Unravel

by Tara Lynn

  He’d glowered at me. I’d tried to stand straighter as I nodded. But the idea of the gun weighed on me. Clashed lived this world – death and violence weren’t strangers to him. Who knew what registered as a risk to a guy like that?

  Liza needed me though.

  “So I do this run and you’ll get rid of the Sheriff?”

  “I said we’d look at it.” His eyes landed cross on the horizon, nose wrinkled. “If he is as bad as you say, then he’ll get what’s coming.”

  “What do you mean you’ll look?”

  His head tilted down and there’d been nothing but ice in his eyes. “We have a code boy. Your girl’s daddy broke that code, you’ll get what you asked for. Now go move some product for us while we’re still in good graces with the law. Hurry on now, time’s a ticking.”

  I got in the car and checked the directions to the pickup. It’d be just a few hours ride. Plenty of open road though, and the lab itself was out in the middle of nowhere.

  It also meant there’d be nowhere to run to if something went wrong. I was a QB not goddamn Superman. I glanced at the glove compartment. Clash hunched in through the open passenger window, clicked it open. The glock stood there, small and metal. He picked it up, released the clip and plugged it back in.

  “Be careful carrying this,” he said, shutting the compartment. “You got a full clip in here, but it ain’t the best gun. If you have to fire, fire quick and get out. But you shouldn’t have to. You’re just there for the drugs.”

  “Alright,” I’d said.

  I’d driven off. I’d gotten to the lab.

  And I shot and killed the man who I was supposed to be helping.

  So when I finished cleaning up the field and headed off to the lockers and when Coach Jacobs said a last, “It’s not too late,” I hardly believed him. A paper didn’t change the past. It just made it easier to remember.

  Marlo sat on the bench by my locker, fully decked out in his colors and texting. Sweat dripped of his square shaved head, as he texted on his phone.

  “What took you so long?” he said.

  “Taking care of the team, that's all,” I said, opening my locker.

  “Your duty out there’s winded down, hoss.” Marlo clapped his vest. “This is what's up from now on.”

  “Yeah.” I had my back to him, but my voice revealed too much of my thoughts. “Soon enough.”

  “Actually I got a little something now.”

  I looked back. Marlo unzipped his duffel back on the floor and held out a brown bagged package.

  “What's this?” I said.

  “The fuck you think it is, man?”

  I hefted it, set it down and started changing into my t-shirt and jeans. “Another delivery? They don't need two of us for that.”

  “Na, they just wanted me to give it to you.”

  I shoved my shirt over my head. “Fucking fantastic. So much for enjoying my last hours on the field.”

  “You enjoyed those little shits fucking up every order you gave them?”

  I sighed. “Whatever.” I knew where I belonged. I just didn’t get why the MC kept trying to snap the box shut before the music ended.

  “Hey, man,” Marlo said peering up at me. “You want me along on this?”

  “Nah.” I straightened and tossed the package in my own bag. “I got this. It’s all just speeding up, ya know?”

  “Hey, don't even worry.” Marlo knocked my thigh. “You and me, we're gonna be out there like SEAL team six. Heard they might put me on lead enforcer duty – you know out in the desert where the shit goes down. Keep this town locked down tight.”

  “Yeah,” I said, setting off. “We're big fucking heroes alright.”

  Marlo was already lost in his text game though. I wish I could be as certain as him. God damn, I should just burn that letter.

  The package held an address. Seemed dumb to me to have things written down, but the MC was too deep in this town to give a shit. It wasn't a far ride, but my body felt twisted up the whole way.

  It was just another drug run. If all I had to do to keep my place in the MC was one of these a day, then I would gladly ride until my tail fell off. I’d deliver and play. But that had been my first gig, too, and it had ended in violence.

  Maybe I could cling onto Liza in Austin. She seemed to need me. But if things heated up here, then I would not infect her with it. The MC did not need me to enforce – that was the hole in the needle I could thread through and make this all work. Assuming, my original sin didn’t reach Liza’s ears.

  I fastened the package, drove out to a town even smaller than Loving, found my destination, passed the parcel on through the half open door of a ratty, worn-down shack. I took false exits and checked my tail in triplicate before I entered Loving again. I did a round within town then finally pulled in to the driveway.

  My father’s dusty beater sat in the driveway, and sure enough he sat with a beer in the living room. He glanced up from the couch, tossed me a weak smile and went back to watching the Monday night game.

  I saw myself between him and the screen – on one side a fantasy, on the other defeat and resignation. My father had done many things to end up where he was, but he had not killed. Serving the MC was the only reason I had more purpose than to be drunk on that couch with him.

  But part of me still saw the screen and dreamed. No matter how far away those lights really were.

  Eliza waited for me up the stairs. She looked like angel in her loose white shirt and puffy shorts. I wanted to nestle deep within her clouds, but she was looking mighty Old Testament.

  “Where were you?” she said, her toes fidgeting against the hardwood.

  I glanced at the shut door of our parent's room. “Club stuff,” I said. “What else?”

  “It’s so frequent now.”

  I flapped my jacket collar. “This is all I’m going to be soon. Gotta step up.”

  “You have me too.”

  She glowered down at me a moment, but then looked soft and sad.

  “Liza, you know what I am,” I said. “Why do you keep forgetting?”

  “I’m not forgetting. I just…” She pinned her hair back. “I just realized how much you’re going to make me miss you. I don’t need you to change. I just need you.”

  The cut felt heavy on my shoulders. Her hating me for this had been easy to handle. Wanting me even more despite it, that proved unbearable. I ducked my eyes. I couldn’t give that to her. At best, I could tell her what I’d done and chase her away.

  I couldn’t bear that. Let time and silence erode us. I couldn’t snap apart again without breaking.

  “Nothing?” she said, finally. “You've got nothing to say.”

  “I've got a duty to them as well as you.”

  “Which matters more?”

  The answer came easy, but I said nothing. I glanced at my barren room, at the drawer with the useless sheet within. A sheet that could keep us together in flesh, but not enough to undo my past. Guess a night alone was good preparation.

  But she rolled her eyes, and pecked me on the nose. She took my arm, tugged back into her bright room and shut the door behind us.

  I knew it was temporary. I knew this night would come and go, and her eyes would dim again when she saw me in the cut the next time. Just as I knew it’d be on me till the day I hit the dirt for good.

  But as I held her to me, as her lips sought mine, all I could think of were the lights. Of stadiums and skylines, of star spattered nights. Liza gave herself to me and the future felt wide open.

  If only for the moment.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Eliza

  The house sat dark and lifeless. Rett wasn't home when I got there, but I knew he had spring training left. Why did he still go to those things? He looked like he'd seen people die when he came back home from the last one, and yet he still went to help the coach search uselessly for anyone who could replace him.

  Sticking to useless things – that was Rett in a nutshell.
>
  I sighed. I did not get that guy's sense of honor, but at least he had one. I couldn’t stand how much it kept him from me, but I didn’t want to see him crumble either. So I longed for him and I waited, and I hated how fine I was doing all those things.

  As for my honor, it was disappearing like desert rain. My grades had started dipping into the A- range. I even had gotten a B+ on a physics test. Ok, that was a bit much. I’d fix that, but only because I knew I could do better. Why had I ever put in the hours and hours to keep getting perfect score after perfect score. All I’d ever wanted was Austin, and I didn’t need to be valedictorian to get in or get that scholarship.

  Before Rett, I’d never much thought about what I wanted, just what other people saw when they saw me.

  I’d gotten everything I needed from high school though. The only thing left was Rett, and nothing I do could control that. I could tell him all the times I wanted him to forget his pride and just come live with me in Austin. He wouldn’t be a burden. It didn’t matter if he didn’t go to school or even got a job right away. We could make it work.

  He’d listen, and then he’d look away.

  My chest felt like someone lay on it, crushing me. I breathed a little and found the edges. College still lay so many months away.

  I grabbed my drawing pad and began to prop up on my bed, as I did every day. But then I thought better and went into Rett's room.

  His place was smaller than mine, but it still felt empty, with just a dresser a closet and a bed. The walls sat bare, except for the framed wool 'Blessings' mat that my mother had put in back when it was just for guests. Other than a lonely textbook on the dresser, and the ruffled white sheets on the bed, it could have been abandoned for years.

  I went around to Rett's closet and took a deep whiff as I opened the door. The thick scent of leather wound through my chest, loosened my breathing and kept going down, setting my whole body loose. This smell kept him tied to Loving. I should hate it.

  Instead, I panted like a dog at a dinner bell. If Rett chose this, then I’d want him wearing it. I’d given up trying to change that, so why wasn’t it enough? There had to be something he could do for them while living out in Austin

  His other shirts were hung up crisply. If I opened the dresser, I'd definitely find his other clothes folded and ordered. I didn't even have to check.

  Rett needed order and purpose, so why would he get on with a bunch of outlaws. I still didn't buy his definition of their code. They were criminals through and through.

  I shut the door. Some things I’d just have to accept.

  I grabbed the pad and settled into his bed. His sheets didn't smell as strong as his MC cut, but the subtle musk of him sifted up me sensually. I closed my eyes, and it was him on me. I even sensed a lingering bit of myself dancing up into the air with him.

  I opened my eyes, grabbed my pad and set to work. This book was almost full. I’d sped up ever since we came back from the desert. I had no doubts anymore, that this should be my life. Austin wouldn’t get Laser Clark, just Liza.

  My hand took me in strange ways, starting with curves and round edges instead of the hard lines I was used to. It took a few minutes to recognize just what exactly I was drawing.

  It was a desert at sunset, a sun setting under an empty sky, just a couple clouds overhead, reaching wispily for each other – one clearly a man, the other just barely the face of a woman.

  I added a cliff's edge stretching out from the bottom of the sheet towards the horizon. Two sets of legs mingled underneath.

  It wasn't how it had happened that night, but it felt real, and my skin tingled as the minutes ticked by and the figures in my hand came out in their imperfect glory.

  “What are you doing in here, honey?”

  I glanced up to my mother at the doorway. She had on a long beige flower print dress. I hadn’t heard her car pull up.

  “Just drawing,” I said. I'd have been annoyed for the distraction, but I'd just finished adding some wisps to the clouds that made them look more ghostly.

  “Is Everett ok with you being in here?” she asked.

  “He better be.”

  “I'm not sure.”

  She had a light smile and a puzzled look.

  Did she not know, or was she trying not to know, as she always did? Not a trace of fear raced up my arms. It didn’t matter. Ever since that night in the desert, I hadn't been too worried about hiding us from her. If she couldn’t even speak the truth about my stepfather long after he vanished, then she sure wouldn’t work herself up into talking about us.

  “Ok, just be careful,” she said, and whispered down the stairs.

  Careful. I was done being careful.

  I finished the picture, but the clock ticked eight and Rett still wasn't home. I set to work on some flourishes, but my eyes kept creeping back to the clock so often that I messed up the drawing more than helped it.

  “Crap,” I said. The pencil had broken off the nub and streaked a giant line across my enamored clouds. My eraser proved about as effective as a paintbrush.

  I got up and looked through Rett's top drawers. He showed up to class most of the time. He had to have an eraser.

  The first small drawer held boxers. Just six of them, cause how much else can you fit in a top drawer. I shut it before I buried my nose in them like a weirdo. The second was a stack of homework. The top one read “B+, interesting ideas, lacking true development.” I flipped through the sheets. All of them were Bs or Cs.

  Rett wasn't doing fine in class, even as he wasted most of his time with the MC. Why on earth couldn’t he do more? I slammed the drawer shut.

  The last one on the right held writing stuff. I found the eraser and was about to shut it, when I noticed a crumpled up sheet off in the corner. It would have been meaningless, but in the creases, I saw what looked like an orange UT-Austin logo.

  I unrolled it, smoothed it out, and started reading.

  'Dear Mr. Everett Tull, It is with great pleasure that we wish to extend to you an athletic scholarship to-'

  “Liza?”

  I glanced back. Rett stood at the door holding his bag, looking hard and flustered in his varsity jacket. He had on a deep frown. I read faster.

  '-grants you admission to the class of 2019, and full tuition support dependent on your participation in the collegiate football team.'

  “What are you reading?” Rett came up to me.

  “You tell me.” I shoved the paper in his face. “Rett, is this for real?”

  He took the sheet and set it down. “Why are you looking at that?”

  “That’s the UT logo.” I cupped my mouth. “Oh my god, Rett. You got into Austin. You’re going to play for them.”

  My heart pounded so hard. I grabbed his arms and began just shaking. All I could think about was both us being out of this town, together in a new city. We could move in together there. Our last names still were different. No one had to know us.

  I’d kept myself from dreaming, from daring, snuffing out anything that dared rise. Well, now there was no reason not to hope. I could breathe and there was no reason to stop it. A warm feeling rose in my chest and spread through my body, made Rett glisten like an oasis.

  We could have each other.

  His eyes didn't meet mine though. Slowly that reality pushed back into my head. He had hidden that, destroyed it even. He had no intention of going.

  “What's wrong?” I huddled up into him as if he were a patient I could examine.

  “Nothing's wrong,” he said. “That admission just means nothing to me.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said. “Why on earth wouldn't you go? It's a football scholarship, Rett. They're paying for you to go and to play.”

  Rett wrenched out of my grip. “They can want what they want. But I can't go.”

  “Why in the hell not? You could have been there without a job, without school. Now, you have both. You have a purpose in Austin.”

  I stalked up, but his back was t
o me, the broad red stitching that read “Tull” and his number on the back of his jacket. He loved this jacket far more than the other, and now he’d get to wear one like it. Why on Earth would he turn that down?

  The one in his closet was strangling him and holding him here. Suddenly, just the thought of the leather scent made me sick.

  I lay a hand on his back, the cords of muscle strained with each heavy breath.