Southside High

by Mankin, Michelle

  “My home.” Uncle Bruce narrowed his eyes. “Finally going to have it back to myself in a couple of months. Why are you crying?”

  “I’m not crying.” The lie came out of my mouth before I could stop it. “I never cry.”

  “What a crock. You cried all the time when you first moved in. I could hear you all the way from my room.”

  I guessed my pillow hadn’t muffled it. “I was just a little girl.” A little girl who’d nearly been raped, and was definitely traumatized.

  “You’re a drama queen, just like your mother was.”

  My fingers clenched into fists. I was so sick of that line from him.

  His gaze dipped, then rose, his eyes narrowing more. “Are you pregnant?”

  “No, of course not.” I was still a virgin, but War would change that status for real when he returned. I’d gone to the clinic and started the pill. I was responsible, not like my mom.

  My uncle scoffed. “It’s a miracle. That guy you’re with, he’s not a good egg.”

  A miracle would be me getting pregnant never having had sex. But yeah, War wasn’t a good egg. The blinders were off now. He wasn’t good, but he was mine, and all I had.

  “I want you moved out by the twenty-fifth.”

  My jaw dropped. “School doesn’t end until June third.”

  “That’s your problem. You’re not my worry anymore after that date. I’m getting married and moving my family into my home.”

  “Okay.” I nodded dully. Arguing with him wouldn’t change anything.

  I shuffled to the bathroom, did my bit with my face, then went back to my room. I didn’t have much time to plan.

  Could I stay with War at his place? I didn’t think so. But with the money from RCA, I ought to be able to afford to stay somewhere.

  Back in my room, my temporary accommodation that was now even more temporary, I climbed into my bed again and put in my earbuds.

  No Britney Spears tonight. I didn’t feel like dancing. I felt like turning the music on, and turning off the world that had shit on me. So I scrolled to Alanis Morrissette and did just that. The Jagged Little Pill album seemed to have been written just for me.

  Lace

  The whistles started as soon as I stepped onto school property.

  Fuck ’em all.

  Chin held high, I headed up the front walk, channeling a lot of Alanis and some War. I might not be able to change my situation, but I could look like a woman who didn’t give a shit. Even if technically I remained a girl, and I was only pretending I was in control.

  “Yo, Lowell. Looking nice.” A goth chick gave me devil horns.

  “Respect,” I said and rocked her some back.

  Stomping up the concrete stairs, I turned some heads inside the building, but made it past the office without anyone chasing me down to measure my miniskirt. It barely covered my ass, the better to show off my fishnet stockings and my thigh-high black suede boots, a consignment shop score. But no way would the skirt pass school regulation.

  I was late, and the halls were emptying of students. The bell would ring soon, but I didn’t bother stopping at my locker. I didn’t have a backpack or books. I was just here to make it through to the bitter end, attend prom, and graduate. Make the point that I could do it, but none of it really mattered anymore.

  What the fuck did it matter if I graduated? I couldn’t go to college. I didn’t need to. I was in a kickass rock band, soon to be signed, and my boyfriend was the lead singer. Tempest was going to be huge. Huge.

  “Whoa.” Randy stepped in front of me wearing his letterman jacket, even though it was seventy degrees outside. “What do we have here?”

  “Get out of my way,” I gritted out.

  He flicked a lock of my hair over my shoulder, leaned in, and whispered into my ear, “No.”

  Against my instincts, I backed up and tried to go around him, but he cut me off.

  “Not so brave without King or War around. In fact,” he tapped his chin, “they’re all out of town, aren’t they?”

  Shit. Fuck. Shit.

  Yet I cranked up my chin. “You really wanna get on War’s bad side hassling me?”

  Randy gave that some thought. I could practically hear the lone gerbil wheel turning inside his head. “You don’t matter as much as you think you do.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  Knowing he liked to be the bearer of bad news where War and I were concerned, I licked my suddenly dry lips.

  Did War have a side piece all along that I didn’t know about? A Missy, like Bryan has, or maybe it is Missy. Maybe they share.

  “I heard him offer you to one of Kyle’s higher-ups to get Tempest a headlining gig.”

  “What?” My eyes rounded.

  “Didn’t know, did ya?” Randy’s blue eyes took on an ugly gleam. He ran his gaze over me, and I felt ill. “War might like you, but you’re disposable. He’d let anybody fuck you, if it got him what he wanted. You know that as well as I do. C’mon, baby.”

  He touched me, running his thumb over the outline of my black bra. My breakfast lurched. But I made myself work up a good spit, and I aimed it at him.

  “Bitch!” He wiped it off his cheek with his sleeve, then put his hand on my throat and walked me backward. His grip hurt, and I couldn’t breathe. My spine hit the lockers hard.

  Suddenly, Chad was there. “Back off, Randy.” His hazel eyes flared.

  Randy released me, and I coughed as blessed air flooded my lungs.

  “What are you going to do about it?” Randy asked, rushing Chad like he was a defensive back for an opposing team instead of a former center basketball star from the same school.

  My friend dropped his crutches, reared back, and caught Randy with a sharp undercut that lifted him off his feet. Randy’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he dropped like a felled tree.

  I gave him a second of my time. Satisfied that he was breathing, I turned to Chad to croak out, “He was blitzing you. That maneuver would have been a penalty.”

  “Too bad for him, I don’t play by the rules,” Chad said as teachers came running.

  We were busted.

  • • •

  Chad and I both got suspended. As Missy drove us home from school in his truck, her lips kept twitching.

  “You got something to say?” I asked confrontationally, leaning forward to glare at her over Chad, who was in the middle of the bench seat.

  “Ironic that you two got in trouble, but Randy walked away.” She shook her head. “He’s such a prick.”

  “He walked away moving funny.” Looking proud, Chad lifted a brow.

  Missy laughed, and I noticed she and Chad exchanging a long, heated look.

  Suddenly, I felt like the outsider. “Are you two . . .”

  Both swiveled their heads to look back at me.

  “Yes,” Chad said, nodding as if I’d finished my question. “Definitely. She’s my queen. I’m her charge.”

  “He lives in a mystical realm of his own making,” Missy said, hooking her thumb at him and rolling her eyes.

  I laughed. Missy was funny. I’d never noticed before, deciding I didn’t like her because of War and then Bryan. But she was unattached, free to have sex with whomever she wanted. And it was on me, my mistake, for judging her for that without even knowing her. Right?

  Missy gave me a long look, then surprised the shit out of me. “Going to prom with Chad. Maybe we’ll see you there.”

  “But he can’t dance,” I said stupidly as she steered the truck to the curb in front of my uncle’s house.

  “Prom’s not all about the dancing,” Chad said.

  “Yeah, it’s about the clothes.” I was dead serious. One of the reasons I really wanted to go. I’d had my dress made for months. Luckily, our suspension ended Thursday. The guys were due back on Friday, and it was prom.

  “It’s also about staying out all night and getting laid,” Chad said, and I noticed Missy blush. It was weird, considering her reputation and what she�
��d been doing the last time I saw her.

  “Don’t hold your breath on that last part, Phillips,” Missy said, giving Chad another long look.

  “I would if I thought it would get me what I want.” He returned her look.

  “We’re friends.” She pointed her thumb back and forth between them. “I value that too much to screw it up. Pun intended.”

  I smiled. “Thanks for the ride.”

  They both stared at me again as if they’d forgotten I was there.

  I unbuckled my seat belt and looked at Chad. “Thanks for coming to my rescue.”

  “Sorry I’ve been MIA the last part of the school year.”

  “I understand.”

  I pulled in a breath, wanting to talk to him about all that was going on, what I’d just learned from Randy regarding War, but it didn’t feel right to drag Chad into my mess. He was happy. He deserved to be happy after all he’d been through.

  “I love you,” I said instead.

  “Love you too, Lace,” he said as I closed the door. It counted for something, especially coming from a stand-up guy like him.

  I’d once wished War would say those words. But knowing what I did now, how he’d bartered me and how callously he’d hurt me, punishing me for that kiss by setting me up to see Bryan and Missy, I wondered if I’d even believe him.

  Bryan

  “No way, man.” I shook my head at Dizzy, giving him the same answer I gave War when he called to tell me he was too sick to take Lace to prom.

  “It’s important.” On his bar stool at Footit’s next to mine, Dizzy shifted and gave me a long look with eyes the same color as hers. “Lace has been through enough disappointment lately.”

  “I know she has.” I wasn’t without empathy. I had too much of it, too much of everything when it came to her. “I was there at the cemetery.” And saw firsthand how her mother’s death had rocked her.

  “Yeah.” Dizzy nodded. He’d been there too. But he’d stayed inside the chapel while Lace and I had gone on, kneeling together by her mother’s grave. “College is . . . was a big deal to her. She loves fashion. She worked so hard to get herself into a position to study it at college.”

  “Only to fall short.” I shook my head sadly. My heart ached for her.

  “At least she has the band.” Dizzy’s hand tightened around his tumbler.

  He hurt for her too. They might not be as openly affectionate as my sisters and me, but I suspected that was only because they didn’t have a mother like mine as an example. But they had each other, and I had no doubts at all that Dizzy loved Lace.

  “If she didn’t have her spot in Tempest,” he said, “I don’t know what might happen. She might spiral and never bounce back.”

  “But she does have it, right?” I gave him a sharp look. Did he know something I didn’t? With War and me at odds, I might have missed something.

  “Sure she does. I just worry about her confidence. It’s taken a lot of hits.” A shadow drifted across Dizzy’s face. “And you know how reactive Lace can be. She doesn’t think things through.”

  The shadow became total darkness. He’d looked troubled like this a lot on the trip, most of it revolving around War and how he treated Lace. I had my own trouble with War, for sure. Not because of the ass kicking, I’d deserved that, but the stunt at Kyle’s had gone too far. That maneuver had seriously crossed the line.

  I knocked on the bar top. “Lace is stronger than you give her credit for being.”

  “I hope so. Weathering all of this, she has to be.” Dizzy brought his tumbler to his mouth and knocked back half of it like it was a shot. “It’s just one night, Bry. A couple of hours that will mean a lot to her.”

  A couple of hours that would be torture to me. Alone with her and not being able to touch her the way I wanted to.

  “Why can’t you take her?” I knocked back a big amount too and made a face. This was Dizzy’s drink of choice. I preferred beer. But whiskey had a burn, warming and filling the hollowness that had opened inside my chest since the kiss, and my choice yet again to do the right thing by her. A right that felt all wrong.

  “I could offer,” he said. “But she wouldn’t accept. She doesn’t want to go to prom with her brother, but she’ll go with you.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I know, all right?” He looked away while I wished again that things were different between Lace and me.

  But how could they be?

  I needed to do what I’d been doing. She needed her spot in the band, which was intrinsically tied to her relationship with War. What she didn’t need was me interfering.

  “Okay, I’ll do it,” I said, pushing the empty tumbler away. Anything for her. I’d told her that before, and I meant it.

  “Thanks.”

  “You say that now, Diz. But she might not be as happy to have me take her as you think.”

  Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the way she’d looked at me at Kyle’s. She thought I’d stolen that kiss and played her, going right to Missy afterward, but she didn’t understand. Lace thought her kiss meant nothing, when it meant everything.

  But I had no right to say anything to correct that misunderstanding.

  • • •

  Hours later, after a lot of scrambling, I stood inside the tiny foyer at Lace’s uncle’s house because of fucking Dizzy.

  Shit. That was a lie. I was here because of her.

  The monkey suit and bow tie strangled me. Even if she ran back up the stairs screaming when she saw me, I had to risk it if there was any chance I could make her happy.

  “Whoa.” Dizzy stared at me and then smirked. “You look . . . uncomfortable.”

  “Go get her, you ass.”

  “On it. Lace,” he called, jogging up the stairs. “Your date’s here.”

  A couple of moments later, she descended the stairs and froze when she saw me.

  “Hey, Lace.” My heart in my throat, I took her in, totally floored by her. Like when I’d first seen her here in the backyard, but more. So much more.

  She wore a dress that I knew was vintage sixties, her favorite fashion era. It had spaghetti straps, a straight bodice that drew my eye to her curves, and a black lace skirt over a blush pink underlayer. She’d tied a black silk ribbon around her slender neck. Her amber eyes were bright, and her shiny golden hair cascaded long and straight around her delicate shoulders. She was all my hopes and dreams, high up on a pedestal out of reach.

  “You look incredible.” I found my voice, though it was husky. “Hope it’s okay if I take you instead.”

  “Sure,” she said sweetly, and my battered heart soared. Apparently, Dizzy was right.

  Before she could potentially change her mind, I stepped forward and slid a wrist corsage with white roses onto her arm.

  Fuck, her skin was so creamy. Electricity lit me up just touching her. She wasn’t unaffected either, based on the chill bumps that rose on her arms. Unable to resist, I brushed my fingertips across the skin of her inner wrist, and she inhaled sharply.

  Dizzy cleared his throat. “Bryan, can I see you in the kitchen for a minute?”

  I gave him a chin lift, and her skin another lingering stroke before releasing her.

  Following Dizzy through the living room, I could feel her speculative gaze on me, and wanted to go back to her rather than deal with whatever new bullshit this was with him.

  He turned and gave it to me as soon as the swing door closed behind me.

  “You can look at her like you want to undress her if you have to, but no removing of any clothing whatsoever. You hear me?”

  “Dizzy, c’mon.” I rubbed the back of my neck, wishing I had time for a quick smoke. My heart was practically pounding out of my chest, just from a simple touch. “I respect her. You know I do. I don’t need you making this any more awkward than it is.”

  He studied me a beat, then gave me a chin lift. “Okay. But you bring her back here.”

  “Of course. Before midnight, right? So the
limo doesn’t turn into a pumpkin.”

  “No.” His brow creased. “So the record deals we have on the line don’t go to shit because of some interpersonal band drama involving you, War, and my sister.”

  “I got all that.”

  “Good.” Dizzy nodded approvingly. “You really got a limo?”

  “Doing this right.”

  “Apparently so. Okay, well, have fun and all.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m heading to the drugstore for War, then I have a date with the lovely Elaine.”

  “See ya,” I said, turning away without calling him out about the less-than-fifteen-minute bullshit he did with his women that he called dating. I had dates of my own that I didn’t want to be called out on.

  When I pushed through the door, Lace was right there on the other side of it.

  “Where’s Dizzy,” she asked, and I wondered if she’d been eavesdropping and what she’d heard.

  “He went on.” I placed my hand on the small of her back and guided her toward the front door. “We’d better get going. We’re already too late for your dinner reservation. We’ll miss the dance if we don’t leave soon.”

  Outside, we stepped onto the porch together, and she locked the front door.

  Turning around, she gasped when she saw the black stretch limo. Looking up at me through her sooty lashes, she said, “You don’t have to do this for Warren.”

  “I’m not doing it for him.” I stared at her, suddenly not in the mood to hide anything. Not with her right there, and a night ahead of us that was all ours. “I’m doing it for you.”

  The porch light made her hair shine like polished gold. I reached out and ran my fingers through thick layers that were as soft as silk.

  Somewhere in the distance, a car door slammed, or maybe that was just my heart slamming around inside my chest.

  I gave her a small smile. “You deserve a night like this. Come on.”

  I took her hand and led her to the limo. The woman of my dreams was off her pedestal for a one-night engagement.