“Why Monday?” I sound as if I’ve just emerged from a near drowning experience.
He blinks back at me, eyes unfocused, still underwater.
“What’s happening Monday?” I try again.
He barely shakes his head before claiming my mouth with renewed force. This naughty boy is trying to distract me. I won’t be… won’t be … His determined fingers find their destination, and I can’t think anymore. There is Taz, and there is … there is just him and the sensation he creates as I make animal noises and spiral into a breathless explosion of wonder.
Right then, with both my hands gripping his hair, one of his up my shirt and the other thoroughly down my pants, the front door of my house rips open and my big supersized brother barks, “Not on my watch.”
Why was I happy about having Terek hanging around?
Taz jolts and thrashes so violently he might actually be having a seizure, just about dumps me elbows over teacup before he catches me by the arm at the last second.
“I was um ... “ I untangle my legs, arrange my shirt and check the nearby vicinity for my misplaced dignity. I know I had it a little while ago. “I was about to drive Taz home.”
“Looked more like he was giving you a ride, right on on the front porch, with the sibs inside. Mrs. Kirkland didn’t even need to buy a ticket for the show.” My big brother waves at the house across the street then scowls at me, the hypocrite. I can’t unsee him and the Blair-witch-project in the porch swing last summer. Tapping his wrist, he says, “I’ll be timing ya.” Glancing over at Taz then back to me, he adds, “Don’t be late getting back. You don’t want me to come looking for you.”
CHAPTER 63
TAZ:
The second I step inside her office, Ms. Robbins tells me, “Lock the door behind you.”
Locking the door is definitely against school policy, but I do as I’m told and the deadbolt makes a fatal click that I feel in my teeth.
“Please quit fidgeting and take a seat.”
I collapse into the plastic curve of the only empty chair and notice a misshapen paperclip on the floor between my feet. It’s been stretched and twisted way beyond fixing, kind of like yours truly, and even though I want it, I don’t dare reach for it.
The school counselor sits on the other side of her desk, scribbling notes on a stack of paperwork and deliberately ignoring me. She’s playing a game, letting the second hand tick, tick, tick, letting me chew my tongue raw before suddenly folding her arms, leaning forward and demolishing me with her full attention.
“I’m unhappy with you, Gibson. You’ve put me in a difficult position.”
I’ve survived all kinds of monsters. There are the ones who rip flesh and break bones and the ones who contaminate every thought. Ms Robbins might be the most dangerous. The wounds she causes don’t show but they also don’t heal. They fester into such self-loathing, my very breath is contagious.
“I thought we were making progress.” She taps a red-tipped fingernail against the desk, click, click, click. “But your recent actions suggest otherwise.”
I never look directly at her. I never speak. An hour in this room is a question of survival, and I leave behind pieces of myself every time. Today I rub the pads of my thumbs against my middle fingers in a way that soothes and focus on alphabetizing my favorite brands of electric guitars, gleaming in firehouse reds and pearly blues and starting with Epiphone, ESP and Fender. Jeff Beck plays a Fender Strat, and the way he plucks with his thumb, keeps his pinky on the vibrato bar and fades the sound is nothing short of ...
“Gibson?” Her rising pitch snags my attention. “You understand the importance of today’s session? You are aware of how my report affects you?”
G&L. Gibson. Ibanez
“Are you listening? We’ve been over this enough times. There are no free passes. You earn my recommendation through cooperation and just as easily lose it by proving difficult.” She dips her chin, trying and failing to catch my eye.
Can’t forget Jackson and Schecter.
She huffs and her nostrils flare. Foreplay is nearly over.
Sure enough, she drops her pen on the desk, stands and poses with one hand on her hip. She wears a sheer white blouse with a glimpse of black lace at the neckline, a tight gray skirt and spiked heels, and I imagine it takes hours and hours to create such a convincing disguise.
“You're a clever boy. I think you know what you need to do to win back my trust.” She smiles, and my blood congeals in my veins like egg yolk forgotten on a plate. I’ve lost my place. Where was I? Where was I?
She curls her index finger to get me moving. “Come here.”
I missed Rickenbacker. How could I miss Rickenbacker? John Lennon played a … shit, shit ... John Lennon played a Ric 325 on the Ed Sullivan Show. And Roger McGuinn … fuck, fuck … McGuinn from The Byrds played a Ric. Same with Tom Petty and John Fogerty.
“Gibson, you’re wasting our time together, and you know I don’t like to repeat my instructions to you.”
Seams rip deep in my gut and I swear my lungs fill with blood. I’ve been in this exact spot before and I’d rather lay down in the middle of the highway at rush hour than face it again.
“I told you to come here.” There it is, the tone letting me know I’ve reached her limit.
I push to my feet but get stuck for a second. I am allergic to her perfume, her voice, her touch, her very existence, and my skin itches everywhere.
What should take me six steps, I divide into a dozen, and by the time I stand in front of her, Robby Krieger could’ve finished his Light My Fire guitar solo. FYI, he played a 1964 Gibson SG Special with P-90 pickups, and just maybe, if I keep focusing on guitar trivia, my brain won’t splatter from an explosion of panic and rage.
“Closer.” She points to the floor by her feet.
I ease into her space but keep my head turned to the side.
“We both benefit when you play nice.” She reaches toward my face, and I can’t help it, I jerk back before I catch myself. I know from experience this makes her unhappy.
Since the punishment for her unhappiness is more than I can tolerate, I stretch the limits of my control and hold still while her blood-painted nails hover. A single drop of sweat rolls all the way down my spine before her fingers slide through strands of my hair that have fallen loose. Closing my eyes tight, I push my tongue against my teeth and my hands take off like injured bats.
“I want your eyes open,” she whispers, because she isn’t content until she’s taken every avenue of escape away. Her hand slides over my cheek then curls up around my jaw, and I let her pull my chin toward her without giving her eye contact. “You can talk to me, Gibson. You can tell me anything. I’m here to help and take care of you.”
Dragging a fingertip across my lips, her other hand reaches down to hook in the waistband of my pants and my face flames hot. “The way you tease me isn’t fair,” she murmurs. “You know what you do to me. Naughty boy.”
Her fingers slide back and forth behind the button of my jeans and her voice deepens into playful purr. “You like to be persuaded, don’t you? You’re trying to make me beg.” She tugs so hard that I stagger a step toward her and my chest bumps hers.
How does she not hear the buzzing in my brain? How does she not get electrocuted by touching me? I’m shorting out, my throat convulsing as I work up to what I need to do. I’m not sure I can.
Pressing her lips right against my ear, she tells me, “I’m going to expect you to show some real dedication to your mental health.”
“NO.” That word is painful to say. It physically hurts. Just two letters, but they’re more dangerous than a feral cat and scratch my throat so raw my own breath stings.
Her lips flatline. “Are you trying to get cute with me?”
I bumble backward, shaking my head and damp all over. I think my teeth and tongue are sweating, and I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open. “No,” I repeat. “No more.”
“Do you fully realize what yo
u’re doing right now? What are you going to say when you fail my report? When you’re accused of improper behavior and violent tendencies?”
I’ve practiced this, talked myself into it, know it’s the only way I can live with myself, but that doesn’t make it any easier. It takes me a second and I need to remind myself …There are consequences for not speaking up. “I’ll tell the truth.”
She settles her hands on her hips and barks a laugh. “Who will believe you?”
I look her straight in the eye. “My step-dad the attorney. Mrs. West the cop’s wife. My girlfriend, the only one who matters.”
CHAPTER 64
Tia:
My hand trembles so hard, I nearly drop my phone. On a scale of one to furious, this moment is off the charts. My heart punches against my chest, getting battered and broken but just growing more agitated and picking up speed. I try for deep breaths but my lungs are sealed shut, and I think this is what it feels like to asphyxiate.
I push the door with two fingertips. Left unlatched, it widens without a sound, creating just enough room for me to step out from my hiding spot. I’ve been suffocating inside a teeny closet, inside a cloud of Coco Chanel, since third period and have a raging headache to prove it.
Easing forward a step at a time, I keep filming for a few more seconds. I’ve recorded more than enough, gotten everything from the moment Taz sat down in the chair in front of the school counsellor’s desk. I now close within five feet before she notices me, shrieks and flattens her hand against her chest, suddenly in a hurry to widen the space between the two of them.
“What’re you …” she starts in a panic, but it’s fleeting. She’s the adult, the authority figure and everything from the fists settling on her hips to the censure in her eyes are meant to put me on the defensive. “This is a confidential counselling session. You’re not allowed in here.”
I hold up the phone so Ms. Robbins can see her own face on the screen. “It’s over.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. And if you don’t want me to share this video with my dad’s buddies at the police station, you’re going to fill out a glowing report for Taz and resign your job. You have until the end of the week to disappear.”
“I don’t know what you think you saw here,” she scoffs at me, but her chin quivers.
“Don’t bother.” I talk over her. The less she speaks the better. “This is not a negotiation. And if you think to set up shop at a new school, I’ll be right behind you with this video.” I am firm. I am composed. My voice wobbles but it’s adrenaline shooting through my veins, and I swear I could levitate I'm so juiced up.
Then she turns pleading eyes on Taz and brushes her claws over his arm. She touches him. As he cringes away from her, my switch flips, and I detonate at a volume that bulges the walls and scorches my throat. “Don’t you look at him! Don’t you touch him! Don’t even think about him!”
“Tia.” That’s all Taz says, in his low, pitted rasp, and he gives a tight head shake. The boy wants out with minimal fuss. No more police or lawyers or statements. On that much, he wouldn’t budge. In the car on the way home last night, when his long silences, faraway expression and frantic fingers told me more than his answers, a fresh horror came to light.
We spoke in whispers after that, the words so heavy, so fragile and tender, they needed to be treated with care. And when I reached for his hand, he drew it back. So I left mine extended, palm up, fingers stretched open and prepared to wait forever. And that’s what I told him. I explained that I am territorial and protective and reminded him that he is mine and I am his today, tomorrow and forever and promised to keep reminding him until he was sick of hearing it. When he linked his fingers with mine, I knew he finally believed me.
With the help of a best friend who is a model office student and has access to keys, this was the only plan we could agree on.
“You’re right,” I concede and shake out my arms. “We’re done here.” I shift focus to Taz’s hollow-cheeked face, his haunted eyes, and I see the scars. They are always there, right up front and forever, from chin to hairline, ear to ear. He’s been hurt again and again by the people he should’ve been able to trust. My attention veers back to Ms. Robbins, and I take a step toward her.
She flashes both her palms at me, her eyes moist and blinking rapidly, and my level of contempt scares me a little. I am capable of extreme violence at this moment and don’t trust myself. Lowering my voice, I tell her, “You should be ashamed of yourself. If it were up to me, you’d be in handcuffs right now. Understand, I won’t forget. This will never go away. I will always hold you accountable.”
Letting her off this easy isn’t right. It just isn’t. To hell with the deep breaths. I lunge in, wind up and slap her face with everything I’ve got. She shrieks as her head cranks sideways and then sobs into her hands. My shoulder aches, my palm is on fire, but it wasn’t hard enough. It couldn’t be, and while I consider smacking her again, Taz says, “Tia.” He holds his hand out to me, same as I did last night. “C’mon.”
Gibson Tazmerek reaches for me, and I intertwine those long fingers with mine. Oddly enough, he stops to retrieve a mangled paperclip off the floor before leading me into the hall. For the first time in hours, I take a clean, deep breath and realize my headache is growing faster than mushrooms in a damp cellar. This has been a stinky turd of a day, on top of zero sleep last night, and we’re not done.
“You OK?” I ask Taz. I’m not sure I could string together a more idiotic question without a lobotomy.
My guy doesn’t answer. He startles a little yelp out of me when he suddenly flattens me against a bank of lockers, his one knee thrust forward, his whole body painted along my front. He’s the same temperature as the surface of the sun, a little sweaty, and there’s a tremble running through him, like he’s hooked up to a car battery. I tip my face up to find his, and he bumps his forehead against mine, clutching the sides of my shirt in his fists.
“I’m sorry.” His voice has gone through a shredder and come out in ribbons. “So sorry.”
“Don’t do that.”
He rolls his head slowly side to side, and I watch his Adam’s apple bounce with his swallow.
“Hey.” I want him to look at me, but his lids are squeezed shut, those spiky dark lashes glued to his cheeks. There’s a little wrinkle above his nose and bluish smudges beneath both eyes. He’s hanging on by his last thread.
I slide my palms up over his ribs and chest, feeling the bones of too many hungry days, and hook my fingers on his shoulders. The tendons in his neck pulse with tension. “Listen to me,” I insist. “You don’t apologize for what she did to you. Ever. You understand? That’s all on her and doesn’t change who you are to me.”
“But I … “
“No. You were put in an impossible situation and got through it as best you could.”
Last night, lying in bed and staring at the water stain on the ceiling, I remembered Taz standing in my lawn, toasted out of his ever loving mind, broken into a million pieces, telling me he did what he had to do and warning me away from him. I missed the signs. The guy was in desperate need of my help, anyone’s help, and what bothers me most is he wasn’t expecting to get it. Like so many before me, I failed him. It won’t happen again. Nothing but rainbows, sparkles and hugs for this boy from here on out.
“Are you hearing me, Taz? Not your fault, so no apologies.”
I get the tiniest nod, and I catch it in my palms, holding his dear face. He lets me touch him, not pulling away, and I’ll never fail to appreciate his struggles and how far he’s come. So I kiss him. His nose, the dot at the corner of his mouth and finally, fully on those delicious lips. Gently, I give him all the compassion and warmth in my heart, and he melts into me, slow and gradual, his one hand tangling in my ponytail, the other curving around to the small of my back, his fingers spreading from bra to waistline.
Sweet kisses, with soft, slightly parted lips take us from one breath to the next, ag
ain and again. They are almost chaste, and yet so intimate, I’m flushed and craving him. I would gladly stay right here, pitch a tent and sign a bill of sale, but we are cozied up in the high school hallway, and we’ve got something left to take care of. I am suspicious he’s trying to distract me.
“C’mon,” I whisper against his lips, and no way it’s my imagination when my stubborn boy roots himself in place and forces me to tug. Taz doesn’t agree with this part of the plan. He’d like to fight, argue, refuse, but he’s already tried everything, other than arm wrestling me, and I won. For good reason.
Number one, as the principal, Mrs. Sanderson needs to know what’s going on in her school.
Number two, as the person who’s been threatening to send Taz back to Juvie, she needs to realize he’s not going anywhere.
Number three, as a mother, she needs the chance to finally do right by her son.
I didn’t mention number three to Taz. He wouldn’t want to hear it.
When we finally sit down in the chairs in front of Mrs. Sanderson’s desk, Taz is more than a little restless and she doesn’t acknowledge him in any way. I can’t imagine my mother not smiling and hugging me, not even looking at me, and although I knew things were bad between them, this is the first time I’ve seen them together. It’s awful and I’m uncomfortable. So is she. While her hands are clasped neatly in front of her, they’re squeezed so tight her knuckles are nearly popping through the skin.
I’m not quite sure how to approach her. Mrs. Sanderson has only been at our school a couple of years, but she’s made a big impact, from championing improvements to the music program to getting equal funding for the girls’ sports teams. She’s been super supportive of my family’s situation, giving me lots of leeway, and I can’t quite reconcile her with the predator who would happily eat her own young.
I finally settle for simply handing her my phone with the video queued up. “You need to watch this.”
Shatter (The Choosy Beggars Series Book 1) Page 33
