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Chapter 11 *NEW*

Note: Check out kaelking12 's awesome performance of this chapter in the audiobook! This is an intense one so tune in so you don't miss out! 

https://youtu.be/ByAvaFW5oHw

CHAPTER 11

Elias

Four blunts in and I can't find the buzz anymore, the light, the surface that I've always been able to soar miles and miles above.

This time, the haze isn't lifting me out of myself. It's heavy, thick, pushing down on my hands and arms, and eyelids.

I'm stuck.

Hanging in between the greenhouse and the quiet darkness that's slowly wrapping itself around me.

Holding me up. Dragging me down.

Keeping me suspended in silence.

But it doesn't comfort me.

It's choking me.

Flattening it's fingers across my mouth and nose until there's no air.

It's not supposed to feel like this.

Like falling.

Dropping into a place somewhere inside myself that I don't want to go.

Into the dark.

Smoking used to help me breathe. It used to take the pressure out of my chest and noise outta my ears.

But now I'm starved for it.

For feeling anything—hearing anything but the quiet.

Until quiet turns into sound.

An answered prayer.

A soft buzz followed by a million little vibrations disturbing the peace.

It rings through my fingers, runs up my arms, and ricochets through my skull—reminding me that I can still feel something.

The weight on my eyes eases up a little and I open them to see Josh and Trish lying across from me. Close. Way too close.

I sit up and the room sits up with me. The ceiling tilts and spins like it's stuck inside a laundry machine. I force my eyes shut again to make it stop.

And eventually, the movement does.

But the buzzing doesn't.

Once my fingers remember that they're attached to my arms, I lift up my phone and do my best to read a screen that's way too bright.

My mom's name stares back at me through the glow and I answer the phone without thinking.

I made a promise. To give Mom the basic respect of picking up her calls no matter where I am or when she needs me.

It doesn't even take ten seconds on the phone to hear that need through the far end of the telephone line.

"Elias, are you with your brother right now?"

She asks, but the words hit my ears slowly. Eventually the question comes in clear but it doesn't make any sense. She knows where Tanner is right now.

Swim team practice.

Saturdays.

12-3:30.

He probably got to school around 11:30.

Talked to Trevor.

Then hit the pool.

Done.

"No. He dropped me off at Josh's before practice. Why?"

Her breaths come out in soft stutters over the phone. She's crying again. Why is she—

"Coach Collins called saying he wasn't at practice today. Did he say anything to you about not going? It's nearly 6:30. I thought you both would be home by now."

The worry in her voice shoots through the haze in my brain and sets off a brand new kind of panic. I stare at the time and wait for the numbers to switch themselves around to form ones I understand.

But the six-three-zero doesn't change the way I need it to. I sit up, lean forward, and drop my head between my knees. I mute the call so my mom can't hear how hard it is to breathe. Or the scream I'm drowning in the palm of my hand so Josh and Trish don't know anything's wrong. So she doesn't know anything's wrong.

Once my hands are steady enough for me to type, I swipe open my messages and click on my conversation with Tanner. Nothing's changed. Nothing's read or even been checked over the last couple hours. Tanner barely lets any text go unread for longer than a few minutes.

He's fine.

He's fine.

He's—

"Eli? ¿Estás ahí? (Are you still there?)" She says. Her voice is heartache. And confusion. And fear. And I made a promise not to let that happen. No matter what it takes.

I stand up off the couch, desperate to get out of the haze, out of the greenhouse, and into the air. Somewhere I can breathe.

Think.

Lie.

I stumble out the door right as my mom repeats the question.

"Yeah, I'm here. Sorry, I was checking my texts---"

Just keep her calm, E. Do what you have to do.

"--actually Tanner said that he was thinking about ditching practice to hang with a buddy today. Coach has been riding him pretty hard since he started getting interest from UCLA, so don't worry about him, Mama. He's okay. I can call him if that makes you feel better," I say.

But not single part of it's true.

I don't know where the hell he is.

Or what he's doing.

Or why he'd skip practice and suddenly drop off the face of the planet after him and Marcus decided to talk to Trevor.

Maybe he's "handling" things his way in his time, but he's never left me in the dark this long.

He knows I can't take it, and Mom can't take it, which is exactly why I know everything's wrong.

"Gracias, mijo. As soon as you get off the phone with your brother call me, okay? If you two want to cook with me tonight, you better hurry and get to Vallarta before they close."

I forgot.

Completely and totally forgot about everything I said I'd do.

The super market.

Dinner.

If she hadn't called me, I wouldn't have known Tanner was missing. I wouldn't have remembered to go home. I wouldn't have remembered my commitment to her.

I was ready to give up the day just so I didn't have to feel anything anymore---even my love for her. And that scares the shit out of me.

"Yeah, of course."

"And, I told your father that you niños would be helping me cook, so he's expecting a beautiful dinner from both of his sons when he gets home. He didn't mean what he said to you this morning, Elias. Please know that."

He never "means" anything he says. Not when he tears her down. Not when he loses control. There's always an excuse. If dad actually changed his mind about kicking me out, he did it for Tanner. If his golden boy's gone off the radar, the only reason why he wants "us" home is so he can make sure his superstar's a-okay so he can go back to pretending we're a normal family.

This is the game he plays on the nights he's actually home early enough to eat with us. Dinner time rules hold his little illusion together. We're a family who sits together. Eats together. Prays together. Acts like we have our lives together when that's the total opposite of the truth.

Mom just doesn't see it.

Or maybe she doesn't want to.

But I do.

I open my mouth to try to talk the delusion out of her, and make her understand exactly who Dad is and why he isn't worth her patience, but I stop before I make a sound. At the end of the day, it's just more noise. The kind I ran away from in the first place. I shut my eyes, bite my tongue, and let the weed pulsing through my veins take the edge off the bitterness.

Just let it go, Elias.

Let it all go.

"It doesn't matter anymore. Anyway, I'm gonna hang up. I'll call you back once I--"

A FaceTime call from an unknown number cuts into the conversation but I pick up on the first ring. If Tanner's phone died, he'd get one from a friend to get in touch. He knows how Mom is. How I am. How we worry the same way. So this makes sense. As late as it is, he's pulling through like he always does. Tanner's the type to do whatever he has to make sure me and Mom know he's okay. That everything's—

"You're a tough guy to get a hold of, King. You'd think with your brother being M.I.A for so long that you would've tried to track him down by now. Don't tell me that Coach Coll didn't tell you how heartbroken he was over his favorite swimmer flaking out on practice to hang out with me and the boys?"

Heat flares in my chest, burns through my throat, and nearly explodes out into the open, but I force it into the space of a single question to stay in control.

"What the hell are you talking about, Trevor?"

He stares down at me through the screen, eyes midnight-dark, mouth twisted into a barbed-wire smile across the bottom half of his face. If it weren't for his QB status, most girls at Mission Bay wouldn't even be close to interested in this guy. He looks like a war criminal. Military buzz cut. Crooked expression. Steroid ripped. Picture of a nightmare who somehow ended up with a girl like Nikki.

Looking at him now, I wish I could say that the guy is all talk and no fight. But I'm barely thirty seconds into talking to this guy and I already know the rumors are true. Tanner shouldn't have gone anywhere near him--especially because of me.

"Your big bro's heroic afternoon. He's got a lot of balls to show up with Marcus and try to talk me out of what I was hoping to do to you. I guess on his end, blood really is thicker than water. Speaking of blood...wanna say hi to Tanner? He's been dying to talk to you."

Before I can say anything, Trevor flips the camera and my stomach turns along with it. Two eyes struggle to stare back at me. Eyes that are cosmic purple, bloodshot, and swollen to the point where I can't tell who they belong to. The camera zooms out to reveal someone who looks like my brother. Same messy hair. Same build. Same outfit from this morning. Different face.

Lips busted.

Face bruised.

Nose bleeding rivers down onto his t-shirt.

But it isn't my brother.

Tanner's strong.

Always okay.

Better than okay.

He doesn't bleed.

He doesn't cry.

He doesn't look like this.

He doesn't--

"Elias--llámalo Papá. Apúrate." (Elias--call dad. Hurry.)

My name slips out of his mouth and something inside me snaps. The string tethering me to hope, denial, and disbelief shatters because of a single sound. Because of a voice that couldn't belong to anyone else but my brother.

Bile shoots up into my mouth but I force it back down and pull myself together, so I can speak.

"¿Dónde estás? Iré pronto y te sacaré de ahí." (Where are you? I'll come and get you out of there.)

"Escuela. No vengas. Marcus está herido también. Llámalo Papá, luego la policía." (School. Don't come. Marcus is hurt too. Call dad, then the police.)

Tanner shakes his head but every movement's slow, delirious. He tilts off balance and ends up leaning mostly sideways against a bench that looks like the kind in the football team locker rooms, but more worn down. 

Mission Bay's a huge campus with enough money to pour into sports to have more than one locker room for the sports teams. Football gets their own, basketball just got a new one, and the lockers in the old gym were given to the baseball guys just last year. I don't know the campus well enough to figure out where he is. School colors are the same everywhere. Red lockers. White tile floors. Nothing specific. Everything the same.

I can't even place the people in the room aside from the bottoms of their shoes. There's at least four other guys I can see who are careful not to let their faces show.

Two of the bigger ones step into the frame, grab Tanner by the shirt and hold him up so Trevor can film him better. They jerk Tanner forward and his body moves like he doesn't own it. Like he's some kind of a rag doll swaying whatever way these assholes shove him around. 

I keep waiting for the moment where he'll stand up and shove these dick heads off like I know he can. But his legs don't move. They drag against the tile floor like they've got nothing left. Like he's got nothing left.

I don't know what to do.

How to help.

How to fix this.

Guilt rips its way through my muscles and buries itself somewhere in my bones where I'll never forget the feeling. Where I'll never escape the fact that I'm the reason this happened. That I'm the reason Tanner's hurt.

My chest tightens, swells, and my whole body gives into doing the one thing I don't want it to. Salt trails down my face, and onto the screen, and I know Tanner can see it. Even behind his tired eyes, he's watching me cave when I don't have the right to. If it were me in that room, he wouldn't cry. My brother doesn't cry. I do.

"Eli, no te preocupes. Estaré bien. Necesito que me ayude ahora. ¿Comprende?" (Eli, don't worry. I'll be okay. I just need you to help me now. Understand?)

Before I get the chance to answer him, Trevor hands off the camera and then appears next to Tanner. He leans down, clamps his fingers around Tanner's jaw, and forces it shut.

"What was that, ese? You better speaka inglés (English) so we can understand you. What the fuck did you just say to him?!"

Tanner looks up at Trevor, smiles at him with a mouthful of pink teeth, and then spits right in his face.

"Nothing you need to know about, cabrón."

Trevor stumbles backwards and crashes into the lockers behind him and in those couple seconds, I almost think Tanner will turn things around.

But the only thing that turns is the camera--away from Tanner, back towards the last person I wanna see. Trevor's got red-pink lines smeared across his face and a couple lingering strings of spit hanging from his eyelashes. If I had the balls Tanner does, I'd say something to him. A threat. Anything to level the playing field so I could stop feeling so small.

But the look in his eyes crushes all my confidence so every word that comes out of my mouth is as unsure and terrified as I am.

"You're screwed, Trevor. The second I end this call, I'm calling the cops," I say, but he doesn't flinch.

"Sure. Go ahead. It'll take them about thirty minutes to get here and by that time we'll all be gone. I've got people to vouch for me, King. Including my girlfriend who would happily say she was spending her afternoon wrapped up in my sheets where she belongs. Besides, even if you do try to come after me, do you think anybody's gonna believe a nobody stoner kid like you?"

"Even if they don't, Tanner will talk. So will Marcus."

"Nah, Marcus knows his place. And as for Tanner, well, he's about to find out."

The screen goes black but the sound of Tanner struggling comes across loud and clear. Sneakers screech across the tile floor. Metal bangs and clatters but I can't see anything. I scream for Trevor to stop but nobody hears me aside from Josh and Trish who come running outside behind me.

"Eli, are you okay? What's wrong?" Josh asks, but I don't have it in me to tell him.

The screen clears and whoever's filming focuses on Tanner and Marcus. Marcus is passed out on the floor while Trevor's got Tanner pinned to the lockers—face smashed against the metal with his right arm twisted behind his back. Trevor snaps at someone off to side and motions for him to move Marcus out of his way. 

Josh whispers out his brother's name the same way I did mine as he watches him disappear out of the frame. I look over to Josh and mouth to him to call the cops. His looks at me, and nods, but I've never seen his eyes this hollow or this scared. I motion for him and Trish to go back into the house where they make the call out of earshot, but Trevor's quick to redirect my attention.

"Hey, King--"

He tightens his grip on Tanner's arm and twists further until I cry out for him to stop.

"--when you were screwing my girlfriend last night, did you think she'd be worth your brother's shot at UCLA?"

Trevor clamps one hand on Tanner's shoulder and the other on his forearm and lifts his arm midway into the air. Tanner's whole body tenses and the fight I was hoping for earlier finally finds its way back to him. He thrashes around against the lockers trying to shake Trevor off, but three more guys rush in to hold him still. 

Tanner screams out for me to do what I said I'd do. To hang up the phone and call dad but I can't take my eyes off the screen. I won't until I get this to stop.

"Trevor, listen to me. I made a mistake and I'm sorry, okay? Please let him go. I'll do whatever you want just--"

"I don't want you to do anything except answer the question, King. Was. She. Worth. It?"

Trevor pushes Tanner's arm one, two, three inches higher until he's squirming against the lockers begging him to stop. But he doesn't. Trevor looks right at me, and waits for me to admit what he already knows.

"No."

"Yeah. I didn't think so."

Trevor twists.

Something snaps.

And Tanner's shoulder pops completely

out of place.

It happens fast.

So fast the screen starts spinning.

The rest of the world follows.

Josh's backyard tilts, shifts, and flies off its axis. I blink hard but the chaos doesn't stop. The house, the barbecue, the shed blur out of focus and bend out of shape. I step back towards the greenhouse, back towards the door so I can steady myself on something but my legs won't hold my weight.

My knees crash against the ground, hard bone against the concrete but I can't feel the sting. My body trades out pain for white hot rage as it rises up the back of my neck and beats its way through my skull. I force myself to lift up the phone and look at my brother so I can try to do for him what he always does for me. So I can promise him that everything will be okay, when everything isn't.

Tanner's gone from struggling and screaming to silent and still. He slumps against the lockers, slides out of Trevor's grip, and sways off balance.

I wait for him to stop himself. To catch his weight so he won't smash his head on the hard tile floor. But his right arm's dead at his side.

Crooked.

Twisted.

Half detached at the socket where it's supposed to meet his shoulder.

I stop breathing when his body hits the ground.

I stop listening when Trevor and his friends' laughs spill out of the speakers and ring through my ears.

I stop hesitating to do the one thing my brother asked me to.

And I call my father.

Five and half hours too late.

###

Thank you guys so much for voting, reading/listening & for being patient with this update! I had a massive headache/migraine situation when I came home yesterday and was not able to get on a computer to get the usual updating done so I apologize for the delay!  Next update should be Friday, NOVEMBER 29th! 

#RealTalk Question of the Week

1. Have you ever been bullied or known anyone close to you who has? How did you deal with it?

2. Were there any serious bullying incidents at your high school?

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