by Jo Raven
I wait, too.
Finally, Dad says, “You really think he’s changed?”
I start to nod, then end up shrugging. “He’s trying. Or seems to be. In any case, all that’s happening to him isn’t helping him.”
“It sure doesn’t,” Dad agrees. “No matter what mistakes he’s made in the past, he deserves a second chance. Many boys are aggressive in their teenage years but calm down later and become decent people.”
“And you know that, how?”
“I read up on the matter. What, you thought I’d sit back and watch you suffer and not try to act? At least understand why it was happening? You’re my little girl. It broke me apart when you left. And I wanted to break that boy’s face, but I didn’t.”
Josh makes a disgruntled, sulky noise like a deflating balloon. “He’s not a kid. He can take care of himself.”
“Everyone needs help from time to time.” Dad takes off his glasses and places them on the table, beside his phone. “Just... be careful, Luna. He’s hurt you before. I don’t want to see you hurt again. Being kind to others is great as long as it doesn’t harm you.”
“He will harm you,” Josh’s voice is rising. “He’s a bully. That’s who he is.”
“Has he bullied you while I was away?”
He shakes his head and makes a face.
“He is an ex-con who drinks,” Dad says quietly, dispelling the picture I’d made of him being one hundred percent on my side. Ross’s side. “No matter what, I wouldn’t want you to hang around him unless necessary.”
“See?” Josh says. “I was right.”
“But no rock throwing,” Dad mutters, shooting him a disapproving look. “We clear on that, Joshua?”
“Whatever. Can we eat now?”
It seems the conversation is over as far as Joshua is concerned. I glance at Dad who rubs at his eyes and gets up to open the oven.
Awesome. So much for asking for being honest with Dad, for asking for those antibiotics instead of grabbing them. God, the thought of Ross not so far away, lying feverish, all alone, makes me feel sick.
The lasagna is lukewarm, and kind of flat—yeah, I didn’t manage to replicate my aunt’s recipe like I wanted, and God, I miss her. We used to live close to them before we moved to Destiny, right after Mom left. When I was there, I was homesick, and now I’m homesick for her house and my cousins.
They didn’t glare daggers at me like Josh is doing right now across the table. I know he wants to protect me, that he’s angry at Ross. God, maybe Josh is right to be upset with me. If you’d asked me last week if Ross deserved a second chance, I’d laugh in your face. I’d been so sure about everything, so secure in my victim position, my righteous anger. And now this hundred-and-eighty-degree turn, out of nowhere.
How can I expect my little brother to understand what’s going on in my mind when I barely understand it myself?
Chapter Eighteen
Ross
I’m so fucking cold. Freezing my balls off. But my eyes burn, my head feels like I have spikes pushed through the back. Sometimes flames lick my skin. Then the cold returns, ice filling my veins, making me shake so hard my teeth rattle.
There are snakes in the water. Their heads hunt after me as I wade through the rapids, sinking into mud. Their poisoned fangs sink into me, tear at my flesh, and the poison spreads, black seeping into my skin, rising up my body.
I’m falling, sinking, floating in the river, trying to swim but my limbs don’t obey, too heavy. Weighed with stones. Skeletons float by, grinning skulls snapping at me. My heart is pounding so hard it feels it’ll burst out of my chest.
Death is here for me. I should fight it, escape, and I try again to move my leaden limbs, swim away, swim to shore. But what’s the use?
I’m sinking through the river mud, and it’s black and coarse, filling my mouth and nose. I can’t breathe, and the snakes are wrapping around my wrists and ankles.
Fuck.
I’m back in prison, tied to a narrow bed, woozy and confused. My head throbs, and I can taste blood in my mouth. Pleasure hits me, and looking down I know I’m hard, and this makes no fucking sense. Where am I?
A girl is blowing me, her dark curls hiding her face, but I know who she is even if I can’t recall her name, and it’s so good. I want her. The knowledge sinks into me, the awareness that I wanna fuck her, be inside her—but meanwhile the poison is spreading, fire sinking into my ribs, mingling with the pleasure in a weird, dizzying way.
I blink and instead of the girl, there are grizzled, jeering faces gazing down on me, eyes gleeful. I jerk, but the bonds around my limbs hold me down—or maybe they’re hands—not letting me up. I blink again, and they’re gone, and it’s my dad standing there, laughing as I die.
He’s lifting a knife that’s dripping blood. “How’re you doing, son?” he sneers. “It’s a good day to die, isn’t it? I’m here to finish the job.”
I jerk so hard on the bed I wake up, back arching as I struggle to get my limbs free, to lift them off the soaked mattress. It takes long moments for reality to assert itself, for me to recognize my old bedroom in the light slipping through the window slats. I’m gasping for breath my lungs not getting enough air, and when I finally sit up, my head is spinning.
Fuck, fuck...
I don’t know what woke me up until I hear noise inside the house. Still panting harshly, I turn and throw my legs off the bed, wondering how I’ll fight anyone breaking into the house. Coming for me, maybe. I wouldn’t put it past Edward and his pals.
But the bedroom door creaks open, and there’s the girl, that girl from the dream, from the past... from last night.
“Ross? You didn’t answer the door, but it was unlocked anyway...” She steps inside, her curls a halo around her head, lit from behind.
She looks like an angel. I’m staring at her, unable to remember why she’s here, and what’s expected of me. All I want is to haul her against me, but the dream is still echoing through me, weighing me down.
“Ross,” she whispers, coming to a stop in front of me, “what happened?”
I rub a hand over my chest because my goddamn breathing’s still ragged. “Nothing.”
Just a nightmare. Not accurate. I fought back in prison, and... and Dad was never there. What the fuck’s going on in my brain? I made a name for myself behind bars, fight to be known as an aggressive bastard to avoid being cornered. But I was cornered a few times anyway. And the snakes in the river? The dead?
Jesus fuck.
“You’re shaking,” she says.
“Just... dreams.” Dunno what possessed me to reply. Why can’t I keep my fucking mouth shut?
“Probably fever dreams. Hey...”
No way am I telling her they probably aren’t. They’re distorted memories, mangled and twisted, like my half-brother Merc’s were about our dad.
I’m okay. Perfectly fucking fine. I tell myself I don’t need this, don’t need no hugs, no comfort, but my throat’s inexplicably tight.
When she puts her arms around me, I don’t resist. I can’t. Can’t stop myself. I grab her to my chest, hold her tight.
***
“I brought you a few things,” she says. We’re curled up on top of my bed, and she’s stroking my face, light touches on my aching brow, occasionally checking the wound on my head. “Medicine. Something to eat and drink. Something for the pain. Antiseptic.”
My eyes are closing. I have the sexiest of girls on my bed, the girl I’ve always fantasized about, and all I can fucking do is nod off.
“What were you dreaming of?” she whispers.
“Prison,” I mumble. “Dad. Snakes. They were biting me.”
She snickers. “Really?”
I open an eye and half-glower at her. “I’ll show you my snake if you like.”
“Heh. Thanks for the offer, but not now.” She sits up and fuck, takes her hand off me. “I’ll be right back.”
Where is she going?
“Come back!” I ca
ll after her. “My snake likes you!”
Her answering laughter makes me smile, despite the pounding headache. And she comes back quickly, arranging a covered bowl and a plastic bottle and various boxes on a tray I didn’t even know we had at home.
“What’s all this?”
She waits until I sit up, propping my back against the wall, before placing the tray on my lap. “Eat, drink, take the antibiotics and something to lower that fever. You’ll feel better. But if the fever doesn’t drop by tomorrow, I swear to God I’m dragging you kicking and screaming to a doctor.”
I lift my brows at that image, but I feel too shitty to make a wisecrack about it. My stomach is churning and I have to swallow hard to keep its contents down.
She uncovers the bowl and there’s what looks like a piece of lasagna in it. “Dig in.”
Hoping I won’t puke all over the tray, I take the fork she gives me and get to work. It tastes great, and I tell her so in between bites, until I all but lick the bowl clean. By the time I’m done, I feel better.
And she’s still here. It finally sinks in that she’s brought me all this stuff, that she wants to help me, and I don’t get why.
Well, apart from the fact it was her brother who almost brained me with his rocks. That’s probably the reason. She feels guilty.
I grab the pills and swallow them with the water—antibiotics, painkillers. My stomach’s still unsure about whether it’s gonna turn itself inside out or not, so I lean back against the wall and wait.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Nothing.”
“You keep saying that.” She gives me a critical once-over. “You look a little green.”
I swallow convulsively. Everything seems to be staying down.
“Maybe I should have made you some broth.” She grimaces. “I wasn’t thinking. The hit to your head could have made you nauseous, and with the fever... I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine.” I snag her hand, tug until she scoots closer. “That was the best fucking lasagna I’ve ever had.”
She colors and smiles, looking pleased, takes my hand.
It shifts something inside me, I can feel it. Something clicks, and for some reason, everything seems so much brighter all of a sudden, the nightmare dissipating, the sunlight dripping through the windows made of gold.
And then violins will start to play, right? Goddammit. Just how hard did that rock hit me? I’m not one to believe in rainbow-farting unicorns and a bright future.
But I can’t let go, not yet.
“You often cook for your dad and brother?” I ask, surprised to find I really wanna know. “I wouldn’t even know how to start making a lasagna.”
“Nah, Dad usually cooks. He’s a better cook than me, but I want to learn.”
“You like looking after them,” I say quietly.
“I like looking after the people I care for.” Her eyes widen a fraction, as if she hadn’t meant to say that, and color rises to her cheeks.
But she doesn’t take it back.
And I shouldn’t pay what she said any mind. We’re just talking. She’s telling me about her family. If she thinks I’ll jump to conclusions, think she’s talking for me, she shouldn’t worry. I’m not that stupid.
“And your mom?” I wasn’t going to ask, but the damn question popped out of my mouth.
Sure, I’ve wondered. Wondered for a long time about it, back when I thought both our moms had skipped town, leaving us behind.
Before I realized just how different everything that went down was. How different we are. Fucking light years apart.
She’s gazing down at my hand wrapped around hers, turns mine over to smooth her little thumb over my scarred knuckles. “Mom and Dad got divorced many years ago. She walked away and never looked back. I guess we weren’t enough for her to stick around. She doesn’t give two hoots about me and Josh.”
I think about that. “What if she does?”
“I’m sorry?”
“What if your mom does care but something is keeping her away?”
“Ross...”
“I thought my mom didn’t give a shit about me, that she left because I let her down, because Dad was an asshole. But it turned out she hadn’t left town at all, and... Oh fuck, I don’t mean that anything happened to your mom, I...” I scrub a hand through my hair. “What I meant is, what if your mom wants to reach out and doesn’t know how?”
She’s blinking owlishly at me, like I’m speaking Chinese.
Why did I have to open my damn big mouth?
“Look, forget it,” I mutter.
“No,” she says slowly. “No, I tend to make up my mind about people’s reasons for doing stuff way too fast. I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”
Don’t read anything into the things she says, I tell myself, don’t you fucking dare imagine she’s talking about you.
She hates you. She made that clear plenty of times.
But that fucking lump is still stuck in my throat, and I can’t fight the relief at having her here. Of all the people I’d ever dare to imagine having my back, she sure wasn’t a forerunner. And of all the people who could have helped me, believed in me even just enough to come check on me... she’s the most important. If I could have her trust, her touch, I wouldn’t need anyone else.
Sorry, Buddy.
Fuck, this fever has to be worse than I thought if it springs this kind of moronic thoughts on me.
This time it might just about kill me.
“Look...” I have to swallow hard. “I won’t miraculously change.”
I don’t even know why I’m telling her that. Maybe it’s an answer to a question she asked me before, maybe even long ago.
“I don’t care for miracles,” she whispers. “I just want you to try. To try and be a better version of yourself.”
“I can’t promise that.”
“Then don’t. But try. Try to understand why.”
“I hurt people.”
“But you can stop. In fact, you’ve done that already.”
A few beats of quiet linger between us.
Then I have to ask, “So what now?”
“Now be better.”
“Be better.” That simple.
Could it be enough?
***
“I have to go,” she says sometime later, and I look up, startled.
“Right, sure.”
Of course she does. She has a life, a family, and they’re waiting for her. It felt so natural, having her here. So normal.
“Will you be okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll be okay.”
I’ve had infections before. Some cuts from that goddamn belt went deep. But I recovered, hid the agony from everyone, went back to school, went on living. I’m strong. I don’t need anyone around, I don’t need—
“Don’t forget the pills,” she says softly. “Promise you won’t. Check the instructions on the package and eat something. That fever had better go down by tomorrow or I’m dragging your ass to the doc’s.”
“You are?” I’m vaguely horrified at the threat, vastly amused, but mostly confused and, I have to admit it, pleased.
“You bet I am. Somebody’s got to take care of you until you’re back on your feet, you stubborn ass.”
“And it might as well be you? Wanna ogle my hot body again? You only have to ask, you know.”
A fierce blush splashes on her cheeks. “Oh shut up, you oversexed lug.”
God, so fucking cute. “Sad but true. It’s a medical condition. I need your help.”
“I bet you got girls lining up to help you with that.”
Shit. I shake my head. “I don’t. Luna...”
She lifts her chin, eyes flashing in challenge. “I shouldn’t care.”
But that means that she does. I smother a grin, strangle it, because I won’t read anything into this, I fucking won’t, but damn it’s hard, no pun intended. She shouldn’t care, and I shouldn’t feel like my heart’s about to fucking burst.
God, I love this girl.
Hot damn...
Chapter Nineteen
Luna
I spend my Sunday trying not to think about Ross, not worry about that stubborn fever. My plan is to slip out later, in the evening, go over to check on him. If he stays there. He’s always been so adamant about not wanting to sleep in that house, I can’t bet on it. He should rest, build up his strength.
Here I am, concerned over a strong guy who’s survived his dad, and prison, and God knows how many beatings.
Dad said everyone needs someone to look after them.
What about mom? Where is she now? Is she alone, is she with someone? Has she built herself a new family? I hesitate to ask Dad. He never wanted to talk about her.
Josh is not talking to me. Big surprise. I need to speak with him, explain—but I’m not sure what to say. How to explain something I barely understand.
How much I enjoy our talks.
How much I want him.
It’s ridiculous, I know. I should walk away, keep away, my God, I left town because of him and now I’m defending him to my dad and brother, the people I left behind when I ran. They’re protective of me. I can’t hold it against them.
My sanity—or lack thereof—is what should worry me. They’re the rational ones, the wise ones. I’m the one who’s lost her head.
I’m in lust. Maybe that’s the issue here. My body is thrumming, cramping with desire. Memories of our kisses, of his hand between my legs, of his naked cock, his groans when I went down on him, they torture me.
Leaving Dad cooking in the kitchen, and Josh in the living room lost in his videogame world, I wander into my bedroom. I sit on my bed, look at the posters on the walls. It doesn’t feel like my room, doesn’t feel like me, not anymore. I’m not that girl who dreamed of running away with boy bands, with fantasy heroes, living an unbelievable fantasy life. I may have run away but it was only to find myself.
I don’t regret it. Going away gave me a chance to regain my confidence, but I am back, and no matter where I go from here, this girl is now stronger—and I refuse to consider that falling for Ross all over again is a sure sign of weakness.