He doesn’t stay the night, but he always makes time for pillow talk. Mostly it’s about the projects across the lake and funny stories about the families over there. At ten he gets dressed, gives me a long, lingering kiss, and tells me he’ll see me again soon.
It makes me anxious that I don’t know if soon is going to be a couple of days or the next night. But we’re having fun and I don’t want that to change, so I try to go with the flow, which I’m admittedly not very good at.
I realize fairly quickly that I need to find things to do with my time other than ogle Aaron and have mind-blowing sex with him. So a few weeks into our arrangement, I make myself unavailable and agree to go out with Dillion and her friends for drinks at the pub after my Wednesday shift at Harry’s.
As I’m getting ready, which looks very different from my old routine—I’m not used to leaving the house with a naked face, but I’ve toned it way down—my phone rings as I’m applying a coat of clear mascara. I automatically assume it’s Aaron. He favors phone calls over any other type of messaging, even if they’re only thirty seconds long. I hit the answer button without checking the number and nearly poke myself in the eye when I get a woman’s voice rather than Aaron’s telling me I have a collect call from Chicago Penitentiary and to press one if I’d like to accept the charges.
I take a deep breath, waiting for the call to connect.
“Hey, sis.” Bradley’s voice comes through the line.
“Hey, how are you hanging in there? You doing okay?” Bradley has reached out to me a number of times since his incarceration, but his calls always catch me off guard, since they’re unpredictable.
From what my dad has said, he talks to Bradley almost every week, and when I’m around, I’ll jump on the call too. Van is still struggling to get over what Bradley did and having a much harder time forgiving him, which I can understand.
“It’s boring as hell here and their library sucks the D, but I’ve made a friend named Moose in the kitchen, and he sneaks me extra bacon on Saturdays, so that’s a plus, right?”
“Can you get in trouble for that?” I ask, putting my mascara wand back in the holder.
“Only if someone finds out.”
I roll my eyes. Leave it to Bradley to try to game the system while in jail.
“How are things going for you? Any new gossip on your ex-asshole? Give me the dirt.”
“Um, there isn’t any dirt to dish, to be honest. Or if there is, I don’t know about it.”
Bradley sighs. “Well, that’s too bad. You know I’m living vicariously through you, since the only drama around here involves dudes shanking each other over dessert.”
“Are you serious?”
“The chocolate cake is pretty decent.”
I can’t tell if he’s joking or not. He’s always had a bit of a morbid sense of humor. And jail certainly isn’t going to make it better. “But shanking someone over dessert? How crazy are these guys? What if I call the lawyer and see if we can’t get you transferred to a different facility? One that’s safer.”
“It’s prison, Teagan, it’s never going to be safe. You don’t need to worry about me, though. I’ve got it under control.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Look, I’m dying for something decent to read, and I’ve already gone through everything you sent last time. Do you think you can restock me? I can give you a list, and you can mail them.”
The first time I sent him anything, I included nail clippers, thinking they’d be useful, only to have the entire package mailed back for having contraband. “I can do that. Give me a list, and I’ll hook you up with whatever you need. Have the restrictions changed at all?”
“I don’t think so, but you can check the website. They get the newspaper here, but never the Wall Street Journal, so if you can pick up a few of those, that’d be great.”
I take down the information and Bradley’s long list of books and magazines he’d like.
“Thanks, Teag, it means a lot that you’d do this for me. I know you and Van are close and it puts you in a weird position.”
“You’re still my brother, and I still love you,” I reassure him. And I do; even if I don’t love what he did to our family, I still care about him. It’s hard because I feel partly responsible for helping put him there, despite the fact that he broke the law and has to face the consequences. Bradley isn’t exactly built for prison life.
“Can I call you next week? Around the same time?”
“Yeah. Of course. You can call me every week.”
“Okay. Great. I gotta go: there’s a guy waiting behind me, and he’s getting impatient.”
“Okay. I love you, Bradley. Stay safe, okay?”
“I’ll do my best. Talk to you next week.” He ends the call, and I set my phone on the vanity. I plant my palms on the cool surface and drop my head, taking a few deep breaths, trying to curb the mounting panic. It happens every time I talk to Bradley. He’s said before that he’d call again the next week, but more often than not he doesn’t. And the timing and day are never the same.
I don’t want Van to think I’m taking Bradley’s side, but I also don’t want to leave my younger brother with no one and nothing. Sending him books at least shows I care.
I open the medicine cabinet and pull out my prescription, rolling the bottle between my fingers, trying to decide if I can deal with everything tonight or not. I haven’t had to take my anxiety medication all that much since moving here. Although the last couple of days I’ve been stressed about the Footprint Construction design consultations because I had to go back to the drawing board with one of the rooms in the Winslows’ pool house. I forgot to take my sleep meds and spent most of the night on my laptop. It meant I was exhausted the next day for my shift at Harry’s and basically mainlined energy drinks to get through the day.
And now, after the call with Bradley, I don’t feel like going out at all. I can’t talk to Dillion about this. Her loyalty lies with Van, as it should. But if I bail on her tonight, Van might come up here to find out why I didn’t go, or worse, I’ll call Aaron and ask him to come over.
And while seeing Aaron would be a great way to take my mind off things and relieve some stress, I worry that I’ll do something stupid, like tell him about the call from Bradley and that I feel guilty about hiding it from Van. I like what we have. It’s fun and easy and mostly light. I don’t want to start bogging things down with my insecurities and my fears. If I get clingy, he’s going to stop coming over, and I’d like this to continue for as long as possible.
So I do what I need to in order to avoid disappointing Dillion and potentially messing up this thing with Aaron. I pop the cap on the bottle and shake my medication into my palm. But I break one in half instead of taking the full pill, hoping it will be enough. I set it underneath my tongue and let the bittersweet pill dissolve. This stuff tends to make me tired, so I crack an energy drink to offset the effects.
By the time Dillion comes knocking on my door, I’m calm again, and all my worries are softened. The edges like Sherpa blankets, fuzzy and comfortable. The fears all tucked away. I just wish they would stay that way.