Song of the Fireflies by J. A. Redmerski Read Free Book Online Page B

you’re not addicted—then I’m sorry, man, but you’re gonna have to find another place to live.”
    His eyes grew as wide as plates.
    Bray walked in the front door at that very moment.
    “Hi, baby,” she said moving through the living room toward me and having no idea what was going on. She pushed up on her toes and pecked me on the lips.
    Mitchell was glaring at us from behind her.
    “Oh, I get it now,” he said, and Bray turned upon hearing the anger in his voice. “This is because of her.” He pointed at Bray once. “Little Miss Fucking Sunshine comes back to Georgia, moves in, and suddenly three’s a crowd.” His face contorted pathetically for a moment. “
Seriously
, man? You’re picking a piece of ass over your best friend? The pussy way out, man, that’s fucked up!”
    I went toward him, both hands clenched into fists at my sides. Bray stepped in front of me and I stopped.
    “Don’t talk about her like that, Mitch.” My jaw was clenched painfully and the blood rushed to my head. “You fucking know better. And besides,
she’s
always been my best friend. Not you.”
    Mitchell smiled fiendishly and shook his head. He glanced back and forth between me and Bray. I was ready to knock him over the back of that sofa. One wrong word or syllable was all it was going to take. Bray knew it, too. She kept both hands pressed against my chest and her little body in my way, hoping it would be enough.
    “Mitchell,” she said before he had a chance to say whatever it was he was smiling so cunningly about, “I don’t care if you stay here, and Elias knows this. This has nothing to do with me. We’re just worried. Meth is some bad shit.”
    “You don’t know shit about me,” he said. “But I know about you. Ain’t that right?”
    The tips of my fingers were digging into the palms of my hands. But I waited, hoping he wasn’t about to go the wrong way with this. I really didn’t want to hit him.
    Mitchell smirked and went on, “See, she and I talked while she was living in South Carolina. Yeah. She told me all about that guy—” he snapped his fingers “—what was his name? Garrett? In fact, Bray called me
several
times. But she didn’t call you, did she? Not once. Some best friend.”
    “I only called you to find out things about Elias!”
    I still wanted to hit him, now more than before. But I also wanted to hear this.
    Bray stepped away from me and started to go toward him, but I reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her back before she got too far.
    But that didn’t stop her from shouting.
    “You’re such a prick!” she roared. “Don’t you
ever
try to make what I did out to be something that it wasn’t!”
    Mitchell threw his head back and laughed.
    “A game-playing little bitch,” he said and before he could get the rest out, I was pushing Bray to the side and going toward him.
    “Elias, don’t hit him!” Bray shouted at me from behind. “You know it’s the drugs!”
    I shoved the coffee table out of my way and grabbed him by the front of his shirt and started pushing him toward the front door; his heels were partially dragging the carpet. By this time, I did want to hit him, more than anything, but I knew Bray was right.
    “I can’t even believe you took her back after what she did!” he screamed in my face, the smell of his meth-breath whirling cruelly up into my nostrils. “All that time, Elias! That hell she put you through! All those times I listened to you talk about her, all that childhood stuff, the stupid fucking firefly story! She’s got you whipped!”
    I shoved him right out the front door. He fell on his ass, but stayed there on the concrete screaming up at me, his long bangs now disheveled around his face despite the oil.
    “Unfuckingbelievable! I thought you were better than that, bro,” he said.
    “Your shit will be on the sidewalk by tonight,” I said, glaring down at him. “Don’t ever fucking come in here again. You understand? After you get your