by Bright, Sera
I needed to stop this. I stepped toward them but Devon latched onto my arm.
“No, you’ll only get hurt, stupid.” She giggled, her eyes reflecting the overly bright light lights. “Plus, I want to watch this. It’s kind of hot.”
I yanked my arm away. People gathered around us for the free show. Next to me, someone whistled in appreciation when Trevor managed to throw Ash off. Ash’s head cracked on the ground.
I launched myself forward. He was hurt. This had gone too far. Devon hooked me hard from behind, her arms around my waist. Caught off guard, adrenaline spiked through my body and I twisted around in her arms and shoved her hard in the chest.
She stumbled a few feet steps away. “Jesus, calm down! I’m trying to help here.” She pointed. “Look, they can take care of themselves.”
Ash had sprung up to his feet like nothing had happened. Blood trickled down his temple in a thin line. My heart stopped. He was only fighting Trevor because of me. All my fault.
Two park cops squeezed through the crowd. One grabbed Trevor by the back of his shirt as he charged at Ash. The other cop landed a hand on Ash’s shoulder. Ash ducked out from under the cop’s arm and spun back on his heels.
“Don’t touch me!” he exploded. “Don’t fucking touch me!”
He sought me out in the crowd, and when his gaze found me, I recognized that look on his pale face. He wasn’t angry, he was terrified. The cop approached him cautiously and Ash’s features went blank, already retreating within. He held up his hands in compliance while he watched me with bleak eyes.
Trevor grimaced and slurred through a bloody busted lip. “Let me go, you fucking rent-a-cop.”
The cop twisted Trevor’s arm behind his back, and Trevor grunted and looked over to Ash.
“All this because of her?” Trevor spat at Ash. “She’s another worthless slut, just like her mother.”
I crossed my arms over my stomach. Trevor shouldn’t know anything about my mother. He wouldn’t have known unless someone told him. And the only person I’d ever heard refer to her as a slut was Ash’s mother, Michelle Townsend.
The cops escorted Ash and Trevor to the tiny police station office near the main entrance. Because the cops didn’t actually witness the full fight, they couldn’t do much more than kick them out of the park. I think it had more to do with all the name-dropping Trevor did along with threatening to sue. His tired, clichéd act was an embarrassment to more creative, entitled jackasses everywhere.
Devon and I stood outside the door, waiting for them to be released. I scratched a fingernail over the two scars over and over, the skin scraped raw. Michelle Townsend had worked on Trevor’s father’s last mayoral campaign, the same time Trevor began his campaign to make my life hell and label me a slut. That was a hell of a coincidence.
“How about we ditch the boys and spend the rest of the evening at the park together?” Devon swung her slender legs on the aluminum bench like a little kid.
I slanted her a look out of the corner of my eye. Our respective boyfriends tried to kill each other, and she wanted to go off and play bumper cars. She got up and plopped down to sit next to me. From her shorts pocket, she revealed two mini bottles of rum. She unscrewed the cap on the first one and drank, dangling the other bottle in front of me.
“Quit it.” I pushed her hand out of my face. I couldn’t stomach the smell of it. “Not in the mood.”
“You’re so lame,” she complained.
I tipped my head back on the cinder block wall. Moths batted at the fluorescent lights in the alcove. If Ash’s mother had used Trevor to start the rumors about me, it was likely she was still using him. The first night after I arrived back in town, Trevor had gone after me in the alley all too conveniently. And then he escalated his harassment all too quickly with the damage to my truck.
“Did Trevor ask if you had seen me recently?” I asked, despite having a good idea of the answer. “Especially the first night I came back?”
“What are you talking about?” She widened her eyes. “You’re acting like he’s some creepy stalker after you. We ran into you guys, he teased you like he does with everyone, and your knight in shining armor overreacted. No surprise there.”
I stood up. “You heard me. Did you tell Trevor where I was that first night or not?”
“Your boyfriend went after mine.” She untwisted the cap on the second mini bottle. “You don’t get to act like a bitch to me right now. I think I may be too traumatized to answer your questions.”
She chugged the second rum. A moth hovered around my head and I waved to knock it away. If Ash’s mother was manipulating everything behind the scenes, I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t risk what she would do next if she went after Ash. He had his own life, a spot in a show at his gallery, and she could destroy all of that so easily. My heart broke. She wouldn’t ever stop as long as I stayed with him, and he wouldn’t ever be free of them.
Devon leaned over to toss the bottles at the trash can but lost her balance. I stopped her from falling off the bench by catching her shoulders.
“I don’t need your freaking help.” She heaved herself up. “I meant to do that.”
She threw the bottles over my shoulder without aiming. They clattered on the ground and rolled to my feet. I picked them up and put them in the can, grateful for the tiny distracting task.
“You can be so stuck up,” she said. “You always acted like you’re better than the rest of us. Too good for the rest of us imperfect mortals.”
“You’re officially wasted.” I sighed.
“You’re just jealous,” she hissed. She wasn’t so cheerful now. “I thought you of all people would understand. I finally get the one thing I’ve always wanted, and you can’t stand it.”
She stood up from the bench and walked away, her gait unsteady. I should have stopped her, or at least followed, because it wasn’t a smart move for her to go off alone, but no protests came out of my mouth. She was a nasty-ass drunk and had always expected me to keep her safe when she binged herself into oblivion. I wasn’t responsible for her. And I wasn’t dealing with Trevor when he came out of the office looking for her. The hell with both of them, they deserved each other.
She disappeared into the crowd just as Ash emerged from the doorway. They’d cleaned the cut at his hairline, and the thin strip of a butterfly bandage held the edges together. He regarded me with a detached expression. I hated to see him injured because of his fight with Trevor. It wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for me. I’d made everything worse by returning home.
“You’re not staying with me this summer,” he said flatly. Then he tossed me the keys to his car and strode toward the exit without waiting for a response.
I walked through the parking lot, giving him a wide berth. When he reached this point he had to have time to cool down. He imploded, shutting down and shutting everything out. And he was imploding because he thought I wanted to leave him again. My frustration grew. It wasn’t like I wanted to go, either.
As soon as I unlocked the car, Ash got into the passenger seat wordlessly. I slid into the driver’s seat and brought the seat forward so I could reach the pedals. The sun slipped under the horizon on the lake while I drove along the winding road to the main highway. We had a straight hour of high-speed driving to reach Cleveland.
Beyond the concrete barriers, darkness cloaked rolling fields of corn. I didn’t bother to turn on the stereo to mask the uneasy silence. If Trevor was stalking me under the direction of Ash’s mother, I could thwart their plan by leaving. The random photos would probably stop showing up if I left. I’d avoid my father and his drama. But what if it was all connected somehow? I tapped my fingers on the gear shift in time with my heartbeat. I had to think this through, had to make the right choice this time, even if I didn’t know what it was.
Halfway home, I passed an exit sign for a country road that led nowhere and got on the off ramp. I was tired of running away when things got too difficult. It didn’t solve anythin
g. The same problems continued to exist. They hadn’t changed into solutions in my absence.
Ash sat up straight. “What are you doing?”
“We need to talk.” The irony that I was the one demanding this wasn’t lost on me.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said in a damn flat tone.
I drove down the country road. Around a blind turn, a burned-out farmhouse sat in a rolling meadow I’d discovered on one of my solitary rambling drives a few years ago. I pulled into the trace of the gravel driveway and slowly made my way behind the house and out of view of the road. Half of the old home had collapsed into fire-stained debris. A sandstone chimney stood tall against the ascending moon.
I turned off the engine and unbuckled my seatbelt, taking my time and refraining from looking over to Ash. Now that I had him alone, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to say. I touched the scars again.
I twisted around in my seat and went with the most truthful thing I could think of. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I know what you should do.” He stared straight ahead, holding himself still and taut. “You should leave.”
His mouth compressed into a white line, then he trained his face into that damn withdrawn expression. Okay, this wasn’t going well. One moment he was thrilled over my admission that I wanted to stay, the next he practically ordered me to leave him alone.
“You sound like you want me to go.” I touched each indentation on the steering wheel in clockwise order, trying not to rub my wrist. Trying not to think about the scars on my wrist. “And I’m trying to tell you I don’t want to leave you again. Not if I don’t have to.”
“What’s the point?” he said harshly. “You’re never going to trust me now.”
“You seriously think I don’t trust you?” I dropped my forehead onto my hands, clutching the wheel. I didn’t know how to make it any clearer than I already had. He’d never given me a reason not to trust him, unlike me. He shouldn’t believe a word out of my lying mouth. I raised my head and tried to sound calmer than I actually felt.
“We’re out in the middle of nowhere. No one knows where we are. No one can see or hear us. And you’re incredibly angry.” My voice rose higher. “This is me, trusting you. Right now. I’ve always trusted you.”
“You shouldn’t trust me when I lose control.” He flung open the door. “I saw how you looked at me after I attacked Trevor.”
How had I looked at him? Panic-stricken that he was going to get hurt? Frightened when he did get hurt? Because that’s how I remembered feeling.
“What—” I began, but he jumped out of the car. With a rigid back, he marched away until he was in the middle of the meadow and then dropped down into the grass.
I got out of the car and followed after him. My footsteps swished in the soft, long grass. Fireflies flickered in the dark. It would’ve been a magical place to spend a night stargazing, if we weren’t on the verge of shattering apart. I walked around to face him.
“You asked me about my hand. What do you want to know?” he said fiercely. “Do you want to know that the other night, I saw the look on your face when that guy grabbed your wrist. I saw how scared you were, and how you hid it, because that’s what you do. You hide. And I wanted to make him just as scared, even if it was just for a second.”
He was right, I did hide. And he was the only person who could see through most of my tricks. I lowered myself to sit on the ground.
His face hardened in the light of the rising moon. “Do you want to know what it felt like when I went upstairs, and I busted open his face? The rush I got every time my hand ached afterward? I liked hurting him. Because he hurt you first, and I didn’t let him get away with it.”
Automatically, my back stiffened. “I can handle—”
“I swore I would protect you, and I will,” he snarled. “But at the park, do you really want to know what I saw? When they pulled me off of Trevor, you had that same look of fear on your face. Except this time you were scared of me!”
“You think I’m afraid of you?” I said, incredulous. “I was afraid for you. You were bleeding.”
He touched the cut above his eyebrow. “Are you sure? Because you already don’t trust me.”
We were right back to trust again. “I trust you!”
“That’s bullshit!” With a fist, he tore out a chunk of grass and threw it in the air. There was a desperate edge to his anger. “If you trusted me—”
“I’d stay! Which is what I want to do!”
“You’d tell me why you left!” he said. “You can’t bring yourself to tell me why. I know I’m being fucking impatient, but admit it. You don’t trust me enough to let me know why you ran in the first place.”
I was paralyzed by his words. Oh, God. I was so selfish. I spent more time worrying about him not believing me, not trusting me. I didn’t consider how he would feel at all. I thought I was protecting him from getting too close to me again, but all I did was hurt him again. I looked at my hands, clasped tightly on my lap, to the scars camouflaged under the colors of the tattoo. I didn’t deserve his trust, but he deserved the truth.
I took an unsteady breath and raised my eyes. “You’re not the only one who made a vow to protect someone, no matter the cost.”
Chapter Nineteen
And finally, that summer when I was eighteen, I learned the past can come back to haunt you. Even when it’s not your own past…
“If one of us doesn’t get out soon, we’re never going to pick up that pizza.” Warm water cascaded over my shoulder as I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair. Suds dotted Ash’s body and I popped a glistening bubble on his chest. “And then I’ll starve to death, and it will be all your fault.”
“But I’m hungry for this now.” His mouth was on my neck while his hands traveled a dangerous path down my wet body. The pull of desire distracted me from my original statement, but my stomach helpfully growled to bring my focus back to other important matters.
“You’ll survive,” I giggled. “But I won’t if I don’t get some real food soon.”
I stepped out of the tub and closed the white shower curtain. Clean towels hung on the towel bar and I grabbed one to wrap around my hair. I wiped off the fogged-up mirror, my eyes sparkling back at me in the clouded glass. Yesterday I had received the official notice from U of M that they had accepted my deferment. This upcoming year was going to be my own, choosing to do whatever I wanted to do with no responsibilities or secrets to keep.
Our clothes lay tangled together on the floor. I toweled myself off and shook out Ash’s t-shirt, pulling it over my head. It would have to do until I could find clean clothes in my bedroom. Besides, I liked wearing his t-shirts. They smelled like him. A spray of cold water splashed me on the neck and I squealed in surprise.
Ash called over the sound of the water, “If I have to take a cold shower, so do you, brat.”
“There’s plenty of warm water left! I didn’t use it all.”
“That’s not why it’s cold,” he grumbled behind the opaque curtain.
“You’ll live,” I said, laughter coloring my words. “I’m going to go pick up the food now.”
I went to my bedroom and got dressed in threadbare cutoffs, deciding to wear his t-shirt while I ran out. His punishment for the cold water sneak attack.
In my truck, I drove to the small family pizza parlor on the edge of town. They had the best pizza in the area. The place stood empty since it was right before closing time, the parking lot deserted. I’d gotten our order in right before they stopped taking orders for the night. I parked under the lone streetlight. It flickered as I walked over to the door.
In the foyer, I stretched out my legs while sitting on the hard metal folding chair. I was waiting until later tonight to tell Ash about the deferment and my plans. A little spark of anxiety flitted around in my head. We had avoided any discussion of the future, dancing around it like we had danced around our attraction to each other. But now I could go anywhere, inclu
ding L.A. Two weeks until we were both leaving, free of this place forever.
When the woman in the window handed me the takeout box five minutes later, the smell of the pizza was intoxicating. I hadn’t eaten all day. Between my excited jitters about my upcoming plans and hiding out in my house all day with Ash, food hadn’t been on my mind.
Out in the dark lot, I balanced the pizza on one hand and searched through my pocket for my keys with the other. The streetlight sizzled and went out. Pinpricks of fear heightened my senses. I glanced around, seeing and hearing nothing unusual. There weren’t any cars on the street and the surrounding neighborhoods were quiet. The only glow of light came from the pizza place, and they had shut all the lights off in the front; I was their last customer before closing. With the keys in my hand, I unlocked the door. It creaked when I opened it wide. I placed the pizza on the bench seat and slid it over to the passenger side.
A rustling noise came from somewhere. I tried to whip around but a hand landed on my upper back and shoved me hard, leaving me to stumble against the open doorway. My shins banged on the frame and the keys dropped out of my hand into the cab. Someone twisted my left arm. A slice of pain slashed across my wrist, and then again, deeper. The hands released me. I righted myself to face my attacker, my heart pounding.
Ash’s mother stepped back. In her hand, she wielded a scalpel with a plastic handle. Taller than me, with elegant features and frigid green eyes, her gaze slithered over my wet hair to her son’s varsity soccer t-shirt. Her mouth pursed in distaste.
I stared down at my stinging arm in shock. Two cuts marred the skin, one fainter and seeping a slow trickle of blood to the surface while the other poured out a slow stream of blood. Clean edges of flesh gaped wide. She’d slashed my wrist. Who the hell did that? Was she crazy?
“You know what I’m going to say.” She pointed the scalpel in my face, and said in a sing-song voice, “Stay away from my son.”
Totally fucking crazy. I clambered into the driver’s seat. “Get the hell away from me!”
