I Am Grey

by Jane Washington

  “Are you upset about her?”

  It clicked, then. He was wondering if I was jealous. The idea was laughable. I couldn’t have cared less even if I had tried. In answer, I only stared at him, finishing the rest of the beer in one last, slow pull. He watched me, making a slight groaning sound.

  “I’m ready to go again already.” He laughed. “They should bottle you. You’d outsell Viagra. C’mon, let’s go.”

  By the time I slid into his truck, the panic was locked securely away. I wasn’t thinking about it, but it was still affecting my body. My heart wouldn’t stop racing and my legs were still trembling. I turned up his radio, trying to drown out the echo of my own thoughts. Last Resort by Papa Roach rattled through me, shuddering against the window as I rested my head there. Duke didn’t seem to mind. He really didn’t mind much of anything, even though I did some weird things.

  Maybe he was a real friend? That elusive, ever-present, stand-by-your-side creature that everyone was always talking about. But then again, maybe not. I was apathetic to most people, and that didn’t mean that I liked them. It meant that I didn’t care about them.

  Just like he didn’t care about me.

  “We’re here,” he announced as we skidded to a stop in front of an outdoor grill, his truck actually swaying a little bit with how suddenly he had pulled on the emergency break.

  It didn’t look like the fanciest place: a line of Harleys guarded the front, handlebars glinting in the afternoon sun, helmets and backpacks resting on seats. Maybe their owners were really chilled-out and trusting, or maybe the red cobra sticker on the back of each bike was supposed to be a warning that all the locals would understand. I didn’t even know where we were, because I hadn’t been paying attention to where Duke had been driving. A separate line of cars had been parked beside the grill, the wheels propped up against the curb, trying to edge off the road.

  I jumped out of the truck, following him inside and trailing him through the main bar area. It curved from the front room and around to an outdoor area, extending the property into something much bigger than it had first appeared. It stepped down onto the beach—though it wasn’t a particularly pretty beach. The rocks were too big, the sand strangled by swamp-like vegetation. Still, the lawn leading down supported a massive crowd of people, all drinking and lounging in beach chairs. Music thumped from a set of massive speakers set up in an undercover patio halfway down the lawn, and I could barely make out a man behind all of the equipment, bobbing his head beneath a set of headphones.

  I definitely wasn’t old enough to be there, but nobody even looked twice at me. They definitely looked twice at Duke, in a way that told me they were surprised to see him there. I found that interesting, but not interesting enough to ask about it.

  “Want a drink?” He jerked his chin back over his shoulder, toward the bar.

  I nodded, and he disappeared, leaving me to survey the sea of people on my own. When he came back, there were four beers in his hand. He handed two to me, and tucked one under his arm, raising the last to his lips. He must have assumed that I liked beer, probably because I had been stealing them out of his fridge. I actually hated beer. He wandered off to the water, and I supposed that I was expected to follow him, but I didn’t feel like it. Instead, I turned back to the main building, climbing onto the tiny balcony and plonking myself into a chair.

  “You should have gone with him,” a voice declared over my shoulder, a moment before Trip appeared in front of me.

  He blocked my view of the people with his body, leaning back and notching his arms against the railing as he fixed his gaze on me. I continued drinking, staring at him since he wasn’t going to let me stare at anything else. How the hell did this guy keep popping up? Had Duke brought me here deliberately—knowing that Trip would he here?

  “Aren’t you a bit young to be running with this crowd?” he eventually asked.

  “Aren’t you in my class? Meaning … aren’t you my age?”

  “You mean the class you have with Duke’s brother, who spent half the hour staring at you?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Is that what you do, pup? You just bounce from guy to guy, passing the time?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t think it was what I did, but the evidence probably suggested the opposite. Not that it mattered anyway. Was I developing a reputation?

  “What’s it to you?” I asked.

  “I feel like being next.”

  “I don’t feel like you being next.”

  “Because Duke’s so much better.” He laughed, tossing his head back and lifting the shadow from his collar-tattoo.

  “What does that say, anyway?” I pointed to it with the lip of my beer.

  “It’s part of a song,” he told me, without coming any closer so that I could read it. “The letters wrap around twice. That’s why it’s hard to read.”

  “What song?”

  “It’s called Busted. I wrote it myself.”

  “Cute.” I sneered. For some reason, he was annoying me. I stood, kicking the chair out of the way and retreating toward the stairs.

  “Don’t bother wasting my time,” he said, his tone carrying an edge. He surged forward and caught a hold of my wrist, pulling me back to where he stood. He fell into the chair that I had vacated, tugging me down with him. “I won’t bend to your authority.”

  I began telling him to fuck off with his authority, but then I caught it. I saw the words on his neck—he was narrating his tattoo to me. I stopped fighting, allowing him to turn me around so that I was sitting forwards on his lap, looking back out to the field of people.

  “Don’t bother pulling me into line,” he continued, one of his hands landing on my thigh, the other sliding up to my neck. He pulled me back, so that my head fell against his shoulder. “I won’t fit into your society …”

  He pressed against my neck, making it a little more difficult to draw breath, as his other hand slid under the hem of my dress, pulling it further up my thigh. “Don’t trust me, little lamb.” He was whispering the words now, his voice deepening, his hands tightening. “Don’t trust me, because I’ll do it again.” His hand reached my panties, cupping me through the material, his breath beginning to rasp. “Don’t count on me, I’ll hurt you too.”

  “Enough,” I managed, finally feeling a spark of something. Fear. Anger. Disgust. I wasn’t sure which.

  “Don’t trust me,” his voice switched to a growl, “because I sure as fuck don’t trust you.”

  “And I’m not what you’re used to.” I pulled my beer bottle up and dumped the contents over his face, when what I really felt like doing was smashing the bottle over his arm.

  Nicholai’s words flooded back to me as Trip laughed, pushing me off his lap.

  Don’t get confused, Mika. I’m not what you’re used to …

  Had I repeated him intentionally? Why did he need to be always inside my head, even when I was trying to escape him?

  “I think it’s time I greeted Dick, don’t you think?” Trip asked me, moving for the stairs. “Give him a good handshake? Let him know where my hand has been?”

  “Get lost, Trip. You aren’t as bad as you think you are.”

  He paused for a second, his smile frozen in place. I watched as it slowly melted away, revealing what was beneath.

  Hatred.

  Fury.

  Vengeance.

  Whatever this was, it didn’t actually have anything to do with me. I was just a tool; a piece in the overall game. He was upset about something far beyond our few interactions.

  “We’ll see,” he muttered. “Later, pup. Thanks for the cuddle.”

  10

  Sick

  I started running. Everything long-forgotten. I ran until my legs burned, and then I pushed myself further. By the time I started to recognise my surroundings, the moon had taken over the sky and my lungs felt swollen, on the point of bursting. My breath was rasping violently, my legs shuddering so badly that I thought I was going t
o collapse.

  I headed to the all-night diner, stumbling through the doorway and collapsing into a booth. I pulled my legs up to the seat, tears of pain stinging in my eyes, a curse hissing out between my teeth.

  “Grey-girl?”

  I tilted my head up—it was suddenly heavy, so it took longer than usual. Jean was standing over me, a few girls that I recognised from the track team fanning out behind her. I was starting to feel the small-town curse again for the first time since I’d left the institution. That sinking inevitability of running into at least one person that you knew, every time you stepped outside. Jean took a step toward me, but one of the girls grabbed her arm, looking panicked as she whispered something into Jean’s ear. Jean scowled, pulling her arm free and slipping into the booth beside me. The girls quickly melted away, escaping out of the front door of the diner.

  “Bitches,” Jean muttered, turning back to me. “What’s up? What’s wrong with your leg? Why do you look like you just ran to San Fran and back?”

  “Not that far,” I gritted out. “Just some crappy beach.”

  “Want me to text Marcus? He can give us a lift.”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  She pulled out her phone, sent off the message, and then tossed it onto the table in front of us. “Why are you out running so late? It’s like midnight or something.”

  “I was at a party with Duke.”

  She looked me over, a frown settling into the lines about her mouth. “Did he do something to you?”

  “No.”

  She nodded, but the critical expression didn’t go anywhere. If anything, it grew worse. “Are you coming to training tomorrow afternoon?”

  “Need to beat the leaderboard time for the four-hundred.”

  “You’re a long-distancer. You can’t out-sprint those girls.”

  “It hurts more.”

  She laughed, her head shaking from side to side. “Then you’re not doing it properly. The long-distance runs hurt a lot more. Try the two-thousand with Kells. You’ll die. For sure.”

  “Okay. So what were you doing out here so late?”

  She sighed, tipping her head back to look at the plain ceiling, her eyes following the movement of the fan above one of the booths.

  “Char was having a moment. Her guy dumped her. Jeff, you probably know him.”

  “Probably.”

  “He’s on the football team,” she told me, as if it would jog my memory.

  I shrugged. “Why’d he dump her?”

  “She got wasted at a party last weekend and let his teammate strip her in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Only problem was … they forgot to pull the curtains. Everyone could see them from the lawn.”

  “Stupid,” I muttered.

  “Everyone’s talking about you at school.”

  “Is that new?” I was aware that the incident before the start of senior year had caused a lot of talk at the school. Most of the rumours still haunted me.

  Jean seemed to understand my reaction, because a brief expression of pity fell over her features. I was glad that it passed away quickly.

  “It’s a new kind of talk,” she specified. “They’re saying that you offer tugs for money.”

  “Tugs?” I understood the term, but it seemed expected in that moment to question it.

  “Hand jobs. And if you don’t know what that means, the rumours definitely aren’t true—not that I thought they were true in the first place.”

  “Why are people saying that?” I was surprised. Astounded, even. It didn’t really matter to me one way or another, what people said about me, but that particular rumour was a little far-fetched.

  I hadn’t tugged anyone. But today I let Trip touch my—

  “What can I get you two?” a server interrupted, appearing at the table.

  Jean answered, reminding the server that she’d been at another of the tables, and we were leaving now. I didn’t pay much attention, my eyes fixed to the table even after the server wandered away.

  “Did you piss someone off?” Jean questioned, cutting into my thoughts. “Maybe they’re trying to get back at you?”

  “Maybe. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Marcus is here.” I pointed to the doorway where Marcus was standing, motioning us over.

  We got out of our booth, approaching him. I realised why he wasn’t coming in when I got a good look at him. He was wearing pajamas; flannel pants and a faded tank, his dark hair mussed.

  “Hey Grey-girl,” he grinned at me, nudging my shoulder as I passed. “Hey sis.”

  Jean smiled at him before walking off to his car, which was still idling at the curb. She slid into the front, so I sat in the back. It was hard to move my legs. I might have injured myself, but I didn’t want to say anything about it.

  “Thanks for the lift,” I muttered, running my hands surreptitiously down the backs of my calves, trying to find any spot that hurt more than the rest of my legs.

  “No problem,” he replied easily, flipping his turn signal on to pull back onto the street. “Mom pulled out the spare mattress for you, so you can stay at ours tonight.”

  What? “Ah, thanks.”

  I glanced at Jean, who was obviously the one to set up my impromptu sleepover, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was staring out of the window, her expression vacant. She didn’t seem to be paying attention to what was happening inside the car, but I was sure that she wasn’t paying any attention to the road either. She had gone off into her own little world again. It caused a small spark of worry to ignite in the back of my mind. I didn’t really like it when she did that. It didn’t look the same as when other people got lost in their thoughts. It made her look so different; like something was eating away at her, gnawing on her mind and stealing her from the world, piece by piece.

  I fell back into my seat, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in my legs, and the way my stomach clenched sickeningly. I didn’t even know what was wrong with me anymore—it seemed like there wasn’t a single part of my body not hell-bent on violently protesting against me. Marcus turned on the radio, adjusting the volume to a pitch that was barely audible, though he still managed to hum tonelessly along to it until he pulled into their driveway. Their house was a small one, and I was pretty sure that it was in the same neighbourhood as Summer Estate, because I recognised most of the surrounding streets.

  They had a park right across the road, but no street lights, so everything was thrown into foreboding darkness. As soon as Marcus cut the engine off, their porch light switched on, illuminating us in a sudden, bright halo. Maybe it was the light, or maybe my body had simply had enough. It was giving up, saying enough, and sending me tunnelling toward the pavement.

  “Jean!” a woman’s voice suddenly sounded, ringing in a hollow way, floating on past me. “Your friend—”

  I landed with a hard smack against the concrete.

  “Mom, put that down, she definitely won’t want us to call an ambulance—”

  “She’s not in good shape.” The woman sounded impatient and breathy. “She dropped so suddenly … it was lucky that the grass caught her face, otherwise we’d have a very different problem on our hands right now.”

  Arms shifted beneath me; one across the backs of my knees, the other behind my shoulder blades. It wasn’t the woman, or Jean. Probably Marcus. He was walking, but he didn’t go far before lowering me onto something soft. I peeled my eyes open—though it took considerable effort—before dragging myself into a sitting position.

  “I’m fine.” My own words sounded garbled.

  “You’re not.” The woman was kneeling beside me again. She had dark hair and soft brown eyes—but that wasn’t surprising. She was an older version of Jean. “You fainted in the driveway. Hit your head. Have you been drinking?”

  I started laughing, my head too heavy to hold up anymore. “You’re such a mom,” I choked out.

  She seemed confused for a moment. She flicked a look back at Jean, who was standing in the doorway, that faraway expression back on he
r face.

  “I’m Alicia.” The woman turned back to me, giving up on whatever explanation she had hoped to get out of Jean. “And yes, I’m their mother. I need to call an ambulance.”

  “I’m fine,” I reiterated, my laughter tapering off. Shit, I was acting crazy. Going crazy. Remaining crazy.

  “Let me drive you to the hospital.” Alicia stood, brushing off non-existent dust from her skirt in an efficient sort of way. She hadn’t seemed to be asking a question, more like delivering an ultimatum.

  “I can drive—” Marcus started to speak, but she quelled him with a single, cutting glare.

  He tossed his hands up in supplication, smiling sympathetically at me before backing out of the room.

  “Help me out,” Alicia said, prodding Jean’s arm. “I need to get her into the car.”

  I assumed her was me, so I swung my legs to the side of the couch, rising unsteadily to my feet. “I’m fin—”

  Darkness swam into my vision again, yanking me back in the direction of the floor. An arm slipped beneath mine, catching me at the last possible moment.

  “Fine,” Alicia supplied, her tone tense. “Yeah, I can see that. Jean? Jean!”

  “Huh?” I heard Jean mutter. “Oh, yeah, right. Sorry.” An arm settled around my waist, and together they started to walk me out of the room as my vision gradually cleared again. “Overdid it a bit, hey, Grey?”

  I tried to answer, but my mouth felt sticky. Maybe I was about to vomit.

  “Grey?” Alicia asked. “That’s her name?”

  “Her name’s Mi—”

  “Grey,” I forced out, my voice gravelly.

  We made it to the garage and Alicia yelled out for Marcus to move his car as they piled me into the passenger seat. My head rolled, falling against the window as the garage door made its slow, rumbling progress open. Two more doors slammed, and then we were moving. The road felt smoother beneath us, scrolling evenly, without incident, and my eyelids began to flutter …

  “MIKA!”

  I stopped in the doorway, my eyes drawn to my mother’s face.