Losing Ruby

It was Thursday night, and I was just getting settled into a four-hour piece when I heard the front door slam open. From my office down the hall, I could hear the metal frame of the door ricochet off the brick wall behind it. It was late, almost eleven. Josh had already gone home and the front should’ve been locked up. Instinctively, I reached for the top drawer of my desk. The guy on my table sat up, one of my regulars. He didn’t look so concerned as he did ready to fight.

Fighting. It wasn’t something I did too much anymore. For a few years after my sister’s death I’d found comfort in the pain of a physical blow. It eased the gut-wrenching punch I felt each morning when I’d wake, drenched in sweat, from the horrible nightmare of her death. I enjoyed the punishment I so often felt I deserved, but one that no one else seemed willing to deliver. No one, but the guy opposite of me in the ring.

The ring is where I met Drake and Colt. Two people who also had pasts to bury, and pain to work out. Past’s that some would argue rivaled mine. I would argue that I had the heaviest burden to carry. I would swear to you, that the death of my sister at my hands, would forever top the world of hurt, I can only imagine, comes from being the child of abuse, or a child of abandonment.

After I finished the apprenticeship I’d started the day I’d moved out of my parent’s house, I realized I couldn’t keep a business up and running when I had a broken wrist or dislocated shoulder. Actually, it was Josh, my business partner who made it clear when he threatened to dissolve my share of the company if I didn’t get my shit together. Anything that took away my ability to lay ink, wasn’t going to benefit my future anymore; no matter how much I craved the sting of a broken nose or the high I got from delivering a bone shattering blow. So nowadays, a punching bag was the toughest thing I hit, but I can’t say I didn’t rejoice in the idea of finding someone looking to pick a fight with me.

It was Drake I heard first, “We’re closed, brotha.”

I could picture his arms resting across his chest, his stance wide. The dirtiest place he found himself these days were the weekends he spent bouncing at the college bars a few streets over, as opposed to the dirt floor pit we used to fight in. That’s not to say he didn’t also get excited at the prospect of a drunken dumbass trying to start a fight with him. An ex-marine, coming from a childhood where most nights he went to bed having been beaten to sleep, I knew he still had an ax to grind. There were few people that intimidated me, but he was at the top of that list. Whoever just came barging in here better have a signed death wish.

The voice I heard next was muffled and out of place, as it echoed off the tin ceilings that spanned the length of my studio. “Y’all can’t pick up a fucking phone,” was all I heard.

“Not after hours,” Drake confirmed.

Why did the other guy’s voice sound familiar? I didn’t hear him this time, but I heard Drake speak up again.

“He’s busy, you’ll have to come back when we’re open.”

“I said, I need to see him,” the voice roared. ”Now," and a chill rolled through me.

I hadn’t heard his voice, but a handful of times over the last six years. The tone he used was one I would never forget, though. It was the same pleading tone he used in the hospital when I refused to believe him, when I refused to believe our sister hadn’t made it.

I heard feet shuffling and skin connecting. “I said you can’t go back there,” Drake growled.

As I came out of my office and into the lobby, Drake was pushing Luca out of the shop by the handfuls of fabric balled in his fists.

“Luca?” Drake shot me a confused look, stopping him in his tracks. Luca just stared at me and my stomach dropped.

“They’re gone,” was the only thing he said after a few seconds.

I stared blankly back at him.

Finally, Drake released his hold on him, but Luca didn’t move. I knew that look. I knew it too well to think that he was here for any other reason than to deliver life shattering news. Even though Luca went to the university just up the street, I only saw him the few times a year I went home. He didn’t reach out, and I kept my distance.

I knew it was my leaving that broke our relationship, and the longer we went without speaking the deeper the insults cut when we did speak. He’d followed our father’s legacy; he was the starting running back for South Carolina University. He was everything I wasn’t in the eyes of our father. He was what I should have been. He was what I threw away the moment I woke up and Ruby didn’t.

“Who?” My voice was a mere whisper because I think deep down, I knew who he meant, but I didn’t want to believe it.

I didn’t want it to be true. So, I made him say it aloud. Made him say the worst thing someone could have to say to a sibling. Well, in our case the second worst thing. The first was telling me I killed our sister. Accident, or not, I killed her. And six years later, here we were starting all over with the same shit.

“Mom and dad.” His voice came out choked and his shoulders slumped forward. My feet felt like lead. If the whole building went up in flames they wouldn’t’ve moved. “We have to go, Chloe needs us.”

At the mention of her name, my instincts kicked in and I let my body work on autopilot as I headed for the door with Luca.

“Finish him up for me, and cover whatever I have for the next week,” I barked at Drake on my way out. “I’ll call you with an update when I can.”

I didn’t leave room for a discussion or an argument. He would do it, or he’d be gone when I got back. He may be the only person I’d hate to piss off, but I was still boss, and that held weight.