by Shen, L. J.
Vaughn has a busted lip and a black eye before he manages to roll on top of Penn and mount him, kneeing his ribs. Penn pushes Vaughn clumsily, and before I know it, they’re stumbling back upright again. Vaughn is toying with an obviously plastered Penn, but his fists are precise and accurate. I see Knight striding along the sidelines of the football field, running his fingers through his hair, exhaling sharply.
“Let’s wrap it up, V. Asshole’s more sauced than a cliché abusive dad in a teen film, and you’re bleeding like a chick on her period.”
“Which is why I’m not going to kill him and just teach him a valuable lesson. He’ll thank me.” Vaughn winks, spitting a lump of blood as he circles Penn again. He’s in a mood when he fights.
Vaughn sends a roundhouse kick to Penn’s chin. Blood sprays across the dirt, shooting from his mouth like a rainbow. He falls, a beaten and bloody mess, and doesn’t move.
One second.
Five seconds.
Ten seconds.
Get up. Get up. Get up.
A scream erupts from my mouth before I can swallow it down and rings in my ears. Blythe, Alisha, and Esme tug me down the bleachers. Knight enters my periphery, wrapping his arms around me quickly.
Knight is hurling people left and right with his shoulders as kids pour out to the field in what looks like a massive fight between the two schools. Knight ushers me to the parking lot and shoves me into his powder blue Aston Martin Vanquish Volante. His back seat doesn’t have much space, and I’m forced to sit straight and slap a hand over my mouth so I don’t puke. He twists a bottle of water open and hands it to me. I take it, but my hands shake too hard for me to take a sip without spilling it all over.
“Puke in my back seat, and it’s game over for you, Followhill.”
He circles the convertible, then hops over the driver’s door into the seat without opening it. Like a summoned demon, Vaughn appears from the chain link entrance of the field, wiping his face with the hem of his black shirt. His jeans are torn, and his makeshift belt consists of his army boots’ laces. Knight throws a finger in Vaughn’s direction as his engine roars to life.
“You’re high if you think you’re getting into my car looking like Carrie after the bucket scene.”
Vaughn fires a paper-dry look.
“Calm your tits, Cole. I’m bumming a ride with the Las Juntas crowd.”
Knight’s eyebrows jump to his hairline, and his eyes widen in disbelief. “You are fucking high. Get in the car, moron.”
“They jumped us on the field,” Vaughn clips as if it’s a good explanation for his decision. The scent of weed and blood makes my head dizzy.
“And they’ll hand you your asses without the football team fighting on your side. Don’t do shit before I come back. I just need to cart Princess Vagina back to her castle.”
Vaughn raises his leg and readjusts a piece of masking tape he plastered against the bottom of his army boot that is completely torn.
“The fight tonight shouldn’t have happened.” He spits a clump of blood onto the concrete road.
“Please tell me Scully didn’t break anything other than Daria’s black heart. She looks like she’s caught some feelings.”
I punch Knight’s leather seat from behind. I still can’t breathe, but I’m grasping at every piece of information about Penn hungrily.
“His mom died this morning.”
There’s a beat of silence, in which I scream so loudly in my head, my ears ring. I look over at Knight, a guy who sees this scenario as something very real, and I’m not surprised to watch him freeze on the spot.
“That’s why they started the brawl.” Vaughn exhales. “When Daria was busy having a nuclear meltdown—great form, by the way”—Vaughn pins me with a look—“some guy ran onto the field and dragged Scully out of the dirt, screaming she overdosed this morning. Consequently, on his eighteenth birthday.”
“Get the fuck out.” Knight’s jaw goes slack, and he punches the steering wheel so hard, the piercing shriek of the horn lingers in the sky for a few seconds.
Vaughn dips his head.
“His second birthday present was his stepdad kicking him out of the house. Las Juntas’ players aren’t gonna touch me. I’m just gonna stitch him up and make sure he’s okay.”
“I’ll tag along,” Knight says even though he knows it’s dangerous. His first football game is in one week, and it’s against the Las Juntas Bulldogs. They’ll break his legs without even thinking about it twice. Of course, I can’t tell him this.
Last year, the outgoing seniors of All Saints showed up at Las Juntas High School in the middle of the night, took down their flag, replaced it with a pirate’s flag, and smeared the pole with Vaseline for an end-of-school prank. Going there without his crew, even with Vaughn, is not only asking for trouble, it’s begging for it. But that’s the thing about Knight. Taking risks is a hobby of his.
“Just dropping Dar at home.”
“Fine, whatever, I’ll come with you guys,” I huff. I know I can’t face Penn, especially considering the circumstances. I’m probably the last person he wants to see because I will only remind him of what he’s lost. And if my snotty friends hear I hung out with the Las Juntas crowd after spontaneously screaming like the world was ending tonight, they would have a field day.
Still, I want to see that he is all right. Personally, I guess.
“Shut up,” both Vaughn and Knight say in unison.
Vaughn takes a step forward, appearing under the streetlamp. The tawny light illuminates the damage Penn inflicted on his face. Both his eyes are black, his lip and eyebrow have cuts, and there’s swelling on his forehead that will only grow worse by tomorrow morning. He’s never been beaten up so badly before.
“Don’t bother, Mother Teresa. Dudebro’s not gonna hang out for long,” Vaughn says.
“Yeah?” Knight asks.
“Blythe Ortiz just coaxed him to go home with her afterward. Not sure how he can fuck in his state, but I guess that’s for them to discover tonight.”
Both guys chuckle darkly. Blythe. Why am I not surprised? She is so boy crazy. Girl, Interrupted. By dick. It doesn’t usually faze me that Blythe is boy crazy since it actually makes me look better, but her touching Penn is just gross on so many levels because (A) he is clearly badly injured, and (B) he was my first kiss. Which in my weird mind means that no one from All Saints can touch him now. “He’s eighteen. He can fuck in any state—all fifty—even when he is physically in a coma,” Knight deadpans. There’s silence for a beat, and then he adds, “Gus is probably losing his shit. He put a lot of money on this fight, and technically, there’s no winner.” Knight strokes his chin.
“Gus needs a life and a neck. Not in that order. Guy’s a douche, and I’ve met socks more sophisticated than his ass,” Vaughn replies dryly. “He’ll survive.”
“You get in bed with him business-wise.”
“I get in bed with anyone I can fuck over and have my way with business-wise,” Vaughn says calmly.
I look down at my hands in my lap. Why do I feel so guilty? Vaughn bends over and pats my back like a big brother even though he is two years younger than me.
“Don’t sulk. Scully is a tough motherfucker.”
They don’t know.
Not about Via, and not about Penn.
Not about my sea glass necklace, and not about the green Hulk living inside me.
I flip my hair and smile, but I’m not there. Not really. Even when Knight drives me home under the beautiful starless sky, the color of the night so pure, my eyes sting. The moon looks as lonely and seductive as ever, and Penn is somewhere underneath it, digesting his new reality.
Knight kills the engine and gestures his chin to the entrance of my house. A Tuscan-style mansion with eight bedrooms, it has a two-story foyer, a wine cellar, a ballet studio, and a pool that looks like it bleeds into the cliff of the mountain in our in a gated community called El Dorado. My dad is in investments, and my mom…well, she invested
in bagging the right man, I guess.
Her former high school student. But that’s a story for later.
Knight helps me to my door. He shoves his hand into my crocheted purse and fishes out my keys, kicks the door open, and punches in our security code.
“You look wasted, and I look inherently guilty. Please snap out of your bullshit meltdown before we hit the second floor,” he drones, throwing my arm over his shoulder and dragging me up the stairs of the darkened foyer. There’s a huge black and white picture of my mother arabesque-ing in ballerina attire, staring ahead, her elegance casting a regal vibe on the entire house.
It’s not that late, and chances are, my parents are still awake. If not, Melody will wake up when the clock hits midnight. She always sets her alarm to make sure I don’t break curfew.
I don’t remember Knight tucking me in bed, but he does. I’m still wearing my dress and makeup. Time doesn’t move. It just stands still in the room like heavy furniture.
Penn Scully is in trouble.
Big trouble. He just lost his mom and is about to be homeless. Just a few miles away, I’m tucked in my imported queen-size bed with designer Egyptian sheets wrapped around me and an entire aquarium wall filled with pink champagne staring back at me.
My actions are what got him into trouble.
If it weren’t for me, he’d still have his sister around. Maybe his mom wouldn’t have gotten addicted to crack or whatever. I squeeze my eyes shut and resist the urge to cry. He gave me the rarest thing in the world, and I gave him heartache. His mom died on his birthday. There’s some relief in this pain I’m feeling. It reminds me that despite my bitchy ways, I’m still capable of hurting for someone else.
The sound of bare feet padding across the hallway attacks my ears. I recognize Mel’s quiet pace and graceful movements. My door creaks open, and she tiptoes her way in. Normally, I pretend to be asleep to avoid conversation. I stopped calling her Mom and started calling her Mel shortly after Via disappeared, but I don’t even remember why. We’ve been growing apart since, and talking to each other, one on one, is kind of torture. But right now, I don’t know if I can pretend to be asleep.
Melody leans over and presses a kiss to my forehead, a gesture she has repeated every night since the day I was born. Lately, she’s been hovering over my face an extra second to smell my breath for alcohol. I’m sober tonight, though I wish I wasn’t.
“Good night, Lovebug. Did you have a good time at the movies?”
I momentarily forget the lie I told her before I left the house tonight.
I clear my throat, meaning to say yes, but the truth claws out like a scream.
“I saw Penn Scully.”
Her body stiffens, then she sinks down to sit on the edge of my bed. She is trying to school her expression, but her lower lip quivers, and I see it even in the dark.
“How…how is he?”
“His mom died today.”
I’m shocked at my own words. I haven’t spoken about him…ever. No one knows what happened with Via and him. I never came clean. When Melody pressed me about it, I vehemently denied knowing anything. And I guess, in a sense, I convinced myself it didn’t really happen. Until tonight.
She cups her mouth, looks down, and her shoulders begin to shudder. I scoot to a sitting position, pressing my back against my upholstered white satin headboard.
“It’s his birthday,” she says.
But of course, she remembers Via’s birthday.
“He fought tonight.”
She looks up at me. There’s so much agony in those pupils.
“At Peet’s?”
“The snake pit.” I roll my eyes. “Yeah.”
“Is he okay?” She doesn’t even scold me for going there.
“I don’t know. He’s not exactly my crowd,” I quip. I trust Vaughn not to walk away from Penn unless he’s sure he’s okay. Physically okay. Vaughn doesn’t do feelings. And Blythe? Even if he shows signs of wanting to talk about it, he’ll never make it. She’ll sit on his face before Scully can tell her how he feels.
“What happened to his mom?” Mel asks.
“They said overdose.” I fling my hair to one shoulder and start braiding it.
Her nostrils flare, but her mouth barely moves as she speaks. “That’s horrible.”
Isn’t Scully supposed to be loaded? Rich people usually don’t die from drugs. They go hug trees in fancy rehab centers in Palm Springs and come back thirty pounds heavier and thirty K poorer. Via was supposed to be swimming in it. I always thought Penn wore shitty clothes in the same way Vaughn does. To show the world he doesn’t give a crap about money.
“Anyway, I just thought you should know since you were so close to Via.”
Even after all these years, it still feels like death to say her name.
Melody stands and looks around my room, wanting to find something specific. Maybe she is looking for Penn. Picking up strays is not my forte. Luna, my neighbor, is the one who usually saves the injured birds, frogs, cats, stray dogs, and there was even a deer once. If someone were willing to smuggle Penn through a bedroom window, it’d be her. Knowing my luck, he’d end up falling in love with her, too.
“Are you, like, going to talk to him or whatever?” I ask. My heart is beating super-fast in my chest. Penn knows what I did. He could tell her, and she would hate me. She might never admit it, but she would. Hell, maybe she already does. When was the last time we talked? Really talked, like this?
Mom halts at my threshold, clutching the doorframe, her head bowed down. “I’ll do what I should have done when Via was around.”
I wake up late the next morning with the feeling of an impending calamity scratching at my skin with its pointy claws. Jumping out of bed, I race downstairs to get a glass of water. When I pass my parents’ bedroom door on the way back upstairs, I hear them whisper-shouting.
My parents are insanely in love, sometimes to the point of gross. Nothing’s more embarrassing than having your folks hit second base on the bleachers while they cheer you on during a pep rally. More so when your father used to be a student at All Saints High, and your mom taught his senior English lit class.
I know whatever they’re talking about is serious, so of course, I press my ear to their door without even considering giving them their privacy because—hello, I’m me.
“Just tell me why?” Mel growls.
“Because I was a teenage boy once, so I know firsthand how much I don’t want one under my goddamn roof, especially with two teenage girls around.”
“He’ll behave.”
“Like the way he behaved last night, busting Vaughn’s face at the snake pit? Nah, I think I’m good. Vic gave me the rundown.”
Vicious is Vaughn’s dad and the deadliest mofo in the neighborhood. I crushed on him when I was five. Baron “Vicious” Spencer is still a hottie, so #SorryNotSorry.
I have no idea what they’re talking about. Penn? Living here? Why?
“Jackie Chan Jr. was hardly the victim here. Besides, you fought at his age, too,” Mom points out.
“Exactly, Mel. I wouldn’t want teenage me anywhere near my daughters. Not in the same house, and frankly, not even on the same continent. This kid ought to have a family somewhere. Where’s his sister? We’ll buy him a plane ticket. Business class. I’ll throw in private school tuition if you just get that idea out of your pretty head.”
“We’ve been anonymously covering his football costs for years, Jaime. I’ve even gone as far as talking to his stepdad once and trying to open a line of communication. He doesn’t need money. He needs love and people who care about him. If such people existed, he wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. I got off the phone with his stepdad a few minutes ago.”
“Christ,” Daddy mumbles.
“Guess what? The man is not even coherent, and Penn’s things are already packed.”
What in the name of the Holy Spirit and Kylie Jenner’s Botox fairy is happening? I thought Penn was rich? Why wou
ld he need my parents to pay for his football? And why does it sound like Melody wants him to move in with us? I clutch my glass of water harder.
“If he touches Daria…” He doesn’t need to complete the sentence. There’s a baseball bat in the basement that he named The Kissing Boot. He said he’d use it to beat the asses of guys who tried to kiss Bailey and me.
“There’s too much at stake. Besides, just because they’re the same age doesn’t mean they are going to sleep with each other. I’ve never met two people more different.”
Silence. I know Mel won, but I’m not sure what it means. I think I just got myself into deep shit without even realizing what I was doing. Penn Scully can’t move here because we’ll kill each other before he walks through the door.
Who am I kidding? He’ll be the one doing the killing.
“Nothing will happen,” Mel repeats. “But we need to contact a family lawyer first thing tomorrow morning. I just got his file from Jim Levin, his counselor. He’s no longer a minor, but there’s still paperwork.”
Bitch is not wasting any time pulling strings and making things happen. I bet she bought us all matching Christmas sweaters and is already planning to take the annual photo with her adopted hot child hugging his new sisters and a Labrador puppy on the family couch.
“I’ll text Vic right now. Fucker probably has half a dozen on retainer with the number of enemies he’s made in his extended family alone.” Daddy sighs.
The glass slips from my hand, almost in slow motion, and I watch it crash right atop of my foot. I fight the scream wrestling out of my mouth as it crushes my bones, my foot softening the loud thud, and watch the water splash onto the carpet and the glass rolling off my toes.
I bite my lip so hard, the metallic taste of blood fills every corner of my mouth. Tears block my vision, and they help with keeping the scream at bay.
“Did you hear something?” Dad asks behind their door.
“It’s probably nothing,” Mel retorts.
Yup, I think. That would be me.