No Damaged Goods

by Snow, Nicole

  “I’m sorry,” drifts back, so quiet and strangled I barely hear it. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Not tonight or...ever.”

  I don’t know what to do with that.

  I just don’t.

  So I don’t say anything.

  I just listen as his footsteps crunch across the gravel, before his fancy-schmancy car door slams and the engine cranks up.

  And finally, I’m alone again, one flash of his headlights washing over me in a blinding rush before he drives away.

  * * *

  Guess Holt’s not the only one failing at making big dramatic peace offerings tonight.

  I just want to talk to Andrea. Without making my own daughter want to jab a knife through my guts.

  I’m not too proud to admit I’m nervous.

  Scared, even.

  Fuck, if I can’t reach my daughter now, this rift’s only gonna widen.

  Suddenly, it won’t just be the anniversary of her ma’s death when she’s too angry to look at me.

  It’ll be every day.

  And somehow we’ll end up like me and my own ma, like me and Holt.

  So far apart we’re barely even blood, nothing but poison resentment between us.

  I wasn’t there when Ma died. I had my reasons. But I know one thing.

  When Andrea’s grown up and has kids of her own, I don’t want history repeating itself.

  Don’t want them knowing me as nothing but a funeral announcement showing up by mail, and them not even knowing I existed till I was weeks cold in the ground.

  Hell.

  I feel sick. It doesn’t stop me from knocking on Andrea’s bedroom door with a quiet impact.

  “Violet?” I call softly. “You awake?”

  Usually that nickname’s enough to get her yelling at me to fucking stop it, it’s embarrassing, but this time there’s nothing. Deafening silence.

  Sighing, I rest my hand on the door and press my brow against the wood.

  “C’mon, kiddo. I just want to talk. At least let me in to say goodnight. I ain’t gonna fight with you no more. I just want a hug for your big dumb dad.”

  Nothing again.

  Goddammit.

  Okay. Whatever.

  I ain’t gonna push it here.

  I know Andrea’s temper full well.

  Pushing her right now will just make it worse and hurt her even deeper.

  So I’ll give her time to spool down, and then maybe tomorrow, we can talk like normal people.

  If I even know what the hell to say. It’s a funny thing, me being Mr. Radio Man and all, making people’s day and helping ’em tidy up their own lives. Meanwhile, I can’t even put out the dumpster fire of my own.

  When people call in every night to talk to me, I always find something to say.

  But when it comes to my own kid, my own past, I’m empty.

  There’s nothing worse for a dude than running out of words when he needs them most.

  3

  Winter Symphony (Peace)

  I should be asleep.

  It’s almost midnight, and I’m exhausted.

  I’ve been putting my stuff in the second bedroom that I use as a workroom, rearranging my supplies so they’re not piled up in the living room. But if I’m being honest?

  I’m feeling real shaky after tonight.

  Sure, it was just a minor breakdown. Something that could’ve happened to anybody rattling around in a van older than Moses.

  I’m just so used to being self-sufficient.

  It’s always been me, myself, and I, moving from pillar to post, port to port. I’m not used to asking for help.

  But if I hadn’t been able to get anyone on the horn tonight, if lazy old Sheriff Langley hadn’t picked up the phone in this sleepy little town, I’d have probably had to try to hoof it back.

  In the snow.

  Alone.

  In a place I don’t know.

  Anything could’ve happened to me then. Not something I like to think about. It brings up bad memories.

  My mother tried to smother me when I was a kid. After Dad went away on deployment and never came home, she had this horrible fear that if she let me out of her sight, I’d disappear, too. I think it’s what made me so rebellious, like my dad’s free spirit was trying to live again through me.

  But sometimes I get these awful reminders that it really would be too easy for me to up and vanish. Totally.

  Stop thinking about it, Peace, I tell myself. Just finish organizing and go to bed.

  I distract myself with thoughts of a lovely baritone voice and the scent of cologne mingled with testosterone and gruff mountain man.

  That’s a more pleasant thought, and I focus on it intently as I finish organizing bottles of scented aromatherapy oils, then dust my hands off and head into the kitchen to brew a cup of chamomile tea.

  But something catches my eye. I stop.

  Through the windows over the kitchen sink, there’s a fire flickering through the trees.

  Maybe I’m a little extra sensitive to flames, considering my van just spontaneously combusted.

  I’m pretty sure there shouldn’t be anything burning out there at this time of night, though.

  And even with the little hills of snow dotted everywhere, something feels off.

  There’s a lot of dry branches and dead leaves. A lot that could catch flame and spin wildly out of control.

  “Crap,” I mutter.

  Setting my mug on the counter, I grab my coat, and then shove my feet into my battered old hiking boots before pulling a messy hand-crocheted cap over my hair and ducking out into the cold.

  It only takes a minute to bustle across the field and hop the fence. The woods run along the other side of the dirt path. As I slip into the trees, I realize I’m not alone.

  Voices.

  Oh, crud.

  I may be somewhere I don’t belong, but...

  Just to be safe, I’d better check things out and make sure no one’s out here about to burn the forest down.

  So I dial it down, slipping from a walk into a creep.

  This isn’t new. It’s not like I haven’t snuck around forests myself for years, from exploring for hidden caves to slipping out in the dead of night to get a certain flower for a special oil.

  I’m silent as I make my way through the trees, making sure to keep tree trunks between me and the flicker of golden orange drifting through the branches. The biting, crisp scent of smoke hits my nose.

  Edging over, I peer around a tree trunk, taking a good, long look.

  The scene in front of me looks familiar.

  Because I’ve done this a lot over the years, too.

  Starting in high school and never really stopping, from sneaking out with my friends to not being so sneaky in college to meeting up with a random Roma caravan out in the Ozarks and staying for a drink and a song.

  Five kids sit around a bonfire on fallen logs and rocks. Three girls and two boys.

  The one who stands out the most is a tall, reedy-looking girl with a shock of pale purple hair, shaved in the back but long in the front and falling into her face, the tips dyed pink, much brighter than mine.

  It’s punky and cute, and it makes me smile at her ragged eighties throwback style.

  And it’s not hard to tell she’s into the super tall, artsy-looking boy with a ragged pile of platinum hair sitting on the log next to hers.

  Even as she swigs from a bottle of something clear and passes it to him, she won’t look at him.

  And he won’t look at her.

  I try not to giggle. It’s funny how teenagers always think they’re going to fall in love by completely ignoring each other, but it’s plenty adorable.

  “I’m bored,” one of the other girls says. “There’s nothing fun around here anymore. Used to be you could at least go hunting for the monster in the woods.”

  “Some monster,” the other boy says, a small dark-haired kid with a snub nose. “Turned out to be some burned dude. ‘Mr. Regis’ or w
hatever the fuck they’re calling him now.”

  “Stop it,” the purple-haired girl snaps. “He’s a nice guy and he helped save the town. Leave him alone. He’s got a lot of really cool stories. Like, he was in some freaky CIA thing.”

  “Hey,” the blond boy says, standing with the bottle. “You’re bored? Watch this.”

  He takes a swig, then sets it down, wedging it into the snow next to his log before leaning forward and plucking a twig from the burning bonfire.

  Oh.

  Oh no.

  I know what he’s about to do.

  He holds the twig in front of his face, then blows hard, spraying fine particles of liquor.

  They catch on the twig and ignite into a roaring blaze. It seriously looks like he’s breathing fire in a plume that lights up the night in dancing orange.

  The other kids gasp, letting out excited shouts, and the purple-haired girl looks up at him with total adoration, her eyes shining.

  To a starry-eyed teenager, it’s pretty cool.

  But kids their age shouldn’t be messing with stuff like that surrounded by trees.

  I’m torn.

  I’ve done my fair share of stupid stuff. It’s part of growing up. Part of finding myself. I don’t want to ruin it for someone else.

  I also don’t want to be the moron who looked the other way while a bunch of kids started a wildfire that takes down half the town.

  So I rock back on my heels, thinking how to approach them. Only for my boot to catch on a thick branch and snap it in half.

  Even with the crackle of Senor Firespout over there, the noise zips through the night.

  The kids tense, bolting upright, scattering like alley cats in police headlights.

  Including the firestarter kid, gasping and choking as his plume sputters out...and the rapid whip of his head sends sparks flying freaking everywhere.

  They drift up, catching on the last few tattered dry leaves clinging to the twigs overhead.

  There’s maybe half a second where I hope the sparks will smolder and die.

  Only for a breeze to make them flare to light, and suddenly, the entire branch goes up in a sudden fiery burst.

  Crap!

  I’m moving before I even realize what I’m doing, my heart tripping over itself while I whip off my hat, exposing my face to the blistering cold, dashing across the clearing. I try to beat the flames out.

  Next thing I know, there’s someone right next to me and a quiet voice saying, “Not like that! You’ll burn your hands, lady.”

  Before I can stop her, Purple Girl nudges me aside.

  She’s calmer than me, taking her coat off—one of those big clunky military surplus things punk girls her age love so much—and wrapping it around the branches, smothering the fire into nothing in half a second, before it even has a chance to singe her coat.

  She holds it a minute longer, then pulls the coat free from the now-smoking but no longer burning branch, shaking the cloth free before sliding it on.

  The look she gives me is wary, suspicious, like she’s wondering if I’m friend or foe, because let’s face it, she did the right thing. She turned back to put out the fire.

  Which means she basically just turned herself into an adult.

  “You’re new,” she says carefully, then flicks her gaze to my hair. “Nice hair job.”

  “The red’s natural,” I answer. Easy icebreaker again. “But looks like we’ve both got a thing for purple.”

  “Yeah.” She takes a step back, and I can tell she’s ready to bolt, but I offer my hand.

  “Hey,” I say. “It’s cold out here, and you’ve been drinking. Come on inside and sober up with me. I’ll make you some tea, so you don’t go home to your parents smelling like...” I glance at the bottle. “Whatever that cheap crap is.”

  She actually flinches.

  I’m not sure what I said, but her expression crumples.

  She looks away from me sharply, her lips working, her mouth trembling. She glares at the bottle. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because I was the kind of kid who’d do the same dumb shit you just did. Only, I’d probably have set my hair on fire trying to put the tree out.”

  That gets a laugh from her. “...yeah, uh, yarn is really flammable. That was kind of silly.”

  “Guilty as charged.” I grin, my hand still outstretched. “What’s your name?”

  For several seconds, she looks at my hand like she’s trying to make up her mind, before stepping forward and slipping her fingers into mine. Even as cold as it is, without gloves, snow falling around us in soft little poofs, her fingers are warm.

  Like she’s just bursting with brightness and life.

  “Andrea,” she says, squeezing my hand. “Andrea Silverton. How ’bout you?”

  “Peace,” I say, and the weirdest look passes over her face.

  Horror, amusement, dread, disgust, resignation.

  Every spectrum of emotion I’ve seen before when I lay my name on strangers.

  “Wait. Oh my God, that was you on the radio tonight!” she says.

  I let out a groan, squeezing her hand back before letting go.

  “My infamy precedes me,” I say dryly. “Including my misfortune with fire.” I toss my head. “C’mon. Let’s go get warmed up.”

  * * *

  I’m starting to think Andrea’s a little repressed.

  I make us both cups of blueberry hibiscus tea. It gives off a nice smell to cover up the liquor on her breath—moonshine, I think. I caught a whiff as we walked back. Oof.

  With the hibiscus to calm her down, hopefully it’ll help her sleep a little easier with less of a hangover in the morning.

  Over her cup of tea, she watches me, settled on the couch nearby.

  “How’d you know we were out there?” she asks.

  “Smoke and fire show up easy at night. Especially with the snow reflecting everything.” I smile and shrug, pressing my mouth against the rim of my mug, leaning against the arm of the couch. “You were pretty visible from the kitchen window.”

  “Fuck.” She closes her eyes, cradling her mug but not drinking much. “I told my idiot friends we were too close.”

  “If you’d been any deeper, where the trees grow thicker, you could’ve caught a lot more than a few branches on fire.”

  “That was Clark,” she spits out with the kind of annoyed vehemence that can only be a girl in love with a boy who’s only dumb because he hasn’t told her he’s in love with her, too. “I just wanted to forget everything, I guess. Bad night. My dad’s a dumbass, my mom’s dead, my uncle’s weird, and I have no clue why he’s even here. Then Clark had to go and show off, and now everything’s just...just...”

  She’s lost me.

  I have no idea what’s going on, really.

  But I don’t need to in order to listen.

  Sometimes, we just need people to hear us. It sounds like Andrea’s wanted someone to hear her for a long time.

  And maybe I’m not the right one, the best one, the person who really needs to hear all of this.

  Still, I can stand in, let her relieve some of the pressure until she’s ready to talk to the folks she truly needs.

  “Hey,” I say softly. “Sometimes our friends are dumb when they’re trying to distract us. And our parents do even dumber stuff when they’re trying to figure out how to help us after...” I make a helpless gesture. “After all that.”

  Andrea gives me a miserable look. I think she’s hiding behind her mug so I don’t see how her lips tremble to match her voice.

  “What do you know?” she whispers.

  Her hostility doesn’t bother me. She’s young, drunk, miserable.

  I’ve been there.

  So I just smile, taking a bracing sip of tea. “My dad died when I was a few years younger than you,” I say. “And my mom didn’t know how to handle it. She kinda turned into an asshole.”

  Andrea’s eyes widen, as if she can’t believe an adult just cursed in front of her
. She glances around quickly like she’s waiting for someone to pop up and catch us, before lowering her eyes to her tea. The steam piping up makes her hair curl and frizz, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

  “Yeah,” she says softly. “That’s...yeah. Mom died like today. Not today today, but...this is the day. Four years ago.” She swallows, her eyes glimmering. “And my dad’s so stupid. He always says the wrong thing.”

  “Dads usually do.” I hesitate, considering what to offer, and then try, “Even my dad sometimes, and he was amazing. I think that’s what hurt the most, when he died and Mom changed. It’s like she forgot everything she loved about him that was so free, so wild. She turned into the total opposite. It felt like she was trying to erase every part of me that was like him, so I wouldn’t grow up to be him and then die and leave her, too.”

  “Yes!” It comes out of Andrea in an aching cry, one that nearly breaks my heart. “It’s like, fine. I know Mom and Dad were gonna split up anyway, but I’d rather have her divorced and alive, but it’s like...like he doesn’t even want to think about her and doesn’t want me to either. Maybe he didn’t love her anymore, but I did!”

  “Andrea...” I set my tea down on the coffee table and shift closer to her, carefully slipping my arm around her shoulders. “It’s probably just that he doesn’t know how to show his feelings in front of you. It’s complicated for him, I’d bet.”

  Instead of pulling away from me like I half expect, she rests her mug on her knee so she can turn into me, hiding her face in my shoulder.

  “It doesn’t have to be that complicated,” she mumbles against me. “If he’d just be honest.”

  “Yeah, well, men are kind of like that.” I smile slightly, giving her a squeeze. “Hey. You ever been to Oahu?”

  The distraction works.

  She perks, lifting her head a little to peer at me curiously. “Isn’t that in Hawaii? No way, I’ve never left here.”

  She says it with the scorn of any small-town girl who’s longing for new skies. I can’t help laughing.

  “Yes, Hawaii. Home sweet home. You should ask your father to take you some day. I think you’d like it, even if it’s hot.”

  “Awesome. I’m so sick of it always being rainy or snowy or just plain drab around here. It only gets really bright in the summer, and even then it’s never hot.” Andrea wrinkles her nose. “Plus, I doubt Dad would take me somewhere that cool.”