Midnight Whispers
QAF Brian and Justin Fanfiction

 

Breakneck

Chapter 8: Fall

Fifteen minutes later, when I pulled into the driveway to Sara's house, Daphne was already parked in the driveway. It was dark out, but my headlights flashed into the car and I saw her twisted around in the front seat, obviously speaking to Luke. She looked up at my arrival.

As I killed the engine, I heard the muted sounds of Luke crying.

"Why's he crying?" I demanded, tearing out of the Jeep.

Daphne had gotten out of her car. "I don't know. He hasn't been happy since the phone call woke him up—I checked his diaper and I tried to see if he had a fever, but..."

I opened the car door and made quick work of the straps, pulled him out of the car seat and crushed him to my chest. I fell back against the car, burying my face in his hair and murmuring to him softly. Luke was okay. We were okay.

The adrenaline from the encounter with my father hadn't worn off yet.

"Oh my God, Brian!" Daphne squealed, making me remember that Brian was half-dead in the passenger seat of the Jeep.

"He didn't want to go to the hospital," I said, bringing my head up.

Luke's cries had begun to peter out, and I wondered if this was the extreme separation anxiety that the baby books all said would set in around nine months.

"Can you grab Luke's diaper bag and take him into the house?" I asked. "My key ring's in the front pocket of my backpack—the house key is the one with the red sticker... I've got to help Brian into the house."

"Yeah, sure," Daphne said.

I continued to hold Luke, rubbing his back, as she leaned into the car. Moments later she emerged with my key ring in hand and the diaper bag over her shoulder.

Luke burst into tears when I handed him over, and I winced. "Sorry."

She shrugged and headed for the front door, a wailing Luke on her hip.

I approached the Jeep. "Brian?"

I heard a groan, and the click of a seat-belt.

"C'mon," I said, opening the door. "You've got to come inside."

Brian moaned something I couldn't quite make out, but it didn't sound very much like an agreement.

"I know you're in pain, but you've got to come inside. The sun's gone and it's getting colder."

Brian didn't respond.

"There's drugs inside," I offered.

That, at last, got him to move. With difficulty, I got him out of the Jeep, and then we took a slow, unsteady walk up the front walk to the house. Daphne had left the door open, angel that she was.

The sound of Luke crying greeted us as soon as we were in the door. Daphne was bouncing him, talking to him, walking up and down the room, but he was having none of it.

"Just down the hall," I said, steering Brian in the right direction. He was heavy, and leaning on me more and more with every step we took. By the time we got to Cal's bedroom and he was able to lay down on the bed, I was struggling to support him. I was also beginning to feel the adrenaline wear off, leaving me with an aching shoulder, side, hip, jaw, and other assorted pains that kind of blurred together. We were lucky we hadn't needed to go further.

"What hurts?" I asked him quietly.

Brian was lying on his back, breathing shallowly. "Ribs. Head. Face."

"You need to see a doctor."

Brian shook his head minutely.

I bit my lip, but I knew he didn't have the energy to argue. "I'll be back," I said instead.

I left the room and headed back into the living room, where Daphne had managed to get Luke to quiet a little, but not by much. As soon as she caught sight of me, she was shoving him into my arms.

Luke went quiet almost immediately, snuffling against my jacket.

"Can you see if there's any aspirin in the cabinet?" I asked, sitting down on the couch. "It should be in the one above the toaster."

Daphne nodded, disappearing into the kitchen.

I sat back against the couch for a moment, closing my eyes and feeling Luke's weight in my arms. The night was beginning to take its toll as exhaustion and pain started to make their way to the forefront of my mind. The world had gotten so fucked up in a matter of hours. It seemed like ages ago that I had been sitting in the living room with my parents, listening to my father tell me that it was okay, that I didn't need to pretend to be gay to get his attention anymore.

"Justin?" Daphne whispered.

I opened my eyes, looking up at her.

She shook the bottle in her hand. "There was only Tylenol."

"It's for Brian," I said, although some pain medication for myself wouldn't have been a bad thing either. "Here, I'll take it. Can you go out to the car and bring in my duffel and backpack? And the car seat?"

"Of course."

And Daphne left again.

I stood up, moving Luke to my hip so that I could hold him with one arm, and went into the kitchen. Opening the freezer, I found an old bag of frozen peas, and I pulled it out. I made a makeshift ice pack using the dishtowel that was hung on the stove, and then poured a glass of water. Slipping the bottle of Tylenol into my pocket, I grabbed the glass and ice pack in one hand, and, keeping Luke secure with my other arm, headed down to Cal's bedroom.

It was bizarre to think that after five—or was it six?—weeks of abandonment, the house would still be here, looking exactly as I'd left it the day after Sara had died. There was a rotten bowl of oranges on the counter, and a box of Pop Tarts next to the toaster. I really didn't think Cal was coming back, and I wasn't sure what would happen to the house. I was pretty sure that he'd paid off the mortgage on the house, but the house couldn't just sit here for all eternity. Would the bank reclaim it? The city? How long did they have to wait before they determined that Cal Anderson wasn't coming back?

I pushed the thoughts out of my mind as I entered Cal's bedroom again.

Brian hadn't moved.

I laid a mostly-asleep Luke on the bed, near Brian's head so that I could keep an eye on him, and then I sat down next to him.

"I have drugs," I whispered.

Brian's mouth twitched in a semblance of a smile. "Yay."

"How are you feeling?" I asked as I slid the bottle out of my pocket.

"Head's better. Not so spinny."

"I have Tylenol," I told him, dumping four of the little white pills into the palm of my hand.

"Vicodin," Brian croaked.

I snorted. "Sorry. This is all I've got. You want to dry-swallow, or do you want water first?"

"Dry."

He was definitely feeling better. He was talking more coherently, even if he hadn't cracked his eyes open. His nose had stopped bleeding. His breathing, on the other hand, had not improved.

I tipped the pills into his mouth one at a time, and then brought the glass of water to his lips. Brian drank two swallows and then shook his head slightly, panting.

I set the glass on the nightstand and then reached for my makeshift ice pack.

"I have an ice pack," I told him. "For your chest."

Brian's eyes cracked open at that, and though his eyes attempted to focus on my face, they seemed to be distracted by the head of white-blonde hair that was probably just inside his peripheral vision. His eyes traveled down, and in the dimness of the room, I wasn't sure if he was looking at Luke or if he had just shut his eyes again.

"Here?" I asked him, placing the ice pack where I was pretty sure the bottom of his ribcage was.

"Higher."

I obliged, and Brian made a tiny nodding motion.

"I'm going to be down the hall in the living room. Yell if you need anything."

Brian made a vague noise.

I picked up Luke and left the room, going back to the living room where Daphne was sitting with my bags and the car seat.

She bit her lip, standing as I came in. "Justin, I've got to get back home. It's almost eleven on a school night, and if your parents showed up..."

I nodded. "Yeah, okay. I'm good here."

"Should I tell them that I took you to Debbie's?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No. Tell them... Tell them you took me to a homeless shelter. If they ask."

"Are you gonna be okay here?" Daphne asked, concern written all over her face.

"I'll be fine," I said. I smiled tiredly. "Really. Thanks for your help."

"I guess I won't see you at school tomorrow?"

I shrugged. "I'm suspended anyway."

She grinned. "Oh, yeah. One would think you planned this!"

"Never in a million years would I have planned this," I said, staring down at Luke as the truth of the words sunk in.

What had I done?

Daphne left and I lay down on the couch, exhaustion taking over the mental-overdrive my mind had pulled into, trying to figure out what I was going to do now. I lay on my back, Luke asleep on my chest, and was out cold in minutes. Unconsciousness had never been such a blessing.

*

It was a combination of the uncomfortable couch, the general ache that had stiffened my body overnight, and Luke rolling over, kicking the spot where I'd been elbowed last night, that woke me up. Swallowing a yelp of pain, my eyes shot open and I almost sat up before I realized what the weight on my chest was.

The living room was dark, but lighter than it had been when I'd closed my eyes. A glance at the clock on the wall told me that it was a little past six.

I sat up slowly, both because I didn't want to wake Luke and because it turned out that moving hurt like a fucking bitch. In particular, my shoulder was throbbing fiercely every time I moved my arm. Ow. Hopefully, it would loosen up as I moved it around more. And if this was how I was feeling, I couldn't imagine the pain that Brian must be in.

Shit. Fuck. Balls.

Brian.

I set Luke in the car seat that was sitting next to the couch, buckling the main strap so that he wouldn't slide out, and then I made my way (stiffly) down the hallway. It wasn't even my ass that hurt, for once. My hip was twinging from where I'd landed on it last night at the loft, and pain was radiating, quietly but still there, from various areas along my torso from when I'd been trying to get between Dad and Brian.

I'd run away from home. I had a son to support, and I was fucking seventeen years old. What had I done?

I pushed open the door to Cal's bedroom. I wondered if I should start referring to it as Cal's old bedroom, or if I should continue to use the present tense version in the hope that one day, he would come back. What if he did? Could I really give Luke back to him, after he'd abandoned us like that? After Luke had finally gotten over the loss of his mother? And I was pretty sure that, legally, Luke was mine unless they could prove me an unfit parent. Which I wasn't, except for the fact that I was jobless, homeless, and couldn't even vote.

"Brian?" I whispered cautiously.

Brian hadn't moved. The bag of no-longer-frozen peas still lay on his chest, rising and falling with every breath, and the glass of water I'd left on the nightstand had gone untouched.

I sat down on the edge of the bed, and gently patted his face. "Brian?"

A grunt. Brian's mouth fell open and something between a sigh and a groan came spilling out. He started to raise a hand, no doubt to bring it up to scrub his face, when he suddenly froze and let out a hiss of pain. Slowly, he brought his hand up the rest of the way, and carefully rubbed at his eyes.

"...the fuck did you let me do?" Brian mumbled, cracking his eyes open. "Christ."

"Um," I said.

And then it came to him. Even though his eyes were mere slits, I could still see the light in his eyes when the memories came back to him.

I took the bag of peas off his chest, wincing as my shoulder flared. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I was fucking ambushed last night, how the fuck do you think I feel?"

I shrugged, watching my hands as they dropped the bag of peas into my lap. It seemed he was feeling better this morning.

"Christ," Brian muttered, closing his eyes and exhaling. "Where the fuck are we?"

"Just outside of the city," I told him. "Bleaker Lane."

"Tell me it's not past seven," he demanded.

"It's not past seven," I told him, truthfully.

Brian sighed. "At least, for once, I don't have myself to blame for feeling like shit the morning after."

I cringed.

Brian pushed himself up off the bed, slowly, and I made no move to help him. I focused my eyes on the glass of water, listening to his slightly labored breathing as he stood, and didn't turn my head as he walked out of the room. Brian was apparently too busy trying to reorient himself with the world, and move around while in considerable pain, to notice.

"You should go to the hospital," I told him as I finally got up off the bed, following him out of the room.

Brian staggered into the bathroom, which was handily right across from Cal's bedroom, and flicked on the lights.

I was almost back to the living room when I heard him swear loudly, and I rushed to see what had happened.

Brian was staring at his reflection in the mirror. There were trails of dried blood from his nose and down his neck, and a day's worth of growth was peaking out through the crusted mess. He appeared to be more worried about the black eye, which actually spilled over his eye and down most of his left cheek in nasty shades of purple and yellow

"Fuck," he swore, poking at it twice, and then going for his cell phone.

"I'm sorry," I said hesitantly. "I didn't mean for it to—I didn't mean for my dad to..."

Brian ignored me, punching in a number and then holding the cell phone to his ear as he started running the water in the sink.

"Cynthia!" he barked. "Yes. Yes, I know, and you get up early to perm your hair or whatever the fuck, anyway, so don't bitch at me. I'm not coming into work today. I got into a car wreck last night, my face is a fucking mess, there's no way I can give the pitch to those dickwads from Canton this afternoon. Yeah. No. Whatever. And if you send that fruit basket, I'll fucking kill you."

He swore again as he brought his arm down to put the cell phone back in his pocket.

"I'm sorry," I said again, even more miserable. Brian was missing a day of work because of me.

Brian ran his fingers under the stream of water, and then raised his arm to wipe his face—and hissed in pain as he did so, cringing in on himself a little bit. He continued to wash his face, despite the obvious pain it caused him to lift his arm, and I continued to feel terrible.

But he was obviously not interested in talking to me, so I didn't say anything more. Instead, I just hovered in the doorway and carefully did not lean against my still-aching shoulder.

"What the fuck are you waiting for?" he snapped, after I'd been standing there for several minutes.

"You should see a doctor."

"And you should go home."

My mouth dropped open. "My dad just tried to kill you, and you want me to go home?"

"He didn't try to kill me," Brian said, rolling his eyes. "He just wanted to show you... who the bigger man was."

And it wasn't me.

Brian didn't say it, but it was so obvious from his tone of voice.

"By attacking you when you had your back turned?" I asked incredulously. "You think that makes him a man? He's a fucking coward, Brian! You're four times the man he is!"

"I know that!" Brian snarled, whirling on me.

I flinched, but my anger made me hold to my position. "Then why are you acting like you lost last night?"

"I did lose. Or did you miss the part where your father was beating his chest and doing Tarzan calls over my half-conscious body?" Brian paused, and then sneered at me. "I hate to shatter your knight-in-shining-armor fantasies, princess, but last night was not a victory. Last night was me getting my ass kicked."

"But it wasn't a fair fight!" I protested.

Brian snorted, and then cringed, hissing. "Fights are never fair," he said through gritted teeth, eyes squeezed shut.

"So then it's my fault. All those times that Dad was shaking me, hitting me—" So I was exaggerating a little, but it got Brian's attention. "—I should have put him in his place! If only I hadn't been such a little faggot and I'd actually fought him back like a man, maybe last night would have never happened."

"Oh, don't be a princess."

"Well, if we're blaming people for losing fights they never stood a chance in..." I raised my eyebrows.

"Did I mention that I have a headache?" Brian asked.

"No," I said. "You conveniently didn't mention it until I was annoying you. Why are you so pissy? Do you think that you failed at protecting me or someth—"

"Fucking Christ!" Brian slammed his hands down on the counter of the sink. He bellowed, bending over, but it turned from one of pain into one of rage and he turned on me. "Let's think about this one, Sunshine. Let's reason through it. Why would I be pissed? Starting with: I did not get laid last night. You lied to me, and if there's one thing I thought you had the decency to do, it was to tell the fucking truth. Then I get ambushed, humiliated in front of an entire street of people, and then I wake up in a house that's who the fuck knows where. I'm missing a day of work. I can't raise my arms, I can't breathe, I can't even walk in a straight line, and what the hell makes you think that I want to see your fucking face right now?"

"I—I—" I stammered, my stomach churning. "I'm sorry."

From the living room, I heard Luke start to cry.

Brian closed his eyes, bringing his face away from mine. "Just get the fuck out of here. Go take care of your kid."

I swallowed, nodding without looking at him, and left the bathroom.

Shit. I wasn't sure whether or not Brian blamed me for last night, but I was sure as hell feeling guilty. Some of the things he'd said... But on the other hand, his anger didn't feel like it was directed at me. Mostly. Maybe some of it. But maybe I was just fantasizing, clinging to something that no longer existed.

"Hey, dude," I said, crouching in front of the car seat. "Are you being a drama queen again?"

Luke was too busy crying to notice me. When I lifted him out of the seat, he found himself dangling in midair for a few moments and started screaming, twisting and flailing, until I got him against my chest. One hand securely under his butt, the other on his back, I murmured to him and rubbed his back until he calmed down enough to realize that it was me. Then his face split into a drooly baby grin and he reached up, grabbing my lip and pulling.

I grinned and let him tug.

And it occurred to me, then, just how much Luke needed me. He needed me to feed him in a few minutes, make sure he had a fresh diaper, give him a safe place to take his morning nap, hold him balanced so that he wouldn't fall... And I needed Brian, but in a different way. A less important way. I could live without Brian. Luke couldn't live without me.

"Breakfast time!" I announced softly, grabbing the diaper bag and heading for the kitchen.

Luke babbled happily.

"Let's get you in your high chair, yeah?" I told him. "Because you need to eat, and Daddy needs to put you down. His shoulder hurts. And you're getting heavy, dude—what have I been feeding you, huh?"

I deposited Luke into his old high chair (this one had a cowboy print on the seat, not Care Bears) and retrieved his bib, formula, applesauce and a baggie of Cheerios from the diaper bag. Luke was feeding himself Cheerios while I was microwaving formula, when Brian appeared.

"So where are we, really?" he asked, leaning back against the kitchen wall. His eyes were on Luke, who took no notice.

I felt embarrassed, for some reason, but I pushed it away. What did I have to be embarrassed for?

"We're at Luke's other grandpa's house. He left when Sara died, so we've got the place to ourselves."

Brian glanced around. "We're squatting."

"Well, I am, at least," I said.

"And that's the plan?" Brian asked, not bothering to hide his amusement. Or his derision. "Squatting in your dead girlfriend's house? What, is her ghost gonna take care of the kid when you're in school today?"

I smirked. "I'm suspended. Today and Monday."

"You? Suspended?"

"I picked a fight with the school bully." I couldn't help the note of pride in my voice.

The microwave dinged, and I retrieved Luke's bottle.

"You're even stupider than I thought, if you think you're gonna make it on your own," Brian snorted, and then he winced in pain. "Maybe if you didn't have the kid... Babies are expensive, Sunshine. Believe me. I would know."

"No one asked you," I snapped. I scowled at him as I sat down next to Luke, helping him with the bottle.

"You should go home," Brian said.

"I'm never going back there. Ever." My voice had gone flat, and I glared at the table. "I was a prisoner there, and my father's a fucking psycho. I won't let him lay a hand on Luke."

"So love in poverty is better than hatred in luxury?" Brian asked mockingly.

"You don't have to make it sound so trite," I said irritably.

Luke paused in his sucking at the sound of my voice, and I shook my head, running a hand over his hair.

"Not you, buddy. You're fine."

Reassured, Luke slowly went back to his bottle.

"If you really wanted to do what was best for the kid, you'd give him up for adoption," Brian said mildly.

I scowled. "Stop calling him 'the kid'. His name is Luke."

"Fine. Luke. He could be in a house in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, with people who have the time and money to raise him. You could go to college—"

"Look," I interrupted, not liking the emotions that were rising inside of me. "I wasn't even supposed to raise him. Sara was supposed to, and then when she died, Cal was supposed to. But he left. If Lindsay and Melanie were to die tomorrow, wouldn't you take Gus in?"

"That's a completely different situation," Brian said dismissively. "I have a steady income, transportation, and a place to live. You have none of those things."

"Youwork ridiculous hours, you drink and do drugs every night, you trick like nobody's business, your loft is in no way set up to raise a child." Brian was looking increasingly pissed off, but I pushed on. "The idea of love makes you itchy, and the slightest signs of affection make you turn people into your emotional punching bags. You're impatient and moody. You manipulate people and couldn't give a flying fuck about—"

"And who the fuck are you?" Brian demanded, his tone dangerous.

So I'd pushed a little too far.

"The point is," I said, not at all intimidated, "you're far from a perfect father for Gus. He'd be better off, in the long run, with a couple of breeders—" Oops. I wasn't supposed to say that word anymore. Sorry, Daphne. "—in a house in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Wouldn't he?"

"No, he fucking wouldn't," Brian spat. "And don't try to parallel the situations because they're nowhere near the same. Look, your idiocy is going to end up killing the k—Luke. Do you want that?"

"Anything is better than being back there," I said stubbornly.

Brian laughed. Actually laughed. "Oh, yeah. I'm sure it was awful."

For the first time that morning, I was legitimately angry. I'd been irritated, frustrated, and mad, yeah—but now I was pissed. How dare he? How fucking dare he judge me like that?

"Get the fuck out of here."

"Don't have my keys," Brian said with a shrug. He winced again in pain.

Good. Fuck him. I hoped his ribs were all broken and he wouldn't be able to have sex for months.

"They're in the living room, on the floor by the couch," I said icily, and then I raised my eyebrows at him. "I'm not kidding. Get the fuck out of here."

Brian raised his forearms—not his arms, just the forearms, but the gesture of surrender was still obvious. "All right, princess. I'm off. Bring snacks with you when you apply for Welfare. It takes five or six hours to get through all the paperwork, I hear."

"I'm not fucking applying for Welfare!"

He slammed the door on his way out.

Ooo! Such an asshole!

*

Resigning myself to the fact that Brian was no longer going to be a part of my life, I decided to move onto more important matters at hand—like finding a job, and figuring out how much money I needed, exactly, to make it through a week.

Unfortunately, an entire day spent driving around Pittsburgh with a cranky Luke in the backseat quickly made me realize that job hunting was not easy, and that there were very few places hiring seventeen-year-olds in Pittsburgh. A trip to the grocery store made me also realize just how much it was going to cost to keep Luke fed and clean. By the time I left the store, I'd bought nothing for myself except a loaf of bread, but an entire week's worth of supplies for Luke, and almost all of my cash was gone.

It was also colder than balls outside. I called Daphne from a payphone outside the grocery store, holding Luke's carrier so that he was angled away from the wind.

That was another problem I had—the phones at Cal's had been shut off. I had no idea how much a phone bill was, or how to get the phones turned back on, but I knew that I needed some way for people to get in contact with me. Especially if I was going to get Luke into a daycare center.

"Chanders residence," Daphne answered.

"Hey, it's me," I said, huddling against the payphone. I tried not to let my teeth chatter. "What's up?"

"Oh my God, you're alive!" Daphne hissed, and I could hear her quickly moving into another room. "What's going on? Are you okay? What happened after I left?"

I filled her in on the situation, and after calling Brian an asshole five or six times, she told me that she had to get off the phone, but that we should meet up tomorrow morning.

"Let's go to that diner, the one where Debbie Novotny works," she suggested.

"No way! Brian and the guys do breakfast there on Saturday mornings."

We agreed on a different place to meet up, and then I had to go because I was already feeling guilty for keeping Luke out in the cold this long.

On the way home, I began mentally totaling how much money I'd have to make every week to make this work. I was quickly discovering that one of the major flaws in my education at St. James had been a lack of accounting/economics classes, or something else that would have prepared me for dealing with my own finances. And maybe some instruction on the basics of health insurance. And getting your utilities turned back on.

And dealing with people named Brian Kinney.

When I pulled into the driveway of Sara's house, I discovered the Jeep idling in the drive. What the hell was he doing here?

"Waiting for the fair lady to return to her tower, of course," Brian answered, when I asked.

"Go away."

Brian picked up the other bag of groceries, giving me a free hand for Luke. I would have told him to fuck off, except I did appreciate the help. And maybe I was just a little bit curious to find out what he was doing here.

"Your mother dropped by my loft earlier this evening," Brian said casually, as I dumped the bags on the kitchen counter. "Wanted to know where you were. She seemed to think that I'd dropped you off at some homeless shelter last night."

My stomach did a flip-flop. "W—what did you tell her?"

"I told her I dropped you off on Liberty Avenue, and I didn't know where the fuck you were."

I let out a huge sigh of relief, closing my eyes. "Thank you."

"She's really worried about you," Brian said, in a mock-concerned voice. "I think this might have been the first time she's raised her voice in public in years."

"Well, she's never had a little birdie leave the nest before," I said insolently, mimicking his tone.

I moved away from the counter to where Luke was starting to struggle against his straps, whimpering. Brian followed.

"Except most little birdies don't jump before they're not ready, and crash-land into homeless shelters," Brian replied, his voice losing some of its mocking quality. "Or, you know, their dead girlfriend's nest."

Setting Luke free of his confines and onto the floor, he immediately took off in the direction of the bucket of blocks we'd been playing with this morning. He babbled happily as he crawled, a string of "babababababababa..." that made me smile a little.

I moved to start putting away the groceries.

"She'll give up, eventually," I told Brian, not bitterly. "She'll stop as soon as Dad finds out, and anyway, she can't make too much of a fuss because then the rest of the neighborhood would find out, and that was why this whole thing went to shit in the first place. Maintaining our reputation."

Brian put a hand on my shoulder, holding me in place and circling around me. His expression was alarmingly serious. "She's scared, Justin. She loves you."

"Maybe you shouldn't have covered for me, then," I sniped, shrugging his hand off.

"Maybe I shouldn't have."

"But you did."

"Give me one good reason I shouldn't call up your mother right now and tell her where her wayward chickadee has been building his little nest."

Fuck.

"Can we cut the bird metaphor already?" I snapped. "And you're not calling my mother."

"You don't think she deserves to know that you're alive?" Brian asked, raising an eyebrow.

"What do you care?"

Brian was losing his patience. "This is ridiculous. Quit being a twat and call her. Look, you might not like it, but right now that place is the only home you've got—believe me, I know what it's like to live in a shitty home. Deal with it until your graduate from school, then you can get the hell out of Dodge. All right?"

"I'm dropping out of school," I said, my jaw setting.

In the tense atmosphere, Luke had paused, block in his mouth.

"You're just really bent on fucking your life up, aren't you?" Brian asked with a snort.

"Why do you care?" I demanded, advancing on him. "It's none of your business! Either tell my mother where I am, or don't—don't stand here hanging it over my head. I'm not fucking going back there."

Brian stared me for a long moment, and I stared back until he finally dropped his gaze.

"Whatever," he said, shaking his head. "I'm going to Babylon."

My heart ached as I suddenly realized that Babylon—the colors, the glitter, the thumpa-thumpa-thumpa that I was so incredibly in sync with—was a thing of the past. There was no way I could afford to pay the entrance fee and a babysitter, and there was no way I could take the risk of having my fake ID discovered. I couldn't risk Luke over that. But God, would I miss it.

"Thank you," I said quietly, as he made for the door.

Brian didn't answer. But he didn't slam the door on his way out, this time.

 

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