Beautiful Survivors

by C. M. Stunich

  I cried myself to sleep every night for six months missing him.

  And now … here he is, all grown up, a complete and utter asshole with an ankle monitor strapped to his leg.

  “It's him,” I repeat with a sigh, leaning back and feeling Nash put his arms around me. The warmth of him … it's almost too much. Carnal memories rear to the surface, and I feel my nipples pebble into hard points. If I wiggle a little, I can feel the firm bulge of Nash's erection beneath my ass. “We've finally found Finny, and I'm being sent away again. This fucking blows.”

  “I don't know if Finny is the same person you remember, Mer,” Gunner says, leaning back on the sofa, looking even taller stretched out like that than he does standing up. He's all dressed in his work clothes, ready for his late night shift stocking shelves. He had to get special permission from the Buzzard to be out so late, but in the end, having an almost-eighteen like Gunner with a job is a blessing in the system's eyes. At least then, they can kick him out of the home on his birthday without feeling too bad about it.

  “Maybe not, but at one time, he was one of us.” I give Gunner a look and then switch my attention over to Maddox, hoping the living room's bright enough that he can see my whole face right now. I want him to keep looking at me, to memorize me. Just in case. Just in case I go missing like Finny did. “Promise me you guys'll give him a chance when I'm gone?”

  “Stop talking like that,” Nash says from behind me, squeezing me too tight, making my lungs burn and my ribs hurt. But I don't move, don't say a word. Even with the weirdness between us, this feels good, to be held like this.

  “Stop talking like what, Nash? I'm leaving on Friday,” I say, closing my eyes and trying to breathe past the panic. Being separated from the only people in the world that care about me … that's basically my worst nightmare. But I have to go. I have to, or Gunner might blow his eighteen money for me. It's not a lot, but he'll get grants for college, enough to keep his head above water so that he can actually go to school.

  I won't mess that opportunity up.

  “Hey.”

  Hitch—the boy I used to know as Finny—pauses in the archway between the dining room and the common area, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression contemplative.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  Nash makes a small sound behind me, but I ignore him, shrugging my shoulders in a noncommittal sort of a way. Hitch takes the gesture as an invitation and drapes himself into an empty armchair next to the one Nash and I are sitting in.

  When he looks over at me, he's grinning a shark's grin and looking like he's out for blood. If it weren't for that distinctive scar on his elbow, I would never believe this guy was Finny. Finny was … he was sweet and earnest and loving. My best memories include him leading the four of us away to hide in the treehouse so he could tell us stories. They were always fantastical, always hopeful, rich with imagined details of places better, of places far, far away from the hell we were living in.

  This guy in front of me … he's clearly been through some shit.

  “What's with all the melancholy?” he asks, his attention focused almost entirely on me. “Not all that excited to see me?”

  “I'm going back into foster care on Friday,” I tell him, meeting his eyes so I can gauge his reaction. There's a quick flicker of disappointment there, but it fades fast, replaced with apathy and disinterest.

  I don't buy it for a second.

  As soon as he called me by my old nickname—Merry—I saw a flicker in Hitch's eyes, a certain level of interest and desperation that can't be faked. Whatever he wants to pretend he is now, some master thief badass or cocky bad boy without a care in the world, Hitch Finnegan is lonely. I can sense that emotion like it's on a radar in my head. I think loneliness is the worst feeling in all the world, this empty gaping pain that makes the whole world feel like it's against you.

  “Oh? Bummer,” he says with a slight shrug, leaning back in the chair and crossing his arms together above his head. His gaze reminds me of the tiger's eye necklace I used to have, the one I got from a Christmas gift toy drive a few years back. Pretty sure one of Jenna-Marie's daughters stole that, too. “New place or one you've been to before?”

  “Repeat offender,” I say with a sigh, Nash's arms loosening around me. When I glance back at him, his sapphire gaze is thick and heavy. We definitely need to talk this out. I want his goofy, stupid personality back. He may not know it, but he sets the mood for our little group. When Nash is happy, we're all happy. If he's not … well, we're all just flies trapped in the webs of contention. “They cut my hair off and stole my clothing vouchers. I've been in worse places though.”

  “Same here,” Hitch says, and his voice is as dark as pitch. I can see demons warring in that gold-brown gaze, fighting to crack through the carefully crafted facade he's built around himself, this easygoing, take-no-shit slacker with a record and a sharp smile. Bullshit, all of it. I can smell it from here.

  Hitch stares at me for a long moment before switching his attention to Gunner and Maddox.

  “Gun and Mad, right? I should've recognized the names right away.” He lets the pain fade to black and smiles at my boys. “And Nash … we used to call you Nashed Potatoes and Gravy, right?”

  “Fucking seriously?” Nash asks, but he doesn't sound quite as combative as he did earlier. When I glance over my shoulder at him, he's smiling slightly. “I can't believe you remember that shit. I've been fighting that nickname for years.”

  “After I landed back in foster care and you were gone …” I start, wondering if Hitch might tell me what happened to him in the interim, “we started calling him NPG for short.”

  “It was either that or Taters,” Maddox adds, squinting in Hitch's direction. I reach up to turn on the lamp nearby and Mad tosses me a relieved half-smile.

  “Taters,” Hitch says with a wicked smirk, leaning back in his chair again. “I like it. Please tell me I can keep calling you that.”

  “Go for it, Finny,” Nash says with a smirk of his own, putting his hands on my hips and sending goose bumps up along my arms. Hitch looks at me like he can sense it, studying me and Nash with a practiced eye. I'm so freaked out by the prospect of Gunner and Maddox finding out that I stand up. “So where have you been all this time? I heard you got adopted?”

  Hitch shrugs, and I see that dark glaze take over his eyes again.

  “Eh, for a while,” he says, but he doesn't elaborate, staring at the floor until the front door opens and Clea Mooney walks in. At first, she's stomping like she's pissed off—I'm hoping something happened with Nash—but then she sees Hitch and her entire demeanor changes.

  “Hey,” she says in that sly, coquettish voice of hers.

  Hitch lifts his gaze up and blinks at her in surprise.

  “Clea, right?” he asks, and flashes another grin. He stares at her for a moment, clicking his tongue ring against his teeth. Try as I might, I can't help but feel a surge of frustration. He remembered her at first sight but not me? It shouldn't matter, but for some reason, it does. Maybe I just don't like Clea? I don't have problems with any other girl in the home except for her—and she's not the only one that flirts with my boys. “We were in Purgatory together last year, right?”

  “Right,” she says, slipping into the room and dropping her book bag on the floor. She's still dressed in that stupid red and white striped uniform and red booty shorts she wears to work the hotdog stand, but now that she's off, the top's been tied to show off her slender midsection and the waistband on her shorts has been rolled up three times, basically turning them into panties.

  Me, I'm standing there in a loose navy hoodie with holes in it and a baseball cap, dirty sneakers on my feet, jeans sagging around my slender hips. Maybe it's not that I hate Clea so much than it is that I'm jealous of her? She looks like a woman; she makes me feel like a boy. Or hell, maybe I'm just an angry person? To be fair, I've had a lot in my life to be pissed off about.

  “We did that summer camp thi
ng together,” she adds, flashing a triumphant look in Nash's direction. He ignores her completely, raking his fingers through his dark hair and looking over at me instead. Our gazes meet and I suck in a deep breath.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Hitch says as Clea moves over to him and takes a seat on the arm of his chair. “I remember that—we did a lot of skinny-dipping that summer,” he continues, and I feel the heat rise in my cheeks. I can't decide if that's because I recently went skinny-dipping with Nash, or because I just imagined what Hitch aka Finny would look like naked.

  “Hell yeah we did,” Clea says with a giggle, tossing her hair and throwing one leg over Hitch's. He doesn't look all that disappointed to have her there, and I decide then that I'm done. Reconnecting with Finny … Gunner's right. He's not the same kid he was before. He used to be one of my boys, but he isn't now, is he? I should just let him go.

  “Gun, you should probably get going,” Nash says, nodding his chin at the clock on the wall above the TV. There are rules posted next to it that stretch from the ceiling all the way to the floor.

  All programs must be approved by the house manager. No profanity, violence, or sexual activity allowed—either on the TV or in the common area. TV slots are fifteen minutes per person; sign-up forms are on the clipboard in the kitchen. You may sign up for ten slots per week, but no more than four consecutive slots per person, and no more than four total slots per day.

  The list goes on and on and on.

  “I guess I should,” he says with a sigh, unfolding himself from the couch and rising to his full six foot four height. He puts a hand on my head and twists the bill of my cap back around to the front. “I'll be back late, okay? Don't wait up.”

  “I always do,” I tell him defiantly, and he smiles, stepping away and adjusting the name tag on the front of his shirt. Last week, during his usual walk to the store, it fell off and he got a 'point' from his a-hole manager. Ten of those in a year period and he's fired. “Good to see you again, Finny,” he says on his way out.

  Hitch lifts a hand in acknowledgement, but he doesn't pause his conversation with Clea to respond. At this point, she's fully sitting in his lap. As I stare at him, Hitch looks over her shoulder and meets my eyes, the corner of his lip twitching in a slight smile.

  I meet his gaze, refusing to look away first. After about thirty seconds, the front door closes behind Gunner, and Hitch shifts his attention back to Clea.

  “Guess I'll go shower,” Maddox says, squinting at the clock. “I signed up for a bathroom slot tonight and I don't want to lose it.”

  “Better hurry,” I tell him, hating how carefully he has to move around the dim living room. If I could, I'd give him one of my eyes so he could see better. If only … “You're about two minutes late.”

  Maddox hits the stairs and takes them two at a time, using sheer instinct to guide his way. As soon he gets to the top, I grab Nash's hand and tug him away from the living room, refusing to look back and see what Hitch and Clea are getting up to. Frankly, I don't want to know.

  “Are you jealous?” I ask, as soon as I get Nash into the boys' bedroom. The four bunks in here belong to Maddox, Gunner, Nash … and now Hitch. Hopefully he doesn't get any ideas about bringing Clea up here; there are no locks on the doors in Hell.

  “About what?” Nash asks as I kick off my sneakers and fall onto his bed, leaning back into the pillows before I tug my cap off and chuck it. “You and Hitch?”

  I lift up slightly on my elbows to look at him, shrugging out of his jean jacket and hanging it on a hook near the door.

  “Me and Hitch?” I echo with a few confused blinks. “I just met the guy. Well, re-met the guy I guess.”

  “Yeah, but you two used to be so close,” Nash says, sitting on the edge of the bunk and glancing over at me, his expression just this side of unsure. I've never seen him like this. Not once in all the years we've known each other. I bite my lip and glance away. “You guys slept in each other's beds for like, years.”

  “We did the same thing,” I tell him and he shrugs.

  “Only after you came back and Finny was gone.”

  I kick Nash in the leg and try to change the subject. There's no point in going there right now. Hitch might technically be Finny, but from what I can tell, the person I used to know is gone. Hell, the person I used to be is gone, too. Stripped away, broken down, shredded. Life has not been find to the five of us, that's for sure. Why should it be? The world owes nothing to the lonely and forgotten.

  “I meant, are you jealous about Clea and Hitch? Clearly there's something going on between them.”

  Nash purses his lips and closes his eyes, rubbing at his left eye with the heel of his hand smearing black liner all over the place.

  “Seriously, Merit? You're smarter than that.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to be mean?” I snap, but the words come out softer than I meant them to. I know I'm being a bitch right now, but I can't help it. Responding with anger, with vitriol, with snark, that's the only thing that's kept me—kept all of us—safe. Showing weakness, softness, kindness, that only gets someone like me into trouble.

  “I was only playing around with Clea because I was trying not to let … this shit between us escalate.” Nash turns to me and then slides into the bunk on his side next to me, the way we've laid a thousand times in the past. I hate that it feels different now. “Specifically because I was fucking terrified that this,” he gestures between us, “would happen.”

  I don't look at him. I can't look at him. What am I supposed to say? That I love him, but that I'm confused? That I'm so afraid of being hurt I'd rather run away? That I'd give up everything to keep our little family together?

  “Nothing's happening, Taters,” I tell him, and at least I get a small smile out of that.

  “Nothing except you spent all day yesterday and today avoiding even looking at me.”

  “Guess I'm still getting used to the idea that we …” I pause and there's a long moment of awkward silence. “That I have to live in Los Gatos for eight months,” I say instead.

  “We've been through worse,” Nash says, reaching up to play with a few loose white-blonde strands that are stuck to my forehead. “But I'll still miss you like crazy while you're gone; I always do.”

  We lie there in silence for a while before Nash reaches down and grabs the extra blanket off the end of his bed, pulling it up and over us. We curl together like lost children, snuggling for warmth and love and companionship, the way we've always done.

  It's only when Nash drops his hand to the button on my jeans that things feel different. I close my eyes and let him undo my zipper, slipping his fingers underneath the denim and stroking a long, languid line up the front of my underwear. My lids flutter closed and I relax into it, enjoying the bursts of pleasure that arc through me with each pass of his fingertip.

  When he finally slips one inside, I'm hot and ready, curling my right hand into his t-shirt and pulling him close. Our kissing this time is a hell of a lot more frantic than it was before, full of fear and desperation. It might not seem like a big deal, being carted off to some rich asshole's house forty minutes away, but when life is this fragile, this tumultuous, even something as small as distance can feel like a thorn to the heart.

  Nash kisses and strokes me until my body melts in his arms, digging up that orgasm I fought so hard against the other day. It sneaks up on me all of a sudden, this violent rush of energy and hormones that metaphorically knocks me on my ass. Without meaning to, I bite Nash's neck hard, stifling my scream as the first big O I've ever had wracks me through and through, like a storm rolling in from the mountains, flooding the valley, darkening the sky.

  It takes me a while to get my shit together after that, calm my breathing, stop my hands from trembling. I have just enough time to lie back and look innocent with Maddox comes back in after his shower.

  “I have some TV slots saved up, and it looks like the common room's free. You guys want to watch a movie?”

&nbs
p; “Sure,” I say, feeling shaky and off-kilter but … also kind of fucking awesome.

  For the first and only time in my life, I'm almost relieved that Maddox can't read the expression on my face.

  Hitch is at school the next day, hanging out in the quad with Clea and Barrett, leaning against Barrett's Mercedes G-Class SUV like he owns it. Barrett doesn't look too happy about that, but Hitch also doesn't look like he gives a shit.

  “Wow. Didn't take him long to wedge his way into the Toilet,” Nash says with a sigh, hefting his backpack up on his shoulder and pausing at the edge of the quad with me, Maddox, and Gunner.

  The crowd that Hitch is hanging out with, we call the Toilet. Mostly because Tara Crawford, the JV volleyball captain, started telling anyone that would listen that her group of friends—the richest, meanest, most fucked-up kids in MC High—were the 'popular crowd', and that we should all start referring to them as P-Crew. Maddox told her they were all assholes, that nobody actually liked them, and that her bragging all sounded like a bunch of bullshit. Between P, shit, and assholes, we got Toilet. Not very inventive, but it works.

  “Color me impressed,” Maddox says with a sigh and an eye roll. “Maybe it's a blessing we lost touch with him after all? If he wants to hang out in the toilet, good fucking riddance.”

  The boys move ahead of me, but I just stand there for a moment watching Hitch, examining the easy, casual way he plays with a strand of Clea's hair, laughs at one of Barrett's jokes, hops up to sit on the SUV's hood.

  As if he can sense me watching him, he turns his head slightly, his blonde and black hair catching the breeze. That orange-brown gaze clashes with mine, sending a thrill down my spine that I just can't explain. I have absolutely zero interest in anyone that wants to hang out in the Toilet, but … for whatever reason, it feels almost impossible to tear my gaze from his.

  Hitch waves and both Clea and Barrett glance my direction.