The bus station was mostly run down. It sat on a large field that became the fairgrounds during half the weekends of the summer. Aside from us, there were a couple people already there; I could tell she wasn’t interested in talking while being that close to them. Maybe it was just that she didn’t want them seeing her talking to me.… I didn’t give that much thought. It wasn’t as alluring an idea as her running off with me had been.
The bus arrived quickly, and we sat at the back together, murmuring between the two of us.
“I don’t understand why you’re running off to your aunt’s to be honest,” I admitted, asking for more information. I didn’t think I deserved it, but I wanted it. She looked troubled.
“My mom said that when my dad wakes up he’s going to be furious, and he’ll need more time to cope,” Brooklyn explained, shifting in her seat. “I mean she isn’t wrong, he gets pissed if someone doesn’t check to make sure the door is locked every time we come inside,” she said, smiling awkwardly.
“I guess I could see that,” I said, although I didn’t completely get it. She just up and left her mom alone with him. I guess I didn’t blame her, she’d seen enough crap in the last afternoon. I watched her, distracting herself with the tag on her backpack, until my head started getting heavy and I needed to lean against the window for a break. I’d been awake for far too long and I wasn’t doing a good job of coping with it.
7
Brooklyn
The bus shook madly, like a clothes dryer with a brick in it, as it carried us through the dark summer night. Cities and towns slipped past us, unaware of what I’d seen, unaware of what we’d done. A slow, dull, migraine was starting behind my ears and creeping up through my head. I distracted myself by focusing on Adam’s bag in front of me.
It was gray and faded military green, aside from a strip that looked newer than the rest it was pretty scuffed up, like someone had ripped a patch off of it. I guessed it was a name patch, but it could have been anything. It didn’t look like he had packed much, not more than a couple outfits and maybe some shoes from the size of it. My head hummed in the dull ache, and brought forward a thought I hadn’t given time yet.
“Why were you there?” I murmured, sitting back and looking over at him. He’d been leaning his head against the window beside him, his breath forming clouds on the glass.
“Hm?” he asked, turning to me. He looked pretty damn tired.
“How did you know what was going on? I mean, don’t get me wrong,” I added, “I’m glad you were there. But why were you there?” I asked, watching his face carefully. I’d only seen him in school a couple times, I wasn’t even entirely sure of his name at that point. He looked troubled at my question, staring down at his hands in his lap for a moment.
“I sometimes just stop by to see if you’re okay,” he said, looking guilty.
“That’s stupid,” I said on instinct. I caught myself, hearing my mother's voice in my own, knowing it wasn’t right to say. “I’m not upset at you for it, but why? We’ve never even talked before. I don’t even know your name.” I didn’t understand. He looked put off, but understanding.
“I’m Adam Peterson,” he said, in what might have been the most delayed introduction in all time. “I saw a bruise on your arm before,” he explained, shaking his head and looking over at my face uneasily. “I know what abuse looks like, and I know how alone it makes you feel,” he said “I just wanted to be sure that if nobody else knew, at least you had someone looking out for you,” he finished, looking away again.
“How often did you do that?” I asked, not sure if I should even expect an honest answer. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure if I wanted one.
“Not that often, once a week tops,” he said, his face unreadable.
That gave me chills.
The problem was that I wasn’t sure if it was the thought of him watching my house—or what would have happened if he wasn’t watching. Sure, it’s not great that my home wasn’t as private as I thought, but if it was I might have been dead.
My dad might have gotten to his gun.
It could have been me lying in my own stink instead of him.
“Well, thank you,” I offered softly. He raised his eyebrows and looked over at me. I smiled softly in return, and let the corners of my lips tilt up slightly. There was something other than guilt weighing heavy on my chest, but I set it aside to think about later.
This strange boy had saved my life, and I owed him more than he knew.
My flight wasn’t until the next morning, but the airport was three hours from my home—the bus roared on as the only constant in my life in the moment. I would be in New York in the morning, starting a new life for myself out of what I could scramble together from my current one.
My mom was selfishly becoming the martyr. It might have been the headache, but this thought kept finding ways to seep into my mind. She got to keep her house, probably the cop boyfriend, be rid of dad, and she would get to say that she somehow saved me from a life of stigma. She got to have the good feeling of knowing that even though she was going to ditch me with him, in the end she got to make sure I was free. Too bad she didn’t know she was protecting the wrong person.
I looked over at Adam and couldn’t help but wonder if she would have done the same if she knew it was Adam that had done it. Would she have just called the cops then?
She had only packed for herself; she was going to take off without me. As I sat on the bus, anger mixing in with my anxiety, I began to wonder if sending me off to my aunt was just another way to get rid of me like she already obviously wanted to. She wasn’t going to take me with her if she left, why would she want me there if she stayed.
I couldn’t stand the idea of it.
Eventually the bus was nearing my stop, about ten minutes out, and I nudged Adam. He’d dozed off a couple hours into our trip. I couldn’t imagine how he could sleep after seeing what I did. Granted, he didn’t know my father was dead, but he’d just broken into a house and knocked a man out, and here he was snoozing away.
“Hey,” I said softly. He slowly woke up, his eyes dreamily blinking as he took in his surroundings. What a hell to wake up into.
“Hm?” he said, stretching a bit, his back cracking audibly.
“Here,” I said, pulling out the rest of the money my mother had given me. I still had my debit card to my parent’s account, my aunt was well off enough, and I had no doubt that my dad’s will had something to line my pockets at least a little.
“I can’t take this—” he started, waking the rest of the way up.
“No, here,” I said, unzipping his bag and sliding it in. “You saved my life,” I said softly, looking him directly in the face as I zipped his bag back closed. “Thank you,” I meant it. He looked like he understood.
When the bus got to my stop I only said a short goodbye before lugging my things away. How did I deserve for someone like him to find me and save me. I felt beyond lucky, like I shouldn’t have gotten off the bus, but I had a plane to catch in the morning.
The motel I got off at looked more than shady. The sign out front flickered like it was luring in more insects than people. I asked about a phone and the clerk motioned me over to a hallway.
“Hey mom,” I said softly when she answered. The phone’s receiver smelled like vinegar and a cheap cleaning solution, I didn’t let it touch my face.
“Hi honey,” she said, her fake voice. She sounded like she’d spent the day at a spa, not in the same house as her dead abusive husband after cheating on him.
“So, what’s going on?” I asked, feeling like I needed to be careful of what I said specifically. I wasn’t sure if there was the possibility of anyone else on the line. I was angry at her for acting like it was so normal, like it didn’t affect her. It was tearing me up and she sounded like it never even freaking happened.
“Well, the cops have been gone for a couple hours,” she said thoughtfully. “They’re trying to keep it quiet, even asked if I wanted to sta
y in a hotel, that they’d pay for it. I just. I want to be here tonight, it’s so peaceful now,” she continued. I was shocked that she already called them. I hadn’t expected her to be home if the cops knew what was going on.
“They’re keeping it quiet?” I asked, willfully ignoring the rest of what she said.
“Yeah. Mostly because of Jim, they didn’t want it getting out that he was sleeping with me right before I had to defend myself from my husband,” she sounded like she was completely convinced of this series of events. She talked like she’d actually killed the bastard.
“So they’re not going to have you charged with anything?” a small relief.
“No, not that I know of yet—why would they? I was defending myself,” she replied sternly.
Her complete conviction to it threw me off and made me question the night as well.
“Baby doll, your flight is early in the morning. It’s all handled, just go and have a good time with Jo,” she said, I heard a clink in the background of glass touching glass and it made sense. She was drunk, of course.
“Alright, I’ll call you in the next couple days then,” I said, I knew it was an empty promise the moment it passed through my lips. We said our goodbyes and hung up, and I checked in. The motel was run down, but as I hit the bed, sliding under sheets of questionable cleanliness, I was relieved and relaxed. The day was over, and I’d only have to deal with it in memory.
I fell into a deep and immediate sleep.
8
Brooklyn
Airplanes never ceased to amaze me.
If you ever feel like everything in your life is closing in on you, it helps to be rocketed into the sky for a little bit of perspective. The world is huge, sprawling, ever moving. There is no lack of experiences, or people, or places.
There’s nothing but time for you to think.
By the time we landed, I had come to the realization that I still hadn’t forgiven my mother. I was glad to be away from her, and glad to be free of worry about my dad.
I saw the suitcase. I saw how prepared she already was for me to be left behind.
Regardless of what she did after the fact, she still had a bag packed and wasn’t planning on letting me know. She was going to leave me with him, that asshole, and she wasn’t even going to warn me. He could have killed me.
If she had left, I would have been there when he discovered it.
He would have been uncontrollably angry, uncontrollably loud, and I would have been the only person who had any information on where she went. My mom packing that bag and deciding to go without me was basically a death sentence, no matter how you looked at it. It didn’t matter what she did after he was dead, it didn’t change the fact that she was almost always only concerned with what was in her best interest.
She would have been just as guilty in the case of my death as he would have been.
My fists were held tight as the plane began to unload; my knuckles were bright and white, looking like they wanted to bust out through my pale skin. I didn’t even get to choose where I went after she told me I needed to leave. My mom even had her hands on controlling my exit.
Regret filled me for leaving Adam on that bus. I could have left with him, gone anywhere in the world, or at least in the country. He could have come with me, booked a flight with all that dough, and we could have just gotten lost in New York together, running off from my aunt. He was the closest thing to a friend I had anymore, I just left all of mine behind without any warning. He was the only person who seemed to really understand what I was going through, even if he didn’t know the full truth.
I wished I had just figured out a way to keep him near me, his strong arms blocking off the awful world I kept getting sucked into. I kept picturing his face, so full of concern, caring for me even though I know I’d probably only been awful to him. I felt more guilt for him than I felt for either of my parents.
I grabbed my carry-on and began to get off the plane, suddenly surrounded by the loud hum of people in the JFK airport. There wasn’t much room to be left alone with your thoughts there, and I was more than thankful for that.
My Aunt Jo met me at the luggage carousel and pulled me into a sweeping hug. She had tears prickling at the wrinkles on the corners of her bright green eyes. I couldn’t help but feel a strong sense of sympathy basically radiating off her. I hated it and got the impending sense of doom that I’d be getting that look from a lot more people in the following weeks.
“How was your flight honey?” she asked, looking me over.
“It was fine,” I lied. I kept my eyes flat on the luggage carousel, not wanting to give her more pity ammunition. She’d eat up every word if I gave her any.
A man kept looking over at us, I could feel his eyes on us, and I regretted my aunt’s reaction to seeing me. I was worried we’d made a huge spectacle, and I couldn’t stand it if more people were going to be giving me looks of pity. Frowning, I turned and looked over at him, curious to see what the hell he was looking at.
That wasn’t pity on his face.
He began to approaching me, and somehow I didn’t think he was checking me out. “Hi, I’m Chet Hayver,” he said, thrusting his hand out to me. He was tall, moderately attractive in the way that most fake things are. I shook his hand though, cinching my brows together a little in a confused smile.
“Brooklyn White,” I replied, letting go of his hand. I could feel my aunt tensing up behind me.
“Brooklyn, how old are you?” he asked. That was straight forward. He was refreshing after what I’d been surrounded with for the last day. My aunt cleared her throat, we both looked toward her and she was borderline glaring at him.
“Oh! Nothing funny,” he said, waving his arms for a moment, before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a card.
Chet Hayver
Talent Scout
Taking the freshest faces to the highest places.
Springs Eternal Agency p 555-555-5555
[email protected] o 555-555-5555
“I’m seventeen, but I’ll be eighteen in December,” I said, still looking down at the card. It was pretty classy, thick off white cardstock, light gold over the lettering. Springs Eternal wasn’t in the best taste for an agency name, but what did I know—I hadn’t been approached by one before.
“I’m sorry, she’s grieving right now, I don’t know if this is appropriate,” my aunt said with that same damn sad face. It struck me that she was living off the drama in my life. She didn’t care if I was upset, she cared that it made her look good to care. Chet was quick to rebuttal: not to her though, to me.
“Brooklyn, I’m looking for some new talent, and you have such a look,” he motioned to me. I didn’t feel like I looked like much and I wasn’t wearing my best things, but I had to admit I’d always considered going into acting. “I could easily get you gigs in Hollywood, you’d be a star in no time I guarantee it,” he said, as if I was supposed to take his word just because of a card. “Actually we’ve got a project coming up for the ‘Southfield Axis’ series—”
“Please stop bothering her, she’s been through a lot,” my aunt cut him off, tugging on my arm to lead me away from Chet. Just another fucking relative doing whatever they assumed was best, not bothering to even ask how I felt about any of it. I saw my luggage on the carousel and couldn’t help but think about my mom’s luggage sitting beside her dresser. That damned purple paisley. I wouldn’t be able to look at a print like that again without thinking of her betrayal.
I was sick and tired of my fucking relatives saying what they thought was best, when in the end they didn’t give a shit about how I felt. Stepping away, I grabbed my luggage and hauled it back to the two of them.
“Chet, tell me more about what you can do for me,” I said, much to my aunt’s chagrin. Chet smiled and began to rattle on information I’d need to know. The airport was swimming around me in an almost dream like state as I had my hands on the reigns to my own life for once. It felt incredible.
Fuck my mom.
Fuck my aunt.
They didn’t want to take into account what I wanted—I sure as hell wasn’t going to give a fuck about what they wanted from me.
9
Adam
When you have nowhere to go it can feel helpless. Hopeless.
People always say all of these things they’d do if they didn’t have to work, didn’t have family tying them down, or a job to hold them accountable. However when you have nothing in the world that’s yours it isn’t like that.
I had money, but what the hell was I going to do with that? Maybe a couple thousand at most, and that wasn’t going to get me an apartment without an ID card, it wasn’t going to even last me a month of motels. I couldn’t go back home, and I couldn’t just follow Brooklyn. So I stayed on the bus. It became a dizzying game of musical seats where I’d get off on random stops, or when the buses hit their final stops before turning around, and then I’d buy a ticket on a bus I’d hadn’t been on before.
I went places I’d never been.
Saw landmarks and states, through the vibrating windows of those buses that I never saw before. The people were never the exact same people, but they were always the same in other ways. There would be people my age, some homeless, some going home because after a couple weeks of living on their own they gave up. Older people visiting family, entire families moving. I never had the same bus driver twice.
The buses were revolving doors of glimpses into possible paths I could take.
I didn’t see any people that reflected me or who I wanted to be. I didn’t see any paths that looked like they would fit me. I know that everyone else has their troubles but I felt truly alone.
Every now and then I’d find myself spending a week or two in a town I’d never seen before. It made me feel a little more human, going to the same diner every morning for a week, jogging through a park with a dozen others. It connected me with other people more than I could have hoped for.
Dirty Fighter: A Bad Boy MMA Romance Page 4
