Come on, Segan. Look. Look at me.
It becomes abundantly clear he’s not going to give in. His eyes are lasered ahead, seemingly hanging on to every word my brother preaches about Lana and her life. I should do the same. I should face forward and leave him alone.
But this is Segan, and I can’t. Leaning in, arms rested on the table, I ask, “How’re you holding up?”
He still won’t look at me, but his face twists into a sneer as he spits out, “I’m fuckin’ great, man. Thanks for asking.”
Taking in his side profile, he looks rundown. There’re bags under his eyes, his complexion looks paler, cheeks look a little gaunt. “You look like shit,” I mutter. Probably could’ve kept that to myself, but I can’t help my worry.
That finally gets his attention. Turning his head, his eyes narrow into slits, teeth bared. “Yeah, well, I’m fucking grieving. Forgive me for not looking my best.”
His flippant response is gasoline on the fire that’s been burning inside of me all week. Reaching out, my fingers wrap around his arm, his eyes flaring at the contact. “How long’s it been going on, Segan?” I growl, my chest tightening the longer I sit here.
Segan snatches his arm from my grip. “First of all, don’t fucking touch me. And secondly, get your fucking facts straight. I’m not the person you should’ve been questioning.”
Scoffing, I grit out, “You expect me to believe that?” How stupid does he think I am?
At this point, our scuffle is gaining the attention of those sitting around us. In the back of my mind, I know I need to let it go. Now is not the time or the place, but I can’t.
“I don’t give a shit what you believe,” he says with a bite, his chair skidding along the linoleum as he scoots back, standing. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
And then he’s gone. I watch him storm out of the room, walking away from me the same way I walked away from him a year ago.
10
SEGAN
Another Year Later
The last fucking thing I want to be doing is working. Monday came way too soon, and rolling out of bed took an immense amount of effort. It doesn’t help that my throat is all scratchy and my body aches all over. I’m also almost positive I’m running a fever, but who knows. I don’t have time to be sick right now.
It’s ten past eight by the time I park my work truck at the job site. I don’t know how I missed my alarm this morning, but at least I’m only a few minutes late. Grabbing my materials out of the back, I hustle inside, hoping like hell nobody will notice. I’m never that lucky, though.
“You look like trash, Bradley,” Quinn, my co-worker, quips as I blow past him. “Late night?”
“Surprisingly, no,” I reply, laying down my sheet before grabbing the bucket to mix up the mud I’ll need to work. “I feel like shit, though. Must be coming down with something.”
“Stay the hell away from me then.”
Quinn and I have worked for Richards and Sons Drywall for the last nine months. Before finding this place, we worked other dead-end jobs together. He’s a few years older than me, married, with four-year-old twin daughters at home. Both of us are quiet and like to get our job done with minimal distraction, which is why we work so well together.
I’ve never had many friends, large in part to the community I was raised in. Everyone my age was always God-fearing and rule-abiding, while I was the rebel child with zero fucks to give and my middle fingers raised high. Lana understood me, but when she died last year, I became even more of a recluse. My parents practically disowned me after the funeral.
A perfect example of ignorance is bliss. So, after the details regarding her death came to light, shit hit the fan, despite me having absolutely nothing to do with her death and all that surrounded it. Everyone was more than happy to assume it was me who fed her the drugs that killed her. That it was me who tied a tourniquet around her arm and stuck a needle with a fatal dose of heroin in her arm. Who gives a damn that I’ve never fucked with that type of shit in my life. It was easier to blame me, disown me, hate me, than it was to look in the mirror and think about what part they played in her ending up like that.
I’ve kept to myself since, communicating as little as possible with anyone from my town. Quinn lives outside of the city limits and isn’t a part of the church cult I was raised in, so he’s oblivious to all the drama surrounding me. Not that I’ve kept him totally in the dark. He knows about my religious upbringing, and about Lana and how she died, and he tries to ask questions here and there. He knows enough to get an idea about my life, but not enough to really get it.
The company we work for is located two towns over from my home, which is half the appeal. We’re never given jobs in my hometown, which lessens the chances of me running into anyone I know. That’s not to say it never happens, since Idostill live there after all, but Monday through Friday I’m at least gone until the sun goes down.
Shortly after the funeral, I packed my shit and moved out of the place I shared with Lana. It was a small, cheap apartment in the center of town that was rented to me by my former boss. We’d only lived there a handful of months before she died. I couldn’t stand the thought of being anywhere she’d been anymore. Not because I missed her or it pained me to be near her, but because I was so livid, and the thought of staying there made me murderous.
I found a killer deal on a trailer in a park toward the outskirts of town that I was able to rent. The landlords aren’t local, nor are they picky about their tenants. The place is run down, has no air conditioning, and in the winter, it’s close to freezing inside, but it’s cheap and gives me a place to sleep at night. At least until I can get the fuck out of town.
And I am leaving. Someday. I refuse to rot away in this town for the rest of my life.
With the mud mixed up, I get to work. Our current job is this brand-new apartment complex that’s opening in a few months. It’s us and about ten other guys working on finishing the drywall. We’ve been working at this site for close to two months now, and we’re finally almost finished.
We wrap up for lunch around noon, leaving our supplies in the room, and heading outside to eat. I open the bed of my truck, hopping up to sit as I open my lunch box and pull out the sub sandwich I made for myself. Ripping off a bite, I wince at the warm lunch meat and the less than stellar tasting mayo on the stale bread. I forgot an ice pack. Quinn hops up beside me, opening his lunch, and to no surprise, it looks more delicious than mine.
