Then I remember. It will be the first Saturday night since we met she won’t be at the club with me.
Me: ? Ditch.
Alana: Wish I could. <3 Beach 2morrow?
Me: Yes. Def. Love you.
Alana: Muah, hot boy.
I toss the phone onto the bed and fall back onto the pillow, huffing and puffing. Twenty-four whole hours without her. Excruciating.
I finally pull myself out of bed, trek into the kitchen to find it halfway decent, and my mother sitting at the table drinking coffee, puffing on a cigarette.
“Morning,” I say as I pour myself a cup too. “What’s going on?”
“Your brother’s gone AWOL,” she says in a raspy voice, not even looking at me.
“I noticed.” I frown and pour some milk into the mug. Sean MIA is never a good sign. “Think he’s having an episode?”
He didn’t seem to be spiraling when I left for LBI, but his episodes come on fast sometimes, and he’s crashing before we even know it.
“I hope not.” She takes a drag of her cigarette solemnly.
Bipolar disorder is a mind-fuck of a disease. Watching my brother bounce all over his emotions is unbearable sometimes. But the way he deals with his episodes is even worse.
“I’ll call around, see if I can track him down,” I tell her as I sit down at the table. She kills her cigarette in the cheap gold ashtray.
“Okay,” she huffs. She looks worn out. Her hair is oily and needs to be washed, her face is pale, and she smells like booze.
“How is your girlfriend?” she asks randomly.
“Good,” I answer, and I can’t keep from smiling.
My mother stares at me vacantly. Her blue eyes the same color as mine, but lifeless.
“You like this one, huh?”
“I love her,” I correct, working my jaw. I don’t know why admitting that makes me defensive.
She shakes her head, but says nothing else. Her silence is almost oppressive. She doesn’t approve one bit, and I have no idea why. Then she stands and wraps her ratty pink bathrobe tightly around her.
“I have to be at work at three. Find Sean,” she mutters before walking out of the kitchen.
If I didn’t look for him, no one would.
* * *
I have calledevery one of Sean’s boys, and no one has seen him, which is making me crazy. I’ve been driving around all day checking out his regular hangout spots. Nada. I even paid a visit to Tasha, his, well, “friend”. Sean’s never been in a relationship, but he definitely has a soft spot for her. I understand why he keeps his distance; he’s unstable. Never knowing which direction his mood is going to swing, or how he’s going to handle it. It kills me that he’ll never be normal. That there’s nothing I can do to change the fact that he’s sick. Or how he turns to heroin to deal with his disease.
I need to get to work, so the search will have to cease for now. Usually, one of two things happens when Sean takes off. We find him, or the police do.
The last time he went missing, they found him passed out in the bathroom of a fast-food restaurant. That was eight months ago.
There’s a ton of traffic tonight. It’s a warm, breezy late July night, and I think everyone and their mother is taking advantage of the comfortable weather. Driving along the promenade, the sidewalks and restaurants are packed with people, and the cars in front of me are rolling along at a leisurely pace. I guess I’m the only one who has somewhere to be. As I sit impatiently in my Jeep, fiddling with the radio, a limo catches my eye. It’s parked in front of one of the higher-end restaurants that has a killer view of the Atlantic. I watch as one person after the other emerges dressed in designer clothes without a care in the world. I bitterly wonder if any of them knows what it’s like to be penniless.
But what really floors me is when a gorgeous blonde goddess, dressed in a tight black top and flowy pink miniskirt, gets out and puts her arm around the Giorgio Armani model waiting for her on the curb. It feels like all the oxygen has been sucked directly out of my lungs. I catch her looking up at him and smiling just before they walk into the restaurant together. I’m frozen. My mind is racing, trying to grasp the notion I am not the only man in Alana’s life. It registers painfully why she won’t say “I love you”. It isn’t because we’re moving too fast or because she’s afraid of her emotions. It’s because shedoesn’tlove me. My chest feels like it’s caving in.
I’m nothing.