by Devney Perry
Please, let it be enough.
I returned the money to the bag and stowed it in its hiding place. My stomach growled, driving me to the foodstuffs. Bent over the supplies, I was debating my limited options when Karson knocked on the truck. “Hey.”
“Hi.” I blushed.
He held up two rolled tortillas, probably with peanut butter and banana inside. That was a staple breakfast around here. “Since you brought me dinner.”
“Thanks.”
He hopped into the truck, handing one of the rollups over, then we sat down and ate.
Meals here were without fanfare and took only moments. I wished there was more to do because by the time I’d chewed the last bite, I still didn’t know what to say.
“Where’s Aria?” he asked.
“Work. She left.” Probably while he’d been in the shower. The strands of his dark hair were damp and finger combed.
“She should have waited.”
“She’ll be fine.” I waved it off. “Why would your mom want anything to do with us?”
“Who knows?” He frowned. “But she’s fucking crazy, so . . .”
I waited for more, but he let that sentence hang, and with it my hopes that he’d tell me about his past. I’d confided in him. Would he ever trust me with his story?
“I need to head in and grab my paycheck. Cash it at the bank. Want to come?” he asked.
“Sure. But I’d better water Aria’s plants first.”
“’Kay.” He stood up. “I’ll help.”
Thirty minutes later, after working and most definitely not talking about the kiss, Karson and I were on the road to town.
“Want a coffee or something?” he asked. “My treat. I’m definitely getting one because my head goddamn hurts. Fucking beer.”
I giggled. “Should have stuck to two, like me.”
“How are you feeling?”
Confused. Happy. Anxious. Sad. Take your pick. “Fine. Better after my shower.”
“That’s good.”
And that was the end of our conversation about last night, apparently. The only sound between us was the smack of our shoes on the street and sidewalk. When we got to the nearest café, Karson led the way inside, going to the counter, where a display case flaunted baked goods.
“Two black coffees,” he ordered. “To go.”
The waitress nodded, quickly filled a pair of white paper cups and pressed on black plastic lids. Then we got out of there before the smell of sugar and butter and muffins and cookies became too tempting.
He groaned as we walked out the door. “God, those cookies smelled good. I almost swiped two. Proud of me for not stealing?”
“Very.” I nodded. “I want to learn how to bake one day. When I have a kitchen. I remember my mom baked a lot. Aria and I would help her in the kitchen by dumping ingredients into the bowl after she’d measure them out.”
“What’s your favorite type of cookie?” Karson sipped his coffee.
“Ginger molasses. Or pumpkin chocolate chip.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever had those.”
“Seriously?”
He shrugged. “My mom wasn’t much for baking. Or cooking. Or doing anything but drowning in a bottle of vodka.”
“Sorry.”
He waved it off and took another sip.
I took a drink, cringing at the bitter flavor. Coffee had never appealed. Maybe it would as I got older, but I’d still drink it because Karson had spent a dollar. And because it gave me something to do.
I was coming out of my skin here. How could he be so calm? So normal? Was this how he wanted to act? Like nothing had happened? Maybe pretend it was just nothing?
My insides clenched. He regretted it. That had to be the answer. He regretted the kiss. I was a mistake.
Ugh. I was blaming beer for this.
I bit my lip as we walked, determined not to cry. We made our way toward the car wash but when we passed a small park, Karson nodded for me to follow him across the grass toward a bench. “Let’s sit. Drink our coffee.”
The park was empty, probably because it was still early. In the afternoons, there were always mothers pushing kids on the swing set and watching as they zoomed down the slide.
Karson and I sat on the bench, a visible space between us. “Guess we should probably talk about last night.”
“Yeah?” I held my breath.
“I’m not going to apologize for kissing you.”
The air rushed from my lungs. “I wasn’t sure if you might, um . . . regret it, maybe?”
“What? Never. Do you?”
My heart skipped and I shook my head. “Never.”
“Good.” His shoulders relaxed and he lifted his cup to his lips.
“But . . .” The cup froze in midair. “Is this, like, a rebound thing?”
It had taken every ounce of courage I had to ask that question.
Karson shifted to face me as he set his coffee on the ground. Then he moved, closing the gap between us, until his thigh brushed mine. His arm went to the back of the bench. “No. Definitely not a rebound.”
“Are you sure? You and Londyn were together for a long time.”
“I’m sure. Londyn and I were better friends than we were a couple. It was over the day she left.” Karson raised his hand and his fingers sifted into my hair, brushing it away from my ear.
My breath hitched.
Then his mouth was there, hovering over mine. Karson brushed his lips across mine, teasing, and then he pressed in deep, his arms wrapping around my shoulders.
My cup of coffee fell out of my hand, landing on the grass beside our feet. I didn’t care. I didn’t think. Like last night, I just let Karson kiss me.
His tongue ran across my lower lip, and I opened so he could sweep inside. Karson pressed closer, the heat from his body soaking into mine. Our tongues tangled and twisted. Every breathless second was bliss and when he finally broke away, I was lost in the darkened green and gold swirls of his eyes.
Karson wanted me. Me.
“Why?” I hadn’t meant to voice my insecurity, but that damn word had slipped out.
“Why what?”
I closed my eyes and braced. “Are you kissing me because we only have two days left?”
“Clara, look at me.” His fingers tugged on a strand of hair that hung between us. He twirled it around his index finger as I lifted my lashes. “I’m kissing you, wishing I had kissed you two hundred and two days ago.”
I practically slid off the bench as I melted. If not for his arms still around me, I would have joined my coffee as a puddle in the grass. “Really?”
He leaned in and brushed his lips across mine, whispering, “Really.”
The next kiss was a lot like I’d remembered from last night. Fumbling hands. Wet lips. Tentative nips and licks as I learned more about what he liked. What I liked. His coffee was forgotten as we clung to each other, sitting on the park bench, kissing like we were the only people in the world. It was only when the shout of a child rang through the air that we broke apart.
My lips were raw and puffy again. Karson inched away, drawing in a few pained breaths. I ducked my chin to hide a smile because there was a noticeable bulge beneath his jeans.
“Need to go anywhere else?” Karson asked, finally standing from the bench.
“No.” I took his outstretched hand and stood, letting him lace our fingers together. Then we walked, our arms swinging between us, to the car wash. “Do you think all beer tastes like that stuff last night?”
Karson laughed. “Probably.”
“Yuck.” I faked a gag as we rounded the block. “I’ll stick with lemonade, thanks.”
“Same here. With ice. Lots and lots of ice.”
“And ice cream.”
“With chocolate syr—” Karson froze, his tennis shoes slapping to a stop.
“What?” I followed his gaze to the car wash’s parking lot.
And there she was. His mother.
She was in jea
ns and a gray button-down shirt. Her hands waved in the air as she spoke to Karson’s boss, who stood with his arms crossed over his chest and his mouth glued shut.
But it wasn’t Karson’s mother or his boss that sent a jolt of panic through my veins.
It was the uniformed police officer standing between them who sent my heart into my throat.
The officer looked up and spotted us. He narrowed his gaze and cocked his head. The movement caused Karson’s mother to stop speaking. She turned and her eyes widened. Then her hand was in the air, shaking a pointed finger.
Karson kept a firm hold on my hand as he took a step backward.
“Run.”
Chapter Seven
Clara
“Do you think they followed us?” I panted. There was a kink in my neck from constantly checking over my shoulder as we’d raced home.
Karson had led the way. He’d taken us in circles around the blocks surrounding the car wash. Then we’d jogged down alleyways and cut through unfenced yards. Finally, after an hour, we’d decided to head to Aria’s work and wait until the end of her shift.
After she’d clocked out, we’d given her a fast explanation that Karson’s mother had brought in the police.
“I don’t think so.” Aria’s cheeks were flushed, and her forehead was covered in sweat as she cast one last look down the road toward town. Then she stepped through the gate with us and into the safety of the junkyard.
“Why would she talk to the cops?” I asked Karson.
He kicked at the dirt. “Fuck.”
“Karson, why?”
He didn’t answer me.
Adrenaline had been coursing through my system for hours and suddenly, it felt like my legs were too weak to hold me up. My head started swimming. My chest felt too tight.
“Clara.” My sister put her hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head. “Can’t breathe.”
“Hey.” Karson put his hand on my other shoulder. “In and out. Do it. Breathe in.”
I obeyed.
“And out.”
I followed his order again but still felt like crashing.
“Do it again. In and out, Clara. In and out.”
I closed my eyes and listened to his voice, letting it soothe the panic. It had been a long time since I’d freaked out like this. The last time had been after our parents’ accident.
When the ground beneath my feet no longer felt like it was giving way, I cracked my eyelids.
“You okay?” Aria asked.
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She took my hand in hers, then shot a scowl at Karson. “What is going on with your mother?”
He sighed, let me go and jerked his chin to the tent.
Aria and I followed as he walked away, the three of us congregating in his place.
Karson dragged a hand through his hair. “She wants me to come home.”
“But why?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Because she’s fucking crazy? I don’t know. The last time she came to work, she begged me to come home.”
“You’re nineteen.” I tossed out a hand. “Isn’t she, like, three years too late?”
He scoffed. “She doesn’t want me to come home so she can act like a mother. She wants me to come home because I am nineteen and can get a decent job. She wants me to be her paycheck.”
“She said that?” Aria asked.
Karson shook his head. “She didn’t have to. I know her well enough to understand how she operates. It’s all lies and manipulations. The second time she stopped by, she’d promised that she’d stopped drinking and wanted to make amends. The next visit, I could smell the booze on her breath when she asked me for a loan. She’s never been able to hold down a job, and she’s desperate. Somehow she stumbled onto where I work so she’s out to make my life hell.”
“But she has a nice car,” I said. “Those jogging clothes were fancy.”
“My guess? After I ran away, she found a guy to take care of her. Gave him some sob story or something. She was always good at that. Making men feel like they could rescue her. He probably tossed her and now she’s looking for the next fucking idiot to leech from. That idiot just isn’t going to be me.”
That was more than he’d ever told us. Karson’s words were so bitter. Pain and anger infused his tone and made me ache.
“You’re sure?” Aria asked.
He shrugged. “No, but it’s an educated guess. She’s been doing shit like this my whole life.”
“Okay, what now?” I asked. “She came jogging down our road. She has to know that you’re living here.”
“Maybe. But if she knew, Lou’s fence and padlock wouldn’t stop her. My guess is she heard a rumor I was here but doesn’t know for sure. And the car wash is open to the public.”
Not surrounded by chain link and razor wire.
“She saw us together today. She saw me walking. It doesn’t take much to know we’re together and living around here.”
He dropped his gaze to the floor and nodded. “We could be at any of the houses on this road. But it doesn’t matter. There’s nothing she can do. Eventually, she’ll realize that I’m not playing her fucked-up games and move on.”
“There’s nothing she can do to you,” Aria said. “You’re nineteen. But we’re seventeen.”
“Only for a couple days.”
“Two days. Two years. It doesn’t matter.” She held up her chin. “If the cops find us, they’ll send us back to our uncle’s house and I won’t go back. Not for two seconds.”
I took Aria’s hand and squeezed it tight. “We’re not going back.”
“She’ll go away,” Karson promised. “Two more days.”
That number should have brought me comfort, but instead, my heart lurched. Two more days, forty-eight hours, and we’d go our separate ways.
“Well, I’m going to take a shower.” Aria stood up. “I stink like grease.”
I stayed on the floor, waiting until she left us alone, then I put my hand on Karson’s forearm. “Are you okay?”
“I’m pissed.” His jaw clenched. “I hate her. I fucking hate her, Clara.”
“Want to talk about it?” I held my breath, hoping he’d open up.
He picked up my hand, but not to shrug off my touch. He played with my fingers, tracing them with his own. He pressed our palms together. He circled our thumbs. “She’s a pathological liar. She’s a drunk. She hates me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“But it’s nothing, you know? Nothing compared to what the rest of you had to live with.”
Oh my God. It suddenly made sense. “That’s why you don’t talk about it? Because you think it’s not bad enough?”
“I brought a lot of trouble onto myself. It’s not the same. Londyn’s parents were junkies. Gemma’s mother did some fucked-up shit to her. Katherine’s too. What your uncle did to you and Aria is sick. You guys . . . you survived so much.”
“So did you.”
“No.” He caressed my knuckles with the pad of his thumb. “Nothing like that.”
“I’d like to know what happened with your mom. If you want to talk.”
His frame deflated. “She’s a drunk. She hides it from boyfriends so she can use them for whatever she needs. She’s got a fake face for the world but the real one comes out behind closed doors. I got the real one.”
“Did she hurt you?”
“She didn’t give a fuck about me. She’d cook me a meal and tell me I didn’t deserve to eat it. She’d see me watching TV and tell me she hated the sight of me in her house. When I was little, I did everything to please her. I’d clean. I’d get good grades. I’d help her to bed when she was piss drunk. And the whole time, she’d tell me I was dog shit.”
“Karson.” Oh my God. How could he think what he’d been through wasn’t horrific?
“You know what though, I am a screwup.”
“What are you talking about? Of course you’re not.”
&
nbsp; “No, she was right about one thing. I fuck up everything I touch.”
My jaw dropped. “What are you talking about?”
“A lot of her problems are because of me.”
“How?”
He rubbed at an invisible spot on his jeans, hesitating long enough that I held my breath, worried about what he’d say. “A while back, before I ran away, I got into some trouble. Me and some friends went out one night. We’d been drinking and smoking pot. We found this old warehouse, not that far from here actually. One of the guys had a can of spray paint. He drew a dick on the wall. Me and the others found some rocks and threw them through the windows.”
I bit my tongue. I wanted so badly not to picture him there. To see him doing those things. But Karson had always had a reckless edge. There was anger in him and defiance. Most of the time he kept it hidden, especially when we were here and it was just us. But outside this chain-link fence, he rebelled by stealing food. By getting into fights.
“What happened?”
“Got caught,” he said. “Cops arrested me. I called Mom to get me out of jail. On the way to pick me up, she got pulled over. She was drunk so we both spent the night in jail. It never would have happened if I’d just stayed home.”
“She was drunk. She was driving drunk.” I gaped at him as my temper bubbled. “Drunk drivers murder innocent people, Karson.”
“I know that. Don’t you think I know that?” His voice cracked. “She could have killed someone else’s parents and it would have been my fault.”
“No, it would have been her fault.”
He shook his head. “Mine, Clara. I fucked up. And it wasn’t the first or last time.”
“What else happened?”
“Fights, mostly. Got suspended from school three times. I beat the shit out of one of her boyfriends with a baseball bat because he tried to have sex with her when she was practically unconscious. Turns out, she didn’t care. When she sobered up, it was my fault that he left her. He had money too. He’d been paying for our food. And I chased him away. We didn’t eat for a week. I never asked how she finally got money. My guess is she went out and found a new guy. I did that. I made her whore herself out because I couldn’t control my temper.”