by Rachel Rust
I grabbed a bottle of water and my sandwich, finally believing that someone was happy to have me back in South Dakota. Even if it was a two-year-old.
“I’ll be in the garage.”
The garage was detached from the house, set further down the gravel driveway. Inside, I flipped on the lights, then took a seat at the work bench. My eyes focused on the opposite wall of the garage where a car sat, draped by a blue cover. I hadn’t laid eyes on it in over a year.
Once a source of pride, the car was now a reminder of how fucked up my life was. Even the sight of it, the blue cover giving away a hint of the sleek form underneath, tossed the half-eaten sandwich around in my stomach. The car had been bought in a better time—a time I could no longer relate to. Plus, I’d have to start cashing some serious paychecks in order to even get the damn thing up and running. On the workbench sat a red tool box. I didn’t have to open it to know what was inside: Brand new tools, hardly touched. Their black-and-white handles still clean as the day I had removed them from the box on my seventeenth birthday, well over a year ago.
Forcing my eyes away, I took my phone from my pocket and clicked to open Facebook, and then typed in a password, only to be denied. I tried a second password. Denied.
It had been a long time since I had logged into Facebook. I hated most necessary socializing with people in real life. Willingly doing so on social media was far beyond anything I found comfortable.
I stared at the gritty concrete floor of the garage, trying to remember the password. I had set up the account in ninth grade at the urging of my friends—one person in particular.
I went back to the password box and typed in: Roxanne
The name was an unwelcomed reminder of a past life. Just typing it pissed me off, but it worked. I was logged in and immediately went to Nina White Eagle’s page where I found her list of friends. It may have been a longshot, but Nina was the most social person I knew. She was probably Facebook friends with the entire school.
Most of Nina’s friends were people in town, people I knew—whether I wanted to or not. My eyes scanned for the unfamiliar names. The unfamiliar female names.
And then, there she was.
The account was private, but her picture was unmistakable. The girl with the red hair.
Lydia.
The name fit her—her smile, her hair. It was pretty. And familiar somehow.
But why was it familiar? I was sure I had never known a Lydia before. My hand flipped the phone over and over again as I thought about the name. Images and names of classmates throughout the day flicked through my mind. There had been no Lydia in any of my classes.
Maybe Daniel or Alex knew her. I could ask them or—
My eyes closed with a chuckle. “Shit.” Alex. That was it. That was where Lydia fit in. She was the girl Alex wanted to ask out … and maybe butter up, literally.
Lydia’s picture stared back at me from my phone. She’d probably say yes to Alex. Most girls did. And why not? He had money and no criminal record … and a car that ran.
The only time I could ever compete against Alex was with a basketball in my hand.
With a sigh, I shoved my phone into my pocket and then headed back to the house. After sinking my crumpled-up napkin into the kitchen garbage can from ten feet, I went upstairs to my bedroom.
I lay on my back, my eyes focused on the wood ceiling of the attic, but all I could see was her face and name dancing in front me. There was something very anti-bro code about liking the same girl as Alex.
I closed my eyes and shoved her away.
She came right back.
I placed a pillow over my face. She didn’t go away. I half-sighed, half-groaned into the dense collection of feathers.
Maybe it wasn’t against bro code if the girl made the first move. Maybe if she talked first, then that’d be okay. I removed the pillow and the cool attic air bathed my face. I laughed—at myself, knowing there was no way a girl like that would ever voluntarily talk to a piece of shit like me.
Chapter Nine
She’s on the Hunt
The tribal police station was a low-profile building in the tiny area known as downtown Thorn Creek. I had never been to the station before. In fact, I had never been in any police station before, so it was with great hesitation that I pulled the handle of the silver-framed door and entered.
The front reception area smelled of burnt coffee. Four wood chairs sat under the front window which was covered by white vertical blinds, yellowed from age. A dusty blue coated the walls, and the overhead fluorescent lighting made everything glow an unhealthy gray-white.
Seated at the front desk was a middle-aged officer with receding brown hair. Officer Benson, according to the desk’s nameplate. He stared at me and said nothing. Apparently, customer service was not their strong suit.
“Hi,” I said. “My name’s Lydia Lanski, and I’m looking for Sergeant Rollins.”
Officer Benson grunted once and then rose out of his chair. He vanished down a hallway. A few seconds later, Sergeant Rollins appeared.
“I assume you have a list of customers for me?” he asked. I held out a piece of loose leaf paper. He took it and read it out loud. “Alex DeMarco’s dad; a boy with short black hair, maybe sixteen- or seventeen-years-old; and, the old guy in the Army jacket who hangs out at The Shack and drinks a lot of coffee.”
“Yeah, I don’t know what that guy’s name is,” I said. “But go ask Alice White Eagle, she’ll know.”
Alice White Eagle was Nina’s mom, who owned the restaurant, The Shack. It was a family-style restaurant, and a local favorite for dining out. Although it didn’t have much competition as the only other option in town was Subway.
“What about the kid who was there?” Rollins asked. “Sixteen- or seventeen-years-old, black hair. I thought you said there weren’t any students in the store that night.”
“He’s not a student … at least not at Thorn Creek. I didn’t recognize him.”
The corner of Rollins’s mouth frowned. “Was he with anyone? Did he come in a car or on foot?”
“Don’t know. He came in, bought a fountain pop, and then left.”
“And Alex DeMarco’s dad?”
“He just got gas that night,” I said, “But I don’t know what his name is.”
“Chris.”
“Oh.”
Chris seemed like such a simple name for someone who had a reputation for being somewhat … scary. Alex’s dad was president of the Dakota Central Bank. Rumors floated around town that aside from legitimate lending, Chris DeMarco engaged in private lending practices which were not always on the up and up. An even worse rumor was that he had once torched someone’s house when they’d refused to move out after it was foreclosed on by the bank. There was also a rumor that he had slept around on his wife, most notably with Principal Jackson. That one was a school favorite.
Alex never talked about either of his parents, which in my mind made the rumors more concrete. Although, that might have been because the only time Alex ever talked to me was to flirt or ask me out.
“Thanks for the list,” Rollins said, glancing at the face clock over the yellowed blinds. “Get to school.”
I gave a quick nod, and then walked out of the police station as fast as I could without a formal good-bye. The morning sun and fresh air were a welcomed relief from the stifling atmosphere of the police station. And the stifling personality of Sergeant Rollins.
At school, I parked in my usual spot under the large maple tree on the far side of the parking lot. My eyes scanned the lot for the beautiful Cheshire Cat boy. But he was nowhere.
At my locker, I grabbed my morning textbooks. He was nowhere.
I closed my locker and headed to homeroom. He was nowhere.
I looked all morning, reapplied lip gloss, double- and triple-checked my flatiron-assaulted hair in the bathroom mirror. And still, he was nowhere.
On the way to lunch, Alex fell in-step alongside me.
“Tell me
something, Lydia,” he said. “Have you ever wondered what this little town looks like through the windows of a brand-new Mustang?”
I laughed. “Not really, no.”
“Wanna find out?” he asked with a slight grin, dangling his car keys.
I returned the smile. “Right now I just want to eat lunch.”
He stopped walking with a defeatist slump.
I walked to the cafeteria, knowing he wasn’t going to follow me. Most of the athletes spent their lunch hour in the weight room where Coach Donnelly allowed them to eat and generally mess around. Or so I had been told. I had never had the nerve to check it out myself. A room full of jocks was not my comfort zone.
After purchasing a salad and a bottle of water, I sat across from Nina. My eyes scanned the lunchroom, but my Cheshire Cat boy was probably in the weight room with all the other basketball players. I wanted to ask Taya and Nina if they knew him. His name was one brave question away. Yet my mouth clamped shut—finding out he had a girlfriend was also one question away. Or finding out he was a total jackass.
Despite my desire for information, I welcomed temporary ignorance, and for thirty minutes I listened to Nina and Taya discuss that evening’s barbeque plans, while forcing bites of salad into my mouth every so often to feign normalness.
****
I flew out of the locker room door at the end of the day, eager to lay eyes on my cute basketball player. My feet stopped. My shoulders sagged. The gym was empty.
I schlepped my disappointed self to my locker, then out the front doors.
The cool October air smelled of dried grass, and clippings scattered across the school’s sidewalk in front of me. I lifted my head to gaze at the orange-leafed maple tree canopy, but instead my eyes landed on him. He sat on a bench outside the main school doors, elbows on knees, hunched over his phone. His long black hair was loose. A thick lock of it hung over his shoulder, draping against his cheek; a shield from the world.
Without any conscious command from me, my feet changed trajectory—straight toward him. With every step, anticipation of him noticing me seemed to increase exponentially. My stomach flip-flopped like crazy.
He looked up.
I nearly puked.
Without even thinking, I spoke, “Hi.”
A hint of a smile crossed his face. “Hey.” He scanned my face. “Did you just move here?”
I tried to keep my weakened knees from crumpling at the sound of his voice. It was low and strong—and hushed, as though he didn’t owe it to anyone to speak any louder. “I moved here about a year ago, but I’m originally from Minneapolis.”
His phone buzzed in his hand and he stood up, putting his full lengthy goodness on display. He was about a foot taller than my five-four frame, give or take a sole. After reading a text, his gaze fell back onto my face. My eye muscles went weak, pulled in by his near-black irises and black lashes. The ends of his long hair danced in the nonstop breeze.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Nathan.”
Nathan. Finally, he had a name, that beautiful boy.
“I’m Lydia.”
The corner of his lip twitched up as if I had told him something he already knew.
“Are you new here?” I asked.
His chuckled quietly. “No, I lived here before, but I’ve been in Denver for the past year.” He hoisted his backpack onto his shoulder.
There weren’t many vehicles left in the student parking lot and only a minivan sat parked in the street. In a flash of bravery—or pure stupidity—I blurted out, “Do you need a ride?”
“I’m gonna walk,” he said.
“Are you sure? It’s no problem.”
At first, his face went unchanged, but then the corner of his mouth turned up again. “All right.”
“Okay, cool.”
We walked together to my car, and I tried to act as if it was no big deal, as though I gave rides to random guys all the time. Meanwhile, I mentally slapped myself, pretty sure girls who offered rides to boys they didn’t know wound up dead on the front pages of newspapers.
I glanced over to find Nathan looking at me. He didn’t look like a maniacal serial killer, but I’d read once that not many of them did.
Chapter Ten
He Gets a Lift
I stared at her as we walked toward the parking lot. Lydia with the green eyes. And here she was, walking with me of all damn people. A lock of her red hair flew over her shoulder and swiped against my arm. I exhaled and held my breath for a few seconds.
She led me to a red CRV. I was pretty good with cars, having worked on a lot of ranch trucks for Ed, but they were mostly Fords and a couple of old Chevys he had picked up on auction. I knew jack shit about Hondas.
I expected her car to smell like flowers or strawberries, or some other awful kind of girl scent. But it smelled slightly of coconut, which wasn’t bad.
“Which way?” she asked.
“Go left.”
She turned left, maneuvering the gear shift with ease. It was sexist to assume girls couldn’t drive stick shifts, but I had never met one who could. The highway was approaching. “Take a left on 84 up here,” I said.
She stopped and turned on the blinker. On the corner sat the Dakota Central Bank. Plywood covered the large front window.
“What happened to the bank?” Lydia asked.
“Window got busted, I guess.” I turned my head, not wanting to look at the bank any longer than necessary. “Probably some kids throwing rocks or something.”
“How hard do you think you have to throw a rock to completely break a window?” she asked.
Not very hard. I chose not to answer out loud because I didn’t want to explain why I would know the answer to that question.
“It probably doesn’t take a lot of force,” she said, seemingly talking to herself. “I shatter a glass on the kitchen floor at least once a year.”
My face cracked into a smile. I couldn’t help it.
“Why were you living in Denver?” she asked, turning onto the highway.
“I went there to live with my uncle.”
“And your mom and dad are here in Thorn Creek?”
My gut tightened. “No, I live with another uncle here.” I shifted in my seat. “I used to live with my dad in Pierre, but I moved here when I was seven.” One of the only good things about Thorn Creek was that everyone already knew my story. It wasn’t often I had to explain myself and my family. Out the window the grassland expanded in every direction. Limitless and dull. If not for the highways, it was impossible to orientate a direction. “Why’d you move here?” I asked.
“My parents are professors,” she said. “They’re working on a project with the tribal schools and CDU. Trying to get CDU classes available in satellite locations on the reservation.”
This wasn’t surprising. Non-natives were always happy to help out the rez in safe ways, then pat themselves on the back and type it onto their resume.
“Wait—” Lydia suddenly said. “Where are we going?”
The town was behind us. Grassland surrounded the car on all sides.
“It’s another two miles,” I said.
“Two miles? You were going to walk two miles?”
“I do it a lot. Sometimes I borrow one of my uncle’s trucks because my car’s not exactly drivable right now, but usually I jog it.”
She made a face. Her nose scrunched up, wrinkling between her eyes. “You actually like running? For real?”
All non-runners asked me the same thing. “I go for a run every day, so I guess I like it.”
“I don’t run, for any reason,” she said.
“What if someone was chasing you?”
“I’d turn around and kick their ass.”
Everything within me loosened, and I laughed. My head relaxed back onto the headrest and then rolled to the side to look at her. Cute, nice, and funny. An impossible trifecta. A piece of my sanity slipped away. “What grade are you in?” I asked.
&nb
sp; “Eleventh.”
“Same here.”
“I turned seventeen last month,” she said. “How old are you?”
Everything inside me tightened again, and I sat up straight and rigid. I’d always been the oldest kid in my class. It made for a lot of teasing, especially when I was younger—people asking if I’d been held back, assuming I was stupid—but the upside was that I was usually the biggest kid and could pummel anyone who pissed me off.
I forced my shoulders to relax. It was time to rip off the band aid. “I’m eighteen.”
Lydia’s expression didn’t change, staring straight out at the ribbon of highway. But she struck me as a smart person. She was figuring it out—figuring out that juniors in high school were usually sixteen or seventeen.
“You’re eighteen already?” she finally asked. “When’s your birthday.”
“July fourth.”
“That’s cool.”
I shrugged, glad that she didn’t mention fireworks. “I didn’t start kindergarten till I was seven … when I moved here.” Straight ahead, a shelterbelt of trees approached fast, and I welcomed its distraction. “It’s this driveway coming up.”
Lydia slowed and turned onto my driveway, eventually stopping up near the two-story white house. “Which one’s your not-exactly-drivable car?” she asked, looking at a few cars parked near the garage.
“It’s in the garage.”
“What kind is it?”
I hooked a finger into the car door’s handle but didn’t open it. Lydia stared at me, large eyes expectant. She was so damn cute, I didn’t wanna disappoint her. I would’ve promised her everything in that moment to keep her face from morphing into anything other than a smile. “It’s a sixty-nine Camaro,” I said. When I had bought the car two years ago, I imagined this moment—telling a girl about my Camaro. In my mind, the moment had been a full blown hard-on of arrogance. But I didn’t feel arrogant. For whatever reason, I wanted to show her my car and talk to her about it and let her know why I had bought it and what it meant to me.
“What color is it?” she asked.
