Waiting for Wyatt (Red Dirt #1)

by S. D. Hendrickson

  “When did you become such a fucking tool?”

  I punched him. He fell over backward before my fist even registered the pain. I shook my hand out a bit. Trevor spit blood on the ground. “Last damn party I ever throw you. College did nothing but make you into an ungrateful prick.”

  My sister’s stupid friend Layla came over to his side, dabbing at his busted lip. Her sweater slid up a little around her waist, showing off a silver belly button ring. That lazy grin reappeared on his lips. I stared down at Trevor, shaking my head.

  “She’s also sixteen. So keep your dick in your pants.”

  “Go to hell, Carter.”

  Grabbing Willa under the arm, her cup spilled down the front of my sweatshirt. I took it from her hand, throwing the blue Solo cup down on the ground with the rest of the trash.

  “Come on.” I dragged my sister through the backyard. We stumbled down the grass path and into the front around a pile of beer cans. I walked too fast for Willa to keep up, but I didn’t want to risk Trevor following us.

  “I didn’t mean for you to get in a fight,” she mumbled as she clung to my arm.

  “It’s fine.” I hated the fact that I’d punched him. But he’d eventually get over it. We didn’t store up all that resentment shit like girls.

  “I thought it would be okay to come to the party since you were here.”

  “No. It’s not okay to be at Trevor’s. Ever.” I growled the words. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “But he’s your friend.”

  “Yes, but Trevor and Marcus are not your friends. And never will be.”

  She tripped, but I caught Willa before she fell completely in the grass. “Sorry. My foot got caught in some wire.”

  “It’s fine. Just keep walking so we don’t get that wet.”

  I stopped at her Tahoe, which was parked between a yellow Cavalier and a beat-up white truck. The smell of that red punch had followed us all the way back to her car. I didn’t know what the hell Trevor had poured down my sister, but it stunk like toxic sludge.

  “The um . . . the keys are in here somewhere.” Her lips puckered up as she dug around in the large brown purse.

  “No. Give them to me.”

  “What about your motorcycle?” Willa handed over the ring with a little cross dangling next to the ignition key.

  “I’ll come back for my bike tomorrow.”

  I opened the passenger’s door, helping my sister into the seat. Going around to the driver’s side, I climbed behind the wheel of my old SUV that my parents had given to Willa. The fifteen-year-old motor fired up a little clunky. I took a deep breath, gripping the steering wheel.

  “Promise me something. You will never come here again.”

  “Okay.” Her eyes stayed fixated on the darkness outside. “I only came because of you. I know I shouldn’t be over at Trevor’s. But when you got home, I thought you would be excited to see us. I wanted to watch Christmas Vacation like we used to. I thought it would be fun. But you didn’t even stay.”

  Hearing the pain in her soft voice, I felt like a complete asshole. My jaw gritted tight as I watched a tear fall down her cheek.

  “Maybe,” I muttered. “Maybe we can watch Christmas Vacation when we get back to the house.”

  “Nah. It doesn’t matter now.” She wiped another tear from her face. I swallowed hard, seeing Willa lean against the window glass. I had crushed her tonight, just like I’d done a hundred other times through the years. I’d never done much when it came to her. She’d always asked me to come to her dance recitals and piano concerts and all that shit, but I’d never given her the time of day.

  Someone beat on the driver’s side glass. I rolled down the window, seeing Marcus outside. “Can you um . . . shit. I’m drunk. Like really drunk. Can you give me a ride home?”

  “Sure.”

  Marcus climbed in the back door. He scooted to the middle, draping an arm over each seat. “Hey, Willow Tree. I didn’t know you came with Wyatt?”

  “She didn’t,” I snapped.

  “What’s wrong?” His words slurred into one.

  “Nothing,” I muttered.

  I went forward, tapping the yellow car slightly on the bumper. Throwing the Tahoe into reverse, I floored the gas pedal. I needed to get the hell out of here.

  I was the black sheep of the family, the one who wreaked havoc and butted heads with my dad. My sister was the good one. She had no business being anywhere near this place. I picked up speed, trying to get Willa away as fast as possible before this house of hell seeped into her innocent skin.

  As we cleared the railroad tracks, the vehicle lifted slightly off the ground. I flicked the windshield wipers on to clear the drizzle. My phone buzzed from inside my pocket. Pulling it out, I saw Trevor on the screen.

  “Sorry, man. I would never touch your sister. Can I still come for stuffing tomorrow?”

  Oh, hell. If Trevor didn’t come over, he would be alone on Christmas Day. Tossing the phone down in the cup holder, I would wait and text him back when I got home. I let out a deep breath, feeling the irony of the whole situation. The guy still made you feel sorry for him, even after he’d caused you to punch him in the face.

  “How long you staying in town this time?” Marcus said next to my ear as he leaned on the back of the driver’s seat.

  “New Year’s Day. Coach wants us back early.”

  “Shit. You’re always running off. But you always loved football more than me. I only played because of you. Remember? You made me play varsity. I was going to quit.”

  “I couldn’t play without my QB. I hate it now. Wish you would’ve come with me.”

  “Too damn far away, Carter. Zoey would leave my ass. I’d never come back like you.”

  “Asshole.” Glancing over in the passenger’s seat, I saw a tear fall down my sister’s cheek. I knew the comment about me leaving had crushed her all over again. I should come back more. I should be here for Willa.

  “I’m sorry,” I muttered, but the apology came a second too late. I said the words as her face shattered into a million pieces.

  I drifted away, feeling the world spin in circles, around and around as my body slammed hard against the door and the seat belt cut into my neck. Grinding metal echoed with screams as the SUV rolled sideways, flipping upside down before landing right side up and smashing into the electric pole. She screamed and screamed until she didn’t scream anymore.

  I struggled to catch my breath. I struggled to see as blood ran down into my eyes. Wiping my face with my right hand, my left arm no longer felt connected to my body. The pain in my chest hurt like knives, stabbing over and over with each breath.

  Glass covered everything in the front seat. The windshield was completely gone. Looking over in the passenger’s seat, Willa’s head rested against the shattered door. Blood soaked her pink sweater as it ran from her head.

  “Willa. Wake up.” It took everything in me to reach over to where her head hung lifeless from the shoulder strap. I shook her arm, but my sister didn’t budge.

  “Come on, Willa.” The desperation in my voice came out like a tiny screech. Blood poured out of her nose, soaking everything in her lap. Panic overtook my thoughts. Everything got blurry as I shook her arm in a frantic attempt to get her to answer me. “Willa!”

  I tried to open my door, but my left hand refused to clasp the handle. I think my shoulder was pulled out of socket. Reaching over with my right hand, I pushed and pushed against the warped metal.

  “Hold on, buddy.”

  I heard a voice somewhere outside the car. Looking through the mangled door, I saw a man talking, but I didn’t recognize him.

  “It’s okay. I’m gonna get you out.”

  He pulled and pulled until the door moved on the hinges. I tried to climb out, but nothing seemed to work correctly. Taking a step, I fell to the street. Blood soaked the front of my jeans. I tried again, feeling a ripping pain through the bone. My leg was broken and bleeding through the skin. I k
ept on trying to walk despite the agony.

  “Let me help you.” The older man with brown hair had a busted-up lip. Dark, bloody spots covered his green sweater. I held onto the stranger as he dragged me around to the back side of the SUV. Sparks shot out of the electric pole as it rested on top of the old post office. Everything around us smelled like burning rubber.

  We reached the passenger’s side door. Willa seemed worse than when I’d seen her inside the car.

  “Have to um. Have to get my um sister out.” I think I spoke the words, but I wasn’t sure if they actually left my lips. My vision got cloudy again, and I leaned against the busted-up metal.

  “Okay. Let me see what I can do.”

  I struggled to stay conscious as my body slid down the side of the car and onto the ground. Sparks shot out of the pole again as the roof caved in on the post office. Lights flashed each time I blinked. I swallowed, tasting blood in my mouth. And then I saw flames.

  “How did this happen?” I muttered. None of it made sense. I couldn’t remember what had happened or how the SUV had become a crumbled pile of metal.

  The stranger stopped fiddling with the door and looked down at me. “You were swerving all over the road.”

  “Wh-what?” I mumbled to myself, trying to remember the last few moments in the car.

  “I tried to miss you, but I couldn’t. We hit, and your SUV rolled over into that light pole.”

  “I wasn’t. That’s not—” My mind went blank. Fear burned right through my gut. Why couldn’t I remember what happened? Running a hand across my forehead, tiny shards of glass cut into my skin.

  The man worked to get the door open, but he didn’t seem to be making any progress. Something gnawed at the back of my mind like a scratch I couldn’t touch. Maybe it was the glass in the side of my head. Maybe it was cutting away into my brain cells.

  Then it flashed. Marcus. The faint memory burned in my mind. Marcus was in the backseat. I pulled myself off the ground and to the crunched-up backseat window glass. Peering inside, I tried to focus on the middle row.

  “My friend,” I mumbled.

  “Your friend?” The man asked as he stared at me. His face spread into two and then back to one. A frown appeared on his lips.

  “He’s in there too.”

  The man froze for a moment. “There’s no one else in there.”

  My heart stopped, and I second-guessed myself. I went to Trevor’s. Marcus got in the car. He asked for a ride. He was in there, talking about football and shit. I know he was in there. That was real.

  Stumbling away into the street, I saw a black dually truck with the hood crunched like a beer can. It was completely totaled.

  Smoke billowed out in front of me, filling my lungs and I doubled over coughing. My chest hurt as I gasped for air. Looking up into the sky, I saw the old post office on fire. The building went up like kindling and lighter fluid, spreading to the new bank next door. And the furniture store. Shit! The flames were everywhere.

  Staggering out into the middle of Main Street, I tripped over a broken side mirror. Pieces of bumper and metal covered the wet ground. A pinkish-colored Santa was lying in the middle of the street. Dragging my leg along the pavement beside me, I searched until I found his crumpled-up body in the debris.

  Marcus. The pain grew to a hot fire under my skin, seeing his body twisted at an odd angle.

  “Marcus?” I whispered. He was just lying there in a pool of his own blood. I wanted to help him, but I didn’t know what to do. Shit. He looked dead. So very dead. What have I done? My gut clenched like someone punched me.

  My heart gripped in my chest as my thoughts raced widely and I gasped for air. The night spiraled around as I remembered going to Trevor’s house. I saw my sister. I made her leave. Marcus got in the car. We crashed. I crashed. I killed my oldest friend. I killed my sister. They were dead. I killed them.

  My mom. Her face came to me under the misty rain. What would I tell my mom? Willa was dead. I was supposed to take care of her, but I’d forced her in the car. She trusted me. Willa had gotten in the car because she’d trusted me.

  Everything spun in circles. I fell down beside Marcus in the middle of the street. I couldn’t feel my leg anymore. Sirens echoed in the distance. Maybe I was dead. Maybe I should be. Maybe the fire truck would come through the street and plow me down, kill me like I’d destroyed them.

  The sirens howled in the night, getting louder and louder. I remembered the time we dressed up like Ghostbusters for Halloween. Me, Trevor, and Marcus. My mom had made the costumes. She’d even created a little white ghost one for Willa. We’d taken her through the neighborhood as she carried a tiny flashing red light in case she had gotten lost from us. It had made a little sound like a siren if you pushed the top.

  Tears rolled down my cheeks. Sucking in a deep breath, I smelled the stench of alcohol on my clothes. I knew why I couldn’t remember. The whole evening was a haze for a reason. It was my fault. I should rot in hell. I killed them.

  Looking out into the darkness, the bank clock glowed above my head with the time. 12:12 a.m. My eyes slipped out of focus and the numbers faded away as I lost consciousness. It was officially Christmas.

  AS I TOLD MY STORY, the curtains blocked the sun from the room and the vivid images of that night haunted the shadows. Emma remained on her side of the couch, and I stayed on mine. I was afraid. I was afraid she would reach out and grab my hand. I didn’t want her comfort. I didn’t want her damn sympathy.

  But Emma did none of those things. She stayed in a ridged lump just two feet away. This was the moment I’d dreaded since the day she’d appeared outside my door. My hands got shaky. I clenched the right one over the left. My heart beat fast in my chest. It pounded away with the strength of a jackhammer. I wished for a cigarette. I wished for the bitter taste of nicotine to calm down the rush of feelings.

  “So um.” Her voice cracked a little. “What happened after . . . um . . . after—”

  “After I destroyed everyone’s lives? After I forced my little sister to get in the car with me?” I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to figure out a way to explain all of this shit. Things would be easier if Emma were some coldhearted bitch. Someone without feelings. Someone who wouldn’t be crushed by the truth. “I woke up in the hospital with my leg in a cast. My dad was staying with me. Officially and unofficially, I guess. My mom needed to be with Willa.”

  I swallowed hard on the bitter words, wishing for some intervention to keep this conversation from happening. But I continued, feeling every word cut on my tongue. “She had um . . . something wrong with her brain. Something I caused in the accident. And it never went away.”

  Hearing the truth out loud made the ugly parts seem even darker. I had inflicted a very cruel and horrible curse on my sister.

  “The doctors here sent Willa to some hospital in Baltimore, but they couldn’t help. She has some permanent traumatic brain injury that causes seizures. They sent her home with a box of medicine. And things just got worse. Willa couldn’t drive, and then the school couldn’t deal with the episodes. They wouldn’t take her back. So she finished out the last two years at home. Without any friends. Or a normal life.”

  I lost my train of thought as I pictured Willa at her dance recital. At least, the only one I could remember. The only one I’d ever bothered attending. In my distant memory, I saw my sister moving across the stage in some gray shiny dress and her feet bound in those pink shoes. She couldn’t dance anymore either.

  “I-I’m sorry,” Emma muttered.

  “I don’t want your damn pity. I’m the one walking around here just fine.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Her voice spoke as barely a whisper. “What, um. What about your friend?”

  I swallowed hard. “The guy driving the pickup was named Cam Reynolds. He was on his way back from the twenty-four-hour pharmacy. His kid had gotten sick on Christmas Eve. He’d been in Afghanistan. I didn’t know that at first. Cam had only been back a fe
w months. He knew all this triage shit.”

  I clenched my fists, feeling the tremors shoot up my arms. Every time I thought about Cam, my mind flashed to the images burned inside my head, watching him do CPR on Marcus as I lay next to him on the cold street. My thoughts drifted off in the darkness, feeling the familiar chill down my spine. I smelled the burning rubber. It coated my nose as I sucked in a deep breath.

  “Wyatt,” she whispered, pulling me back to the present. “Did Marcus live?”

  I swallowed the bile back down, trying to keep my voice steady. “Yes.”

  I heard the breath release from her lungs.

  Reaching over, I flipped on the lamp. I couldn’t hide in the darkness anymore. I needed to see myself in her eyes. “But he’s paralyzed from the middle of his back down. He’s in a wheelchair. He can’t do anything. Can’t drive. Can’t run. Can’t really use his arms. He was in the ICU for six months. And I did it to him. I destroyed a guy who was the closest thing I had to a brother. I fucked him up so bad that . . .”

  I couldn’t breathe. They said Cam had saved him. If I had crashed with someone else, my best friend would’ve died right there in the middle of the street. The images of Marcus strangled my throat. His life was total shit. Every time I pictured him trapped in that chair, it triggered a panic attack. I took a slow breath through my nose, struggling to calm down the pressure in my tight chest.

  “But he’s alive,” she whispered. “You didn’t kill anyone.”

  “There’s different ways to kill a person, Emma. Psychotic killers don’t just walk up and shoot someone. They make it the worst possible scenario. They drag it out so the person feels every damn thing until the end.”

  I let the words sink in as her beautiful tan skin turned white. I let those vile words hit that innocent heart before I finished her off.

  “You don’t think Marcus wishes he just died that night? I put him in a front-row seat, watching his body slowly disappear while he’s trapped inside. And what about my sister? I screwed up her head. And right now, she’s like a bomb driving down the road. She could be killing an entire family as we speak. No, Emma. What I did was worse than death. I’ve made them both live every day in their own personal hell.”