Burn Scars, Eddie Generous [read full novel txt] 📗

and hoisted a flag. There was no shaking his caste, the universe had him right where it wanted him and where it wanted him was a couple steps up the ladder from the bottom. He always had room to fall further.

Like somehow not telling Christine and going along as they had.

Rusty clicked his tongue and then sighed at what might’ve been. Christine was the only person in the world he’d ever been able to talk to without his words rushing ahead of his brain and he had to speak now. It had to come out.

“So, I found out a juicy bit of gossip,” he said and then reached into his pocket for his cigarettes.

Christine wasn’t hearing him, had her own agenda. “Rusty, I kept the copy of the CD and listened to it.”

“Yeah. I was going to tell you, but…” He shrugged and flicked the flint roller to light up.

“I get it. My father murdered your family, that’s not exactly casual convo.”

Rusty barked a laugh. “Casual as it gets compared to telling why your father murdered my family.”

“Does it have to do with my mother?”

“Oh yeah, and you.” Rusty forced himself to look at her, she was already looking at him. Beautiful as ever despite being up all night: her skin blotchy, her eyes puffy, and her hair in a vulture’s nest. Beautiful.

“Me?”

“See, my dad and your mother had a thing.” He huffed. “They had a thing and your father killed my family because my dad was the father of your mother’s child. Meaning you are my sister.” He swallowed to keep the creeping bile down.

Christine frowned. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

“Your father killed my family to ruin my father’s life because my father fathered you.”

Christine’s mouth dropped and then she began laughing until she started crying. “He told you… Your dad said…” She pushed down at nothing but air, as if to clear space. “Rusty, I’m three years older than you. I was born in Niagara when my father and mother were in school. My dad’s last year. My mom dropped out. I guess it’s possible your father impregnated my mother, but I was already four when your house burned down and we’d only been in town for like a year or so.”

Rusty shook his head minutely but quickly, squinting. “No, wait. But. No. Uh, why would your dad burn down my house if not…?” He trailed, trying to reconcile what she’d just told him. The wondrous thing.

“Dad demanded a divorce after Mom got an abortion. Kind of gross that my mother and your father, you know, but we’re not siblings.”

Rusty blew a goodly mouthful of smoke, feeling equally deflated and elated.

“Now I get it,” Christine said.

Rusty let his arms go loose and his jaw fell as he sank into the seat. “Holy sweet god.”

Christine was still laughing some and said, “No wonder you were so moody yesterday.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.” She held out a hand for the cigarette and Rusty passed it over.

“Yeah.”

“Are you going to try to get him out?”

“My dad?”

“Umhmm.” She sucked on the cigarette around the sound.

“He doesn’t want out. He’s got women who come to see him. Young women who want conjugal visits with a murderer. Probably they’re rough or stupid, but maybe not, and it’s not as if he can be picky.”

“Wow,” Christine said.

“Yeah.”

“So now what?”

Rusty held out his left hand with his index and middle fingers spread to ask for the cigarette back. “No idea. I’m jobless, so are you. Guess I find another job, give up on this school idea. Just face reality.”

“That’s kind of stupid.”

“What other option is there? Dropping out is the only way I won’t go homeless.” Rusty took a drag from the cigarette.

“Or we could get a place and make it work. I have savings for school. I’ll just have to get a bigger loan when the time comes.”

“Really?”

“Sure, and living together, I’ll have more chances to get some of that brotherly love. I need that brotherly love real bad.” She said the last part in a sexy Marilyn Monroe Mr. President pout.

Rusty grimaced and then smiled. “You nasty.” The smile fell away as quick as it came. “What’ll you do about your dad?”

“He won’t say anything. By extension, you’ll be okay, probably. I’ll lay it out for him, how things’ll go.”

“All right.”

“Look, I need to sleep. Let’s get together later, plan our future.”

Rusty exhaled a thankful breath, thinking he should’ve said something about fifteen hours earlier and saved himself at least that much grief.

—

Christine stopped three blocks from the boarding house. It was a busy street and her car needed to keep a low profile, let her father work out what to do with it, let Rusty walk off any of the jitters he still harbored.

“Morning,” a man said, waving from next to his truck. Rusty had seen him plenty at the Fall Street Café, but didn’t know his name.

Rusty nodded and then moved on quickly with his head down, filthy, bloodied, exhausted. Once at the boarding house, he recalled telling off the landlord as he slipped the key into the lock as quietly as he could and closed the door behind him as he entered. It wasn’t the first time he’d snuck into his own home, but it would be the last time.

There was zero surprise when he discovered a handwritten eviction notice Scotch taped to his door. They gave him until Tuesday—one benefit of renting rooms for a week at a time.

“My pleasure,” he said and left the note on the door. That was a later problem. He stripped to his boxer shorts and fell to the mound of blankets he used as a bed, curling into a comforter.

He blinked, uncertain if he’d actually slept. He