If he puts his hands on you, cut them off. 

Morosis 
(n.) the stupidest of stupidities 

Tuesday — September 5, 2023 

Isaac Dunbar and JVKE alternate through the speakers of my Macbook. 

I alternate between two open windows on the current desktop — Onenote, for mapping out the base structure of my Sports and Literature essay due by the tenth of September; and Opera GX, for research on the anatomy of the human body. 

Day 2 and they're already smothering us with assignments like we're dumpsters. 

I switch to Desktop 6, which has three open windows — Opera GX, for reacting to reels Kai keeps sending me because he's a jobless little shit; Spotify, because; and Tor, for scrolling through underground news channels in search of the latest scandals splashed on headlines. 

I do find a scandal, just not as satisfying as I hoped for: Hollywood Actress Cecily Black spotted holding hands with Naples ex-convict at some event in downtown Manhattan preceding Fashion Week. Stylist Sofia Valentino occupies a small column with praises for her work on the actress' appearance on another webpage that doesn't include the ex-convict topic. 

Blackwood Creek is a small city landlocked by Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx. And why she said she was going to Toronto while she was simply maybe forty-five miles from here makes zero sense. 

That bloody smile on the face of my egg donor ticks me off. 

I close the window with a click a little too aggressive than what my Logitech mouse deserves. Opera takes over the screen and I see an unread message. 

Not from Kai, but from someone named isabelle lightwood's wife. 

Who? 

I open the DM, and Isabelle Lightwood's wife's username reads casxlista_.21, and that sounds an awful lot like Callista which has me thinking about Callista Callista. 

I drop the Macbook on the mattress and roll over on my stomach. 

Sufjan Stevens cuts in between Dunbar and Jake, taking that moment to start murmuring "We're all gonna die, we're all gonna die," and I swallow. 

●⁍●⁍● 

I thought Callista would be fun to fuck around with and then I'd be back to weaving my way through the rest of BCA's female population, but I have to admit — she's grown on me a tiny bit. She's cute, has green eyes, a body to die for, a gorgeous smile that's always on her face; pretty cool to talk to; lowkey has rizz; can be adorably daft sometimes; doesn't walk like a penguin; has beef with Chance Ambrose — which is crazy because I've known Chance for the past three years and he can be a major dick sometimes, but he mostly stays out of the dramatic spotlight by not dealing G or E or Mary Jane, or outright announcing that he'll fuck girls out in the wild in front of the entire school — so that makes her double interesting; her hands don't wander south or north or east or west (don't wander anywhere in fact), and it's maybe sort of frustrating because there's no way I'm losing my edge because sharpen it every damn day at the crack of dawn. 

I'm still a quarter down for a lay, but maybe she could be a cool friend. 

With occasional benefits. Like Hazel. 

So when — two days later in IT — she tells me that she's lived in Blackwood Creek her entire life and moved away only two weeks after I moved into the town, my head goes berserk. I missed her by a hairsbreadth. 

When she tells me her parents are divorced, I'm surprised, but not really, because I'm sure the parents of half the students in this school have divorced at some point or never married at all. 

When she tells me her mother and stepfather are dead, that makes me go what the fuck. 

And when I see a familiar cloud of sorrow in her eyes, my heart goes out to her because no one deserves to have to go through that. 

I remember only flashes of my father from my childhood in our manor house before he succumbed to cancer back in 2014. It had been sudden, and his death meant nothing but grief and tears and total heartbreak to me and Kai, but to my mother, it meant that the only source of income had been cut. So she sold the house and pretended like all the big bucks she made from the transaction was old money — because people will believe anything these days, — and used the reputation to get herself a foothold in higher society. 

I'd forgive her for it if she didn't get off on shredding my back every week. 

Well, as long as she leaves Kai alone. 

This is what happens when anyone mentions dead parents. I'm forced a trip down the 2000s lane, and then a detour down the 2010s lane.  

Callista's fallen silent, and I don't want her thinking I'm a heartless bastard who doesn't give a shit about dead people — because, fuck, I do — so I try to comfort her, but my efforts only end with me spouting nonsensical shit. She's not showing it, but she's upset, so I decide to get her mind off of it. 

However, that ends with me bringing up my mommy issues. 

I'm so glad she doesn't make it awkward like Hazel did when I accidentally told her last year. 

The stuff I learned about Chance later in our conversation, though... now that's the only tea I'd prefer over the one on the kettle. 

I mean: years of history between each other, a forbidden romance (I'm not calling it friendship — as she likes to insinuate), parting ways in a manner that The Notebook would envy, a falling out so bad that (still isn't clear) they turn to enemies, being dropped back into each others' lives like a catastrophic pink bombseashell, forced proximity, and family drama? 

I'd be the Captain of the ship with a capital C if Chance hadn't been such a pile of dump to her on Monday. 

You can't deny that there was tension between them, though. So much that you couldn't breathe without smelling sex. 

Or maybe that was just Hazel beside me before I swooped in to rescue Callista. 

Yeah, that seems more plausible. 

Callista brushes past me as she leaves, and she's so tiny that I could stash her in a suitcase and whisk her away to the Andaman Islands for a weekend getaway. 

And no one would even know. 

●⁍●⁍● 

I return home to bad, bad news. 

The bane of my existence — frolicking around under the alias: my mother — is back from Manhattan, and I spy from the crack in the door of my brother's room just before I hole up mine that she's bollocking the bollocks out of him for something. 

Mental Checklist, Item 7: escort Kai to his room every day after we return from school so that he doesn't have to deal with that bint. 

I clench my jaw and exhale, counting to five as I drop my schoolbag in my room. I hear a door shut and a lock turn, and when I head into the hallway again, Kai's door is shut. 

Yeah, like that'll keep me out. 

I pick the lock — like the pro that I am — and then push open his bedroom door. 

Her blazing gaze turns on me, and I'm more than happy to take Mommy's heat off him. 

Kai's standing on the other side of his bed, opposite her, hating her, but not standing up for himself because his motto is just shut up, let her say whatever she wants to say, don't say a word in defence — because that'll serve to provoke her and lengthen the chastisement, — then she'll leave and he can go back to causing whatever mayhem he's planned to wreak for the day. 

Kai's a bit of a troubled child, but he's also concerningly good at evading all my attempts at figuring out what he's up to on his dodgy, routine nightouts. The only thing I have figured out is that as long as he returns before two-thirty in the morning, he's okay. Physically, at least. 

He doesn't talk to me anymore. 

"And you—" She's fuming — always is when she's not busy cracking lenses — and her pale, Andorran skin turns beet red. A hundred layers of cosmetics couldn't hide the hideousness inside her. 

"And me?" I taunt, inciting her rage at Kai towards me. 

I'm fifty per cent successful. "You are not sticking your nose in this. I am sick of this boy and I'm his mother, so I'll deal with him however I want. I am done with you covering his ass all the time!" 

Not on my watch, you won't. "Oh, so it's, like, a blow-to-the-ego issue?" 

I glance at Kai, making sure his mouth is shut and he's not doing any stupid shit that'll land his arse deeper in crisis. He's standing there, leaning against his wardrobe, arms crossed, a resting bitch face, and a sheen of moisture glazing his now reddish eyes. 

Fuck. 

What did she say to him? 

I'll have to pry what happened in the five bloody minutes it took me to turn off the car and head upstairs out of this kid later.  

"You. Insolent. Waste of space!" I prepare for the strike that's surely going to come for my earlier comment. It does. "I carried you for nine months, I gave you life, and this is how you repay me?" 

I take the first slap, the first backhand, but when she raises her palm again, I grab her hand and stare down at her, reminding her that if I dared to, I could make mince meat of her in a minute's timeframe. 

If this were the tenth century, I'd grab a brick and shatter her skull and have her out of mine and Kai's lives in an instant. 

But this was the twenty-first century, and if I killed her, firstly, I'd be charged with murder. If I reported her, I'd need solid proof, and with my occasional trips to Fleshlight, there was a high chance of all the scars she'd inflicted on me being blamed on my fights back there. 

Besides that, there was the lack of financial independence, legally adopting Kai, paying bills and taxes while dealing with Uni, intense public scrutiny that could affect any fourteen-year-old's mental health, a lawsuit that could take months, and the probability that despite her abusive nature being revealed, she'd still get off with only a slap on the wrist because she was a woman. 

So right now, I'm prioritising keeping Kai off the radar and making sure Hazel treats my back well enough that I don't have a haemorrhage or sepsis. 

I can't say anything that'll piss her off even further, not with Kai still in the room, so I don't say anything at all.

She pinches her lips, eyes narrowed and a look of contempt on her face — like she cannot grasp the fact that I share her blood. Yeah, neither can I. 

"I'll deal with my brother," I tell her, emphasising the 'my brother'. Because the phrase your son would be the last phrase to describe him. 

"No, you won't," she says, shaking her head, eyes still wide with festering fury. 

How does a single person ceaselessly personify unyielding rage in the most grotesque way possible? Like, bro, don't you ever get tired of scowling and sneering. 

"It's your influence that is making this boy a bloody rebel, for crying out loud! He was never like this, I'll tell you," I slowly pull open the door behind me, my eyes still on her as she shouts at me. "He was such a good boy, and all you did was— where do you think you're going?" 

She stomps after me like she always does when in the high of spitting verbose digs at me — which is basically always, — and I've successfully got her out of my brother's orbit. For the time being, at least. 

It's been so peaceful without her for the past two days. 

"My influence how exactly?" Maybe I should adopt Kai's motto and keep my mouth shut. 

I don't understand why she despises me so much. It's not even like it's a quid pro quo thing. I never said or did anything against her until she did, and now, I can't remember a life where she didn't hate me. 

She laughs in my face and whips out her phone, tapping on the screen and bringing up a dimly shot video and I internally wince because I knew this was coming. She's gonna kill me. 

"You can't help but insert yourself into drama at any given chance, can you?" The clip from Monday zooms into my face as I step in between Chance and Callista. "No, you can't, because you just fucking love the attention!" 

Here we go. 

●⁍●⁍●  

And he's out again. 

Bloody brilliant. 

2023 and Kai have teamed up and permanently destroyed the normal functioning of my circadian rhythm, and I'm half-sure there's no coming back now. 

I sink into the pillows on my brother's bed as I tear another strip of paper and fold it into a pentagon, glancing at my phone screen as I wait for a reply from Callista. 

She's been dead since seven, and now it's around two-ish, so she should be asleep by now. Still, I keep my phone switched on because what if. 

I pinch the ends of the pentagon, hollowing it out until I get my final product. I place the paper star in the box with the rest of my stars. 

Mechanical movements like a robot: I tear another strip and begin the process of folding it. 

The interaction with Sofia Valentino in the afternoon drained me completely. I feel like a lead weight, and all I want is to fall asleep with someone who'll whisper into my ears until I'm in dreamland. 

It's not even surprising anymore. My life is so pathetic. 

Regulating my breathing, slowing down to five breaths per minute, while I make my orange-colored stars, and rubbing my sore jaw and ribs and skull, is how I pass the time. 

Never. Fighting. Chance. Again. 

I sit too long without blinking and somewhere inside my skull, something starts throbbing. Fuck me. 

The minute hand strikes two past two when Kai weasels his way through his bedroom door, softly closing it behind him without a decibel's sound. He starts when he spots me lounging on his bed and then clamps his mouth shut, not even bothering to apologise or explain himself as he shoulders his way into his en suite. 

I hear the water run, the sharp pitch of squeaking metal as the tap closes, a towel whipping through the wind as he dries his face, and the rustle of skin care products that Hazel gifted him last week with detailed instructions of daily routines and a note that guaranteed him chics if he kept his skin glowing. Not sure why an eighth grader needs chics, but he was pretty excited by the prospect, and who was I dash his hopes. 

He'll grow out of it, is all I tell myself. 

Then I hear Kai's mumbled words bounce off the tiled bathroom and echo in the bedroom: "I suppose you expect a thank you for warming my sheets?" 

He has no business having that much acidity when he's prepping himself to be the solitary reason behind my early greying. I prided myself on having the shiniest hair in our year, and if Kai takes that away from me, I'll steal all his trust fund money and leave him only with maybe twenty-nine point one-three USD. 

"I don't think you'll live up to any of my expectations, so I've stopped expecting." 

He walks out of the en suite and pulls open his wardrobe, not talking anymore. 

I think my penchant for abandoning my interrogation after he pisses me off well enough has made him confident that I'm nothing more than an itch on his right foot that'll dissolve after a while. 

I guess I could take some of the blame because that is what I do all the time. 

I just don't want to confine or restrict him, because I know what that feels like. But he doesn't understand that I'm not trying to chain him to a gilded cage, I'm just honest-to-balls worried about him. 

"You don't look hurt," I say after a deep breath. 

Clear head, speak with a clear, rational head. Don't make him feel like he's a nuisance or a chip on the shoulder. 

"I'm not," comes his curt voice. Then an exhale. "Drake, I'm alright. Can you, please, just go now?" 

I look at him, and he's not looking at me but at the laminated door of his wardrobe as he shuts it. 

He looks so lost, so tired. 

And I don't fucking know what to do anymore. Frustration hits the back of my eyes, lances my heart, rips apart my mind, and nestles into my soul. 

What the fuck can I even do? 

"Kai," I whisper, but he doesn't care. I don't know how to do any of this, and it's been months. 

He slings his nightwear on his forearm, heads back into his bathroom, and shuts the door behind him, the silence post the action weaving something emotionally disturbing into the atmosphere. 

My breath staggers and I close my eyelids, hiding the world from me, wishing it to be vice versa. 

Kai returns and finds me on his bed still. He doesn't blink twice as he drops onto the other side of his queen-size bed, kicking his feet under the sheets, turning away from me, and facing the open window that looks up at the sky. 

I stare at him for a moment, hesitantly reaching out and resting my palm on his head. Stroking. 

He lets it stay for a moment, then shakes my hand off. That's when I notice that he's shaking. 

I don't know what the bloody hell to do. 

I turn off my phone, pick up the stars littering his sheets, and crush the papers in my fist. I walk over to his window and close it, and when I glance back at my brother, he's got his face buried in his pillows. 

I walk back to my room and sink into my own bed. 

Another bloody night of utter failure. 

●⁍●⁍●   

It's Thursday morning. 

I tear the excess bits of the lettuce leaf and haphazardly place them on the dollops of mayo that I shaped as a smiley. 

I pluck the final slice of bread from the toaster and place it on top, destroying the smiley. 

Kai walks into the kitchen and perches on the kitchen island, radiating a light academia aesthetic, lively as ever despite getting only 4 hours' sleep. 

I don't even bother side-eyeing him and flat-out look him up and down, my lips flattened in a straight line. 

"You're always so hard on me," he whispers innocently, sliding across the kitchen island countertop and sitting cross-legged at the centre of it. "No pun intended." 

I almost snort disapprovingly, but at least he's not gone emo and buried himself in Annie Jacobsen's paperbacks today. 

I place the club sandwich on his favourite ceramic plate before him. "You're, like, actually so unfunny. Consider self-harm." 

"That's crazy," he says, rolling his eyes and picking up his sandwich. Made specifically without tomatoes or cucumbers, which was fine with me because I hated them too. 

"Be ready in fifteen," I tell him, and then flop down on the couch in the living room. I whip out my phone to check my messages before leaving, but when Insta's home feed loads, I see a post by The Washington Post. 

A backdrop of Fleshlight?'s crooked neon sign. Bold white header letters: Man stabbed to death in alleyway. With wide eyes, I read the subheading: Alleged drug cartel exchange gone wrong. 

Now that is crazy. 

I open the caption. 

Victim Joe Davis, 51, was stabbed to death in an alleyway outside strip club Fleshlight on the night of September 6. 

Davis was the co-owner of the club Fleshlight, along with 55-year-old Alfred Williams. Sparrowville Police Department suspects their involvement in a local drug cartel's alleged cliental meeting that night. The body has been sent for an autopsy to determine the exact cause and time of death. 

Alfred Williams was taken down to SVPD precinct for questioning after the body was discovered at approximately 4:30 in the morning. 

More updates as the investigation continues can be found in the following link. 

September 6. 

That was last night. 

I was laughing my ass off with Joe only hours back. And I simply cannot wrap my head around the fact that he is dead. 

I'm rereading it with wide eyes. 

That's so fucked up. 

That's so fucked up. 

What the fuck happened? 

And then I'm thinking about another scenario where it could be my brother. Stabbed to death in a dingy alleyway. 

"Kai," I say sharply, and he halts sliding off the island countertop. I flip my phone around so that the screen is facing him. Deep breath. "This is what happens at night." Another deep breath. "People get mugged or killed or beaten up and left for the dead." 

He looks at it, and something in his gaze wavers. 

He's scared. Good. 

"NYC isn't a safe place when it's dark, Kai." Please at least now stop fucking around and sit your white arse at home. 

He pauses, contemplating, then mumbles. "Yeah, I know." And slips off the countertop, placing his plate in the dishwasher. 

I can only hope that he understands. 

●⁍●⁍●    

The drive to school doesn't calm my nerves; I'm still unsettled over the news of Joe's murder. He was a good man, he didn't deserve to die. 

Fleshlight's gonna be under crazy scrutiny now, and the amount of illegal shit I've gotten my arse entangled in is crazy. My only reprieve is that if my name does end up being dragged through topsoil, subsoil, and bedrock, Ryder, Chance and Marcus will be coming down with me, too. 

Though I hope it doesn't escalate to that.  

My only distraction is silently laughing at Kai's poxy attempts at creating paper stars. The reason he isn't getting them right is because the strips are much wider than the length requires, but I won't tell him that because it's fun watching him struggle. 

"Fuck this." And he tosses his shabby works of art out of the window. 

Now at school, I head to Coach's office to discuss the game plan before the afternoon practice because tomorrow's home game is against Sparrowville, and my eyes were set on the winner's spot. 

As I'm leaving his office, I spot, through a window in the hallway, a fascinating exchange taking place in the usually-devoid-of-people-and-overrun-by-squirrels patch of land behind the building. 

I look around, and because it's the Staff Only hallway, it isn't littered with estrogen and testosterone-infused teenagers feeding off others' lives like the Rafflesia. 

I'm a testosterone-infused arsehole though, unabashedly so, and so after my glance at my surroundings, I silently pry open the glass window and stick my head out to look down at them. 

Callista and Chance (and a third-wheeling Marcus, who pops into the episode right then, looking just as lost as I am). 

They're not even trying to be silent about it.  

I hear Chance's voice, but the wind distorts what he says, and then his hands reach for her face in a sort of sadistic-pleasure fashion, savagery lining the features of his face. 

Callista — I'm gonna call her Callie for short — pushes his hand away roughly, face set with crude determination and a voice that doesn't waver. "Hands. Off. Ambrose." 

Pop off, babe. 

I lowkey feel bad for Callie because I've known her for four days, and School's been open for just three, and I can still already tell that Chance simply isn't gonna let her live the year out in peace. 

"No," Chance says, cocking his head to a side and stepping into her space. Her back collides with Marcus' front who's standing there like a pup salivating for a chew toy to mess around with. 

Chance pulls her flush against him, caging her between him and Marcus. 

Ohno. 

Marcus says something that contains the words Please and fuck and love, and Chance sends him a glare — or at least I think it's a glare, based on Marcus' silent slipping away without touching Callista, because the crown of his head isn't exactly expressive — that has him wincing, rolling his eyes, and patting Chance's shoulder before winking and strutting around the building toward the entrance in very much Regina George fashion. 

He must have rewatched Mean Girls recently, I conclude. 

I contemplate diving through the window and falling to my Callie's rescue in the most dramatic White Knight fashion, but then decide that I value the health of my ligaments and tendons, so I contemplate using the stairs like every other average bloke. 

The fight between Chance and Callista turns to borderline unresolved sexual tension, and then I decide that no, I will not be butting my porcelain arse in their... unresolved issues. 

Hazel spawns beside me like someone strapped Dorothy Gale's soundless-version shoes onto her and airdropped her right here, peering down the ledge beside me. 

"She's kinda weird, don't you think?" Hazel mumbles, blowing a pink bubble that bursts with a pop. "She and Destiny." Then a sigh.  

Uh, well, okay. You do you. 

"I came hunting for you when you didn't show up to walk me to class," she says, her eyes looking up at me with a sly smile in response to my clueless expression. 

Huh. 

Anyways. 

Footsteps sound from another hallway in the floor, and I cast one final glance at them. Chance doesn't look like he's planning on flinging her across this compound, so I establish that she's safe for now. 

The bell rings and I internally sigh when I realize I'm gonna be late.