The First To Know

“Yeah,” he said again, still staring at the door.

He’d said he hadn’t planned this out, and I was beginning to wonder if he was having second thoughts. If not about demoing his old apartment, then at least about inviting a perfect stranger to do it with him.

“I’m going to try one farther down,” I said, already moving.

“No, sorry. I was just caught up for a second.” Chase shook his head, then smiled. “My mom is a photographer, so she took a lot of photos.” He tapped the doorknob with a finger. “I was only like a year old when my mom and I left, so I know it’s just from seeing pictures, but it’s weird.”

“There are tons of other apartments. It’s really fine if you want this one to yourself.”

“I’m up for the company if you are.”

He said it with such easy sincerity that I had to believe him. And if I was being honest, I wasn’t sure I’d actually follow through with breaking anything on my own. I knew the place was getting blown up and there was nothing of value left behind, but it still felt a little off to just start smashing walls. Chase’s childhood claim to his apartment made it easier—allowable, somehow.

“Okay.” We stood for another second facing his door. “I guess we just...?” I pressed against the door with my palm, trying to get a read on how secure it was. “Why don’t you...” I turned but Chase was already stepping back, having reached the same conclusion. “Yeah, go for it.”

He kicked hard. I heard wood crack from the force, but the door held.

“Let’s do it together, ready?” I stood closer to the door than Chase needed to, but we timed it right, landing a double kick that knocked the already injured door clean off its hinges. We both laughed, though mine was partially to cover how much that kick had hurt. I was wearing flip-flops, and I wasn’t built like a Terminator. Chase seemed fine as he walked over the door.

I gave him a few minutes to look around and deal with any more memories on his own and took the opportunity to rub my knee until it stopped throbbing. I wasn’t going to be doing that again anytime soon.

“Dana?”

“I’m here,” I said, walking into the mostly empty room. I didn’t know why I’d expected it to be furnished. Obviously it wouldn’t be. And the few things left in the apartment wouldn’t have belonged to Chase anyway. There could have been a dozen tenants since he’d lived here. There was a moldy-looking love seat, a small table and a couple boxes that had seen their fair share of water damage. I looked at the ceiling and saw water spots and even a large brownish-yellow section that had broken through. That explained the smell.

I tried to envision the space clean and with a family, but my imagination wouldn’t stretch that far. I wondered if Chase’s memories were serving him any better.

“Does it feel familiar?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. That was my room.” He pointed with his bat. “It’s so small.”

“You must have been then too.”

His mouth lifted. “I’m glad I don’t really remember living here. And I’ll be gladder still when it’s a pile of rocks.”

That answered my next question, whether he still wanted to do this. We set down our phones in the center of the room and took up positions in front of the largest wall. I lifted my bat and Chase did the same.

His bat punched right through the drywall like it was cardboard. “Come on,” he said, freeing the bat.

The first swing was hugely satisfying. It was so much better than crying. I smashed windows and door frames. I busted rotted floorboards and broke through cabinets. We didn’t talk much, which was fine because I didn’t want to. I wanted to break things and not think about how broken I felt, and I did. I swung again and again for what seemed like hours until my arms were shaking and I couldn’t grab the bat anymore. Then I sat in a corner and watched Chase until exhaustion finally claimed him too. He lifted the bat to swing once more, then lowered it, breathing heavily as he let it slip through his fingers and clatter to the floor. Then he turned to me. His white T-shirt wasn’t so white anymore, and he was covered in the same sweat and dust that coated me.

“Feel better?”

He looked around and nodded. “You?”

Somehow I did. “Yeah.” I watched him kick through the debris, feeling warmer than the weather and exertion alone could account for. “So what made your day suck so bad that you needed...” I glanced toward the car-sized hole we’d put through one wall. “You never said.”

Chase wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. “Ask me again sometime. This is the best I’ve felt in a really long time, you know?”

“Tired, sweaty and probably covered in asbestos?”

“Yeah,” he said, not making a joke out of it at all.

I traced a piece of window frame near my hip. Other people, other families, had lived in this apartment since Chase and his parents, and he’d told me he’d been very young when he and his mom moved, but he still felt connected to it and the father who’d deserted him. I was suddenly reminded that we barely knew each other, and yet he’d let me be a part of something incredibly personal to him.

“Hey, why did you help me today?” I waited until he looked at me. “The smoothie, bringing me here? I wouldn’t even have seen you if you hadn’t called out.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“I was a girl crying by herself in a parking lot. I’m cute, but I’m not that cute,” I said, smiling a little, letting him know I was kidding.

Chase walked toward me, holding my gaze. I was so used to the way Nick couldn’t maintain eye contact for more than a few seconds that I felt my face heating even before he said, “You are that cute. Plus, you needed something to break, and I needed not to do this by myself.”

I was the one to break eye contact, dropping my head to look at the bat I had resting across my lap. “Well, thanks. I never knew how cathartic it could be to raze a building to the ground. Part of one, anyway.”

“You too. I would have brought my cousin, Brandon, but people keep flaking at work. I can’t find a shift for us to both be off.”

A different kind of tingling drifted over my skin at the mention of Brandon, overtaking the former. I closed my eyes for a second and leaned forward. All the thoughts I’d pushed away for the past couple hours raked over me. That ache, that empty dysphoria, settled heavy in my chest.

Chase sat beside me. “You okay?” His hand barely brushed my back.

I leaned away from his touch, speaking before I really thought about what I was doing. “You two are close?”

“He’s more like my brother. We grew up together.”

I glanced around the room we’d demolished, seeing it with new eyes.

“Not here. Our parents, they’re siblings. They bought houses here in Mesa only a couple blocks away from each other after my dad left and his mom died.”

“I’m sorry.”

Chase leaned his head against the wall. “I’m not. His dad was a better father than my own ever was. I don’t remember his mom, but mine loves him like he’s her own. We had it all right.” I felt Chase’s eyes on me and I met them. “Sometimes your family isn’t what you want them to be, but you end up with something better. I did.”

I pushed to my feet, dusting myself off as much as I could. Chase stood too and we started picking our way out of the apartment and back down the stairs.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, it’s fine.” If I’d been crying over a lost grandfather earlier instead of a philandering father and secret brother—a brother Chase was deeply connected to—his words might have had their desired effect. “Maybe you’re right. Either way, this helped.” I looked up at him when we reached the broken window in the basement. “Really.”

“Anytime.”

I smiled a little and looked away. Just like with Brandon, I needed to stay away from Chase. If he knew who I was, he wouldn’t be offering me anything.

“Or not.”

“It’s just that between school and softball, I don’t have a ton of free time.” And you have no idea who I am, and the brother I just found wouldn’t want me and the bomb I represent anywhere near you, I added silently.

“Ah.”