Page 71 of What Rough Beast

I flip over to my missed calls to see two from Ethan and one from my dad, which just came in about twenty minutes ago. The last two texts from Ethan are slightly less assault-y.

We need to talk.

Seriously, call me.

Nothing from Ava. No texts. No calls. I check my Rock Bottom DMs, see nothing from her there, but discover that I did in fact send her a series of messages, which slowly degrade over time, the last one nearly unintelligible. Luckily, she hasn’t read them, so I wipe those out of existence. My phone vibrates, my nervous system reacting first, catapulting joy chemicals into my brain at the idea that it might be Ava, my central processing catching up and unloading disappointment when I see that it’s Ethan.

“Hey,” I answer.

“Hey,” he says, his voice a little off. I wonder for the briefest of seconds if he might have been crying, then realize that no, he sounds funny because his jaw is probably swollen as fuck.

“I shouldn’t have said that shit,” Ethan says.

“Okay,” I say, highly aware that he’s not apologizing, exactly.

“We good?”

“No,” I say. “You don’t just come back from that.”

“Yeah . . .” I hear the bathroom door swing shut, someone leaving so he can speak freely.

“So, listen, I know you’re pissed at me, and I deserve it, and we can get square later. But Mom and Dad have got me on a tight leash. Mattix showed them the video, and I guess I pushed you first, and then I was up in your face, and so my dad basically said that you shouldn’t have done what you did, but he would’ve jacked me in the jaw, too, because I was asking for it.”

Another snort escapes. Ethan Brimley being told he was asking for it is peak irony. Ava would love it, and I’ll tell her, when—

“But they’re not letting me go anywhere other than work or school, so I need—”

“Oh, there it is,” I say, suddenly realizing what’s actually going on. “You’re desperate for me to take care of your torture pets.”

“What I need you to do,” Ethan growls, “is feed two dogs that’ll die if you don’t.”

“And die later if I do,” I say.

“Everything dies eventually,” Ethan says.

“Nice. Is that your college-entrance essay?”

“Look, man, I don’t know when my parents are going to let up. You can be as pissed at me as you want, and we can settle shit later, or not settle it at all. Whatever. But I need you to take care of those dogs.”

And he knows I will, is the thing.

“Okay,” I say, knowing I’m stuck. “I’ll take care of it. But, Ethan?

“After this, I’m done.”

“Done how?” Ethan asks.

“If you try to talk to me, I’ll kill you.”

I say it calmly, evenly, a statement of fact with no emotion. I don’t know if I actually would, or even if I could. But I know that I want to, and maybe if he can hear it in my voice, that will be enough.

“Yeah, fine,” he says, and hangs up.

Forty

Ava

“Hey, how you doing today?” I ask my cat, who is miraculously able to answer me with a soft meow, when I show up to work on Saturday.