NOTE: Check out another awesome audiobook performance  by kaelking12! 

https://youtu.be/FG9U06R8QIo

CHAPTER 7

Elias

Tanner spends the next twenty minutes in the car doing what he does best—lecturing me. 

And that's the thing. I know he means well. It's not like he's trying to put me into a word coma every time he goes off about how I need to control myself around Dad or whatever. But whenever he talks at me like this, not to me, I check out. 

Get lost in my own head.

But today it's different. Today, I'm beyond wandering 'cause instead of losing my way around my own thoughts, I'm losing control of them.

Images of Nikki, Trish, Josh, Trevor, and Dad keep racing around my skull. Spinning and bouncing off the insides of my temples like they're trapped inside a pinball machine. I need to tell someone about what happened. I need my brother to help me, but my mouth stays closed and my ears wide open.

Instead of being able to just listen to Tanner's words, I'm drowning in them. His sentences crash into each other like the waves are crashing onto the San Diego coastline outside my window. I roll it down and let the salt-kissed breeze rush into my lungs, but the air doesn't reach them fast enough.

I suck in another breath and taste Nikki on my lips. A hint of vodka, smoke, and just a touch of that underlying danger I can't get enough of.

I shut my eyes and suddenly she's next me, around me, all over me. Her hands on my chest, her voice in my ear, her lips everywhere.

I lean my head back and let myself fall into the memory of her. Of being with her. Losing myself in the high of last night. My body heats up as I let myself sink back to the space Nikki pulled me into. But then the lines start blurring. 

Nikki's body warps into Trish's and then twists and bends itself out of shape until it turns into someone I don't recognize. Last night's moans morph into yesterday's screaming until all that's left is a shadow.

Without a name. 

Without a face.

Or form.

Just a feeling.

It's darkness. Fear. Loneliness.

It's broken dishes. And screaming. And violence.

It grips me around the throat and squeezes.

Hard.

Harder.

Until I can't—

"Elias!"

Tanner's voice cuts through the shadows and everything stops. I open my eyes and the car's not moving anymore, he's not lecturing me anymore, he's not driving anymore. We're pulled over somewhere off of the 5 South and his eyes are wide, terrified, and focused on me.

"Just breathe. You're alright, just try to calm down."

And that's when I hear it. The penny whistle sounds coming out of my lungs, my mouth, my chest.

I sit up and my back slides against the leather seat. My shirt's soaked. I run a hand through my hair to try to take the tension outta my skull, it comes back coated in sweat.

Why is it—

"Eli, talk to me, man. If you don't answer me this time, I'm gonna call Mom."

I nod even though I don't remember him asking me anything, or how long I was out, or what the hell just happened to me. I don't want to.

"I'm fine. Sorry. I've just got a lot on my mind and I guess I freaked out."

The hard lines between Tanner's eyes relax a little, but he's still hovering over me like Mom would if she was here.

"Freaked out? You sounded like Darth Vader over there for a minute. You sure you're okay? We can go back home if you're not up for burritos right now."

I'm always up for burritos. Especially when I start feeling like everything else in my life is starting to fall apart. Tanner knows that. He's the one who started this tradition after the two of us got sucked right into the middle of one of mom and dad's worst fights and needed somewhere to run to after all hell broke loose at home.

"Nah, I'm good. I just need to eat something. It's a four burrito kind of day," I say.

"That bad, huh? You wanna talk about it?"

Tanner throws a hand on my shoulder and tries to squeeze a confession out of me. I trust him more than anybody when it comes to spilling my problems, but I don't know what he'd think of me if I told him what I did.

He's got a solid girlfriend. A straight edge, straight-A relationship with one of the coolest girls I've ever met. Caleigh's a world-class surfer, super smart, and drop dead in the looks department. Blonde hair, pacific blue eyes, perfect. 

She's the kind of girl that only Tanner could get. And, once again, Tanner ends up with everything he wants and I'm stuck with exactly what I deserve. 

"There's this—these girls—"

Tanner's eyes just about pop out of his face.

"Girls?! When the heck did this happen? I thought you had this whole solo King thing going on, but you've had two girls after you all this time?! I'm proud of you, E."

That part stings the most.

"You shouldn't be. The whole situation's messed up."

All the excitement scrawled all over Tanner's face dissolves into concern.

"Messed up as in—?"

Guilt rises in my throat and nearly stops the truth from spilling out into the open.

"I slept with Nikki Ross last night."

"Nikki Ross? As in football-dickhead-Trevor's Nikki Ross?"

"That's the one."

"Do you have a death wish? The only reason he's still captain of the football team and not in juvy is because his dad's heading the PTA board."

Great.

"Yeah, I've heard, but what the hell am I supposed to do about it now?" 

"You could apologize. Actually scratch that, just lay low for a couple weeks, okay? I don't wanna pull you out of anymore fights."

That one stings. Even though he's right and I'm guilty, it still mildly pisses me off. Heat spreads through my chest like a brushfire and I start spitting trouble out of my mouth before I can stop it.

"Don't worry, Tanner. Next time Dad or Trevor or whoever decides to kick the shit outta me, I won't call you for back up. It's not like I asked for your help today."

"Woah, easy, I'm not here to fight with you, Eli."

I know.

"Then stop talking to me like you're a some kind of saint. It was a mistake, okay?And before you go off the deep end, Nikki said she was single at the time. If I'd known about Trevor I wouldn't have messed with her in the first place! We were at a party. We were both—"

Drunk. High. Extremely horny.

"—caught up in a moment we shouldn't have been, and I made a stupid decision. And if the Nikki thing wasn't bad enough, before I even hooked up with her last night, I made a mistake with some girl Josh is into. He's the only friend I have and I screwed him over, so there it is."

Tanner doesn't say anything for a good couple minutes. He sits back in his seat and stares out over the dash while his mouth flattens itself into a thin hard line. The muscles in his jaw twitch and harden which never means anything good.

"Are you mad?" I ask, even though I know he isn't. Mad Tanner goes off like a word bomb and starts pelting you with 18,000 versions of how you should've and could've avoided any number of stupid mistakes. This is different. This is probably worse.

"Honestly, I'm more shocked than mad, Elias. I guess I just didn't ever want you to be that guy, you know?"

But I am.

Ruthless.

Reckless.

Just like our father.

"I know. It's not like I wanted to be, either. It just turned out that way. It shouldn't have, but it did. I'm sorry."

I mean it. More than he knows, but he can't hear it. Tanner's eyes are miles away. Problem solving. Processing. Probably judging me. I don't know.

Quiet floods into the Wrangler to the point where I feel like I'm treading water just to keep myself from opening the door and walking away from everything. 

He's disappointed. 

It's living and breathing in the silence and this is exactly why I shouldn't have said anything to him at all.

Since we were kids, Tanner's always been something like the SoCal version of Superman to me. No matter how screwed up things get, he always keeps his cool.

He's living proof that you can grow up in a house full of problems and turn into someone great. Someone worth looking up to.

And that's where we're different.

He's the hero, and I'm the kid who still wishes he could be.

"Elias, you know you deserve a lot more than you think you do, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"You deserve a great girl who'll be such a knock out, she'll make you never wanna mess around at a party again."

I wish I knew what he was talking about. Every time I end up at one of Rick's kickbacks, all I want to do is mess around. Doesn't matter if it's alcohol, or weed, or girls, I just want out of myself.
Tanner doesn't get that. 

He's okay with who he is, where he comes from, and who he's with. I don't have a Caleigh. The last girl I had a crush on totally embarrassed me in front of my whole 8th grade class and blew my hopes for relationships all together. 

And that was the day I stopped believing in good girls. 

'Cause I found out there's no such thing. Just good pretenders.

But Tanner's always been a romantic. He was the number one pick in his class on Valentine's Day for four years running. Before Caleigh, girls would leave all kinds of crap stuck to his locker because he was basically the bachelor of Mission Bay. 

But that's not me. I don't need a girlfriend. Or some big high school love story because the reality is, for most of us, relationships are bullshit.

They turn into fights and drama which I absolutely don't need. There's more than enough of that going on at home. Maybe Tanner can forget about our parents and our lives long enough to actually make whatever he has with Caleigh work, but I can't.

If some girl actually wanted to date me, the second she found out about what happens at home, she'd bail.

And I couldn't even blame her for it.

"Did you hear what I said, Eli?" Tanner asks.

"Yeah, I just—I'm just—"

Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.

"—I'm too hungry to think about girls right now. Can we eat first and talk later? Please?"
Tanner clicks his tongue between his teeth just like Mom does when she's annoyed with something. Usually the two of us.

"Fine. But you owe me a conversation later. Otherwise, I'll tell Mom what you did and she'll chancla you 'til kingdom come."

I reach across the seat and shove him which he brushes off easy.

"Shut up and start the car, man. I'm starving over here. Where are we going anyway?" I ask.

Tanner merges back into freeway traffic, and stupidly takes his eyes off the road to look right at me.

"A new little spot in town that's probably gonna blow up once people find out about it. It's a little yellow burrito truck that serves seriously good food and has really cute girls working the counter. Who knows, your next girlfriend might make you a killer burrito today."

Wow, eighteen and he still believes in fairytales.

"Right. I'll just walk up to order and find the love of my life slinging pico de gallo like a pro."
Tanner laughs for the first time all morning and the sound sucks all the tension out of the air.

"It'll be love at first bite, bro. I promise."

"I'll believe it when it happens."

Tanner slings a lazy arm over the wheel and stares at me, eyes wide and way too hopeful.

"Doubt me now, thank me later."

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Thank you guys so much for reading/listening to the audiobook performed by kaelking12! We're coming up on a massive game changing situation in the next chapter! NEXT UPDATE IS ON

Do you think Tanner's right? Or just hopelessly romantic? Thoughts ? ;)