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“She is not out of your league.” Holiday hounds me. “She smiled at you. I know when a girl likes what she sees, and she liked what she saw in you.”
Tension builds in my neck. Yeah, the girl smiled, but she didn’t know what she was smiling at. I’m a pretty façade on the outside. On the inside, I’m a house of cards teetering on a bad foundation.
Axle throws an arm around Holiday’s shoulder and edges her away. “Let’s get some food. Drix is going to have to talk soon, and we don’t want him to do it on an empty stomach. Passing out on TV isn’t a great first impression.”
Wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?
“Hamburger?” Axle calls as he walks backward for the food truck. “With everything?”
I nod. My brother knows me...at least who I used to be.
“I’m agreeing with Holiday on this,” comes a deep rough voice to my right. “Pathetic.”
I do a slow head turn toward my best friend and cock an eyebrow at an even slower rate.
He smirks at my expression. “We picked a game we always let you win, and you didn’t even try.”
They picked that game because I used to kick their asses at it, and they were trying to get me to be the old Drix. But I only offer one sloppy lift of my shoulder because I don’t know how to explain that it’s tough to engage.
“It’s creepy hanging with you,” Dominic continues. “It’s like you’re the Walking Dead. I’m half expecting someone to jump out with a samurai sword and slice out your heart.”
“Brain,” Kellen corrects as she adjusts the Spider-Man beanie on her head. It’s a hundred degrees outside, and she wears that hat like it’s thirty below. “They’d take out his brain.”
“That, too.”
Dominic and Kellen stand side by side. Siblings who look and act nothing alike, except for their attachment to me and my family.
Kellen’s barely sixteen, the baby of our group. She’s blond braids with black bows at the ties, and she wears her beloved fitted black Captain America T-shirt and worn jeans with rips. It’s weird seeing her with lip gloss and eye shadow. I’m betting that would be Holiday’s doing, but at least Kellen’s somewhat the same.
Since we were kids playing baseball in the street, Kellen’s been a sucker for a comic book hero. It gives the possibility to her that the world might make sense. Good guys in one corner. Bad guys in the other. It’s how Kellen found her way to survive in a very gray household.
Something about her makes me feel protective. Maybe it’s how Dominic hovers over her. Maybe it’s because Kellen still has the limp from a bad bone break she got when she was eight. Maybe because playing hero to her might make me redeemable.
“I’m the Walking Dead because I didn’t play a game?” I ask.
Dominic jerks his thumb toward the game. “Because you didn’t hit on the girl.”
The girl no longer needs to be part of our conversation. I liked her. She liked me. I’m on parole for a crime I didn’t commit. A plus B doesn’t equal C in this equation.
“And you only played after we lost. How much did we lose? Three games, five dollars a shot. That would be...”
“Fifteen dollars,” Kellen says, the math freak that she is. Don’t get me wrong, I respect the hell out of her for it. I’ll also admit her nonstop ticking brain scares me. Someone that smart is going to take over the world—in a lab-coat, stroking-a-cat, manic-laughter type of way.
“Fifteen dollars,” Dominic echoes. “Times five.”
“Seventy-five dollars,” Kellen pops in.
“Seventy-five dollars in total. Just to get you to play.”
“I never said I wanted to play,” I say.
“But I wanted that snake. That girl is walking away with my prizes. You’ve been gone a year, and you can’t help a brother out? That would have completed my collection.”
“He needed the pink one,” Kellen adds.
“See, my world is now incomplete.”
Dominic grins, and I can’t help the automatic grin in return. It feels strange on my face, especially when joking with him used to be as natural as breathing.
Where Kellen makes me feel like I need to clear the path, Dominic is a category five tornado; a broad-shouldered brick wall. He has to be for the neighborhood we grew up in. He has to be because his home is even worse, and he considers himself the protector of him and his sister.
The deep scar across his forehead tells one of many war stories. So does the long one on his arm from a surgery when he was ten. He has black hair, blue eyes and is a good guy to have in a tough spot. My best friend is cool on the outside, but deep down he’s two pieces of uranium always on a collision course. He’s volatile. Too many emotions and nowhere safe to store them. They stew until there’s an explosion, and Dominic hates explosions. He hates fallouts. Most of all—he hates tight spaces.
But he loves a guitar, loves music, and from all the letters and emails he sent while I was gone, he loves me. Kellen, Dominic and I are more than friends. We’re family, and I’ve missed my family.
“You let us down,” Dominic continues. “We got beat by some little blonde, and she was a sore winner. And the worst part? I didn’t hit on her because she smiled at you, you smiled at her, and I thought you were settling in and returning to playing the game.”
“You didn’t hit on her because she would have laid you out flat with her no.” I mock a jab to his jaw. “That girl was fireworks.”
Kellen smiles at the dig, Dominic snorts, and a heaviness avalanches onto me. There’s a pause they’re waiting for me to fill because that’s what I used to do: announce what’s next, but I don’t have a next. This should be easier than what it is, and I hate that it’s not.
“Dominic,” Axle calls from a food truck. “Get over here and help.”
Kellen starts before Dominic does because where she goes, Dominic does, too.
Dominic steps forward then stops. His shoulder next to mine. Us facing two different directions. It’s the first time we’ve been alone since before I was arrested, and I lower my head as the two million things I’ve wanted to say to him become stuck in my throat.
With the way he sucks in a breath, he’s feeling the same.
My heart beats faster at what he might say and what I might say in return. Did he do the crime? If so, will he confess? What about beyond the crime? Will he bring up how he screwed me over the night I was arrested? Does he have the balls to explain how he left me high and dry, and will he apologize for that? If he does, can I forgive him? Because I’ve struggled with that—forgiveness. It’s not something that occurs naturally for me.
Dominic angles his head so he’s looking at me, waiting for me to lock eyes with him, but I can’t. I watch the blonde as she walks the midway. She’s beautiful. Possibly the most beautiful girl who’s talked to me. When she smiled at me, it was like I was being warmed by the sun, and I was her only planet. What I envy is that she seems to know where she’s going, where she’s headed in life. I’ve never been so jealous of anyone.
“I’m going to make this up to you,” he says.
Sharp pain in the chest. Of all the ways I saw this moment playing out, those weren’t the words I imagined. It’s not an apology for leaving me behind. It’s not an admittance of guilt. It’s a promise.
In my final therapy session in the woods, sitting next to a bonfire I created, my therapist asked what would help me transition back into the real world. I told him I needed the truth. He told me there’s no such thing, but he did tell me that forgiveness was real.
Forgiveness. In my mind, forgiveness and the truth go hand in hand.
“Why did you leave me behind that night?” I ask because I’ve waited a year for that answer, and I can’t wait anymore. Not if Dominic and I are going to be friends again. “We had a pact—never leave one of us behind, and you left. Why?”
“I thought you went home.”
“I didn’t, and you need to admit you didn’t try to find me. Something big had to have happened for you to have ditched me. What was it?” Or did he really think I was gone from the store and saw that as his opportunity to rob it?
“Dominic!” Kellen calls, and she’s juggling several drinks. “I need help.”
Yes, his sister needs help, but I need help, too. I look straight into his eyes, and there’s no way he doesn’t see the plea in them to talk to me, but he doesn’t talk. Instead, Dominic pats my back and heads to help his sister.
That night, Dominic had walked me to the convenience store, and dared me to shoplift, but then disappeared, and I passed out behind the store. I was too drunk and too high to know my own name, and he left. Disappearing, leaving anyone he loved behind, wasn’t his style, but he was desperate for money. Did his desperation cloud his judgment when it came to me and our friendship?
And that night, Holiday was closer to the crime scene than I had known. Both of them had something to gain, both of them felt as if they had nothing to lose and both of them had motive.
But it’s hard to imagine Holiday holding a gun. Dominic, on the other hand, he was capable of aiming a gun, and at the time, he was crazy enough to pull the trigger.
Good thing that bullet missed the store clerk or I would have been charged with more than robbery with a weapon and attempted assault. Manslaughter would have messed up my day—for twenty years.
Do I know for sure Dominic did it? No. There’s a chance my sister let her ramped-up emotions control the decisions for her that night and that she talked Dominic into it. But 80 percent of me believes it was him alone—my best friend—and I don’t know how to live with that yet.
Ratting him out to the police was never an option, because no matter what, I love him. Dominic can’t handle tight spaces, and I could. Dominic wouldn’t have survived. I did. I roll my shoulders, but the tightness in my neck doesn’t go away. How can I forgive someone who won’t admit guilt? How can I forgive when I don’t know who to forgive?
Axle joins me. “We found a table over by the merry-go-round.”
Soon I have to announce to the world I’m a criminal, even though I’m not. Sealed records and the truth won’t mean anything once I open my mouth in front of reporters. Guess the therapist was right on the truth. It doesn’t exist.
“I need a few minutes to myself.” Food doesn’t sound appealing anymore.
“I’ve got your dress clothes in the car. Meet there in a half hour?”
“Yeah.”
Axle returns to our family, and I walk forward, in the same direction as the blonde. Her path has to be better than mine.
Ellison (#ua40580ab-2e09-500c-88a2-fbd8fd0c2fe2)
Idiot One and Idiot Two have made a reemergence, and like all things that have died and have been brought back like a zombie, they return more grotesque than before. The dumb duo call out taunts as they follow. Each shout more degrading than the last, each shout causing my blood to heat to the point of melting steel.
“Are you one of those girls?” one calls out. “The type who needs to be shown what to do? Come here, and I’ll show you exactly how it’s done.”
They both laugh, congratulating the other for their wittiness. My fists clench, and I glance over my shoulder. Idiot One slides his hand down to his crotch and says, “Don’t you know a guy’s—” ringing of a game next to me “—goes into...”
His comment is muffled by the screams of people on the Tilt-A-Whirl, but I can read his lips, spot what he’s grabbing at, and tears burn my eyes. I could smack myself. Tears. I’m so incredibly mad my eyes are filling with tears because that’s what happens when I get furious, and that only causes me to get angrier.
I swipe at my cell and text Andrew. Where are you?
Andrew: Midway crowded. Still on my way to you.
More frustrated tears that I lowered myself to asking Andrew for help, but it’s either that or tell the college boys off in a very public way. My instincts are informing me another Pepsi bath will cause them to morph into Satan’s grandchildren.
I scan the area, hoping for an ally, but there’s no one who seems interested in the position beyond a few moms whose hot expressions suggest they’d shoot the guys behind me if they had a carry-and-conceal license.
But those moms have children, and their job is to protect them. The rest of the crowd fleetingly glimpse at me then at the jerks, but choose to remain silent. There’s this unwritten code in society that tells us not to get involved.
Options:
Stay the course, continue to listen to their taunts and eventually reach Andrew, so I can keep up the appearance of being a sane person.
Destroy my pride and run while people stare.
Grab that baseball on the game ledge, throw the ball straight and hard like Henry taught me, hope it knocks one of them out and then inform the other one in really big words I not only know, but can spell, the exact route he can take to hell.
The third option is my favorite, it’s the one that is my most honest reaction down to the core of my being, but doing that will disappoint everyone but Henry. I promised Mom and Dad I would never lose my temper in public, that I would never let my emotions crack beyond the surface.
“Hey, you!” one of the guys calls. “Let me show you a girl’s mouth is for—”
Another round of happy screams from a ride, yet I catch the tail end of his statement. My body whiplashes forward as my feet abruptly become concreted to the ground. The sights and sounds of the midway fade, and all I hear is buzzing. I close my eyes as more pissed-off tears fill my eyes. Why won’t they go away?
“You okay?” a guy asks.
I open my eyes and focus on the ground. My eyes are red, I know they are. I can feel the puffiness of my skin. I take a deep breath, look up to explain I’m okay, and freeze.
Holy hell. It’s the boy from Whack-A-Mole. He’s so much more breathtaking this close, and I have no idea how that’s possible.
“Are those guys bothering you?” he asks.
My forehead furrows. Yes, they are, but telling him the truth and inviting him into my problems seems wrong.
“Since you’re so talkative, I’ll start the conversation,” he says. “If you want to get rid of those guys then stand here and talk to me, and I’ll stand here and talk to you. You can smile like you know me because it’s tough to make me smile, and it will seem fake. Then I can try to win you a stuffed animal. Won’t be a snake, but it will do. Those losers will catch on we’re friends. Eventually, they’ll keep walking, and then they’ll return to their loser frat house where they’ll play with themselves for the rest of the night because they don’t know how to properly talk to a girl.”
I blink because all thought processes have taken a mini break. Either that or I’m having a stroke.
“Just a smile. Maybe a few mumbled words. Tell me anything. Doesn’t have to be poetic. Just your lips moving in my direction without your current blank expression.”
I blink again, many times, as the sights, sounds and smells of the midway blast back as if someone had pushed the play button on my life. I flash the perfectly practiced public smile I’ve used too many other times in my life.
“I don’t know how to get them to leave me alone.” I pause, then the bitterness leaks out as well as a grim grin. “At least not without a baseball and a well-placed throw. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to continue their genetics.”
The right side of his mouth tips up, and my eyes narrow on him. “I thought you didn’t smile easily.”
“I have a twisted sense of humor, and I didn’t think a girl like you could make me laugh. You’ve done it twice now. That’s a record for the past year.”
I bristle, still on the dangerous edge of anger. “A girl like me?”
“Yeah, one that’s out of my league. Listen, if you want to get out of this situation without it escalating, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll take a step back, and you can do whatever you need. I’m all about helping, but I’m not looking to get into a fight. Your call on how this goes down, but if it’s violence, you’re on your own.”
He says he doesn’t want to partake in violence, but there’s an essence about him that says he could drop anyone at any time and do it without breaking a sweat.
He’s looking at me, I’m looking at him, and the flutter in my chest returns. “Thank you for the offer, but I can take care of myself.”
Sure can. Just need that ball, a good throw, and then my mother will be seriously ticked off. I’m tired of people like those guys, and I’m also tired of pretending to be perfect. I rub my eyes at the exhaustion caused by the combination of both.
“Don’t doubt you can,” he says, “but you really think they’re going to back off if you give them a reaction? And if you keep walking, do you think they’re going to leave you alone? They aren’t some third grade bully who’ll run when you sock him in the nose, and ignoring them isn’t working either. Guys like them get high off your anger, get off on your fear. Trust me on this one. I’ve spent almost a year in the presence of some real assholes.”
“Why are you helping me?”
He lifts one shoulder like he doesn’t know the answer or doesn’t care he has an answer, yet he answers anyway, “I have a younger sister. You met her earlier.”
