Slow Burn

“Some questions run to deep”

Brian Haner’s P.O.V

A loud thud filled the room, quickly raping me of any sleep I had found that night. Once my eyes fully opened and I took in my surroundings, I watched as Matt yanked me off of the bed and threw me against the wall. His intense hazel eyes were barreling into mine with anger like I had never witnessed before; anger like he could kill and have no regrets about it.

“What the mother fuck do you think you’re doing!” he screamed, his voice more powerful than I have ever heard. “Do you think at all, Haner, ever?” His loud tone started to hurt my pulsing head. Wincing, he gave me a quick shove into the wall, making my head slam against it, and then let me go. Body aching, I looked over at him now right next to Zacky who was bent down trying to wake up Kimberly who was sleeping in her bed.

Staring at her smooth skin and red cheeks, I felt the events from the past night hit me. We went to the beach, she drank herself into oblivion, went swimming in the freezing cold ocean, we came home, she wanted me to stay with her, I did.

Allowing my body to slide down the wall, I sighed heavily and looked over at Zacky who glared over at me with a look similar to the angry one in Matt’s eyes. Glaring back at him, I clenched my fists and bit down hard on the inside of my mouth. What had I done? Why would they be so angry with me? They have no idea what that girl could’ve done to herself last night if I didn’t come with her. She could be lying in a ditch somewhere, she could be dead too.

“So that’s why you stayed with her, huh?” My eyes jerked up to Zacky who was now standing over me, “You fucked her the night of the fucking funeral? Do you have any fucking respect for-“

“Excuse me?” Despite my pounding headache and overbearing nausea, I stood up and jammed my finger into Zacky’s chest. “You think I would do that to her? Are you fucking high?” I screamed at him, my legs moving so I could get closer to him, but he kept moving back. How could he even think something like that? She was Kimberly Sullivan; she was the only girl I really loved. She was Jimmy’s little sister. She was the girl Jimmy made me swear to him I’d protect, if I was a friend, or what he kept bugging me about, her boyfriend.

I lost control, and in a minute of pure rage, I grabbed Zacky’s collar and pushed my knuckles into his chest. “Listen to me, you fucker”, I snarled staring right into Zacky’s eyes. “You of all fucking people know how much I care for that girl. I promised Jimmy, I fucking promised my best friend I would take care or her, no matter what, and you have the fucking balls to accuse me of doing something like that to her. You have some fucking nerve Zacky, some fucking nerve. I fucking love her, I would-“

“Why are you guys screaming so loudly?” I bit down roughly on my tongue and quickly let go of Zacky giving him a shove backwards and turned to Kimberly. Her hair was a mess, her makeup was smudged around her eyes, and the normal color in her face was drained. As I stared at her, her eyes narrowed and she turned toward Matt who was still staring at me.

The silence in the room after Kimberly spoke lasted for a while. I somehow managed to bust Zacky’s lip open. Instead of making a huge deal out of it, he pulled it between his teeth and started to suck the blood off of it. While he was busy doing that, Matt was looking around the room, a mysterious glint in his eyes. And then, there was Kimberly. As she sat on the bed, her head in her hands, eyes squeezing shut tightly, she laced her fingers with her hair, and let a few tears slip from the corners of her eyes.

Once the tension in the room was starting to strangle us, Kimberly cleared her throat and stood up. Stumbling a little, Matt caught her but she quickly tore her arm out of his grasp and sat down on her bed. “Everyone get the fuck out”, her words were ice cold, and as they faded into the air and none of the guys moved, she slammed her fists down and stood back up. “Go, get the fuck out, Zacky, Matt, and Brian; get the fuck out. I don’t want to talk to you, just get the fuck out!” She screamed, tears pouring from her eyes.

Matt walked out of the room without any words, and as I was about to I noticed Zacky walk over to her. The second he put his hand on her shoulder, she jerked back and slammed her hands into the messy sheets beneath her. Eyes snapping open, she looked directly into Zacky’s. “Just leave me the fuck alone, please!” She begged in a small whisper. After a moment, Zacky angrily turned from her and stormed out of the room, leaving me standing close to the door, my body too sick to move, my mind to confuse to tell my limbs what to do.

My presence seemed to go unnoticed, but as minutes started to tick by, and Kimberly stayed on the edge of her bed, body shaking, tears silently pouring from her eyes, I felt like she was staring at me, like she knew I was there and was trying to get me to walk over to her. So after a few minutes of fighting with myself to move, I stumbled over to her.

Sucking in a deep breath, I sat down next to her on the edge of the bed. Letting it out, I watched her head swivel on her neck until she was looking at me. When those bright eyes of hers met mine, my body grew warm. No matter what she looked like, she always made my nerves go crazy. There was something about her that attracted me to her no matter what was going on. At moments I didn’t mind, but when it was times like these, when she needed a friend and not an admirer, I hated her for making me feel this way.

“What’s your problem?” I asked her, the anger I had with myself redirecting itself toward her, something I did far too often, and something I hated but couldn’t control.

Eyes wide, she turned away from me and shook her head, pulling her bottom lip in between her teeth. “You should just leave too”, she whispered, her small fists grabbing onto the sheets beneath her. “You make me think everything’s alright, and then you pull this shit on me”, her calm voice was abnormally calm. “I’d prefer you either hate me or get over yourself.”

My lips parted to speak, but nothing came out. Her pure calm aura threw me off guard so much; all I could do was stare at her, eyes wide, mind wiped clean of anything I could have said. After a minute, I stood up and walked over to the door. I had no come back, I had no words to yell at her, I had nothing to say. Instead of sitting next to her like a fool, I decided to leave, and was about to get away before she called out my name.

Turning toward her, her eyes locked on mine, and after a second, she looked down and pushed herself off of the bed. “Thanks for last night”, and with that, I nodded slightly and stumbled out of the door and into the living room where Zacky was drinking a cup of coffee, Matt was reading the newspaper, and Johnny was flipping through the channels, stopping occasionally on the early morning cartoons.

For most of the morning and afternoon everyone kept to themselves. After the last two days, there wasn’t really much to say. Jimmy was dead, the future of the band was hanging in the air, and no one knew what was going to happen to Kimberly. The guys seemed to have the idea that she was going to end up fine instilled in them, but I didn’t. I was there as she sobbed into my suit jacket in front of Jimmy’s grave as she cried out that she wasn’t going to make it very long. I was there as she started smoking again. I was there as she drank so much that reality had slipped from her grasp and she was a teenager again. I was the one who watched her slowly start to fall apart, right in front of me, and it had barely been a week since he was gone.

What would happen in another week? A month? A year from now, if she lasted that long.

if she lasted that long.

The simple thought of her dying within the next year stirred up all of the alcohol sitting in my stomach, and after a few minutes of it boiling up, I ran from my spot on the couch and quickly locked myself in the upstairs bathroom. Body crumbling, my knees hit hard against the tiled floor. I opened my mouth and let the contents of my stomach empty out. She would never do that. She knew how much it would kill the guys, how much Jimmy would be disappointed in her even if he wasn’t around anymore.

With every thought that entered my head having to do with the thought of Jimmy or Kimberly dead, more contents of my stomach came up my throat. I wasn’t sure if this was all of the alcohol catching up with me in the last few days, or the thoughts really did make me sick. But after a half hour, the only thing I could heave up was stomach acid, and it was starting to aggravate me, not the fact I was sick, but the fact that I had let myself become so weak. I hated being weak, I hated showing any sign that could be taken as a weakness, and this was one.

Sighing heavily, I flushed the toilet one last time, and then stood up so I was face to face with my reflection in the mirror. Examining my colorless face and sorrow filled eyes, I sighed heavily and dropped my head down, staring right at the sink. I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry, and punch something, and let out all of the raging emotions inside of me, but as I looked down at the porcelain sink, I made no move to do any of those things. Instead I just stood there, fingers tightly wrapped around the edge of the counter, my mind drowning in millions of thoughts having to do with the future.

From inside of the bathroom I heard the faint sound of two voices screaming. Not in pain, but angry words at each other. So after a quick swish of mouthwash, I walked out of the bathroom and over to the living room where Kimberly was being held back by Johnny and Zacky was talking to Matt, right in his face, trying to pry his eyes off of the girl across the room from him.

“You can’t tell me what to do! You’re just one of my brother’s asshole friends; that’s all you are to me, Sanders. Fucking nothing!”

“Oh really, Oh really,” he screamed in that powerful voice he had. For a moment, Kimberly flinched back into Johnny in fright, but after a second she shook her head and thrashed roughly against Johnny’s arms, almost breaking free. “You’re just a scared little fucking girl under this fake outer tough shit. You’re weak, a weak little girl who is too scared to face reality and too fucking dumb to realize what she’s doing to herself. You’re going to kill yourself if you keep this up, you little shit!”

“Good! Maybe I do want to kill myself; did that ever cross your mind sir fucking know it all? Did you ever once think that maybe I wanted to die? Because I do, I want to fucking die. I have nothing to live for, no one to live for. I just want to drink and smoke and forget about what’s going on, and I don’t give a fuck if you like it or not, because you are not my father, nor are you my friend. Keep your nose in your own fucking business and stop trying to control everyone’s life”, Kimberly ripped her arms from Johnny’s grasp and walked up to matt who was trying his hardest to keep his arms at his sides. “I don’t know what your problem is, but the whole world doesn’t revolve around you and what you want, princess-“

Matt’s arms jerked forward, his eyes raging mad. For a moment, I really thought he was going to hit her, and from the way she jerked her body back, I thought she believed it to, but then I saw that in her eyes. The quick crumble of her security, the quick flash of the defenseless girl she showed me all of those times I threw my arms up in front of her. “You’re just a fucking waste of my time. You’re so dumb, such a little shit. If I didn’t care about you so much I would have fucking pounded you into the ground already.”

“Do it, Mr. Tough Guy. Pound me into the ground, punch me right in the face; go ahead, I’ll give you a free shot. It’s not like it’s never happened before. Come on, Mattie, if you hate me so much why don’t you punch me. You wouldn’t be the first person to care about me and be so out of control to hit me too”, her words cut through Matt in a way only she could. The pure anger running through him vanished. The huge tough shell he had displayed was gone and he just stood there, shoulders down, eyes soft, fists lose.

“What?”

“Fuck, like you care”, she roared and quickly walked passed everyone and into the kitchen. After a few seconds, the back door slammed shut and I watched as Zacky and Johnny fell down into the couch, and Matt walked through the living room right out of the front door. As he slammed it shut behind him, I turned to Johnny who was sitting on the edge of the cushion, elbows on his knees, and face in his hands.

Slowly walking over to him, I sat down and leaned back into the couch, placing my hands over my eyes and letting the warmth of them calm me down a bit. “What the fuck was that about?”

Zacky decided to answer me, not showing any kind of angry attitude for me for giving him a fat lip. Instead he informed me that Kimberly came down from her bedroom, and headed straight for the alcohol. She walked outside with a bottle of rum and her carton of cigarettes. Matt decided to step in and instead of just talking to her, started yelling at her for doing this to herself. The part that I had caught was right after Matt dragged Kimberly back inside and informed her that she was a disgrace and it was a good thing Jimmy wasn’t around to see her like this, because he would hate her. For that, she swung at Matt, missing his face by an inch, and that resulted in Johnny holding her back.

Nodding, I ran a hand through my hair and looked through the kitchen over to the back door. It was cracked open a little, which immediately gave me the invitation to walk outside, so with a deep breath, I stood up from the couch and walked right over to the back door.

Peering outside, my eyes scanned over nothing but grass and empty lawn furniture. The hammock was empty, as was the picnic table, the benches around the fire pit, and the huge table on the patio. There were no small clouds of smoke from her cigarettes, and there was no soft crying. It was like she had vanished from the Earth.

Swinging the door fully open, I walked outside and quickly started looking around. Every corner I peeked into, when I saw nothing, my heart rate started to race. Increasing faster, and faster, sweat started to drip from my hairline, and as I finished checking every place in the back yard, I was about to start screaming.

“Kay? Kay, where the fuck did you go?” I yelled angrily into the open air of the backyard. When there was no response, I ran a hand through my hair and looked up at the sky. “I’ll find her”, I whispered as a small part of me started to feel bad about not keeping an eye on her like I had promised. “Don’t worry Jimmy”, I looked back down and took a deep breath. I felt so dumb speaking up to the sky, but it made me feel better. It gave me the small hope that he was still around, just like he used to be around.

My eyes scanned the backyard one more time before I collapsed down by a tree and pressed my back against it. Rubbing my eyes, I felt something fall onto my head. Quickly looking around, my mind set on finding an acorn, but instead I came across a little black bottle cap.

“What the fuck?” I whispered to myself as I looked up at the tree I was leaning against. For a moment, I thought about seeing Jimmy up there, smiling down at me with a bottle of Pepsi, or a school book, but reality quickly swept back over me. Sighing heavily, I looked up at the tree, and felt my heart explode in my chest. Instead of what my mind had hoped, it was Kimberly. Her body was lying on a long thick branch. Her left arm was dangling down holding the bottle of rum, her right hand was up to her mouth holding a cigarette, her left leg was dangling off, and her right was bent sitting on the log.

My mouth opened to yell at her to get down before she fell off, but instead I stayed silent. Memories flew back into my head of Jimmy when he was younger sitting in trees all of the time. He would be reading books or writing music or talking to people on the phone. Once he learned how to climb a tree, all he wanted to do was sit in a tree. He was a little freak kid, but that’s why everyone loved him so much.

“Get the fuck out of the tree, Kimberly”, I yelled as soon as the sick empty feeling started to fill my stomach. “What are you doing, trying to kill yourself? What if you-“

“Shut the fuck up, Bri”, she huffed as she leaned her right hand away from her face, out into the open, and flicked the ashes off of her cigarette. “If you’re so torn up about me lying on a tree branch, do something about it”, she called down, laughed then, put the cigarette back to her mouth and inhaled deeply.

Without putting much thought into it, I bit down on my bottom lip and quickly started pulling myself up the tree. I haven’t done this in years, many years, but for some reason it all came back quickly to me. It was either that, or the adrenaline took over that I could finally make sure Kimberly doesn’t do anything too stupid.

When I reached the same branch she was on, she sat up, eyebrows raised, and moved down the branch so we had enough room to sit on the branch without taking the chance to sit on the weak end. After a few seconds of lowering myself down so I could sit with a leg hanging off either side, I looked up at her as she pressed the cigarette into the branch, and then flicked it across the yard.

Eyes on mine, she took the bottle and finished the last bit of liquid that was covering the bottom. Once it was done, she sighed heavily and looked over the branch. Shrugging, she dropped it and listened as it hit the ground and shattered. Shaking my head, I watched as she pulled out another cigarette and lit it between her lips.

“What the fuck are you doing to yourself, Kay?” I whispered in a pleading voice. “Do you not realize this shit is going to kill you?”

“I just want to forget about everything, Brian. I want to forget about Jimmy, and all the shit I left in New York and all the shit Jared put me through. I just want to have nothing on my mind, and the only way I can do it is if I’m wasted.” Her bright eyes met mine, filled with tears.

“Jared… He’s the one that fucking hurt you didn’t he? He hit you, he fucking hit you and Jimmy kept that from me? How could he keep something like that from me and the guys no matter how much-“

Tears started to stream down her face bringing the smudged make up down with it. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she bowed her head down and then let out a small sob. “Yes, are you happy?” She choked out burying her face in her hands. “I never told Jimmy that he beat me. I couldn’t bear to have Jimmy worried about me, I didn’t want him or any of you guys knowing how weak I’ve become. I was embarrassed that I let it last a year, and that it got so bad”, her body started to shake. “For a year he used to punch me and tell me how ugly and useless I was, I got so used to it that I believed it.”

I sat there, staring at her. The girl I used to admirer for her strength a few years ago, crumbled into a small, weak, little girl drinking and smoking her problems away. There were so many words I wanted to say, so many things I wanted to just scream at her, but as I watched her cry sitting on the branch, all words fell down my throat. How could I yell at her like this? How could I have yelled at her at all?

“Kay, come on, let’s get down”, I whispered stretching my hand toward her. Her eyes rose to meet my hand, and after a few seconds, she nodded and grabbed it. I climbed down before her, slipping on a few branches because my eyes couldn’t rip away from her. If she slipped, I wanted to catch her. When I hit the ground, I held out my hands, watching her, but luckily I didn’t have to catch her. She jumped down off of the last branch, brushed her hair from her face and turned to me.

When her bright eyes met mine, my stomach churned and I felt like pressing my lips and body up against hers like I had been dying to do since I was thirteen. “Brian, I’m sorry about all of this. I think, I think I should just go back home. I mean I’m killing everyone here. I don’t want to fight with Matt, I don’t… I don’t want to cause any trouble with you guys”

“Kimberly, that’s just-“, my whole entire body froze. Words clashed in my head, I wanted to scream at her, confess to her that I loved her, but how could I do that now? She was a bottle of rum into the bag, and who knows if she would be able to handle my words or not. But what else could I do? How else was I going to make her stay? “You can’t.”

My heart stopped beating as she turned to me, eyebrows raised. “What could you possibly need to say now? Is it going to be your snippy remarks because you had your five minutes of being a good person? I mean, I think that’s what I picked up on with you. Something happens, you act nice, and then the second I do something that-“

“You can’t leave”, I wanted to shut her up, and my words managed to do that. But after a minute, I couldn’t push myself to tell her the rest. I didn’t want to hurt her, I didn’t want to push her further into the ditch she was falling into. I wanted to help her out, and I wasn’t sure if telling her was going to help.

“Why? What-“

“I… I…”, my eyes blew up, my throat went dry, and as I connected my eyes with hers, I caved. “I love you.”