Cry Baby

by Ginger Scott

  This kiss is uncertain. I don’t deserve it. She should take it back.

  Her lips fall away from mine, losing their tentative hold as she rocks back on her heels and takes a single step away as her eyes open on me. They are heartbroken and embarrassed. I didn’t kiss back. It kills me that I didn’t, and I wanted to. God, did I want to. Her lips deserve better, though. Kissing back would have been another sin. It would have been weak in another way. I’ve let her get too close as it is.

  “We can’t be friends.”

  The sickness climbs up my chest the instant I utter those words. Her eyes flicker, the light dimming quickly, hope lost and regret quickly moving in. Her mouth hardens, lips forming a sneer. I wouldn’t be shocked if she spit at me next. She doesn’t, but she does slap me. My skin bakes, the burn from what I know is a bright-red sting she left behind throbbing as I tilt my head to face her.

  She knocked me off my axis, but she didn’t destroy my world. It’s more than that, though. I know it the second she turns her away from me and walks out the gym door.

  I didn’t destroy hers.

  Chapter Twelve

  Riley

  * * *

  I’m glad my dad isn’t home. We’re one of those repressed kinds of tiny, little families. He doesn’t directly show me how hurt he is about my mom, and I keep all of the teenaged girl bullshit out of his view. Granted, I haven’t had much girly bullshit in my life.

  What I just did to Tristan marks the third time I’ve kissed a boy. It’s the first time I’ve kissed a boy without some sort of team party, closet dare, and bottle involved. It’s also the first time I’ve really wanted to kiss a boy.

  I’m still reeling from the slam of emotions my body was caught in. When he didn’t show up, I thought I was pissed because he was letting me down as a coach. The more he talked, though, the more I realized I was mad because I was looking forward to seeing him. I was worried about him. I was…am so confused.

  The sun is down, and I know I could go to the court and somehow it would probably get back to him and then he’d show up with his alpha-protecting mask on, but what good would that do? None of that is genuine or normal or how I want to be with him.

  He can’t even be my friend.

  My mouth trembles with the urge to cry as I recall his words, how he sounded—how absolutely resolute he was. I stifle the feeling, though.

  Tristan might not be able to be my friend, but Lauren can. I’ve been wallowing in the same spot in the center of our living room floor for an hour. I’ve had a few dozen fake conversations with Tristan in my head. Sometimes, I yell at him and he grovels. Sometimes, he shows up at my door and says he’s sorry, then sweeps me up in his arms. Most of the time we just have the same dumb conversation we had an hour before. True to life, I’m also getting nowhere with pretending.

  I’ve managed to get my shoes off my feet with only my toes and heels and reach above my head with my fingertips to the coffee table to grab the remote. The Cavs are traveling today, so I settle on some college hoops. The sound of high-tops squeaking against hardwood comforts me.

  I click on the game and then turn my focus to my school bag near my ankles. My toe hooks in the shoulder strap and I lift my knee to my chest, dragging the heavy bag along the floor until I can grip it and reach inside. My phone is close to dead, but there aren’t any messages. Nobody’s been looking for me or worried about me.

  I laugh to myself—at myself—then hold my phone above my face as I call Lauren. The first time, my call goes directly to voicemail, so I dial again, this time listening to it ring and ring. It goes through six or seven times, and I’m close to giving up when she answers, out of breath.

  “Riley, you okay?” She sounds panicked, like my house is on fire, but I have no idea. I sit up, my muscles suddenly no longer tired. My head swivels around, and all I hear is the hum of the broadcasters on the television and the buzz of the fan above my head.

  “I’m fine. Why?”

  She breathes into the phone, one of those exhales released like when I think I’ve lost my wallet and suddenly find it.

  “Paul’s missing. The police are at his house, and there’s just a lot of shit going around, and I knew you had stayed to practice, but then I stopped by your house and nobody was home.” She pants, catching her breath.

  She was worried about me. I was worried about Tristan. Nobody was worried about Paul.

  “I had no idea,” I say, pulling my legs in close to my body and sliding my gym bag on one side and the duffel on the other. I suddenly want to be surrounded by my things, as if they could protect me.

  “He never showed up at school, and I guess it’s been more than twenty-four hours now. He’s disappeared before, but never that long. He’s usually just high on someone’s couch, but this is different. Have you seen Tristan?”

  Her question hovers on the line for a second.

  “Uh yeah…yeah. Like an hour ago maybe. He finished up practice.” I mash my lips together and shake my head, not satisfied with that lie, but frazzled from Lauren’s news.

  “You practiced?” She asks, oddly interested.

  “Yeah, well…sorta…not really, or just for a little bit. Lauren, Paul…what’s going on with Paul?” I bring her focus back to something more important than my failed attempt to connect with Tristan.

  “I don’t know much. Lotus went over there because nobody could find Tristan. His mom is freaking out, Riley. She’s so scared, and it’s just so…I don’t know…familiar, I guess. I remember my mom freaking out like that when my dad never came home. I remember Tristan when his dad got arrested…”

  “When he was stabbed…” I break in, closing my eyes in shame because maybe that was not something I was supposed to let others know, or share that I know.

  There’s a noticeable silence between us, but eventually Lauren continues.

  “Yeah…when he was stabbed,” she says, her tone somber, and maybe bitter. She must have been close with his dad, too.

  “Can I do anything?” I know I can’t, but I feel this strange numbness—partly leftover from how I left Tristan and swallowed whole by what Lauren just told me.

  “You can come over. It’s just me, and it feels kinda shitty being home alone right now. But don’t walk. I don’t know why, but I feel like the streets aren’t okay tonight…and don’t give me one of those Riley tough-girl responses. Just get in your damn truck, okay?”

  I smile faintly.

  “Okay,” I croak. “Be there in a few minutes.”

  I hang up with Lauren and rush to my bedroom, tossing off my practice clothes and putting on my softest sweatpants and my long-sleeved T-shirt from The Ohio State. I wear this when I want to jet into my future. I read an article once about visualizing myself where I want to be in five or ten years, and I took it literally. I put these clothes on tonight not because of my dream to play for them, though, but because I want to flash into the future—away from all of these feelings.

  I’m scared.

  I follow Lauren’s teachings, locking everything behind me and locking my truck’s door when I climb inside. I weave through our streets and get to her house in less than two minutes, sad that I didn’t pass Tristan’s on my way. I didn’t want to detour, though. My heart is thumping still, and when I was driving it was so loud I couldn’t concentrate on the sound coming from my speakers. I’m not even sure if I had music on.

  Lauren’s waiting for me at the door when I slam my truck door closed, and she shuts her front door behind me when I slip inside.

  “You lock your truck?” she asks.

  I give her a lopsided grin, and she fake punches me.

  “I said don’t give me any of that Riley tough-girl bullshit,” she growls. She’s worked up, and that’s making me get worked up.

  “Sorry, and yes…I locked it.”

  I follow her into her kitchen where she has a tub of ice cream open in the middle of the kitchen island. She slides her leg up on the counter then shimmies the rest of her w
eight up until she’s sitting with her legs crossed in the very center. She picks up the tub and holds it in her lap, grabbing the spoon and shoveling a huge bite of vanilla into her mouth.

  “The spoons are in the second drawer from the left,” she mumbles through her frozen bite. She gestures in the drawer’s direction and I follow, taking one and shutting the drawer so I can join her.

  Rather than climb up, I slide out a metal stool and straddle it, my knees jutting out in both directions, barely fitting under the counter bar.

  “You can sit up here,” Lauren says, tipping the carton so I can slip my spoon in.

  “I’m pretty sure I’ll crack that thing in half,” I say, tapping my fingernail on a gap that’s already formed in the center of the island where two cabinets have come together. Lauren shrugs.

  “It was a do-it-yourself job and my brother didn’t cut the Formica the right way. You could probably slide that entire half across the room,” she says, swaying her spoon in the direction of the door.

  I chuckle.

  “We could use it to block the door,” I say, scooping up another bite.

  “Now you’re talking,” she says, following my spoonful with one of her own.

  My joke is funny, but just barely, and I get a sense in the silence that follows that blocking doors is something that’s been done in this house before.

  Lauren and I go at the tub for about five minutes straight, feeding our faces to distract us from everything else. It works until we both feel sick. She tosses her spoon across the kitchen, landing it in the sink, and I try to do the same but miss, flinging it onto the floor with a series of clanks.

  “You’re losing your touch,” she jokes.

  I stretch my arms out on the counter and tip my chin up to look at my friend—my only friend.

  “So Tristan told you about his dad, huh?” She looks a little surprised, maybe skeptical.

  I nod with closed lips.

  “A little,” I say.

  She nods, too, then slides from the where she sits after a few seconds and picks up my spoon. She rinses both and sets them in the other half of the sink to dry.

  “Did he tell you his story?” She glances at me sideways as she asks and holds my eyes briefly, smirking when I don’t respond right away. “That’s a no.”

  I shrug.

  “He told me some things…I guess. I mostly just yelled at him for ditching practice. He said he had something important to do though, so…” I stop, realizing what was so important. I lean back and hold the front of the counter to stop my fall as my head tilts back. “Ohhhhhhh damn. He was looking for Paul.”

  “I hope he was looking,” Lauren says fast.

  I pull my brow in and wait for her to make eye contact with me again. When she finally does, she waves me off.

  “No, I mean I’m sure he was. It’s just the crew…I don’t know…maybe they don’t want Paul to be found. But I’m sure I’m just talking shit and don’t know anything,” she says, her focus a little lost. I think it’s lost on purpose.

  “Isn’t Paul his best friend?” My pulse is thumping wildly at the thoughts her reaction sparked. I’ve been vague with her and with Tristan for too long. I need a direct answer.

  “Are you saying Paul is missing because Tristan made him…what?” I pause hoping she’ll fill in the space with a different answer. When she doesn’t, I finish the thought. “Would Tristan hurt Paul?”

  Lauren’s eyes settle on mine for several seconds without blinking. I can read the uncertainty, and I don’t want to believe it, but at the same time…I feel it too. Lauren doesn’t react until my eyes start to sag and my breathing becomes labored.

  “No…Riley, just no. Tristan isn’t a killer,” she says.

  A rush of tingles, like needles, trail down my arms and neck. It’s a wave of relief as much as it’s a confirmation for so many questions I have. Tristan may not be a murderer, but he knows plenty of them.

  “You have doubts,” I say, holding my front teeth together in a forced pause. Lauren grimaces.

  “It’s less doubts and more like…well…like I have experience,” she says. “That life won’t come into this house. My mom swore it off, and I’ll keep it out. I’d give anything to move us out of here. This gang follows you, though. It’s in the suburbs. It’s in small towns. It just takes one person to find a few weak people they can manipulate with fear and then bam!”

  I flinch when her voice raises.

  “Why does Tristan do it?” My insides twist at the question. I want him to be good. I see it in him, the conflict and the struggle. He has a choice. I don’t understand why he won’t take it.

  Lauren shakes her head at me finally raising one shoulder, as if she’s signaling that she’s given up.

  “You’d have to ask him,” she says.

  Without warning, she slides her phone across the counter to me. It’s buzzing with a call, and I see Tristan’s name across the top. I square the phone flat in front of me then look her in the eyes.

  “What do you want me to do? It’s your phone. He’s calling you.” My fingers buzz with this sudden sense of urgency, and the only advice Lauren can give me is a disgusted wave of her hand as she leaves the room and heads down the hallway to her bedroom.

  I should let this call go. I don’t need to answer; it’s not even my phone. The reasoning scrolls through my mind at a million miles per hour, over and over, yet my fingers hover over the phone screen and I stare at his name knowing I’m going to give in.

  “Fuck,” I breathe out, tapping the speaker icon and bringing Tristan’s voice to life.

  “Lauren, hey,” he starts before I say a word.

  “It’s not Lauren…it’s…Riley,” I choke out.

  He’s silent for several seconds, the only sounds the muffling of the phone against his chin or cheek and a rumble of a car passing by in the background. He tries to cover up the sound of his throat clearing, but I hear his nerves.

  “What are you doing there?” he asks.

  I scrunch up my shoulders and panic a bit, searching for words. I glance down the hallway, but Lauren’s nowhere nearby. She left me with this so I could do something about it. I’m not sure what, though. Maybe it’s just for me to find answers.

  “My dad’s working tonight, and I wasn’t in the mood to be alone,” I say.

  His breath blows into the phone, and it’s a long and careful exhale. I picture him somewhere dangerous, involved in his friend’s disappearance, and I know it isn’t fair, but Lauren led me to these thoughts.

  “I’m out front.”

  My heart kicks. I twist to look at the tightly locked door over my shoulder—a bolt and a chain in place. There’s a crack in the center of the wood, though, like the door has been attacked before.

  “Why?” I ask.

  The quiet grows, sitting on the line long enough that when Tristan finally does speak it startles me. The sound is jarring.

  “I guess I didn’t want to be alone either,” he says.

  Lauren walks back into the main room. She’s muttering something about her brother needing cash and her mom’s pills. Her voice is muffled because all of my attention is devoted to the silence on her phone. I shake my head out of the trance and our eyes connect.

  “Are you still talking to him?” My heart thumps as I nod yes.

  Her mouth twists.

  “Good, tell him to come over. He can stay with you while I go to Paul’s house.” She walks away before I can respond, so I look at the carpet and begin to pace before speaking softly into the phone.

  “Lauren needs to go to Paul’s house. Can you come in?” I ask.

  “What does she need? I’ll just go...” He’s still talking as Lauren walks by with a sweatshirt and a small backpack that rattles with the few things she threw inside.

  “Uh, I think she’s already leaving,” I say, following her to the door.

  Lauren unlocks and opens just in time to see Tristan stepping out of his mom’s car, his phone discarded som
ewhere in the seat as I hear the sounds echo in both my ear and real life in front of me. I hang up.

  “Just give me whatever you need and I’ll take it,” Tristan says, reaching for the bag. Lauren steps to the side, tucking it behind her, but doesn’t step away from him.

  “No offense, but you are the last person that Paul’s mom wants to see right now,” she growls.

  Tristan leans back on his heels and looks up at the night sky with his palms out to either side.

  “I’m just as shocked about this as everyone else is.” His frown is hardened and his eyes look like they’ve been punched, swollen and sunken in. Lauren has no pity, though.

  “Are you?” she says, stepping into him. She pulls the bag around to the front of her body and uses it as a battering ram, pushing Tristan back a step. “This shit…it’s always just some game to you guys, like this fucking club you get to belong to. It’s like that until someone gets killed, Tristan. And you know better than anyone…or should I say almost better than anyone—when our neighborhood goes dark and ugly, ain’t nobody safe. Not you. Not me. Not Paul…”

  Her eyes drift to me and Tristan’s gaze follows, his Adam’s apple dipping low, then sliding back up his throat.

  “You stay here and try not to fuck up my friend. I like her, and she doesn’t need your mess seeping into her life.” Lauren glances at me with a nod then moves down her driveway while Tristan licks at the corner of his mouth, speechless.

  “She’s just really stressed.” I don’t know why I feel the need to say something, and to say that. We’re all stressed, but whatever anger Lauren has with Tristan runs deeper than this moment right here.

  “She’s right. I’ll just hang out here until she gets back. Go inside.” He nods toward the doorway now only a step behind me. I don’t like orders.