I sigh, tug open the driver’s door, gesture for him to get in. He scrambles off the stool and slides into the driver’s seat, grabs the steering wheel with one hand, the shifter with the other.
“Man, this is so cool!” He grins at me. “I can’t believe I’m gonna get to drive this!”
“You better take care of it, Kyle. She’s a sweet ride, but you gotta take care of her. Any problems, Mr. Boyd will be able to help. He’s the auto shop teacher at the high school. Do NOT let Mom or Dad take it to some fucking piece of shit garage, they’ll just fuck it up. Take it to Mr. Boyd. Got it?”
He nods, serious. “Got it.”
I hesitate, then spit it out. “Kyle, it’s not that I didn’t notice you. It’s just…I had trouble in school, so I had to work a lot harder than everyone else at shit that comes easy to someone like you. And, honestly, I didn’t want to pull you into my mess. I haven’t been the best brother. I get that, and I’m sorry.”
He meets my gaze, nods. His expression is knowing, and serious, and understanding. “It’s okay, Colt. I could always tell that Dad’s a lot harder on you than he is on me. It’s not really fair, is it?”
I scrub my hands through my hair. “Not really. But he’s good to you, so that’s all you need to know about. I’m not gonna talk shit about Dad to you, because that’s issues between him and me. It doesn’t have anything to do with you, so don’t worry about it.”
“But he’s making you leave, and you don’t know where you’re going, or when you’ll be back.”
“Pretty much. Although, if I’d let him make me go to some Ivy League university, I could have stayed here, kept the Camaro, all that. But I can’t go to college. I just can’t. So I made this choice. And like I said, I just hope you never have to understand why I left. Just know…it wasn’t because of you, okay?”
A nod. “Okay. It sucks, though.”
“It does suck,” I agree. “Now scram, so I can finish this.”
He unfolds from the driver’s seat, reluctantly. Yeah, he’ll take care of my baby, that’s for sure.
“Kyle?” He looks up at me. “Make sure this gets started and run once a month, or have Mr. Boyd winterize it for storage until you’re old enough to drive. It can’t just sit here. Since it’s gonna be yours, you gotta start taking responsibility for it.”
He nods. “I will. I promise.” He lunges at me, wraps his arms around my waist, squeezes hard and fast, and lets go. “Bye, Colt.”
I don’t know what to do with the hug, so I just pat him on the shoulder awkwardly. “Bye, Golden Boy.”
An embarrassed grin. “Shut up.”
I watch him trot away with the boundless energy of an eleven-year-old, jumping to swipe at a low-hanging branch, tripping over a root and righting himself, kicking an acorn.
* * *
It all comes to a head three months almost to the day from graduation.
I’m hanging out on the dock, eight at night, pretty early for me, but Lacey has to leave for MSU first thing tomorrow morning. I’ve just dropped her off for the last time, and I’m feeling good about our rough and wild goodbye-romp. I’m high, but not too high. Coming down. Smoking a cigarette. Waiting for him, basically.
“Colton. Put that nasty thing out,” he says by way of hello. I flick the butt out into the water. “I didn’t mean throw it into the lake, you degenerate.”
I just wait. Slump lower in the Adirondack chair and watch the moon glint off the gently lapping waves.
“Well?” He stands behind me, tapping a toe, arms crossed.
“Well what?” I ask, not turning around.
“Which college did you get into?” He says this expectantly. “You had an easy in at three of them. Which one did you decide on?”
Asshole, acting like he doesn’t damn well know. Just wants to make a scene out of it.
I scuff the heel of my Wolverine boot on the wood of the deck. “I didn’t apply to any of them.”
“You what?” I hear him take a step closer. “Tell me I didn’t hear you correctly.”
I stand up and push past him. “I have an interview, though. It’s at Hemingway Auto on Thursday. The owner, Jimmy, does custom tuning on the side, so I’m gonna angle for that.”
“We had a deal, Colton.”
I stop and jab a finger at him. “No, actually, you issued me an ultimatum—go to college or be disowned. But there’s an option C: I get a job, a good job doing something I’m really great at. I can get my own apartment in a few months, and you can even pretend I don’t exist if you want.”
“Why, Colton? Why can’t you for once toe the line? Why couldn’t you take the opening I provided? I got you into three of the best schools in the country. All you had to do was apply, damn it! The essays didn’t even have to be good! You just had to do it!”
“I’m not going to fucking college, Dad! I barely passed high school! I’ve got other skills, okay? Why can’t you get that? I’m not book-smart, but I can do other stuff. There are other things in life besides Ivy League universities and fancy offices.”
“Not for you. Not for a Calloway.”
“Oh come on, Dad. It’s not like we’re the goddamn Boston Brahmins, or some shit. We’re not some kind of old money aristocrats. Your great-grandfather was from Dubuque, Iowa. He was a farmer. Which, by the way, happens to be a perfectly respectable vocation.”
“But my grandfather wanted better. He paid for college himself by waiting tables. He went to Yale on his own terms. Graduated summa cum laude, from Yale. My father went to Brown. I went to—”
“Yes, I know. U of M, Brown, and Harvard. I got it. I’ve seen the fucking degrees.”
“It’s about more than a piece of paper, Colton! It’s about pride! It’s about tradition. It’s about making something of yourself, doing something worthwhile with your life!”
I groan, tipping my head back. “I can be proud of myself, too, you know. I can build a car by myself. I’m not even eighteen yet and I can disassemble, repair, and reassemble an engine. I can make something of myself without going to college.”
“You’re going to college.” He shoves a hand into his pocket. “I’ll call Bill at Stanford. He can probably still get you admitted if you apply by the end of the week.”
“I’m not going!”
“Yes you are!”
I glare at him, shouting, “Fucking hell, Dad! Why? Why is this the only thing you can let me do? Why? Why can’t you be proud of me for the things I’m good at instead of trying to force me into a box I’ll never fit into?”
“Because you can fit, if you just tried.”
“But I don’t want to! I don’t want to go to college. I hate classrooms. I hate teachers. I hate textbooks and essays and tests. I’m good at cars—I’m not good at school.”
“I swear to god…” he groans, just like I did moments ago, tipping his head back in frustration. “If you didn’t choose to be so fucking stupid. Not to mention ungrateful.”
You know how many times other kids called me stupid, growing up? More times than I can count. I grew up around rich kids, smart rich kids. I was the only one who ever struggled academically. The only one who ever got tests back with a big fat red E on the front.
Why are you so stupid, Colt? Did your mama drop on your head, Colt? You’re such a dumbass, Colt.
But I never expected to hear it from him, my own father.
“What did you say?” I ask in a near-whisper.
“You’re stupid! That’s what I said!” He shouts this at me. “You don’t have to be, but you are. You’re intentionally choosing to be fucking stupid! What kind of idiot can’t even write one little essay? What kind of idiot throws away a free ride to an Ivy League school?”
“I’m not stupid.” I sound so small and petulant, saying this, and I hate it. I hate the lump in my throat. I hate the way my stomach aches from how badly that word hurts.
“Yes you are.”
“Fuck YOU!” I scream it, and follow it up with a wicked right ho
ok.
Dad stumbles backward, clutching his jaw. His eyes are blazing. Blue, like mine. Full of disgust and rage. He comes for me, swinging.
He boxed in college, I remember belatedly. Preppy boy boxing, rules and mouth guards and all that.
He still connects, though, and he packs a hell of a wallop for an old guy. We’re scuffling, grappling. I’m about to knee him when I hear Mom screaming, crying. I feel her whack me in the back of the head, hear Dad bark in surprise. We part, panting, and I see that Mom has a big wooden spoon in her hand, the one she uses in the kitchen. She’s whacking Dad over and over and over, hitting his head, shoulders and arms.
“Henry! For god’s sake, what is wrong with you?” She whacks him across the back of his head, hard. “He’s our son!”
I back away, wiping the blood off the corner of my mouth. “Nothing’s wrong with him. I’m just stupid, according to him.” I hate the salty sting in my eyes as I turn and jog off the dock.
“Colton!” Mom calls out. “Wait.”
I think she thinks this is just another argument, one of the hundreds Dad and I have had on this issue over the last couple of years.
I ignore her pleas. I head upstairs to my room and I dump out my old black Jansport. I shove jeans and khakis and T-shirts and socks and underwear and a couple of hoodies into it. I dig under my bed for the shoebox containing my life savings. One thousand two hundred and four dollars, a pathetically small stack of bills bound up by a rubber band. I stuff that into my bag, as well.
Downstairs, I raid the pantry. A few granola bars, a couple of apples, a package of Ritz crackers, four cans of Coke. It all gets zipped into the backpack.
Mom is at the back door, watching. “Colt? What are you doing?”
“I’m leaving.”
“Where are you going?” she asks. She’s tearful, clearly upset.
“Don’t know. Anywhere but here. New York, maybe.”
“Don’t, Colton. He didn’t mean it.”
“The hell he didn’t.”
“Leave him alone, Olivia.” Suddenly Dad’s there, watching Mom and me. His lip is split and puffy. His eyes are dead and cold. “Let him go.”
“You’re just going to stand there and allow our oldest son to run away?”
“He’s not running away.” Dad eyes me. “He’s choosing his own way.”
“No, I’m not, asshole. I’m taking the only option you’ve left me with.”
“Colton, don’t talk to your father that way,” Mom says.
I look straight at him. “He’s not my father. He’s just the senator. And I’m just an embarrassment.”
I glance over at Mom. “You probably won’t see me again anytime soon.”
“What—what are you talking about, Colton?”
I shoulder my backpack. “I’m leaving, Ma. I’m walking out that door and I’m never coming back.”
“But Colton, you can’t—”
“You can’t stop me.”
“I don’t understand.” She’s sobbing now.
I sigh. I hate seeing her cry. She’s weak, but at least she loves me, in her own timid way. “I know you don’t. Talk to your husband. This is on him.”
One last time, I beseech my father. “It doesn’t have to be this way. You’re going to look back on this moment someday and you’re going to regret it.”
“The only thing I regret is you, Colton.”
I run my tongue over my lip and sigh, nodding. “Yeah, fine. Fuck you, too.”
I sling one arm around Mom’s shoulders and squeeze briefly. “I love you, Ma. I’ll see you around.” Saying those words really suck and it’s difficult, but I have to stay hard, especially right now.
I’m only seventeen. Despite what they might think, I’m not running away. I’ve been given no other choice. I’m walking away and both my parents—and Kyle upstairs, in his room, peering through his blinds—watch as I close the back door behind me.
Alone.
* * *
At first it doesn’t seem real. Walking down the road in the middle of the night. My legs hurt. I’ve walked several miles already, heading further and further south. Somewhere I might find a bus out of Michigan. I have no idea what I’m going to do or where I’m heading. I feel like I’m in a dream. Like I can still go home.
But I can’t.
I can never go home again. Because I don’t have a home anymore.
I’m a homeless teenager.
Holy shit: I’ve become one of the statistics you hear about.
A light rain starts. It’s warm, blown diagonal by a cool breeze. I don’t mind, at first. But then I start to get soaked through and the weather turns cold.
A car drives past and then stops, taillights glowing red ahead. I keep walking until I’m beside the open passenger window. The driver is a woman, mid-thirties, maybe. Obviously not too smart. Honey, stopping for a guy like me, in weather like this, is a risky move. You don’t know me from Adam.
But I’m not turning down a free ride. ’Sides, she’s kinda sexy.
“Where are you headed?” she asks.
“Bus station, I guess.”
“Hop in.”
“I’m wet.”
“Leather seats. They’ll wipe down.”
I shrug, pop open the door, toss my backpack to the floorboards and slide in. Nice car. BMW, new, smells like leather and perfume.
And pot.
I might’ve just scored in more ways than one.
She’s brunette, hair done up in a messy bun, wearing a tight skirt and a low-cut shirt—business-casual wear, basically. Not overtly sexy, but enough to get across the point that she’s all woman. Her makeup is smeared and she’s got mascara running down her face. She has a wipe in one hand, and she’s in the process of wiping the makeup off. I don’t bother hiding my perusal. Nice body. Not exactly bangin’, but nice. Decent rack, probably a little smaller bare than it looks propped up by that bra—not that I’m complaining.
She eyes me. I’ve got a hoodie on, hood pulled low, baggy jeans, work boots. I could be anyone. Why’d she stop? I don’t get it.
“I’m Helen,” she says, extending her hand.
I take hers in mine and shake it, squeezing very lightly.
She lets go of my hand, reaches out and pushes back my hood. Pretty forward, but whatever. I haven’t cut my black hair in a while, so it’s pretty shaggy and in my eyes. Girls seem to like the way I look, so I know I’m not exactly ugly. And her gaze seems to indicate that she likes what she’s looking at.
“Colt,” I say by way of introduction.
“How old are you, Colt?” She asks this as she glances out the window to her left and behind, watching for traffic, leaning forward, and then pulls her BMW off the shoulder and onto the street..
What’s the right answer, here? Option A, I tell her my real age. If she’s smart, that’ll be that. End of story. Or, option B, I tell her I’m eighteen, and we have some fun. I feel like the answer I give will tell me what kind of person I am.
Deep breath. Sigh in frustration. “Seventeen, Helen.”
“Damn.” She smiles as she says this. She obviously had something in mind when she picked me up, even though she couldn’t tell anything about me when she stopped.
“Sorry.”
She shrugs. “It’s okay. It’s shitty out there.” She glances at me. “So. Colton. Why are you out here all by yourself, in this weather?”
“Shit happens.”
A nod, as if she knows. “Ah. Running away?”
“Not exactly. They know I’m going, they just don’t give a shit.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, well…fuck ’em.”
Another knowing nod. “Exactly. Fuck ’em.” She reaches down into the cup holder and pulls out a glass bowl. And no, I don’t mean an actual bowl, like for cereal, but a blown-glass pipe for smoking pot. “Smoke?”
“Hell yeah.”
She hands it to me, reaching into the cup holder again for a lighter. Flick the Bic, baby
. Ohhh shit, this is good herb. Like, damn near medical grade, probably name brand. I slump lower in the seat and hold the smoke in as long as I can. Wish I’d thought to stop at my tree and collect up my stash before leaving. I’m blinking dizzily as I blow the smoke out, because the THC hits hard and fast. I glance to the side, and somehow the top three buttons of Helen’s shirt have popped open. And fuck me if her bra isn’t basically see-through. Sheer black lace. Full view of her breasts, pale skin, small pink areolae, flat button nipples. Turns out I was wrong: the bra isn’t much but lace, so it doesn’t do much supporting, and I can see that she’s got a little sag to her tits. Gravity, man. But still, nice tits. A good handful each.
I take another toke, blow it out, lean my head back against the headrest, roll my head to the side and stare. “All right, then.” Hand her the bowl and lighter. “Thanks. Good shit.”
She grins at me. Glances down, “Them,” lifts the bowl and lighter, “or this?”
I grin and shrug. “Both.” I blink hard and begin to float, because I’m high as shit. “But I’m still only seventeen, Helen.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t look.” She steers with her knees as she takes a toke.
“True.” I watch her inhale and watch the way her chest swells and makes her boobs thrust out. “You probably shouldn’t go around picking up guys you don’t know off the side of the road. I mean, you got lucky with me, but some other cat you pick up may not have the same manners I do. Not safe, Helen.”
She slips a hand between her seat and the center armrest, and brings up a small silver 9mm. “Registered, with a CCW.” She replaces it after she’s satisfied I’ve had a good look at it.
I nod and shrug. “Still.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
We smoke the whole bowl. She’s got some stupid-ass pop music playing, but I don’t care. We don’t talk much as we smoke and drive, which is fine with me. I steal glances at her. I mean, she unbuttoned her shirt so it’s not really stealing, is it? I’m not sure what’s going on. Or what she wants. This whole thing is surreal; I’m just going with it.
I’m homeless.
I’m in a car with a woman ten or fifteen years older than me. She’s got her tits hanging out, we’re smoking pot, and she’s got a gun. Like…what the fuck?
Falling for Colton (Falling #5) Page 3
