HeartLines

Ricky Myers stood leaning against his bathroom doorframe as he watched water from the sink faucet drip into the toothpaste-spotted basin in slow, precise drops. It had been dripping like that for a week now, not that he cared. His bare shoulder ached from the awkward positioning of his body. He realized he had been gone for too long, he forgot why he walked into the hallway in the first place.

The floorboards groaned beneath him as he walked back to his bedroom. Melaney Ward lay naked in his bed, she encased her body in a toga of his wrinkled white sheets. Light from the half-opened blinds illuminated her, putting her under an unwanted spotlight. She looked like an actress who forgot her lines on stage. She pulled the sheets tighter around her breasts as Ricky walked back into the room. She had a fine body, her belly protruded a little when she sat upright and her arms inflated when she wrapped them flush around her knees like she was doing now, but he liked her just fine and didn’t see any issue with her appearance. She lacked the confidence that experience gave a girl. He guessed that's why she was here though, so next time, next guy, it wouldn’t be so stiff.

He took note of her discomfort and pulled the slit in the shades shut and flicked on his lamp, pointedly ignoring the face-down picture frame whose presence burned a hole in his nightstand. He should have put the picture in a drawer by now, but he didn’t want to touch it. He plopped himself down on the edge of his bed.

“I was wondering where you went off to,”

Ricky tousled his hair and threw her a lazy grin.

“Just had to go to the bathroom.”

He moved up toward his headboard and laid back down next to her, her white-knuckle grip on the sheets eased, but didn’t completely let up. Ricky put a hand on her knee and made lazy circles with his index finger on her pale skin.

“What are you thinking about?” She asked him.

“Nothing too much really,”

Something shifted in her expression, and he wondered if that was the wrong answer.

She stared forward for a few moments without reply, then began combing through her knotted yellow hair with lilac-painted fingernails.

“That was my first time you know,” she said anxiously. Redness burned through her cheeks as she looked down at the strand of hair she toyed with.

“Yeah, Mel I know, you told me,” he said softly.

He looped an arm around her shoulder and gave her a light squeeze. It felt like a coach comforting a player after they made a mistake, don’t worry kid, you got the next play.

“It’s okay, I had a great time,” He smiled down at her and her black makeup smudged eyes.

“Me too,” she said, her cheeks calming a bit. “I’m glad it was with you Ricky.”

Ricky smiled at her again. “Yeah, me too,” he said.

They both remained frozen in that moment for a minute longer. Melaney, now a changed woman, and Ricky, absent from almost all emotion.

“Ricky,” she said cautiously, “do you love me?”

Now it was his turn to have red cheeks. One thing Melaney would need to learn before leaving for college next fall was that love making didn’t require any love at all.

“Melaney,” he started “how could anyone not love you?”

She smiled and stared ahead at his closed blinds but there was a soft sadness in her eyes.

He squeezed her shoulders again and kissed her cheek.

“I should get you home, my brother will be back soon.”

He stood up and threw on a dirty tee shirt and began to put on sweatpants.

“How has he been doing?” She stared at her lap, “I mean, how have you all been doing?”

Ricky stopped with one leg in his pants and stared at her, she rubbed her shoulders nervously like suddenly the room had gone cold.

“He’s been alright, yeah. It’s uh, been alright, you know?” She nodded slowly and stared at her polished nails. He finished dressing, turning his back to her to give her some privacy as she did so herself.

“I just need to use the bathroom,” she told him.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll wait for you downstairs.”

The drive back to Melaney's house was mostly quiet. She had come downstairs with her hair in a ponytail and the makeup from under her eyes washed away, but there was a slight shift in her posture as she walked now, she stood a little straighter. Ricky made sure to leave the door unlocked behind them.

As Ricky drove her home, she alternated between staring out of the passenger and front window as they mindlessly listened to music. The houses on this side of town all stood in patriotic uniform as they drove down the street lined with leafless pin trees, there wasn’t a porch without a flag. Not like his porch, which didn’t have any flags, or Adirondack chairs, or signs that anyone lived there at all. Here the porches had signs that read things like Life’s better with a porch! He thought this street probably looked really nice in the spring.

“Have you applied to any colleges yet?”

“A few yeah, a few,” He turned the music down a notch. “What about you?”

“A couple of different ones, but I think I’m going to early decision for Michigan State.”

“Wow, good for you,” he said genuinely although he no longer cared to talk about college.

Melaney, unaware, drummed her fingers against her thighs to the beat of the radio.

“Stephen did his first year at Michigan State right?”

“Uh-huh,” he said, turning the radio back up. She laced her fingers together in her lap and squeezed.

He thought about the big white envelope that came in the mail last week and how it was a ticket. A real-life Get out of jail free! card. Except his jail was more like Alcatraz than Monopoly and the Warden was suffocating guilt. He needed more than an acceptance letter to break him free.

When they turned down her street Melaney asked him to drop her off a few houses before hers in case her parents were home. He did as she asked and kissed her before she got out of the car. Ricky waited until she was close enough to her house and then did a three-point turn and drove off.

He wasn’t listening to the music he was playing, just driving. He would need gas soon but didn’t have the money. His mind was moving too fast for him to have a single coherent thought. He

rolled down the windows and let the cold air shock his brain back into focus. He thought about Melaney, about how he took her virginity. Well technically he didn’t take it he was given it. Still, he would forever be the thief of her innocence.

Losing your virginity didn’t need to be the big ceremonial display of love some people made it out to be. Harper Connelly wasn’t a virgin when Ricky gave his virginity to her. She must have been before him though. She gave hers to Stephen.

Melaney was a pretty girl, a nice girl, and he did like her. But he didn’t think about her the way he thought about Harper, and it wasn’t her fault. Harper was beautiful, full of life and independence.

At least that’s how she was before. He hadn’t seen her since the funeral, and he doubted that he would ever see her again.

Instead of turning down his street he made a left and kept on for a little bit. These roads weren’t like Melaney’s. They were sadder, and bleaker, like someone had used too much water painting with watercolors. Colors were faded on this side of town.

Melaney had asked him if he loved her. He knew she didn’t mean it, it’s not like she loved him. They just sat next to each other in American History, she didn’t want to go to college a virgin and he made it easy for her.

He had loved Harper though. In his own f---ed up, everything is intense teeny-bop way. He loved her ever since her family moved into the house behind theirs and he saw her through his bedroom window. He was only ten then, and her family had since moved away to a house closer to where Melaney was probably showering now, mindlessly using hot water, washing away any remaining remnants of him. His family would never get off the shit street they lived on, especially not now. Maybe they could have had a chance before, but not now.

He stuck his arm out the window and felt the cold wind dance through his fingers. He didn’t wanna live in that house anymore. He didn’t wanna deal with Thomas anymore or with their mother.

He thought about the envelope, how it had become a living thing to him, a heartbeat hidden in his closet torturing him to decide. He didn’t mean to think of Stephen, but he couldn’t help it when he thought of Harper and college.

He remembered when Stephen cheated on Harper when they first started dating Ricky’s sophomore year of high school. It was during a big house party on Melaneys side of town. He was only at that party in the first place because Stephen had let him tag along. It was hard to be the youngest of three boys, but Stephen had always tried to make him feel somewhat seen when he wasn’t busy focusing on himself, that was. He was sixteen at the time and was drinking vodka he and Stephen had stolen from their mother's stash she kept in an old shoebox on the top shelf of her closet. She used to only break into the stash around the anniversary their father left them, but these days the stash was never stocked.

He had found Harper in the sitting on the bathroom floor crying. He sat down next to her and told her it was okay, that Stephen was an a--hole. She said that he looked like Stephen, but nicer. He remembered how she started to kiss him, how the alcohol made everything seem like it was okay, and how he gave her his virginity on that dirty bathroom floor. It was quick.

At school the following Monday she cornered him at his locker and begged him not to tell anyone, especially Stephen. She didn’t want him to find out, he could never find out, she had said. He promised her he wouldn’t tell anyone. He remembered watching her walk away and feeling his heart break apart and crumble into his stomach.

She and Stephen got back together a week later, and he never found out. They were still together when he died. Ricky became a background character in their relationship, present through all the big moments a teenager can have, prom, graduation, they even went to the same college, but it was their relationship, not his. She didn’t look at him once during the funeral.

He was jealous of Stephen. Of how Stephen had gotten out for a little while, he was free. But then he came home, and this town killed him. Jealous of your dead brother, that’s good, he thought.

Ricky pulled over and put his car in park, suddenly feeling sick. He stared out the front window at a telephone pole grounded ahead of him. He unbuckled his seatbelt and stared. He just wanted to escape this town, the taunting memory of his dead brother, and the strangling presence of his other, living brother and alcoholic mother. The embrace of the telephone pole seemed more comforting than his own home. He stared at it and considered driving his car into it as fast as he could.

He suddenly wondered how often Harper thought about him, if she ever did at all, and how often she thought about Stephen. He thought about the envelope in his closet and its beating heart.

He would get out of this town, the right way. I deserve that much, right?

He turned his car around and headed home.

Thomas’ beat-up Ford was in the driveway when he pulled in. It was dark now; he didn’t realize how long he had been driving.

F---

He parked his car beside his brothers and fixed his shirt before walking inside.

Thomas was sitting at the kitchen island when he came in, his back faced the front door and he sat with his shoulders hunched forward toward the table.

“Where were you,” Thomas didn’t turn to face him.

Ricky walked into the kitchen and pulled a Coke out of the fridge. He took a big swig that burned his throat as he swallowed. He was tired. Thomas’ right hand held an open Coors. The only sound in the room was the fizzing of bubbles as they rose to the top of the can and popped. Ricky turned to leave.

“Did you not hear me?”

Ricky sighed, “I went out for a drive, is that alright with you?”

“No, Richard, and you know why. You’re supposed to stay home until I get off work in case Mom comes back.” Thomas stood up to face him.

His grip tightened on his can, Thomas had been calling him by his full name since the accident and it made Ricky's blood boil. He never liked his name. He refused to be called Dick and Richey left a weird taste in his mouth. As a kid back when things were better, he used to stay up with his mom at night and watch I Love Lucy reruns with her. She had said that Ricky Riccardo was a real man. Somewhere along the way he started going by Ricky and it stuck.

Thomas was all business. He had been away at military school for a few years when the accident happened. He liked Thomas better back then, when he was Tommy, and would come to Ricky’s baseball games in his military uniform and flirt with his teammate's older sisters. He missed everything from back then. Since he came home, Tommy had been Thomas and Ricky had been Richard and it was all work and no play. Ricky was sick of it.

“But she isn’t back yet, is she?” Ricky dramatically waved around the room, “She’s never back till late, never, not since, so what fucking difference does it make?”

“Watch your mouth kid,” Thomas barked at him.

Ricky puffed out a laugh. Things were always tense with Thomas. Military school made him think he needed to act like there was a stick up his a-- at all times. Because military school turns boys into men! Didn’t you know?

Ricky stared at his brother, them both standing now, “What if she did get home, huh Thomas? What then?” He thought about the telephone pole, and slammed his can down on the counter, “It wouldn’t have mattered! She would have marched right up to her room just like that zombie has been doing every night for the past seven months.”

“Shut your mouth, Richard. Just go in your room.” Thomas snapped.

“HA! Go in my room!? What are you in charge now? How about go f--- yourself.”

It was Thomas’ turn to slam his drink down now, except his bottle was made of glass. It shattered, cutting Thomas’ knuckles, and creating an explosion of beer, blood, and glass, just like Stephen's death had been.

“JESUS” Thomas yelled, “Why can’t you ever just do what you’re told huh?! Why can’t you just be a little more f---ing responsible?”

Ricky huffed out a psychotically raged laugh. He was really gonna snap this time. Thomas never knew when to stop pushing, and Thomas kept on.

“If you were just a little more responsible none of us would even be in this position.” Thomas spewed, “All you had to do was pick up the phone.”

“Oh, I see where this is going,” Ricky didn’t know if he was seeing stars or if he was seeing red, they blurred together.

“I would have picked up the phone,” Thomas said.

Ricky laughed. It’s easy to say you would’ve or should’ve done something after it’s too late, that's how regrets are born.

“BUT YOU DIDN’T! You know why? Because you weren’t here! You were gone! You left us here right after Dad left. You’re no better than him.”

Thomas’ face grew more sinister. Ricky took a beat to catch his breath but neither of them was finished, both fueled by anger and grief and guilt. Both furious at each other for being alive, and both furious at God for deciding their lives needed to be harder.

“You realize this is his fault, right?” Ricky got in Thomas’ face, “It’s his fault he got in that car and drove it. You’d think he wasn’t so God-damn stupid, but he was! He was so f--ing stupid.”

“Enough, Rich-”

“It’s his fault he wrapped himself around that telephone pole. And now you sit here and point the finger at me while you let Mom piss all our money into a bottle every night-”

“Enough-”

“-when we both know one of these days, she’s gonna end up just like Stephen and we’ll both be better off for it!”

Without hesitation, Thomas knocked his arm back and punched Ricky in the face. His bloody fist collided with his little brother's nose before Ricky could react to it and before Thomas could regret it. Ricky brought his hands up to his face, blood painted his chin, and seeped into his mouth coating his tongue in iron, a mixture of his own and his brothers. He felt tears sting his eyes. Neither of them spoke, their silence echoing the unspoken pain of the past seven months.

Then Ricky laughed, belly laughed, he wasn’t sure he was in control of it. Thomas’ fist was still clenched and bloody. Ricky turned and stormed out of the house, slamming the front door behind him. He paced back and forth for a minute before sitting down on the steps of their front porch. The porch that was not like Melaney’s, a porch that wasn’t attached to a home. Hot blood streamed down his face, but he made no move to wipe it.

He fished a pack of smokes out of his pocket and lit one, mixing blood and tobacco in his mouth, a demented potion for depression.

His mind found Harper Connelly again. He thought about how stupid Stephen was to leave her behind. How stupid he was to do everything he did to their family. How he hated him. How he hated it here.

He wondered if Harper ever loved him, but he knew she didn’t, and neither did Melaney.

He finished his first cigarette and lit another. He wondered if the way Stephen had gotten out had really been all so bad in the end.

He shook his head. No. He would get out of this house, he would use the envelope he hid in his closet, and he would finally have a chance. And he would stay gone.

Headlights bobbed over him as a car pulled into the driveway. He watched silently as his mother got out of the passenger seat and stumbled her way toward the front door. At least she didn’t drive tonight. The car retreated down the road, leaving the mother and her youngest son alone in the sharp cold air of the January night.

He was a freakish sight on the steps covered in blood and unmoving. She walked right past him without notice, shutting the front door as she went.

Ricky dropped his head in his hands and cried.