Guard My Heart (4 page)

I lift the covers off my face when I hear my bedroom door
open. My mom is an angel. I’m a grown kid, and she still brings Mia and me
coffee in bed every morning when she wakes us up for school. She switches on
the bedside lamp and puts the coffee down next to it.

“Good morning, Kyle. Time to get up,” she says while
running her hand through my hair. I smile up at her because I love my mom, and
if she wants to ruffle my hair like I’m five years old, she can damn well do
it.

“Morning, Mom,” I say between yawns, “Thanks for the
coffee.” Mom turns around and smiles at me before she leaves the room. I
stretch out my sleepy limbs and get out of bed. We only have one bathroom, so I
better check if Mia is done in there or I’m going to have to speed her up. I
pick up my coffee, and suddenly my room is flooded in light.

“Good morning, big brother,” Mia sings from the door.

“Morning,” I say, sounding not in the least as chipper as
she is. I grab my towel since Mia is already dressed and head down the hall to
our small bathroom.

When I step into the passage, I hear him complaining from
downstairs. He’s bitching about breakfast or something. I close the bathroom
door and drown out his voice. One day Mom will realize she doesn’t need that
piece of crap in her life. That day can’t come soon enough.

I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the small
medicine cabinet above the basin. I still look like the same guy. Blue eyes,
brown hair, nothing special, but I feel different. I feel older. I feel
dangerous. I’ve dealt drugs, twice. Pete knows I’m going away for a week this
Friday. He also said I’m done until I get back. There are no small deals
happening for the rest of the week that I can go along for. I don’t see the
point of sending me on any more small deals. I already know what to do, but
with the three Chevy guys it was different. I felt comfortable, like they had
my back. Just like I would look out for them if something went wrong. I have no
idea what to expect if I go alone or with someone else.

I don’t have time for a long shower but that’s okay. My
mind is conflicted but I feel good. Mia gets to go on vacation. Mom’s got money
that she hid away from him, to hold her over until we get back. And I held
Jenna’s hand last night. Sounds like a wussy thing to say, considering I’m
eighteen years old, but when you want someone as bad as I want Jenna and you
know you can’t have her, it’s a pretty big deal.

I wrap the towel around my waist and grab my
toothbrush.

I’m not a player. But there have been other girls. And
I’ve always treated the girls I’ve been with with respect, and I’ve never
flaunted a girl in front of Jenna. But now I can’t even remember the last time I
had a date. My head seems to just notice Jenna lately.

After I'm dressed and I’ve checked my school bag, I head
downstairs. Mia and Mom are sitting at the kitchen table discussing the trip.
We leave on Friday morning. I already know Mia isn’t getting any sleep Thursday
night. Thursday is also the last day of school, and I will officially be free
from high school. Actually I was free from high school two weeks ago when I
wrote my last exam, but after Thursday I’m officially free.

Mia kisses Mom on the cheek, and I shout a goodbye as I
walk out the front door. Jenna is already waiting for us at her car. It’s the
same thing we do every morning. When we were in junior school the three of
walked together every morning. Since Jenna got her car, she’s driven us. It’s
safe to say the first time I got into the car with her I was pretty damn
nervous. Mia didn’t share my fears; she was squealing like a cheerleader on
crack. I swear she bounced the springs in the front seat straight through the
padding.

The trip to school is a five minute drive, and soon we are
pulling into the student parking lot.

Mark is already waiting for me on the stairs. His head is
down and looking at his cell phone. He is probably playing another online chess
championship or something. I leave the girls at the car and walk up to him.

“How’s it going?” I ask him.

“Not good. This guy is always one move ahead of me. Just
when I think I have him, he changes tactics,” he says, not lifting his head
from the phone. I take a seat next to him. I don’t bother looking at the game
on his phone even if I can see his fingers moving over the screen. I don’t know
anything about chess. 

I like more physical sports like cross country, but now
that high school is over, I will have to find another way to stay in shape. And
I always have the mixed martial arts classes at the community center twice a
week.

I pat Mark on the back and leave for my homeroom. Mr.
Rogers is my resident teacher, so it makes it easy to pay him the money for the
trip. I’m glad I asked him for an extension. Even if I doubted I could pull it
off, I still made it.

When I get to my class, everybody is already sitting at
their desks, and the class is filled with excited voices as the other kids talk
about the upcoming trip. Mia and Jenna are sitting in the back chatting to one
of the other girls in the class. My seat is on the other side of the room, next
to Mark’s, who is probably still sitting on the concrete stairs in front of the
school. The energy in the room wraps around me like a warm blanket. It
magnifies the little excitement I feel for the trip. Sun, a warm beach, and
just being free for a whole week. What is better than that?

Mr. Rogers enters the class and walks to the front. The
other kids in the room see him because it’s hard not to notice his big frame.
Mr. Rogers is in his mid-fifties with a big belly and round glasses. His head
has a shiny bald spot right in the center. He is the friendliest teacher in
this school. He also runs the guidance group for the school with his wife, the
Life Orientation teacher. He is always joking about how if she did a better job
at teaching kids how to make better decisions, they wouldn’t have to work extra
hours on counselling those same kids on how to fix their mistakes.

Mr. Rogers taps on his desk and clears his throat. Nothing
happens, the kids just keep talking. He does it a couple more times before
giving up and saying rather loudly, “Good morning, class. I trust you had a
good weekend.” Some of the kids answer him, but it comes out as a lost murmur
with everybody talking at once.

“Carry on doing what you were doing, but just do it
quietly,” he says while pulling out a book from his drawer. He adjusts his
glasses and settles down in his chair. I take this as my chance to go speak to
him.

“Mr. Rogers?”

“Ah, Kyle. Mia tells me you have some good news,” he says
smiling up at me. There are little lines crinkly around his eyes. It just makes
his face look friendlier, more open, like you can trust him with whatever is
wrong in your life.

“Yes sir,” I say, handing him the envelope.

He takes it from me and counts the money. Mia squeals from
her seat, and when I turn around to look at her, she is high fiving (or is it
high tenning?) Jenna and the other girl. I laugh at my sister and take our
tickets and rules for the trip from Mr. Rogers. I walk straight to Mia’s desk
and give them to her. She jumps out of her chair and throws her arms around my
neck. I push her away immediately. What is she thinking? We are at school. I
can’t let my sister gush all over me at school. I have to at least retain some
of my bad-ass dignity. I’m not a trouble maker; in fact, I will set you
straight if I see you are busy with shit on school property. But I did have a
fight once two years ago, with Christopher Thorn. He was my best friend. That
was, until he felt the need to put his hand under my sixteen-year-old sister’s
skirt. I got suspended for a week for that fight. And I got kicked off the
school’s mixed martial arts team. Coach was so angry with me. He said he
couldn’t believe I would do something so stupid. Coach knew why I joined the
team. My stepdad. Him. The reason why I had all this rage inside of me and
couldn’t do a thing about it.

One night my stepdad came home drunk and started beating
on my mom. It had happened before but never in front of us. I was thirteen at
the time. He didn’t even punch me, just an open-handed slap. I remember the
force behind that slap. It was filled with so much anger and resentment. I can’t
remember what Mom did wrong that day. Maybe the food was cold or the floors
weren’t clean enough. Or maybe he just had a crappy day at work. But when he
slapped Mom and she fell to the floor, all I could think of was that I needed
to stop him. So when he pulled his hand back to do it again, I jumped forward
and threw myself between them. The force threw me off balance and I stumbled,
almost falling over Mom. My eyes stung and my vision blurred. But Dad always
told me “God gave you strength to protect women. If you hurt a woman with that
strength, you are not a man.” So I straightened my back, wiped the tears from
my eyes and took a protective stance in front of my mother. Mia was crying
softly in a corner, where she was huddled into a tight ball. And all he did was
laugh. He stood there and laughed at me. When he saw I wasn’t backing off, he
walked up the stairs and slammed the door to their bedroom. That was the first
night my sister started barring her bedroom door. I always sleep with my room
door open. I need to hear if she calls for help.

Mom often slept in Mia’s room. They would push her dresser
in front of the door so he couldn’t come in. Why not just lock it? Because the
only key we have in that damn house is the front door key. One day he and Mom
got into an argument, and she locked herself in the bathroom to get away from
him. When we got home from school the next day, all the keys were
gone.

The bell rang, indicating the end of home room, and all
the students filed out to their different classes. My next class I also share
with Mia and Jenna. It’s Creative English. Why did I take that class when I
don’t have a creative cell in my body? The school’s wacked curriculum. I’m not
really the maths or science type so I went with languages. What I am going to do
with those in college I have no idea. But I’m sure to have a kick ass
vocabulary.

I walk to the very last row and sit down next to Mia. Her
seat is right in the middle of the room. If you drew an imaginary line straight
down the middle, starting from the front of the class to the back of the class,
somewhere your line will cross with her nose.

***

The first truck we have to offload is an hour late. Pete
is shouting on the phone demanding to know where his delivery is. I never
wondered about what was in those parcels before. I always assumed it was
stereos, car radios, TVs, exactly what it said it was on the box. Now, I wasn’t
sure. Did those boxes contain drugs?

The big white truck finally crawls onto the loading bay,
and we pull the trolleys toward it. When I pick up the box marked Smart
Television, I take extra note of the weight. It doesn’t feel any different than
all the other TV boxes I’ve offloaded. Pete shouts at me to move my ass, and I
shake the fog out of my brain. I don’t want to get into Pete’s bad books, and
he’s already in a bad mood.

It takes us two hours to offload the truck, and when I’m
about to leave, it’s almost 9 o’clock. The green Chevy pulls up as I grab my
school bag and push the door open. There are still some of the other workers
hanging around, but none of them seem to know these guys. I give them a brief
nod and walk in the direction of my house. The ding of my phone stops me on the
corner, a block away from the warehouse. Ice fills the pit of my stomach. Pete
said I didn’t have to work tonight. But I know the text is from him.

“Warehouse, now.”

I read the words three times before I turn around and head
back in the direction I came.

***

It’s 3 a.m. on a school night, and I’m standing in the
bathroom washing blood off my face. I knew something was wrong the second I got
the text.

This deal was bigger, but it was also simpler. It was so
simple a golden retriever could’ve pulled it off. All we had to do was drop the
bag and come back. But when we got to the parking lot, things got a bit more
complicated. It seems like the ex-girlfriend of the leader of the Chevy trio
was now the current girlfriend of Danny Migelli. Yeah I know, the first name
I’ve heard since I started this job. And Danny Migelli was the guy we had to
give the bag to. I didn’t see what was so special about this girl. In fact, she
looked way out of it. Her bleach blonde hair looked dirty and uncombed, and she
had traces of black eyeliner left on her eyes. Like she hadn’t bothered washing
her face or something. She was sitting in the open car door, wearing a red mini
skirt, with her legs wide open, flashing the whole world her past, present, and
future. She didn’t say anything, just let her eyes roam over us. Until her eyes
met her ex-boyfriend and recognition kicked in. Mike. The second name I learned
on this job. Technically, it would be the third because of the bouncer Malachi
at the warehouse, who I really wished was here tonight. This chick starts
swearing at Mike for leaving her alone at some club and she had to find her own
way home without any money. Then she starts yelling about some dog, which makes
Mike look like he wants to cry. And then the shit hits the fan. And I mean like
really hits the fan, and there’s no way to dodge it.