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Rico followed me back out to the kitchen, where I poured what little bit was left of his beer down the drain and found a trash bag beneath the sink. I started dumping all the empty bottles into the bag before heading to the refrigerator to clean out the rotten food.
The door to the trailer swung open, and Zane stepped inside. He was a year younger than Rico and three years younger than me. My two brothers resembled one another, while I didn’t look like either of them.
It was fitting in a way. I’d never felt like I fit in here.
My father was the only one I’d ever felt like I belonged with.
But I loved my brothers fiercely, and I tolerated my mother because they couldn’t seem to escape her orbit.
“Well, if it isn’t the professor!” Zane scooped me up and spun me around. They were both big guys. Tall, broad, and muscular.
“Put me down and help me clean this place up. You guys shouldn’t be living like this.”
Yes. They both still lived at home.
Zane moved to the sink and started washing dishes. “I, uh, I was kind of hoping you could help me with something.”
Here we go.
“What did you do?” I asked, whipping around to face him.
“I sort of made a dumb bet on a horse, and Sam White is threatening to take my car if I don’t pay him by Friday.” He scratched the back of his neck, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
“How much do you owe him?” I asked.
“Three hundred bucks.”
“And you leveraged your car for a stupid horse bet?” I hissed before turning back to the refrigerator and questioning the fact that I’d willingly returned home.
In the name of my father, of course.
But this was the reason that I hated coming back.
I could feel myself being pulled under.
Even my breathing felt more constricted when I was home.
I felt trapped here.
I’d wanted a different life, and that was why I’d left.
I loved my brothers; I just didn’t know if I could save them and save myself at the same time.
Zane gave me that sad, pathetic look that he always used when he fucked up.
I let out a long breath. “Come by the bar later in the week and I’ll get you the money.”
He wrapped his arms around me from behind, and I shook him off.
I was enabling him, and I knew it. But I didn’t know how else to help him. I’d tried getting them both jobs. I’d bailed them out of endless shit. Talked ad nauseam about them moving away and changing their lives. Coming to stay with me in California. About going back to school to get their GEDs.
But it never went anywhere.
And I was more than aware that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.
So, I just tried to bandage things the best I could.
“Damn. Ruby always knows how to fix things,” Rico said.
