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For anyone still waiting to tell their story.

“Fuck.” Kai White dropped his bloodied former friend—
former best friend
—the rest of the way to the concrete. Jeremy Bunyan fell into a murky puddle like a rag doll, even though he had only been a few inches off the ground. Winded from delivering a volley of blows, Kai doubled over, fearing he would vomit. A smattering of blood droplets had sprayed across the front of his shirt. At least the adrenaline was keeping most of the pain from the fight away. All he could feel was a sprinkling of tingles in his fingers, but Jeremy had gotten him a few times in the face also. That would hurt worse and soon. It had been unfathomable once that they would’ve ended up here.

“Jeremy,” he said breathlessly. Jeremy’s lids remained closed without the slightest hint of a stir. The tacky blood smeared across his face was drying. Fear mushroomed in Kai’s chest as he tapped Jeremy’s leg with his shoe. Jeremy had been hitting him back a few seconds ago.
Did I kill him?

“Get up, Jeremy!” He cringed at the desperate edge in his own voice. With his back against the filthy brick wall, Kai, still out of breath, slid down next to his old friend. He tilted Jeremy’s head up and jabbed his fingers under his jaw to locate a pulse.

“Kai!”  His friend Leko’s voice echoed through the alley as he hurtled toward him. Other than the smothered music permeating the walls of the nightclub, it was quiet out. Most of the other noises were concentrated in the front, outside the boarded up, fenced off, dead end alley.

Kai shot up to his feet when Leko reached him. “Aw fuck, Lek, he’s out, man.” Kai forgot blood was on his hand when he brushed it across his forehead as he watched Leko examine Jeremy. “It shouldn’t have gone this far.” He couldn’t really blame it on the alcohol. Kai wasn’t completely sober, but his judgment hadn’t been influenced by the amount of liquor he had consumed, either. At first, hitting him had been a calculated move. It only turned impulsive once he had gotten the better of Jeremy, once he focused on why he was hitting him. The violence had come easily. Too easily. He had wandered into Butch White territory without seeing the “Welcome” sign.
That’s because it’s perched on your strands of DNA,
he thought.

“I’ll take care of it. I’ll call Abe and tell him to get the car…get outta here,” Leko said in a calm voice when he stood and surveyed the alley.

Typical Lek. Never shying away from taking bullets meant for me.
“No, Lek. This is on me, and look at you…you don’t look like the dumbass who was in a fight,” Kai insisted. He had let the situation get out of control, and now he would have to take on the consequences, too.

Leko missed the chance to protest when the side door of the nightclub swung open suddenly, and two guys stalked out, alternating their screams of Jeremy’s name. Kai recognized their voices immediately, and his heart slammed down into his stomach. He hesitantly prepped himself for another fight when the men froze, presumably piecing together the events that had occurred as they took in the scene.

“You good-for-nothing fucker! What did you do to my brother?” Chase Bunyan charged for Kai, but Leko intercepted him with raised fists. Leko always had his back even when it put his own in peril. It was mostly bravado from Chase and Adam though, anyway. Chase snarled at Kai but didn’t move past Leko. Neither did Adam Scott. Kai felt a belt of sadness tighten across his heart. Everyone here had been friends once.

Adam pressed a menacing glare into Leko but heeded his silent threat. “Still a thug and Kai’s bitch, I see.”

“And still hiding behind Chase, I see,” Leko countered with a smile, completely unaffected by the insult.

Kai bent down to check on Jeremy again and discovered he was currently groaning in pain and stirring, which was good, Kai thought. Jeremy’s blond hair was matted to his forehead and his face was starting to bruise. He lifted Jeremy’s shoulders and sat him up against the wall. “Can one of you call 911, please?” Kai asked. Everything was moving so slowly, and it seemed like the calm right before the storm.

“Don’t fucking touch my brother!” Chase barked as he pushed past Leko when he stormed toward Kai. When he reached him, he shoved Kai away, and Kai didn’t bother to defend himself. He only grimaced when he fell back, and his forearms and wrists took the brunt of his weight against the concrete. “Adam get security, but make sure no one else comes out here. They’ll try to give this shit to
TMZ
. Break their phones or break their faces. I need to figure out how to get a handle on this.” And Adam nodded before he disappeared into the club.

“You’re fucking dead, White!
” Chase screamed, cradling his brother, but Jeremy was coming out of the haze and pushing his brother off him. “You better hope he’s okay.” Chase shook his head slowly and aimed a spiteful stare at Kai. “All this time and you’re still jealous and still a fuck up.”

The words bothered Kai, but not enough to walk over and pulverize him. Maybe because he agreed with him in a way.
A fuck up, just like Bad Butch.
Chase was right about needing to contain the story about what had just transpired. The cops would be there soon, and so would the media once the names got out. Because Kai had lost his cool, he needed to fix this immediately. Kai stood up on his own as Leko approached.

“What happened, Kai?” Leko asked, nearly frantic. “What just happened?”

“Did you just get out her
e?” Kai tried to keep the panic out of his own voice.

“Yeah…” Leko swore quietly and handed Kai the cell phone in his pocket. “Dude, you need to get out of here.”  Leko dragged him toward the other end of the alley.  Kai looked at the cell phone for a few seconds then stared at his tainted ha
nds; the red stains had dried brown.

“No, Lek. I need to stay. If I leave, it’ll only get worse. You go. It’s cool.”

Leko scoffed and shook his head in confusion. “It’s
a lot of things, but it’s definitely
not cool
right now, bro.” A regretful but resigned look floated onto Leko’s face. “I’m sorry, man. I should’ve been out here. I should’ve come right away like you asked.”

“You didn’t know what was going on or that it would get out of control…I would get out of control.” He shook Leko’s shoulder in a comforting gesture, the way he always did, but Kai was worried, afraid actually, and feeling more defeated than he was willing to let on. “This won’t blow up in your face.
You
get out of here, man.”

Leko shook his head but obeyed, jogging away from Kai, back toward the
other end. Soon, husky security guards walked into the alley when Adam returned, but he had failed to follow through with Chase’s instructions as other people from the club were also pouring into the space. Kai knew his mistake was about to hit the headlines for the entire world to see, and it would dredge up his never-too-far-behind history. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized that maybe it was exactly what needed to happen to fix this.

Two Months Later

Crazy Crazy – Chapter 1

Dylan Carroll apologized to the guy looming over her as she typed with determined furor to get the last few notes from the board. The guy’s American Policy and Politics class was not for another ten minutes, but every class period he was territorial about that particular seat. She apologized again as she packed up her belongings and dashed out the classroom, nearly knocking the incoming professor down. Dylan had a standing coffee date with her best friends, Kate and Winslow, every Monday, and she was running late, which would give Winslow license to whine.

             
“Dylan, could I speak with you? Do you have time?” Her advisor, and the professor whose class she had just been in, Lizabeth Jordan, was waiting in the quad just off the building’s entrance. “Can we walk and talk?” Professor Jordan stepped out of her black heels and into a more comfortable pair of shoes. 

             
“Of course I do. Sure,” Dylan said breathlessly. Winslow was going to drown her in a cinnamon latte. “Great class today.” But her Documentary Film Theory class was always great. Dylan had come to City of San Francisco College without a clue of what she wanted to major in until she managed to finagle a spot in Jordan’s Intro to Cinema class. Jordan’s particular course was so popular that students had to enter into a lottery with preference given to upperclassmen. Dylan had failed to snag one as a freshman, but she had heard so many great things about the class, and without any specific direction in mind for college, film still seemed as good of a place as any to start. After the class lottery drawing ended, Dylan shot a choppy eight-minute film on an old camera, where she and her friends had acted in the roles, and sent it to Jordan without a single expectation. Professor Jordan told her that the film was the worst thing she had ever seen, but she thought Dylan had guts and heart, and she loved risk takers. And two years later, Dylan was officially a film major, a real filmmaker and had the mentor of her dreams.

             
“Remember several weeks ago when I had you email your résumé and film portfolio to me?” Professor Jordan had a peculiar smile on her face as they cut across the quad to the buildings on the other side.

             
“Of course. You told me to just trust you.” Dylan pushed her tote higher up on her shoulder and tried to keep up with Jordan’s strides. The professor was much taller than she was, and her gait was longer. Dylan had assumed she would be taller when she hit 5’5” in middle school, but it turned out to be where she had peaked.

             
“And you didn’t…” Jordan said, breaking the sentence with a laugh. “…Trust me.” Her brown eyes crinkled at the corners when the chuckle faded into a smile.

Dylan blushed and let out a guilty laugh in return. She had
not
because, while she was proud of her work, she was uncertain that her collection was ready for unknown public eyes. But Professor Jordan had promised her that she had come a long way from... She didn’t even want to remember the name of
that
terrible movie. Professor Jordan had told her that the portfolio was for a position that could potentially change her professional life and reminded her that risk-taking was what had landed her in that class in the first place.

             
They approached the Warner Building and Professor Jordan led her upstairs to her office. She offered Dylan the leather swivel chair opposite the desk that she had sat in many times before. “Well, I wanted to stay mum about it because, even though I was sure you would be a viable contender, I didn’t want to get your hopes up about it, just in case it fell through.”

As she sat, Dylan dropped her bag at her feet and heard the stifled sound of her phone vibrating, but she didn’t care. Her heart swelled in anticipation of Jordan’s news; she was intrigued now. “And it didn’t fall through?” Dylan asked, trying to keep her voice steady and her excitement tempered. Jordan helped students get valuable internships at major film studios and as assistants to top directors in TV and film all the time. She was sort of a saving grace for film majors at the small school.

Her professor leaned across her cluttered desk with a quick-spreading grin. “Oh, no, it didn’t at all. You were selected as an interview finalist. Have you heard of the singer Kai White?”