Three Christmas Wishes - Krista Wolf Page 0,36

Don’t let him leave.”

I turned, groggily, trying to shake the cobwebs.

“Sixty? That’s what he owes him?” I heard him let out an aggravated sigh. “Fine, give it to him. I’ll bring you the money in half an hour.”

He stood up, searching for his clothes. He found what he was looking for before storming out of the room, the phone still clenched to his ear.

“And keep my brother exactly where is.”

Twenty-Seven

KADE

The house was absolutely trashed. The sink was full of dishes, the table piled high with half-eaten take-out in various containers. There was laundry all over the floor, in different parts of every room.

And my brother slept like a baby.

I watched his chest rise and fall, in a slow, uninterrupted breathing. There were no shakes, no shudders. No sign of the terrifying drug-induced seizures I’d seen before, the ones that had me frantically calling an ambulance, or even rushing him to the hospital myself.

The more I realized he was okay, the angrier I got. This place was our home, once. We’d grown up here, had great times. We’d opened Christmas presents under a tree over in the living room corner… a corner now stacked with black garbage bags filled with cans and bottles.

“Here.”

I handed Danielle three twenty-dollar bills. She took them hesitantly, her eyes still red from crying.

“I really don’t know why you’re still around,” I told my brother’s girlfriend. “With the amount of shit he’s pulled? Anyone else would’ve taken off.”

Danielle’s eyes welled up with tears. Shit. It wasn’t the reaction I wanted.

“Look,” I said, sitting her down on the couch. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate you. You’ve stuck by him through thick and thin. You obviously love him.”

“I do,” she sniffed. “He’s… he’s not really like—”

“I know,” I told her. I reached out and squeezed her hand. “Believe me I know.”

Before my brother’s drug problems he was my favorite person in the world. There was no one funnier or sharper than Brandon. He had a razor-sharp wit that often got him into trouble when we were younger, and even when we were older too. But as much as he could be a dick, he had a heart of gold as well. A loyal and giving nature that was rare these days, and that was the part Danielle appreciated.

“How’d it happen this time?” I asked.

“He went missing for two days,” Danielle said miserably. “His phone was dead. I was worried sick. Then about an hour ago he showed up out of nowhere, with his friend Nick banging on the door like an asshole.”

“Nick’s not his friend,” I said angrily. “He’s his dealer.”

“Yeah,” Danielle nodded. She pulled two long pieces of blonde hair back over her ears. “I know.”

“What did he say?”

“He said Brandon fucked up again, and this time he pissed off the wrong people. Nick said he got him out of there just in time, but he needed to sleep it off.”

“How magnanimous of him,” I sneered.

“He also demanded the money,” she went on. “He said Brandon owed him.”

“I’m sure he did.”

“He wouldn’t leave until I gave it to him, either,” she spat. “He was a huge dick about it.”

Danielle stared at my brother, crashed out on the opposite couch. She dropped her face into her hands.

“I really don’t know how much longer I can do this,” she cried. “He said he was going clean again. After what happened last week—”

“He nearly gave me a heart attack last week,” I said. “I almost kicked his ass.”

“The fear of you kicking his ass is sometimes the only thing that keeps him clean,” Danielle told me, adding a sad chuckle. “It doesn’t work forever though.”

“No,” I agreed. “It doesn’t.”

I glanced around again, at the house we’d grown up in. The half-completed mortgage our parents had left us with, once they’d split up and taken off in our late teens. It was a shit deal, but like all shit deals we made the most of it. Living here together, with both of us working, we kept things nice. We built up some equity in the house, and even had some money left over…

But then…

Then the crash happened.

“You’re obviously not living here anymore,” I said, nodding toward the giant mess. “How long?”

“Two months, just about,” Danielle answered. “I told him I’d come back once he was clean for a few straight weeks. That hasn’t happened.”

“It’s not going to happen either,” I said sadly. “Unless he accepts some help.”

Angrily I recalled all the money I’d wasted on rehab. We’d tried inpatient. Outpatient. Nothing