Tangled in a Web of Lies (5 page)

Another few days lag by. I’ve had fewer nightmares on my new prescription, but I wake up queasy in the mornings and often have to throw up. I haven’t heard much from Odin, no texts or anything. I’m worried about him.

I get a call mid week from my brother Dustin. He says he’s coming to town and wants to stay for a couple nights. It’s so good to hear his voice. I haven’t seen him since last Christmas. I give him my new address, and tell him I can’t wait to see him.

Thursday marks the end of my work week. I’m in the middle of my shift, getting ready to take a tray of drinks out to table four when I see a face at the bar that stops me dead in my tracks. I freeze and almost drop my tray. My heart thuds loudly in my chest, fearful and scared, but mostly angry. I have so much rage built up inside, that I’m shaking.

“You okay?” Daniel notices my wide eyed expression, my feet glued to their place. I push my tray of drinks into his hands.

“Table four please,” I stutter at him, and dart into the back room before Jaime has a chance to see me.

There is no one in Gus’s office, so I stand inside, panting for air as my heart and mind race wildly. I want Odin. I fish my phone out of my apron, contemplating texting him, but my thumbs jitter over my keys.

“Lila, is everything okay?” Daniel’s voice is soft, but it still startles me as I twist my head around to look at him.

“My ex is out there,” I admit, trying to hide the fear in my voice. I hate that Jaime has me this shaken up. I want to walk behind the bar and just start busting bottles of cheap liquor over his head. But here I stand in Gus’s office cowering, pathetically. No wonder it was so easy for him to hurt me.

“Let me guess, that freaky ass biker dude with all the tats, sitting at the bar creeping on Julian.”

I smile, finding Daniel’s description of Jaime amusing, and nod.

“Are you scared of him?”

“No, I’m not fucking scared of him!” My pride lashes out at Daniel, who throws his hands up in defense. “I just fucking hate him, that’s all.”

Daniel senses my tone, and doesn’t ask any more questions. Instead he lingers in the doorway. There’s no way I can go back out there.

“I have to go.” I look Daniel in the eye and plead with him. “Can you please cover for me?”

“What do you want me to tell Gus?” Daniel looks confused, but all my survival instincts are just screaming for me to make a run for it.

“Tell him I started my period all over myself, I don’t care. I just need to get out of here.”

“Sure…”

I dart past Daniel, rushing to grab my stuff from my locker before I bolt out the back door.  I don’t so much as glance in my rear view mirror until I’m on the highway, and only then looking to see if I’m being followed.

I pull up to my garage and hit the button on my remote, but the light flashes red. The batteries are dead.
Son of a Bitch! Not Today!
  I frantically hit the button a few more times, but the garage door doesn’t lift. I growl in frustration, parking my car in front of the garage, I head up to my front door. I’m so busy looking over my shoulder that I don’t even glance around my porch. I fish out my house key and place it in the lock. My heart stops when I feel a shadow behind me.

“Finally.”

I turn in horror, immediately throwing a fist at the voice behind me. My blow lands on his nose.

“Fuck! What the hell Delilah?” All the blood rushes back through my body, and relief sweeps through me. It’s just Dustin.

“Oh my God, I am so sorry, you scared the shit out of me,” I say rushing to him for a hug. Dustin holds his beak sized nose in between his fingers, and wraps his other arm around me. He’s bleeding and I feel bad.

“Where the hell did you learn how to throw a punch?” he asks, wiping away the blood from his face.

“You. Remember?” I smile at him, then turn to let us both in the house. I flick on the lights and invite him in, hurrying to the kitchen to grab him some ice and paper towels.

“Remind me not to come up behind you in the dark again,” he muses, taking the paper towel from my hand.

“I said I was sorry. What did you expect when you sneak up on a girl?”

“Who the hell did you think I was?” Dustin tosses his bloody towel into the trash. I choose to ignore his question, heading into the garage to pull my car in.

I snag the remote from my visor and bring it inside to swap out the batteries. Dustin makes himself at home on my couch.

“I’m starving. What do you have to eat?” he asks, flicking on the TV. Cable was included in the rent here, otherwise I wouldn’t have it.

“Mac-n-Cheese?” I offer, knowing it’s one of Dustin’s favorites. He used to make it for us when our Mom worked late, which was all the time.

“Sounds bomb. You got something to smoke out of?” he asks, pulling a stash of amazing smelling weed from his pocket.

“There’s a bong in my room on the dresser,” I tell him, running hot water into a pot in the sink. I set it on the hot stove, and join Dustin at the kitchen table for a bowl. I wait as he meticulously breaks up a green nug, and packs its contents into the bowl like a pro.

“You grow this?” I ask as he passes it to me.

“Of course.” Dustin smiles as I take the first hit. It’s fucking delicious and smooth! Dustin grows the best weed in the whole world, or at least I think so. We pass the bong back and forth, catching up. I make my way in and out of the kitchen, stirring noodles around the pot. When it’s all finished I place the bowls of macaroni on the table and dig in.

“So, I have some bad news,” says Dustin, inhaling his food off his spoon. I look at him with anticipation.

“Remember Joey Scott?”

Of course I do. Dustin and Joey were best friends since junior high school, and I had a huge crush on him. I nod at Dustin.

“He passed away a few days ago.”

My heart sinks when I hear the news.

“How?”

“Anti-anxiety meds. They think it was an accident, he took too many and chocked on his own vomit while he slept.”

I feel my face get pale. Every time I use Valium the small fear that such a thing could happen to me lingers in my head.

“I’m really sorry Dustin.” It’s more of his loss than mine, and I know Dustin is a sensitive guy deep down.

“Life is too short to waste being anything other than happy.” Dustin’s words of wisdom remind me how unhappy I am without Odin. “His memorial is in Ojai this weekend, that’s why I came up.”

“I’m off this weekend, I’ll go with you,” I tell him.

Dustin scrapes the last of his macaroni from his bowl and rubs his tummy. We stay up late watching TV together, and I make him up a bed on the couch. I take my prescription, and pray to God I don’t have any nightmares just before I lay my head down to sleep.

In the morning I feel nauseas, but Dustin remedies my stomach ache with a fresh bowl of weed and homemade pancakes. It’s nice not to be alone for a change. I invite Kelli to hang out at the pool with us. It’s been a long time since her and Dustin have hung out, and it reminds me of old times. Kelli, too, is sad to hear the news about Joey, and asks if she can ride with us tomorrow to the funeral.

The next morning, I try and suck down some breakfast while we wait on Kelli. I’m not feeling that great. I’m sure it’s not just the new medication. It has a lot to do with the fact that I’m heart sick over Odin too. I’ve been eating like shit, feeling like shit, and trying to deny how fucking miserable I am to myself.

“Why do you bother taking medications that make you sick?” Dustin asks.

“It’s temporary,” I lie. What the fuck am I supposed to say?

Kelli gives me a worried look when she sees me looking flush and pale.

“Are you okay?” she asks when Dustin leaves the room. I assure her that I’m fine, but take Dustin up on his offer to drive. I sit up front, and browse through his CDs. Pulling out the Best of Pantera, I skip ahead to track 2,
Cemetery Gates
. It puts us all in funeral mode, and we retell stories we have about Joey.

We stop at Mom’s house once we are in Ojai. It’s a small town and Mom has decided to go to Joey’s memorial despite her religious beliefs. She and Pam, Joey’s mom, are close.

It’s a beautiful ceremony, held in Soul Park. There are tables filled with photo’s of Joey, and a few of them have Dustin in them as well. Joey’s parents are fighting tears, and I can tell they are both numb to all the people coming up to them to express their sympathies. However, when Pam sees Dustin, a smile spreads on her face. Joey was an only child, but all his friends were like sons to her. In a lot of ways, she reminds me of Shannon.

Later, everyone takes turns sharing their memories of Joey. He was only 27, way too young to die. Sadness fills the air as a tree is planted in Joey’s honor and memory. Dustin pulls out his phone and begins to play
In This River
by Black Label Society as dirt is tossed into the roots of the tree. The melody is filled with sorrow and loss, and it brings the majority of us to tears.

Joey Scott, my first crush, you will be forever missed.

The ride home is quiet. I pull out my phone and find a missed text from Odin.

{What are you doing tomorrow?}- Odin. I can’t answer him right now. My heart is already too heavy.

Kelli heads home once we get back. Dustin and I try and cheer ourselves up by making margaritas and setting up a game of quarters. It’s nice having Dustin here. He gets drunk and turns wild and brings out a smile in me. I love my brother so much, and I miss us being close.

As kids we fought a lot. Dustin is 5 years older than me, and he picked on me all the time. But in the end, we bonded over a mutual feeling we have toward our mother. We both love her, unconditionally. Yet we both felt rejected by her, and pushed out by her religion. She worked extremely hard to provide for us, but then she was never home. Dustin and I had to fend for ourselves a lot. We took our anger out on each other all the time. But in the end, Dustin is a good brother to me, and I love him with all my heart. Plus, he always supplied me with weed in high school. That definitely helped make up for all his bullying.

“Drink up!” he commands, sinking his last quarter into my glass.

“Damn it!” Reluctantly I chug down what’s left of my margarita.

“That’s what you get for punching me in the nose,” he jokes with a huge smile plastered on his face, so big that his beady brown eyes squint.

“Well if it didn’t hang so far out from your face,” I crack a joke about his giant nose that he shrugs off.

“Hey, do you have a poker set?” he asks. We’re rival poker players. He taught me how to play Texas Hold em’, and then I started to beating him all the time.

I deal the cards, but unfortunately I don’t get any good ones, and Dustin beats me the first three rounds. My phone rings in my pocket, and I pull it out to see it’s Odin. I stare down at it a few seconds, feeling the magnetic pull of my heart begging me to answer.

“You gonna get that?” Dustin asks, annoyed with the perpetual ringing.

I shake my head, and silence my phone, then get back to our game. After a few more hands I finally start to make a comeback, finishing out with three aces.

A knock on the door startles me. I glance at the clock. 11:30 is way too late for house calls.

“Would you mind getting that?” I ask Dustin, feeling my heart race in my chest. My biggest fear is that it’s Jaime. If it is, I hope he’d leave after seeing Dustin. Dustin eyes me a little suspiciously, wondering why I don’t want to get my own door. I stand in the kitchen, watching warily. From here, I can bolt into my bedroom and grab the gun in my nightstand if I need to. I’m getting really tired of living in constant fear. Maybe I should move out of California.

There’s another knock, harder this time, as Dustin unlocks the door. When it opens, my heart sinks, catching a glimpse of Odin.

“Who are you?” Odin rudely asks Dustin, anger in his voice.

“Who the fuck are you?” Dustin responds with equal amounts of cockiness.

The two of them stand there, eyeing each other angrily for a moment, and I can see a fight about to burst out. I quickly step in.

“What are you doing here?”

Dustin steps aside, allowing me to question Odin.

“I’ve been trying to get a hold of you. You didn’t answer so I came to check on you. Who the hell is he?” Odin is obviously fuming with jealousy, ready to sink Dustin in the ground.

“He’s my brother,” I say in an irritated tone. Dustin has his arms crossed, and fight written all over his expression. I push Odin back, and step out onto the porch with him, closing the door behind me to grant us some privacy. I know Dustin won’t linger around to eaves drop, it’s not really his style.

“How the hell do you know where I live?” is the first question that pops into my head.

“You told me.”

“No I didn’t.” I correct him.

“Why aren’t you returning my messages?” he quickly changes the subject.

“Because, I was at a funeral all day. And my brother’s in town!”