“What?” I asked.
“No,” Iris said.
“Yeah,” Gi said. “You asked him if his cast was waterproof. And it had nothing to do with swimming in the pool or ocean.”
“You wanted him to swim in your ocean,” I said.
“If Gi says so,” Iris said. “I don’t remember it.”
“What did Beth say?” I asked.
“Screw that bitch,” Iris said. “Come on, let’s get some coffee.”
I stepped back and thought about even more now.
Of course Beth was in a bad mood. She obviously liked Denny. And because Denny playfully flirted with me he got his hand broken. And there was some kind of bad blood between her, Iris and Gi. And then Iris got drunk and wanted to fool around with Denny. All the while Beth had been trying to find me.
“You coming or taking a nap here?” Iris asked.
“I would not sleep in those sheets,” Gi said.
“Nothing happened in my bed,” Iris said.
“I’m not talking about that,” Gi said. “You left a mess in the bathroom. I don’t even want to know what you did in the bed when you were sleeping.”
“Gross,” Iris said.
“Hey,” I said. “I need to get out of here for a little bit.”
“Out of here?” Gi asked.
“I’m going to take a ride.”
“Road trip,” Iris said. “Let me get some pants on.”
“Not the first time you’ve said that,” Gi said.
“Oh, you’re so funny,” Iris said.
“No,” I said. “I’m actually going to go back to my old town. My old place. Just to check up on things.”
They both froze and stared at me.
“Why?” Iris asked.
“No matter what happens here, that’s where I’m going to end up again,” I said.
“So why rush back there?” Gi asked.
“There’s just a couple of people there I need to see,” I said. “I’ll text you later. Okay?”
I raced toward the door.
I left the bedroom without a real goodbye.
I thought about the puke in the sink. And everything else…
They were rich.
I was poor.
Nothing was going to change that.
When my mother would get wasted and throw up, I was the one cleaning it out of the sink. Off the floor. Washing it down the tub drain. Scrubbing the toilet.
I was on the opposite end of the world compared to everyone at BFH.
And I needed to see my true friends again.
* * *
Nobody answered their phone.
Of course they didn’t.
They were probably in class.
Even still, Ruby and Amelia lived on their phones. Just like I did too. We all mastered how to use our phones in class without getting caught. Or we’d just fake period cramps and meet in the bathroom to hang out.
I missed those bathrooms.
With the cracked tiles and the crusted looking rust around the faucets and handles. Knowing nobody in their right mind could or would ever use the third stall. Ever.
The window that was always open, at the top of the wall, looking weird.
The bathroom was always full of smoke.
It always smelled like cigarettes and sweet pea body spray.
Just driving through those streets again brought tears to my eyes.
Of course I had to stop and see the apartment.
Here I was driving a SUV worth more than the entire building, backing into a parking spot using the fucking camera on the giant screen on the dashboard.
And I just sat there and stared at the building.
I still had the key.
I had it with me too.
I could have gone in there.
But I couldn’t imagine what it would look like or smell like.
Or maybe the key wouldn’t work at all.
I wasn’t even sure if it was still our apartment or not.
There was no way in hell Mom was paying rent. She didn’t have a job. The only way the apartment would still be ours was if Claire was forking over the money. Which to her would be nothing. Amazing how hard I scrambled to make what I could to offer for rent and bills just to barely get by. And yet that amount to Claire was probably like finding a few quarters on the street.
It made me grip the steering wheel tight.
I wanted to scream. And cry.
I wanted to know more about everything Claire had said. About watching me when I was a baby. Which I really didn’t remember. And about her comments how she wished she could have just taken me and raised me.
Why didn’t she then? She had so much money… why didn’t she just offer Mom money?
I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye.
I was mad at myself for even thinking that.
Selling myself? Wanting to be sold? Like I was an avocado sitting in a box in the grocery store.
Talk about a shitty feeling.
I had to get out of there.
I drove down Ruby’s street.
The long street of row homes.
And then I saw her.
Sitting on the stone wall that made up the front porch, her feet dangling off, smoking a cigarette.
I quickly pulled over and put the window down.
Someone grabbed Ruby and pulled her down off the porch.
“Ruby!” I screamed.
A second later, her head popped up.
Along with Garcia’s head.
“Oh, shit,” he said. “I thought it was something else.”
For a second I was confused.
Then I realized… they thought it was some bad dude coming to shoot them or something. A drive by kind of thing.
Which happened before on this street.
“Ti?” Ruby called out.
“I texted you,” I said. “I wanted to take a ride over…”
Ruby walked down the steps and admired the SUV. “Nice wheels.”
“Not mine,” I said.
“They hot?” Garcia asked. “You steal ‘em?”
“No,” I said.
“She’s living rich now,” Ruby said.
“Yeah right,” I said. “Believe me, it’s not-”
“Bitch, do you have power?” Ruby asked.
“Power? What?”
“Electricity,” Ruby said.
“Yeah.”
“We don’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“Something happened,” Garcia said. “Been out two days now.”
“Oh, shit,” I said. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“To who?” Ruby asked. “You?”
“What’s wrong with me?” I asked. “You could come stay…”
Ruby laughed. “Stop it. I’m not you. Getting pulled off the street.”
“I didn’t get pulled off the street, Ruby. My mother is in rehab. And the second she gets out, I’m screwed. This is all fake.”
“Yeah, well, fake looks nice,” Ruby said.
My heart was racing. “Ruby…”
“It’s all good,” she said.
“What about Amelia? What’s up with her? I texted her too.”
“I don’t know. She’s…”
Ruby’s front door opened and out walked Amelia.
She looked at me and stopped. “Whoa. Stranger danger.”
“You were just going to lie to me,” I said to Ruby.
“It’s not lying, Ti,” Ruby said. “It’s saving ourselves here. You don’t get it.”
“Are you serious? You have no idea what I’ve been going through.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s tough,” Amelia said. “You probably only have, what, two private bathrooms? Or is the pool not big enough? Or is the walk to the ocean too far?”
I gasped. “What the hell…”
“We looked up the house,” Ruby said. “You’re living right, Ti.”
“Living right? It’s not mine. I’m only there for a littl
e bit.”
“You already changed your number,” Amelia said.
“That’s because my phone fell into the pool and-”
“Oh, you poor thing,” Ruby said.
“Why are you being such a bitch?” I finally snapped.
“You could have stayed,” Ruby said. “You got your chance and took it. And you know what? We don’t blame you. We would have done the same.”
“But don’t come back like it’s a favor,” Amelia said. “Or drive around town in your fancy ass ride. Looking at all the old haunts, right? Remembering what it was like when life was so hard.”
“You have it all wrong here,” I said. “I wanted to come see you. Hang out. Talk. Laugh. Cry.”
“Cry over what?” Ruby asked.
“You can’t imagine…”
“Yeah, we can’t,” Amelia said.
All they saw was the SUV. And all they had was assumptions.
Of who I was.
Of who I had become.
And even though I told myself I wasn’t someone different, that was a lie.
I watched as Ruby walked up the steps and pointed toward the door.
She, Garcia, and Amelia went into the house.
I put the window up to the SUV and realized I had nowhere else to go.
Except back to BFH.
I looked at the side mirror to make sure nobody was coming down the street.
And that’s when I saw something else.
A familiar vehicle.
One that had probably been following me the entire time.
The Rulz.
twenty
I was going to just drive back to BFH but I made it all of three blocks from Ruby’s house before I pulled over into an empty parking lot. There was once a little pizza place and an everything discounted store there. Both closed up because even an everything discounted store wasn’t discounted enough to survive in this area. Not to mention those two places were robbed over and over and over again.
My heart was still racing, along with my mind.
How fucking bitchy both Ruby and Amelia had been to me.
It was jealousy, which I understood, but it wasn’t what they thought.
Then again…
Giant house. Huge bedroom. Private bathroom. Someone cooking meals. Electricity. Central air. Pool. Ocean. Hot boys. Parties…
I had sort of become so much like what I hated.
When I parked the SUV I shut it off and got out.
I heard their SUV behind mine and I didn’t even look back.
Instead, I walked toward the old building.
The word fuck was written sloppily in red spray paint across the building and front window of the pizza place. Nonna’s… no more.
The sidewalks were cracked with weeds sticking out from the cracks.
The building itself was built from uneven white concrete. If you ran your hand against it while walking it felt like broken glass cutting at your skin.
If you got into a fight outside here, you could easily throw someone against the building and hurt them.
This was my life.
And in a way it still was.
Because everything at BFH was fake.
Fucking fake.
Just a clock ticking away until Claire told me to get out.
“Giving us the tour, love?”
I turned and saw the three of them standing there.
Barr lit up a cigarette.
Kip looked around. “Reminds me of a scary movie. Killer going to come get us?”
“Probably,” I said. “You’re out of your element here.”
“Yeah, right, sugar,” Pres said.
“Oh?”
“We buy and develop shitholes like this all the time,” Pres said. “Or we just knock it down and flip the land. This isn’t new to me.”
“Good to know,” I said. “So you’re the asshole that ruins neighborhoods like this?”
“Looks already ruined to me, girl,” Kip said. “Did you see the house back there with a dick and balls spray painted on it?”
I didn’t respond.
Pres stepped toward me.
I stepped back. I put my hand out. “Don’t.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, sugar,” Pres said.
I was only able to back up a couple more steps before my back hit the jagged wall.
And Pres didn’t stop until he was a few inches from me.
The smell of his cologne came over me, protecting me from the smell of the town. A mix of rotten eggs, gasoline, smoke, and old trash. And on the days it got really hot and sticky, the smell of the river would creep into town.
But Pres’s cologne…
I shut my eyes and took a deep breath.
“That’s better,” he whispered.
He gently touched my chin the way he always did, making me look up at him.
I opened my eyes and his evil eyes ripped through me.
“You don’t belong here,” he whispered. “Why come back?”
“This is still home, Pres,” I said.
“The fuck it is, girl,” Kip said.
He was on my right, leaning against the building, arms crossed, showing off his strong forearms. And his sexy surfer blonde hair. And those killer blue eyes.
“Why’d you come here?” Kip asked.
“Just wanted to see my old friends. Everything at BFH… it’s a lot…”
“Only if you let it be a lot, love,” Barr said.
He was on my left, finishing his cigarette. He stabbed it against the building and let it fall to the ground.
They had me boxed in.
“They were jealous of you,” Barr said. “Rightfully so.”
“They hate you for who you are now,” Kip said.
“Who am I now?” I asked. “I don’t know who I am.”
“Yes you do,” Pres said. “You’re one of us now, sugar.”
“And you’re ours,” Barr added.
My body was lit on fire.
I didn’t know what those comments meant.
“And we share,” Kip added, leaving my knees wobbly.
“I don’t belong in BFH,” I said. “You all know that. I’m just an outsider.”
“And now you’re inside," Pres said.
“Or maybe we can be inside,” Barr added with a laugh.
“I like where this is going,” Kip said.
Pres shot his hands out and pushed at Barr and Kip. “Not here. Not the time or place.”
“For what?” I asked. “That’s what you want? To fool around with some poor, dirty girl? Just to change things up?”
Pres leaned toward me. He brushed his cheek to mine. “Sugar, go easy on yourself. If I wanted to be inside you by now I would have.”
Kip and Barr got even closer to me.
I had no room. No space to breathe. And I just kept turning my head left to right, staring at all of them.
My lips ached to be kissed. But I wasn’t sure which one I wanted to kiss.
Or maybe them all? All at once?
My cheeks burned.
OMG, Ti, who are you? Ruby and Amelia were right to hate on you…
I blinked fast and felt two inches tall when the Rulz became blurry through my tears.
And as fast as I started to tear up, Kip and Barr were there, swiping their fingers to my cheeks, wiping away the tears.
I took a shaky breath because I did not want to completely breakdown in front of them.
The tears went away and Pres, Barr, and Kip were no longer blurry.
“You don’t fucking belong here, sugar,” Pres said. “You know where you’re wanted. Where you’re needed.”
“Don’t chase memories and forget your dreams, love,” Barr said.
It was almost poetic.
I looked at him and felt my heart twisting.
“Yeah, girl, it’s like this…”
My head whipped to the other side.
Kip’s blue eyes made my heart jump around inside my chest.
&nbs
p; “… you know this is where you lived, but that doesn’t mean you have to live there forever. Forget about it.”
I slowly nodded.
Pres touched my chin again and forced me to look at him.
“You’re coming back to BFH, sugar,” he said. “Don’t make us come looking for you again.”
And right there on cue, Pres leaned in and gently kissed my chin.
Barr kissed my left cheek.
Kip kissed my right cheek.
And then all three walked away.
My hands scratched against the building and I felt the skin of my fingertips ripping a little.
When they got back to the SUV, Barr and Kip reached into their pockets and handed something to Pres. For a split second it looked like money. Pres nodded and tucked it away into his back pocket.
Maybe gas money or something.
But then Pres got into the backseat.
Barr walked around to the passenger side.
And Kip climbed into the driver’s seat.
He looked at me and winked.
Then they left.
They left me standing there alone, in what Pres called a shithole.
Which it was.
But at the same time, how was BFH any different?
At least this town was honest.
But…
Choosing between the two…
“Fuck,” I whispered.
I was going back to BFH and staying.
* * *
When I got back to Claire’s I saw her at the end of her driveway. Which was really odd considering how long the driveway was.
Better yet, she stood outside a car that had pulled up longways to the driveway.
Standing at the driver’s side of the car, she talked to some guy.
Claire being Claire, she was animated, waving her hands and looked really pissed off.
The guy in the car had one hand on the steering wheel and looked just as pissed as she was. She finally pointed to the road and I was finally able to read her lips.
Get the fuck out of here.
I cringed, feeling bad for whoever the guy was in the car.
Claire backed up and the car started to move.
It sped up and then went slow as it passed me by.
The guy looked right at me.
And then he was gone.
I looked in the mirror, not sure why.
I crept forward and pulled into the driveway.
Claire playfully threw her thumb out like she was hitchhiking.
I stopped and rolled down the window.
UNtouched: a bay falls high novel Page 19
