It’s in the way he talks: “When you’re eighteen, Bliss, we’re out of here,” and “One day we won’t live in this fucking town with these fucking people.”
At least I’m included. We’re completely in love and completely taken, and I find security in his words.
He’ll never go anywhere without me.
“I’m going.” Thomas drinks the rest of his soda and leaves the dining room.
The table is silent with the resident troublemaker’s exit. Tommy pours another glass of wine. Becka shoves her plate away, and Lucas pushes his chair back to follow his son.
“Who do you think’s driving you over there?” His voice is nothing less than demanding.
“Valarie,” Trouble answers. His voice carries from the living room.
“You’re not leaving this house with that girl.” The power and finality in his tone stops my heart.
I keep my face calm, taking a bite of my salad.
“You can’t tell me who I can be friends with, Dad,” Dusty answers.
As Tommy lifts crystal to her lips, Lucas yells, “Do I look fucking stupid to you, Thomas? Do I look like I was born yesterday?”
There’s a pause and a chuckle. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
“If you get her pregnant—”
My stomach twists.
Becka’s head drops.
Tommy looks unsurprised.
“What?” Thomas asks, lowering his voice.
Lucas lowers his voice, like he realized his first born is only fifteen. “Valarie’s the type of girl who would do anything for a way out.”
After a few seconds of nothing, Thomas finally agrees. “I’ll stay home.”
I DON’T rush to the bedroom down the hall after my best friend falls asleep like I normally would. The latest argument with Dusty weighs deeply on all of us tonight. I hear stories and watch TV—I know teenage girls get pregnant, and sometimes on purpose. I’ve learned a lot about the realities of human nature since befriending Rebecka and becoming close with the rest of her family. I’m not as protected from the world as my parents believe I am.
But the thought of Valarie getting pregnant makes me feel sick.
Despite the things I hear, dodging the truth is easy when it’s avoidable. But in a few weeks, Rebecka and I will be in high school. It’s one thing to pretend in front of our family, but it’ll be a whole new danger to do it there, especially with thoughts like this running through my head.
Twenty minutes after midnight, I leave the warmth of Becka’s queen and tiptoe down the cool, quiet hallway. There’s not a source of light in the entire house. Luke and Tommy went to bed before us. They’re in their room, but the usual pale glow from their TV is absent under their door. And Thomas’.
He isn’t here.
I carefully close the door behind me and face his vacant room. Shutting the open window, I breathe warm air into my hands as I turn toward his bed. Nothing is out of place or missing. The blankets on his side of the bed are overturned, and the shape of his head is still imprinted on his pillow. His parents don’t know he’s gone. He must have left after they went into their room.
At home in what is his, I crawl under his sheets and bury my face in his scent, chasing away thoughts of Valarie.
And I wake with Thomas between my legs.
“You’re here,” he whispers against my skin, kissing my neck. His voice is heavy, dripping desperation.
I naturally circle my arms around him, smiling as he moves his hands over me stroking my arms, gripping my sides, squeezing my thighs. His nose brushes along my collarbone, and his lips sweep across my chest.
“You feel so good, Bliss,” he whispers incoherently, grazing his teeth across the top of my shoulder.
“Thomas, what are you doing?” I ask sleep-silly.
Leaving me empty and nearly out of my mind, he gets out of the bed and takes off his shoes and kicks them across the room before unzipping his sweater. His eyes wander from my face, to my legs, to my stomach, to my toes while his sweater falls to the carpet.
His eyes are a different kind of restless.
Grabbing the half-full water bottle from his night stand, he takes off the top and drops it to the floor. He drinks the water in one gulp before tossing the empty plastic across the room. Before climbing back into bed, he removes his shirt.
“I love you,” he whispers.
His palms are on my stomach, pushing my shirt up as his hands feel over my bra. His words burn. His touch excites. My cheeks glow. My fingers tremble-move. My toes curl into bed sheets. My knees shimmy and wobble, and my voice is stuck, trapped in my throat.
The painful ache is back, killing me softly.
“Tell me you love me, Leigh,” he says, kissing down my arm.
My voice is small and made of our secret. “I love you.”
Thomas’ chest is abnormally warm, and as I slide my hand from there, down his side, and rub my palm across his lower back, he burns. His eyes close under creased brows, and his lips are swollen red. He whispers words I can’t make out—words about love and beauty and purpose, that give me goose bumps and chills. Closing my eyes, I focus solely on the way his muscles stretch and flex and contract beneath my touch.
Love is strong.
Thomas grips the bed sheets beside my head. He groans into my neck, carefully nibbling on sensitive skin. “I’m fucked, princess. You have me so fucked-up.”
“Your heart is beating fast,” I say, because it is. I can feel his heart-pulse in my fingertips, swift, smooth—too fast.
He kisses inside my knee and on top of my foot. He rubs his cheek the along the inside length of my leg, and when he nears my center, we both shift and breathe harder.
Fading into nothing, weightless and exposed, I sink into gray cotton and die by his touch.
“Never, never, never,” he whispers. “My girl—my princess girl,” he says, trickling his fingers down my rib bones. “Baby, baby, baby.”
My legs are open wide. He’s over me. Hovering.
“Thomas,” I whisper, overcome and delirious.
In one swift move, Thomas’ entire body shifts. His lips are on my lips—warm, full, hard. And his center is pushed against my center—hot, brimful, deep.
I cry out against his lips. My back arches. My fingertips dig into the mattress. The ache intensifies, engulfing my entire body in its tingle and burn.
Love is unending.
With only our clothes between us, Thomas thrusts against me a second time.
My hands grip onto his sides.
I cry out.
When his tongue touches my bottom lip, I’m gone—all other sensation completely numb except for the taste and feel of his tongue in my mouth, sweet-everything and permanently bound.
My knees fall painfully open to fit him—to get him more near.
Thomas kisses me over. And over. And over.
He kisses me like Lucas kisses Tommy.
He kisses me all night.
He kisses me until the alarm goes off.
Then he kisses me hello before I leave his room.
Because love is never saying goodbye.
I knew they were going to give me this piece of shit; it’s been on the side of the house for the last seven years.
“This is great,” I say, acting surprised anyway.
I’m grateful—I’m not a complete asshole.
A couple of months back I noticed my dad had put new tires on this beast. I asked him what the deal was. He smiled and said he didn’t know what I was talking about. For being a lawyer, he’s an awful liar.
A paint job wouldn’t have killed anyone.
Mom stands back, forcing a smile. She hates this car. It embodies the days before my dad was successful, when our family wasn’t fucking picture perfect, tortured with overwhelming school loans, unplanned children, past due notices, bitchy mother-in-laws, and late nights at the office.
My parents play a good game now, but it wasn’t always ideal. Mom was an eig
hteen-year-old waitress who entertained a higher education by taking an English class or two at the community college while she decided what she really wanted to do with her life. My dad relocated to Oregon from Texas to work on his law degree. They met, dated, moved in together, and got pregnant with me in a little over a year.
The server and the law student got married two weeks before I was born.
One unexpected pregnancy is shitty, but workable. A second one is fucked-up and unmanageable. They won’t admit it, but things went from bad to worse once Rebecka was born. We lived in a one bedroom apartment in Portland with less than nothing to call our own. Mom couldn’t work, so Dad had to. Keeping a roof over our heads and diapers on our asses was a lot of pressure for a couple of twenty-somethings, and in no time at all, my mom became resentful and my dad was bitter. He refused to give up on his future, and she no longer had one that didn’t include bottles and potty training.
All that’s left of that imperfection is this piece of shit Audi.
And everlasting emotional damage.
“I hope you weren’t expecting something else. This is your first car, Dusty. It’s supposed to be fucked-up.” Dad smiles, handing over the keys. I snatch them from his hand and unlock the creaky door.
At the edge of the driveway, Leigh stands with her hands behind her back. I wink so she knows I see her and get in the car.
Becka taps on the passenger side window. “Let me in.”
I reach over and unlock the door before adjusting the review mirror. “This is good, Dad.”
“Will you drive me and Bliss to school?” my sister asks, looking into the back at sun-damaged leather seats.
I don’t know if she’s thinking what I’m thinking, but we used to sit in the back of this car while our parents fought, before the leather was cracked. I wonder if she remembers how hard the door slammed when Mom got out on the side of the road after she accused our dad of having an affair.
Does she remember the screeching tires as Mom pulled out of the driveway later that night after she found out her fears were true? Or how cold the car was when we were woken up at three in the morning to go home from some hotel when our dad promised it wouldn’t happen again?
I do.
I remember it all.
My mom tells everyone I’m called Dusty because I overheard my dad cussing and repeated what he said—not true. I heard her. I was four, sitting on the couch watching Saturday morning cartoons. Mom was holding Rebecka on her hip, and Dad had just gotten home from school.
Their actual argument is fuzzy, but I remember my mom’s livid face. Her hair was messy and she had her hand on her lower back like it hurt. My dad sat at the kitchen table with his face in his hands.
He said, “I’m trying, Tommy.”
And she said, “You’re a fucking asshole.”
Are kids supposed to remember shit like that?
“I’ll drive you guys,” I say, shaking the gear shift. I look out the windshield toward Leigh and my mom, whose grimace has been replaced with a smile so large it battles the sun for brightness.
My girl has that effect on us.
She’s the friend my sister needs, the daughter my mom wants, a child my dad doesn’t feel guilty about, and the reason my heart beats. Leighlee Bliss is the pièce de résistance. She’s our saving grace. She’s my pulse and my nervousness and my … everything.
“You’re not driving anyone anywhere until you get a license,” Dad says quietly. “The last thing I need is for you to get caught and we wind up in front of Judge McCloy.”
“Dad.” Becka’s eyes open wide. “She’ll hear you.”
Dad reaches over me and starts the car. “No, she won’t,” he says, checking the mileage. “I’m keeping track, Thomas.”
“Whatever,” I mumble.
“Watch it, kid. Just because you’re sixteen doesn’t mean I won’t smack the shit out of you.”
“I DON’T want you to go,” Leigh whispers, forking her piece of cake. The red icing stains her lips and teeth light pink.
“I know.”
“Then don’t,” she says.
I smile and tug on her earlobe easily. “I’ll be back.”
Strawberry blonde sets her plate on the nightstand and falls back onto the pillows with her arms crossed over her chest. She’s pouting because I’m leaving her alone tonight. Petey’s mom is working late. He’s throwing me a party. I can’t miss it.
It’s my birthday.
“I’m going back to bed with your sister,” she says as I walk over to my closet.
I close my eyes, grasping for patience. I went through this same thing with my parents two hours ago. I did the birthday thing with them. I ate the cake and smiled at the car. I did everything right, and the moment I asked if I could go to Pete’s, I was shot down.
“Have the party here,” they said.
They’re cool with the drinking and smoking, as long as it’s with them. But I don’t need my mom and dad around like they’re my friends. I want to hang with my boys and come back to my girl.
They’re forcing me to go behind their back.
I pull a black and red flannel from the hanger and slide it over my white tee, buttoning it up and not saying a word until I’m placing a black flat-billed hat on my head. “Don’t do this.”
“Why don’t you want to stay here?” she asks, so childlike my guilty conscious pangs.
I search around my room for the car keys. “And do what, Leigh?”
She shrugs.
“I’ll miss you,” I say, twirling located keys around my finger.
I’m not supposed to fall in love with Bliss. My idea of love is distorted. The only example I have is my parents’ relationship, and they spent the first ten years of my life cheating, yelling, and crying. They used my sister and me as leverage in their battles, and their supposed love as a weapon to one-up each other.
It’s different now, though. Resentful and Bitter are passionate and considerate of one another. It’s them against the entire world, and I want that with Bliss someday, I guess. But I can’t unlearn what I know. It’s been hard for me to forget how they were in the beginning. Leighlee is protected from feeling like that, but I’m not.
But we’re attached in ways I can’t comprehend. While everyone else expects me to fuck up or waits for me to help them out, she just loves me. And I’m reckless enough to let her.
She’s my softer side, and I’m her motherfucking monster.
“Bliss, come on.” I drape the blankets over her legs, tucking her in so she’ll stay, but she kicks them completely off the bed.
“You’re acting like a kid,” I say, rubbing the palms of my hands over my face to keep from getting upset.
Too late.
“But that shouldn’t surprise me, right, princess?”
Leigh sits up, dangling her legs over the side of the bed. “Don’t be mean to me.”
“I’m not. You’re a baby. Tell me I’m wrong.” I light a cigarette and lean against my computer desk.
She has a fistful of bed sheets, and her cheeks are starting to burn. I’m making her sore. She hates it when I call her out on her age. That’s why I do it.
“Say it, Bliss. What’s on your mind, little girl?”
“Shut up, Thomas,” she whispers.
“Why? Do you want me to stay home and color with you, sweet girl? Maybe we can braid each other’s hair and tell fucking secrets.” I flick the cigarette butt out the window. “That’s what my sister’s for, Leigh. Not me.”
Love is mean.
I’M NOT out of the driveway before my phone rings.
“I’m on my way, Pete,” I answer.
“Your parents let you out of the house?” I can hear voices and laughter behind rhythm and flow.
At the end of the driveway, I flip on my headlights and turn onto the main road. “I waited until they went to bed.”
He laughs. “Whatever, bro. Get here. Sluts are on their way.”
“See you in a few.”
With my left wrist over the steering wheel, I hold my cell phone in my right hand after hanging up. This birthday has been quiet compared to the last couple. For breakfast, the girls made me pancakes that tasted like cardboard. I watched my sister skate for a while with Leighlee at my side. My parents gave me the car with a full tank of gas. I kissed L when no one was around, and blew out sixteen candles after making a wish.
Watching the road, I dial Leighlee’s number, but she doesn’t answer.
“You can’t be mad at me on my birthday. It’s a rule,” I say to her voicemail.
I park behind Valarie’s car on Pete’s oil-stained driveway.
My best friend lives on the wrong side of town, and like all of the other homes on his block, his house is run-down. The fence around the yard is broken and the grass is dead. The inside isn’t better. It smells like Aqua Net and roach spray. The furniture is used and mismatched. The walls have holes and the carpet is dirty.
Right before I walk into the house, my phone beeps with a message from Bliss: It’s after one. It’s not your birthday anymore.
Petey opens the front door and moves aside so I can walk in. “How long have you been standing out here?”
Behind him is a house full of people, who, with the exception of Ben and Pete, don’t care about me. They’re here to get drunk, lit, fucked … They’re not here to celebrate my birth. I did that earlier, when and where it mattered, where my heart is.
I slip my phone into my back pocket.
“Casper’s in the kitchen,” Pete says in my ear before hugging me, wishing me a happy birthday.
“It’s after one, Petey. It’s not my birthday anymore,” I say, taking his bottle of Jack and tossing a swig back.
It hurts.
Love fucking hurts.
“Whatever. I got you something, come on.” I follow Petey through his small living room, saying hey to whoever.
Ben’s smoking a bowl, sitting on Petey’s mom’s broken kitchen table. He stands up with a lungful of smoke, hugs me, and chokes out, “Happy birthday.”
After a while, Leigh’s still on my mind and my phone’s burning a hole in my pocket. The commotion all around does nothing to make any of it go away, so I take the blunt from Ben and drinks from Petey.
Innocents Page 15
