Page 2 of Shade
I do what I want almost every day. I’m paid to have fun. I have women thrown my way every single day of the week, more pussy than any man can possibly imagine and more money than I know what to do with. I don’t say any of that to appear cocky or arrogant. I say it because regardless of all that, I’m weak when it comes to one girl. And Vicodin.
They say there’s one person you’ll do anything for. You’ll break yourself in any way possible to help them or make them happy. That’sthis girlfor me.
Rhya Morgan, she’s like being weak to the devil and knowing eventually, someday, she’ll burn it all to the ground because she can.
She didn’t always use to be like this. For so long she was this crazy energetic hell-raising strawberry blonde who brought out the life in me when everything else seemed to crash out of control. I don’t have a single childhood memory that doesn’t have her in it, causing mischief and daring me to live my life recklessly. Hell, people say I’m out of control now, but guess who I learned that from? Her and my brothers of course. Corruption at its finest.
Sadly, as life would have it, nothing good lasts. But guess what, nothing bad does either. Slowly they’ll both fade away with time. Like the passing of time and tragedy, one day that energetic troublemaker of a girl I knew slowly disappeared into the cocaine addicted shell of the someone she used to be. I can’t even tell you when it happened.
Actually, that’s not true. As fucked up as it is, I can. I can even tell you the day. I just don’twantto because the memory of her sobbing against my chest that night is one I’d like to forget. And unfortunately for me, the thought takes me back to the night, her body trembling, her eyes filled with tears.
The warm California summer night clawed at my face, heat ripping through me as I scrolled through the pits of Glen Helen. It was sometime after midnight and I’d been looking for Rhya everywhere that night only to find her in my uncle’s trailer, on the couch in the dark. The pits were alive outside, pulsing with the summer heat, music and laughter floating through the air. Everywhere I looked people were getting drunk and living the night up. Why wouldn’t they? Like most of my childhood, this was the scene at any outdoor motocross event when the sun went down.
Hesitantly, I opened the door to my uncle’s trailer, and there Rhya was, curled up in a ball crying into her hands.
I went inside and shut the door behind me. I sat next to her, my hand on her bare shoulder. “Are you okay? Why are you crying?”
She turned to me, but didn’t say anything. Her eyes told me what her words couldn’t. It was in the tremble of her lip, the red in her swollen eyes and the rips in her white tank top. She clung to me, crying uncontrollably and when the door opened over my shoulder, my Uncle Ricky looking for me, her eyes drifted past his face and caught the one who destroyed her innocence in the distance. It wasn’t Ricky. It was Jaime. Her older brother’s best friend.
I didn’t know it at the time everything that happened, but I should have known what the look meant. From both of them. But I didn’t. I was fourteen and didn’t know a fucking thing about how life really worked or what looks like this meant.
At some point it became obvious what had happened to Rhya that night. I wasn’t going to make her say it. Rhya had always found trouble. In some ways, she looked for it. A way to gain attention. But this, she didn’t deserve this.
She begged me that night. Begged me to replace the horrible memories with one she could remember as good and pure, but I couldn’t. Like I said, I was fourteen and didn’t know a goddamn thing about what she was truly asking me to do.
So instead I promised her, “I’ll always be here when you need me.”
It was the last and only promise I’ve ever made. To anyone.
As much as I’ve tried, I can never quite take that memory away from Rhya. All I can do is be there for her the only way I know how. The only way she allows me to. I’m there to catch her when she falls.
“Why’d you call me, Shade?” Rhya’s slurred words and labored breathing brings me back to the desperation on the other line.
Why can’t you be normal?
I don’t ask that. I already know the answer.
Instead, I clear my throat and stare at the flat desert land behind my house where my track is. Sniffing, I lean against the railing, shaking my head. I should just hang up but I never do. “You didn’t call when you got out. Wanted to make sure everything was okay.”
There’s another deep breath. She blows it out into the receiver, heavy and harsh, as if the mere sound of my voice annoys her. It probably does.
“Sure,” she says, and it’s not followed with anything else. Just left there for me to take it as I will. “It’s fine.”
I know this answer. It’s one of her standards. It means she’s notwillingto tell me the truth. I can count on one hand the responses I get from any question I ask Rhya, and I know the meaning behind them too.
If she wants money, it’s something along the lines of, “I’m in a bad place.”
If she’s in jail or needs me to use my connections to get her out of trouble, it’s, “I need you.”
Then there’s the simple question of, “Can you come over?” which I get a couple times a year. It seems. . . I don’t know, innocent, right? It never is. Not with her. That one right there comes when she wants me physically. And though I haven’t slept with Rhya in years, she still tries to use me to erase memories of the fucked up shit she’s done.
To my left, Willa stares at me, nudges my arm and I nod. I know I need to go but I can’t. There’s something off about Rhya’s tone and even though I don’t want to be right, I know it’s because she fucking wasted the thirty grand I spent sending her to rehab. I’m so tired of this shit. I tell myself I’m not going to be nice and understanding about it like I was the last time.
“What are you doing here? Shhh, no,” I hear Rhya tell someone.
And then I hear him mumble harshly, “Why the fuck not? I give you what you want, you give me what I want. It’s how it works, Ry.”
There’s only one person who calls her Ry. I know the name behind the voice, and I’ll fucking kill him for being at her apartment.
