by Gin Price
“No one did.” She smiled but I could see the sadness beneath the painted surface. “It was all me.”
I couldn’t hide my wince. “Yikes.”
“They were terrified of getting arrested for child neglect, so they both took turns staying home for a month.”
“Well that was good at least, right?” I wasn’t sure trying to make her feel better about her parents’ behavior was a good tactic, but I didn’t feel comfortable not saying anything in support.
“Are you kidding? I wanted to make them panic, not stay home and glare at me. I couldn’t wait for them to leave again. Rosahlia is all the guardian I can handle. She comes, she cooks and cleans, and doesn’t try to get in my way when I want to do something. She does kinda nag, though. Hey, isn’t that—?”
Liv pointed off toward the ticket booth and I followed her finger. Yup. My luck from the rest of the day stayed consistent. “Yeah. Haze.”
“I’m used to calling him Bren, but I’ll try to remember Haze. You know me, I could give a rat’s ass about that street bullshit.” And then as if she remembered who she was talking to she added. “Except you, Ellie.”
Feeling suddenly happy, I laughed openly, a part of me wondering if Haze would recognize the timbre of my voice and home in.
There was no home-age.
“I know you dig what I do. Don’t sweat it. Maybe one day you’ll get over your fear of heights.”
“No way. I’ll leave all the cool acrobatics to you. Hey, they’re looking over here. Think they’ll come over?”
Sexay Home-age after all! I kept my happy feet from dancing. “I have no idea. Maybe you should wave, Liv. You said you wanted to start slow with talking to him again. If he sees you looking and you don’t wave…”
“What? Like I have no loyalty? He’s with a bunch of his writer buddies. And after today’s near-brawl in the hallway…?”
“Look at you with your graffiti jargon. I’m impressed.”
“Ellie.” She snorted. “I had no idea you thought of me as a complete idiot.”
I laughed. “Sorry, sorry.”
“I was best friends with his sister and she was a graffiti artist, or trying to be before…” Pursing her lips, she busied herself yanking a few napkins from the holder.
Damn, I hated the whole situation. I never really knew what to say or how to say it when it came to Heather.
“I’m sorry. Not trying to bring that stuff up.”
She slapped my arm. “Don’t be sorry, newb. Oh, they’re looking over here. Ugh, he’s with Decay and Racker. Not my favorite people. Say the word and I snub them now and ruin their night.”
Liv could be full of self-importance sometimes but I dug that about her. Glad to be out from under the dark topic cloud, I laughed and shook my head. “You know my brother, itching to start a fight. This whole feud is bullshit so wave all you like.”
She did and the three guys answered. I remained Switzerland and gave the cashier my full attention.
“Feel better?” I asked.
“At least we know they’re amicable and not about to attack me because I’m with a tracy.”
“Traceur,” I corrected, and received Liv’s infamous whatever look. She knew I couldn’t stand the word “whatever,” or the attitude that usually accompanied it, but she didn’t seem to mind doling out the smirk. I gave her an E for effort and the finger.
“Your phone’s ringing,” she said, and reached for the refreshments the cashier handed to us.
Who would be calling me? Warp was busy with the boys; Pops had already called to check in. I didn’t know anyone else really.
As I fished my phone out of my pocket I irrationally thought it might be Haze. It took me a second to calm down and rationalize that Haze couldn’t be calling for two very good reasons. One, he stood across from me without a phone to his ear and two, he didn’t have my cell number.
Oh! The picture of my older brother beamed up at me from the phone and I smiled.
“It’s Ander. I gotta take this.” I couldn’t keep the excitement out of my voice. I hadn’t talked to my older brother in over a month. Maybe longer since the last few months went by in a blur.
Liv laughed. “Okay, go, go. I’ll save you a seat, but your bro owes me for the damage walking around solo will do to my reputation.”
Beaming a smile at her, I held the phone up to my ear. “Helloooo?” I pressed a ten into Liv’s hand to reimburse her for the goodies and walked toward the bathrooms where I could hear better. I caught a quick glimpse of Haze as I walked past, and noticed he was staring at me scowling.
Why was he angry?
“I said ‘hello, little sister!’ Are you spacing out on me? I’m the one whose brain is supposed to be academically fried.”
“Oh! Ander, sorry, I was navigating away from the refreshment stand. You know how brutal that can be.”
Ander laughed and that was all it took to make everything right in my world.
My eldest brother was the kind of person everyone wanted to be near. A natural leader, he took any erratic or chaotic situation and smoothed it out. He did this with people, too, as both Surge and I could attest. When asked who I would take with me on a deserted island, I always got funny looks when I would say my brother, Ander. “Um, okay, sick,” they’d say until I learned to lie, but in truth, Ander would have my stranded ass off that island eating a prime rib dinner within a day using only a shoelace.
He simply excelled at puzzle-solving and squeezing order out of chaos.
In four years, Ander had carried us all through mom’s death while stopping the growth of gang activity on our blocks by introducing everyone to parkour and giving them something else to exert their energy on. Something new, cool, and time-consuming.
Parents loved him, kids respected him…and Warp was screwing it all up.
I listened to Ander tell me about his college experiences. He managed to find a few other traceurs in Florida and start a parkour group there but he missed us. He missed me and Pops and Surge and even Warp.
“Speaking of Warp, how’s his inner struggle going?”
That’s what I loved about Ander. He didn’t bother with bullshit.
Laughing, I switched my phone from one ear to the other, looking around the near empty concession area. Poor Liv, she had to go into the theater all by herself. I’d have to make it up to her later.
“Warp is…well Warp. Pops kept us home to see what the school merger would bring about. Then the shootings last week ended with 3-Town V losing a big chunk of their invaders to jail or death. The other gangs aren’t making much trouble, so Warp has decided to step up our crew’s appearance. I’m worried, Ander. He’s taken a personal dislike to the graffitis from Branfort.”
Ander sighed into the phone. “I’m not surprised. I’ll talk to him, Emanuella, okay?”
I hated talking to him about Warp and the situation at home because I knew he’d feel responsible, and if he thought about it too much, his school work would suffer. I kinda worried he wouldn’t want to call anymore if I made things sound too dire or melancholy every time he dialed my cell.
“No. You don’t have to. You know how I get. I worry about whether the sun will rise tomorrow, as Pops says. I just miss you and although I love Warp to death, he’s no substitute.”
“I’ll call Surge.”
“Really, you don’t have to.”
“He’s my guy in town.” I smiled because I knew now why Surge would do anything my brother asked. “Besides,” Ander continued, “he has a knack for getting people out of trouble.”
I thought about the hallway incident. “You’re not wrong.”
“Well, I should probably get to my lab class. Oh! I hear Surge gave you another street name. You never did like Pigeon.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me.”
“Lady of the Ledge…I dig it.”
I grinned at the phone. “Yeah, I do, too. Everyone calls me LL.”
“It fits you. Okay, LL,” I could hear the smile in his voice. “I’ll call you again, sooner this time. And try not to worry too much about Wharf.”
I laughed. Ander loved to tease Warp by calling him Wharf instead. It used to amuse us to see how many shades of angry maroon Ander could get Warp to turn.
“Okay, Ander. I’ll talk to you soon. Miss you, love you.”
“Miss you, love you, too, little sister.”
And then he was gone. It was hard not to feel a little sad but I was super glad he called.
“Who was that?”
The masculine voice threw me for a second, and as I looked up at Haze’s face, the first word that came to mind was, figures.
“What?”
“On the phone. Who were you talking to?”
He asked casually but I could tell he was interested in a way that most boyfriends would be interested in who rang their girls. The sadistic side of me wanted to prolong his agony. But karma and all that crap. “My older brother, Ander.”
He smiled, and I might not have been a boy genius, but I was pretty sure I saw some relief on his face.
The smile faded into a frown, and I noticed I’d lost his attention to something over my right shoulder. Before I could turn and see what bothered him, he pressed himself into me and smushed me against the wall with his body.
“Hey,” I complained. Kinda.
“Shh,” he urged, and buried his nose against the side of my neck. Goosebumps tweaked my arms the second his hot breath fogged the sensitive flesh beneath my ear. I heard him sniff in the scent of my hair and I was glad I used the cheapo tropical shampoo at the dollar store. I had to wash my hair twice, but it smelled really yummy.
What the hell was he doing? Why was he doing it? Not that I really cared, but curious, I peeked over his jacket collar before ducking right back behind its safety. Damn.
A few feet from us, a few guys I’d seen around school walked down the corridor. They were writers, too, but they weren’t part of Haze’s crew. I guess he didn’t want them seeing us together, which probably meant Warp’s plan to carve a rift between them and us was working.
If that were the case, Haze would be seen as a traitor talking to me, and I, his whore. This could get ugly.
They outnumbered us four to two and might have weapons. Unless Haze was the type to carry an automatic in his pants, we’d lose if a fight broke out. I shivered in fear. “Shit.” Nerves made my voice shake.
“So. What did you talk about? Me?” Haze pressed harder into me, like he was trying to keep my attention off the situation and onto him. It worked. Clouding the thoughts of panic was the invasion of his smell and the heat of his body radiating into my bones.
Focus, LL, I chided.
“Yes,” I croaked, and cleared my throat, reaching for the sarcasm I knew was in my brain somewhere. “That’s the first thing I brought up to him. How some graffiti writer yanked me into a closet against my will.”
Once the guys turned the corner, Haze stepped back. The grin on his face didn’t waiver, despite the near-death experience. As usual, he seemed unfazed. “And what did he say to that?”
I slapped him in the arm. “You’re deranged, you know that? Why are you even talking to me? The longer you stand here the more likely we’ll get caught. And the movie already started.” I realized I was babbling by the look of amusement on his face. I sighed. “I just mean that there are a million reasons why you shouldn’t be next to me right now.”
“And there is only one that keeps me here.”
Holy hell. He worked hard on that swoon factor. “Uhm,” I said profoundly.
“I’m not leaving until you promise to meet me in the closet tomorrow. And you’d better mean it.”
“I meant it last time,” I defended. “But I couldn’t get away without being noticed. You can understand that, can’t you?”
“I do understand. That’s why I’m continuing to risk our safety and look like a disloyal asshole by coming over here. So promise me.”
“Okay, okay, I promise.”
“‘Ey! Haze. Come on, man.” Decay leaned out of the door to the movie theater and eyed me oddly. The WTF look he gave Haze made me cringe.
“Not good,” I said, wondering if I’d have to decapitate a rooster to change my luck around.
Haze grinned. “Nah, he’s giving me that look because he’s missing the previews. They’re his favorite part.”
“Oh.” I felt relieved…sorta, but Decay gave me the heebs. I couldn’t be sure that Haze was right about his friend’s glare. I saw something much harder than annoyance at missing the Coming Soons.
“I’m coming!” Haze yelled to his buddy before winking over his shoulder at me. “See you tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. Things could only improve, right?
Nine
I woke long before my alarm went off. Stress will do that, they say. From five until seven in the morning I slept in ten-minute increments, which couldn’t be healthy. I tried to counter it with a banana for breakfast but I could only choke down half.
Today I’d be spending quality time with the enemy in a closet. The herd of mutant butterflies in my gut flew upwards, heading off any attempts to swallow and leaving that panicky tang taste in my mouth.
If I remembered right, the closet wasn’t very big.
“How was the movie last night, Pigeon?” When I shot eye-daggers at my brother’s head he held up his hands. “Sorry. I meant to say LL. My fault.”
“Uh huh.” He’d call me Pigeon like Ander always called him Wharf. On some ancient paper somewhere, a rule was written saying siblings were supposed to be pains in each other’s asses, I was sure of it.
“So you didn’t answer me. How was the movie?”
“It was fine.” I grabbed my book bag and tossed my half-eaten nanner in the trash as I passed him.
“Just fine? LL, wait.”
“Can’t! Gotta meet Liv halfway.” Of course Liv didn’t know that I had to meet her, but lying was better than admitting I’d been too preoccupied to note much about the movie, other than the action scenes were many and very loud. Loud enough to annoy me when I was trying to think.
Liv looked surprised to see me walking toward her house from mine.
“You aware you’re going the wrong way? Your internal compass broken this morning, sweetie?”
“My brother.”
“Ah. Harping on you about going out last night?”
I shrugged. “Something like that. With Pops gone on a run and Warp in charge, he likes to play the father.”
I ranted the rest of the way to school and Liv was kind enough to listen, grabbing my hand and squeezing when I became misty-eyed over missing Ander. I even tried to apologize for leaving her lonely for awhile to chat with him at the movies, and like the billion other times I tried, she slapped my arm and called me silly.
We arrived at school in record time. Only to see a squad car speed away from the curb with a student or two stuffed into the back.
“I wonder what happened.”
“Who the shit knows these days?” Liv snarled. “I sure wish people would stop screwing around before they push the school board into doing something even more dumb.”
“What could be more ignorant than putting two rival schools together?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “Separating them again.”
I thought about arguing with her screwy logic, but then I remembered the red paper hearts and found it impossible not to wholeheartedly agree. To go back to the old schools now would be like a slap in the face to those lost in the violence of the merger. Like…Oh, whoops, sorry, guess we’ll find more money somewhere like we shoulda done in the first place.
Nah. We were in it now.
“Hey, I got
ta go beg for an extension on this test for Government. I’ll see you in Bio?”
I nodded but couldn’t respond vocally.
When Liv walked down the hall in her barely there skirt and off-the-shoulder shirt ensemble, everyone’s head turned…except his.
Haze stared my way, returning Liv’s hello automatically but without breaking eye contact with me.
So, of course, I turned away.
Honestly, I felt he knew enough about my feelings without me having to confirm them with a nice shiny blush across my cheeks.
I busied myself at my locker, hoping to give him enough time to pass behind me before I lifted my head again.
Something brushed across my butt, and I looked around for the culprit, glaring straight into the eyes of…Decay. Haze’s right-hand freak looked over his shoulder at me with a canary grin while Haze spoke to the guy on his opposite side, oblivious to the feel his boy copped.
Decay hung his tongue suggestively out of his mouth, lapping at nothing while rubbing the front of his pants. A stubby finger lifted and he pointed at me, then tipped the finger toward his junk.
Ew.
I turned back to my locker, feeling dirty and dizzy with fear, hoping the assmunch didn’t see my shiver.
***
So far, I was of the mind that Tuesdays suck. Not only did Mr. Fewd give a pop quiz, and I suspected that was for my benefit, but Liv wanted to hang fourth period. She managed to talk her Government teacher into giving her an extra day of studying by blaming her parents somehow. That meant I would have to blow off Haze. Again.
I could’ve told Liv I had plans, but I wasn’t ready to share my flirtation with Haze. Not yet. If nothing came of it, I didn’t want anyone to know I’d even thought about it. I chose to think of it as caution instead of cowardice.
Clutching my book bag, I neared the closet and tried the handle. It was locked. Briefly, I wondered if Haze was tucked in a corner somewhere, watching and laughing with his buddies, their phones capturing the YouTube experience. I quickly turned, deciding to get the hell out of there.
The door opened and a hand tugged me inside.
Before I completed my spin around to face him, I had to admit to myself that I still doubted his intentions. Haze seemed to be on the level and, without proof, I inwardly accused him of being a sneaky jerk.