Chapter Text
ring-ring, ring-ring.
Fuck the sun for rising. Holland blinks against the harsh light, crumbs raining down from his eyelashes. His head hurts, his arms hurt, his skin hurts. It tastes like multiple somethings fucked and died in his mouth.
ring-ring, ring-ring.
There’s something scratchy on his face, and when Holland makes the mistake of lifting his head it feels like the skin on the entire left side peels right off. He winces and quickly lowers his head back down.
Yeowch. Yeah, nope, not doing that.
ring-ring, ring-ring.
But the phone. The phone is important. What if it’s Holly? What if it’s Healy, or a new client, or a new lead, or—
ring-ring, beeeeeep.
“Hi, Uncle Holland.”
Oh, shit. He should really get that.
He doesn’t move, because Holland March very much does not want to get that.
The voice continues. It’s probably Ryland, because it’s always Ryland. “I, um, I hope you’re doing well. Me and Colt are good, and Court’s good too. Dad’s, um. Um. We all miss Mom. Can you please call? I think Dad misses Mom more than me, and I think he, uh. I think he misses you too, so can you please call back? Whenever you get this. Thanks.”
There’s a pause in which Holland thinks for a relieved moment that he missed it—that his nephew hung up—and then the voice tacks on awkwardly: “Oh, uh, this is Ryland. Not Colt. Um, okay, thanks. Bye.”
Hah. He was right. World’s worst detective Holland’s ass.
The message finally ends, and Holland lets out a long sigh into the old rug which is currently pressing its likeness into his face. He should get up. He should take a shower and call his nephew back and then he should address the slightly alarming dampness hugging his trousers to his legs. He lets out another sigh, bigger than the last, and wincingly starts maneuvering himself upright.
Christ. He’s still in his work clothes.
Something peels away from his cheek, the one without the carpet fibers melded to his skin, and when he looks down he sees a bright pink sticky-note fallen to the floor. He lifts it, squints, and waits impatiently as the letters come into focus.
To-Do List for Dad:
- shower
- clean the house. the whole house, I’m serious
- throw out your pants and the rug
Reminder:
- JONAH IS COMING OVER 4PM
Right. Shit. Right, he totally remembered that. Holland shoves himself painfully to his feet and stands there for a moment, swaying and blinking against the light of the stupid, incessant sun. He checks his watch. He checks again.
“Shit!”
The sky is a bright, blinding blue, not a cloud in sight. It would be hot, but there’s a breeze, which means it’s nice: cool enough that she’s not a sweaty mess, warm enough that she can wear something cute.
“—so then I said, what do you mean mayonnaise—Holly? Holly, are you even paying attention?”
Of course Holly is paying attention. Mayonnaise in your hair is gross, this is why she will never share a hat with Peter Nielsson. “I mean, at least she doesn’t have to shave it?”
“Right. So anyway, apparently Amanda has to do this every day—”
Holly tunes Jessica out again. Mayonnaise in your hair is gross, sure, but you know what isn’t gross? Jonah Morris. She’ll have to do a bit of research, of course, just to be safe, but Holly thinks that she would totally share a hat with Jonah Morris.
God, she hopes Dad isn’t still drunk when she gets home. He was passed out on the carpet when she left this morning, but that was hours ago—if past patterns hold true, he’ll be up by now, and he’ll have gotten her note. He’s an asshole sometimes, and a drunk all the time, but surely he won’t mess this up for her. She needs to impress Jonah—she needs Jonah to be impressed by her house, and she needs Dad to be impressed by Jonah.
She knows it’s a bit much to ask that Jonah be impressed by Dad. She can work around that.
As long as Dad doesn’t start drinking again when he wakes up. As long as he actually throws out that rug instead of deciding he can clean it (he can’t) and as long as he takes a shower and cleans the rest of the house like she told him to, everything will be fine.
But, even if Dad is drunk when she gets home, she has a backup plan. A plan that involves the (borrowed) wad of cash in her pocket, pizza, and a movie theater which will play until midnight. A plan that might, if all goes well, even end with a kiss.
Imagine kissing Jonah Morris. Holly sighs.
“Holly!”
“What?”
Jessica stares at her for a moment, then rolls her eyes. “Are you thinking about Jonah again?”
She steadfastly ignores the heat rising in her cheeks. “So what if I am?”
“You’ll see him in, like, ten minutes!”
Holly immediately checks her watch. Ten minutes means Jonah should be out of class by now. Maybe he’ll be by his locker, or maybe he’ll have gotten out early and will already be on his way to meet her at the front of the school. She turns and looks hopefully at the side entrance.
“Earth to Holly! Hello?”
“We’re going on a date,” Holly says, unrepentant. “I’m excited! This is exciting!”
As long as Dad actually cleans the house. As long as he leaves them alone while they’re there. As long as he doesn’t decide to suddenly turn into a responsible, overbearing father, everything will be great.
And anyway, there’s always her backup plan.
This time it’s Jessica who sighs. “Have you at least finished your project for Ms. Cameron’s class? I swear mine took forever, I still need to glue a few more pieces on—”
The doors swing open, and students start pouring out. Holly hops onto the paving stones around the flagpole, pulls Jessica up with her, and starts scanning the crowd for any sign of Jonah’s dark head. Where where where—
Arms wrap around her from behind, and she has to stifle a scream. She turns it into a laugh instead, spinning around so she can punch Jonah in the chest. “You scared me!”
“Got you,” he grins. “We’re going to your place, right?”
“Right,” she agrees. She lets her fingers briefly rest against the emergency cash in her pocket as she turns to Jessica. “See you tomorrow?”
Maybe by tomorrow, she will have kissed Jonah Morris.
“Yeah,” Jessica sighs. “See you tomorrow.”
The carpet is rolled up in the garage, ready for the next garbage run. The house has been vacuumed, the ceiling swept, the windows wiped clean of dust. The sink is empty, the counters clear, and there is a sheet of snickerdoodles cooking in the oven.
Holland is killing it. He kind of wishes Healy were here, just so he could say See, I told you I can be functional!
Unfortunately, his brain decides to continue the conversation in Healy’s unimpressed tone. Procrastination does wonders for your motivation.
Well. There’s no need to be mean about it.
The timer goes off, and Holland pulls the sheet of cookies from the oven. The house will smell heavenly—it always did whenever Maggie made these, before Holland’s injury. Probably after, too, he just couldn’t smell it.
But he’s not thinking about that. Another thing he’s not thinking about? That blinking red light on the answering machine.
Right. It’s 3:37PM, which means he has time for a small glass of whisky before Holly brings her boyfriend home. He deserves it—look how clean the house is. Look at Holly’s sticky-note stuck proudly to the fridge, every item crossed off in solid blue pen.
He’ll call Skylar and the boys later tonight. He needs to psych himself up for it, and besides—it’s 3:39PM. His daughter and her boyfriend will be home at 4PM on the dot, and Holland simply doesn’t have the time.
Court’s back presses into the cool ground, the overgrown grass scratching against his arms, his ankles, his neck. He stares up at the star-studded sky, listless, and lets the warm breeze blow over his face.
For a single, lonely second, he lets himself be selfish. He lets himself wish he’d said yes when John asked him to sleep over tonight. He lets himself hate his mother for not caring, his father for being cruel, his brothers for being smaller than him. Maybe if he had been an only child, his life would be different—maybe if Ryland and Colt didn’t have him for a brother, they could have been happy.
Another gust blows over him, the stars blinking in and out of the turbulent atmosphere. Court closes his eyes, and breathes out.
Think of something else.
In the stories he likes to read, the hero faces challenges and trials as he fights against injustice, and in the end the villain is always vanquished. Sometimes the hero acts alone; sometimes he has friends, and the end isn’t always good but it’s always better than it was before. Sometimes Court likes to imagine that he’s a hero in the middle of his story; one day he’ll stand up to his father and it will work—one day he’ll walk out of this house and he won’t come back, ever. Just like Mom, but he won’t be a coward like she was. He’ll take his brothers with him.
Inside the house, a door slams. His father shouts something, deep voice slurred and incomprehensible, and Court tunes it out, focusing instead on the soft sound of the air in his lungs. In and out, even, peaceful, like he’s anywhere but here. Like he’s at John’s house, like he only has to worry about ordinary things like school, or the weather, or the Miami Marlins. Selfish, selfish, he knows, but it can’t hurt if it’s just in his head.
His ribs still hurt from the beating he took this morning. There wasn’t even a lesson behind it, as far as Court could tell; it was just Dad being Dad, getting worse with every day that passes. Colt came to him after with a bag of peas from the freezer and a bottle of Tylenol from god knows where, and he’d whispered that Ryland had a plan. It’ll be okay, Court, Ryland has a plan.
Court wishes he had even an ounce of the blind faith Colt seems to hold for the universe. He wishes he could be a good person, but he knows the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and sometimes this terrifies him more than anything. Will he become his father? Or will he one day just get up and walk away? He could do it—he could pack a bag in the middle of the night and disappear, and no one, not even Colt or Ryland, would ever be able to find him again.
Ryland says everything will be okay and Colt believes him, but when Court is faced with options like these, it feels like his life has ended before it’s had a chance to begin.
More shouting from the house, and Court stares at the stars, and then there’s a scream, high pitched and terrified. A thud.
Court is on his feet and running before he can even think about it. He throws open the old screen door, the wooden frame bouncing off the side of the house, and what he sees makes his blood run cold.
Turns out there was always a third option. Turns out it’s the easiest choice he’s ever had to make. Dad or the twins, and maybe he’s being selfish, but there was only one way this was ever going to end.
Take control of the narrative. Be the hero of your own story, right?
Monsters come in many guises.
Court pulls the trigger.
“Shh!”
“What? What did I do?”
“You need to be quiet, dumbass!”
“Your dad’s snoring loud enough to wake the dead, I don’t think he can hear us. Does he always sleep on the couch?”
Sometimes it’s the floor. Sometimes it’s the bath. Twice it’s been the kitchen island. “He’s just drunk, it’s fine.”
Holly quietly unlocks the door, shooing Jonah out into the shadows of the porch light. She steps out after him and for a moment they stand there, marveling at the silence of the night.
It was a pretty perfect date. They got Chinese take-out, played Super Mario, and ate cookies until midnight. Nothing caught fire, no one got shot, and Dad left them alone.
Jonah turns toward her. For a moment she thinks he might kiss her—he hesitates, eyes flicking rapidly between her face and her chest—and then he flushes, the color made all the more stark by the shifting shadows over his face. He shuffles back, and lifts his hand in an awkward farewell.
Holly lifts a hand in return, and tries not to feel too disappointed.
“Crap.”
Healy glances at him. “What?”
“I forgot to call the boys.”
“What boys?”
“My nephews. Ryland called yesterday, I forgot to call him back.”
Shit. Fuck. Holland’s fingers start tapping his knees nervously, and he has to restrain himself from asking Healy to drive faster. Crap.
It’s fine. It’s totally fine. So he’s late calling them back, so what? He’ll call when he gets home, it’ll be fine.
“You have nephews?” Healy asks. “Why haven’t I heard of them?”
Hah. Well. “They’re in Florida. We’re estranged.”
Healy’s voice acquires a rather unfortunate note of glee. “Holland March has siblings? How many? Oh, let me guess—you’re estranged, so it’s what, a brother? Are you younger? You seem younger.”
Oh boy. On the list of Things Holland Does Not Want To Talk To Healy About, Skylar Gentry sits solidly in second place. Unfortunately, Healy knows how to be persistent. He also happens to be friends with Holland’s daughter, who will happily tell Healy all about her asshole uncle if he asks nicely.
Best get this over with, then.
“Just the one brother. He has three boys, my nephews.”
“Older?” Healy smirks.
“Twin,” Holland sighs.
The reaction is immediate and entirely predictable. “You’re a twin?”
“Yep.” He lets the consonant pop, fingers still bouncing across his knees. Skylar-and-Holland, Skyland-and-Hollar; the Gentry boys, the East Oakview twins. All the names people came up with to ensure they were inseparable, and just look at them now. “He’s a right asshole. Haven’t seen him in ... nearly a decade.”
He really should have called Ryland back.
“Identical?”
“No.”
“What kind of an asshole?”
Ah. Now they’re talking. Holland’s restless fingers find a pack of cigarettes in the door and he lights one, taking a deep drag. The smoke streams out of his nostrils, snatched away by the air rushing past. “The kind I don’t want to raise my daughter around.”
Healy grunts at that. He lets the silence sit for a minute, which would be nice if Holland’s brain weren’t replaying Ryland’s message on loop in his head. I think Dad misses Mom. I think he misses you. Please call back, I think Dad misses you.
When Holland was seven years old he fell down an old mine shaft and broke his leg clean in half. Skylar climbed down after and sat with him as the sun set, as the shadows crept in and the darkness swallowed them whole. Don’t leave, Holland had begged, and Skylar had rolled his eyes. Dummy. Why would I go?
“Is he the kind of asshole you want your nephews around?”
“Skylar’s a real piece of work,” Holland says. He takes another drag from his cigarette and tilts his head back, staring straight up at the blinding sun burning bright above them. “But he’s a better man than I’ll ever be.”
The chair in the hospital is taller than the ones at school. Ryland lets his legs dangle for a while, swinging them occasionally, but eventually he pulls them up to his chest. The police officer in the corner keeps sending him concerned looks, which he hates, so he turns away from her and stares at Colt instead.
Dad’s dead.
Court’s gone.
Colt is here, and so is Ryland.
It doesn’t feel real. The only things that feel real are the band circling his wrist and the plastic bag scrunched in his right hand, given to him after he vomited into the first one six hours ago. He’s still not entirely sure why he has the bracelet—he’s not hurt or sick or anything—but it matches the one encircling Colt’s left wrist, and for now that’s a good thing.
Ryland stares at Colt, who’s watching the tiny screen in the corner. It’s playing an episode of Looney Tunes, the one with the alien and the spaceship. It doesn’t matter; what matters is Colt, whose eyes are half closed, whose breathing is slow and deep, who won’t stop staring at that little screen.
“Are you okay?” Ryland asks. In the corner of his eye, he sees the police officer jump.
“Yeah,” Colt says. “I’m okay.”
His voice sounds wrong. It’s lower and slower than it usually is, and it scares him.
The doctor said this was normal. Ryland just wishes he understood why.
He shifts a little, freeing the leg he’s been sitting on for the past however-long he’s been sitting like this. He kind of has to pee, but he’s a little worried to ask because he doesn’t know what the answer will be.
He’s only just managed to convince himself to ask the police officer when the door swings open, bringing with it a doctor, another police officer, and a woman with two bags.
...That’s his school bag. And that one looks like Colt’s.
“Hello, boys, my name is Janice,” the woman says. Colt shifts beside him, his attention sluggish, and Ryland’s mouth starts moving before he has time to think about it.
“I’m Ryland.” He points. “That’s Colt. You can tell because his face is rounder.” He points again, and smiles. “You got my backpack! Thanks! Do you like the stars?”
They’re little glue-on patches he won at a museum two years ago. They’re his favorite part of his backpack.
“Oh! Yes, they’re lovely.” Janice passes it to him. When Ryland opens it, he finds it stuffed with clothes—some of them his, some of them not. “I just grabbed the essentials,” Janice explains, and he imagines her going into their room, rifling through their things. “Once we have an appropriate guardian for you, and the police have conducted their initial investigation, you’ll be able to get more of your possessions.”
Initial investigation. Ryland files the words away for later. He’s trying to focus, he is, because this feels like an important conversation with an important lady. But as he stares at Colt’s shirt stuffed in his bag, all he can think is that his hoody isn’t here. His favorite blue hoody with the knotted cord and frayed sleeves, the one with sand in the pockets and Court’s name written in permanent marker on the faded tag.
There’s a knot in his throat. He needs to say something, he needs to tell Janice about—about his dinosaur zipper-pull, and how it’s Cretaceous, but he’s suddenly terrified that if he opens his mouth he’s going to cry.
It’s too hot for it anyway, he tells himself. You can go get it later.
“...have a mom? Any grandparents?”
Initial investigation makes it sound like a crime scene. You aren’t allowed to take things from crime scenes, even if they’re yours. Janice said they could get their things after, but the more Ryland thinks about it the more like a lie that sounds. Grown-ups lie all the time, that’s just the way the world works.
“Ryland? Honey, is there anyone we can call?”
“One eight-one-eight,” Ryland says, the words falling from his mouth without thought. “Four-eight-five, four-nine-one-seven.” It’s the first number he ever memorized, even before his own. He could recite it flawlessly before he could sing the alphabet, well before he understood what the numbers really represented. He remembers hiding in the kitchen cabinet while Dad yelled at Mom, squeezed in between the pots and pans with the numbers of the wireless phone glowing orange in his face.
Janice is pretty good at hiding her surprise. She pats her pockets, reaches for her bag, then gratefully accepts a pen from the officer who came in with her. “Sorry, honey, can you say that one more time?”
Ryland stares at the medley of clothes crammed together in his lap, a collection thrown together by a stranger who didn’t know anything about anything. He wants to say, I’m scared. He wants to say, you forgot the important things, and can you try again, please? He wants to say: You should have paid more attention.
“One eight-one-eight, four-eight-five, four-nine-one-seven.”
Holly is standing in the driveway. She’s wearing her jacket, her arms are crossed, and there’s a packed bag at her feet. Healy parks just short of where he usually does, and for a moment they both sit there, staring.
“Does she look mad?” Holland asks at last. “Do you think she’s mad?”
Healy squints for a moment. “Beats me,” he finally says. “Are you going to stay in my car all evening?”
Holland would be lying if he said he wasn’t tempted. There’s a pit in his stomach that he isn’t sure how to feel about, but the way Holly is standing there definitely has something to do with it. And no, she doesn’t look mad, he’s not really worried about that. She looks uncomfortable more than anything, almost like she doesn’t want him to get out of the car either. She looks scared.
Holland gets out of the car. He walks up and reaches out, fully intending to pull her into a hug, but she steps back before he can.
“Uncle Skylar’s dead,” she says.
“Sweetheart, I told you not to talk to—”
“Dad. Uncle Skylar’s dead.”
Skylar’s dead. Holland’s brain shuts off, and then he blinks and it reboots and spits out a convenient translation. Skylar is dead to them; he was on the phone with Holly (for some goddamn reason, he’s told her not to talk to him) and he said something inexcusable and now Holly has ex-communicated him from the family (again) and Holland supports her. He is behind her one hundred percent—Skylar who?
“Okay,” he says, “but if the boys call—”
“Dad!” Holly shouts. “You’re not listening! Uncle Skylar is dead!”
She looks scared. She’s staring at him, fists clenched, chin up, eyes bright. Why are you so afraid? he wants to ask her. You don’t need to be scared, sweetheart, I’m here. Daddy’s right here, I’m not going anywhere, pinky promise. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Her words ricochet through his head, his heart pounds, and the world narrows in until it’s just Holly standing on the sun-warmed pavement of the driveway. It’s a panic response, one he is uncomfortably familiar with and, without thought, he starts checking his pockets. Front, back, sides, chest. Empty. He had them a minute ago, where the fuck are his smokes?
Skylar is dead.
Skylar. His brother. His twin asshole of a brother. Is dead?
Holly is scared. Fuck. He needs to do something about that.
Sans cigarettes, Holland opens his arms to her. For an instant he’s the one who is terrified: what if she doesn’t return the gesture? She’s a teenager, it’s practically a law of the universe—
Holly steps forward and wraps her arms around him. Something inside him trembles, something breaks, and Holland lets out a single, startled sob.
“What?” he says. It sounds closer to a wheeze than a question.
“I wrote it down,” Holly says into his chest. “Janice Kruger from child services called, she said Ryland and Colt are in the hospital, we need to pick them up.”
Skylar is dead. Skylar decided to just fuck off and die like the absolute prick that he is.
“I called the airport,” Holly continues, “and I packed us a bag. The next flight leaves in an hour. Dad?”
“Sweetheart—”
“Dad, we have to go.”
The last time Holland spoke to his brother, Skylar said don’t be such a whiny bitch. It wasn’t even the words, it was Skylar’s tone, the way each syllable was shaped to cut like a rusted blade. Ryland said here, you talk to him, and Colt said we’re watching a movie tonight, and Court said it’s boring here, just normal. The last time they spoke Holland kept his voice idle as he asked fixed up any old cars lately? and Skylar fell silent, and Holland let him.
Jesus fucking Christ, Skylar.
He needs to go get the boys.