Strum Me

by Allison, Ketley

“It’s on you,” Courtney says as she digs through the front pocket for my wallet. “Or didn’t you get the memo?”

  I reach for my backpack to snatch it back, but April’s words stop me.

  “Could I have some extra ketchup and honey packets? Like, a ton more? I mean a ton. And add some mayo ones, too.”

  She stretches her hand back to accept the debit card Courtney folds into her palm. My hesitation prevents me from intervening in time, and before I know it, I’ve footed the tab for these bitches.

  April tosses the food to Melissa, as well as a brown paper bag containing only condiments and guns the engine back into the street.

  In a matter of minutes, pristine buildings containing marble and brass turn into downtrodden brick and sagging porches. Window frames hang at the corners, the glass panes broken, with stapled cardboard over holes becoming more common than the windows themselves.

  The smell of fried food seeps into our enclosed space, and because I can’t control it, my stomach rumbles.

  Courtney smiles. “God, when did you last eat? Twenty minutes ago? Ready for another round?”

  In answer, I swipe back my bag, clutching it like I would a teddy bear as I try to figure out what these girls are planning.

  April makes a sound of displeasure as she makes a right turn, yet does it, anyway. “I think this is it … Ugh, he lives in a dump. No wonder he tries to keep it from me.”

  Her words put my suspicions on high alert.

  If April doesn’t know where Mason lives, it means she’s never there. She’s not one of the girls that watches him play—clearly, since she can’t stand his music—yet, she’s taking me to see him. Allegedly at his request.

  Even though Mason can’t stand me.

  I note the exchange of glances between April, Melissa and Courtney. And the lack of conversation. Katy Perry has filled the silence, but her peppy song sends foreboding ghost-fingers against the back of my neck.

  What are they planning on doing with me?

  I envision all the worst things, like them holding me down and stripping my clothes off, then dumping me naked on Mason’s driveway.

  My mind dings with a revelation.

  The condiments. All the ketchup, honey, and mayo … are meant for me. For my body.

  I can’t believe I allowed myself to get into this car, to let them have control over me in such a small space.

  But I know this car. My stepmom has this car. If I could get to the passenger-side door…

  April stops at an intersection, the red light nearly as harsh as the color of her car, and I unbuckle and leap between the two front seats, practically falling onto Melissa.

  Melissa squeals. “Hey! What are you—ugh, freak!”

  This model vehicle automatically engages child locks in the back seat. I have to press the unlock button on either the passenger’s or driver’s door before I can get out the back, and that’s exactly what I do.

  Melissa flails, too surprised to grab me, but April hooks my arm as I slide back through the seats, and Courtney wraps her arms around my waist.

  “Let go of me!” I cry.

  “Stop, you psycho!” April says, her hands like claws as she reaches over the console. Her face screws up like like she’s coming through the depths of Hell.

  Courtney holds firm as I grapple for the lever on the rear door.

  These girls may be strong and limber, but in a tight space, I’m stocky and and have way more girth to throw around. I push back with my legs, making Courtney lose her equilibrium, and since April can only use her arms and cars are honking at her to drive, I have seconds before I lose the meager amount of control I have and am forced to stay in the car with them.

  Realization smooths April’s expression and she whips around to the steering wheel, her foot pressing on the gas.

  Right as the car starts moving, a blast of cool air hits my face as I get the door open and scramble out. I run without looking back and am nearly hit by an oncoming car in the next lane, but I wave an apology and scramble to the sidewalk, my backpack hanging at my side.

  Hands on my thighs, I bow over and take deep breaths, the adrenaline feeling like I’ve been shot.

  I peek through my falling hair, but no one is coming out of the car after me.

  “Have it your way, Big Mack!” April screams through the open car door before Courtney closes it. “Good luck making it out of this cesspool alive!”

  An unwrapped burger hits me square in the chest through the rolled down passenger window, followed by an un-lidded milkshake that I dodge just in time.

  Tires screech as April makes a U-turn and drives away. In the opposite direction.

  I blow out a breath, lifting my bag’s strap to my shoulder and ignoring the sharp mustard smell now coming off my blouse, and move in a slow circle, gaining my bearings.

  Being right doesn’t mean I’ve saved myself from further misery.

  I’ve landed in front of a corner bodega, the awning blinking and buzzing with dying lightbulbs behind the plexiglass. Words are missing, but it looks like Hal’s Ubs and Wiches isn’t doing very well. There’s a man smoking a … crackpipe? … near the entrance. He sits on the ground, one leg stretched out, and eyes me underneath his beat-up ball cap.

  Now that the light has changed, traffic is thin, and I hear far-off screams and loud, foreign bangs more often than motors. It’s mid-March and I’m losing sunlight fast.

  Suddenly frantic, I hold my bag in front of me—thank God I decided to use it as a weapon against April’s face then drag it out of the car with me—and search for my phone.

  I have to call a car. Search for a cab. Get the hell out of here.

  My skirt feels too short. My bare legs feel exposed. When a man passes by, thin with holes in his shirt, and not the fashionable kind, he sends an appreciative look to my chest. Gulping, I clutch my bag higher up.

  I scroll through my apps in my phone but don’t see any cars available. Glancing at the bodega and trying not to panic, I think, maybe it’ll be safer to wait inside, ask the owner to call me a cab—

  “I wouldn’t go in there, Shorty,” the man with the crackpipe says. His voice is whispy and raw, but I understand every word. “Hal sex trafficks tasty bits like you.”

  I literally feel my face losing color and the man just cackles. I have no idea if he’s joking or not, but decide against going inside.

  I pull up Google, searching for local taxi numbers, shivering, but not from the cold. The adrenaline’s leaving me and fear is taking its place.

  “Nice phone,” Crackpipe says. He makes moves to stand, but stumbles more than he can get his feet under him. “Latest model. Can I have it?”

  “Uh—” I swallow. “No.”

  “You got money, then? Pretty treat like you has cash.”

  I back away, nearly toppling off the curb. “N-no, I don’t carry any cash on me.”

  9-1-1 is looking better than any call to a cab company.

  “Too bad. Girl like you could make a ton of dough ‘round here. Want me to hook you up? I’m a great pimp, I’m told. Got one chick with one eyeball that gives the best head around. Maybe she can teach you somethin’—”

  Gripping my phone and my bag, I spin around and just start running.

  My cheeks feel wet, and I swipe them with the back of my hand holding my phone as I sprint, unsure of where I’m going or why. I’m not going to be a stupid crybaby right now. This is New York City. Surely I’ll run into a subway entrance at some point.

  At first, the car laying on its horn nearby doesn’t draw my attention. I’m too busy dodging cracks in the sidewalk, floating trash, and loitering people to slow down. But as it comes closer and the lengthened beeeeeeep turns into a beep-beep-beep, then “HEY! McKenna!” I finally halt my steps.

  Sniffing and swiping under my nose, I turn to the road. A beat-up sedan approaches at a crawl, the visor too reflected by the outside streetlights for me to see who’s inside.

  Words tumble out of me. “I-I do
n’t need a ride.”

  “Sure as fuck you do.”

  The passenger window rolls down, and a face I’m all too familiar with greets my watery vision. Mason’s windblown hair skews across his forehead like a sexy question mark, and despite the darkened interior, his eyes shine daylight blue.

  “Get in,” he says.

  He doesn’t get the full two words out before I’m shaking my head.

  “Get in, Big Mack. You can’t be out here. You’ll be eaten alive. And I mean that in the literal sense.”

  My grip tightens around my phone. “I’m doing just fine. About to head into the subway.”

  I don’t need streetlights to witness Mason’s dramatic eye-roll. “You’re crying. You’re cold. You’re scared. If you slide on in, I’ll drive you home. Okay?”

  My feet totter backward. There’s no way I’ll do what he says. If I thought ripped ketchup packets on my naked body were enough to jump out of a moving car for, I’d rather play the odds on this street corner than see what Mason has in store for me.

  “Big M—” Mason presses his lips together, then amends, “McKenna, seriously. Even my asshole status can’t let you be out here on your own. At least let me take you to a safe bus stop, which is five whole minutes away. That’s it.”

  Shivering, I sniffle. “Why do you want to help me?”

  Mason glances ahead, the cut of his jawline amplified by the backlit glow of his interior lights. “Because April was supposed to drop you off at my place where I could keep an eye on you. Instead, she dumps you at one of the biggest crime streets in the neighborhood. I don’t let that kind of shit slide.”

  “Why not? I’d think you’d love it if I were harassed in your section of town. Wouldn’t it prove I’m the gutless, fat, mousey girl you’re convinced I am?”

  Mason’s stare cuts right through me. “Do not be stupid enough to confuse school pranks with deadly assault.”

  My mouth falls open. “Pranks? That’s what you and your minions think you do to me?”

  Mason’s expression turns defiant. “Out here in the real world, princess, I deal with friends dying on the streets or OD’ing in their homes, gunshots as my alarm clock, and a dad with a gambling problem with gang members as his loan sharks. Apologies for considering those to be more problematic than who rubs their dick on my romance book.”

  I attempt to find an argument. “That doesn’t give you the go-ahead to make other people suffer. I dread going to school every morning because of you—”

  “Get the fuck in, Mack. Or I really will leave you here.”

  Gritting my teeth, I pull open the passenger door and fall inside, mostly because I’m cold, depleted, and ready for the comfort of home. Even if my parents won’t be there and the brownstone will stand empty as usual.

  Mason pulls into traffic. “You smell like cheeseburger.”

  “That is it. I’ve had it!” I throw my backpack from my lap into the footwell. The random act is enough to startle Mason. “You knew what April and her crew had in store for me. What they were going to do. They were going to strip me, weren’t they? And leave me on your doorstep covered in ketchup and mayonnaise and milkshake, in front of all your friends, so you could all have a good laugh.” I shriek, “And you masterminded it!”

  Mason instinctually leans away from me as he drives. “Whoa, Big Mack, calm do—”

  I don’t. I hit him in the arm. It feels so good, I whack him again, laughing hysterically. “Such a great joke! You think I’m fat so I must devour burgers every day. And I’m such a waste of space, I’m not even worth an original thought, so you and your crew dump trash on me Carrie-style to make your point. Never mind I lost my mother to cancer two years ago. Who cares that I lost my best and only friend in the world and only want to survive the rest of the year so I can get out of the Hell that’s now my home—”

  “Hang on, Debbie isn’t your mom?”

  Mason’s flippant question about my so-called stepmom sends me into skyrocketing rage. I push him and the car swerves. “Jesus, McKenna!”

  “I jumped out of a moving car to get away from your pranks!” I scream, then sob. “You don’t know me! My life is already miserable, okay? You don’t have to—don’t have—” I hiccup through my cries, and Mason glances at me fervently enough that he pulls over to a side-street and parks.

  Once the engine is off, his hands move toward me.

  “Put your fingers near me and I will bite them off knuckle by knuckle,” I say.

  “Got it.” He holds them up in surrender, then retreats to his side of the car.

  We sit in silence as I take the opportunity to collect myself. He dares to reach into the middle console, but pulls out a tissue, which I take without a thank you.

  “For the record,” he says quietly, “I had no idea April was planning on doing that to you.”

  “Oh no?” I swipe under my eyes, then wipe my nose. I’ve never been a pretty crier and usually I’m too emotional to care. “Do you think that makes you a hero? You’ve done plenty of other things. Spilling coffee on me, spreading rumors that I’m selling my virginity, ruining the one thing I have that makes me happy—my books—and lets not forget the nickname that everyone at school now knows me as and won’t refer to me as anything else. That stuff sticks, Mason. And not just through high school. It’s going to be like hardened glue on my bones for the rest of my life.”

  Mason palms the steering wheel. Squeezes. “I never said I’m a good guy.”

  “Doesn’t mean you have to be an asshole instead.”

  “Look, I don’t know why I do half the things I do.”

  “So now I’m talking to a four-year-old. Great.” I stare out my window and say on a sigh, “Just take me to that bus stop. Please.”

  “I mean it. I … I love being a jerk. It makes me feel good. I like the control it gives, the laughter it causes. People think I’m King at our school. You have any idea how addictive that is?”

  I risk meeting his stare. “Is it because you’re treated like a loser at home?”

  Mason’s forehead smooths. His lips stiffen before they part. “Say that again, Big Mack. See what happens.”

  I nod, then stare straight ahead. “I’m guessing a truce isn’t in our future.”

  He must feel my judgment fade, because he says, “I’m sorry about tonight. I won’t apologize for anything else, but leaving you in this ‘hood was unacceptable. I approve a lot of things, but not this. All right?”

  Mason starts the car, spins it around, and gets back on the road.

  “Why did you want me to come to your house?” I ask. “And why enlist April to do it?”

  “Because she scares the shit out of you,” he says on a shrug. “And I get my rocks off upsetting you.”

  I exhale through clenched teeth. “I’m ready to get out of this car now.”

  “And…” he says, with a more hesitant tone. “I’m pretty sure I need the tutoring. My guys are all heading somewhere after year’s end. East is going to college. Wyn’s following suit. Rex, while not a scholar like me, has scored some full-time job in the city. And I’m—if I don’t get my ass in gear, I’ll be stuck here. In the same house. Same ‘hood. Same fucking drama with my family.”

  I’m instantly suspicious. “So, it has nothing to do with Miss Lucas and her rules?”

  “Fuck that. She’s not gonna breathe a word and neither am I. You’re the only liability, and she believes you can be belittled enough to keep your mouth shut.”

  I bristle at his words.

  “And I guess you can,” Mason continues, “but the added incentive of stellar college references can’t hurt.”

  “Are you always so glib and hurtful?” I ask.

  Mason gives me the side-eye. “Have you met me?”

  “Actually, no. I don’t feel like I know you at all. Not the true you, anyway.”

  My honesty shuts him up. I’m surprised I said it, but I don’t have regrets. He might, though, with the way he’s gripping the steering w
heel, so tightly I can make out the fine bones in his hands.

  As we weave through traffic in the dark, we say nothing more, both content on opposite sides of the vehicle. I don’t feel safe, per se. There’s no white flag from either of us waving in the wind. But it’s a quiet relief to be in Mason’s presence and not stress over what he’s planning. I believe him when he says he doesn’t want me wandering his neighborhood alone.

  We pull up to my house and Mason leaves the car idling.

  I startle, shocked we made it all the way back to the Upper East Side. “How do you know where I live?”

  “I had plans for this house,” Mason muses. “Eggs. TP. Paintballs.” He nails me with an arrogant smirk. “But we’ve graduated beyond that, haven’t we?”

  Though Mason’s face is hard and angular, his words cutting and foreboding, I sense he’s not telling the truth. The honesty I’m looking for shimmers behind his eyes, a cracked surface with multiple, delicate fractures.

  I’m also smart enough not to poke the bear any more than I have.

  “Goodbye, Mason,” I say as I open the door and step out.

  “Tell no one about this,” he says.

  “Thank you for the ride.” I enunciate the words before slamming the door shut behind me.

  Mason roars off, and I’m left in front of a shuttered house.

  No porch light has been left on.

  Lamps and candles don’t shine in the windows.

  My stepmom isn’t waiting up for me, reading on the couch, refusing to go to bed until I’m safe inside with her.

  Dad hasn’t texted, wondering where I am.

  My shoes scuff against the pavement as I take the stairs and pull out the keys to my empty family home.

  9

  Mason

  “My bedroom’s over here,” I say to Mack once I’ve stacked her two suitcases against the wall next to the TV. I’m pointing across the room to the beveled double doors leading to the master suite.

  Wyn and I flipped for it, and as usual, I cheated and won.

  Mack follows where I’m pointing, and her forehead does a weird creasing thing. I’m sure it should wrinkle, but the girl probably Botoxes now.