The Fall of January Cooper Read online

  THE FALL OF JANUARY COOPER

  By Audrey Bell

  COPYRIGHT © 2014 BY AUDREY BELL

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Prologue

  Downstairs, it sounded like the end of the world. Sometimes parties sounded like that. Like chaos, not celebration. I was used to college parties, though, and I liked it. Shaking houses, noise that followed you all the way upstairs. It made me feel alive.

  I didn’t know her, the tall blonde with the high-pitched voice. She’d spoken to me like we were old friends when we’d walked in—half the hockey team, juniors and sophomores. People felt lucky when we went to their parties.

  I’d laughed when she pulled my wrist and I’d followed her up to the third floor of the old house.

  When I’d closed the door behind me, I asked if anyone ever told her she looked like a Kate because I didn’t know her name.

  “You can call me whatever you want.”

  When I finished, she let out a satisfied sigh.

  “You’re so wonderful,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around my chest, and falling asleep.

  I yawned, staring up at the ceiling. I guess I was disappointed. I always expected more from the girls I slept with.

  I eased out of her grasp and pulled my shirt on. I hesitated in the doorway, flicked off the lights, and went downstairs.

  Sam was waiting for me. He sat on the bottom stair with his iPhone in hand, looking thoroughly annoyed. “What the fuck, Christian?”

  I exhaled. “Relax.”

  “You’re supposed to be my ride,” he said.

  I smiled. “I’m still your ride.”

  “Yeah, okay,” he said sarcastically.

  “What? You want to go now?”

  “I wanted to go an hour ago.”

  “So, let’s go.”

  He stared at me skeptically. “Seriously?”

  “What? I haven’t had anything to drink.”

  “So, what the fuck were you doing with Laura Jones?”

  “Who’s Laura Jones?”

  Sam stared at me. “You’re joking, right?”

  “The girl I just slept with told me to call her Kate,” I said.

  Not exactly a lie. Not quite the truth.

  Sam shook his head.

  “I don’t even know who Laura Jones is,” I added.

  “She’s Parker’s sister.”

  “Fuck,” I muttered.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Nice work.”

  I looked at him. “Well, I didn’t know that.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “And I’m supposed to believe you’re sober?”

  I shook my head at him, genuinely pissed. “You seriously think I’d drive you anywhere when I was drunk?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Wow. You must think I’m a real piece of shit, Sam.” I shook my head and walked away from him.

  “Chris…” he called. I heard him get to his feet and follow me outside.

  I took a short breath; the October air was clean, cold, fresh. I rubbed my forehead. Parker would kill me if he knew I slept with his sister. I could imagine him doing it too—and most of the team would probably think I’d deserved it.

  Outside, the noise from the party was faint, and Sam didn’t have to yell for me to hear him. “Sorry,” he muttered. He shook his head. “I’m in a shitty mood.” He’d played like garbage in the first period and Taylor had benched him. “You seemed like a good person to take it out on, I guess,” he added.

  I shook my head. “Where’s Vanessa when I need her?”

  He smiled weakly. “Working again.” His girlfriend waitressed six nights a week. She came from a family that hadn’t noticed when she didn’t come home for days in high school. She’d made her way to Boston, gotten herself into college without any help, and leased a tiny, rundown apartment near Dorchester—the kind of place I’d be afraid to live in—by the time she was nineteen. Sam would never take anything out on her. He adored her.

  I turned on the car, yawning, and Sam got into the passenger seat. I rubbed the back of my neck, which ached from an awkward check I’d taken in the second period of the game.

  “You okay?” Sam asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah.” I dropped my hand from my neck self-consciously. “Fine.”

  “You got drilled,” he commented. He reached for the radio as I headed towards the highway and turned it on.

  “I’ll live.”

  “Dude, just take Oak. There’s no traffic,” he said.

  “I like the highway,” I said defensively, staying in the right lane.

  He rolled his eyes. “Well, you should talk to Taylor. Tell him to be more careful with you.”

  I laughed. “Are you kidding?”

  He shrugged. “There was no reason for you to be in the third period. That game barely even counted.”

  “What am I supposed to say? Hey, Taylor, I know we’re supposed to be playing hockey here, but could you ask the other team not to hit me?”

  “How about you just say: hey, Taylor, you know, I have a career to think about. Could you not leave me out on the ice when we’re up by four and all the other team wants to do is take cheap shots at the star player?”

  “Pretty sure he’d deck me if I referred to myself as the star player,” I said.

  “Yeah, well,” he said darkly. “I don’t even know why you came back.”

  I looked over at him. “I wanted to win a championship. Play with you another year.”

  He snorted. “Seriously?”

  I looked back at the road. “Yes, seriously.” My jaw tightened. “It matters to me.”

  “What matters to you? Playing with me? Because I don’t really play anymore. Have you noticed that?”

  I was quiet. “You play.”

  “Sometimes, I play,” he said. “Mostly, I’m on the bench.” He rubbed his chin.

  “You do play. And you’ll play more this year. You were a freshman last year.”

  “So were you,” he said dismissively.

  “I know I was a freshman last year,” I said shortly. “What-what do you want me to say? I’m sorry you didn’t play more last year, but a lot of guys graduated, and Taylor’s going to use you when—”

  “Taylor only recruited me because he wanted you, Christian,” Sam said.

  “That’s bullshit,” I said flatly. I turned off the radio. “Where did you even get that? You know how many guys on our team have brothers?”

  Sam smiled thinly. We weren’t identical, though people sometimes thought we were. He’d always been leaner, lankier. Ever since last summer, he’d been about an inch taller, too.

  We’d gone to every hockey practice together, dealt with the same crazy coaches, and the weight of our father’s expectations. I’d been drafted after my freshman year and Sam still hadn’t started his first game. I knew it frustrated the hell out of him.

  “Come on,” I said. “You can’t actually think that.”

  He did actually think that, though. It was obvious.

  “That’s fucked up,” I said, after a second. “You were All-State in high school.”

  “And you were an All-American and player of the fucking year,” he said.

  “So what?”

  “So what?” he exhaled heavily. “Forget it. Forget it. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Sam, come on.”

  “I said, forget it.”

  “I’m not sure I’ll be able to.”

  “I’m just saying. I really hope you didn’t walk away from a two million dollar signing bonus because you wanted to play with me,” he said.

  I clenched my jaw tightly. “I thought you wanted to win a national championship togeth
er. I thought…” I let my voice trail off.

  “Come on. Please tell me you didn’t do it for me. Tell me that’s not what this is about. Because you’d have to be fucking retarded if you thought I was gonna enjoy sitting on the bench while you took a fucking victory lap. You really think I need to see you break your own scoring record? You don’t think I’ve had enough of that shit?”

  “Well,” I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. “That’s not why I came back, but I guess I’m a fucking retard.”

  “Guess so,” he muttered.

  I seethed while I drove, but I didn’t say anything. I held the wheel so tightly my fingers ached.

  Victory lap. He thought I’d come back to show off. For a fucking victory lap.

  I thought about the game. How easy it had been to score. Maybe he was right. Maybe that’s what I was doing—showing off when I didn’t need to anymore, and maybe nobody respected that kind of thing. “Sorry if I fucked things up for you,” I said finally. “I thought…we always talked about that when we were kids. I thought it mattered to you.” I’d meant to sound bitter and annoyed, but I sounded pathetic and sad. I cleared my throat. “Anyways, you could’ve told me you didn’t want to play with me. I’d have left. No questions asked, I’d have left,” I said coldly.

  “Look, that’s not what I meant.”

  “Sure it is.”

  “No, it’s not,” he said. “I just…” He exhaled heavily. “Jesus, Christian, you walked away from it like it was an unpaid internship.” He shook his head.

  “Right,” I said. “Fucking retard. Got it. Let’s talk about something else.” I turned the radio back on and turned the volume up.

  He turned off the radio. “Hey, asshole, maybe it’s not about you. Have you thought about that?”

  “No,” I said. “Like you said, I’m just here, taking a victory lap.” I shook my head at him.

  “No,” he snapped. “Fuck off with that. That’s not what I meant.”

  “Just what you said.”

  “I would kill to play pro,” he said harshly. “You know that? You have no idea what it’s like to be in practice with you, what it’s like in games, what it’s like when Dad says maybe I should think about a career on the police force, because even he knows I’ve got no shot at what you’ve got.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. Nothing. I felt a twist of guilt. “Sam…that’s…”

  “No, no, I don’t want you to pity me. I don’t. And I shouldn’t resent you. God knows you’ve earned it, Chris. You work like a fucking dog. I know that,” he said. “I just don’t think you’ve ever been on a team or in a game where you weren’t the best person on the ice.”

  “Aw, come on, Sam,” I said, feeling guilty. “You’re great. You’ve always been great.”

  “Listen,” he said. “I’m not trying to be the evil twin, but I hate playing with you.”

  I stared at him. I was flabbergasted. “Are you serious?” I asked.

  He lifted a shoulder ruefully. “Chris, you’re like a once-in-a-generation talent. Every fucking game, I wish I could be you.”

  I didn’t know what to say to him. I thought we loved playing together. I thought it was something we both wanted to do forever.

  “Jesus,” I said, shaking my head. “I had no idea.”

  “What? That I wanted to play in the NHL?” he asked incredulously.

  “No, no,” I shook my head. “That you—”

  I never saw the truck.

  Sam yelled. I’m not sure if that was before or after the impact, but I know he yelled, and I think he yelled my name—the way he’d yelled at me when we were driving in high school and he thought I hadn’t seen a stop sign.

  We flipped. The car launched me from my seat through the windshield. The eighteen-wheeler spinning, slowly, dangerously, turned on its side, and I saw it coming towards me.

  I came to on the pavement, wondering how the hell I’d ended up on the middle of the highway, alive, screaming for Sam. There was a fire. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it. Something was burning close to me. The heat blew over my face in waves.

  I tried to move, but I couldn’t. I remembered the truck coming down, pinning my leg beneath its tremendous weight. Everything went black when I heard that sickening crunch. I knew it was my leg. I heard these gut-wrenching screams. I don’t remember if they were my own.

  I wanted to die. I hadn’t known I’d ever want that at the age of nineteen, but when the firefighters came, I didn’t want them to save me. I wanted them to shoot me.

  I remembered that—begging to die—when we buried Sam a week later.

  Two Years Later

  Christian

  The lights on the highway glowed in the backseat. I was slumped down low, eyes glazed, and Ness was already all over me.

  The cab driver, who wore a turban, met my gaze in the rearview mirror. "Please, not in my cab."

  She, ignoring him, sat up and straddled my legs. She bent her head forward to kiss me.

  I turned my head. “Come on, Ness.”

  "Wait, just wait," the cab driver said sharply. He sounded pained and desperate, like we were violating something sacred, as she nipped at my neck. "Please, just wait until I drop you off. Please!”

  "Hey, quit it for a second," I said softly. I pushed her away gently, but she reacted like I’d burned her, lurching back to the other side of the car and folding her arms tightly against her chest.

  "You're as fucking prudish as he is," she snapped harshly, swinging her wild hair violently. I didn’t like the way she looked at me. Ness could go cold like a reptile sometimes. She glared at me. Her eyes burned.

  "C’mon, Nessa, relax.”

  "Fuck you," she spat, dispassionately, sinking down in her seat. I should've remembered how much she hated it when I told her to relax. Or calm down.

  She was wasted, and I was worse. It was always like this now.

  “Why do you care what he thinks?”

  "Let's talk about it later." I wanted to sleep. I was so tired of the same shit.

  "No, I want to talk about it now," she said. "Why do you care?"

  "Ness."

  "Why?" she screamed. "You want to know something?" she asked, low and husky. I didn't want to know anything anymore. "I fucking hate you sometimes." The anger in her voice sounded sharp and jagged, like broken glass. I knew that sound well, when her voice almost broke, and the rage almost crumbled into sadness.

  We were almost at her apartment. I reached for her hand, but she pulled away. The taxi rolled to a stop. Our driver's shoulders dropped—that's how relieved he was to get rid of us.

  I handed him a twenty and heard him muttering 'crazy bitch' under his breath, so I closed the door hard enough to make him jump.

  Vanessa walked towards the house, staggering from the alcohol. Even in the humid night air, her hands grasped her elbows tightly, like she was trying to keep warm or comfort herself. It didn't keep her from shaking.

  "I meant it, you know," she said, less angry than sad now, as she searched her purse for her keys.

  "What did you mean?"

  "That I fucking hate you."

  I nodded. "Okay."

  "You never call me unless you're fucked up. And then you care more about what a fucking cabdriver thinks than you do about me."

  "That's not true," I said.

  "Oh, fuck you, yes, it is. You really don't give a shit. You're just here so you don't feel guilty all the time.”

  Her hands shook. I didn't know what it was from, but I knew what her new friends had been like ever since Sam died. Nobody went to the bathroom that much and came out smiling like that. Whatever she'd gotten into wasn't good.

  "Ness," I said. "That's just not true."

  "You don't give a shit," she repeated, flatly.

  "What do you think I'm doing here if I don't give a shit?"

  "You're just drunk."

  I took her keys and unlocked the door to the walkup. She had a sticky lock. Sam once threatene
d her landlord when she’d gotten locked out in the middle of January, and she’d promised him that she’d move when her lease was up, but two years later, she was still here and the lock was still busted.

  I drove my shoulder hard into the door and it cracked open. “C’mon.”

  "You know, there were other people who would've taken care of me," she added.

  “Yeah?” I asked shortly.

  "Yeah," she said. "You made me leave. I could've gone home with anyone I fucking wanted in that bar."

  "Yeah, me too. The difference is you'd wake up and hate yourself and I wouldn't," I snapped. "Get the fuck inside."

  She lived on the third floor, off of the landing of a stairwell that still had two burnt-out lights. They'd been burnt out since June.

  "Why hasn't your landlord fixed that?" I asked. I'd called him twice about it.

  She shook her head at me. "Why do you care?" She pushed past me to the door to her apartment. She hadn't even bothered to lock her door before she went out.

  I closed my eyes. How stupid could she be? Every time I thought it couldn't get worse, it did. "You've got to lock your door."

  She started to cry softly as she stumbled into the dark apartment. "Nobody cares about me anymore."

  "Jesus, Ness," I said.

  "Nobody, nobody," she repeated despondently.

  I turned on the lights. Ness tried to kick off her heels. She sat down on her couch while I got her a glass of water.

  I hated seeing her. Every time I saw her, I had to remember what I had done. And then I had to take care of her.

  I was too hammered to take care of anyone and she was crying. I handed her the glass of water and she pushed my hand away so that water drenched my wrist.

  "Come on. Don't cry," I said. I sat down next to her on the couch and set the water on the table, and she started crying so hard that she shook.

  I rubbed her back. "Hey, it'll be okay. Come on. Take a deep breath."

  She breathed slowly, and kept crying. She leaned against me and then she tried to kiss me.

  I moved my head quickly and got to my feet. She had to stop with this shit.

  "Fuck me," she whispered. "Come on, please."

  "You don't want that."

  "Yes, I do."