by S. J. Sylvis
Next came the shampoo bottle that he had unscrewed the lid from, placing it on the counter, and then came a small plastic baggy.
When the guy turned slightly, I slapped my hand over my mouth. My eyes grew wide.
Jason.
I recognized the color of his hair with his back to me—the same coppery color as mine, although his was unkempt and wild looking. My mouth opened to blurt his name, but my heart began to sink as I clamped it shut and bit my tongue, watching.
A metallic taste filled my mouth.
The sound of a plastic bag rustled, and I dropped my gaze from the side of his face to his hands. White powder.
No.
I willed my eyes to stop filling with moisture as he poured some of the dust onto the vanity top. With his back still toward me, I watched as he bent down over the substance.
No. Stop.
I could feel my heart shattering in my chest. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Jason wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t part of the plan. He should have been in college, getting stellar grades and hanging out with the popular crowd. Instead, he was stuck in a disgusting trailer on the wrong side of town, snorting drugs up his nose while his little sister was crouched in a bathtub, watching from afar, contemplating her recent decisions.
I really had no choice as of late. Ollie was involved. Tank knew me and Ollie both, and if we backed out, not only was Jason going to get the brunt of it, but so were we.
I clenched my eyes shut as he bent forward to snort the powder. I felt hollow. But the longer I sat in that bathroom, the quicker anger replaced sadness. He had promised me. He had promised he was done. Why did I always believe him? He continued to prove me wrong, and each time, the disappointment swallowed me entirely.
I hurt. It hurt.
I rubbed at my chest and pushed away any ounce of sadness I had. I hastily stood up and pushed the shower curtain out of my way, the rings on top screeching on the bar above my head.
Jason’s head flew toward mine, his nose a mere millimeter away from the white power.
“What the fuck!”
I was too angry to say anything. I just stood, standing in the disgusting tub, my hand still on the mildewing shower curtain.
Jason’s mouth dropped. “Piper? What the hell are you doing in here?”
I barely recognized my own voice. “I snuck in here to come see if you were okay, to tell you that everything was going to be fine and that I was figuring out a way to pay off Tank, but look at you!” My voice rose toward the end of my sentence, and I shot my eyes to the bathroom door. I hurriedly stepped out of the tub and ran the few feet over to the door and locked it. Music was still blaring throughout the trailer, so I felt confident that no one heard me yell. “You’re in here using? At a party? Having a grand ol’ time?”
My brother stuttered, “I…I…”
“You what?” My phone buzzed, and I glanced down.
Ollie: Almost there. Hayley is with me. She knows where Tank lives. Tell me how to get you out.
My stomach fell out from beneath me. A hot coat of embarrassment and shame covered my body, but I shook it off. I didn’t have time to worry about who knew about Jason and my life. I needed to get the hell out of this trailer before someone other than Jason found me.
Me: I’m in the bathroom on the back side of the trailer. The window is jammed. Try to stick something under to pry it open.
I looked back at Jason, ignoring the texts I had from my parents who were demanding I come home since they were here for one night and one night only. I dropped my head, trying to push my guilt away. It was almost suffocating. “Jason, I’m done.” My voice trembled, breaking with every word. “After the money is paid back, and I get my boy—" I paused, clearing my throat. “I mean…my friend. After I get my friend out of this stupid mess I drug him into to save your ass, I’m done. I can’t keep doing this.” Jason stood in the same spot, his lips sealed shut. “I can’t keep saving you if you won’t even save yourself.”
His bloodshot eyes had my own eyes watering, but I knew I needed to keep my shit together. Otherwise, he’d use it against me. Jason might have been drunk, or maybe even high, but he was smart—one of the smartest in his class, actually. And if he knew I was hurting, he would turn it around and use it to his advantage. He’d done it before, and he’d do it again if I gave him a chance.
“You sound like Dad.”
It felt like he took a knife and carved an X on my forehead. He felt betrayed by me. Telling me I sounded like our father was brutal, because we both held resentment when it came to our parents.
“Jason—” I jumped as a loud bang sounded on the bathroom door. Flesh pounding against the wooden door had my heart climbing to my throat and staying there.
“Fuck.” Jason scrambled to grab the little plastic baggy, scooping the unused powder back into it.
Someone yelled from the other side of the door. “Jason, get your pussy bitch out here and make us some fuckin’ food. You might be a cool guy, but you’re still my bitch...until your hot-as-fuck sister pays back that money.”
Our eyes met, and I knew instantly that the drugs he’d just unscrewed from an empty shampoo bottle weren’t really his for the taking. The questions were nonstop. Did he steal them and hide them? Surely, Tank wouldn’t have let Jason in here alone when he knew there were drugs in here. What drug addict could be trusted being alone in a room with drugs?
“I’m coming, bro!” he yelled back through the door. He quickly put the baggy back into the empty shampoo bottle and placed it underneath the sink.
My phone vibrated a few times as I continued to watch Jason move with agility. I ground my teeth back and forth, trying to will away the tears. I barely recognized my brother standing in front of me.
I’d never felt so alone in my entire life.
“You need help,” I whispered as he stood back up.
Jason’s eyes found mine, and they were empty. So empty it was like I was looking right through him.
When he walked over to the door, he dropped his head and paused. My phone vibrated again, but I continued to stare at him, feeling sad. I just felt sad. He finally whispered, “I know. I fucking know.”
My phone vibrated again; I finally looked down.
Ollie: Hayley is about to cause a diversion. Eric and I are gonna pry the window open. Get ready.
“I’ll try to keep people from coming back here. Hurry up and get out before Tank finds you. He’s cool with me right now, and he’s happy he’s makin’ money off your friend, but he can turn vicious in a fucking second. Trust me, Piper. He’s fucking dangerous. That’s why I’m still here. That’s why I haven’t tried to leave. Not until he gets his money.”
My voice came out low. “My friends are here. They’re about to pry open the window because it’s stuck. I’ll be gone soon.”
He nodded, and I could see the muscles along his jaw clenching. He shared the same jaw as my father, and watching it twitch like that brought back many, many memories of my father holding in his temper. “I’m sorry, Piper. I’m so fucking sorry. I’ll fix this. I will.”
I climbed on top of the toilet as I heard pounding on the front door of the trailer, knowing it was probably the diversion from my best friend. Before Jason left the bathroom, I said over my shoulder, “I hope so, because if not, I’m done until you find it in you to help yourself.”
He said nothing as the light switched off, and the door opened and closed behind him.
Ollie had seconds to pry this window open and help me climb out, or I’d likely be caught red-handed.
And for some reason, I didn’t even care if I got caught.
A numbness fell over me the second I watched Jason dip his head down to the counter, seconds away from snorting something, and I wasn’t sure if anything could bring me back.
Chapter Twenty
Ollie
My heart rate climbed to an unhealthy speed as I stood behind a rundown trailer, staring at the window on the backside.
There was a chill in the air, and I wasn’t sure if it was from the cool temperature or if it was from fear.
It was a shaky feeling, and it had my heart pounding. Usually, spontaneity was my thing. I was the guy who everyone dared to do stupid shit because I liked the thrill, but this was different. Piper was involved, and she was scared.
My girl was scared, and that had me flexing my knuckles. My girl? Yes. My girl. She felt like mine, even if she truly wasn’t, and I wanted to pound her brother’s face in simply because he was the reason she was here in the first place.
“It’s go time. Tank is on the porch, talking with Hayley about her mom.” Eric’s voice was low as he came back into sight.
I immediately went to the window and stood up on the cinder blocks Eric and I had found a few yards away and had stacked below. It was hard to make out anything, but I could see the glow of Piper’s phone. My fingers tried to pry the shitty window open, but I was certain it hadn’t been opened in years, because it wasn’t budging at all.
“It’s fucking stuck.”
“Let me try.” I moved over, and Eric took his pocket knife and began sliding the blade underneath the ledge. My stomach coiled like a bunch of snakes as I watched his blade bend.
Feeling agitated, I whipped out my phone and shot Piper a text.
Me: Grab a towel and wrap it around your fist snug and hit the window as hard as you can. You’re going to have to break it, and in order to be quiet, the glass has to fall out and not in.
Eric stepped back and waited beside me. A cold sweat broke out along my forehead the longer she stood on the other side of that window.
“You alright?”
Was I alright? No, I was not fucking alright.
I answered harshly. “No.”
“Relax, bro. I’ll walk right through that fucking party and grab her if I have to.”
An unhealthy amount of jealousy surged through my body. That’s my job.
I shook my head. This was what Piper did to me. The girl snuck inside my head and ran circles. She messed with my heart, and the sad thing was, I didn’t even think she knew she was doing it.
My phone went off, and Eric and I both looked down.
Piper: There aren’t any towels in here!
Me: Use your shirt.
“Don’t even think about looking at her tits when she climbs out.”
Eric chuckled. “Relax. What’s yours is yours. I know the bro code.”
My eyes strained to listen to Tank and Hayley. Christian was probably losing his shit knowing Hayley and Tank used to live close to one another. The trailer park was probably the worst thing I’d ever seen in terms of homes. I thought Hayley’s last foster home was shitty, but now I knew that it was an upgrade from where she grew up.
My head snapped up as glass came tumbling out of the window. I gritted my teeth, hoping Tank didn’t hear from his barely standing front porch. Eric and I quickly got to the window, and I stood up on the blocks, reaching in after snatching my own shirt off my back and wrapping it around my hand to brush away the remaining jagged glass. My hands immediately found her rib cage. “I got you,” I whispered, pulling her out inch by inch. The window was small, but so was Piper. My large hands cupped her body, and a sense of relief shot right into my chest. Having her body in my hands did something to me. Something shifted and locked into place.
I would go to hell and back for her.
Her shaky hands grabbed onto my shoulders as her hair swung in between us. As soon as her legs were out the window, I heard her hiss.
“You okay? What happened? Did you get cut?”
Her voice was monotonous. “I’m fine.”
She wasn’t fine.
Once I placed her down onto the ground, I kept one of my hands on her warm skin and placed the other under her chin. The moon and stars shined above us, and when I tipped her head back, I saw the glassy waves. Piper was definitely not fine.
“What happened?”
“Not now, fucking go!” Eric came out of nowhere. I forgot he was even here. I saw the light in the bathroom click on, and I snatched Piper’s hand and rushed us around the side of the trailer. I pushed her body back into the metal siding and caged her in, shielding her from whatever came our way. We were closer to Hayley and Tank now but stuck on the side between the other shitty trailer propped a few feet away. Either way we went, we were fucked.
“You are not fine, Piper,” I whispered softly, keeping her tiny body caged in. Our bare bodies were inches from one another, but I didn’t dare move. In case anyone came around the side, I wanted to make sure she wasn’t seen. Eric was a few feet away, also pinned to the side of the trailer, waiting for the go-ahead to run to our cars.
Piper didn’t say anything to me, but I could sense the tension rolling off her body. She was as tight as a rubber band, ready to snap in half. Slowly, her head dropped into my shoulder, and within seconds, I felt something wet hit my bare chest.
Piper was crying, and it tore me in half.
It felt like someone had taken a knife to my skin.
“Did someone do something to you in there?”
I’d kill every fucking one of them. My temper had raised my body temperature so high I actually started to sweat. Is this what it felt like to be Christian? I was the level-headed one, but right now, I was ready to kill.
Piper’s head shook back and forth slowly as her shoulders trembled. She was breaking. Piper was breaking, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it with us hiding like this.
My eyes raked around our surroundings, and I took the first out I could find. My hand clamped onto Piper’s, and I made a run for it. I whipped us around, and we were behind the next-door trailer within a second. The ground was hard against my shoes, and the pounding of my feet matched the muscle behind my chest. I caught Eric’s eye, and he silently questioned me, but I kept going, dragging Piper behind with me.
For a second, we paused, Piper’s palm nestled right next to mine. I waited a beat, making sure there wasn’t any commotion or following footsteps, and I pulled her with me, jogging behind the trailers, climbing through the tall, unkempt grass, and finally making our way past the dumpsters to get to the front of the trailer park.
If I’d paid attention earlier and glanced at the broken, flickering Pike Valley Trailer Park sign, I might have taken it as an indication that this would be a shitty night. It was ominous looking. A warning of sorts.
Breaking glass, running through a fucking forest of small lawns that hadn’t seen a lawn mower in months, and Piper’s tears. All those things combined were a recipe for a shitty fucking time.
I liked adrenaline rushes, but not when Piper was involved.
Not when I could see the wet streaks on her cheeks glistening with the blue hue of the trailer park sign.
I was certain we only had a few minutes before Hayley, Christian, and Eric walked up, but I was going to take advantage of it.
“Tell me what happened.”
Piper tucked her hair behind her ears, and suddenly, she didn’t look like the girl that I had mouthed off to in the past. Her clever comebacks and devious smiles in my direction had always showcased her fighting spirit, but right now, it was nowhere to be found. She looked sad. Lifeless. Broken.
“I’m okay,” she finally answered, her voice small.
“You’re crying.”
Piper’s face twisted. Her eyelashes fluttered closed for a moment before she reached up and dabbed her cheeks as if she couldn’t believe she was truly crying.
“Oh.” Her hands fell quickly as she cast her eyes to the ground.
I took a step closer to her, the gravel crunching underneath my shoe. “Don’t do that. Don’t hide from me.”
She said nothing as crickets chirped in the background. The buzz from the flickering light sparked the air with a tension even heavier than what she was carrying.
“I’m learning that you hide from everyone.” Piper slowly raised her chin, and we locked eyes. “Does anyone know t
he real you, Piper?”
I could hear footsteps getting closer. Twigs breaking and small rocks crunching. But Piper and I were at an impasse, and I wouldn’t back down. I needed her to see that I was here…and I was seeing her.
Her tongue darted out to lick her bottom lip. I dipped my eyes down, seizing the emotional hold we had on one another, and felt myself pause. Her shirt was clenched in her one hand from breaking the window, which meant she had nothing on but her bra.
My mouth went dry, and I worked my jaw back and forth. It wasn’t the time to let lust overtake, but I let it anyway. I wanted to pull her in and kiss her. I wanted to wrap my hands around her waist and let our bare bodies touch. I wanted to tip her head back and kiss away her tears and drink up every last secret she held close to her heart.
“There you are!”
Piper jumped back from me and scrambled to throw her shirt over her body, covering up that dainty piece of fabric she called a bra. I cleared my throat and locked eyes onto Christian. A shadow hid half of his face, but I could tell he had several questions on the tip of his tongue. On the way over, I gave them a brief run-down of what we were walking into, but nothing of true substance. Only that Piper had a brother, she was in trouble, and we needed to get her out of Tank’s trailer as soon as possible. They knew nothing about the situation or my racing.
Those were our secrets. I felt overly protective of them and somewhat closer to her knowing we shared something away from the rest of our privileged world.
Hayley rushed over to Piper and threw her arms around her slender shoulders. “Are you okay?”
Piper nodded her head. “I’m okay. I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” Hayley pulled back, and her eyebrows cast an even darker shadow along her face. “You never have to be sorry for relying on us, Piper.”
Piper’s eyes shifted to mine momentarily before resting back on her best friend. “I know. It’s just… There’s a lot I need to tell you.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear again. “But I need to get home right now. My parents are going to flip if I don’t get home. I told them I was on my way a long time ago.”