There were a few of reasons why I didn’t get my dick wet. First, she got too drunk too fast. I’m not down with that. Second, Arlena was there. House parties aren’t exactly private. All I could imagine was being balls deep in Sam and having Arlena walk in and see it. Just imagining the look on her face broke my fucking heart. And then there was reason number three: even though Sam and I were technically back together, I hadn’t slept with her this time around. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, no matter how much she pressed me to because all I could see when she kissed me was Arlena’s face. I wasn’t over her. Never had been, even when I was furious at her for lying to me. She was still the first person I thought of when I woke up in the morning and the last person I thought of before I went to sleep, and a hundred thousand moments in between. In that moment, with Sam passed out across me, all I could think of was how I would destroy Eddie if he hurt Arlena. How I would gut him if he fucked her. How I would hate her if she actually fucking wanted Eddie.
The music stopped and nobody started it up again. The smoky haze had thinned, and all the sounds of drinking and dancing had died away. The party was over. I edged myself out from under Sam and covered her up with a blanket. She groaned and rolled over, pressing her face into the back of the couch, then snored making it evident that she was very much down for the night.
I crept through the house, stepping over the occasional person passed out on the floor, dodging puddles of unknown liquids, and trying not to think about why my shoes were sticking to the floor. Arlena wasn’t in the front of the house or on the dance floor. She wasn’t in the kitchen, either, or in the game room downstairs. My heart thudded sickly. The grow rooms and storage rooms were all still locked, so she wasn’t in any of them either. I pulled out my phone and texted her. No answer.
I called her. There was no answer, but in the drunken after-party quiet I heard it ring. I followed the sound to the big bathroom next to the game room and knocked on the door. I didn’t hear a single sound from inside. I swore under my breath and tried the door. The knob turned easily in my hand and I swung it open carefully. Rage crackled in my head, sparking like fireworks, battling with and overwhelming wave of concern.
Arlena lay on the cold bathroom floor, arms and legs all over the place at awkward angles. Her leggings were twisted, as though someone else had dressed her. Her flowy half-shirt was scrunched up around her neck and her tank top was askew. All of that could have been explained by a drunken trip to the bathroom—but the words scrawled all over her skin in bright red permanent marker couldn’t.
Whore. Slut. Stupid bitch. Snitch. Cop lover. Boot licker. They went on and on, covering her face and hands, her belly, her neck. Some of the words disappeared under her clothes. I didn’t want to know how far down they went; in my current state, that knowledge would have been enough to make me a killer without a target.
This is what you fucking call protection, Eddie!?
I was angry. Livid. Ready to pummel Eddie’s face in for not watching out for her. The truth though was that I was just as fucking guilty. I was supposed to have her back and where the hell was I?
I scooped her up off the floor and felt her pulse. It was fast and light, like her breath. I dragged her to the bathtub and turned the shower on cold, then lifted her into the tub. There was no response for a couple of long, long seconds, then she gasped, eyes flying open an instant before she vomited. I waited patiently, saying nothing, while she purged what looked like a gallon of pure alcohol down the bathtub drain. When she was finished I turned the water off and lifted her out of the tub, wrapping her in a big beach towel.
She weaved unsteadily on her feet and leaned heavily against me. I had to do something with her. I thought about bringing her up to the room Eddie was letting me crash in, but thought better of it. Sam would wake up eventually and come looking for me. If she spotted Arlena in my bed, with or without me, she’d kill her and then I’d have to kill Sam.
I didn’t want to take Arlena home. She wouldn’t be able to get to bed under her own power, so I’d have to wake her parents up. They’d take one look at her and call the cops on me. Not only would that fuck my life up, it would also make her a target again in a big, big way. There would be no way to spin that where she wasn’t the villain. She’d get jumped into a hospital bed before I could post bail.
There was only one thing to do, and I didn’t like it one bit. “Come on, Arlena,” I murmured. “I’m gonna take you to my mom’s place.”
She blinked at me, but her eyes wouldn’t focus. I didn’t know if she’d heard or understood what I’d said, but she followed me as best she could, stumbling and tilting. I intended to use her car, just to get it out of this area before somebody decided to steal it, but when we stepped out into the cold night it was obvious that that wouldn’t be an option. Whoever had scribbled words all over her body hadn’t been content to stop there.
All of her windows were smashed in and the seats were shredded. The radio and all of the speakers were missing, and three of the tires were slashed. Dents covered the car from nose to tail like pockmarks, and someone had spray painted bright red accusations all over it. The largest of these was a big “stupid bitch” scrawled across the dented hood. Even her headlights had been smashed in.
I glanced down at her. Her eyes were mostly closed and she was leaning hard against me, not looking at anything in particular.
“You’re gonna have one hell of a hangover,” I told her. I half-carried her to my truck and piled her inside, buckling her tight and propping her up with a bucket. She passively did what I needed her to do, then dropped her head onto her arm, cradling the bucket close. I climbed in behind the wheel then called Eddie. He answered, though the sounds of female pleasure I heard in the background almost made me wish he hadn’t.
“What’s up?” he asked breathlessly.
“I have to leave real quick,” I said, trying to reel in my anger. “I’ll be back, but I need you to take care of Sam. And I need you to do it better than you fucking took care of Arlena. Just keep her safe for me until I get back, will you?”
“Yep,” he said shortly.
I hung up. I really needed to find new people to trust. I needed… God, I needed to figure my fucking life out. Making enemies with Eddie over this wasn’t exactly an option. Not while I didn’t have a choice but to crash at his place. Also, it wasn’t like he caused all this. He did his part in trying to help Arlena rid the bullies. Even if that ended up with his lips on hers, which I desperately wanted kick his ass for. But whatever, that was none of my business. Arlena and I weren’t together anymore. At least she didn’t fuck him. So yeah. Whatever. It’s not really Eddie’s fault. He thought everybody was fine, and I’m guessing when Arlena told him she wasn’t ready to take things to bed he decided to go slap skin with some other chick, which I should have known would happen. No way was Eddie going to stay around to take care of Arlena when pussy was waiting for him to dominate. When I found who was responsible for fucking with her, though…
I glanced over at Arlena, wondering if I should go back in for Sam. I couldn’t imagine that would end well, both of them drunk and waking up inches away from each other. But Eddie had proved to be a terrible babysitter, and I didn’t really want to leave Sam vulnerable.
Just as I was about to climb out of the car and go get her, my phone chimed. I blew out a relieved breath. It was Sam.
“Where the hell did you go?”
“Gotta go to my mom’s real quick. You good?”
“I’m fine. Hurry back, I’m sleepy and bored”.
“Go sleep in my bed. Nobody’ll bother you up there, but lock the door anyway.”
“K.”
The dreaded “K.” Tiredness washed through me that had nothing to do with the late hour. Sam was exhausting, and I was exhausted when I was with her. The constant bickering and competition was wearing me out. Being with her was only comfortable when I was used to it. After spending so much uncomplicated time with Arlena, my tolerance for
Sam’s dramatic bullshit had completely bottomed out. I still cared about her, though. And so I crossed my fingers that that ‘K’ meant she would do as she was told. It’s not that Eddie’s house was dangerous, per se. It’s just that the men who came in and out of that house…sometimes they were up to no good, looking for drugs and the titties to snort it off of.
Arlena was hovering in that mostly unconscious twilight state, but she didn’t throw up anymore. Her breath steadied and her skin was cool to the touch, which was a relief. I called my mom on speakerphone as I pulled out of Eddie’s alley and onto the street.
“I’m working,” she answered snappishly.
“Good,” I said. “Then you won’t have a problem with letting my friend crash at your place tonight.”
“Boy, you keep your druggie friends out my damn house!”
“She’s not a druggie,” I said firmly. “She had a little too much to drink and I don’t want to leave her at Eddie’s. She’s a good person.”
My mother sniffed. “Sure she is. Drinking at Eddie’s is what good people do.”
“That was my fault,” I said. “I talked her into it.”
“Then take her to your place! I don’t need some little bitch puking all over my shit.”
I ground my teeth. “I don’t have a place, remember? Damon’s in jail, I couldn’t keep his place.”
“Well whose fault is that? If you’d get a job instead of fucking around at school all day you’d be able to pay your own damn rent. It’s not my fault you boys can’t keep your shit together.”
“I didn’t say it was,” I said impatiently. “Look, can I bring here there or not? I’m running out of options.”
She didn’t say anything for a minute. Then, “Why don’t you just take her home? She does have one, doesn’t she? Or is she a couch-surfing bum like you?”
I took a deep breath through my nose and blew it slowly out of my mouth. “I can’t take her home like this. Her parents would lose their minds.”
“Good, maybe then they’ll beat her ass and teach her not to drink more than she can handle.”
“When do you get off work?” I asked, quickly growing sick of this conversation.
“What do you care?”
I didn’t say anything, just waited. After a moment, she sighed. “I get off at six. That’s in four hours, in case you forgot how to count. If I get home and you or your little friend are in my apartment, I’ll call the cops and have you both arrested for trespassing.”
“Understood. Bye, mom.”
She hung up and I glared at the road in front of me as I kept driving. Arlena sat up limply, her eyes wide and terribly sad.
“It’s okay,” she said, her words thick and slurred. “You can take me home. I’ll just tell them…” She trailed off and put a hand to her head as if thinking hurt her.
“Exactly,” I said. “There’s nothing you can tell them. There’s no way to spin this that doesn’t throw us both under the bus.”
She frowned at me and sucked in a deep breath. “Why would you be under the bus?”
I flipped down the visor in front of her and pointed at the mirror. She looked at her face and gasped harshly. “Who did this?”
“Same person who trashed your car, I’m guessing,” I said, flipping the visor back in place.
She balled her hands into fists. “Someone trashed my car? How bad?”
“Totaled,” I said.
“Oh, fuck.” She buried her face in her hands and curled against the seat. “I thought this party was supposed to fix things!”
“I thought it would. I really did. Nobody defies Eddie, especially not in his own house. If you’re there by his invitation, you’re there under his protection. When he finds out who did this—” I cut myself off with a shake of my head. She didn’t need to know the depths of Eddie’s vengeance. “Well, they won’t be going to any more parties, I’ll tell you that.”
A single salty tear slid down her face. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “He won’t be able to find who did it. We couldn’t and we’ve been trying for weeks and weeks. I think—it’s time.”
I studied her face, hoping she wasn’t thinking what I suspected she was thinking. “Time for what?”
She wouldn’t look at me. “Time to do what everybody already thinks I did. Maybe I really do have to tell my parents what’s been going on. I won’t let them blame you, Blayze. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
I shook my head. “You’re not thinking clearly. If you tell your parents, they’ll get the cops involved. Once that happens, it’s over. Nobody’s going to let that go.”
“And?” She shouted the question. “Nobody’s letting anything go now, Blayze! This is going to keep going until I stop it or I die. They killed my car! They attacked my body! There was a goddamn dead cat on my porch the other day with my name written on it! You and I have gotten exactly nowhere trying to figure out who this is. Eddie wants me to be his girlfriend. He seems to think that’s the only way I’m going to make it to graduation alive. What if he’s right? What if the only way for me to survive is to sell my morals and my loyalty to Eddie?” She squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered.
I blinked. “I kinda thought you were into Eddie for a minute there.”
She stared at me, wide-eyed and in complete disbelief. “You thought I liked Eddie?”
I gave her a look. “You were making out with him for hours!”
She shuddered again and I tried not to see the tears that were filling her eyes. “Yeah, well, he didn’t exactly give me a choice in the matter.”
Rage burst in the back of my brain along with a really dark fucking thought. A thought I didn’t want to have. “Arlena—he didn’t--?”
She shook her head. “No. I told him I didn’t want to and he backed off. I mean, he was still trying to talk me into being his queen, whatever that means, but he mostly left me alone. I was really drunk the next time I saw him, and he brought it up again—” she paused, as though trying to recall the memory and then winced. Quieter now, as though trying to figure out her thoughts out loud, she said, “I think I might have told him that I was going to be your girlfriend again as soon as I could get rid of Sam. He congratulated me and moved on to the next girl.”
She glanced up at me apologetically. “I’m not really planning on getting rid of Sam,” she said. “I wouldn’t even know how to do that. I just figured if I told him that I was yours, he’d leave me alone. I don’t know. It was stupid and I was scared and…”
I nodded slowly even though my heart was racing. “It wasn’t stupid,” I said. I wanted to ask her if that was what she wanted—to be mine—but she was still pretty tipsy, and I wouldn’t have been able to trust the answer.
“I guess,” she said with a sigh. “But it didn’t do me a whole lot of good. Maybe someone overheard me and decided that I wasn’t under Eddie’s protection anymore.”
I shook my head. “You shouldn’t have to fuck Eddie to be safe, that’s bullshit.”
She smiled sadly. “And you shouldn’t have to crash at Eddie’s to have a roof over your head. That’s also bullshit. What the hell is up with your mom anyway?”
I shrugged uneasily. “She’s never been real big on the whole education thing.”
“Sounded more like she’s not real big on the parenting thing.”
I chuckled. “You could say that. Our dad disappeared when I was three and Damon was four. She had to work two jobs just to keep us housed and fed, and she resented every second of it. On Damon’s ninth birthday he got a bottle of Windex and a stack of rags. She told him to get out on the street corners and earn his keep.”
Arlena’s mouth dropped open and her eyes flew wide. I shrugged one shoulder uncomfortably. “We needed the money. She did the same thing when I turned nine, but I was afraid of cars so I started washing people’s house windows. I made more than Damon did—there’s this little retirement community and all the ladies loved me—and I tried to get Damon to join me, but he’d already move
d on to other things.”
“What other things?” she asked hesitantly.
I blew out a breath. “He wouldn’t tell me at the time, but he did later. I guess while he was working a corner, he caught the attention of some guy who offered him twenty bucks a day to carry a backpack back and forth. The guy would give him the backpack and two addresses. At the first address, he was supposed to hand over the backpack and wait. Then when he got it back, he was to take it to the second address, where the guy would be waiting for him.”
She frowned. “What was in the backpack?”
“Drugs,” I said bluntly. “This was when cops were real big on stopping people to search them. Nobody had any interest in frisking a little kid. The guy who hired him told him not to worry about what was in the backpack, but Damon was a curious kid. He figured out the game by his second delivery. Once he saw how much money he was moving, he pressed the guy for a raise. Started bringing home a couple hundred every week.”
“Jesus,” Arlena breathed. “Did your mom know?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I never heard her ask. She just counted up what he came home with and told me I better catch up with him. He offered to introduce me to his guy, but I didn’t want to.”
“Why not?” she asked. “I mean, I can think of a million reasons off the top of my head, but I want to know why you didn’t.”
I smiled at her. “Because I liked my retired ladies,” I said. “They’d give me cookies and hugs and let me watch cartoons whenever I took a break. They tipped me well and always told me to put some money in my shoe so my mom wouldn’t take it all. They were kind to me. I needed that.” I sighed as sadness squeezed my chest. “Damon needed it too. He didn’t think he did—he thought he was too hard for all that—but he needed it.”
Arlena hugged her knees to her chest, gazing sadly out the windshield. “Parents are supposed to love you,” she said quietly. “Protect you. Provide for you. She shouldn’t have treated you guys like that.”
“I know,” I said. “But I’m over it. No, really, I am. She is who she is, and she isn’t going to change. I used to try to connect with her. I used to try to figure out what I could do to make her proud of me. I used to think I could make her take an interest in me.”
Manic: A Dark High School Bully Romance Page 15