by BB Easton
“You wanna tell me why the fuck your five-oh and that jacked-up redneck mobile are parked side by motherfuckin’ side right now?”
Um…
“I told you to stay the fuck there!” Harley spat, shoving a finger in my direction. “And what do you do? What the fuck do you do? You come here? To get fucked by that psycho skinhead?”
I wanted to turn and run back inside. I wanted to scream at him for being a piece-of-shit boyfriend. But I pussied out on both impulses and tried using my brain to smooth things over instead.
“Harley,” I said, keeping my voice calm despite the alarm bells blaring inside my head, “you’re not making any sense. The pool hall is closed, baby. It’s nine in the morning. You’re tired. You just need to go home and get some—”
Harley’s oil-stained hand gripped me by the chin and lifted my face. His beautiful puppy-dog eyes were unrecognizable. That bright twinkly blue had been eclipsed by two soulless black pupils. The whites were marred and slashed with red. Their expression was demanding, not begging, not playful. Cruel.
Cruel and crazed.
“Don’t fuck with me!” Harley yelled, squeezing my jaw. “You think you’re smarter than me because you go to some fancy fucking college, and I’m just a stupid dropout? Well I know shit too, lady. I know you’re fuckin’ lying.”
Harley leaned in closer, so close that I could smell the alcohol on his breath and see the white powder crusted around his left nostril. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to pull my face away, but he snapped my head right back.
“You like gettin’ cut, lady? Is that what this is about? Because I’ll be more than fuckin’ happy to—”
Before he could finish his threat, Harley’s hand was knocked away from my face by a force so powerful that the impact spun me halfway around. I turned back to find a shirtless Knight straddling Harley on the ground, raining punches down on him with both fists.
Fuck! No, Knight, no! Harley probably has a—
A deafening blast rang out, echoing through the parking lot and reverberating through my soul, just before I realized that I was falling.
In slow motion.
Oh my God, I thought. Did I just get shot? Somebody fired a gun, and now I’m falling, sooo…I probably got shot. Why doesn’t it hurt? I don’t feel anything. Well, except for someone’s hand yanking on my wrist. Wait a fucking minute! I’m not falling. I’m being pulled!
I braced myself for impact, expecting to hit the cracked cement of the parking lot. I landed on something warm and yielding instead.
A body.
I screamed as dread oozed through my veins, spreading to my extremities and squeezing my lungs.
No. No, no, no. Please God, no.
I opened my eyes, prepared to find Knight covered in blood, gasping for air like a guppy out of water beneath me, but instead, I found him kneeling before me, very much alive. His nostrils flared with every heave of his chest. His zombie-gray eyes burned white-hot. And his jaw was clenched shut tighter than a bear trap. I’d seen that expression before—the first time Knight had killed someone in my defense.
Images from the previous May flooded my mind—a junkyard dog lapping up its master’s blood. A crimson-covered baseball bat. A scarlet-splashed hoodie. I couldn’t bring myself to look down at the body below me, but when Knight’s murderous eyes darted to something over my shoulder and his hands shot up in surrender, I didn’t have to. I knew in that moment that Harley was alive.
And when the searing hot barrel of his Glock pressed against my temple, I knew I was fucked.
They say that your life flashes before your eyes when you have a near-death experience. Well, that’s bullshit. At least, it was for me. Maybe my angels are just slackers, but there was no cute little slideshow of all my greatest memories and achievements cued up and ready to go. All those bitches did was hit the pause button. On my whole life.
Pause.
Oh, look. We’re upside down.
Where did all of this glass come from?
Is that a dump truck?
Who is screaming?
Oh, my bad. It’s me.
I can’t believe the Boss is about to get totaled. Goddamn, I love this car.
I can’t believe Harley put a fucking gun to my head and made me leave with him.
I hope he fucking lives so that I can haunt him.
But if he lives, then Knight will kill him, and then Knight will have to spend the rest of his life in military jail, so maybe we should just die together.
That would be fitting, wouldn’t it? We fucking deserve each other.
I wonder if this is gonna hurt.
I wonder if the coroner is gonna tell my parents about all my piercings.
I wonder if my parents will be okay.
I wonder if I’ll be able to hang out with my mom still—not in, like, a scary, haunty way, but more like a I-know-you-can’t-hear-me-or-see-me-but-let’s-just-sit-on-the-couch-and-watch-Seinfeld-reruns-together kind of way.
My poor mom.
Man, did I fuck up or what?
I blame Knight. If he hadn’t left for the Marines we’d still be together and none of this would have ever happened.
Okay, let’s be honest. While Knight and I were together shit like this used to happen on, like, a monthly basis so…maybe let’s just go back to blaming Harley.
Yeah. Fuck that guy.
Oh my God. Is that a light? You have got to be kidding me.
This is it.
This is all I get.
A moment of reflection and a goddamn light to walk toward.
As soon as I find out who my spirit guide is, that motherfucker is so fired.
“Miss Bradley? Miss Bradley, can you hear me? Can you tell me what hurts?”
My ego—after that lame-ass production y’all just put on. I didn’t even get any harp music? What the fuck?
“Miss Bradley, wake up. I need you to tell me what hurts.”
The light I’d been moving toward suddenly blinded me as my eyes fluttered open. I immediately snapped them shut again. Wherever I was, it was way too damn bright. I winced and tried to suck in a breath as a sharp, stabbing pain registered in my side.
I reached across my body with my left hand, but the voice put my hand back down and told me not to move.
“My…side,” I gasped.
“Miss Bradley, do you know where you are?” a sweet Southern voice asked.
I shook my head, unable and unwilling to open my eyes to see for myself.
“You’re in an ambulance, honey. You and your boyfriend were just in a car accident.”
“Where…he?” I choked out.
“He’s in another ambulance. Don’t worry. He’s gonna be fine—just a broken arm and a few broken teeth from that hard little head of yours.”
As soon as she said that, a spot on the left side of my head began to throb. I lifted my hand to touch it.
“Don’t touch. You gotta pretty good goose egg over there,” the nice lady said. “Now, Miss Bradley, I’m real sorry, but I’m gonna have to cut your clothes off. Okay?”
I nodded, but I wasn’t happy about it.
I was gonna miss those damn shorts.
And that Terminus City T-shirt.
As soon as the nice lady cut my bra open, she gasped. “Oh my goodness! Look at those titty rings!”
I went to laugh, but the pain in my side shut that shit right down.
“Miss Bradley, I’m gonna have to take these out…if I can figure out how they work.” She giggled.
“Don’t…lose them,” I begged.
“Don’t worry, honey. I won’t. You got any other jewelry I should know about?”
That time, I laughed right through the pain. I couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say about my other jewelry.
I flirted with consciousness for the next twenty-four hours, but it was always just beyond my reach. I’d hear a few words here, a few words there, but I didn’t fully open my eyes and take in my surroundings until the next afternoon. When I d
id, I was in a hospital bed with so many tubes and wires coming out of me, I looked like an emaciated jelly fish.
One of the tubes—a clear one the size of a garden hose—emerged from between two protruding ribs on my right side. Well, it had been clear at one point. Now the inside was smeared and dotted with chunks of red.
A skinnier clear tube snaked out from between my legs. And even more tubing tethered my wrists and elbows to bags hanging next to my bed. A dull pain throbbed on the left side of my head, and a sharper one stabbed at my right side.
My mom, who was sitting in a chair by the window reading a magazine, noticed the movement when I lifted my sheet to assess the damage and came over to my bedside.
“Hi, baby,” she said in a sympathetic tone. She looked tired. So, so tired. “How do you feel?”
“Sore,” I said, winded after just that one little word.
My mom went to sit on the edge of my bed, then stopped herself. Throwing the sheet back, she checked to make sure she wasn’t about to crush that nasty blood-and-gore-filled tube.
“What’s…that?” I gasped, pointing at the horror coming out of my body.
“They call it a chest tube,” she said, moving it closer to the foot of the bed so that she could sit next to me. “You have some broken ribs and a punctured lung, sweetie. That tube is draining the blood out of your deflated lung.”
I winced at her description of my injuries. Jesus.
“What…happened?”
“All they said was that Harley lost control of the car and spun out right in front of a dump truck. It hit on your side, baby. The paramedics said you’re lucky to be alive.”
Reaching over and clasping my hand, my Irish-Catholic mother kissed the top of my head and said, “Your guardian angel was watching over you yesterday.”
The emotion in her voice made my throat tighten and my eyes burn. I squeezed my mom’s hand back, and when she looked down at me, I gave her a small smile.
She smiled back, then cocked her head to the side and said, “Oh, and the paramedic I was talking to gave me a baggie with all your jewelry in it.”
I felt my face heat with the fire of a thousand suns.
Then she added, “I put it in your purse…right next to your birth control pills.”
Oh my God!
“Uh…thanks,” I rasped, wanting to pull the covers over my head and hide. Or die all over again.
Then she laughed and said, “Can you imagine if they had given all that to your father? He would have had a heart attack right on the spot! They would have had to wheel him in here right behind you!” Then she laughed even harder.
I couldn’t laugh with her because it hurt too much, but I could smile. I smiled and smiled and closed my eyes and gripped her hand and silently thanked my slacker guardian angel for letting me hear that woman laugh again.
And silently apologized for almost firing him the day before.
My mom left a little while later to go pick up some fast food for dinner—and probably smoke a doobie in her car—when there was a knock at my door. A female police officer walked in. She had a short Afro to match her short stature, and what I assumed was an even shorter temper based on her scowl.
“Miss Bradley, my name is Officer Hoover, and I’d like to ask you some questions about the accident you were in yesterday.”
Fuck. Me.
“I, uh…is that allowed? I’m only sixteen. Don’t I need to have a lawyer present or a parent or something?”
Real smooth, BB. That didn’t sound guilty at all.
Officer Hoover raised an eyebrow at me and said, “No, ma’am. You haven’t been arrested, and your drug test came back negative. I’m simply asking for your cooperation while we investigate the dealings of Mr. James.”
My what? I was drug-tested? And it came back negative?
“Um…okay.”
“Miss Bradley, Mr. James was found unconscious at the scene with a blood alcohol level of point fifteen. That’s almost double the legal limit.”
Jesus.
“He was also under the influence of cocaine and marijuana.”
I guess their drug tests don’t pick up LSD.
Officer Hoover sat on the rolling stool the nurses used, which, for some reason, put me at ease a little bit.
“Normally, in a DUI arrest, Mr. James would post bail and appear before a judge; however, he was already out on parole for grand theft auto, so he will be held without bail until his court date. At the scene of the accident, Mr. James was also found to be in possession of several illegally obtained weapons as well as a vial of liquid lysergic acid diethylamide with enough hits to charge him with intent to distribute.”
Holy.
Fucking.
Shit.
Pinching the bridge of her nose, Officer Hoover took a deep breath and leveled with me. “Miss Bradley, Harley James needs to be taken off the streets of Atlanta. He is a danger to himself and others. Now, we spoke to an eyewitness who claims that you were forced into that car at gunpoint. If we add a kidnapping charge, I believe it will be enough to put Mr. James away for a very, very long time. Possibly life.”
Kidnapping?
Kidnapping!
Kidnapping.
“Miss Bradley?”
“Huh?”
“Did Mr. James force you to leave with him against your will?”
“I…” Don’t know what the fuck to do!
“I…” Don’t want him to go to prison for life, do I?
“I…” Wonder if Knight was the witness she talked to. Did he come up here to see me? Was he at the scene?
“I…would like to talk to my lawyer.”
Officer Hoover scowled at me and opened her mouth to speak when another officer knocked on the open door and poked his head into my room.
“He’s been discharged. We’re heading out,” he said.
Standing right outside my door, next to the male officer, was baby-faced Harley James. The one I remembered. The one with the puppy-dog eyes and the pouty bottom lip. His lip ring was gone—probably in a baggie somewhere—and his expression was pitiful. My heart skipped a beat, then sputtered back to life with a vengeance when I remembered what he’d done. If I’d been wearing a heart monitor the damn thing would have exploded.
Harley’s left arm was in a cast from his shoulder to his wrist, and his hands were cuffed in front of him.
A sad, silent exchange passed between us, and in that space, I thought we’d said everything we needed to say. Harley’s eyes whispered apologies, confessed his shame, and pleaded for mercy.
Mine whispered, Go fuck yourself.
As Officer Hoover rose to join them, she reached into her pocket and produced a card with her contact information on it. Extending it to me, she said, “Miss Bradley, we’ll be in touch.” Then, she turned and left.
The trio was gone just long enough for me to exhale the breath I’d been holding and to replay most of that fucked-up conversation when I heard the male officer shout, “Hey! Stop him!”
Two seconds later, Harley was at my bedside. The last time he’d been that close to me he’d held a gun to my head, so I didn’t know what the fuck he was about to do now that he had nothing left to lose. I tried to gasp or scream or sit up, but my lungs and ribs were so fucked that all I could do was wince in pain and hyperventilate like a guppy out of water. Reaching into his front pocket with his hands cuffed together and the cops right on his heels, Harley pulled out a tiny diamond ring.
“I want you to have this,” he said, sincerity pouring over that pouty bottom lip. “For what it’s worth I wasn’t kidding when I asked you to marry me. I really do love you, lady.” With a flick of his thumb, Harley tossed the ring to me.
Then, he turned and held his hands up as high as his cast would allow just in time to be tackled by Officer Hoover.
I picked up the delicate trinket and examined it as they hauled him away. It really was pretty.
I couldn’t wait to pawn it.
I spent the nex
t few days in the hospital, sleeping, picking at the bland cafeteria food they’d insisted on bringing me, and waiting for Knight to show up. He came by every afternoon to take me on my daily walk up and down the hallway, but he seemed different. Distant. I couldn’t figure out why. Knight should have been over the moon. Harley was in jail, and probably would be forever. I was fine, relatively speaking. Knight had gotten all that shit off his chest about his mom. And we were back together.
Weren’t we?
I told myself that he was probably just beating himself up about the wreck. I knew how self-deprecating Knight could be. He’d probably concocted some way to blame himself for what had happened. Or maybe he just felt awkward, being around my parents. One of them was at the hospital at all times, and he knew they kind of hated him. They hated Harley more, but I doubt that made him feel any better.
Whatever the reason, I still got butterflies whenever he walked in. I didn’t care that I had no makeup on and hadn’t bathed in almost a week. The way Knight looked at me, the way he helped me out of bed and made sure I didn’t snag any of the tubes coming out of me, the way he held my hand on our walks, the way he whispered, “I love you,” in my ear before he left every night—that shit made me feel beautiful.
On day six, I finally did it. I blew into that goddamn tube hard enough to make the needle go all the way up to the top. The nurses made me do it every day to test my lung capacity. They’d said that once I could make the needle go past a certain point, I would be ready to go home. I was beyond ready, in every sense of the word. Ready to sleep in my own bed. Ready to take a shower. And ready to test out my newly inflated lung with a much-needed Camel Light.
I gingerly put on the clothes my mom had brought for me, wincing with every movement, and walked out to the parking lot with my mom. My beloved Mustang was waiting for me, right in front.
“Knight and his friend from work brought your car up here so that you wouldn’t have to go get it.” Her tone was sharp.
I guess it was pretty obvious that I’d lied about where I spent the night before the accident since Knight was the one returning my car.
“Typically, you’d be grounded right now, but I think your broken ribs are punishment enough.”