Drowning

It was a chilly, overcast September day, but it didn’t stop him from appreciating the weather. He was experiencing the outdoors as a free man for the first time in almost two years. He turned back at the cops one last time, realizing that they didn’t follow him out much further than a few steps from the door. He got in his friend’s car and drove off, never to return to this place again.

“Any place you want to head to on your first day back?”

None of his friends understood what it was like to be locked up for years. They’ve been in and out of jail for days to months at a time, but to spend years in a prison where he hardly had visitations or phone calls to be made, it felt like he was locked up in solitude if it wasn’t for all the inmates running around. He had nothing better to do than to sit and think about everything, and nothing made him angrier than to be alone with his thoughts.

“Just take me home.”

Twenty minutes on the road, they turned down a street that led into a bad neighborhood where Brad grew up in. It appeared as if the place was deserted, except for the few people walking down the block.

His friend slowed down at the end of the road where he turned into a driveway at the house on the corner. Another car was parked outside the garage, but all the windows and doors were shut. Brad hadn’t heard from his family other than parole meetings and one visitation, so he wondered if he was even going to hear from them now.

“Do I need to stay?”

“Nah, just leave. I’ll call you later.”

Brad exited the vehicle, and his friend gave him a wave before leaving. He stared at his home for a second before gaining the courage to knock on the front door.

His mother answered the door, and he noted that he hadn’t seen a more disappointed look from her face in his entire life.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m home, mum. For good.”

“And you think coming back here would be a good idea?”

She was the only one who could make him speechless, make him feel so much worse than he already felt.

“I was behind your back for everything, Bradley. I forgave you for the drugs. I gave you a place to live or to come back to whenever you needed me. But I still don’t know if I can forgive you for what you did to that girl.”

“Mum-”

“Bradley, you listen to me. You watched what I went through with your father, and to think that my own son would take after a man like that, for you to think that it was okay, I am absolutely disgusted.”

She began to shut the door on him, not letting him have a say on anything.

“I hope you have a place to stay because you can’t stay here.”

Once the door shut, Brad didn’t know what to do with himself. He had a build-up of emotions, but the only way he knew how to let them out was through anger. All he wanted was to pound on the door and yell at his mother or scream at the top of his lungs.
Instead he walked off to the nearest store to by himself a well-needed pack of cigarettes.

To be able to roam free without police officers watching his every move was very relieving. He felt that he was in control of his life again, not a single person to tell him what to do. He was aware he needed to be more careful now that he was public enemy number one in this area, but he knew he wasn’t going to stay long. He just had to take care of a few things.

The line was quite long in the little drugstore he entered. He was slightly annoyed, doing his best to keep his thoughts and groaning to himself. The television in the corner of the store was playing the news, going over the same bullshit Brad was sick of hearing in prison. There was nothing better to occupy his time other than looking at different magazines offered in front of him. Everything was about celebrity gossip, the new fashion, or anything else that Brad found repulsive. Only one magazine caught his eye.

If he hadn’t been so bored standing in line, he never would have come across it. It wasn’t the major news of the magazine, but there was definitely an article about it, considering there was a little bubble in the corner of the cover page. Hannah appeared in it with a male singer of a band that Brad knew of, but thought they were rubbish. Just the picture of her smiling face was enough to send him over the edge.

It was now his turn in line, so he bought the magazine impulsively along with the cigarettes, and ran out the door.


“Take a look at this.”

The magazine was slammed against the coffee table as soon as Brad made his entrance into his friend’s apartment.

“What?” Matt asked as he was lighting up a joint.

“This.” Brad’s finger pointed to the corner of the page, right above Hannah’s head.

“Isn’t that your ex-girlfriend?”

He rolled his eyes at the obvious question, and just got straight to the point.

“I have been trying to reach out to her for months, but I received nothing in return of her. We were never done, and now she’s fucking plastered all over these magazine and probably all over the world.”

“Maybe she thought you two were over.”

“She’s stupid as fuck if she thought that.” Brad considered taking a hit after his friend offered it, especially since he was stressing himself out at the moment. But he wanted to continue thinking with a sober mind. “I need to see her again.”

“Brad, you just got out of prison.”

“I fucking have nobody, Matt. My mother won’t even let me in to the house, not after she sold my place and just gave me whatever money she had left from it. No other family relative of mine wants anything to do with me. I only have a couple of you guys left. I can’t lose this girl either.”

Matt was well aware how Brad treated Hannah throughout the months. Her body language always read she didn’t want to be there or around him. No one was allowed to say anything because he was Brad. He could have someone killed if anyone’s opinion was different from his. And when her brother, Corey, began speaking up for his sister, everyone else knew it was time to back off.

So, as much as he wanted to tell him to leave the girl alone, he couldn’t find a way to do that, not while he was Brad’s closest friend.

“How are you even going to find her? It’s been two years.”

“I need you to take me to her house.”

“Brad-”

He was on the verge of losing his shit just as Matt tried to reason with him.

“Look, you just got out. Take a few days to yourself and get settled in. You can stay here if you want.”

Brad took a seat on the couch again, getting comfortable while he continued to watch his friend get high.

“You are going to help me find her. She can’t go on living without me. I won’t have it.”

“I know that.” Matt did his best to not roll his eyes and get used to the fact that Brad was back for good, for now.


Evelyn was in the middle of doing laundry when she heard a knock on the front door. She’d been in the middle of folding dry clothes and removing stains from other clothing before putting it in the wash. She had been so caught up that she figured the person who was at her door would come back at another time or phone her if it was important. And if they knew her well, they would understand.

With the basket of folded clothes in her arms, she peaked through the window by the front door before heading upstairs. A man was parked on the curb in front of her house while another was leaving her property. They appeared to be younger, but couldn’t make out who they were.

“If she’s not here, then where the fuck would she be?”

“God, I don’t know. It’s been two years for Christ sake. She could have moved out by now!”

Evelyn took a seat on one of the steps where she was out of sight. Her heart dropped hearing the voices outside her home because it was solid confirmation that it was Bradley. The same angry tone, low voice, and even the posture should have given it away.

Bradley had been released from prison years early, and Evelyn grew frustrated that she hadn’t been warned about his sudden release. Despite the terrible situation she was briefly put in, she was thankful that all the doors and windows were closed and locked as well as the garage being shut with her car in it. If not, he would have seen someone still lives here or currently was inside.

She sat on the steps to recollect her thoughts and herself, forgetting she had laundry to be put away. She didn’t know what the first step she was to make. Hannah needed to be notified immediately, but so do the police. Brad had just crossed onto her property, but left no damage, so the police weren’t going to have much to say on that. Her daughter’s safety was more of a concern than her own, so that’s what she was going to do first.

With the laundry back in her arms, she placed the basket on her bed before picking up the telephone and dialing Hannah’s number. Unfortunately, it went to voicemail, so she went to Marisa.

“Hello?”

“Hi dear, it’s Evelyn.”

“How are you doing?”

“I’m just lovely, but I had quite a scare earlier.” She peered out her window, though it faced the backyard. She began to feel very paranoid by everything around her as if she was being watched.

“Are you alright?”

“I think Bradley is out of jail.” She spoke low like someone was listening.

“No, Evelyn. It can’t be.”

“Please tell Hannah, just in case. I want to know she’s safe.”

“Of course, I will.” Marisa told her, now half scared to death herself. “Are you going to be alright?”

“Yes.” She took the phone out of her room and descended down the stairs gradually until the street was visible. “I don’t see the car or him in sight anymore. I’m afraid he might show back up here.”

“If you ever need a place to stay, please come here. Hannah and I have already discussed it. He won’t be able to find us here.”

“I appreciate that, Marisa. I will let you know if I have any more news.”

Marisa thanked her, and they got off the phone. The brunette, on the other hand, now sat in the apartment with a drastic amount of weight on her shoulders. She knew the right thing to do was to tell Hannah, but it was also the last thing that she wanted to do. She hated to see that life was going so well for her best friend suddenly come to a sudden halt.

Right on cue, Hannah walked in the apartment, taking off her shoes and dropping her stuff on the kitchen table instantly.

“Hey, did my mom call here?” She asked. “She called, and I didn’t get the chance to answer.”

Marisa did her best to hold a small smile on her face. “Yeah, she called. It wasn’t important though.”

“Oh, I’ll still give her a call.”

“She said she could just call you back later. She just wanted to check up on you, that’s all.”

“Alright.” Hannah smiled, worry free. If her mom called to check up on her, Hannah knew Evelyn would get back to her, so there was no need to call back. There wasn’t anything important going on in her life anyways, nor was there anything she wanted to tell her. So, the conversation would have just been dry.

Marisa sat down on the couch, watching her roommate out of the corner of her eye as she took something from the fridge and headed to her room.


Brad could have been the past couple hours ranting, but Matt had started tuning him out after twenty minutes. He might have napped in between, but that soon ended when a pillow was whacked in his face.

“What the fuck?!”

“You said you would help me, so help.”

Matt sat up, rubbing his eyes. On the table, the magazine was opened to the page where Hannah was featured in. Brad continued to stare at it, flipping the pages back and forth, taking a good look at his ex-girlfriend living her life with someone else.

“If she’s plastered all over these pages, wouldn’t you think there would be thing about her online?”

“Oh, shit. Hand me the laptop.”

It was scooted down the coffee table in front of Brad, in which he opened immediately and google searched anything that had to do with Hannah Elliot.

“My God…” He muttered as his fingers kept scrolling down on the mousepad. “She’s fucking everywhere.”

Matt leaned over to take a peek at the new and improved Hannah. From his eyes, she seemed happier. Her body language showed her interest in the popstar, leaning closely to him for pictures or touching in other photographs that they didn’t pose for. The smile she held was wide like it hadn’t been wiped off in months, and he could see why. Dating a popstar, she was bound to travel the world or attend social functions as a higher member of society.

However, Matt noticed how healthy Hannah appeared to be. Her emotions were a clear indicator, and it could have been the makeup professionals made her wear or photo-shopping, but there was no sight of baggy eyes or frowning faces. Photographs where it showed her full body displayed her upright posture, which years before she was always slouching or closed off.
All in all, he could see Hannah deserved this new life she had, and he felt awfully guilty for encouraging Brad to ruin it.

“Brad, why do you want her back so badly?”

Matt knew the answer to this one, but he hoped he could get his friend to admit it to himself.

Eyes glued to the computer screen, Bradley answered the best that he could while he half-listened to the question he was asked.

“Revenge.”

He couldn’t stand not being in control. Once he got what he wanted, he did everything in his power to keep it close to him that it couldn’t escape. He had Hannah fall in love with him, and as soon as he received that love, he did what he wanted. He needed things his way, the right way, otherwise no one was happy. And when Hannah slipped from his grip after having a tight leash on her for two years, all control was lost. His life was handed over to the police, and it only caused his need for control to increase tremendously.

“You know you’ll end up right where you just were.” Matt reminded him. “Would it all be worth it?”

“Yes.” Brad answered too quickly. “She made me lose two years of freedom. She needs to learn a thing or two. Now, I wonder if she lives with him.”

His attention span on the subject didn’t last long. Matt figured it was useless to continue the conversation, especially for his sake. There was no point in trying to rid himself of the guilt unless he was trying to get severely injured. Bradley was on a mission, and there was nothing to do to stop him.