by Chloe Walsh
Even if he wasn’t the same person I left behind, I still craved his company. His friendship. We had steered clear of the harder topics, the ones that hung heavily in the air around us. I knew there would come a time when we would have to talk about it, but he wasn't ready to go there.
To go back to that night.
His words, however sincere or not, had affected me.
For the longest time, my life felt like it was at a standstill. Excitement and joy had been ripped away, leaving nothing but depression, pain, and change in its wake. And now, after a stalemate that lasted almost a decade, life was moving quickly again, and I feared falling down the rabbit hole.
Common sense told me that I needed to be careful around him now, he wasn't the boy I'd grown up with, but the little girl inside of me screamed bullshit.
That little girl remembered the boy with the green eyes.
The boy with the bruises.
The boy with the secrets.
The boy who was the reason I was still breathing…
Daryl
I was the first one on the field for practice Friday afternoon and the last one to leave the field-house afterwards.
Weekends had never been as appealing to me as they were to my friends, which was why I tended to drag my heels after school on Fridays.
I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t want to spend any more time there than I physically had to. I was gone at the ass crack of dawn most mornings and only came home to sleep.
I tried to make the best of it; living my life around Wren's work schedule, avoiding him like the proverbial plague, and giving the house a wide berth when he was home. He had this weekend off, which meant that I needed to make myself scarce.
Usually, I wasted my weekends with Rourke, but my best friend was preoccupied with his mission of screwing his stepsister. I had every faith in his ability to wear Mercedes down, but I sure as shit didn’t want to watch it happen, which left me at a loss.
After spinning around in my truck for more than an hour, I pulled into Reebo's driveway and killed the engine. If I couldn’t hang at Rourke's house, then Reebo's was a strong second.
A piece of me – okay, a huge fucking chunk – had wanted to swing by Molly's house instead. I knew she was home alone, she'd told me as much last night, but showing up out of the blue without an invitation didn't seem right.
Not anymore at least.
"King Daryl!" came an echo of hollers when I stepped inside the Rose family residence.
"Evening," I acknowledged, dropping into the armchair closest to the door. "Where's Grammy?"
Reebo's parents weren't in the picture. He lived with his grandma, whose mind played a helluva lot of tricks on her these days. She was 1950's old school, and waited on her grandson and his friends like we were goddamn royalty. I shit you not. The woman wore a pink frilled apron and served sandwiches without the crusts. Ice tea was on tap and the place always felt warm and smelled like cinnamon.
Best of all, Grammy Rose had a prescription for medical marijuana for her arthritis, that we made good use of, and kept the fridge stocked with beer for Tony.
Tony was Reebo's grandpa. He'd been dead for more than forty years, but Grammy Rose insisted that he was due home from the war any day now.
"In her room," Reebo replied as he inhaled a deep drag. "Watching Dynasty reruns." Passing the spliff to Mason Starr, he leaned back against the couch and closed his eyes. "Fuck yeah," he breathed, exhaling a cloud of smoke.
Mase took a hit and held the spliff out to Bear Hernandez, who quietly refused.
"Dude?" Mase wheezed, eyes bloodshot, as he leaned across the couch towards me.
"Fuck it," I muttered with a shrug and reached for the joint.
Aside from Rourke, the three guys sitting on the couch were my closest friends. We'd been friends since Pre-K and played for the Falcon's, but none of these people knew me. They only saw the person I pretended to be. They had no fucking clue what I was dealing with on the inside. Only two people did. Rourke…
And her.
"So, where's Rourke at on this fan-fucking-tab-ulous night?" Reebo asked, taking a swig from his beer bottle.
"Where'd you think?" Mase chuckled. "Balls deep in his sister's pussy."
"Stepsister," I chuckled, exhaling slowly. "The step part is kind of important, dude."
Daryl
It was a little after one in the morning when I eventually made my way home, hoping to god that they were in bed. I didn’t need a confrontation tonight, but that's exactly what I got the moment I turned my key in the door.
"The fuck kind of time do you call this?" Wren demanded from the kitchen doorway when I stepped into the house.
Of course, he would be up.
Asshole never wasted an opportunity to rag on my ass.
High as Everest, and with no comedown in sight, I blinked away the haze that was blurring my vision and clumsily removed my key from the door.
Stinking of beer and weed, I yanked off my jacket and draped it over the banister before moving for the staircase.
"I’m talking to you, son."
"I ain't your son," I slurred, making a conscious effort to put one foot in front of the other and not fall the fuck over.
"Thank the lord for small mercies," came his snide response. "Nah, you ain't my son, but I still gotta put a damn roof over your head, don't I?"
"Don’t worry," I bit out, leaning heavily against the bannister as I climbed the steps. "It won't be for much longer."
"Damn straight it won't," he snarled, close on my heels. "The second that cap and gown touches your body next May, you'll be out of this house, boy."
"Thank fucking god for that."
"What did you say to me?" Wholly enraged now, my stepfather pushed past me on the steps and blocked my path. "Ungrateful little bastard." Towering on the landing above me, Wren glowered down at me like I was a piece of shit on his shoes. And to him, I was. "You ain't worth the condom your daddy broke trying to prevent you, boy."
Gritting my teeth, I stood on the staircase a few steps below the man I hated most in the world, and waited for him to finish chewing me out and degrading me.
Nothing that came out of his mouth was new to me. I'd heard it all a million times over. Didn’t even hurt anymore. Not really.
As a little kid, I'd been scared shitless of my stepfather and his overbearing nature. He was a big man and had been hella bigger than me back then – stronger too. Now, I felt nothing but contempt for the prick my mother put before me. The prick whose word she believed over her own son.
In my mother's eyes, I represented the man who'd walked out the door and left her with a baby to raise on her own. I was a constant reminder of the biggest mistake of her life. Didn’t matter much anymore since I'd be out of this house in a few short months, but damn it still stung.
Mom knew how Wren was, how he felt about me, and still, she chose to stay with him. Worse than stay, she never once stepped in. She never stood up to him or defended me, not really. She never got involved when he was belittling or beating me. She turned a blind eye to all of this man's indiscretions. Even when they were staring her in the face. The woman was fucking wallpaper.
"You listening to me, you little punk?" Wren continued to taunt. "This is my goddamn house, and you walk my fucking line."
Our house wasn’t a mansion like Rourke's and the walls were thin. Mom was in their bedroom right now, listening to this asshole berate me, and choosing to bury her head in the sand.
"You expect to go to college next fall?" he sneered, folding his arms across his chest and blocking me from going up to my room. "You think I'm going to pay for you to go off to Alabama and get high?"
"Don’t worry, sheriff," I bit out. "I don’t need you or your money. I'll make it just fine on my own."
"Ah, yeah, that's right. You're hot property, ain't you, bigshot?" He narrowed his eyes, his tone dripping with sarcasm. He didn’t even have the excuse of being drunk to explain his behavior. The ste
nch of alcohol in the air was coming from my breath.
"QB1. Ocean Bay's answer to Tom Brady." He laughed darkly. "You ain't shit, boy, and you sure as hell ain't going to the pros. You're gonna burn out just like your old man did. In five years' time, you'll be back here, with your tail between your legs and a string of baby mamas in your wake. 'Cause you ain't got what it takes for the bigtime, boy. You ain't nothing special. Mark my words; you'll end up working on a fishing trawler just like every other piece of shit in this town that thought he was too big for his boots."
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Sophie watching the altercation from her bedroom doorway. Her worried eyes landed on my face and I discreetly shook my head, telling her with that one simple gesture to go back inside her room and look the other way.
Sophie didn’t need to try to defend my honor. She was fifteen years old, for Christ's sake, and Wren was her father.
Contrary to how Wren treated me, he doted on my little sister, and I didn’t want to fuck that up for her, not when I wouldn’t be around next year to watch out for her.
"I guess I'm just gonna have to prove you wrong then, huh?" was all I responded before I pushed passed the creep and moved for my room.
"How much of a hotshot do you think you'd be without this?" he threatened, catching ahold of my right arm and yanking it behind my back. "Hmm? Think you'd be worth shit without your throwing arm, quarterback?"
It took every ounce of self-control I had inside of me not to snap and lay his ass out. My hunger for success was the motivation for not reacting. If I retaliated or hit him back, Wren would call his cop buddies, and I would be the one left with a record. Cops took up for cops in this town, and with a criminal record, I could kiss a scholarship goodbye. I didn’t have a rich daddy like Rourke had to bail me out of trouble. I was on my own in this, and fully responsible for every move I made.
Fighting back against the beloved town sheriff wasn’t worth throwing my future away – no matter how badly I yearned to pummel his ass.
When he didn’t get the response he had hoped for, Wren shoved me hard, forcing me to stagger forward. "Get the fuck out of my sight."
Jaw clenched, I did just that, not stopping until I was inside my bedroom with the door locked behind me.
Blowing out a ragged breath, I rested my forehead against the door and clenched my eyes shut.
Nine more months.
Molly
All weekend, I had worried about school on Monday. I wasn't sure how Daryl would behave now that we were so-called friends again. Would he be different? Would he be the same as he had been at my house this past weekend or would he play the role I'd watched him play for the past two years?
The Daryl I had watched from the sidelines.
The Daryl who looked through me like I was a pane of glass.
Binging on a marathon of Teen Wolf wasn’t the most productive way to spend a Friday night, but sadly it was one I had become accustomed to. Lacking in the popularity stakes, and with the only friend I had managed to acquire too busy fending off the advances of her stepbrother to hang out, I resigned myself to spending another weekend alone.
But to his absolute credit, and my immense surprise, Daryl approached me first thing on Monday morning. In fact, he did more than approach me; he was at my locker when I arrived, and had even walked me to my first class.
Being around him at school was weird and awkward and I felt on full display, but it was also kind of exciting.
At lunch, he and Rourke sat with us, with Mercy and Rourke treating us to a prequel of world war three, should they ever find themselves at the helm of power. Seriously, I had spent an hour listening to them arguing and I was more confused now than I had been when it started.
"He's a bastard," Mercy continued to rant as we walked to our lockers after our last class of the day. "I hate him, Molls. I mean it this time. I seriously freaking hate that –"
"Keep talking shit about me, Six," I heard Rourke call out from behind us. "You can make it up to me later."
"Are you done, asshole?" Mercy hissed back. "Because I sure as hell am."
"No!" Moments later, Rourke came bounding down the hallway, not stopping until he was chest to chest with my feisty friend. "As a matter of fact, I ain't fuckin' done!"
Still clearly furious with each other, the argument started right back up where they had left off in the cafeteria earlier, with Mercy producing an epic display of 'gun fingers' while she chewed him out.
Rolling my eyes, I stepped to one side and watched their unceremonious outburst, burying a snicker when Mercedes reached up and yanked on his school tie.
"Say it again and I'll choke you," she warned, pulling and yanking on his tie in her bid to cut off her stepbrother's air supply. "Don't fuck with me, prick."
Never one to back down from a challenge, Rourke reached around her and knotted his fist in her long, black ponytail.
"Keep it up, Six," he dared, tugging on her hair and forcing her face to tilt upwards. "And I'll make you scream louder than you did this morning," he said, smirking down at her. "Twice."
Deciding to leave them to their…well, whatever the hell that was, I walked out of school and headed for the student parking lot to where Mercy was parked. I wasn’t sure how long she would be, but I didn’t have any plans after school so waiting for her to give me a ride home wasn’t a big deal to me.
Fiddling with my iPod, I clicked on Freya Ridings' Lost Without You and inhaled a deep breath. Closing my eyes, I immersed myself in the haunting lyrics, in the melancholy in her voice, as she sang the words that I connected so deeply with.
Suddenly, I knew he was there.
I could sense him.
I felt his shoulder brush against mine moments before he leaned on the hood of the car, invading my personal space with his big body, but still, I kept my eyes closed.
His jean clad thigh brushed against mine and he didn’t pull away. No, he kept it there; our bodies aligned beneath the clothes we were wearing.
"I love this song," I finally said, removing one ear pod and holding it out to him.
Daryl took it and held it to his ear. "I think I'm lost without you?"
A shiver rolled through me.
Me too.
"Do you still sing?" he asked then, returning my ear pod to me.
I shrugged and popped them into my pocket along with my iPod. "Only in the shower."
"That's too bad." He playfully nudged my shoulder with his. "You were good."
"Bull crap." Laughing, I nudged him back. "You used to tell me that my singing reminded you of nails on a chalkboard."
Now he was the one to chuckle. "Yeah, but the best nails on a chalkboard I'd ever heard."
"Douchebag," I grumbled, playfully digging him in the ribs.
"Nerd," he shot back with a pained grunt.
"What's wrong?" Call it an old habit, but the moment he flinched, I was instantly on alert. "Are you hurt?" Panic flared to life inside of me. "Did something happen –"
"I'm good, Molls." He forced a smile. "It's all good."
Daryl King used his smile as a shield.
I knew it when I was five years old and I knew it now.
He wasn’t good, something was wrong, but we weren't in a place where I could demand he tell me his secrets. Not like he used to.
"Listen, I'm gonna take off," he said, pushing off the hood of the car. "I need to get to practice."
"Oh." Swallowing down my disappointment, I flashed him a bright smile. "Well, have a great practice."
"Molls?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you wanna hang out afterwards? I can swing by and pick you up?"
My heart leapt in my chest. "H-hang out?"
He nodded. "If you don’t have any plans –"
"I don’t!" The words were out of my mouth before I had a chance to tell myself to be cool. "I can hang out."
"Good." The smile he gave me this time was one hundred percent genuine. "I'll see you later, 'kay?"
"Yeah." I exhaled shakily. "Okay."
The Past
Thirteen years ago
Daryl
"Wash your mouth out, Daryl King. That's your father you're talking about."
"No, it ain't," I growled with a scowl. "I hate him, Mama. Wren ain't my daddy and I want him to go away!"
"Well, I love him," she replied calmly. "And he's Sophie's daddy. So, you're just going to have to come to terms with the fact that Wren is here to stay."
"But he's mean to me."
"Only when he needs to be."
"He does bad things."
"Nobody is perfect, Daryl."
I thought Molly-Dolly was perfect. I thought she was the most perfect girl that ever walked the whole wide earth. She was special.
"Mama, he ain't good to me –"
"Well, he's good to me!" Mom snapped, turning to glare at me. "So, if you love mommy then try to be a good boy. It will make life so much easier if you stop giving Wren reasons to get mad…"
Present Day
Daryl
"Everything okay at home?" Rourke asked when I stepped out of the showers after practice on Thursday.
Wrapping a towel around my waist, I moved for my locker and grabbed my clothes. "Yep."
"Yep?" He gave me the standard 'don’t bullshit a bullshitter' look and cocked a brow. "That's all I'm getting?"
"Yep," I bit out, dropping my towel and pulling on a fresh pair of boxers. "Because that's all there is to know."
"Bullshit, D," he growled. "Sophie told Amelia about you and Wren going at it Friday night."
"If you already know then why'd you ask?" was all I said in response.
"You know you can always crash at my place," he said. "Always, dude."
