by Rose, Emery
Tristan Hart watched me all the time.
8
Shane
“Kai,” I yelled, my voice carried away by the wind.
“What?”
I slowed down, and my mom caught up to me, riding on my left.
“We should call the baby Kai.” I held my arms out to my sides, riding without hands. “It means ocean.”
She smiled, the dimples in her cheeks making an appearance. “I love it. Hands on the handlebars, Hotshot.”
I grinned. “Race you home.”
“Stop and look before you cross,” she yelled after me.
The white van came out of nowhere, flew right through the stop sign without even slowing down. “Shane!”
I veered sharply to the left and braked hard, flying over the handlebars and landing in someone’s front yard. Wheezing, I rolled onto my back and stared up at the puffy clouds in the blue sky, the wind knocked out of me. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.
“Are you okay?”
I blinked up at the woman standing over me. “I’m good.”
Her eyes widened, and she covered her mouth with her hands. “I’ll call an ambulance. Everything is going to be okay.”
My brow furrowed. What was she talking about? “I’m fine.” I jumped to my feet just to prove it. But she wasn’t looking at me.
* * *
“Take me with you,” Remy said as I straddled my bike. She had just appeared out of nowhere. That was her though. She moved like a ghost. My blue ghost firefly. Rare and fleeting.
“You don’t know where I’m going.” Neither did I. I was just going for a ride with no real destination in mind.
“It doesn’t matter where you’re going. I want to go with you.”
A sane man would say no. Before she had turned up in her ripped jeans and hoodie, her hair braided and hanging over one shoulder, being alone was exactly what I’d wanted.
I handed her my spare helmet and revved the engine while she adjusted the chin strap.
When she climbed onto the back and wrapped her arms around me, I closed my eyes briefly. Why did it always feel so right? Without giving myself time to dwell on it or change my mind, I pulled away from the curb. We rode through the dusk, the sky inky blue, the daylight hours getting shorter. It was October, but summer was still lingering, the breeze warm.
And we just kept riding. Zipping up the coast, a blue moon ghosting over the ocean, Firefly’s arms wrapped tightly around me. She was a wildcard, this girl, with her ocean eyes and heartbreaking smile. But still, I wanted her. Every broken piece of her.
An hour… or two… who knows how long we’d been riding before I steered us home. Remy followed me up the stairs and into my apartment. I didn’t invite her, but I didn’t uninvite her either.
She scrunched up her nose when I suggested ordering sushi. “Raw fish?”
“Have you ever eaten it?”
“No.”
I grinned. “Another first. We’re eating sushi.”
* * *
“Oh my God,” she said, wiping her runny nose with a napkin. “You could have warned me.”
“I told you to go easy on the wasabi,” I said, laughing as she dabbed her watery eyes. Watching Remy eat sushi for the first time had been hilarious. I’d conducted a blind tasting, feeding her across the island with my chopsticks. After I fed her uni, she spit it into her napkin and drank two glasses of water, declaring that she’d never trust me again.
“Did your mom like sushi?” she asked, leaning her elbows on the countertop and resting her chin in her hands.
“My mom was a vegetarian.”
“Tell me more about her.”
“She and my dad met when they were fourteen. He asked her to marry him when they were sixteen.” I laughed. “They got married right out of high school and had me two years later. We used to travel with my dad when he was on tour. They didn’t like to be apart. Not even for a day. When I was seven, they decided that I needed to go to school and not be homeschooled anymore. I was so pissed, but they were adamant. And… I don’t know… my mom… she was a lot like the female version of my dad. A hippie chick. Totally cool. Laidback. She was one of those people who made the world a little brighter. A total optimist.”
Remy gave me a little smile. “Did she surf?”
“Yeah, she did. After she died, we had a paddle-out. It’s like a memorial for surfers. Hundreds of surfers showed up. We scattered her ashes in the ocean. My dad used to say, ‘Let’s go hang out with Mom.’ That was his way of saying we were going for a surf.”
“Your dad’s great.”
“He is.” I could still remember how lost he’d been after she had died but he had plastered on a smile for me, trying to hide how much his heart was breaking and the emptiness he could never fill. My parents were soul mates, best friends, and everything in between. Even as a kid, I had known their relationship was different than the ones my friends’ parents had.
“Tell me a story, Firefly.”
She tapped her chin, thinking. “When I was seven, I found a kitten hiding under the bushes outside our house. We lived in Savannah and we rented the house. It was a nice house, like a farmhouse, with a big front porch and a swing on it. We all had our own rooms and the lady who owned it, she was like a grandmother to us while we lived there. She lived in the house too. Anyway, the kitten was gray and white. So pretty. And her fur was so soft. She looked like she was hungry and lost and looking for a home. So, I took her inside and I begged my mom to let me keep her. She said I could. I was so thrilled. So excited that I had something of my own. But all I ever called her was ‘Cat.’ I didn’t even give her a name. She used to sleep with me at night, curled up in a little ball right above my head.” Remy smiled at the memory. “I loved that cat more than anything.”
“And whatever happened to Cat?” I asked, knowing this story wouldn’t have a happy ending. Remy’s stories never did.
“Dylan and I were at school one day and we got called to the principal’s office. Mom was waiting for us. She hustled us out of the school and into the car. It was all packed up with our things. She said it was time to move on. She didn’t even let us say goodbye to the lady who owned the house. Her name was Dot, short for Dorothy. She used to make us sugar cookies and homemade biscuits with gravy and fried chicken. Dylan and I wanted to stay, but we never got a vote. Anyway, that day… Mom took off and she just kept driving and driving with the music blasting. It was country music and it made me want to cry or punch a wall. I hated it. I still can’t listen to country music. And I kept begging her to go back for Cat because if we left her behind, she’d think we didn’t love her. Mom said we’d get a new cat when we got to wherever we were going. But cats aren’t replaceable, and neither are people.” She gave me a sad little smile. “I guess that wasn’t such a happy story, after all.”
“That’s your new goal in life. Create some happy memories.”
“I already have,” she said softly. “Years from now, my stories will all have happy endings.”
If only that were true. In Greek mythology, Remy would be the siren, and I would be the sailor lured by her voice to shipwreck on the rocky coast. Yes, it was that fucking tragic. I had fallen for a girl who was too young for me. A girl who was tragic and beautiful and broken. She fucked with my head, got under my skin, and changed the tempo of my heartbeat. But on that night, the twelfth anniversary of my mother’s death, we were blissfully unaware of what fate had in store for us.
9
Remy
A shadow blocked the December sun on my face and arms caged me in, a hand planted on either side of my head on the brick wall behind me. I opened my eyes to Tristan’s—dark brown like his hair. The scent of his shower gel and cologne filled my nostrils, his minty breath skating over my face.
“What are you doing?” I feigned boredom, so he didn’t think he had the upper hand. Kurt Cobain’s voice filled my ears. Where did you sleep last night…
His
dark eyes studied my face intently and he tugged out one of my earbuds. “What’s your deal?”
In the pines, in the pines…
“No deal.”
He smirked and wrapped a piece of my hair around his fingers, yanking it hard. Tears sprang to my eyes from the unexpected pain. “I bet you like it dirty, don’t you? Just like your mama.” Tristan pressed the length of his body against mine, pinning me to the wall, his erection pressing against my stomach. “She wanted to get down on her knees and suck my cock. How about you, little lamb? You want some of this?”
“I’m not my mother,” I gritted out. I shoved at his shoulders, but the wall of muscle didn’t budge. “Get the hell away from me.”
His smirk turned into a lazy grin. He dipped his head and sunk his teeth into my earlobe, sucking on it before he released it. “One of these days, I’m going to find out.”
“You will never have me.” My voice rang with conviction, my gaze on him unwavering. My body, my choice.
“Never say never, little lamb. I’m going to use you up and then I’m going to toss you away like yesterday’s trash.”
Using all my strength I shoved him away. He staggered back a couple steps, enough to give me some leverage. I kicked him in the shin and stomped down on his foot. Hard. His hand wrapped around my throat and he tipped up my face, so my eyes met his. “You don’t want to pick a fight with me.”
“Leave me alone and we won’t have a problem.”
He released me and took a step back, his gaze raking over my body before returning to my face. “Why would I do that when this is so much fun?”
Tristan was laughing as he walked away backward. He shot me a finger gun and then he spun around and swaggered across the near-empty school parking lot to where his friends were waiting for him. Guys like Tristan always traveled in a pack.
I pressed my sweaty palms flat against the wall, using it to hold up my shaky legs. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing that he had affected me. My heart pounded in my ears. A tendril of fear snaked its way through my body and squeezed the air from my lungs.
What did guys like him see when they looked at me? Did I have slut tattooed on my forehead?
“Nice piece of ass,” one of the other guys said, snickering. Well, that answered my question, didn’t it? I was a piece of ass, nothing more.
“She’s mine,” Tristan growled. “Nobody else gets to touch her.”
Mine. I hated that possessiveness. That ownership. His supreme confidence that anything and anyone was his for the taking. I was a person, not an object. My nails dug into the palms of my hands. Tristan Hart would never have me. I wasn’t his for the taking.
Dylan showed up two seconds after Tristan’s BMW peeled out of the parking lot and disappeared from view.
“Where have you been?” I asked, my movements jerky as I yanked my bike out of the rack.
“Had something I needed to take care of.”
My gaze swung to him. He swept his tongue over his lip and caught the blood, spitting it onto the grass. If we survived high school, it would be a major achievement. I didn’t even bother asking him what had happened.
We both had our own battles to fight. I could handle Tristan Hart on my own.
* * *
“I don’t really see what the big deal is,” Sienna said, adding a dash of cranberry juice to her latest concoction. “There’s no minimum age for falling in love.”
“Nobody is in love,” I lied, spinning around and around on the leather stool until I got dizzy. As if that could shake off all these feelings I had for Shane. It was like being given a taste of your favorite food and then having it snatched away before you ate your fill and being told you could never have it again. That was the price I’d paid for the little white lie about my age. “We’re just friends.”
“Sure you are.” She rolled her eyes and slid a drink across the polished mahogany bar in front of me. “Try it. It’s my Christmas special.”
Sienna watched my face as I took a sip. Whoa. The liquid burned my throat and heat pooled in my stomach. “What’s in this?”
She waved her hand at the bottles of alcohol. “A little bit of everything.”
We were in the library of her mock Tudor. The rooms were cavernous, all dark polished wood, leather furniture, and Oriental rugs, fresh garlands and soaring Christmas trees in every room. A tapestry hung on the wall behind Sienna—fair-haired maidens frolicking with forest creatures. I studied it for a moment as I sipped my lethal cocktail. It looked like it belonged in a medieval castle, not in a SoCal McMansion, a new-build pretending to be something it wasn’t.
“Why were you with Tristan?” I asked, the alcohol giving me liquid courage. “Why would you ever fall for an asshole like him?”
She shrugged, her red cashmere sweater slipping off one shoulder. “I thought I was in love. He’s one of those guys who will say or do anything it takes to get what he wants.”
I’d already figured that out.
“At first, he was really sweet. He used to leave cute notes in my locker and he was really attentive. Like, walking me to class and bringing me little presents or those brownies I love with the fudge icing and walnuts…” She chugged the rest of her drink and coughed, pounding her chest with her fist. Tears leaked from her blue eyes. “Maybe next time I’ll go easy on the Cointreau.” She tapped her finger against her chin, contemplating this.
“Our parents wanted us to be together. It felt more like a mergers and acquisitions deal.”
“What happened?” I asked, feeling like I had a personal stake in this story.
“It was like a switch turned. Right after we started having sex, he started making all these comments. Like, how I had to lay off the brownies because I was getting fat.”
My jaw dropped as I stared at the willowy blonde across from me. “Asshole.”
“He said a lot of shit. And at first, I fell for it. I started to believe all the stuff he said, you know? Like maybe he was right about me. I was cold and unlovable. My butt was too big…”
It was easier to believe the bad things people said than the good things. I knew that.
“I was watching my parents one day and it hit me. Someday I would be my mother. Botoxed, popping Xanax, and downing bottles of oaky Chardonnay every night because my husband had traded me in for a newer model. It’s a badly kept secret in the Woods house.” Sienna gave me a big smile. “So, I dumped Tristan’s ass.”
“And how did he take it?”
“He spread rumors about me. Haven’t you heard? I have an STD that I picked up from sleeping with the entire football team of a rival school. Now I’m an untouchable at Costa del Rey High. Fuck him.” She held up both middle fingers.
“Fuck him,” I said, downing the rest of my drink and slamming the glass on the bar. Even rich girls like Sienna had dysfunctional families and got bullied. I used to believe that people with money didn’t have to deal with shit like that but not even they were immune.
“So… tell me more about Shane…”
An hour later, buzzed on Sienna’s Christmas specials, I raced through the streets of town under the cover of darkness, the cold air stinging my cheeks and numbing my hands. As I cruised past Tristan’s brick colonial lit up like the Fourth of July, I raised my middle finger. “Never,” I shouted to the wind. And then I laughed because I was a little bit drunk and brave and defiant.
* * *
“That’s your dream? To be world champion?” I asked, although it didn’t really come as a surprise. I already knew that Shane wanted to be the best.
“That’s the dream.” He was staring up at the sky as if envisioning it. Clouds covered the moon and stars tonight, so I made star-shaped designs on the night sky with my flashlight then set it on the blacktop. An arc of light illuminated the graffitied wall across from me. I WAS HERE in bold black letters, with a skull and crossbones.
Real original, Dylan.
Shane was sitting cate-corner to me and nudged the toe o
f my Chucks with the toe of his Vans. “How about you? What’s your dream?”
I leaned my back against the rough wall, popped a piece of watermelon bubblegum into my mouth, and contemplated his question while I chewed. I was usually too busy trying to survive day-to-day life to give much thought to my future. But I knew what I would do if I could. So, I guess that made it a dream.
“To travel the world and see all the exotic places. And take photos of all the beautiful and ugly and interesting things.” I wanted to go to all the beautiful, exotic places he went, but I didn’t say that. I lifted the camera from my lap, brought his face into focus, and pressed the shutter. The flash went off, capturing the shot. I grinned. “I’ve just stolen another piece of your soul.”
“Add it to your collection. Pretty soon you’ll own my whole soul.”
“The photos of you surfing will go into my beautiful collection.” I said it without stopping to think how it could have sounded.
“What about Travis and Ryan? They belong in the ugly collection?” he teased.
“I never take pictures of them. Only you.” I should have been embarrassed to admit that. But I wasn’t. It was true.
Meeting up on the roof had become our thing. I’d text him and tell him I was up here and then I’d wait to see if he joined me. Every time the metal door opened, revealing him on the other side, my heart skipped a beat. Pathetic.
Shane leaned forward and grabbed the camera.
I got onto my knees and lunged for it, but he held it out of reach and batted my hands away. “It’s only fair I steal a piece of your soul.”
“Since when is life fair?” I settled back on my heels.