Page 169 of Trailer Trash

Half my brain just exploded onto a wall, never to be assembled again.

I vomit onto the floor.

Then I sit in it, leaning against the sofa with Asher’s leg pressed against my shoulder. I stare ahead at the empty gaming chair.

The fucker stared right at me.

Time hangs until police walk into the room with their guns pointed. I don’t move, my gaze still on that empty chair, wondering what he saw as he pulled the trigger.

Me, standing beside it, but apparently not saying the right things.

The police yell, ordering me to put my hands up. I don’t. They stalk forward. Move me. Handcuff me. Paramedics rush into the room as I’m dragged away.

Outside, blue and red lights flash in the darkness. I’m numb when they place me into the back of a patrol car. Eventually, they pull me out, and I am interviewed.

“We were using drugs. I don’t know what happened. He was playing around with the gun. I didn’t do it. Arrest me if you want to,” I tell the police. “He put it in his own mouth.”

“Suicide?”

I snarl at the cop. Asher didn’t mean it. There’s no way.

“He was fucking around,” I say more firmly.

The cop stares. I guess it was suicide, but I’m not saying it. Someone else can.

Mom rushes at me, frantic.

The handcuffs are undone from my wrists. I guess they believe me. At least for now.

The gurney is wheeled out. Asher has a sheet over him. Everyone — these fucking strangers — they stare at him as if it’s a parade.

“That’s my brother!” I shout across the chaos.

They have no right to look at him.

Mom screams as the paramedics wheel him to the ambulance, branding a mother’s pain into my fucking soul forever.

Her knees give out and she hangs on me. I support her. I support Dad when he shows up and sobs into his hands. I support my brothers when they cry and pity me for having witnessed it. I hold Frida for a half-hour next to the cop car as I stare at the flashing lights. Is she crying for me or him? I barely feel her body against mine. It’s not comfort.

I’m numb.

I fucked Frida.

I don’t ask her whether it’s true. I am unsure if I want to know.

Did he kill himself for her? Or because of the guilt? I guess he loved her. I’ll never know. I doubt she’d tell me. He could’ve fucked her because he was depressed. I have a thousand questions, and all he gave me was ‘sorry.’

The drug house dissolves. Ocean air fills my lungs. When I open my eyes, Harlow is still holding my hand.

“That’s what happened. Are we closer now?”

She better say yes, because for the first time, reaching out to Asher doesn’t feel like an option.

46

Harlow

I sit on Killian’s lap and hug him, locking my arms around his neck and pressing my cheek tightly against his. His broad chest rises and falls against mine. He’s warm, solid, and absolutely huggable.