reason: to forget for a little while. To escape to a place where no one could hurt you and you were never powerless. A place of only euphoria.
Unfortunately, that high never lasted long enough. Each time, it seemed harder to get to. One pill turned into two, which turned into snorting white powder or shooting poison into your veins. Addiction was a ruthless oppressor—a dictator that ruled your thoughts and actions in selfish tyranny. It morphed you into the worst version of yourself while tricking you into believing you were at your best. Until nothing mattered anymore, except that high. Your next fix became your sole purpose of living, your constant focus.
Mikel didn’t see himself as an addict. In fact, he felt sorry for all these people. He wasn’t like them. He could stop if he really wanted to. He just didn’t want to yet.
“Mikel! You finally made it, man,” Isaiah said walking up to him, bottle of vodka in hand. No one bothered with pretense here.
“Yeah. You got something for me?” he asked.
“Joe sent a new shipment. He told me not to give you anything on credit though. He said you owe him.” Isaiah shifted nervously on his feet and sniffed.
He would pay it back if only he could, but fifty thousand dollars didn’t just grow on trees. And the money he’d borrowed from the loan shark wasn’t the only thing Joe had on him. “Yeah. I’ll catch up with him soon.”
Isaiah tipped his head so that others couldn’t hear when he spoke. “Don’t know what business you got with him, man. None of my concern. But Joe ain’t the kinda guy you want to owe anything to. Whatever you gotta do to pay him, you better do it.”
Too late. Mikel nodded. “Sure thing.” If his friend only knew what the man held over him, he’d understand there was no way he’d ever be free from Joe’s clutches.
“Tell him I’ll bring him some of the money next week,” Mikel said.
“My sister’s in the kitchen. She’ll hook you up.”
“Thanks.” Mikel walked down the hall towards the lemon-yellow kitchen.
“Hey, sexy. Did you come all this way to see me?” June teased, her blond hair swinging from a high ponytail as she cocked her head to the side. Her smoky eyes raked over him like he was a prime cut of meat.
She ran her hand over his cheek and down his chest. Maybe this was what he needed. She could erase this sinking feeling if only for a fleeting moment, take his mind off what he couldn’t have. He and June were both damaged goods, both from the wrong side of the tracks. He’d sampled what she offered several times over the past few years. She was always down for a quick and dirty fuck. Sex and drugs. Highs and lows. Love for the moment, hate for himself.
“You have something I need,” he said, grabbing her hand before she slid it any farther into his pants.
She smirked. “How many?”
“The usual.”
She backed away, and he let her hand drop. “It’s upstairs in my room.” She led him towards the dimly lit stairs, and he followed behind.
She pulled a bag from the large hidden safe she kept in a closet and tossed it to him.
He caught it and slipped it into his pocket. He paid her. “Thanks.”
She turned and sauntered back to him before kissing him. Her lips were nothing like Remy’s. June’s mouth was pure empty lust. He grabbed her neck and pushed her away.
“Let me make you feel good.” She licked her bright red lips.
Letting her touch him was simply a means to an end that promised release. A temporary vacation from reality. He was an expert in physical relief without the baggage of emotion.
She must have taken his hesitation for consent as she sunk to her knees, undoing his pants.
He was hard, aching for relief since last night with Remy. He wished to god those blue orbs looking up at him were brown. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine the creamy white hands pulling down his pants were dark as midnight.
Remy didn’t belong with him. He’d taint her with his evil. He wouldn’t do that to her. If he couldn’t have Remy, he would have to settle and take what he could get. He just needed something to help him forget his past for a little while.
His phone buzzed as June kissed his stomach and hooked her fingers under the elastic of his underwear. Did it make him less of a man that he’d rather see what question Remy had come up with next than allow this chick to blow him? This was wrong. She started to tug his boxers as the cell pinged again.
“Stop.” He grabbed it off the floor.
Remy: I need help.
Remy: Green Park. Baseball field.
Panic seized his body as the jolt of adrenaline shot through him. He wrenched his pants on.
“Baby—”
“I gotta go,” he said, on his way out the door as he buttoned the waist.
Remy was in trouble. What if he was too late? It was dark and she was in the park. Was she alone? Was she hurt? Fear and doubt swirled in his mind as he peeled onto the road, speeding towards the address. One thing was certain: if anyone touched her, he would kill them with his bare hands. He would murder again if it meant keeping her safe.