Skater Boy (Patchwork House Book 1)

by Mary Catherine Gebhard

  “Someone turn the fucking thing off,” Flip growled. Sparky joined Pants, frantically pressing buttons.

  “It’s stuck in the recorder!”

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. The camera fell to the ground, landing sideways on the asphalt just as Flip lunged for me. Blood snaked its way toward the sidelong recorder as Flip lifted himself up, checking my younger self for injury.

  Romeo and Daniel pushed them both out of the way, calling them dumbasses, and pressed power. Silence. Silence on the screen. Silence in the room.

  I looked back at Flip.

  Images of him merged and flashed with King like a broken projector.

  My real savior.

  I pulled at my hands, but he wouldn’t let go, grip tight. For a minute I stopped struggling. Then I said, my voice barely a breath, “We said no more secrets.”

  Flip dropped my hands like he’d been burned, and I sprinted out of the room.

  Twenty-Six

  Sketchy: Untrustworthy.

  TWEETIE

  So this was my real answer.

  Why Flip doesn’t skate.

  Why he’s the lost Rebel God.

  Why he left Patchwork.

  Why he and King hate each other.

  Me.

  Guilt slammed into me so hard I gripped my sheets, looking at anything in my room to anchor me. So of course at that moment, my door opened.

  “I don’t want to see any of your fucking faces,” I said without looking up from my bedspread.

  My world was collapsing.

  Everything I knew was a goddamn lie.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  “Too bad.”

  I whipped my head up. It was Romeo, Daniel, and Flip.

  “Where’s King?”

  Flip’s face darkened. “Why the fuck do you want King?” He practically growled it.

  Because I can’t look at you.

  Because guilt is eating my throat alive.

  “Because he’s been there for me for my entire life. I don’t care what that video says. I never knew you—not really—until this year.”

  “He’s gone,” Flip said, icy.

  “What do you mean he’s gone.”

  “I mean, you’re stuck with me.”

  “Flip—” Daniel started, but I couldn’t stay to hear the rest. My heart was spiraling out of control with my thoughts, breathing rapid and uneven. I scrambled off my bed, onto my desk, and pushed open my window. They called after me, but I was already falling flat on my ass like usual, landing on the grass with a thud.

  My breath was rocky and shallow, the air quiet save for the music still blaring from the party. Cold caressed my skin. I stared at the grass, fingers digging into the ground, anything to avoid looking up. My pulse raced with the fears I wanted to escape.

  “Still sneaking out the window.”

  That voice, that familiar, familial, voice. “King…” I whispered, and the tears I’d been keeping at bay fell.

  King groaned. “Waterworks? Really?” He leaned against the back door, thick arms folded and one eyebrow raised as if he’d been waiting for me.

  “Tell me this is a joke. Tell me this isn’t happening. Flip is just someone who used to live at Patchwork, right? Just another kid without a home like Bacon or Sparky.” I stood to my knees, closing a bit of the distance between us. “Right?”

  He worked his jaw, eyes shifting to the floor.

  I fell back on the grass. His silence spoke volumes.

  I’d ruined two people’s lives.

  The boy who took the fall.

  The boy who couldn’t forget.

  A hand was suddenly on my back, rubbing slow and concentric circles. My heart rate steadily evened out. For a minute it felt normal, like my world hadn’t been turned upside down again. I was Tweetie, he was King, and it was back to old times.

  “How did you know where I’d be?” I asked after a moment.

  King made a noise, an almost laugh, the closest he ever got. “You can’t escape us, Tweetie.” Maybe it was supposed to make me feel better, but I just felt worse. I couldn’t escape them? They couldn’t escape me.

  I’d ruined everything for them.

  What could they have been without me?

  In the short time I’d seen Flip and King together it had been heated, hated tension. Glares and fistfights. But they were all so happy on that video. Best friends.

  King’s hand on my back slowed to a halt, and he stood, eyes taking me in. I waited for him to say something, give me advice.

  He shrugged, let out a breath. “I’ll be seeing you.”

  What?

  My brain sputtered, shooting out bits and pieces of emotion like a broken blender. All the while King was walking away.

  He’d be seeing me?

  I scrambled up, chasing him to the front. He was already at his Chevelle.

  “Where are you going?” I furiously swiped tears from my face. “Come back inside. This is where you live. This has always been where you live. The four of us. You, me, Romeo, and Daniel. Just us four.”

  Flip is still a famous skateboarder I dream about, but know I’ll never have.

  Nate is still the ordinary boy who changed my life, but I know I’ll never meet again.

  And I’m not responsible for either.

  King came back to me, and I hoped. He cupped my cheek, thumb grazing back and forth, wiping the tears away. “He was the one who named you Tweetie.”

  I sputtered. “What—why?”

  “I think that’s something you should ask him.” I didn’t want to ask him. I wanted everything to go back to normal. King dropped his hand, and with a last look, went to his car.

  “Come in. Come back. Come inside.” I was on the verge of hysteria. Tears running without care down my face. King looked at Patchwork, hands gripping the door of his car. “Please, big brother.”

  Something passed across his face, then he shook his head. “Nah, you’ll be okay.” He said it more to himself than me, the distant tone wracking fear through my body. He opened the door, shooting me a sad smile. “And I’ve got someone to see.”

  Anger.

  I latched onto it.

  It replaced the searing pain knifing its way through every organ.

  “Well, glad I could be the glue keeping everyone together,” I said, sarcasm acid on my tongue. I didn’t wait to see King drive away. It hurt less that way.

  The front door slammed at my back. All three of them, Daniel, Romeo, and Flip, were waiting. They stood up immediately on entry.

  I walked past them and grabbed a bottle of tequila.

  FLIP

  “This is your fault,” Daniel said.

  “I know.”

  Tweetie danced on a table, a bottle of tequila in one hand and two beers in another. Romeo tried to coax her down, but she completely ignored him.

  “This is why we agreed to stay away,” Daniel continued.

  “I know.”

  “Why you shouldn’t have put your goddamn hands on—” I shot him a glare, and Daniel threw up a hand, eyes still hard, jaw still tight, letting me know he hadn’t conceded the point. Romeo joined us after his fifth failed attempt at getting her off the table.

  “Where is King?” he asked after a quick scan of the room. “Isn’t this his specialty?” That burned my gut. His specialty? Tweetie was my girl, and I could take care of her. I pushed through the crowd gathered at her feet.

  “Good luck, mate,” Romeo called to my back.

  Tweetie danced, hips swayed, flinging her curly hair. In any other situation this would have been hot as hell, but I saw the damage in her hazy blue eyes. A drink was always at her lips, trying to get the thoughts in her head blurry.

  I folded my arms. “Get down.”

  She kept dancing.

  “Get down, Tweetie.”

  In response, she bent down until we were eye to eye. A blue-eyed, fire-coated stare. A look that said Make me. She gave me a saccharine smile, took a deep swig of her be
er, eyes still locked. Then she stood back up and danced harder.

  Alright.

  Fuck playing nice.

  I slammed my foot into the stereo, smashing through the speakers until the wailing punk rocker warbled off into nothing. There was a collective groan of disappointment. With one arm, I gripped Tweetie’s shins and pulled her off the table. She yelped as I threw her over my shoulder. Her fists pounded against my back while I carried her up the stairs.

  I kicked open her door.

  Threw her on the bed.

  Hair covered her bright, furious eyes. Cheeks red. She was wild and angry and still so goddamn beautiful.

  “I know you hate me right now.” I bent down, pressed her into the mattress. “You should hate me. But I’m not leaving until you stop.” Until I make you love me. “Even if we’re old and fucking gray.”

  She blinked, her mouth parted.

  And then she said the one thing I never expected. “I don’t hate you.”

  TWEETIE

  He paused, confusion flittering across his features, then slowly stood up. The weight where he’d pressed into the mattress stark and empty like the holes in my heart. He arched his neck, studying me from a shadowed brow. Uncertain.

  “You don’t?”

  I shook my head.

  That launched us into another interminable silence. The house was unnaturally quiet after Flip broke the speakers and I couldn’t help thinking I was still the girl the music stopped for.

  “Why?”

  I shrugged.

  It would be so much easier if I hated him. If I was mad.

  I kept reaching inside myself trying to redirect my anger but the more I reached inside, the more self-loathing I found.

  The way his jaw tightened and his brow creased said he didn’t believe me.

  “It wasn’t a total lie, Tweetie.” Desperation was talons in his throat. Scratching, bleeding, clawing their way out. It matched the ones in my heart. “I was only a part of Patchwork for less than a year. King’s rule was no chicks allowed, and mine was we accept anyone. We always clashed. But yeah, I was a founder. And yeah, I left because of you.”

  My hair had fallen across my face, but I was too broken to push it out of the way. Through blurry yellow I saw his hand lift. To move it out of the way maybe?

  His hand dropped.

  I wished he would push it behind my ears like before.

  “I went to King’s house,” he continued softly. “Stayed with his family. Watched King’s girl, tried to live, tried to move on, tried to skate and forget what happened.”

  That had me perking up. King had another house? A family other than Patchwork? And a love—the one he couldn’t have—Flip had been watching?

  A trillion thoughts fought for front seat, but a single one speared me: the family Flip had been missing was King’s. Flip who wanted nothing else but a home, had been missing someone else’s.

  My god that must suck for him.

  I think Flip mistook my inability to look at him as brutal coldness, because he came to my knees. Grabbed my hands.

  I still couldn’t look at him.

  “I’ll tell you everything, Tweetie. I was the one who taught you. I still vividly remember the way that helmet fell over your curly hair. How you weren’t intimidated by any of us.” He was warped in my head, mixed with King. With what everyone told me happened. The only reason it was changing now was because Flip added new memories—but it wasn’t a teenage Flip, it was adult him.

  “I don’t remember,” I rasped. Tears at not being able to remember him the way he did me broke the surface.

  He squeezed my hand as one tear fell. Too tight. For a brief second the pain of it distracted me.

  “It’s all my fault,” he said. Tears were in his eyes now, like glistening black pebbles. “If I hadn’t brought you along. All of it’s my fault…”

  All of Flip’s anguish bled into his grip, stronger than he’d ever held me, bruising and painful. Then he dragged me to his chest, hand sliding to my neck to hold me there, throat bobbing against my forehead. I thought his tears landed in my hair, but I didn’t look to see. For a minute, I let this moment be unbroken.

  How would our lives have been different if he hadn’t brought me to that hill? Flip would be a legend, not a myth. Maybe I never would have discovered skating, but my dad would be alive.

  A sick, sick thought tore through me: maybe I didn’t want that.

  How could I ever choose between my dad and the love of my life? My love of skating?

  Maybe I couldn’t choose, but Flip had. He’d chosen me. All those years ago. When my dad’s erratic, intoxicated driving had cemented the course of our lives, Flip chose me when he should have had the world.

  “You’ll really tell me everything?” I said, voice muffled by his chest. He pulled back and nodded. His eyes were shiny, jaw tight like he didn’t want his throat to bob. It tore open my stomach. My everything. I didn’t want him to hurt. I wanted him to be fine and free.

  I swallowed the courage to find my question.

  “Why don’t you skateboard?” Now it was his turn to look away, to build silence like a wall, but I wouldn’t back down. “Have you skateboarded at all since the accident? Entered any competitions?”

  Silence pressed and I knew he wasn’t going to answer, but I already knew it anyway.

  Remembered it starkly in the melancholy way he skateboarded.

  “Get out,” I said, voice barely a whisper.

  I woke up with the sky still dark and damp. It was snowing, shadowy flakes falling past my window. It didn’t immediately hit me. I felt before I remembered. The ache in my chest an unmatched puzzle piece.

  Then my eyes settled on the shadowy shirtless poster above my bed, and it all came rushing back.

  Flip. King. The truth.

  I was the reason. The reason Flip didn’t skateboard. The reason for the pain in his eyes. The reason for the melancholy way he skated.

  Me.

  I sat up, groaning, and rubbed my head. In two days, I had the most important competition of my life and I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. I wanted to curl up in a ball and never see the world again.

  “I keep thinking I should never have made myself known.”

  I didn’t startle at the voice. Flip was leaning against the wall, watching me. His eyes weren’t red or shiny, but he looked tired. Used up. Voice low and hoarse, like he’d been screaming. I wanted to pull him to me and make him full again.

  I wondered how long he’d been in the room. Waiting for me to wake up. Like that was where he belonged.

  “None of this is your fault,” I said. He made a sound in his throat that said he didn’t believe a word. “It isn’t,” I insisted.

  While everyone tried to warn me to consequences, I remained deaf. In my head I thought, I can handle it. So long as I was fearless, I could handle anything the world throws at me.

  I didn’t think about what the world would throw at others.

  I never did.

  Because I was selfish.

  “You are my greatest regret,” Flip said, and my stomach dropped. “Why do you think I don’t skate? I can’t. The thought of it used to make me vomit.”

  I tried not to let the pain of hearing greatest regret or the fact that he’d confirmed my greatest fear show.

  Me. I did it to him.

  I swallowed, steadied my voice. “So what changed?”

  He lifted his head, eyes locking with mine. “You.”

  He came to me, palms cupping my cheeks, gently raising me off the bed. I never realized how big his hands were until he was cradling my face. From my jaw to my eyes, he held me like I was a doll. Eyes searching mine, brows caved in emotion.

  “Without that day, I never would have found you. And I don’t regret that.”

  I stopped fighting, eyes meeting his.

  “I was there, Tweetie. I was always there. Your first date. Your first heartbreak. Your first competition and first loss.” The second rev
elation shook through me in a rush of air from my lungs. Little bits and pieces of memories that had never quite made sense but I’d written off as oddities that couldn’t be explained suddenly had an explanation.

  You’re just as good as him.

  My eyes narrowed. “You said you were at King’s. You were trying to skate again. Move on.” What I didn’t say was Tell me I didn’t steal your entire life.

  “I was. Then one day you crashed into me with your skateboard, and I had to know you were moving on. I said it would only be the one time, but I couldn’t stay away.” He placed his thumb beneath my chin, tilting my head, forcing me to look into his eyes. “I was the shadow below your window, one step behind you at all times.”

  I pulled my head from his grasp, focused on the bedspread. “You don’t meet my checklist. You don’t meet any of the criteria.” I could barely get the words out.

  I was certain if I looked at him, I would crumble. But where did that leave us? I’d taken a vital part of him. I couldn’t imagine what my life would be like without skateboarding. It was a part of my soul. I knew the same was true for Flip, because his love and fire had ignited my own.

  “Fuck your checklist,” he growled. “You didn’t think I would come back for your heart, and I didn’t. It was always with me. Don’t tell me to leave now.”

  Tears fell as silent traitors. The image of him blurry in my periphery.

  The pain in his voice was stark. I wanted to turn and slide into that perfect spot against his chest. Wrap my hands around his warm skin, have him hold me tight. I focused harder on the bed.

  “You asked me what this tattoo meant. It’s for you. It’s only ever been for you.” He grabbed my hand, dragged it beneath his shirt against the hot skin. His muscles were hard and cruel beneath my fingers. I still couldn’t look at him, even as my hand connected with his flesh.

  “It says Always your shadow, Tweetie. Always. Even when I knew I shouldn’t be there for you, I was. Because you saw me, Tweetie. The real me.”

  The room lost focus, his confession blasting through me. I couldn’t feel my legs.