by BB Easton
Everything. Every-fucking-thing.
“I can’t find the Tylenol,” I choked out.
“Do you have a headache, honey?” she said in that sweet, sympathetic voice that always made me want to curl up into her lap and cry.
I squeezed my eyes shut and nodded into the knotty wood.
“I’m sorry, baby. Must be a migraine, huh? Let me get you some Excedrin.”
Instead of opening a cabinet or a drawer, my mom opened her closet door, right behind me. I turned and watched as she slid an armful of hanging tie-dyed sundresses aside and began turning the silver knob on a small black safe left and right. I couldn’t see what she was doing once the door to the safe was opened, but I heard the familiar rattle of pill bottles as she rummaged around, looking for what she thought I needed.
When my mom reemerged from the closet with two little white pills in hand, I asked with betrayal in my voice, “Why is all the medicine in there?”
My mom looked around the bathroom and twirled a lock of long red hair around her finger, like she always did whenever she was uncomfortable. “Well, honey,” she said, mustering a sad smile as her soft, earthy green eyes finally landed back on me, “that psychologist we took you to said that it might be a good idea for us to lock up all the pills in the house…and the weapons. You know, until you’re feeling better.”
The slap of those words knocked what little air I’d been able to swallow right back out of my lungs. Twin tears rolled down my pale, gaunt cheeks as I stared into my mother’s face. Her small, reassuring smile did little to mask the pain in her exhausted eyes. Then, I broke the fuck down. Sobs shook free of my bony frame as the gravity of the situation sank in.
My mother had just saved my life.
Sitting next to me on the floor, my mom pulled me into her side and shushed me as I cried. “You know,” she said, smoothing a hand weathered from decades of drawing and painting and sculpting down my freckled arm, “I think you should stop taking those pills. I did some research, and one of the side effects of antidepressants in teenagers is suicidal thoughts.”
“Really?” I said, pulling the neck of my oversize T-shirt over my face to wipe my eyes and nose. I hoped she was right. Blaming the drugs for what I had almost done made me feel like less of a monster.
“Really. Honey, I think you just need to get your feelings out. Do you want to talk to a counselor? Or paint? You used to love to paint. Or maybe you could write? You know, I read that writing letters to people and then ripping them up can be really therapeutic. Or maybe I saw that on Oprah.”
Sitting with my back against the cabinet doors, my knees and face tucked inside the T-shirt I’d worn to bed the last few nights, I nodded. “Maybe I’ll try that,” I mumbled into the tear-soaked cotton. Then, taking a deep breath, I lifted my head and forced a smile for my mom’s benefit. “After we go get my car.”
Of course, before I could pick up my car, I had to stand in line at the DMV for two hours, try—and fail—to parallel park my mom’s Taurus station wagon for a woman with a clipboard and a fortuitous amount of apathy, and then stand in line again to get my sunken-eyed, shaved-headed, skeletal picture taken.
Nobody likes their driver’s license picture, but mine was physically hard to look at. I looked like a cancer patient. Or a drug addict. I looked like I was dying.
Because I was.
Over a boy.
In fact, everything I’d ever done up to that point had been in the name of a boy. One of my earliest memories is of me letting my kindergarten crush cut off one of my pigtails. Appropriate, considering that I’d been handing chunks and pieces of myself to boys ever since. Maybe that’s why I was almost thirty pounds underweight. I’d finally given too much away.
Driver’s license in hand, I went to see a man about a Mustang. I was a muscle car girl on a Ford Escort budget, but I managed to find a ’93 Mustang hatchback with a five-liter engine and, much to my dismay, a stick shift transmission for pretty cheap. I didn’t have enough money saved to buy it on my own yet, but my mom agreed to loan me what little savings she had to make it work. I think she was more excited about me not having to rely on boys for rides than I was.
I should have been elated. I’d wanted a car—a Mustang—for as long as I could remember. But as I sat in my new/used car in the driveway of my parents’ house and pictured the faces of all the people who wouldn’t be sitting in those passenger seats, the gaping holes in my life only became more apparent.
Knight? Boot camp.
Juliet? Baby duty.
August? Dead.
Lance? Dead to me.
Before my pity party had a chance to bust out the keg and throw on a mix tape, a dusty old Toyota Tercel with a glowing pizza delivery sign on top came barreling up our quarter-mile-long driveway. My parents and I lived in a little gray house out in the middle of the Georgian wilderness. My mom liked it because she could hide her pot habit out there, and my dad liked it because he was under the impression that the government was tapping the phones and itching to take his guns away. I fucking hated it because I lived at least half an hour away from all my friends. Back when I had friends, that was.
I sighed and slid down in the driver’s seat to avoid having to interact with anyone else in my broken condition.
I listened for the sound of Pizza Guy’s car leaving, but instead heard my mom yell, “BB…Bee Beeeeee…Come eat, baby!” totally blowing my fucking cover.
I sighed and got out of the car, ducking my head to avoid Pizza Guy’s gaze when we crossed paths. I didn’t want to see his reaction to the tiny, frail, pale, boy/girl-looking thing that had just emerged from a parked car with rolled up windows in the middle of June. I already knew that I looked like Gollum crawling out of his cave for the first time. I didn’t need to see it written all over some stranger’s face.
Instead of our usual TV trays in the living room, my parents and I sat at the kitchen “island”—a cheap high-top table and a couple of stools my mom had scored at Walmart—to endure all of the obligatory birthday things. After the pizza, which I’d barely touched, my mom presented me with one of her signature misshapen, slightly burned, homemade cakes. True to form, my pothead parents couldn’t find any candles, so my mom lit a match and shoved it into the frosting. She and my dad sang me, “Happy Birthday,” and I smiled politely, counting the minutes until I could run up to my room and smoke a cigarette.
When I was done pushing crumbling cake around on my plate and feeding covert forkfuls of it to our golden retriever, my dad handed me a piece of paper. “Happy birthday, kiddo,” he said with a smile.
The man had been unemployed for years, so I knew the gift was actually from my mother, but the fact that he was beaming from ear to ear as he handed it to me told me that he was definitely the one who’d picked it out—whatever it was.
As I unfolded the page, the curious wrinkle in my brow smoothed and lifted all the way up to my hairline. It was a picture of four shiny five-spoke alloy pony wheels. The Mustang I’d bought came equipped with the most embarrassing set of plastic hubcaps—the tires were pretty damn worn, too—but it never occurred to me to ask to have them replaced.
“Your mother just wanted to get you some safer tires, but I talked her into a little upgrade,” he said with a wink. “You’ve got an appointment to get them installed at A&J Auto Body on Monday.”
Whoever said money can’t buy happiness never gave a set of pony wheels to a muscle-car-loving girl from a working-class family on her sixteenth birthday. I think it was the first time I’d smiled in weeks. Smiled? Hell, I screamed. I hugged. I jumped up and down.
Then, I ran upstairs, popped a Camel Light in my mouth, and called my last remaining friend to tell her the news. When Juliet asked, over the sound of a crying infant, if I’d had a good birthday, I told her yes. And, much to my surprise, I think I almost meant it.
Evidently, A&J Auto Body was the cheapest shop in town—and for good reason. The place was grimy as hell and appeared to have been decor
ated by a blind person in the 1970s. A squat, furry, troll-like man who looked like he had a dark brown toupee stuffed in the collar of his shirt greeted me with a grunt, then took my keys and left me standing at the front desk.
Not knowing where to go, I wandered through a door to what I assumed would be a nicotine-colored waiting area but instead found myself in the main garage. I normally would have just turned around and gone back in, but the car on the lift closest to me refused to let me leave.
It was love at first sight. A late ’60s Mustang fastback body style, matte black paint job, matte black rims, blacked-out windows, and a massive open-air scoop on the hood. It looked like something straight out of Mad Max.
“Can I help you with somethin’?”
I turned and met the amused stare of a broad-shouldered, baby-faced, blue-eyed mechanic. His dirty-blond hair was pushed back in a messy pompadour. His forearms were covered in hot-rod tattoos. His pouty bottom lip was pierced. And his name was embroidered on the A&J Auto Body shirt hugging his hard chest.
Hellooo, Harley.
“Sorry,” I sputtered. “I know I’m probably not supposed to be back here, but I…” I looked back up at the beast on the lift, and a deep longing seized my chest. “I can’t leave her.”
Harley—if that was even his real name—chuckled and said, “So, you like the ladies, huh?”
“What? No!” I snapped.
“Good.” The mechanic smiled, and the twinkle in his mischievous blue eyes reminded me just how much I liked boys.
Trying to bring the subject back to cars and away from my sexual orientation, I looked around the garage and pointed to my faded black hatchback on the farthest lift. “I drive the baby version of this.”
Harley glanced over at my most prized possession and nodded in approval. “Five-oh, huh? Not bad. Manual or automatic?”
“Manual,” I groaned.
“No shit? Your boyfriend teach you how to drive that thing?”
“No,” I said, letting my mouth hang open in pretend offense.
“Ah.” Harley nodded. “You met him after you got the car.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I said, rolling my eyes.
God, he was cute. The guy had a face like James Dean and a body like Dean Cain. And that accent. Living in the South, southern accents are a dime a dozen, but Harley’s was just subtle enough to be cute. Cute, cute, cute.
Harley smirked at me and asked, “Your old man must be a car guy then, huh?”
“You got me.” I smiled. “I’ve been hoarding all his old Muscle Car magazines since I was a kid. I used to cut out all the Mustang pictures and tape them to my bedroom walls, but the tape fucked up the Sheetrock, so my mom bought one of those clear plastic shower curtains with the photo pockets and—”
Harley held up a hand to silence me. “I’m gonna have to stop you right there,” he beamed, “‘cause right now all I can picture is you in the shower, and I’m pretty sure I’m not gonna be able to process another word you say.”
Oh my God!
I could feel the prickly heat of a blush creeping up my neck. I bit the insides of my cheeks to keep my face from splitting open into a blotchy, big-toothed grin caused by his sexy little comment. This guy, Harley, had to be in his early twenties, he was fiiiine as hell, and he was flirting with me.
Having no idea how to respond to that, I tried again to change the subject. “So, what do you drive?”
“Hmm…” Harley tilted his head and smirked. “Why don’t you take a guess?”
Oh, we’re playing games now. Okay…
I tapped my lips with my fingertips and eyed him, thinking hard.
“You strike me as a…Volkswagen Beetle kinda guy.”
Harley almost laughed, then quickly scowled, trying to look offended.
“Wood-paneled Pinto?”
Harley pursed his ample lips, fighting back a grin.
“No? Hmm. Oh, I got it. Geo Metro.”
That one had him wrinkling his nose in genuine horror.
“I know! It’s a trick question! You drive a Vespa!”
Snort.
I was running out of ideas, so I looked around the shop and spotted a ’64 Impala lowrider. “Ooh! I found it. Right there,” I said, pointing to the hooptie. “The gold rims were a nice touch. I bet you even put hydraulics on it, didn’t you?”
Harley finally let out the laugh he’d been biting back. It was deep and raspy and made my insides tingle.
“You’re getting warmer,” he said. “It’s actually on hydraulics right now.” Harley lifted an oil-smudged finger and pointed to the matte black sex machine above my head.
“No!” I screamed and smacked him in the chest with the back of my hand. “No fucking way!”
“Yep. That’s my old lady.” Harley beamed.
“Oh my God! That’s yours? Yours? Like you own it? And you get to drive it? Holy shit! What year is it? A ’69? What engine does it have? Is it all original?”
Harley cocked his head to one side and said, “You said you’re a muscle car girl—you tell me.”
“Oh, shit.” I rubbed my hands together, accepting his challenge. “Let’s see…if it’s a ’69, which I think it is, then it could be a GT, a Mach One, or a Boss. Or an E, but those are super rare. The GTs had different hood scoops than this one, and I’m pretty sure the Mach Ones had cable and pin tie-downs. So, this has got to be a Boss, right? But is it a Boss 302 or a Boss 429? Ugh!”
Harley let out a low whistle and clapped his oil- and tattoo-covered hands together a few times. “Damn, girl. If you weren’t so young, I’d ask you to marry me.”
I laughed on the outside, but on the inside I was doing fucking round-off back handsprings. The owner of that car, and that face, and that body, and those tattoos was flirting with me!
Unable to filter my big fucking mouth, I said, “You know, sixteen-year-olds can get married in the state of Georgia as long as they have a note from their parents.”
Harley laughed and said, “Well, hell. I guess I’d better scrounge up a ring quick ’cause I’m not lettin’ you get away.”
My stomach did a double salto with a full twist and stuck the fucking landing.
I decided to change the subject from our impending engagement back to the car, if only to help me regain my composure.
“So, is it a 302 or a 429?” I asked, nudging my head toward the matte black orgasm on wheels above us.
“Guess you’re just gonna have to wait to find out.”
“Ah, man!” I whined. “Wait until when?”
“Tonight.” Harley grinned at me like the devil himself, about to convert another sinner. “I’m taking you to the track, lady.”
Lady? Lady. Lay-DEE? LAY-dee.
On the way home from the shop, I replayed my conversation with Harley—the hunky, tattooed, baby-faced mechanic—over and over in my head. Not only was I smiling for the second day in a row, but I also couldn’t fucking stop. I was driving my very own Mustang—with shiny new pony wheels, thankyouverymuch—and I had a date that night with the sexiest motherfucker I’d ever seen in my life.
And he’d called me lady.
Lady. I liked it. It sounded so grown-up. Strong. A lady was somebody who deserved respect. All Knight had ever called me was punk.
Punk—noun. Slang.
1. something or someone worthless or unimportant.
2. a young ruffian; hoodlum.
3. an inexperienced youth.
4. a young male partner of a homosexual.
5. Prison slang. A boy.
How appropriate, considering that, the day Knight had left for the Marines, Lance Hightower—the punk rock object of my obsession since sixth grade—told me that he gave Knight a blow job while we were dating. As in, Knight had cheated on me with a guy. And not just any guy. The guy I had been in love with until Knight drop-kicked his way into my heart.
Lance had also told me that the only reason Knight was attracted to me at all was because I looked like a little boy.
Like a punk.
I glanced in the rearview mirror and sighed audibly when I realized that my hair hadn’t miraculously grown eighteen inches since that conversation. I’d shaved almost all of it off last fall, except for my bangs and two longer side pieces, in an attempt to get Lance Hightower to notice me. Obviously, my plan hadn’t exactly worked out.
Ronald “Knight” McKnight, our school’s only skinhead, noticed me instead. He’d spent months pursuing me, wearing me down, isolating me from my friends, and eventually, making me love him. When I fell, I fell hard. And, right as I was about to serve him my forever on a fucking platter, Knight pushed me away. With the slam of one door, he’d gone from being my true love to my tormentor. He’d ignored me, bullied me, even gotten physically aggressive with me. Then, he’d upped and joined the Marines to protect me from his lack of self-control.
It’d been three weeks since Knight left for basic training. Three weeks that had somehow felt like three days and three decades all at the same time. I’d accepted that it was over. It had been over long before Knight left for boot camp. But what I hadn’t been able to accept, what kept gnawing at me from the recesses of my mind, was the question of whether or not he’d cheated.
I wanted to know how to feel. Was I supposed to miss Knight or hate him? Had he really cheated on me, or had Lance made the whole thing up? Lance wasn’t exactly trustworthy—okay, he was a vindictive little drama queen—but honestly, I kind of hoped that he’d been telling the truth. Then I could feel angry for a change.
I was so fucking sick of feeling sad.
I pulled to a stop next to a blue metal mailbox in front of the post office, then pulled a crinkled envelope addressed to Recruit Ronald McKnight out of my shapeless, furry, leopard-print purse. I stared at the letter in my lap, immobilized by indecision. Should I rip it up, like my mom had suggested, or should I just say fuck it?
As much as I wanted closure, I was terrified to mail that letter. I knew my words were going to make Knight mad. Like really mad.
And when Ronald McKnight got really mad, people got hurt. People went missing.