Brightside by Mark Tullius (i have read the book a hundred times TXT) 📖

IT WAS BEFORE I MET Michelle, a year before Brightside. I’d just broken up with Chloe, this waitress I’d been dating for about six months. Chloe never liked me, thought I was annoying, and knowing this, I just became more annoying to piss her off. I thought it was funny. She’d get so red and flustered, and would tug at her hair until it tore free from her scalp. I listened to her thoughts, figured out exactly what bothered her the most. Then I’d perform each one to watch her squirm. I drummed my fork on the dinner plate, just like her brother used to do. I’d scratch my scalp like her stepfather did every morning at breakfast.

I was bored, destructive, pissed off at the world. I was so tired of hearing everyone’s thoughts, knowing I’d never find love, because I’d always get the truth. That’s why I set fires, wanted to watch these assholes burn. People like Chloe, who never deserved it. Finally, she had enough and moved out. She never told me, but I knew all about the abortion. It wasn’t a tough decision. She knew I’d make a terrible father, wanted nothing to do with me ever again.

That’s what sent me into the darkness, the bleakest state I found until Brightside.

Chloe had been gone for a week, and Dad showed up because I hadn’t been answering his calls. He found me in the living room just sitting in my underwear. Unshaven, filthy. Plates of dried food everywhere. Lily licking at the scraps.

“Jesus Christ, Joe,” Dad said.

I must have left the door unlocked because he was just standing there.

“What the hell happened here?”

I went back to watching Lily lick the dried rice and beans. Dad picked up the plate, told Lily to stop. He stacked a few dishes, put them out of her reach.

Dad said my name, but I couldn’t look at him, knew if I did, I’d start crying.

With Dad I didn’t need to speak. He knew everything, about Chloe, about the abortion. He cleared off some space on the couch and sat, neither of us saying a word.

“You know,” Dad said, “your mother and I considered...”

“I know,” I said. I’d heard Mom thinking it more than once, how she should have just ended the pregnancy.

“Your mom couldn’t do it.”

I finally turned. I’d always assumed it was Dad who’d talked her out of it.

“We were at the doctor’s, already in the examination room, and she just couldn’t do it. We both knew you might turn out like me, but she didn’t care.” Dad pictured the first time he held me in his arms. “And then you showed up, and I knew you were meant to be here. That you’d do great things one day.”

The wreckage of my life suddenly came into focus. The dirty clothes, the sacks of fast food wrappers, the half-empty bottle of whiskey.

“Guess you were wrong,” I said.

“No,” Dad said, “I wasn’t. You just need to pull yourself together, stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

“Yeah, that’s all I need to do.” I laughed.

Dad grabbed my face and squeezed my chin, forced my eyes to his. “You want to destroy yourself, go ahead. But there are people out there who could use your help. You can still do great things, Joe.”

I don’t remember exactly what was said after that. I know I didn’t want to hear his pep talk, knew I just wanted him gone. He finally left and I sat back down on the couch. Lily crawled over and plopped down on my feet. She needed to be walked, and while nothing inside me wanted to see the outside world, I took her around the block. Dad’s words started to sink in. My dog needed me.

The next day I went into BMW and convinced Saul to hire me. A few weeks later I met Michelle. The money poured in, and even though I knew my father was wrong, that I’d never do anything great, I thought I was at least doing some good. I was going to buy a house with a big yard for Lily. I told myself Michelle would accept the truth, that things would work out.

Then Dad paid Michelle that visit, learned she’d never accept who I was. He must have known I’d crumble, just like I had with Chloe.

That’s the only reason I could come up with. That Dad sent me here before it was too late.

He must have believed this was the only way for me to reach my potential.

If only he could see me now, sitting on Danny’s floor, pathetically weeping over Rachel and Robert, the guy I barely knew. Weeping for Danny and Sara, the only people here worth saving. Everyone dead or locked away because of me.

Grandpa’s shotgun flashes in my head. The gift my father sent in pieces, a puzzle like my Rubik’s Cube. I had to go and solve it so Rachel could blow off her face.

“Joe,” a voice says.

It sounds like Sara, and I figure I must already be in the Cabin. They must have found the body in my closet. But I don’t remember them taking me.

Sara’s face is right in front of me.

The slap stings too much for the medication I must be on. It sends little crackles up and down my head.

“Where’s Danny?” she says.

I’m not in the Cabin, still in the room with all my sketches. Danny’s room. Sara’s room.

“Was he here?” she asks.

“What?”

She just about screams, “Was Danny here?”

“No. The door. It was open.”

She paces back and forth, says, “Shit.”

I get to my feet and ask what’s going on, why she’s not in the Cabin. Sara says she went looking for Danny, but he wasn’t at work. He didn’t even show up today.

“They’ve already got him,” I say.

“Who?”

But she already knows. “Why? They said they were only taking me! Danny didn’t do anything.”

“It’s Sharon. She wanted him out of the way.”

Sara’s head shakes back and forth, like she’s trying to get rid of every horrible thought. She has Sharon’s throat in her hands, crunching her windpipe.

I think of Robert, the rope digging deeper, his face turning purple, his tongue dangling down like he was trying to get a crumb off his chin.

Sara turns to me disgusted. She hadn’t needed all of that.

I try to apologize, but she wants to know what the hell is going on. I tell her I don’t know. I touch her arm, expecting her to push me away, but she just collapses, huge sobs filling the air. Her mind only on Danny, the brother she swore she’d protect.

Finally, the shove comes. Then her tiny fists ball up and beat at my chest. “YOU DID THIS TO HIM! YOU!”

I take each blow, wishing she were stronger, wishing her fists were holding knives.

“He can’t...” Sara’s picturing a catatonic Danny, the joy completely drained from his eyes. “I have to go,” she says.

My hand is around her wrist. She’s pulling away, but I grip harder, yank her back. “You go there, and you won’t be able to do anything. They’ll do the same to you.”

“I don’t care. I’ll be with him.”

“Sara, no. They’ll never let you leave. You know too much.”

I hear Sara thinking before she even says it. “Then I’ll tell them everything. I’ll tell them and they’ll have to let us go. They’ll know Danny and I...”

Part of me wants her to do exactly that, to put a stop to Sharon’s plans, to end all this before we all end up comatose or dead. But I remember what Sharon said, that Brightside couldn’t last forever. It’s not sustainable, and sooner or later, the funds would run out and they’ll have no choice but to eradicate us. They’ll say it’s what’s best for the country, the normals will never know the truth.

I know Sara thinks a little time is better than none, but there is another way.  We can break Danny out and make the escape on our own.

I tell Sara to wait by the pond, that I’ll handle everything. Sara refuses, says she’s coming with me. I tell her fine, but we have to stop by my place first. We’re going to need Dad’s gift.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SARA MAKES ME PROMISE I’ll turn myself in if Danny has already been drugged. She says we’ll never get him out of there. Medicated, he’ll be too heavy. I tell her I will, but I’m still thinking of other options, thinking about the ambulance, how we could steal it, load him up, drive right out. But the Brightside entrance is locked by a steel gate that not even Sheriff Melvin has access to.

We exit Lodge Two and I see the helicopter hovering over the Square. I’m praying they don’t find Wayne, not until we can free Danny. Every Boot is preoccupied, but the moment they have Wayne in cuffs, their attention will shift back to us. Danny and Sara are supposed to be taken in the next thirty minutes.

The sun is falling and it’s blinding on the way to my place. I can barely see the sidewalk. I almost trip off the curb. Sara grabs my arm,