Fuck.
I wanted to pull her back into my embrace. Apologize. Tell her the truth. All I wanted was her. That was all I ever wanted.
She clenched her jaw, wiped the pain away, and came to me. With each crunch of the snow, my heart pounded louder and louder.
“Nothing you can say will change my mind about you. I know you want me too. I know it. I felt it last night.” She placed her palm on my cheek. My heart was fire. Rapid. Beating. “I don’t know what you’re afraid of, but it’s making you push me away. I told you, you can’t.”
Maybe I couldn’t by being nice.
Maybe the only way to avoid hurting her a lot was to hurt her a little.
I placed my hand over hers and her shoulders sagged.
“What about last night?” My voice was low. “I’m not sure what you thought happened, Tweetie, but I don’t go for easy girls who come searching for sex in the middle of the night.”
Her mouth dropped.
She tried to yank her hand back and I tightened my grip over it, holding it tight against my cheek. I wanted to make sure she never came looking for me again, because if she did come looking for me, I knew I wouldn’t be able to control myself. I’d take her, hold her and kiss her and love her like I’d been dreaming of, like I didn’t deserve. I never deserved her.
So I buried the knife deeper.
“Last night was pity. It’s all been pity. You’re not my type, Tweetie,” I said, voice hard. “I like pretty girls. Take the hint.” I let her go and she stumbled back, nearly falling to the diamond frosted powder. I reached out, then dropped my hand before she looked up.
“Don’t call me that name.” Her voice was soft, but her eyes were hard on mine. “Don’t ever call me that name again. King calls me that, my family calls me that. It’s not for people like you.”
Rage bubbled up inside me, but I tamped it down. Tweetie was my name for her.
I was certain she would curse me. Tell me to fuck off.
When she spoke again, I wished that’s what she’d done, because the broken way she whispered wrecked me.
“I used to write about you in my diary.” She couldn’t look me in the eyes. My Tweetie, who never backed down from a stare off, couldn’t meet my eyes. “I guess what they say about not meeting your heroes is true.”
Then she grabbed her board and disappeared into the trees.
Twenty-One
Pump: Flexing your legs at the right spot on a transition to build up speed.
FLIP
I crooked my neck, sore from waiting for Tweetie to come back, and scanned the room. The winter sun was blinding and bright, illumining the passed-out bodies littering the cabin.
Sparky spooning Bacon spooning Pants, next to the embers of a fire.
Two Patchwork Girls asleep under a table.
Food everywhere. Warheads. Squeeze-its. Cans of beer.
But no Tweetie.
I went to her room. Empty. Clothes on the floor, a towel draped over a chair. One long, uneven breath. I was always irrational when it came to her. It was nothing. She probably passed out somewhere else.
So I scoured the cabin.
I went to Daniel’s room to see if he knew where she was but stopped short in the doorway.
Naked.
Thrice the amount of naked limbs I should’ve been seeing.
Daniel lifted his head between two girls as I shut the door. I went back out, kicking legs and arms until everyone woke, grumpy and groggy.
“What the fuck?” Pants groaned. “The sun is still out.” He rolled over, curling into his box of cereal.
“Has anyone seen Tweetie?” A chorus of no followed, and my heart sped up. At that moment Daniel came out, perfectly dressed for the day among a group of heathens.
“What’s going on?”
“Have you seen Tweetie?”
He closed his mouth, thinking hard. “The last time I saw her was at the bonfire.” I’d seen Tweetie later than that. I couldn’t have been the last one to see her. That was over five hours ago.
“She’s probably with King,” he added, clapping my shoulder.
I sighed through my nostrils, sitting back uneasily on a wingback. Nails gripping the fabric, I waited. I waited while the cabin came alive. Too-loud music reverberated against the wall. Bloody Mary breakfast was served at five PM. Drunk snowboarding races started up.
Still Tweetie didn’t return.
TWEETIE
You don’t think.
Why did my dad die? Because I didn’t think he would come looking for me.
Why did King go to jail? Because I didn’t think about what would happen if I asked to come along.
Why did my gods hurt people? Me. All because of me.
As the second night fell and the air got icy once more, fear crept up my spine. Maybe I won’t get out of this. My fingers grew numb beneath their gloves, snow started to fall, settling on my already red and bitter nose. I got lucky the first night. It was warmer and dry.
Luck didn’t happen twice.
In my embarrassment, in my haste, I tore down the mountain into a no-go zone, into loose powder, and dropped into a crevasse, leg pinned in branches and too high to hoist myself back out.
I didn’t think about leaving and telling no one where I was going, didn’t think about how fast I was going or where. I didn’t think.
Now I was stuck with only my memories to keep me company.
Nothing you can say will change my mind about you.
“Aargh.” My scream was loud at first, before spiraling quietly into the trees.
I had rules to prevent this. A checklist to follow so it never happened. Don’t put my heart out there unless I’m absolutely, one hundred percent certain the guy at the other end is going to pick up the phone. Instead I gave Flip my beating heart and he stepped on it. Crunched it beneath the snow boots he wears untied at the top…
I smacked my head against the dirt and snow wall at my back.
I should have hated him.
I should not have found the way he wore his boots alluring.
The moon was bright. I could see the tops of the brushy gray-green pine trees. I wondered what he was doing. I wondered what happened to make him so closed off and afraid. I wondered if he’d ever had anyone to confide in. What a lonely life, if not.
I should have hated him, but instead I was worried about him.
While this tree is trying to get frisky, I’m worried about him.
That was going to be my legacy as I died out here. Not Raegan Fairchild, first female skater to win an international competition, first female signed to a major sponsor.
But Tweetie, hopelessly in love with a man who wanted nothing to do with her.
FLIP
She still hadn’t returned.
Even as the sun set and another round of beer pong started, Tweetie hadn’t returned.
I tore my beanie off. Ran my hands through my hair. It was black outside now and no one had seen her.
It was almost seven when King returned. I jumped off my wingback guard duty, going right for him.
“Where’s Tweetie?”
“Fuck off, Flip,” he said without looking up, setting his board against the wall.
“You haven’t seen her?” I could tell when my tone registered in his silvery blue eyes. The muscles in his neck corded and he stared too long at the waxy sheen of his board.
Finally, he looked at me.
We were speaking the silent language we’d used years ago. The one developed when running from cops. One I thought I’d never share again.
“What’s up?” Daniel asked,
“Tweetie is missing,” we said at the same time.
“Did something happen?”
I thought of the cruel words I’d spoken to her. King had a similar look of guilt plastered on his face. He looked up, we locked eyes, and once again we spoke that language. We quickly looked away.
“Not sure,” I lied.
Daniel looked between us, not
buying it. “We can call the ranger, but it could take some time—”
“Fuck that,” we said. I grabbed my board, determined to find her.
King lifted his own off the wall. “I’m coming with you.”
“Fine,” I said, too filled with worry to give a shit if King helped. The more, the merrier, anyway. I’d do whatever it took to help Tweetie.
Daniel opened and closed his fists. “Someone has to be here for the ranger.”
“I know,” we said at the same time. I zipped up my jacket. King put on his gloves.
“I want to come—”
“I know,” we repeated, snapping on our goggles.
There was an insane fear inside me, an unmanageable terror. I’d flown into the air without a helmet, dove down roads faster than cars. This…this was a weed. It grew untamed inside me and I knew the only thing that would kill it was finding her.
I felt it leaking from King as we tore down the mountain.
We reached the bottom easily, no sign of Tweetie.
So we climbed back up, looking over every inch of snow, when we stopped at a fork. Trees and rock and cliffs—the backcountry on the no-go list.
We gave each other a look, speaking that silent language, sliding into dangerous terrain.
We wove through trees, jumping over rocks, still with no sign of Tweetie. When we stopped, our boards created simultaneous waves of snow. The night air was a cold quiet that pressed on our ears.
King lifted his goggles.
“She’s not out here.” Then where was she? went unsaid. “She could’ve gone home,” King continued. All her shit was still at the cabin.
I narrowed my eyes even though he couldn’t see. “Did you do something that would make her want to leave suddenly?”
“Did you?” King countered. I tore off my goggles, ready to dig into our bullshit. Sick of years of beating around the bush.
“Look man I did what you wanted. Whatever was going on between me and Tweetie is history. You know what, now that we’re on it, I’ve always done what you asked.” From taking the fall to living with a family that only ever wanted him, I never said no.
His brows shot into his head. “The hell you have—”
“I never fucking think.”
One brief, loaded stare, then our heads both snapped in the direction of Tweetie’s voice. Suddenly nothing else mattered.
“Tweetie?” King called out after a minute more of silence.
“King?” Tweetie rang back. “I’m down here!”
We followed the sound of her voice through dense evergreens and firs. King called her name, Tweetie answered. We went hastily, without thought for our own safety, until I stopped short. The snow blended into the rest of the mountain like white waves but was actually a steep drop off.
I grabbed King just as he was about to fall, pulling him back from the edge. Two heart-pounding seconds passed, then I quickly dropped him. Wiped my hands on my pants.
“Uh, thanks,” he said.
“It’s nothing.”
Tweetie was at the bottom of the cliff, wedged between a tree and its root.
“I knew you would find me,” she yelled upon seeing King. I ground my jaw, trying not to let it bother me.
We undid our boards, studying the cliff’s edge, coming up with the best way to get her.
“I’ll hoist her to you then climb out,” he said. I let out a noise like yeah right. “I’m taller,” he explained.
Not knowing where Tweetie was and if she was okay had been absolute chaos in my soul. I wasn’t leaving until I saw her to safety.
Before King could say anything else, I jumped down, landing with a thud at her side.
Her eyes grew bigger and bigger.
“Flip, what are you…?” She trailed off as I ran my hands lightly along her leg, from her knee to her ankle, where it was wedged at the root. “Why are you here?” she asked, breath tickling my neck. I shot her a look, filled with every word I couldn’t say.
I would always, always find her.
I would always, always be there.
I would always, always save her.
Even if it could only be as her shadow.
She sucked in a breath just as I dislodged her ankle.
I lifted her up to King, who pulled her the rest of the way. Then I followed, climbing up the snowy wet cliff. King was holding Tweetie at his side and I fought the insane urge to pull her to mine.
“Someone has to go back,” King said. “Let them know we found her.”
I eyed Tweetie. “She’s in no condition to make that trek.”
“We passed a ranger station on the way. Looked abandoned. We can hole up there until help comes.”
Someone has to go back, I said to him silently.
Someone does, King shot back with his eyes. I raked my gaze up and down her. Wet. Shivering. And in someone else’s arms. I dug my nail into my palm.
“Should probably be the someone who was going to go pro in snowboarding,” I said aloud. “Considering the dangerous terrain.” King's grip tightened on Tweetie’s waist. My jaw clenched.
“Or maybe it makes more sense that someone stays.”
I laughed. “How?” The wind howled, King's stare and mine hardening like the icy snow.
“If you’re worried someone has to go back, I could go,” Tweetie offered, reading our stares. “I’m the reason we’re here after all—”
“No,” we said at the same time, stares still locked.
The station was old and small—not even the size of a bedroom—but it would do for a night. Boarded up windows allowed only slivers of a silvery, snowy night to escape. There was a barren fireplace in the center so maybe I could find some wood.
King gave me another tight-jawed stare, tried to say I needed to go, but on this I wasn’t budging. As far as I was concerned, we could both stay until the day broke. I wasn’t leaving Tweetie. Not now.
With a sound in his throat he grabbed me, tugged me to the side, and asked low enough so Tweetie couldn’t hear. “You said you did what I wanted, that still true?”
Tweetie watched us near a boarded-up window, light brows pinched.
Could I still let her go after everything? After almost losing her?
King read the doubt in my eyes. “All you’re going to do is hurt her.”
I met his stony glare. “I know.” With a breath through his nostrils, he dropped me and went to Tweetie.
“I’ll be right back.” He gripped her shoulders. “Go into a separate room and lock the door.”
I laughed. “I’m not Jeffrey fucking Dahmer.” King glanced at me, then at Tweetie, then back at me. “I’m going to be back. Soon. Real fucking soon.” He said something under his breath, then left.
The click of the door was loud in our heavy silence.
I knew I would hurt her, but I couldn’t leave her. So we just stayed in our respective spots, hers against the window, mine near the door. The night was silent, with no wind, only the soft, invisible quiet of snowflakes landing on the ground.
“Sorry,” she said, voice like the fluffy flakes outside. “I was stupid. Going out like that was stupid.”
I glanced up, a truly stupid, fatal mistake.
Her curls were wet, dripping wet.
“Tweetie…” Her name was my prayer. A simultaneous prayer for will power and against it. I’d been keeping myself on a leash for years, but the thing was frayed and one thread from snapping.
“I told you not to call me that.” She was breathless, but everything in the way her eyes dropped and locked with mine like iron links told me she wanted to hear it from my lips.
Another long second, then, “Why did you stay?”
“I needed to see you’re okay with my own eyes. You have no idea what it did to me last night when you didn’t come back.”
Sandy eyelashes fluttered. “What did it do to you?”
“Drove me insane. I kept wondering where you were. I stayed up all night until I couldn’t. Watching the door
. Waiting for you.”
She lifted off the window, inching to me. Go into the room, my last shred of dignity said, but the rest of me only cared about how she’d stopped within grabbing distance.
“Why?” she asked.
I love you. I’m so fucking in love with you. It’s ripped me apart since you were a teenager. It will continue to rip me apart. I just don’t want it to rip you apart too.
I leaned closer, so close her hot spring breath warmed my lips. “Do you really not know?”
“Don’t. Don’t push me away with questions. Let me in. Please.”
Conversations in masks and behind trees. Drunk in my bedroom or sober in hers. In the past and in the present, Tweetie knew me.
So I answered honestly, even though I knew it was reckless. “Tweetie I have let you in. That’s the problem.” Her eyes grew, and I pressed on. “I can’t think of any reason why we should be together, but I can think of a hundred why we shouldn’t. And yet…” I trailed off.
She looked at me with her big blue eyes, in the darkness they were like a lake at night. “Yet?”
I gripped her face between my hands. “All I can think about is kissing you again.”
Twenty-Two
Rad: Good or great.
TWEETIE
“I was never any good at playing by the rules,” he growled, dipping his head toward mine. Finally, I thought. I would get to taste him, those soft, pink lips that had been on my mind since I’d taped his poster to my ceiling.
But then I shivered, body still frozen by the cold.
And ruined the moment.
His eyes contorted, taking me in. My wet beanie, my frozen curls, my red nose and redder lips. His fingers fell from my cheeks, jaw clenched like he was holding something back. He let out a jagged, grieved, breath, and stepped back.
“Let’s see if we can find a blanket or some shit.”
“Wait,” I whispered, limply lifting my arm. I was freezing and I couldn’t feel my fingers, but I’d rather kiss him than get warm. He raked his eyes over me again. It was a look that ignited me, one that could burn the very clothes off my body.
Skater Boy (Patchwork House Book 1) Page 20
