I thought things would get better when Shawn dumped Sadie—I
suppose I’d convinced myself that it was her fault, the things he did,
and that without her he would be different. After Sadie, he took up
with an old girlfriend, Erin. She was older, less willing to play his
games, and at first it seemed I was right, that he was doing better.
Then Charles asked Sadie to dinner, Sadie said yes, and Shawn
heard about it. I was working late at Randy’s that night when Shawn
turned up, frothing at the mouth. I left with him, thinking I could calm
him, but I couldn’t. He drove around town for two hours, searching for
Charles’s Jeep, cursing and swearing that when he found that bastard
he was “gonna give him a new face.” I sat in the passenger seat of his
truck, listening to the engine rev as it guzzled diesel, watching the
yellow lines disappear beneath the hood. I thought of my brother as he
had been, as I remembered him, as I wanted to remember him. I
thought of Albuquerque and Los Angeles, and of the miles of lost
interstate in between.
A pistol lay on the seat between us, and when he wasn’t shifting
gears, Shawn picked it up and caressed it, sometimes spinning it over
his index like a gunslinger before laying it back on the seat, where light
from passing cars glinted off the steel barrel.
—I AWOKE WITH NEEDLES in my brain. Thousands of them, biting, blocking
out everything. Then they disappeared for one dizzying moment and I
got my bearings.
It was morning, early; amber sunlight poured in through my
bedroom window. I was standing but not on my own strength. Two
hands were gripping my throat, and they’d been shaking me. The
needles, that was my brain crashing into my skull. I had only a few
seconds to wonder why before the needles returned, shredding my
thoughts. My eyes were open but I saw only white flashes. A few
sounds made it through to me.
“SLUT!”
“WHORE!”
Then another sound. Mother. She was crying. “Stop! You’re killing
her! Stop!”
She must have grabbed him because I felt his body twist. I fell to the