My Brother's Bad Best Friend Read online

  “Nineteen.” Jonas grins at me. “Seems older, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say, laughing a little. “I would’ve guessed mid-twenties, like your age.”

  “Nope. Don’s been through some shit, though. I guess that’s why I like him.”

  We lapse back into silence. I feel like I’m learning more and more about Jonas, and it’s making him seem less like the shadow of a bad boy that haunted my memory for a long time, and more like an actual person. I always saw him as a caricature, one-dimensional, completely flat. He was never quite real, just the guy that disappeared with my brother and randomly showed back up in my life hovering in the background, looking gorgeous, dangerous, and bored.

  It’s strange how you can build a replica of someone in your head, and it’s even stranger to have that replica completely demolished by the truth.

  He’s helping out this young, talented guy, basically working for free to try and get him some recognition. He’s clearly well liked and known in this community, judging by the way people react when he comes walking past. He’s a businessman, and most importantly, he’s been kind to me.

  He’s all of these things, but he’s also the drug dealer, the bearded, tattooed asshole, the handsome bastard. He pisses me off as much as he makes me laugh, and all I want is to get to know him even better.

  “What about the other two?” I ask him, nodding toward the other young guys following in Don’s wake.

  “They’re all right,” he says. “Kids, you know? Remind me of myself. Which is why I’m trying to keep them from fucking up the way I did.”

  I arch an eyebrow. “You fucked up?”

  He grins and makes a face. “I know, right? Big shock, didn’t think I was capable of it.”

  “Doesn’t seem like you feel bad about anything you did.”

  “I don’t,” he says. “But I got lucky.” His gaze strays across the park as Vinny messes up a trick and Shrink laughs at him, the two boys grinning and tussling each other. “Not many people deal drugs for as long as I did and never get arrested. Even fewer turn that into a real career.”

  “But you made it happen.”

  “I made it happen,” he echoes, his face completely unreadable. “Sometimes I wonder how.”

  “You worked hard.”

  He cocks his head, a little smile straying on his perfect lips. “You think so?”

  “Only thing that makes sense.”

  “Believe it or not, selling drugs isn’t hard.” He pauses, leaning back on his hands. “The hard part is not getting caught.”

  “Is that all you sold?” I ask him suddenly. “Just weed?”

  He hesitates, and that says everything. I watch as he looks away from me, hands curling slightly on the concrete, a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  “No,” he says finally, and I’m almost surprised he chose not to lie. “I sold coke for a while, pills, illegal steroids, shit like that. But I never sold meth or crack or heroin.”

  “Just the classy stuff.”

  “Exactly.” The frown’s replaced by his signature cocky grin, but it was there and it says a lot about the kind of guy he is.

  He cares what I think about him, and he thinks I’ll judge him if I know he sold more than just pot. Part of me does judge him, truth be told, but I’m not surprised by it. There’s no way you make enough money to open up a dispensary just selling some weed on the side. He was probably moving serious product around, judging by how nice Half Pipe is.

  “I’m not ashamed of the shit I did,” he says softly, watching as Don lands another impressive trick and Vinny laughs, throwing his board in the air with fake exasperation. “It’s just, I’m not a fucking role model, and those three idiots are looking for one.”

  “Three?” I ask. “Even Don?”

  “Especially Don. I’ve been pushing him toward skating pretty hard, but I know he thinks being a dope boy is probably the best shot he has at a good life.”

  “Dope boy?” I ask, shaking my head.

  “Dealer, whatever. That’s just the life he was brought up in. Where he’s from, the dealers are the rock stars, the guys with fancy cars and girls and nice stuff. Every kid dreams about selling enough coke to buy a mansion like fucking Scarface.”

  The picture he’s painting of San Diego is completely unfamiliar to me. Where I’m from, the rock stars are all the mega rich, the ones that’ve been rich for generations and love to talk all about the accolades of long-dead relatives. Everyone wanted to be famous but nobody wanted to work for it, and so the whole culture was built around tearing each other down and bragging about wealth.

  “It’s like that where I come from too,” I say. “Not exactly. But everyone wants to be someone else, right?”

  He smirks a little bit. “What do you know about that, little rose?”

  I wince and he must immediately realize his mistake, because he leans away from me as I draw into myself. He curses softly but I shake my head and look away, out at Don and the boys goofing around, having a good time with each other, ignoring the shitty world around him.

  “I didn’t mean anything by that,” he says softly. “I know you’ve been through your fair share of shit.”

  “Yeah.” I can’t meet his gaze.

  He shifts a little bit closer. “You ever want to talk about it, I’ll listen.”

  “Thanks. I’m sick of talking about it, though.”

  “Good.” He’s closer to me now and I feel his hand on my thigh. “I didn’t want to hear some rich girl whine about how her asshole boyfriend got his dumb ass killed.”

  My gaze snaps to him, eyes wide. I can’t believe he just said that, so casually and cavalier. That night comes back to me: Nathan’s eyes, wide but seeing nothing, blood running down his battered and destroyed skull. I pull myself along the ground, screaming, crying, pain lancing through my body as I try to shake him awake and his body just falls onto its back, unmoving, never waking up again.

  “The thing is, little rose, pain isn’t special.”

  “I don’t want to hear it.” I shift away from hm.

  “It doesn’t have to be, at least. That’s how I deal with all my shit. I keep telling myself, I’m just one more suffering asshole on this trash heap of a suffering planet.”

  “Real helpful,” I say, standing up. “Where’d you read that, Chicken Soup for the Drug Dealing Asshole’s Soul?”

  His grin flickers back and he just shrugs. “You got me,” he says. “Sit back down. Don’s about to do something cool.”

  I stare at him like he’s insane. He just insulted me, basically told me to stop being such a little baby about what happened to me, and he has no clue, no clue at all. My legs were smashed and I spent months in bed, and after that, I had to learn to walk without a cane. It took me two years of limping around, and I’m still in pain every day. It gets better, a little more manageable, but it hurts every day. And on top of that, my asshole stepfather decides it’s time to punch me in the fucking face because I think it’s insane for him to make my mom get pregnant at fifty. My whole life’s crashing down around me, my whole future going up in smoke, and he just smirks with that handsome face of his, eyes staring into mine.

  He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a joint. With a practiced and almost thoughtless grace, he pops the joint between his lips and takes a nice, long hit.

  “Come on,” he says again, letting the smoke slide between his lips. “You can hate me all you want, but what else are you gonna do? Might as well stick around and have some fun.”

  I glare at him, hands balled into fists. What does this asshole know about pain? What the hell does he know about anything?

  But just like that, it slowly fades away. Jonas knows about pain, all about it. I’ve heard the rumors about him, and some of it has to be true. The fights he got into, the girlfriends he got pregnant, the drugs he took, all of it. There has to be something there past his asshole attitude, and based on the way his eyes flash at me, I think there really might be.
r />   Slowly I sit back down. He passes me the joint with a wink, but I don’t smoke it. “No, thanks.”

  “Suit yourself.” He takes another long drag and I watch as Don grinds along a low box before landing with his back truck in the air. He wobbles and balances before finally dropping back down with a laugh.

  I don’t know what I’m doing here, how I found myself in a skate park with San Diego’s most notorious drug dealing prick. If anyone else had said what he said to me, and with such a cavalier attitude, I would’ve slapped him in the face and bolted as fast as my broken legs would take me. Instead, I’m sitting here with him again as he smokes his joint, watching Don and the boys mess around on their boards, Shrink filming it every time Don goes in for a new trick.

  It’s stupid, this shouldn’t be my life, but I’m not getting up. I’m not going anywhere.

  He cocks his head at me one more time, holding up the joint. “You sure?”

  I hesitate. “I’ve never smoked before.”

  “You’ll like it. Just pull some smoke into your mouth then breathe it in.” He holds it out to me. “Go ahead. Just don’t take too much.”

  I take the joint from his fingers. I hesitate. I’ve never smoked pot. It was always forbidden, something the low-class druggies at school did. But fuck it, I’m not at school anymore. That old life is gone and has been for a while now.

  I put the joint at the end of my lips, suck in some smoke, and breathe it into my lungs, hot and harsh. I cough and Jonas laughs as he moves closer to me, making my whole body vibrate with anticipation, or maybe it’s just the weed moving into my system. I don’t know and I don’t care, because I’m here.

  7

  Jonas

  Lizzie’s cracking up as we stumble into the apartment. “The three… little… pigs!” She snorts, shaking her head, her hair flying wild.

  “I think you’re stoned, little rose,” I say to her, tossing my keys onto a side table.

  “Your fault,” she says, blinking up at me with red-rimmed eyes.

  “Let’s get you inside.”

  She giggles and stumbles into the living room. “Home sweet home,” she says, looking at the couch, and suddenly stops in her tracks.

  I follow her gaze. Ezra’s sitting there in the dark, drinking a beer. He glares at the two of us and slowly leans forward.

  “It’s late,” he says. “Where have you two been?”

  I know that voice. He’s sober right now, or at least relatively speaking, and he’s pissed. I already know how this is going to go, and I better get out ahead of it before Hurricane Ezra can do too much damage.

  “I was showing her the park,” I say quickly. “Introducing her to some people.”

  “The skate park?” He makes a face. “Why’d you take her there?”

  “What’s your problem, Ezra?” she says, although the bite is missing from her tone. She giggles a little bit and I groan inwardly.

  Ezra makes a face. “Is she fucking high?”

  “Just a little weed,” she says. “Don’t be such a prude.”

  Ezra stands up and walks over. “Lie down,” he says to her. “Jesus, you’re baked.” He helps her over to the couch and she curls up in a ball at one end, smiling up at him as he tosses a blanket over her. He straightens and glares at me, motioning for me to follow him.

  I march out into the backyard with him like a condemned man going to the gallows. I love Ezra, or at least I used to love him before all this drug shit started, but he has a goddamn temper and he’s stubborn as hell. The two combined means that when he finds offense to something, he never lets it go. You’d better apologize and make it right, or you’re dead to him.

  “Why the fuck did you get my little sister high?” he says, whirling to glare at me once the door shuts with a soft clank.

  “She needed it,” I say. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but she’s having a tough time.”

  “She needs to get fucking high?”

  I shrug a little bit, leaning up against the metal wall and slipping another joint from my pocket. “That’s what you’ve been doing lately, why not her too?”

  “Fuck you, man,” he says. “I’ve been starting a lucrative little side business, no thanks to you.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “How deep into this shit are you, E?”

  “That’s not important,” he says, waving me off and standing his ground. I know I’m pretty fucked just based on his body language. “What’s important is my little sister.”

  I cringe a little bit. Hearing him call Lizzie his “little sister” is like me calling my mom’s pit bull “my puppy.” That dog isn’t mine, and Lizzie is barely his sister. He’s been ignoring her for years, and only gave her the most cursory of attention after that damn accident. He should’ve been there for her, especially knowing the sort of house she was living in.

  But he wasn’t, and I didn’t do shit about it, because it wasn’t my problem. At least that’s what I thought about it at the time.

  Now though, I’m livid with this asshole. He has the goddamn balls to spend all his time and money getting fucked up and doing god knows whatever else, and I smoke up his sister and somehow I’m the bad guy?

  Fuck that shit. I know I shouldn’t dig my heels in, I know it’s a mistake, I fucking know it, but I can’t stop what comes out of my mouth.

  “Maybe if you gave a shit about her, you would actually spend more time with her instead of dumping her on me.”

  He narrows his eyes. “I didn’t ask you to look after her, asshole.”

  “Nah, you didn’t. But she’s a fucking wounded little bird limping around the goddamn shop, what am I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “Give her a free coffee and let her figure her shit out.”

  “Or, and here’s a novel idea,” I take a deep drag of my joint, “you could fucking act like a man, step up, and help her out.”

  “Watch it,” he says, stepping closer. “I am helping her out. She’s living here, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah, she is, and I’ll point out that I’m helping her with that just as much as you are.”

  “Oh, fuck you, Jonas. You act like you know everything, but you’re just another druggie asshole.”

  I smirk a little bit. “Says the druggie asshole.”

  “Stay away from Lizzie,” he practically growls. “She’s a good person and she’s been through enough. I don’t need you fucking her up, too.”

  That makes me see red. I want to break his goddamn jaw but I can already feel the reed-thin high pressing my anger back down through my throat. This is why I smoke so much, I reflect for a second. It’s the only thing keeping me from losing my mind and trying to fuck everyone up.

  “Okay, dick.” I push past him, slamming my shoulder into his. “I’ll go sleep at the shop. You can deal with your sister.”

  I head inside, slamming the door behind me. Lizzie pokes her head up like a prairie dog, smiling that lazy, hazy smile stoners sometimes get. She’s baked to hell, which I actually feel bad about. I tried to make her take it easy, but one thing after another and suddenly she’s stoned to hell.

  She’ll be fine, though. Good thing about weed is, there’s no hangover, and she seems to be enjoying herself at least.

  I head into my room and grab a backpack. I throw some shit in there, some clothes and a book. I go into the bathroom, grab my toothbrush and deodorant, and I’m back downstairs in a few minutes.

  Ezra stares at me from the kitchen. Lizzie’s back on the couch, watching TV with a glazed expression. I want to say something to her, maybe help her through this high, but she seems fine. Lucky girl, some people freak the fuck out when they get that high for the first time.

  I glance back at Ezra and he doesn’t move to say anything. I want to punch him in the jaw, remind him who his best friend is, who got him through all the shit five years ago, who pulled him along and made Half Pipe happen. Instead, I just leave my own damn apartment.

  Apparently, even he thinks I
’m just another problem ready to corrupt everything around me. And I’m not even sure he’s fucking wrong.

  8

  Lizzie

  I stretch and roll onto my side, staring at the clock on the DVR. It’s after eleven in the morning, and I realize that I haven’t slept this late since before the accident.

  I never sleep for this long. I can’t seem shake the jeering faces that drift up out from the deepest mires of my subconscious. I can’t seem to escape that moment, happening over and over again, Nathan’s skull scattering across the road.

  Except last night, it didn’t happen. I sit up and stare at the floor, expecting a wave of revulsion, but there’s nothing. I’m not hungover, not even a little bit. In fact, I feel well-rested, better than I’ve felt in a long time.

  I get off the couch and head into the kitchen. I make some coffee and for the first time in my life, I think I understand why people do drugs. Or at least I get why people smoke weed.

  I return to my little nest with a mug before flopping down. I check my phone and note the missed calls from my mother early this morning. I consider calling her back, but what’s the point? I know myself, and I know I’m going to get upset with her again.

  I lean back into the cushions and look around at the unfamiliar apartment, wondering what the hell I’m going to do with myself.

  I have no friends. That’s not really an exaggeration. After my accident, my friends all avoided me like the plague, and some outright blamed for me what happened. ”You stupid bitch, if it weren’t for you, Nathan would still be alive.” Sylvia’s face drifts up from my memories, one of the many jeering dream-phantoms that normally torture me at night. She never once seemed happy that I survived, only miserable that Nathan was dead.

  I blamed myself for what happened for a long time. When Sylvia said that to me, about three weeks after the accident, I didn’t argue. I completely agreed. My legs were useless and I was stuck in a hospital bed, but that wasn’t enough. I hadn’t paid enough.