by Gwen Cole
“It was implied,” Buck replied with a scowl. I watched his fingers ball into a fist. “I hate seeing your face around here, and I think it’s about time I do something about that.”
Jake stepped forward. “Look, Buck, he obviously didn’t mean any harm tonight. Why don’t you let him go with a warning, all right?”
“If I let him go with a warning, he’ll just keep doing it. What are you going to do, babysit him? If I were you, I would forget that you’ve ever met him and get lost.”
Buck glanced at me again and I wondered if I’d finally gone too far. I’d known not to come, and what I was getting myself into. Why couldn’t I take my own advice or live with the consequences of my actions?
“Let him go this once,” Jake offered. “If he does it again, then it’s fair game. But I promise, it’ll be the last time.”
I knew Jake hated doing this. The way he said his words made me think this really was the last time he would stick his neck out to get me out of trouble. I’d never realized how much I depended on him to bail me out.
“Did you hear that, Reid?” Buck slowly turned to face me again. He smiled when he caught sight of my blood on Dempsey’s knife. “The next time I see you fighting, it better be in some alley where I don’t give a shit. You got that?”
I nodded. Dempsey shoved me to the side, but not before digging his hand into my pocket and pulling out the wad of cash I won tonight.
“That’s mine.” I made to grab for it, but Dempsey flashed his knife again.
“Try to get it—the moment you drift, you’re dead.” He winked at me as he walked past.
My stomach growled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten in the last day. I couldn’t do anything to get the money back, though. Dempsey would see me coming. I clenched my fists because it was the only thing I could do.
“Consider this your apology for messing up and showing your face,” Buck said, smiling wider. “You’ve caused us too much trouble already.”
“That’s his money, Buck,” Jake interrupted. “He won it fair.”
“You think that was a fair fight?”
“The rules were read, and there was nothing said about drifting.”
Buck laughed with no humor. “Maybe we should add it to the list then.” They turned and walked away. Jake stared at me like I was the stupidest person he had ever met.
“What?” I didn’t wait for an answer, bending down to grab my jacket. My skin was cold, and not just from the air, so I shrugged it on, pulling the hood over my head. “Just spit out whatever you’re going to say.”
He shook his head. “Not here. Come back to my place, and if you don’t come, I’ll never come looking for you again. Your choice.” He left before saying another word, leaving nothing behind but a small breeze, like an exhale. I glanced toward the club door again, wondering if Sam was still inside. Even if she was, she wouldn’t want to talk to me. I’d lost my chance.
I sighed, brought Jake’s apartment to mind, and drifted. He popped the cap of a beer when I appeared there, still scowling. His place was the same as I remembered. Huge windows lined the wall, and the living room was too big to be called a living room. His black Harley sat directly behind his couch. I was more of a Ducati fan myself and I always liked to remind him of that.
“Drop your stuff. You’re staying here tonight.”
“No, thanks.”
Jake drifted from the kitchen right onto his couch. Papers flew off his coffee table and onto the hardwood floor, but he ignored them. “I wasn’t asking. You’re staying here tonight because you’re my friend, and I need someone to play Xbox with, and because you owe me for saving your ass.”
“You have online friends you can play with. What about that Nostradamus guy?” I dropped my bag where I stood, taking my place on the couch. The leather was cool but smelled good as always. Every time he offered me a place here, a little piece of me got closer to just giving in.
After a little while, Jake asked, “That girl, was she really nobody? I can’t have you lying to me like you lie to everyone else.”
“I don’t lie to you. And . . . she’s not nobody.”
“But she doesn’t know anything. I could tell by her face that she had no idea what was going on.”
“I barely know her, and it’s not like it matters now anyway. Not after what she saw.”
Jake shrugged and finished off his beer. “You never know.”
“I doubt it.”
“How’re your ribs?” Jake asked.
I shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to be reminded of it. “They’re fine, he didn’t dig too deep.”
“But next time he will. I’m not stupid, mate. I know there will be a next time because your dumb ass can’t seem to stay away.”
“I’ll start going to the smaller bars again.” They didn’t bring in as much money as the bigger clubs, but I didn’t have much of a choice anymore. Buck and his goons seemed to be everywhere and money wasn’t worth anything if I was dead.
“Or, you could stop altogether. What is it with you and fighting? Do you take joy in getting hit on a regular basis?”
I touched my jaw where it was tender and winced. I tended to heal fast, but this injury would take a bit longer. It would have been easier to win the fight without being hit at all. And it would have been easy to pull off, but there was less money if the fight wasn’t long enough to be entertaining.
“Jake, please, don’t go into this again.”
“How can we not talk about it? I’m worried about you, Reid. You know what Knox likes to do to drifters who get in his way. One of these days, you’re going to find yourself bolted, and I won’t be able to help you.”
I shivered hearing his words, knowing that it could be true. “You don’t have to get me out of anything anymore. If something does happen . . . it’ll be my own fault, and I’ll deserve whatever comes to me.”
“Then make sure you don’t do anything stupid. How are you going to get to know that girl if you die?”
When I looked at Jake, he smirked like an idiot.
I said, “That girl isn’t going to ever want to see me again.”
“How do you know that if you don’t try to see her again?”
“She’s not going to want to see me.”
“And why not?”
I opened my mouth but closed it. There were too many reasons to name. The question should have been, Why would she? I had no answer to that.
“Reid, did I ever tell you of the girl I met in Toronto?” Jake pulled off his jacket, throwing it on the floor.
I shook my head. “I never knew you met any girls.” I grinned as he narrowed his eyes at my sarcasm. I was actually surprised he didn’t already have one at the apartment for the night.
“Just shut your mouth and listen. There was this girl in Toronto last year. We hit it off at a party, and I couldn’t seem to stop going back to her. I was in that city more than anywhere else. It was like I kept being pulled back there.” Jake shifted his eyes onto me. “I even told her about me, and she didn’t freak out or call the police.”
That got my attention. “You told her?”
“It’s not like there are drifter police, Reid. You tell people who you trust, or someone you want to see a lot more of. There’s no way you can even begin a relationship without telling them the truth. It can’t start with lies.”
“So . . . you’re saying I should just tell her?” The pit of my stomach ached with nerves. I never thought I would tell anyone.
“Yeah. And you never know,” he said with a shrug, “maybe she’ll be all right with everything.”
What if she was? What if she still wanted to see me? A little spark started my heart with the possibility of seeing more of her. It was hard not getting my hopes up.
“What happened to that girl in Toronto?”
“She found someone else. It was nice while it lasted though, you know? Telling someone, I mean. Just do it. You never know how it’ll turn out until you do.”
I
nodded, already thinking about the possible outcomes. It had never occurred to me to just tell someone before. I always thought it would become a problem if I did. There were two outcomes. The first would be her screaming and running away, probably calling the police in the process. The second would be her staring at me until she convinced herself that she wasn’t crazy, and neither was I.
She would see me as who I was.
“Okay, I’m sick of talking. Let’s play.” Jake stood and grabbed a controller, throwing me an extra. He turned on his seventy-two-inch flat screen, and the next hour was a blur. Sometime after midnight, Jake disappeared into his room, and he told me to eat whatever I could find. That was the first time I took him up on his offer. My stomach was full of nothing and I needed food.
Around two in the morning, I stood on his balcony, stomach full of carbs, not at all tired. The streets below were still alive, and I had an unearthly desire to drop down and disappear. I could have, too. I wouldn’t go splat like any other person thinking they could fly.
I could enjoy the ride without the consequences.
But where would I go? I had the whole world to choose from, and yet I had nowhere I truly wanted to be. I could go to the hottest club in L.A. or go wedding crashing in Paris. The freedom that thrived within me was never-ending. I lived off it.
But New York was where I lived because it was never silent. It was the opposite of the home I grew up in. The home I could never think about. When I was in New York . . . I didn’t feel so alone all the time.
I needed to figure out when to see Sam again, even though she might not want to after what had happened outside of that club, and even though I told her she would never see me again, I knew I had to. I’d never wanted to tell someone about drifting so much in my life, and I wondered how she would react.
There was only one way to find out.
SAM
NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
NELLA DROPPED ME OFF A LITTLE AFTER MID-night. The house was quiet and undisturbed. I shivered before making my way down the dark hallway, turning on a few lights as I went.
Levi was waiting to be let in by the back door, and he followed me to the stairs, taking his place at the bottom as I went up to my room. My parents’ bedroom, the second level, was dark, which made me realize—this would be my first ever night alone in the new house.
The origami elephant Reid made for me sat on my night-stand, bringing a little warmth into the room and making me think about him.
My mind was numbed by the night’s events, and Reid’s face wouldn’t stay out of my head. But on top of everything, I felt like I was getting sick. My stomach tossed and an ache was coming from somewhere deep within me. I went to bed curled up under my blankets, hating the cold sheets and wishing they were warmer.
I wanted to sleep the night away, but that never happened. Every time my dreams started, my stomach lurched and woke me up. The night dragged on forever, and around five o’clock in the morning, I gave up and pulled out my laptop to watch some anime from under my covers.
I finished the first few episodes of a show called Banana Fish by the time the sun brightened my room enough to call it morning. I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt, avoiding the mirror on my way out the door.
Being the only person in the house, I felt like a giant walking down the stairs. Every creak seemed overly loud, and again, I didn’t look into my parents’ empty bedroom, not wanting to remind myself they were still gone.
The weird dog that Levi was, he usually slept most of the time. When he wanted to play, he chewed on a toy in a corner somewhere. We were more alike than I would have guessed. He got up and stretched his long body when I made it to the bottom of the stairs, wagging his tail happily. He leaned into my leg as I dug my fingers into his thick fur and rubbed behind his ears.
Even though my parents let me pick out his name, they never knew it came from one of my favorite anime series.
“Maybe I’ll let you sleep with me tonight,” I told the dog. He twitched an ear back toward the sound of my voice. “Just don’t tell Mom, all right?”
Levi trotted to the kitchen ahead of me and I let him outside. A thin layer of frost covered the grass but the sun was bright with the coming morning. It was going to be a nice Saturday, even though I’d be stuck in the house sick all day.
I leaned against the counter, wondering if my stomach would handle food. I rarely got sick, but last night’s episode put me on edge. I decided to wait it out and see. I kept thinking about Reid, wondering if I would see him again, wondering if I wanted to see him again.
My cell phone buzzed from my pocket, startling me out of my thoughts. I dug it out and saw that it was Mom. I sat down at the kitchen table and swiped to answer it.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hey, sweets. I didn’t think you’d be up already, but I decided to try anyway,” she said. “I didn’t know you had anything going on this morning.”
“No, I don’t, I just couldn’t sleep. My stomach decided to act up around midnight last night, so I stayed up.”
“Your stomach? Do you think you’re getting the flu?” I heard my dad’s voice in the background, and I imagined Mom trying to shush him.
“No, I don’t think it’s the flu. It felt weird, but I think it’s over,” I said anyway, needing to reassure her before mom mode took over.
There was a pause on the other end. I could still hear the news in the background, which Dad was probably watching. I picked at the wooden table with my fingernail, waiting for her to respond. Her silence made me nervous.
“Are you sure you’re feeling all right, now? Tell me the truth, Sam.”
“Yeah, Mom. I’m fine, really.” I wasn’t.
“All right, but tell me if you get sick again. Promise?”
“I promise.” There was a pause and I heard honking in the background, so I asked, “Where are you guys, anyway?”
“Oh, we’re in San Francisco. We have to go, but I’ll try to call again tomorrow. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
I assumed that phone call would be the most exciting thing to happen to me that day. I stared at the table for another few moments, thinking and seeing nothing, too tired to even care.
A knock on the front door jerked me awake. I wasn’t expecting anyone. Maybe Dad was getting something from UPS. I unlocked the door, expecting a mailman.
It wasn’t a mailman.
It was Reid.
My hand froze on the handle, along with my whole body.
He half-heartedly smiled. “Hey.”
The breeze brushed his dark hair, and his cheeks were slightly red from the cold air. One side of his jaw was bruised from the fight, and I spotted a cut above his eye. I should’ve stopped staring, but I couldn’t.
After the immediate shock wore off, I quickly cleared my throat.
“Reid,” I said, my brain finally catching up to what was happening. “What are you doing here?”
Did I mind that he was here? I still couldn’t answer that—I hadn’t had time to think about much of anything. Especially about what had happened the night before. Had I really last seen him only hours earlier?
“I’m sorry that I didn’t”—he winced—“warn you I was coming or anything.” He pulled his hand from one of his pockets, scratching the back of his head like it might be a nervous habit. “I just wanted to talk to you.”
“About last night? Because I’m not sure if I want to talk about that . . .” I trailed off, reliving the memories of him fighting, and then the scene afterward. It seemed less scary now that we were standing in the sunshine, but last night had been dangerous and stupid.
“You don’t want to talk about it at all, or not with me?”
His eyes pierced mine, and I didn’t know what to say. My stomach tightened and I didn’t want him to leave, but . . . something was different about him. Something within me wanted to know what it was.
“Last night was a lot to take in. You were in that fight and the
n—” I paused. He searched me as I struggled with my words. “And then I found you with that gang.”
“They aren’t a gang. I’m not into anything like that, I promise.” Reid looked behind him, almost like he was worried they were going to be standing there in the street.
“Then who are they?”
“They’re—” Reid shut his mouth like he was catching himself doing something he shouldn’t. He averted his gaze.
I shook my head. “You came here to talk with me, but you’re not going to?”
I didn’t want to leave him standing on my doorstep. I didn’t want to close the door in his face. And I also didn’t want this to be the last time I saw him. But he wasn’t telling me anything.
“Sam, please, it’s just that I’ve never told anyone before.” He let out a long breath, looking beaten. “I don’t know how.”
“Tell me anything then, so long as it’s true.”
I waited, but a long moment passed, and he didn’t say a word.
“Fine.” I shook my head, not wanting to do what I was doing. I closed the door and backed away from it, staring at the dark wood between us. I hated myself for it.
“Sam, wait,” he pleaded, his voice muffled.
It took everything I had to hold back my tears. My chest heaved, but I didn’t seem to be getting enough air. I backed up against the wall under the stairs, glancing at the door to my right. I wondered if he was still out there, and I was afraid that he wasn’t.
“Sam?”
Gosh I love the sound of his voice.
I shouldn’t love the sound of his voice.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “What?”
“Yesterday morning you asked me about what I did,” he said carefully.
“And you wouldn’t tell me,” I replied.
“No, but I’m wondering if I can show you?” I could hear the nervousness in his voice.
“What do you mean, ‘show me?’”
There was a moment of silence, and I looked toward the door again.