Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
“Fuck … the … fuck … off,” he groans.
The phone, regretfully, does not fuck off.
He stands in the kitchen an hour later, heavy-eyed, staring at the drawer, which hums with the constant calling and text messages. He looks up at the curtained window in the kitchen, then frowns when he finds it strangely overcast for this time of day. Daring a peek through the curtains, he sees a storm cloud.
A storm cloud?
In Nowhere, Arizona?
Then raindrops scatter across the window at once, followed by a sudden downpour.
Bewildered, Kyle goes to his front door, steps outside, and finds it raining. Above, the sky is obscured by a scattering of dark, heavy clouds. It doesn’t often rain here and certainly not in large amounts such as right now.
He comes out even further, standing in the middle of his front yard, letting the rain pour over him. He lifts his face to the sky, eyes closed, and feels strangely liberated from the noise of that pesky phone.
The wind blows.
The rain swirls around him.
The sky grumbles with the sound of soft thunder rolling overhead.
Despite everything, he finds himself amazed.
The rain right now, the clouds, the absence of sunlight … it all feels like some kind of gift meant just for Kyle, a reprieve from his tiresome existence.
“Kyle? Is that you? … Is that really fuckin’ you?”
Kyle opens his eyes, startled. At the end of his driveway is a man in his forties, clothes drenched, his handsome face full of stubble, creases of tension, fuming disbelief.
And upon making eye contact, the man marches right up, pulls back his fist, and swings it right into Kyle’s jaw, full force.
20.
It’s Rock With a B.
—∙—
Imagine a human’s fragile fist meeting a thick brick wall.
Swung at full power. No holding back. Charged to the max with twenty-seven years of anger and resentment.
Then crunching like celery.
Kyle, the thick brick wall, barely flinches, as if he was just swatted by an inflatable toy. The man is not so lucky. He lets out a cry of anguish as he quickly draws his hand to his chest. “FUCK!!” he screams as he cradles his hand, stumbling back, glaring at Kyle through the rain.
This all happens so fast, Kyle only now takes in the face of his sudden assailant. His squared jawline. His harsh eyes. Wet bangs pasted to his forehead, shirt stuck to his athletic build. It has been twenty seven years, yet Kyle knows this man’s face at once. He knows the emotion in his eyes, recognizes his posture, his anger, everything down to the specific way he glares.
Kyle takes a step forward, stunned. “B-Brock …?”
“What the fuck?!” Brock shouts out, still hugging his hand to his chest. “Fuckin’—what the—aagh!” He doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hand, alternating from holding it against his chest to quickly inspecting it. He crouches down rather suddenly, hugging his arm, apparently trying not to cry. “My fuckin’ hand … you made of fuckin’ concrete?! Fuck!”
Kyle has literally no idea what to respond to first. “What’re you ... doing here …? How’d you even—?”
“My hand is fuckin’—AGH!—fuckin’ broken!”
“Why did you punch me like that?”
“Punch you?? Your face punched my hand!” he shouts back, voice shaking.
Kyle decides to address one thing at a time, starting with the most apparent pressing issue. “There’s a clinic on the other side of town. Did you drive here? We—”
“Fuck you, Kyle, you’re supposed to be fuckin’ dead! You are dead! You and your whole family, you died! I went to your fuckin’ funeral, and—and—!” Brock’s eyes swell with tears. His lip quivers, at once reminding Kyle of one time when Brock cried in front of him as a child. It was after his dad scolded him for recklessly stealing a base in a Little League game. He still cries the same way, even as a forty-four-year-old man, the quivering lip first, then taking the rest of his face with it, like a sculpture made of sand softly crumbling from a single touch.
Kyle stares at that quivering lip. “My funeral …? You … You went to my—?”
“All of you. Your mom, your dad, your brother Kaleb, the whole Amos family … burned in that fire.”
Fire.
Burned in that fire.
Kyle hasn’t thought of the fire in decades. He nearly forgot how Tristan handled it all. It’s a dark memory that Kyle likely blocked out, too traumatized to ever think of it again. I’ll take care of everything, Tristan said that first night at the motel, after Kyle became what he is and fled his old life. Just rest, and don’t be alarmed if you dream of nothing, you can just pretend dreams bore you now. Face the abyssal void with an open imagination. Count those sheep. I’ll be back in twenty.
Tristan wasn’t back in twenty.
He was back in six and a half hours.