"I know my behavior can be... Erratic sometimes." - Patrick Bateman, American Psycho

so I was watching american psycho as I wrote this, and it got a lot darker than originally planned lmao

"Take this," Griffin mumbled, taking his phone out of his pocket and shoving it into my hand, fingers brushing against my palm, "When I say to, call 911. You'll know when. And for the love of God, Emmy, do not come out."

Griffin gave me one more look, eyes pleading with me to do as he said, before he stepped back and shut the bathroom door. I stood right in front of that door, fingers wrapped tightly around his phone, eyes locked on a small crack on the door. I swore I didn't take a single breath until I heard Griffin open his front door and then the sound of steps pounding in.

There was a pregnant pause, leaving me to listen to the sounds of my own breath and my rapid heartbeat. Griffin and Grant were absolutely silent and I slowly walked forward, pressing my ear against the door, sweat dripping down from my temple. My heart was slamming against my chest, making my fingers tremble lightly around their grip on Griffin's phone. I didn't understand the situation at hand, but I understood one thing: I was terrified, and I didn't even know why.

"Grant?" Griffin spoke finally, but it sounded more like a question. I was sure I never wished to see Griffin's face more than I did in that moment. Not only did his facial expressions show me more than his voice, but he reassured me. Alone, there was no one to promise me things would be okay, "Are you all right?"

Grant laughed; in that moment, he ha the kind of laugh that sent chills down my spine. The kind of laugh that made me think back to the time he had visited me in my apartment solely to check on me. The kind of laugh that made my heart clench up, because the Grant Cutkosky on the other side of that door was not the same boy who slowly wormed his way into my heart.

"I don't know, Griffin," Grant shot back, voice just loud enough for me to catch his end of the conversation, "You stormed out of my house in the middle of the night and told me not to follow you. I'm kind of wondering the same about you."

I took a sharp breath, struggling to picture Grant saying those words. I thought back to the first time I met him - Grant awkwardly walking down the hall of our floor, asking me if I knew where Griffin lived. Knocking on his brother's door at eight in the morning, all polite smiles and hesitantly thinking about each word he said before speaking.

And then I thought about what Griffin had said to me less than ten minutes ago. When I told him it was Grant at the door and he told me he didn't know that. I didn't know that either now, because the boy on the opposite side of this door most certainly did not sound like Grant Cutkosky.

I could hear Griffin clear his throat, feel the tense silence from inside the bathroom, "Well, you didn't listen to me. Clearly."

"Well when I catch my brother snooping through my closet, I'm going to assume that something is wrong. Especially when he runs out of my house in the middle of the fucking night!"

Grant's voice rose with every word he said until he was shouting, just like he had been at Dunkin Donuts the previous night. I could picture him; the veins in his neck pulsing, dark blue eyes alight with a fire, hands curling into fists by his sides. But then I wondered about Griffin - if he was wearing the same scared expression as earlier, or if he was blankly staring at his brother. I wanted to reach out and hold Griffin, to promise him things would be okay like he always did for me. But I couldn't do that.

"Grant, you don't want to do this - "

"Do what?" Grant snapped, letting out a short laugh, "Talk to you about this? About the case file you found in my closet? About the fucking truth, Griffin? You've got me now, might as well take advantage of this time before it's gone. Because I can promise you one thing: when it's gone - when I'm gone - it won't be pretty. And I'm saving you that opportunity."

I gripped Griffin's phone tighter, Grant's words replaying in my head. But no matter how many times I replayed them - no matter how many times I took each of his words and dissected them - I couldn't understand what he meant. Grant said when he's gone, and the only thing that I could think of was that, in someway, he was planning on killing himself. And that thought alone sent me leaning back from the door, blood running thick with fear.

Griffin must have understood what he said, however, because in a calm and steady voice, he replied, "I read the case file. I didn't understand it."

Griffin's voice had lowered immediately, and, for a brief second, I wondered if this was my cue to call the police. He hadn't given me a signal or anything, but the conversation had taken a dark turn and Griffin was purposefully speaking quieter. I slowly unlocked Griffin's phone and dialed the three digits, but didn't click call. I didn't even understand why I was prepared to call the police; just because Griffin told me to?

"Let's talk about it then," Grant said, voice so shaky it sounded like he was struggling to get his words out. Grant's tone lost the anger and faux-arrogance it held earlier. Now, he sounded desperate, "Mom wrote a... a personal case file. A case file on me. But it wasn't me, Griff, I swear. It was - it - there was more. Not just me."

My heart was pounding in my chest and sweat coated my hands, making it hard for me to hold onto Griffin's phone. I didn't understand the situation, but I understood one thing: how absolutely terrified Grant sounded. And then I thought about how absolutely terrified Griffin looked earlier and wondered what could send these two boys into fits of absolute and utter horror.

And then I wondered if it was each other.

"I don't get it," Griffin said, but his calm facade was crumbling quickly. He sounded just as desperate and scared as his brother, if not worse, "What do you mean not just you?"

"It's not just me!" Grant screamed suddenly, voice cracking terribly. I was sure the people on the floor below us heard, and I wondered if their hearts shattered at the trembling in his voice, "You don't - no one does - no one understands, goddamn it! I killed her, but it wasn't just me!"

In that moment, I swore that the Earth stopped spinning.

My heart pounded so furiously against my chest that I feared I was bordering on a heart attack. I sucked in a deep breath - maybe a few, though I wasn't sure I was actually getting any oxygen in my chest. I heard the first of many of Grant Cutkosky's confessions to the murder of his mom, and it threw my entire world off balance.

My knees gave off, and I slowly dropped to the floor until my knees hit the bathroom tiles. I leaned my head against the door and closed my eyes tightly, clenching my jaw to keep from letting out a sound of horror. Something had to be wrong - whether I heard Grant wrong, or he had made a terrible mistake with what he said. Something was absolutely terrible, and, for some sick reason, Grant said something that would forever be burned in our brains.

"Stop," Griffin said after what had to be a few minutes. I was sure I had missed part of the conversation. I had to have missed the part where Grant corrected himself, but I didn't, "Don't say that, Grant. It was a file, it didn't mean anything. Y-you didn't kill her, stop saying that! Okay, just stop! You aren't thinking straight..."

Griffin trailed off, and I slowly stood up, fingers grasping feebly for the door handle. I didn't care what Griffin said - I couldn't sit behind that door and listen to Grant say things when he clearly wasn't in the right state of mind. We needed to sit him down, to talk to him, to ask him why he was saying such absurd things. I couldn't just sit there and hear this.

I pushed the bathroom door open a few inches, just enough to poke my head out and see the boys in the living room. Griffin's back was to me, but I could see Grant. And what I saw was something I wished I could un-see.

Grant's fingers were curled into tight fists by his sides, the veins in his arms pressing deeply against the surface of his skin. His eyes were like shattered glass - a million and one emotions were evident in them, but they all looked half-there, like he couldn't fully feel one thing. His lips were curled up into a snarl, but the completely broken expression on his face hid that. He was barefoot, the bottoms of his sweatpants torn, and I swore to God I saw chunks of light blond hair stuck between the spaces of his fingers.

"I'm finally thinking straight," Grant said, eyes darting around the room before landing back on his brother. He blinked, a silent battle going on in his mind that none of us would ever understand, "Listen to me. You've been looking for the murderer, and I've been standing in front of you all your life. Look at me."

Griffin lifted his head slowly, the veins in his neck throbbing. His jaw was ticking, and, even from behind, I could tell that he was fighting tears.

"You didn't murder mom. We were kids, it - it's not fucking impossi - ible - "

Grant's lips curled up into a half-smile, the type of smile that made you wonder how someone could hate themselves so much, "I murdered her. I found the file tucked away in her room, and I saw all her scribbles and I died inside. I wondered how she could write a file on me - how she could call her own son crazy. Mentally unstable. I loved mom, I loved her so much, and she did this. You know who there wasn't a file on? You. I was the favorite son. I was the oldest. And she did this to me. She murdered me before I ever got to her."

I felt bile rise up in my throat, because this was not the Grant Cutkosky I knew. Grant was soft and warm, hesitant and careful, always asking how I was before I could ever ask the question to him. Grant got nervous at the topic of his mother's murder; he didn't sit in his brother's apartment and say how he killed her. This wasn't Grant Cutkosky - this wasn't the boy I knew.

"Mom fell asleep on the couch, so I grabbed a butcher's knife and took one stab to the throat," he said, and I gripped the door handle tightly, stomach clenching, "She didn't fight it. Didn't even scream. She looked up at me and said my name, and I stabbed her again in the stomach. It was scary, honestly. The sheer amount of force I could muster up. The file held tightly in my one hand, the knife in the other. I can't remember how many times I stabbed her until dad came downstairs."

Griffin was tensed up; the muscles in his back were coiled so tightly that they pressed against the fabric of his shirt. When he spoke, his voice was just as coiled and tense as the rest of him, "Grant, this isn't you - "

"There was a file on dad, too, but he has it hidden somewhere. He cleaned the knife and held onto it, promising me that the police wouldn't find it. I still don't know why dad helped me - why he covered up the fact that his son murder his wife. Maybe you can only push people so far until they hit the edge, and then they're left with a simple decision: you or them. Dad picked himself. And now you have that decision, Griff."

I closed my eyes again, hoping that when I opened them, this horrific scene would disappear from my vision. I prayed that when I opened my eyes again, Grant would be gone, his words having disappeared from memory, and it would just be Griffin and I. We would be happy, and he wouldn't be hearing his brother confess an insane story about murdering their mom.

But when I opened my eyes, the scene was still the same. And I never wanted to cry as badly as I did at that second.

"Shut up," Griffin said, pressing his hands to the side of his head, "Shut up. You didn't murder mom and dad didn't help you. Stop fucking say these things, Grant. It's dangerous. We'll get you help, but you have to stop saying this. You aren't a murderer." Griffin's voice was filled with complete denial.

Grant just blinked in response, "Call the police right now. Tell them I'm confessing for the murder and get dad and I locked up. I swear to God Griffin, if you don't do this for me, I'll do it myself. You don't understand what it's like to live with this."

Griffin dropped his hands from his head, only to have them shake by his side, "To live with some sick delusion that you murdered mom?"

"No. To go to sleep in my bed, only to wake up someplace completely different with no recollection of how I got there. To slowly come to the realization that I murdered mom - to accept that I killed my own mother. Do you have any idea what it's like to fight with myself? To find with other versions of myself? I gave the police the knife, Griff, and I've been messing with your apartment. Call the police before I do something a lot worse. Do one thing for me, Griffin!"

"You're my brother," Griffin said weakly, completely breaking. His shoulders dropped and Griffin fell down slightly, hand reaching out to the couch to hold himself up, "Please don't do this to me, Grant."

"I love you, Griff," Grant said, and when he blinked, I swore I saw the Grant I thought I knew. I saw that innocent look come back on his face. I saw a hint of that smile he once wore, the same dark blue eyes that stared at me as he asked if I would be okay, "And I hate myself. Call the police."

Griffin let out a strangled sob, and Grant looked up, eyes landing on a spot behind Griffin's head.

I froze in fear when Grant's eyes landed on me. His eyes widened and he paused, mouth opening lightly and then promptly closing. I went to take a step back, but I was stuck under Grant's gaze, too scared or shocked to move. Some part of me registered that the boy staring at me just confessed to brutally murdering his mother, but the other part of me was stuck on the fact that this couldn't be Grant. This couldn't be the Grant I knew.

Grant's expression changed then, into what could only be described as one of complete and utter pain. He swallowed tightly and took a small step forward, before he jerked himself back, stumbling over his own feet. I swallowed past the lump in my throat and gripped Griffin's phone tighter, barely registering the choked sobs he was making.

Grant swallowed and looked at me, lips mouthing a single word. Please.

I looked down at the phone in my hand, 911 still written on the phone. My finger hovered over the call button and I went to click it, just as I looked up and saw Grant smile tightly at me, eyes glassy and filled with unshed tears.

And then I made a call that forever changed my life.

</ I KNOW THERE'S STILL A LOT OF QUESTIONS BUT I PROMISE EVERYTHING WILL BE ANSWERED. THIS CHAPTER MAY HAVE ANSWERED SOME, BUT WHO KNOWS (;

but I promise there had been a LOT of build up and subtle build up to this! by the end of the story, you'll realize there was a lot of subtle hints lol

LOVE YOU GUYS REMEMBER TO LET ME KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS