Skin (44 Chapters #1)

by B. B. Easton

  Gesturing toward the heap of fur and protruding ribs on the deck next to him, Knight shouted, “Look at him! Fucking look at him! Does he look okay to you?!”

  He didn’t. Honestly, Shep looked like he was on death’s door. I’d never noticed before.

  Turning away from me, Knight balled his hands into fists and pressed his bloody knuckles to either side of his head. “You can’t just leave somebody alone all day every day and expect them to be okay! It’s not fucking okay!”

  We weren’t talking about Shep anymore. We weren’t talking about animals at all.

  Without thinking I launched myself at Knight and wrapped my arms around his waist as tightly as I could. His heart was beating wildly against my cheek. His chest was hot and damp with sweat, but still smelled like cinnamon. “I’m sorry,” I whispered into it.

  Knight raised his arms, as if he didn’t know what to do with them. As if my behavior confused him.

  As if he’d never been given a hug before.

  His reaction made my heart constrict.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered again, a black tear careening down the slick planes of Knight’s chest. I didn’t need to know what all he’d been through—I knew enough. I knew he’d been neglected, and I knew that what I’d been doing to him was no better. I’d seen his fangs and claws, and I’d left him alone too.

  Knight didn’t respond, but after a minute he did at least lower his arms. He wrapped them around me, loosely at first. His body stayed rigid for a while, but I could feel his heart rate decreasing beneath my cheek—beneath the black mascara stain on his chest. Eventually the arms around my shoulders squeezed me back, finally brave enough to accept my comfort, and within another few minutes Knight’s big hard body relaxed into mine.

  He rested his cheek on the top of my head and held me as if I were keeping him afloat. I didn’t want it to, but it felt amazing. I’d never been held like that before. By anyone. Like I was necessary for their survival.

  After a few minutes Knight asked, “Is he going to be okay?”

  Who? Oh…Lance.

  “Yeah,” I said. “He’s fine. Everything is going to be fine.”

  Lies. All lies.

  The next day Lance and Knight were missing from the church parking lot again. Juliet didn’t come either because she said it was “bad for the baby.” The baby. Maybe she was going to keep it after all.

  With no one to talk to, I sat on the railroad ties that lined the parking lot and played with the gravel. I hadn’t seen Lance or Knight before first period either, and I was starting to worry. Okay, I was totally worried. Was Lance okay? Was he in the hospital? Did his parents take one look at him and call the cops? Was Knight in jail?

  I stamped my cigarette out and buried it under the little mountain of gravel I had amassed. As I walked back across the parking lot, one of my questions was answered. I saw Lance come flying around the side of the building like a bat out of hell. He was headed in the same direction I’d seen him come from the day before, and he was running so fast it was like he was being chased.

  Lance didn’t run from shit, not even Ronald McKnight, and his pulverized face was proof. The only things I could think of that would have him hauling ass like that were a grizzly bear, a madman with a gun, or maybe the cops.

  “Lance!” I shouted, jogging after him. “Lance! Wait up!”

  He didn’t wait up though. Lance sprinted across the parking lot, bobbing and weaving through the sea of cars, and disappeared into the woods. When I got to the edge of the parking lot, I realized that he’d gone down a trail I didn’t even know was there. I followed it and found Lance, waiting for me on the other side, in someone’s backyard. We were in a neighborhood.

  Breathing hard, I leaned over with my hands on my knees, and said, “What’s (gasp) wrong? Where (gasp) are you going?”

  Lance was pacing back and forth with his hood pulled over his head. I couldn’t see the full extent of the damage Knight had done, but I could tell that his right eye was still definitely swollen shut.

  “Somebody fucking narced on me!”

  “What?”

  Lance stopped pacing and faced me. “The assistant principal pulled me out of first period to tell me that they’d gotten an anonymous tip that I was carrying. I told her she couldn’t search me without a warrant, so the bitch left to call the school resource officer. I fucking bailed as soon as she was gone!”

  “Shit. Lance, what are you gonna do?”

  “I know I’m not just gonna sit there and wait to get fucking arrested!” Lance turned and stomped through the yard we were standing in toward the house.

  “Who lives here?” I asked as he walked away, confused as shit.

  “I fucking live here!” he yelled into the cool mid-morning air.

  “Wait. What?”

  I forced myself to follow him into the modest ranch house, but my mind was racing.

  Lance lives here? Here. Two hundred yards from school. All those times I was scrounging for a place to hang out after school and...and he never said anything. Why? Why didn’t he ever invite me over? Why didn’t he mention where he lived when we were smoking in the church parking lot? It’s right fucking here!

  Because he didn’t want you to know, a tiny sinister voice in the back of my mind answered back. Because he doesn’t want you.

  When my inner dialogue died down I realized that I was standing in Lance’s bedroom. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling with band posters, flags, and stolen street signs. It was every bit as layered and decorated as he was, but unlike him, his room was fucking tiny. Lance could barely move around the room. I assumed he just had to leave his larger-than-life personality at the door.

  I watched from the threshold as Lance dumped out the contents of his backpack and began shoving clothes into it. He then threw open his closet, grabbed a duffle bag, tossed it onto his unmade twin bed, and began filling that too. He wasn’t just packing for the weekend—he was packing for good.

  “Lance,” I pried. “Where are you going?”

  He didn’t even look at me. Just kept shoving shit into bags.

  “Lance?”

  With a huff, he stopped and glared at me with his one good eye, obviously annoyed with my presence. “I’m not just gonna stay here and go to jail! I’ll fucking stay at Colton’s dad’s place in Vegas—I don’t know!”

  “How are you going to get—”

  “I’ll take a fucking cab to the Greyhound station! What the fuck do you care? Your little Nazi boyfriend is probably the one who narced on me in the first place!”

  I shouted back, “He is not my fucking boyfriend!” while a million other sentiments became lodged in my throat.

  You were supposed to be my fucking boyfriend!

  You were supposed to marry me and give me tall, hazel-eyed babies!

  I love you!

  Don’t leave me!

  Take me with you!

  Why don’t you love me back?

  Lance pushed past me and ducked into the hall bathroom where he cleared the counter into his duffle bag with one long-armed swoop. I just stood there and watched, one foot in his bedroom and one foot in the hallway, as my reason for living prepared to walk out of my life.

  Next Lance hit up his parents’ room, probably hunting for whatever cash they had on hand. The kitchen was his last stop. Lance used the cordless phone on the counter to call for a taxi while he walked around filling a grocery bag with all the vegan-friendly food he could find.

  When Lance was done packing he headed for the front door, so I followed.

  He sat in a wicker rocking chair on the front porch, so I did too.

  He smoked, so I smoked.

  And when the cab pulled up in his driveway, he left without a word.

  So I cried until I threw up.

  By the time I dragged myself back to school I had missed second period and lunch. I sat down in third period, balled myself up, and replayed every agonizing second of my last moments with Lance Hi
ghtower. I wished I had taken something from his room. A memento, something to remember him by.

  Because I knew he was never coming back.

  Because he hated me.

  And he never even wanted me to begin with.

  Someone delivered a note to my third period teacher while he was lecturing us on buying low and selling high, which was a joke because none of us was ever going to have enough money to invest that shit in anything. He glanced at it, then handed it to me. It said that I had detention due to my unexcused absence from second period.

  Awesome.

  I willed myself not to cry through fourth period, then schlepped my way over to my locker when the dismissal bell rang.

  I didn’t want to see Knight. I didn’t want to have to explain why I was upset. I didn’t want to hear him call Lance a faggot or admit that he was the one who ratted him out. I also didn’t want to accidentally blurt out, “Stay the fuck away from me! I hate you! You’re ruining my whole fucking life!”

  But, of course, there he was.

  When I walked up Knight immediately asked, “Where were you during lunch?”

  I wanted to ignore him, but after what he’d said at Peg’s house the day before, I knew ignoring him was the absolute worst way to go.

  “I skipped,” I said matter-of-factly. I opened my locker with an angry kick and busied myself inside.

  “With Lance?” his tone was accusing, and I didn’t fucking appreciate it.

  “Yeah, with fucking Lance,” I snapped. I wanted to unload on him so badly. I wanted to blame him for everything that was falling apart in my life. I wanted to pound on his chest with my fists. But I knew better.

  So, instead, I slammed my locker and walked away.

  Knight followed, not missing a step. “Where the fuck are you going?” he asked. His tone was still condemning, like he thought I was going to see Lance again. And snort a big line of coke off his cock. Or do something else he didn’t fucking approve of.

  “Detention,” I said, facing straight ahead.

  “I’m coming with you.” It wasn’t an offer. It was a declaration.

  “I don’t need a fucking babysitter,” I spat, walking faster.

  “You don’t know what the fuck you need.”

  I threw open the door to the detention room and hoped to find a desk by itself to sit in. No such luck. Evidently, out of four thousand students, only like five of us had gotten detention that day. No matter where I sat, Knight would be able to sit next to me.

  Sigh.

  I chose a desk in the back and immediately pulled out my homework. Knight sat next to me, like I knew he would, but instead of a book he took a sketchpad out of his backpack.

  About ten minutes later I heard a tearing sound, then Knight slapped a small piece of paper on my desk with jagged edges. I glanced at it out of the corner of my eye, and my breath hitched.

  It was a drawing of me, hunched over my desk, head in a book, biting the end of my pencil. My bangs hung in front of my face—one of the long pieces tucked behind my ear—and a tiny line on my cheek marked the spot where I’d been bitten by a dog as a child. It was beautiful, and for Knight, effortless. I’d forgotten just how talented he was.

  I looked over at him cautiously, but he was already working on something else.

  A few minutes later another rip sounded and another square landed on my desk. This one was also a drawing of my face, but I was wearing a clown nose and clown makeup. I smiled involuntarily.

  I heard several more rips after that, but no more pieces of paper made their way over to me. Happy to have the rest of detention to mourn my lost love uninterrupted, I finished my homework, packed up my shit, and turned to face Knight once we were dismissed.

  His body was angled toward me, and his eyes were waiting for mine to find them. They were usually full to bursting with hate or annoyance or suspicion, but in that moment Knight’s gray-blue gaze was…empty. Like two open windows on a cloudless day.

  His hands weren’t empty though.

  Knight was holding a fistful of paper flowers.

  He extended them toward me slowly, and only by a few inches, as if he were preparing himself for them to be rejected.

  I don’t know if it was because of everything that had happened with Lance, or because no one had ever given me a bouquet of flowers before, or if I was sad that Knight was obviously bracing himself for rejection, but as I reached out and accepted Knight’s offering fresh tears puddled in my eyes.

  “Those were supposed to cheer you up,” Knight said, his brow furrowed. “Did I fuck that up too?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head and blinking back my tears. “No, you didn’t.”

  “Good. Let’s go get drunk.”

  As we walked across the parking lot toward Knight’s truck, I clutched my parchment roses in one hand and fought the urge to hold Knight’s hand with the other. That was something we had only done downtown, when we were away from prying eyes.

  Thinking of all the potential witnesses in the parking lot made me realize that August was missing. Damn. Poor kid. I made him walk home from Colton’s house while he was tweaking the day before, and didn’t even think to find him and tell him I’d gotten detention that afternoon. I made a mental note to call him later.

  Knight lifted me into his truck and asked, before shutting the door, “Do you have to work tonight?”

  I shook my head no, and he smiled a little. Once Knight was inside the cab he reached under the bench seat and handed me his flask. “Just a little. I know your ass hasn’t eaten shit today.”

  I did as he said, taking tiny sips as we roared through town blasting Operation Ivy with the windows down. Something about the combination of whiskey in my belly, notebook paper roses in my lap, the cool autumn wind on my face, and poppy punk music filling the air had me feeling about eighty-five percent better.

  When we got to Colton’s house Knight grabbed a Coke out of Peg’s fridge, poured a little bit into the sink, then flicked his fingers at me, gesturing for the flask that I didn’t even realize I had carried inside. I handed it to him, and he filled the can the rest of the way up with bourbon. Knight kept the flask, but handed the can to me.

  “I have to feed Shep,” he said. “Wanna come?”

  I nodded and carried my drink outside, sitting by myself on a rusty metal bench on Peg’s porch. The spot was sunny, and the drink was good. Sweet and fizzy. The leaves on the trees in Peg’s wooded backyard were beginning to turn orange and yellow. The grass was incredibly overgrown, and a rusty swing set on the edge of the yard was in the process of being swallowed by kudzu vines. I tried to imagine Colton and Jesse playing on it when they were little. Was Peg happy back then?

  Shep wagged his long skinny tail when he saw Knight, and climbed up the ramp to greet him. Knight squatted down so that he was eye to eye with him and rubbed Shep vigorously behind the ears—really gave him his undivided attention—then he took his bowls inside the house to refill them.

  While Knight was gone Shep came over to sniff me. He must have decided I was cool because he licked my hand then went back to the door to wait for Knight. I couldn’t believe how afraid I had once been of that dog. He seemed so sweet and harmless now.

  I guess I could say the same thing about Knight, as long as no one else was around to set him off.

  When Knight was done tending to Shep, he walked over to where I was sitting and plucked the Coke can from my hand. Shaking it from side to side, gauging its fullness, he said, “C’mon. You need another drink.”

  “No, I don’t,” I said. “That one is still—”

  Before I could finish my sentence Knight brought the almost full can to his lips and chugged the whole thing, letting out a huge belch before handing the empty can back to me. “Not anymore. C’mon.”

  Knight prepared another bourbon and Coke concoction in the kitchen, handed it to me, then carried the flask of Southern Comfort with him into the living room. He sat on the couch instead of in the recliner, a
nd I sat down next to him, in my usual spot.

  Knight lit a cigarette as I studied him. He seemed so…adultlike. So serious and responsible. Having a stiff drink after a hard day.

  I wondered why he never went home. I guess Peg’s house was kind of his home away from home, but he wasn’t even really that close to Peg. Or Colton. In fact, he expressly disliked Colton, yet there he was. Hanging out at his house, taking care of his dog. It was the weirdest shit ever.

  I took a few big sips from my can, for courage, then asked the question that had been on the tip of my tongue for months. “Knight, why don’t you ever go home?”

  Knight took a swig from his flask and stared at the front window as if he could see through the smoke stained plastic blinds. “My mom’s husband has a restraining order against me.”

  “What happened?” I asked in surprise, then quickly changed my tone. And my question. “What did you do?”

  Knight swallowed and faced me. “Cocksucker thought he could put his hands on my mom.” He shrugged. “I made him think again.”

  “Do you love her?” I don’t know where those words came from, but I wished I could take them back. Stupid fucking truth serum.

  “Everybody loves their mom,” Knight snapped back.

  “Not everybody,” I said gently.

  Knight clenched his jaw and was quiet for a minute, then took a deep drag before answering. “I used to.”

  It was honest, and sad, and incomprehensible.

  “What about your dad?”

  Knight didn’t look at me. He just stared at those fucking closed blinds, like he was trying to see something that wasn’t ever going to be there.

  “My dad lives in Chicago. He was some big shot businessman with a wife and a couple of kids who knocked up my mom on the side. He was never in the picture—just a shit load of boyfriends that my mom said were my uncles.”

  Knight’s words were devoid of emotion, like he’d told that story a thousand times before. But to whom?

  I didn’t get a chance to ask, because Knight took over the interrogation. “What about you? Why don’t you ever go home, Punk?” His gaze bored into me, letting me know he wanted the motherfucking truth. Knight probably assumed my story would be similarly shitty. Everyone’s story was shitty where we came from.