High Risk Love

Shannon Mayer

Jet

S
ome moments in life should never be remembered, the horror and the pain eradicated from your mind for all time. Yet those are so often the moments that define you, and make you who you are. They make you stronger than you ever would have been otherwise. At least, that’s what I told myself.

I waited, on my knees, for his fist to slam into me. My body tensed to absorb the blow, to take whatever he dished out without a whimper. That was my job. At fifteen, I was scarred and battered like that of a war-hardened veteran. It never occurred to me then that this kind of punishment wasn’t normal, especially for nothing more than an old man’s whims. This was my life and it was all I knew.

His boot snapped through the air, driving into my ribs with the point of the steel toe. Bones cracked, separated from muscles and tissue, and I couldn’t stop the grunt of pain that escaped me.

“What’s that, Jethro? You got something to say to your old man?” He laughed while I struggled to breathe, to find a way to make my lungs work around the ribs that pressed inward.

I shook my head once, felt my gorge rise, and stopped moving. If he was talking, then it was almost finished. We were down to the final insults he’d throw at me, and then I’d be left alone for a while—maybe a few weeks if I was lucky, less if I wasn’t. If nothing else, my father was predictable. The pattern was the same every time. Too much whiskey, a fight with Sharon, an imaginary slight on my part, the beating, the insults . . . and then we were done.

“Fucking pussy. Can’t even take a bitch slap without cringing on the ground. You will never be a man. Should have drowned you in the river on the day you were born.” His tirade went on and on, but the physical beating had stopped. I just had to ride this out. Pretend I was somewhere else.

Worthless.

Piece of shit.

Dumbass.

Disgrace.

I felt the words as if they were fists instead of vowels and consonants. They drove deep, circling around what was left of my own belief in who I was. My mother’s voice was a quiet whisper in my ear, trying to combat the words.

He’s wrong; you’re good enough. I promise. You can survive this.
I remembered her eyes; they were green, sweet and soft.

I remembered that, but not much else, and the older I got, the less I heard her voice. The more I heard
his
inside my head, telling me what I wasn’t, what I could never be. I clung to the whisper of my mother like a lifeline. Her laughter was long gone, eaten away by the insults. Degradation had taken its place. But I fought to believe the few words that remained. One day I would be good enough. I promised myself that. Whatever I did, I would be the best.

I looked like her—my mother—my coloring, the way I smiled, my laugh. Even I could see it in the old pictures hidden beneath the stairs. Jasper and I had only saved a few, kept them away from Sharon and her need to purge anything that was left of our mom. I figured that was part of why he hated me so. Jasper had her eyes, which I suspected was why Dad didn’t hit him—at least not yet. That would maybe be too much guilt, even for the old bastard. Mom had left him, taking us with her. For a few short months, we’d been free . . . and then he’d found us.

He spit on the ground. “Well, Junior. What the fuck am I going to do now? Should I see if Jasper has it in him to take a licking?”

Fear laced my rushed words. “No. Leave him alone.” This was the only thing I could do for my little brother. I wasn’t strong enough to take him and escape, wasn’t smart enough to find a way out. But I could keep him from this, the only thing our father would ever teach him: how to fear. I could protect Jasper from this pain with every breath I took; it had been my mother’s last request and I would honor it if it killed me.

“
Keep your brother safe. That’s your job now.”

“Well, Jethro, I do believe we’re about done here,” my father said, spitting on the ground again, a glob of tobacco splashing in front of my face.

I lifted my eyes, not moving any other part of me, hoping that he’d had enough and we truly were done. My father smiled down at me, his eyes lit up with whiskey and fury, the glint of his hunting knife in his right hand. He used it to gut and skin the deer he hunted, the edge honed to a paper-thin razor that you never felt, even when you nicked your finger on it.

Fear Nothing.
Her voice, my mother’s, whispered the words to me, words that would become my life.
Don’t fall to his rage, don’t let him shape you. Be better than what he’s showing you.

My mother, what was left of her, was right. I would never use my fists to get my way, would never let myself be the violent man my father was.

Never.

I smiled back at him, gathered my tattered courage, thought of Jasper, and flipped my father off.

“Fuck you, asshole.”

Something shifted in him as the words left my mouth. A tension, a creeping darkness in his eyes told me another side of him was coming to the surface—a man I’d met once before, the one who’d stolen our mother from us. This was it; he’d gone over the deep end. I suddenly knew in my gut I had to make a stand now or die. I refused to be afraid anymore, refused the pain that coursed through me.

If I thought he’d been vicious before, it was nothing compared to wrath he unleashed on me then.

That was the day of the steel cable, the whistle of it through the air, the sing of my skin as it stripped from my back long tears of flesh.

That was the day I finally found the strength to stand up for myself.

The day I learned to hide behind the laughter so no one saw what lay beneath, just under my skin.

That was the day we escaped.

Jasmin

Some moments leave you empty of anything good, of anything beautiful and right. They sear your heart closed, staying with you forever. Those moments of pain and loss burrow under your skin and lay, quietly waiting, for the day you think your life is better. And then they remind you, in a blinding flash of memories, that it isn’t.

I wasn’t sure I could face another one of those moments. Wasn’t sure if I could add more memories of that sort to those I already carried like a weight across my heart.

But here I was, fighting the inevitable reality. My brother was dying, hooked up to machines that beeped and hummed and kept him alive, though just barely. He was not even twenty-eight, his birthday a few weeks off, and his number was being called, his final set being played. His fingers were cold against mine; his once dark hair had fallen out long ago, after the first round of chemotherapy. I stroked his arm, avoiding the I.V. dripping painkillers and fluids into him, feeling the jut of bones and tendons under his skin. His body had wasted away, so that he no longer looked twenty-eight, but closer to eighty. I prayed these minutes weren’t our last, yet I knew the seconds ticking by stole away what was left of his life. He slept peacefully. The high-powered drugs the doctors gave him did that at least, even if they couldn’t save him.

“Jazzy, where’s Mom?” Ryan’s voice was reed thin, a bare whisper of what he’d once been able to do. Singing had been our life, our hopes and dreams. His heart had been his music and now even that was gone, and without him, my music had been silenced too. The cancer had eaten away everything he’d ever looked forward to, stolen it before he’d even had the chance to live. Six months ago, Ryan had been healthy, fine, a normal twenty-seven year old with his whole life ahead of him. I still couldn’t believe we were here, that
this
moment had come so quickly. Six months ago, Seattle had seemed the perfect place to be for Ryan, as he started his professional singing career, and me as I performed with him, and built my photography portfolio. Now all I could think, as the rain pounded down on the roof, was that the city’s sky wept with us, as I clung to what was left of my brother’s life in desperation.

“Ryan, Mom and Dad have been gone for three years. Remember?” God, this was the worst part; his memories were slipping and the past sometimes became the present in his mind. I almost lied to him, almost told him that she was just gone for a bit, out for some food. But I couldn’t do that. He’d asked me to never lie to him about anything, even if it was hard.

“I remember now. The car accident.” He shuddered, his thin frame trembling under the even thinner white sheet. “Who was here? I was sure someone else was here.”

I slid closer to him, my knees brushing against the metal side rails. “Lily was here. You know, the girl whose ponytail you used to yank? The one with the big blue eyes—the one who moved halfway across the country to stay close to us?”

We weren’t the only ones who didn’t have any family left. Lily only had us now, after a string of foster homes had left her unable to trust anyone else; so when we’d moved to Seattle, she came with us without a second thought.

His chest lifted up and down as he struggled for breath, but a smile ghosted across his lips. “Lily. Why’d she leave? I’d like to see her.”

“She went home for a bit, to shower and sleep.” I stroked the side of his face, stunned to see a tear slide down his cheek. Ryan had only cried in front of me once since his diagnosis and he’d been drunk to the point of not remembering it the next morning. “You should try and sleep too.”

Ryan took a shallow breath, the hollow of his throat collapsing with the effort. “Call her back. Please. I have something to tell her. Something I should have said a long time ago.”

“She’ll be here in the morning.” I continued to stroke his face, wishing I could do more than just . . . sit.

“But I don’t think I will be here then.”

His words were soft, but they dropped like a bomb inside my head. Oh God. Not now, it couldn’t be time already.

I fumbled for my cell phone, clicking it on. It didn’t matter that it was three in the morning; nothing would stop Lily from getting here in time. She had to. He needed us both; I couldn’t let him go, not by myself.

The phone rang through and she picked it up right away.

“Lily, you have to come back to the hospital.” I choked the mixture of grief, fear, and the inevitable knowledge that my brother was dying in front of me. “Right now.” She didn’t answer, just hung up the phone. There was no time for answering, not a single moment could be wasted. We both knew that all too well—prior experience had taught both of us that death came quickly, and if you wanted a final moment with your loved ones, you had to move fast. Fifteen minutes, surely Ryan could hold on that long.

I went back to his bedside, my older brother, my confidant and protector. Staring down at him, I couldn’t imagine my life without him by my side, without him laughing at my stupid jokes, without him teasing me about my bad hair days, without him singing alongside with me. There was not a day in my life that didn’t have an aspect of him in it. What was I to do when he was gone? How would I stand on my own two feet without him urging me forward?

“Jazzy, are you still here? Tell Lily, when the time is right, tell her I loved her. I just thought I had time, time to be everything she needed, time to tell her. I was wrong,” he whispered, another tear tracking down his cheek.

“I’m here. I won’t leave you. And you can tell her all those things yourself. She’s coming, Ryan. She’ll be here soon,” I said, sniffing back my own tears. I had to be strong, in this moment he needed me to be his rock, and I could do that. I had to. I crawled into bed beside him, thinking back to our childhood when he’d done the same for me when my night terrors had grown too much for me to handle on my own.

“Do you remember when I fell out of the tree and broke my arm? Mom was so mad at us for climbing the old maple. Of course, I never did tell her you pushed me,” I said, slipping my arm around the back of his neck and cradling him against me.

I felt him smile. “I carried you three blocks. I thought . . .”

Neither of us said the words, but both of us knew what he’d been about to say. He’d told me later he thought I was going to die, I was wailing so bad about the pain. I was nine, Ryan was thirteen, and the memory of him telling me it would be all right, that he would get me home and Mom would take care of it seemed frozen in my brain. Of course, it was nothing more than a broken arm. This, though, what Ryan faced, even Mom—if she’d been alive—couldn’t have fixed it, no matter what she tried.