“Call your mom at the bar and tell her you’re at home, in bed, and that you’re sorry for making her worry.”
Big brothers were a pain. “Fine.”
“What do you want?” he relented.
“Say yes first.”
“Hill.”
“Can you meet me at the grocery store? The one by that sandwich shop.”
“When?” he asked, and I knew I had him.
After I’d hung up, I argued with myself for a long time before I broke my promise. I didn’t know what to say to her, and until I did, I couldn’t risk calling Mom. She’d want me home. Dylan wasn’t at home. Fear waited for me at home. My nightmares were hungry, starving, blood-thirsty wolves waiting to eat me alive. The truth existed and the past did too; it was the time in-between both I’d rather not face.
When I got to the sub shop, I pulled up beside Bach’s truck. He looked down from his perch. It hit me then how off he looked. I left my car with my purse and risked crawling inside his cab.
Memories of the last time I was inside came back to me in blurry pictures. Huddled in the back, my limbs weighed down, my terror too real for words. I pushed the memory aside and faced him.
“I’m fine,” I assured him. His expression didn’t waver. “I meant I’m not hurt. I was only at Dylan’s.” White noise. “That wasn’t fair!” I exploded when he continued to look at me like I was the bad guy. I refused to let him make me one. “Do you have any idea how messed up all that stuff was for me to hear? Drugs? I don’t have anything to do with drugs? Cheating, affairs? That’s not my life. I didn’t know it was hers either. What was I supposed to do? Smile and listen the way I’ve been doing?”
“In all honesty? That’s like a quarter of my life. It’s not that shocking.”
“That’s sad.”
“It is. No denying it. Patty protected you from that, from our dad. And she protected me,” he revealed, sitting on his shaking hand.
I grabbed his arm and pulled his hand free, threading my fingers through his. “What did she protect you from?” What was chasing him?
He looked down at our hands and then into my eyes. The look in his broke my heart. The pain was too dark, too forever, to not. “You don’t want to know. Trust me,” he hissed when I attempted to argue. “Just know this. The day dad went to jail was the day you lost his shadow. Patty saved you. Don’t blame her for that.”
There was something inside of me that warned not to push him. “I don’t blame her.”
“Good.” He pulled his hand free and sat back. “Sweets,” he whispered. “I can’t stop seeing you on that bed. It’s torturing me. I can’t sleep. Now I have two nightmares. Two nightmares and one woman who is begging me with everything inside of her not to run.”
My eyes filled with tears. I had no idea how Bach found me. All I remembered was looking to his eyes and fading … “You should go home and be with Harley.”
“No. I want to be here with you. She’s busy with her internship and class anyway. I took off today. I took tomorrow off too. She’s too busy, and I don’t want to be surrounded by her family right now. They’re so perfect, and your heartbroken eyes are in my head, and Aubrey’s so good, and Harley’s looking at me like I’m breaking her heart, and Dylan keeps looking at me like his pain is my fault.”
He was losing it fast. If I didn’t stop him, I had this uneasy feeling he’d do something stupid. “Why don’t you come hang out with me and Dylan?”
“What made you go there?”
Telling Bach how I felt around Dylan felt like it would only add to his dwindling calm. “I just ended up there. I was going to get some subs for us to eat. And …” I looked at his radio, watching the song’s title drift across the LED screen. “I was wondering if you’d buy something for me.”
“What?” By his tone I could tell he already had an idea. And by the sound of it he was pissed.
“It isn’t for me. It’s for Dylan.”
“Spit it out.”
“He wants some whiskey.” I glimpsed his face long enough to detect his rage. “Or I could be kidding? I’m kidding.”
“You’d better be.” But he sighed and unlocked his door. “Let’s go.”
I followed him past the sub shop and into the grocery store. Bach grabbed a basket by the door, and I stuck by his side as he walked down certain aisles. I wondered how he was picking them until he tossed a bottle of rubbing alcohol and antibiotic cream into the basket. He picked things Dylan could cook or eat with ease. Frozen food, bagels, and some fruit. The last aisle we stopped at was the alcohol section. He went past the whiskey and picked up a bottle of scotch instead. Then he soundlessly approached the registers with me in tow.
As he slid his debit card, I felt eyes on me. I looked up to find Justine watching us in line. She was both surprised and horrified, judging by the aghast look on her face. As I stared back, Jona walked over with his arms full of beer and chips. The moment he saw me his mouth opened, and his eyes filled with a look that had me clinging to Bach’s arm. Had Jona found me too?
“What’s wrong?” Bach followed my gaze to his friends. “Oh, balls.”
Chapter Seven
Dylan
What was I doing?
Sitting here waiting for a girl to come back home? It wasn’t even her home. It was mine. I wasn’t her problem. And though I resented it, I was my own problem too. She had her own to deal with, and yet she was out there right now for me. Guilt wormed its way inside of me. That particular emotion was foreign to me. I was my own person, had been my entire life; who did I have to worry about? But Hillary was different. She was too giving for me not to want to give back.
In her absence, I began to regret our deal. One day with her and I’d somehow forgotten my present. Being alone had brought it back full force. That was dangerous. Wanting to forget had been all I wanted for months. I couldn’t put that on her. For one, she was trying to forget her own shit. I couldn’t put my wants onto her. She’d be gone when she felt better, and I’d still be here, rotting in this beach house. One day of her, two weeks, a month—I’d have to slip back into the rot and know there was nothing out there strong enough to free me from it. I supposed on some level I should want to pull myself free, but this rot had been my life since I was a child.
It scared the shit out of me. She was a kid. An eighteen-year-old who had run out of options. The fact that I was her only one proved how little she had. If she had more, she would’ve run in the other direction, not made a deal for me.
But it was so hard not to give her what she wanted. One look into her eyes, and the demons Zane put in her writhed beneath the sea-green color. She went out of her way to do what she could for me. Helping me shower had been brutal. My body stunk up the room, my sweat dripped down my face, and I was impotent. Yet there she was, urging me on, refusing to give up. How could I not give her what she wanted? Even if that want was me?
I should take my own advice and stop this before either of us got attached. Oh, who was I kidding? Before I got attached. Hillary wasn’t attached to anything. I’d lost Harley once. I wasn’t going to put myself through that again. I’d prefer to roll around in my own garbage, rather than spend any time without it. The longer garbage sat, the more it rotted, and once you’d smelled perfection, the funk was too hard to handle.
My resolve settled in my bones. Leave the angel alone. Let her go. Bach knew it, I knew it, and she should too.
I changed the channel and then gave up, opening the recordings as my garbage devoured me. The rotten stench swirled around me, making my breaths toxic, my eyes water, and my wounds throb. The look on Hillary’s face filtered in, making me feel bad for the first time. Her subsequent warning did as well, but the fire in her eyes, as if I were responsible for her safety, was too much for me to handle. She had it wrong. I couldn’t even protect myself. How could I keep her safe?
I hung my head back and listened to a recorded boxing match. The sounds of gloves on flesh and ringing bells filled my house f
or some time until I heard feet on the stairs. My head snapped up. There was more than one pair and I could hear men talking. Deep tones that I knew for a fact Hillary did not possess. Her voice was soft, quiet, brushing over me. When she got angry she even had a slight southern accent courtesy of growing up on the other side of the tracks. Bach and I hung out around each other, and thankfully didn’t pick one up like our parents.
The door opened. She was first. She found my eyes and ducked her head, stepping aside so Bach, Jona, and Justine could come in. Bach met my eyes and nodded once, otherwise ignoring me on his way to the kitchen. Justine looked at me, winked, and then followed him. Jona, however, paused, giving me a look.
“You look like shit, bro. It’s called a razor. And what is that smell? What happened to the fish tank? You remember the fish tank, Bach?” He cracked up, leaving me without a reply.
I glared at Hillary. Her yellow sweatshirt made her messy hair pale and bright. She shrugged as she came over to me. I expected her to fall on my lap again. Instead, she sat on the other end of the couch with a sub bag. “Turkey, salami, or roast beef?”
“I didn’t ask for a party.”
“I also got chicken salad.”
“Hillary. You were supposed to go get food over an hour ago. Not come back with a parade.”
“Don’t you want company?” Justine asked, sitting on the arm of the couch. She wrapped her arm around my shoulder and settled against my side. She batted her lashes at me and gave me a little smile. When I wound my arm around her waist, she winked again. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Justine had been Bach’s girl. I’d had my own group, and she hadn’t been one of them. But my pickings were slim these days, and she did have a killer body. “Wasn’t sure you missed me.”
She laughed. “I didn’t.”
I rolled my eyes and returned them to Hillary. She was frozen, with a sandwich in each hand, staring at us as if she’d been stabbed without me knowing it. Her cheeks filled with pink and her mouth was opened slightly. And on the edge of her eyes, there was something dark, like anger. She met my eyes for a second before averting her gaze. She set the food down and got up, stepping around my feet and leaving. I frowned, watching her through the curtain of Justine’s dark brown hair. A second later the bathroom door slammed.
Before I could think too hard about her behavior, Bach settled on the couch beside me. He set a cup down with ice and what looked like cola. “Scotch,” he mumbled, taking a drink of his water.
I eyed the glass intently. Scotch? Escape? My stomach warmed with desire. But if I took it he won. I was trying to escape him, but I wondered if Bach was the reason I ran. I’d run before Harley; I ran with the bastard beside me, and I’d run after they finally left me with my garbage. Was I running from something else? Flashes of bullets flying past my body came to me, the sounds of my unit screaming into the open air. I flinched, coughing to hide it from Justine.
The glass sat there, cold, wet, tempting me with a chance to fade away. When Bach set his water down his hand shook, and he glanced at my scotch with a look I’m sure mirrored my own. Before he could take it, I scooped it up, taking a long, satisfying drink.
Sweet, spicy fire filled my mouth. I sagged back as Justine rose, moving around my body to settle between Bach and I. Jona sat in my gaming chair with a bag of Doritos and a six-pack. He started searching in the cabinet that housed the games while Justine began rummaging around in the sandwiches. They were both at home here. Bach and I were uncomfortable. Before Harley, we were just like them. Adapting to our surroundings, fitting in where we were allowed and forcing ourselves where we weren’t. Now we were sitting on his couch in my house, and the two people who didn’t live here were more at home.
“Got this game, got it, boring, beat it, got it …” Jona gave up and sat back, plucking a beer from the pack. “Want to get high?” He looked at Bach, wiggling his eyebrows.
Bach looked up from the floor and shook his head. I had to admit he looked like shit. We looked identical, except I was much better looking. I wondered briefly if he and Harley were having problems, and then he looked over my shoulder, and the pain in his eyes deepened, making me think his pain was about something else. Hillary went around the couch and dropped down on her heels, resuming her search for a sub.
“You want to sit on the couch?” Bach asked, and then he glared at Justine. “Move.”
She rolled her eyes but didn’t push him, easily folding her ass on my lap and leaning against my chest. Thankfully she picked my left thigh. Still, I moved my right one over as far as it would go.
Jona’s eyes were lethal as he took us in. Did Jona have a thing for Justine? She wasn’t acting like it. I wound my arm around her waist and winked at him.
“What’s your problem?” Bach asked, tone low.
“Nothing,” Hillary snapped. “I’m perfect.”
“Jus.” Jona’s tone was cold. He patted his own lap. “This is where you belong.”
I couldn’t see her face, but judging by her sharp inhale her reaction spoke for itself. She pushed away and settled on Jona’s lap, who wrapped both arms around her as they had a heated argument. There went my hook up. I chugged my drink, trying and failing to go with the flow.
“Here.” Hillary slammed a sub down on the coffee table in front of me. “Don’t talk. Eat.”
What’s her problem? She sank down in the free space and ripped her own opened, shoving it into her mouth. I set my half-empty drink down and scooped up her choice, peeling back the paper to reveal it was a hot pastrami with cheese. I took a bite and refrained from moaning. My brain and stomach weren’t connected. I had no appetite, but the more I ate, the more my stomach wanted.
“You too,” she goaded, nudging one at Bach.
He hadn’t stopped staring at my drink since he sat down. “I’m not hungry.”
“Me either,” she admitted, dropping her food and leaning against him. He put his arm around her and took his gaze off my drink.
“They’re both boring,” Jona mock whispered.
“Bach especially. He used to be able to party for days,” Justine added. “All he wants to do these days is lick Harley’s ass.”
“Leave him alone,” Hillary snapped. “I don’t even know why you’re here.”
I paused in the middle of eating, mouth agape, shocked by her outburst.
Justine put her hand up. “I’m not fighting with you, kid. All I’m trying to say is—”
“I am not a kid. Just because I don’t flirt with every guy around me, does not make me a kid. I am not a kid!” she screeched, jumping to her feet. She scooped her purse off the table and stomped out of the house, making sure to slam the door so hard the windows rattled.
“Thanks,” Bach grumbled, chasing after her.
I stared at the door in a daze. I wanted to run after her too. She was probably on her knees like she’d been in the bathroom earlier. How could Bach comfort her? He didn’t make her feel safe. He didn’t know what it was like to get so close to fear it changed you. I resented my present so forcefully at that moment the food turned to steel in my stomach.
“Way to go,” Jona said.
“She’s a kid. Am I wrong?”
“You did leave her alone with that son of a bitch.”
“Jona.” Her eyes shifted, truly wounded. “It was an accident. I didn’t know he’d hurt her. I told you.”
He touched his hand to her face. “I know, Jus. I know you didn’t.”
To think I’d watched her ride Bach in his bedroom. I hadn’t been searching. I had my own hookups to worry about. It was more of a passing in the hall on the way to the bathroom kind of thing. What unnerved me was how she looked at Jona. How their eyes locked and something passed between them. Because it meant Bach wasn’t the only one moving on. Even Justine and Jona were leaving their garbage behind.
“Get out.” They both looked over. “Can you leave the beer?”
Jona thought about it and then dug around in his pocke
t, producing a small baggie with white powder. He dropped it on my lap and then gave me a look, indicating there was more where that came from. When they were gone, I grabbed the baggie and examined it.
There was a time when the sight of it would light me on fire. It meant feeling nothing, being no one, and loving every second of that in-between. But for some reason—or maybe it made perfect sense—when I opened the plastic Aubrey’s face flashed in my mind. Her chubby cheeks, her infectious laugh, and the way she looked at me like I mattered. My chest opened up and I tossed the baggie on the coffee table, falling into the waste of my life.
I thought deep down inside all I really wanted was to matter. I hadn’t mattered to my mother and father. I was just a mistake they dealt with, usually with fists and screams. I didn’t matter to myself; I rarely enjoyed my own company. I no longer mattered to Harley; all she wanted was my ex-best friend. But I mattered to Aubrey. No matter how long we were apart, her eyes lit when she saw me, as if our souls were linked. She was my daughter, and getting high would only push her further and further away.
Her face interrupted the gray area. Night and day came the way it always does, a process that repeated itself until I managed to effectively fall inside of the protection of my brain. If I wasn’t thinking about Aubrey, I was thinking about the bullet that shattered my femur. The blood, screams, and the feeling I’d never get up again. I forced myself to walk around the beach house, but the pain was too much, and the Tylenol bottle was too high to reach. I ate the subs Hillary brought, drank the scotch Bach brought, and wondered why thinking about Hillary’s angel eyes was the only thing that helped me get up off the floor.
Why didn’t she come back? We made a deal.
Damage Me (Crystal Gulf Book 2) Page 15
