Hush (Discontinued)

30.6

Bubba gave a humorous sigh. His voice echoed. "Truth is, ICE and all of our beloved mentors and teachers don't want us anymore." He seemed okay with this. Why was he? For five years I always imagined I'd be coming home to open arms. Now I felt abandoned. Again.

"Outcasts," Bubba said, almost to himself. "We don't belong anywhere. . . We're nobodies. . ." He gave a fatalist chuckle and kicked a sweep of glass across the floor.

I looked among the shadows over the strands of frizzy hair, and touched the back of the fallen girl. I touched her throat, for a pulse. She was alive.

At least I still had the dream: of coming home.

"At least we have our families back home," I said. A grim rumble pervaded the walls. Footsteps scattered the upstairs. I thought I heard someone creeping around in the dining room, close to us.

Bubba stopped laughing. He looked over at me, like a dog. He didn't like what I'd just said. "Since when did you start to care about your family?"

The question ignited a spark in my chest. Guilt.

"What?"

"You heard me," said Bubba. He snarled. How did I piss him off? The answer followed when he said, "Your brother Josh is my best friend. And we talk a lot."

My brother's name made my throat swell. I haven't talked to him in five years. During my college experience, it made sense not to. I was a civilian. I aimed to keep it that way until I had lived that alternative life to the finish, and gotten it out of my system. But now that college was over, I saw from the outside perspective that maybe relinquishing my responsibilities as a brother, a son, a friend, an agent of the United States secret services, might have been a despicable act of neglect and selfishness. I liked to think that college had made me a better person. Less selfish. Maybe. . . it had made me nothing more than an island. A dysfunctional prince, a leach sucking the blood out of society, giving nothing in return.

Bubba huffed. I wonder if my brother was as upset as Bubba was. "Your brother Joshua told me that he wants to know why you haven't called him or your parents for five whole years," Bubba said. "You deserted them. You threw away your identity. The agency didn't have to blacklist you for that to happen. You blacklisted yourself because you were too ungrateful for the life you'd been given. We were all orphans, you know. You can't honestly believe, that life could get any better than being a spy. You travel the world. You have clear cut goals and an agency to build you into the best person you can be. . ."

Why was he giving me a monologue. I knew this all already. He was only making it worse. I couldn't tell him the real reason I'd left the agency. I couldn't tell him I just need to find myself. He'd think I was crazy. Then again, maybe I didn't need to find myself. Maybe I just felt trapped. And I needed to get away. Maybe out of rebellious teenage angst high school kids get, I saw the orphanage that trained me how to be a spy, was more like some kind of. . . cult.

"Your brother hates you," Bubba finally said. And like wine spills out of a fallen cup, so did the tears. I covered my face so Bubba wouldn't see.