by L. J. Stock
“Backseat,” he said, before sliding from his side of the hood. I was already making my way there, though. My stomach was not happy and needed instant gratification, or the beast that lived within would be released. I was leaning into the back of his truck, over the cooler, when Dustin finally caught up with me. There were so many goodies inside the blue plastic square that I looked back over my shoulder at him in feigned shock.
“You had a treasure trove of candy and soda in here the whole time? You were holding out on me, Hill.”
I grabbed at a foot long sub sandwich, a bag of chips, soda, and a small bag of M&Ms before I felt him lean in behind me, his front pressed against my back as he reached around to take the sub sandwich from my full hands.
“That, right there, is mine,” he whispered in my ear, his warm breath making me shudder.
I’d never been flirted with before, but this really felt like a crash course in the art, and I was enjoying every second of his attention. Having him so close and feeling his warmth against me made me react in ways I wasn’t aware I was capable of.
“That’s not very chivalrous of you,” I forced out, trying to keep my eyes open rather than allowing them to slide closed in jubilation. Even twelve hours of sitting in the Texas heat with me, he smelled divine. He has a girlfriend, I reminded myself with a breath as he pulled back quietly, chuckling and pushing my body away from his, grabbing the smaller sandwich that was left behind.
“I never claimed to be chivalrous,” he confessed.
“I hear things.”
“I’m sure you do. You have a superpower.”
Unwrapping my sandwich, I took a bite and rolled my eyes in happiness as I headed back toward my car. When I got there, I set everything out in front of me before I settled back on the hood, not dignifying his backhanded compliment with a response.
“You’re also not like any other girl in school.” The comment came out matter-of-factly, but I took it as an odd kind of compliment.
“I never claimed to be,” I said, repeating his words back as I flashed him a smirk.
“Smart ass.”
“I like to think my brains are a bit higher.”
Rolling his eyes at me, Dustin reclaimed his seat on the other side of the car and unwrapped his sub with gleeful satisfaction. We both ate in silence for a while, enjoying our spoils and the gratification of a full stomach. The silence was companionable, but I could feel him thinking, rolling his words over his tongue before he turned to me with a sigh.
“She’s a bitch.”
I took my time and swallowed the food in my mouth before turning my head in his direction. I was pretty sure I knew who he was talking about, but considering the statement came from nowhere, I decided I needed clarification.
“I’m sorry? Who?”
“Libby. You asked about her. She’s a bitch, and I’m pretty sure she’s sleeping with half of the guys on the baseball team, too.”
“That sucks. She always plays herself off as the doting girlfriend to anyone who will listen.”
Dustin said something under his breath, throwing a chunk of bread that had broken off toward the trunk of the tree. “That was the bullshit I was buying, too. I just got to see the real her when I got back from training a little early once, this summer.”
“You caught her?”
“It was hard to miss the screams coming from her open bedroom window.”
“Oh shit.” I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to find the person you thought you loved with another person. I could imagine the betrayal was a violation—like the whole world had been pulled out from under you. I dropped what little was left of my sandwich on the packaging and dusted my hands off on my legs, unsure how to react.
“Although she doesn’t class it as cheating. According to her, he just went down on her, that’s all. It meant nothing.” He grunted and scratched his jaw idly. “Is that an actual rule or some shit?”
“I’m not an authority on relationships or the rules that go along with them, but that’s not a rule I know of. To me, cheating is cheating.”
“Thank you. That’s exactly what I said. She refuses to believe we’re broken up. Every time I tell someone it’s over, she tells them that it’s bullshit. It’s like a waking nightmare. My dad thinks I’m being an asshole about the whole thing.”
“What did he say?”
“Y’all are young,” he said in a gruff tone with a strong twang, obviously imitating his dad. “You’re supposed to experiment. Go out there, sleep with a few girls, get your dick sucked, and then make-up.”
“Ooh, classy.”
Dustin huffed out a laugh and took another bite of his sandwich. He was shaking his head from side to side in disgust. “The sad thing is, I tried to break up with her before the summer. She’s always been…”
“Clingy? Needy? Possessive?” I asked, snatching one of his chips.
“All of the above.” He laughed without humor. “Everyone thinks I’m nuts for trying to get away from her. ‘Y’all are supposed to be together, man’. ‘It makes sense’. Or, ‘She loves you, Dusty. Don’t give up on her now’. No one gives a shit what I want.”
“So you’re staying with her out of duty?”
“Hell no. I’m gonna keep dumping her ass until it sticks.”
I nodded in agreement, a small smile on my lips as I assessed him.
“Then what?”
“Then I’m gonna date someone I can have an adult conversation with.”
I looked down at my sandwich and grabbed at it, shoving as much of what was left in my mouth as humanly possible. There was no way in hell he was talking about me, but the denial didn’t stop the flip of my stomach when our eyes met.
Chapter Two
Morning seemed like a tentative way to describe the time I finally got home, and with the sun barely hanging above the horizon I knew it was still too early for anyone in my dad’s house to be moving. The acrid smell of stale smoke and alcohol filtered through the front door as I pulled it open. The stench wrapped around me like an old friend. I tried my best not to use the front door at all if I could help it, but I’d assumed this entry would be safe, and as always, I was wrong. The living room was in the usual state of disarray, filled ashtrays and empty beer bottles littering every surface, while two half-naked women draped over one another as they slept on the couch. A trail of clothes cut through the room into the back hall toward my dad’s room, where he undoubtedly had his girlfriend of the moment, possibly even a third, all spread out on his bed. I just hoped he’d remembered to shut his door this time. He may not notice me or when I was coming or going, but I saw everything, and scenes like this one were what made me usually climb in through my bedroom window. The window was easier to handle than suffering the imprint of this on the back of my eyelids on a daily basis.
“Who the fuck are you, kid?” one of the women asked sleepily, rubbing the mascara across her face as I picked my way through the debris toward the kitchen.
“The housekeeper,” I lied easily.
“No shit? I bet your life fucking sucks,” she said and snorted, her hand rubbing her nose before she flung her arm over her eyes.
“You have no idea.”
“Good luck.” The sentiment was an afterthought, and she was already asleep again before she’d got the entire sentence out.
I always lied to the strangers in my dad’s living room. It wasn’t often they saw me because I was more than adept at vanishing from sight, but on the rare occasion one of them caught me passing through, I would lie and tell them I was the housekeeper, or that I was delivering his paper to him. Lying was easier than them asking questions and trying to mother me in some lame attempt to subdue their own guilt and win my father’s affections. My dad knew he had a daughter, he didn’t need to be reminded, and he sure didn’t thank me for letting these women know he was old enough to have a teenager.
I made it down the hall to my room without further incident, my keys in my hand so I could slip inside
without being noticed again. I didn’t need to be out in the main house much these days. Jennifer had bought me a mini fridge for my room and bribed my dad into building an en-suite bathroom in my room. I think she’d threatened him with Child Protective Services if he forced me to go out during his foul nighttime orgies to use the bathroom. I’d listened to the whole conversation and looked up the word orgy in the school library the next day. I saw things no eleven-year-old should see, and I was almost caught by the ancient librarian who scowled at me when she saw which page was open. I’d somehow managed to convince her I was looking for an ogre. Thank God I was a quick thinker when I needed to be.
My dad wasn’t a bad guy necessarily, he was just young, bad with alcohol, and largely selfish. He hadn’t wanted kids that early in life, maybe not at all, and if Mom had allowed it, he would have taken her to Amarillo to get an abortion without a second thought. Mom hadn’t planned on kids at sixteen, either, but one look at that ultrasound monitor and she was in love. Dad had adored her enough to stay, and he’d loved me for a while, too, but I don’t think he’d so much as looked at me properly since she died. Standing next to him in the cemetery, his big hand curled around mine, he’d knelt beside me and held me close as we both cried. I really think he wanted to love me. I even liked to believe he wanted to be the father that my mom always thought he could be, but looking at my face and the resemblance I had to my mom, simply reminded him of just how much he’d lost. She’d always been the thing he’d loved most in the world.
Locking my door behind me, I headed across the room and dropped face first onto my bed with a sigh of content, allowing the exhaustion to slowly wash over me. Saying goodbye to Dustin that morning had been harder than I thought it would be, especially knowing what he would be walking into when he got home. He’d turned down my offer to accompany him for moral support. We both knew I would have been the one to get the blame for his absence at the game—just a girl distracting him from his proper place on the field, right? I was all right with that distinction because taking the blame just didn’t matter to me, but he wasn’t going to let that happen. He’d told me he wasn’t going to drag my name through the dirt for his actions, and anyway, having someone there to take that responsibility went against his master plan to get kicked off the team. A scheme that was deeply flawed and doomed to fail, in my opinion.
Dustin hadn’t said much more about Libby after his comment about dating someone he could talk to. We’d both eaten in silence and decided we needed to be on our way. Now all I could think about was the firing squad he would be facing. His accusers wouldn’t be just his family. The whole town would have an opinion about his absence from the game. I could almost hear the comments as I let my eyes slide closed. His dad would be screaming about being irresponsible and using his mom to make him feel guilty. I imagined Libby grating away about him embarrassing her, his teammates, and coach—laying blame at his feet—and every man, woman, and child glaring at him as they passed him in the store. These horrific visuals made me glad that I surrounded myself in obscurity. No one cared what I did or where I went, let alone what I chose to do with my time. Megan and her mom loved me, but they knew I was capable of looking after myself and they trusted me to go to them if I had a problem. I was self-sufficient and content. I couldn’t even imagine having every minute of my day planned out for me.
I was finally drifting off to sleep in the cool confines of my room when my phone rang. The shrill ring was from my personal line, so the noise was only in my space, but I knew I couldn’t let it ring out again. I’d agreed to keep the damn thing completely off the radar when Jennifer had the line installed. I couldn’t even remember turning the ringer up that high.
“Hello?” I answered groggily, my hand holding the receiver to my ear.
“Where the hell have you been?” Megan demanded in a stage whisper. “You missed all the drama last night.”
“I was where I normally am on a Friday night. What did I miss?”
“Dustin Hill went missing.”
I rolled my eyes and flopped onto my back. I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Half the people I knew secrets about, didn’t even know I existed, but I knew every detail that Megan knew, and people loved to talk to her. I was her info dumpsite, the safe place where all that useless information ended. She got her gossip fix risk free. Satisfaction guaranteed.
“Missing?”
“Yup. Gone. He didn’t show up for practice before the game or the game itself. There was a rumor that he and Libby had this huge fight and he drove off after grabbing a bottle of Stu’s bourbon. Some of the faculty went looking for him, but it was like he just fell off the grid. Of course, we lost the game. Stu was pissed and blamed the whole thing on Libby. From what I heard, he didn’t show back up until this morning. Lisa said that Libby was in his bed waiting for him when he got back and they made up. Not that his reappearance is gonna stop coach. I’ve never seen him that mad before. He was spitting teeth. It was only the second game of the season. We can’t afford to lose another one.”
Megan stopped to take a breath, while I fought the battle with my eyelids.
“Why were they fighting?” I asked, yawning. Megan was likely to be offended, but it wasn’t like I ever showed much interest. I was just a net to catch all the crap she had in her head.
“Oh, of course, you wouldn’t have heard.” Oh, but I had, and from the horse’s mouth. “Little Miss Homecoming was getting down and dirty with some of the guys from the baseball team.”
“Some?”
“Like four. Not at the same time… at least, I don’t think so. That would be really weird.”
“Then why has Dustin gotten back with her?”
I could almost see Megan shrugging as she thought about her answer. The fact that most of the kids in school had the same thought process on the Dustin and Libby conundrum was actually quite horrific. I could only imagine how that would go down in any other coupling. The school would take sides like they always did, but how did you take sides between Dustin and Libby?
“They’ve always just been together.”
“That’s a shitty way of looking at it. What if it was Rob? You’ve always been with him. Would you stay if he’d been caught with some other girl, just because it was expected of you?”
Her silence was deafening and so enticing to my tired brain. The mattress was hugging me like it always did, drawing me into the center and convincing me to curl up in a ball.
“You’re right, no one would want to stay through that. Maybe they didn’t get back together?”
“Maybe they did.”
Megan huffed out a laugh. She was used to my sarcasm and cynicism. As much as I knew how Dustin felt about the situation, I also knew there was a lot of pressure behind the scenes for him to do what he was supposed to and keep up appearances.
“Someone woke up contrary this morning.”
“Someone hasn’t been to sleep yet.”
“You stayed up all night listening to Hellbent Hair Bands again, didn’t you?”
I smiled. “You know me so well.”
“Fine. Abandon me for sleep. I will get more information. Call me when you get your lazy butt out of bed.”
“I will,” I said, grinning at the receiver.
“Mom also said you need to come over and get your shopping later, anyway.”
I groaned at my forgetfulness. Every Saturday morning, no matter how many times I told her not to, Jennifer bought me groceries of my own to live off. It didn’t matter that I worked in her insurance office most days during the summer, and she overpaid me for doing so, but she also fed me. Having Jen was like having a fairy godmother. Well, she was my godmother, just without the wings.
“Tell her I’ll be there in a few hours.”
“Go to sleep, weirdo.”
I said my goodbyes and hung up the phone, picking it up again briefly only to turn the ringer off. My heavy limbs fell, as I flopped back on my side and finally let sleep claim me.
&n
bsp; The giggling outside my door and my dad’s accompanying deep baritone woke me from a dead sleep. As my grogginess faded, I knew it was only a matter of time before the stereo cut on and the music filled the house, making sleep utterly unattainable. Stretching out my arms and legs, I looked over at the window. From what I could deduce from the light it was late in the afternoon, which meant I’d been able to get a couple of hours of undisturbed sleep. More than I got most nights.
I got up and showered as quietly as I could, the sounds of laughter and beer bottles clinking together filtering through the walls and drowning out the small radio I had playing. I was dressed and out of the window in another fifteen minutes, pulling out of the driveway before heading to the Hern’s to catch up with Jennifer, and Megan if she wasn’t out with her boyfriend, Rob. I was barely halfway there when I saw Dustin’s big Chevy blowing past me in the opposite direction.
My choice to either keep going in the direction I was going or follow Dustin was made for me when the scream of tires against asphalt alerted me to the fact that he’d stopped his truck abruptly. The rubber squealed again when he threw the truck into reverse and hit the gas. Smoke billowed from the sides of his truck like it was an angry bull amidst a charge. Unsure what to do, I stayed stationary and rolled down my window, waiting as he pulled up level with me, and I smiled up at him. Dustin looked awful. His normally sun-kissed skin was pale, his eyes were bloodshot, and his eyebrows were pulled together in a tight frown.
“That bad?” I asked, grimacing. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and twisted my wrists. I didn’t really need an answer, which was probably why he didn’t give me one. The cloud that now hung over him was a dead giveaway of just how well his morning had gone.
“Will you meet me at your spot?” he asked, almost desperately.
“I…” I looked at the road and back to his pleading eyes, knowing I couldn’t deny him. “Can you give me an hour?”