Page 23 of Pistol Whipped

“What are you going to do, Cohen, complain at the door until it opens? Or maybe you can call Mommy and Daddy to come and open it for you.”

I can practically see the steam billowing from Cohen’s ears. He’s losing what little cool he ever had. When he panics, or gets angry, or even just too damn frustrated, basically when he gets like this, his brain loses control of his mouth, and he says things he can’t take back. Rain has a talent for making that happen. I brace for impact before the words even leave his mouth.

“Your grandmother would be ashamed of you. Impolite bitch!”

What started out as laughable bickering quickly turns ugly when the door is thrown open, and Rain’s small body fills the doorframe. It catches Cohen off guard, and he’s forced to take a step back. Rage radiates through her. Those normally dazzling eyes of hers dance with a kind of fury I’ve only ever seen once before.

“How dare you?” Her voice is quieter than you’d expect. And chilling.

“How dare you mention Grams!” she hisses. “When you couldn’t even be bothered to call me back? To answer my fucking emails?”

I try to interject, but she’s already spiralling, and there is no stopping the crescendo of her anger now that it’s been unleashed. God help any man who tries to quell such a storm. We’re all caught up in it as she stomps forward, until it’s not just Cohen backing away but all three of us. We’re crowded in the dining area of the bus. Dallas has tucked himself into the booth seating around the small table. I’m leaning back, practically over the driver’s seat, and Cohen trips over himself so he’s sprawled out across the couch.

“I knew you hated me. But Grams! GRAMS!” she shrieks, her long hair whipping in all directions as she looks to each of us in turn.

“She kept asking about you. All those last days?! She kept asking me where you were? Why you didn’t visit? What was I supposed to tell her, huh? That you were all just too fucking busy?”

Her voice turns thin and reedy, and she points an accusing finger at a paling Dax.

“You were what? Too busy getting high?”

Then at Cohen. “And you, too busy being exactly the kind of corporate stooge you never wanted to be?”

“And you.” She finally turns my way. Her eyes soften, not from kindness but with a chest-deep sadness and her voice cracks. “Where the fuck were you, Dutch?”

She doesn’t wait for my answer because the anger sweeps over her again.

“Of all of you, I thought you, Dutch, you might be the one to show up.” She swallows loudly, trying to suppress the tears we can all see forming. “But no. Instead, I stood by her grave. Alone. The only mourner for a woman who deserved so much better than that. Better than us.”

She deflates before our eyes. Without the fight to prop her up, her whole body sags. She turns to leave, but I refuse to go unheard. I refuse to let her think the worst of me for a single second longer, so I lunge forward, grabbing her arm and pulling her against my chest.

“I did come, Rainy. It was too late, but I did come.”

She fights against me, trying to pull away. Not happening. I just hold her tighter, wrapping my other arm around her waist. For a second, I treasure the feeling of holding her close again after so long. I need her to know I was there as soon as I could be. So I repeat myself.

“I was there. Two days after the funeral, I went to see her. I brought flowers. Big white lilies.”

Grams might not have been my own grandmother, but she might as well have been. White lilies were her favourite, so I scraped together the money for the biggest bouquet I could get. It was the least I could do for missing the funeral, for missing my chance to see Rain. By the time I showed up on the familiar front porch, the house was empty, and there was no sign of the girl I’d come searching for.

Over my shoulder, I cast my eyes toward my brother. He had the decency to look ashamed. Because, God, how history repeats itself. I wasn’t at the funeral, forgot about it in all honesty, because I was busy hunting through every goddamned trap house in The Neck for my baby brother. Only to find him in a pool of his own piss, a needle so deep in his arm I thought it was going to snap in half when I pulled it out. A dose of Nar-Can, which I only learned how to use because of him, and a forty-eight-hour hospital vigil later, and I finally got Dax a bed in a public detox facility. Beside him, Cohen refuses to acknowledge that maybe Rain has a point. To avoid it, he’s looking anywhere but at her.

But there isn’t time to deal with Cohen’s shit or my brother’s sob story right now. Now, I’m entirely focused on the girl in my arms. The girl I’ve known and loved for coming up on twenty years but can’t bring myself to trust. In her ear, I whisper so low that I hope my brother and Cohen can’t hear it. It’s the question I’ve been dying to ask.

“I was there, Rain. Every day at first, but even after that, I went by at least once a week. Every week. For years. And I didn’t see your face once. So I guess the real question is: where the fuck were you?”

Only then does she stop fighting. Only then does she look up at me. Her eyes are watery, her expression wide open. For a second I think she’s going to let me in; she’s going to share her secrets with me just like she used to. Then she blinks, and that openness in her expression slams closed.

This time, when she pulls away. I let her go. I let her run. Let her put a door between us, let her lock me out of her bedroom and her soul.

Chapter 13

For a Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic

Rain

My lungs are too knotted to breathe. It’s not until I lock the bedroom door behind me that they loosen enough for me to suck in any air. I bury myself in the bedsheets and try to tune out the world, tune out everything that just happened.

Only the walls aren’t exactly thick. Through the door, I can hear the low rumbles of the guys chatting and just going about their existence.