What a great start to my day. A half-assed call from Dad and a bombshell fight with Mom. Just a typical morning in the Whitaker family.
I’m not going to let those things derail the rest of my day. I have a Graphic Grrl comic to color and publish by tomorrow night. Might as well get on it.
After setting up my laptop on my desk, I get to work. I import the sketches into my photo-editing app. Clean up the feathery pencil marks around the primary line work. Start layering in color on top of the finished drawings.
I lose track of time, lose myself in the work. I’m content to drown in the world of Graphic Grrl forever. At least until my hand starts cramping.
Using the trackpad on my laptop is not the easiest on my wrist. I need my mouse.
The only problem is that I haven’t seen it since we left New York. It isn’t in my laptop case or hiding in the bottom of my backpack. Which means it can only be in one place. A box.
I guess that’s technically a dozen small places.
I lean back in my desk chair with a groan.
The state of my packed boxes is enough to make a tornado run in terror. But since my options are limited to either buying a new one—which means going downstairs and asking Mom to take me—or doing without—which means crippling wrist and finger cramps—I have no choice.
Twenty minutes later I’ve opened half the boxes with no mouse in sight. I seriously don’t remember throwing half of this stuff in.
I’d been in such a fury, I kind of rage-packed. Seriously, I found tissues in one box and a half-eaten sleeve of Oreos in another. It’s entirely possible that I didn’t even pack the stupid mouse.
I rip open another box. This one is full of clothes—at least on top. I pull out the first tee that Tash made for me freshman year. A closeup graphic of a unicorn head shedding rainbow tears on a navy blue long-sleeve.
My favorite. If I weren’t committed to my mourning blacks, I would wear it to school on Monday.
I lift out the clothes and—
“Ha!”
Sitting there, like a shiny white diamond in the clutter, is my mouse.
“There you are,” I say, lifting her up to press a kiss to her sleek surface. “I knew you had to be…”
My mouse love trails off as I see what lies beneath her in the box.
To anyone else it would look like nothing. A little square of flimsy red plastic. But I see something much bigger. I see the words Art Saves Lives writ large on the shell of a construction project.
In a flash I’m back to that night.
Tash and I had met up with Brice and one of his buddies for a late-night coffee. I’m pretty sure it was supposed to be a setup, a blind double date of sorts. Brice’s idea, probably trying to make me forget that he and I were an almost item.
That more than anything is probably why I did it. Why, when Tash said, “We should do something epic tonight,” I had replied, “We totally should.”
An hour later, the pity-date had disappeared and the three of us had rolls of sheet plastic pilfered from the SODA basement supply shelves—Tash somehow acquired a key sophomore year—and were scouting a location worthy of our statement.
“I know a site,” Brice said. “It’s perfect.”
We stood at the base of the half-built skyscraper owned by Brice’s family, a towering beacon of scaffolding and steel beams. It only took us a few minutes of recon to see that security consisted of a single guard in a tiny booth who was really absorbed in his phone.
We snuck by without a sound.
It took four hours of work to arrange the plastic. To make sure it formed the words of our message. To make sure it was stable enough to survive until sunrise.
Back on the sidewalk, we stood looking up at our work. It was, in a word, awesome. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so proud.
Tash and Brice celebrated by making out against the wall that surrounds Central Park.
Rather than risk throwing up all over them, I walked around the corner. Right into a pair of cops. Despite all common sense, I ran. I think making them chase me only made them mad.
The next thing I knew I was being handcuffed, hauled to the station, booked. Released on bail. Sentenced.
If Mom knew that Tash had been there with me, that she’d participated and gotten off without a blemish on her record, Mom would have dragged my BFF in for a citizen’s arrest without a second thought.
She would kill me if she knew I had stopped Tash from turning herself in. No good could have come from her sacrifice. It wouldn’t have lessened my punishment, and it would have destroyed her family. Brice’s parents may have had enough money and pull to keep him from even the mildest of punishments, but the legal fees would have drowned Tash’s working single mom and two little brothers.
Besides, the cops seemed content to think I had done it all myself. And I think a tiny corner of my ego wanted them—and the world—to believe that.
The only good thing that came out of The Incident is that they had to photograph the art for a police report, and to do that they had to keep it intact until morning. Half of New York saw my installation.
Now I’m not so sure that I didn’t pay too high a price for the exposure.
And not just me. Mom and Dad and Dylan have suffered, too.
So did the worker on the crew that came in to clean up after us who fell from the platform. Luckily he was wearing a safety harness, or he would have suffered way worse than a dislocated shoulder and a torn rotator cuff.
And the security guard we snuck past—a single widower with a baby at home—who lost his job.
I’ve memorized every detail of the consequences of my actions.
Overwhelmed by memory—and maybe regret—I cross to my window and pull it wide. Several deep breaths of damp air and I start to feel in control again.
I stand there for a while longer, my hands braced on the window frame, drawing in calming breaths. I’m surprised to see the sky painted red and pink with the setting sun. Had that much of the day flown by already?
No wonder my wrist started to hurt.
A crashing sound, the faint echo of breaking glass, reaches my ears. Followed by a shouting male voice. I tilt my head, trying to discern the origin. Definitely coming from next door.
I can’t make out any words—and I should be ashamed that I actually lean out the window to try—but the voice is definitely Mr. Dorsey. There is another, softer sound. Almost like sobbing.
Part of me can’t help but wonder what the fight is about. But another part of me—the bigger part, apparently—knows it’s an invasion to even try to hear.
Mom and Dad don’t fight like that. There are no shouting voices or screaming fits. They fight with the cold shoulder, the silent treatment. The freeze-out. Going to work without saying good-bye, going to bed without saying good night.
I can’t help but think that maybe Mom and I wouldn’t be here in Austin right now if Dad had stood up and fought for me. Fought for our family.
Like that would ever happen.
I pull myself back inside, slide the window shut and, just for good measure, let the blinds drop into place. I have enough problems in my own life. I don’t need to be sticking my nose into anyone else’s.
With my mouse in hand, I get back to work.
Chapter Ten
The fighting was worse than usual. Tru didn’t know what his mother had done to upset the beast this time, but he heard the dishes break all the way upstairs in his room.
Tru went into the kind of zone that allowed him to still function while it was happening. For years, he had sat huddled at the end of the hall and listened. He had only tried once to intervene, had stepped between his mother and the blow she was about to receive.
For his efforts, he had ended up with a broken clavicle and a lecture from his mother about not getting involved.
That was a lesson he didn’t need to learn more than once.
Ever since, he had locked himself away in his room, tuning it out as much as poss
ible and focusing on work until the fight turned into the making up.
The cycle was always the same. The raging fight. The tearful groveling. The making up behind locked doors.
To make it through without losing his mind and without giving in to the urge to race downstairs and protect the woman who would never return the favor, he focused on his work. Opened his editing software and dug in on his short film. The layers of sound and image and special effect, the intricacies of timing and color and cuts from one angle to another, were hypnotic.
He should have been working with headphones on—it was better for the sound editing—but then he wouldn’t know when it was over downstairs. While he wasn’t consciously listening to the fight, his subconscious was keeping tabs.
He let himself get lost in the video, focusing on the tiniest of details, over and over.
Several times he found his mind drifting to Sloane. Since the revelation that she’d been behind the Midtown Tower art installation, he’d been thinking about her in a new light. It hadn’t been a lie when he said he had new respect for her. It’s like he opened a door and found a whole new Sloane on the other side. A Sloane who not only stood up for herself and spoke her mind, but one who was willing to risk far more than he ever had.
He couldn’t even stand up to his father, let alone the NYPD.
Thinking about Sloane and his father in the same sentence made his stomach lurch. Then again, how could he even think of her while the one-sided battle between his parents raged downstairs?
If he cared for her so much as a little bit, he had to keep her as far from the line of fire as he could. Because if Tru knew one thing for sure, it was that his father had the ability to extinguish even the brightest star. And Tru couldn’t live with himself if he let that happen to Sloane.
He had no idea how much time had passed when his subconscious noted the telltale click of the lock on his parents’ bedroom door.
The switch in his brain flipped, and he waited only as long as it took to save his work before venturing into the hall, his footfalls silent as he padded downstairs, around the kitchen, and into his father’s den. Across the expensive rug to the locked cabinet against the far wall.
His parents would be occupied for hours.
Feeling along the top edge of the cabinet, he located the key that his father apparently thought was well enough hidden to keep Tru out of the liquor. He thought wrong.
The vast variety of his father’s collection spread out before him, Tru had to decide what to take and how much. It was a well-stocked bar—as if David Dorsey would settle for anything less—despite the fact that the man of the house only drank single malt scotch. The rest were for show and for guests.
Tru rubbed his hands together as he scanned the selection. It felt like a vodka night. There was orange juice in the refrigerator. Between the two, he could turn this night around in a hurry.
There were half a dozen bottles of vodka. What were the odds his father would notice one was missing?
Those were odds he was willing to play.
Tru grabbed an unopened bottle, relocked the cabinet, and placed the key back in the not-so-secret hiding place.
The first time he’d escaped into a bottle had been after the first time his father’s fists drew blood. A way to dull the pain, to silence his mind and the unanswerable questions.
Since that night, escaping into the bottle had become a habit, a ritual. When the gloves came off, the drink came out.
Like tonight.
After a quick stop in the kitchen to pick up a glass and the other half of a screwdriver recipe, he slipped out the back door and headed for the gazebo in the far corner of the yard.
It had a perfect view of the upstairs bedroom window next door. And the roof below it.
There was a gentle breeze, and the temperature outside was almost perfect. The faint scent of cedar and damp filled the air. Stars filled the sky. And the makings of a memory-eraser filled his cup.
Sloane wouldn’t approve. He could picture her freckled nose wrinkling up at the thought. But the part of his brain that worried about approval—hers, his father’s, anyone’s—had gone on autopilot. He couldn’t care anymore.
The night was definitely taking a turn upward. The only thing that would make it even better? Spending it with Sloane.
Chapter Eleven
I fall into bed, exhausted, at one in the morning. Mom tried to get me to come downstairs for dinner, but I ate a granola bar I had stashed in my desk drawer and the half sleeve of Oreos.
I’m sleeping so hard that when I first hear the sound I incorporate it into my dream. I’m fighting with Tash on top of a skyscraper when pigeons start tapping on the concrete floor around us. Tap, tap, tap.
Tap, tap, tap.
Tap, tap, Sloane.
What?
I bolt up in bed.
Tap, tap. “Sloane.”
I fling back the covers and hurry to the window. When I pull up the blinds I see Tru, face pressed against the glass as he taps one finger against my window.
My heart double-thuds.
“What the hell?” I mutter.
He is the last thing I expected to see out my window, but I can’t help the little thrill that wonders what he’s doing here. A shiver of anticipation tickles down my spine.
I try to pull open the window, but with his weight pressing against it, it won’t budge. No amount of grunting or pushing makes it move. I’m pushing so hard I’m afraid I’m going to break the entire window frame. Nothing.
“Get back,” I whisper-shout. “Tru, move.”
“Don’t make me go,” he moans.
My heart clenches at the pain in his voice.
“Shhhh!” I make a back away gesture, but his eyes are closed. I mutter to myself, “You have got to be kidding me.”
If I leave him out there, one of two things will happen. Either he will make so much noise that Mom will come investigate, in which case I will never be allowed to leave my room again. Or he will eventually fall off the roof, in which case I will have to explain—to my mom, to his mom, to the police—why my neighbor is dead in my backyard.
Getting him inside is the only option. I have to risk waking up Mom to make that happen. Mom’s wrath is preferable to a manslaughter rap—but just barely.
With my palm flat, I smack against the glass right next to his face.
He jerks up, and before he can complain, I yank the window open and slap my hand over his mouth. His skin is cool in the night air, but his lips are burning hot.
The shaggy tips of his hair tickle at my wrist.
“Keep quiet,” I whisper. “My mom will kill us both and ask questions later if she finds you here.”
He seems to understand, because he doesn’t speak when I pull my hand away. His eyes drift closed, and he starts to fall in through the window.
I catch his shoulders, barely able to hold him up. “Come on, dude, help me out.”
He mumbles something unintelligible.
The smell of alcohol surrounds him like a cloud.
Great. I’m on my own.
Somehow, through a masterful feat of pulling and prodding, I get him inside and sitting on the edge of my bed. Shaking my head, I turn to close the window and the blinds.
“What do I do when I’m drunk?” I mock to myself. “Oh, climb onto roofs and wake up sleeping neighbors.”
I need to sober him up if I want to get him home before Mom comes asking questions. Can I sneak downstairs and make him a cup of coffee—or ten—without waking her up? I have to try.
But when I turn to tell him I’ll be back in a minute, he’s not where I left him. Or, more accurately, he’s not how I left him. Instead of sitting on the edge of my bed, he’s lying in the center of it. On his side, face buried in my pillow, boots tangled in my comforter.
I can’t even be mad. He looks so peaceful. Like, for once, he isn’t putting on the charming guy facade. He isn’t playing the role of Tru Dorsey. He just…is.
; I have the overwhelming urge to cuddle in next to him, to smooth back his hair and tell him everything will be okay. But what do I know? I heard the way his dad was raging at his mom. Maybe it won’t be okay.
Maybe he needs a good night’s sleep more than anything.
Looks like I’m sleeping on the floor.
I take a moment to remove his boots—because, seriously, gross—and snake a pillow from the other side of the bed. As I do, I indulge the impulse to smooth a lock of dark hair behind his ear.
He smiles in his sleep.
My entire body tingles.
This situation is way more dangerous than I originally thought. Having these feelings for Tru is not an option. For so many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I’m not going to be in Austin for any longer than I have to be. I am not about to start forming any attachments that will make leaving hard.
Add to that my disastrous near-miss romance with Brice—what an awesome track record I have—and my own parents’ less-than-affectionate marriage, and I am a relationship train wreck waiting to happen.
If I want to save Tru—and myself—from heartache down the line, I won’t ever let this connection between us get anything close to serious.
Distance. I need distance.
I cross to my door, making sure the lock is engaged before settling down on the floor in front of it. If Mom is concerned about the idea of my just getting a ride to and from school with Tru, imagine if she found him sleeping in my bed.
Even the thought of being grounded for all eternity can’t keep the smile off my face as I drift back to sleep.
The first thing I am aware of in the morning is the stabbing pain in my neck. Seriously, it’s like someone shoved a knife into the spot where my neck meets my right shoulder. As I twist my head from side to side, I slowly come to consciousness…and slowly remember why I am sleeping on the floor.
I sit up, push a clump of hair out of my eyes, and look at the bed. Tru is sitting on the edge with his head in his hands.
“You look great,” I say.
He shakes his head, doesn’t look up.
I push to my feet. “Clearly you feel as great as you look.”
Ten Things Sloane Hates About Tru Page 10
