Wrong Side of Heaven

by Riley, Gia

  “It’s okay, Winnie. Go back to sleep. I moved you into the bed.”

  “You’re not mad?” she asks. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “Not even a little. I’m glad I forgot to lock the window before I jumped into the shower.”

  She swallows and bites her lip. Then, she says, “I climbed the ladder and came through the window.”

  Her arms are so frail, and she’s been so weak from passing out, yet Winnie climbed two stories into an old house with a shitty roof to get to me. I don’t know whether to congratulate her or yell at her.

  “You’re lucky you didn’t fall and break your neck.”

  “Shit,” she says in a rush. “It’ll come out. I’m sorry.”

  I don’t know what she’s apologizing for, but she’s scrambling out of bed, running away from me instead of cuddling like we were. She carefully turns the doorknob and inches it open.

  “Where are you going? Tell me what you need, and I’ll get it for you.”

  “Can I have a Band-Aid and some water?”

  “Yeah, I’ll grab a bottle from the kitchen. There’s a box of bandages under the sink in the bathroom. Give me a minute.”

  “Bring a rag with some soap on it, too,” she tells me.

  When I get back, she’s sitting on the carpet with her back against the side of the bed. I hand her everything she asked for and then flip the switch on the desk lamp. We both squint a little, and then I get a better look at her. She’s dabbing the rag on her thigh and then presses it down. She sucks in a breath, and the air whistles through her teeth as she closes her eyes.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I look worse than I am. It’s nothing.”

  It’s something. Because, when she lifts the rag, it’s pink. The pattern on her leg is intentional. There’s no way the ladder left a mark like that, and it makes me so mad that she hurt herself again. I turn around and press my palms into my eyes, wishing I could make her stop hurting herself. But there’s no way the cuts can be unseen. I knew about the scars; I just never saw them freshly broken open.

  “Why this time?” I ask her.

  “I’m fine, Jasper. Don’t make this a bigger deal than it is.”

  She scolds me like it’s wrong for me to care that she’s a cutter. That only pisses me off more. This is a big deal. It’s a huge deal that she has a better relationship with a razor than she has with another human being.

  “You made me leave you in the trailer, Winnie. You said you were okay.”

  “Trey showed up. Things got complicated, and I ran into the bathroom.”

  “So, every time life gets hard, you cut instead of trying to make sense of it? You can’t keep burying the pain. One of these days, you’ll have to face it and do something about it.”

  The box of Band-Aids flies out of her hand and bounces off my bare chest. Little pieces of paper flutter to the ground like those brown helicopters that fall from the maple tree in the backyard.

  “Don’t judge me, Jasper. That’s not your job.”

  “What’s my job then? To watch you hurt yourself? Because I don’t think I want that title.”

  My response stuns her, and she stands up.

  “I didn’t realize how you felt,” she whispers. “I’ll leave.”

  As mad as I am, I don’t want her to leave. I want her here with me, in one piece, with a smile on her face instead of angry marks on her skin. But that’s not Winnie. From day one, I knew she had a dark past. I wasn’t sure what she was dealing with, and there’s still a ton I don’t know, but from what I’ve seen, it’s amazing she’s still functioning at all. Most girls her age and in her shoes would have given up. God, I don’t want Winnie to give up.

  I grab her elbow and pull her against my chest. Her arms stay by her sides, like she wants nothing to do with me. I wrap her in mine anyway and make her listen.

  “Nobody is ever going to be okay with you marking up your body, Winnie.”

  She lets out a little laugh and pulls away from me. I try to grab her again, but she’s moving toward the window. “You don’t get it,” she says. “Nobody cares, Jasper. I don’t have a loving home with a mom and dad who look out for me. There’s nobody telling me to do my homework or when to go to bed. When I go out, Tess doesn’t care if I ever come back.”

  “I care, Winnie. I care so much, it hurts.”

  “Don’t say that,” she whispers. “You don’t even know what you’re saying.”

  “I can say whatever I want.”

  A couple of shuffled steps, and I’m standing in front of her again. She doesn’t flinch when I hold her hand, just keeps staring straight ahead at the bed.

  “You make me happy. But when I see you passed out on the floor or cleaning cuts on your body, I feel like I don’t know you at all. There’s so much you’re hiding from me. It’s scary.”

  “That’s why I need to leave, Jasper. I’m no good for you. The sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be.”

  Her hands are on the window, and she’s seconds from pushing it open and climbing onto the roof.

  “I’d rather see you like this than never see you at all. Please, stay. I need you, Winnie.”

  She sniffles and then swipes at her nose with the back of her hand. If my honesty doesn’t help, I don’t know what else to do. I’ve told her I need her. I’ve told her that I want her to stay. There’s only one more thing I can say to convince her, and it’ll probably do more damage than good.

  When the time’s right, I’ll tell her.

  For now, I just say, “Please,” one more time.

  “Trey lied to me,” she says. “Then, Jax was sitting on the porch. It was either come here or go back to the playground, and I thought you’d get mad if I did that.”

  “I’d have been furious. Finish cleaning up your leg, and then get back in bed.”

  Tough love isn’t going to work with Winnie. Neither will staying mad at her. She confuses anger with rejection because that’s all she knows. I’ll never accept the cutting, but I’ll never shut her out because of it. I’m screwed, and I have no idea what to do about any of it.

  My stomach can’t handle it. I want to throw up, just watching her clean the cuts. I can’t imagine how she goes through with slicing her skin and seeing herself bleed.

  I’ve never been neglected, abused, or beaten. I’ve never starved to the point of passing out, and that’s all the more reason why I have to figure out how to help her. This version of Winnie hurts too much. She’s worth so much more than the hand she’s been dealt.

  Once she’s fixed up, she slips one of my T-shirts over her head and slides under the covers. I want to hold her and kiss her and tell her that she’s mine, but I don’t move. I’m too afraid she’ll change her mind and try to climb down the side of the house again.

  A few uncomfortable minutes later, she clears her throat and then rolls onto her side. “Jasper?”

  I’m still staring at the ceiling at an old water mark from when the roof leaked. Mom had it fixed, but we never got around to painting over the brown crud that was left behind. It looks a little like how I’m feeling—pathetic, worn out, distracted.

  Man up, Jasper. You have a girl in your bed.

  “Yeah, Winnie?” The pitch of my voice is too high, and I barely recognize the sound. I’m so nervous.

  If she notices, she doesn’t mention it. All she says is, “I’m sorry I’m so messed up.”

  The fog lifts, and I roll onto my side. We lie face-to-face on fluffy pillows, our mouths inches apart. I think I had a dream like this before.

  “Don’t apologize. You’re you. I want you, Winnie. I’ve joked about it, but I mean it.”

  “You’ll take that back once you hear everything,” she whispers.

  “Tell me, Winnie. Get it all out. I’ll still be here when you’re finished. I promise.”

  Her eyes roam over my lips and linger there long enough that I think she might be thinking about kissing me. She blinks a couple of time
s, and I’m scared she’s going to drift off and get lost inside her head again. But she looks up at me, and I know I have her right here, in the moment with me.

  “When I’m awake, I want to cut. When I’m asleep, I have nightmares. It’s like my body can’t figure out how to exist without pain. It’s easier to give in to what my mind’s telling me than to convince myself I’m better off without it.”

  “What about the scars? Don’t they bother you?”

  She swallows and shakes her head. “Yes, and no. As long as they’re there, I’m alive. I’m still fighting. I know scars don’t ever disappear—that’s why they’re called scars—but sometimes, I think I cut them back open, so they can’t go anywhere. I’m as attached to them as they are to me.”

  Her hand shakes when she runs it through her hair. A nail gets caught on a tangle, and she works it through the best she can, wincing from the pulling.

  “Do you cut any other places? Or always there?”

  “Always there. I’ve thought about my wrists.”

  “Winnie, no.”

  Before I can say anything else, she places her hand over my mouth and silences me. “I wouldn’t, Jasper. I can’t. I’m not ready to leave.”

  Leave. She says it like she’d be walking through a door and not ending her existence.

  I’ve never gotten the impression that Winnie is suicidal. Despite all the warning signs and red flags, I don’t believe she wants to stop breathing. Or maybe I want her to be alive so bad, I can’t imagine her giving up. She has too much fight left in her to slit her wrists and bleed out.

  “I wish I could tell you to stop, and you’d listen to me. But I know it’s not that easy.”

  “Cutting’s the only release that gives my body a break. I know that sounds ridiculous. Like, how can hurting myself do any good? But it just does. Once the marks are on my skin and I see the blood, I can catch my breath. The world isn’t closing in on me, and all the pressure’s gone. I’m proud that I’m in control again.”

  “If you’re proud, then why do you always cover up the scars?”

  “Because they’re a reminder of the pain. And everything that happened to make me cut in the first place. You and Trey are the only two people who have ever seen them.”

  “What does Trey say about it?”

  The guy might make me uneasy, and I don’t think he’s the best person for Winnie to latch on to, but if he’s all she has, there’s not much I can do about that either. Trey’s not going anywhere. The sooner I accept that, the easier it’ll be when he comes around to see her.

  “He’s the one who found me tonight.”

  She tells me about the nightmare and how Trey poured water over her to wake her up. That part makes me a little mad, but it explains her hair and the lack of clothing. What I don’t understand is how she ended up in my house if he was in hers. Why wouldn’t he get her out of there and take her someplace else?

  I don’t press her though. When she’s ready, she’ll tell me everything. I’m thankful she’s said this much, considering she almost walked out on me.

  Her lashes flutter closed, and she fights to pry them back open. She’s exhausted.

  “It’s okay, Winnie. Get some sleep.”

  She inches her fingers toward mine, her silent way of asking me to hold her hand. I do better than that. I hold every inch of Winnie and pull her as close to me as I can get her. Her cheek rests against my bare chest, and though she’s still cold, her body finally relaxes once it’s next to mine.

  “I’ve never been this close to anyone, Jasper. It scares me.”

  “Don’t be scared,” I tell her. “I’ll keep you safe. Me and you against the world.”

  “Me and you,” she whispers.

  When her grip loosens, I know she’s asleep. I doze off a few minutes later with my girl in my arms and no idea of how to protect her once the sun rises. If it were up to me, I’d keep her here forever.

  Twenty-Three

  Trey

  Hal leaves with the strongest warning message I could deliver. If he’s stupid enough to open his mouth about Winn, he’ll die. Simple as that. I’ve spent most of my adult life looking out for that girl, and now that her dad’s gone, I have no choice. I’m all she has, but she doesn’t realize, she’s all I have, too.

  Nothing about my life is the way I imagined it’d be. I was never supposed to work my way through the entire chain of command. Responsibility was never my thing. But, if I wanted to stay alive and make the best of what I had, I needed to take the power being offered and never let go of it. I don’t trust my life in the hands of anyone but myself.

  Everything on the streets is a game. It’s a dirty business full of sacrifice. If I were smart, I would have gone to college like my brother and avoided the business altogether. By the time I was old enough to fill out applications, my best friend was brokenhearted and on his own with a kid. He thought about being a runner and working his way into the family. I couldn’t let him take that kind of risk with a little girl depending on him. The boss never would have left him alone, so while he went to work at a normal job with normal hours, I took his place and kept his name off the table so Winnie could have a better chance at a normal life.

  In a couple of years, I’ll age out and be forced into headquarters with the rest of the old heads. I’ve become too valuable to lose, just like all those ahead of me. Some other lucky fuck will take my spot on the streets, and by then, I won’t care. I’ll have more money than I’ll know what to do with. Then, I’ll pack up Winnie, and we’ll disappear.

  I have to get her as far away as I can because, once she’s eighteen, she’s free game. The boss wanted her dad, and he’ll want her, too. She’s so beautiful, he’ll offer her a nice chunk of change, and he’ll use her for all she’s worth, just like he did with Tess.

  “It should have been me,” I told Mick all those years ago when he threw a positive pregnancy test at the wall and watched it split down the middle.

  I’m the fuckup, not him. Mick, Winnie’s dad, did everything right when it counted. He had a good head on his shoulders with plans to make something of himself. And there he was, on graduation day, running off with a diploma still in his hand to see his daughter be born. He might have been pissed off when he found out he was going to be a dad, but he was ecstatic once Winnie came into the world.

  I didn’t go with him to the hospital because it hurt too much. He was happy, and he had a girlfriend he loved and a baby to spoil. All I had was a signed contract for a job I didn’t know how to do. I wasn’t sure I’d survive the first day, let alone the first year. Five years from then, for all I knew, I could be a name on a tombstone with nothing to show for the first twenty-three years of my life.

  Instead of manning up like he did, I got wasted behind the football field with some friends and tossed my cap and gown in the river. I had no business being set free in adulthood without a stitch of direction.

  All those friends are long gone. One died in a car accident and the other three in drug deals. Winn’s dad overdosed, and now, I’m the only one left from our group. I managed to keep my name from being carved into the stone, but I did a shitty job of protecting those guys.

  I’m the one percent that had a chance to get the hell out of Carillon and didn’t. Until Winnie’s done with school, I’ll stay here for her. I could have moved on to bigger and better cities, making a hell of a lot more money, but I can’t disappear for more than a couple of weeks at a time.

  The three months I spent near the border almost did me in. Worrying about Winnie took my head out of the game, and I made some decisions that could have gotten a lot of people killed. I had no business being there. And, when I came home, I made sure I wouldn’t be going back anytime soon. If the boss wants to do business there, he’ll be sending someone else.

  I pace back and forth in the kitchen, trying to figure out what to say to Winnie. There’ve been times when I look at her and see more than I should. But never did I think Winnie saw the same thing
when she looked back at me. She fucking kissed me, and I don’t know how to process that.

  I kissed her back. Hard.

  What the hell was I thinking?

  I wasn’t. I felt her lips and then her tongue, and I responded.

  Her dad would have blown my brains out if he knew what we did. And there’s not enough alcohol in the trailer to free me from my sins or make her disappear from my memory. Not when she’s in my bedroom, waiting for me.

  What do I say to her? Do I let her down gently without breaking her heart?

  If I go in there and give her a lecture, she’ll die of embarrassment. I’ll ruin the bond we have and risk losing her from my life completely. But, if I blow it off like the kiss never happened, she’ll think it didn’t matter, that I felt nothing. She’ll shut down, probably find one of her blades, and take care of business. I can’t be responsible for that. I’ve seen grown men die, but nothing scares me more than finding Winn on the floor in a pool of her own blood. I’d never recover from that.

  Winnie’s innocent and full of fire, but her heart’s been torn to shreds too many times. That’s why I didn’t trust her being in the room with Hal. He’s closer to her age than mine, barely old enough to drink, yet I smelled the liquor on his breath. If they were in the same room alone, I know he’d have tried something.

  Hal’s the kind of guy I worry about every time I travel or go to work. There’s more of him wandering around Carillon than I could ever protect her from. One of these times, I’m scared she’ll get mixed up in Tess’s crowd, and I’ll lose her forever. Once she gets a taste of the powder, she’ll never be the same.