by Nyrae Dawn
Talk… Say something. But what would she say? That I’m a piece of shit? Maybe it’s true. That what I’ve done is wrong? I know that already. There’s nothing she can really say.
“I’ve never taken anything from you, though. Today…that was just to show you. I didn’t plan to keep it. I’d never steal from you, and I haven’t done it in a long time. I haven’t even wanted to.” Like that’s supposed to make it better.
No reply. Nothing.
I’m sorry… “So yeah… We talked about destinies before, and that’s mine…”
It’s those words that make her head jerk up and her eyes latch onto me again. My body gets jittery, like I have to fight myself to keep from going to her. From putting my arms around her and asking her to tell me it’s okay. Even if it’s a lie.
“My dad’s an attorney. Did I ever tell you that?”
Fuck. I don’t think she’s telling me this because she thinks I’ll hire him to represent me. It’s her way of saying they do the right thing. They’re good. They don’t take shit from other people and then complain about how the world has wronged them.
Which is exactly what my dad does
And I always have, too.
“I…I need some time, Ryder. This is a lot to take in.”
After dropping that bomb, I’m lucky she’s only asking for time instead of telling me never to talk to her again.
“I don’t know if I’m okay with this.”
She’s not. Even I know that. And she shouldn’t be.
“It’s cool… I mean, it’s not cool. What I did isn’t cool. I get it. I just needed to be honest before this goes any further.”
I make it to her bedroom door before I stop. Without turning to look at her, I say, “I know you’re better than this. It’s why I was scared to tell you. No matter what, I understand, okay? Don’t feel bad because you do the right thing, Virginia. It’s what I like most about you.”
With that, I leave to start the long walk home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
~Virginia~
Over, and over I roll my phone around in my hand. It’s a pretty sad thing that I don’t have someone to call. Or maybe not. How many girls want to tell their friends or their mom that the boy they’re dating can pocket anything and she’s never even known it? That he steals as easily as he…walks up the stairs? Because I hadn’t noticed a thing. Not when he walked past me into the house or anything.
My boyfriend is a thief. Not only that, but his dad is on the run. Ryder didn’t sound like he knew where his father was, but what if he does? And what happens if he comes back for Ryder?
I would have a boyfriend who is running from the cops with his father. What if I’m put in a position to be an accomplice, where I’d have to turn him in or it’s on me too?
That’s not something I can do…
A stiffness sets into my muscles. I can’t breathe, can’t move. My body is torn between seizing up or purging everything Ryder told me so we can go back to the way things were before.
The only thing is, I can’t do that.
It’s not me.
He’s the first boy to make me feel normal. The first boy I know who would never judge me if he learned my family curse. The boy who I can trust, because even though I know he has to be curious, he hasn’t gone digging into the things Mom said.
Not if he told me he didn’t.
When I hear the door downstairs, I stumble out of bed. I’m supposed to be making dinner tonight, yet I haven’t done anything. My whole afternoon has been spent stalking Mom’s house and being depressed about Ryder.
Get it together, Lu.
My eyes catch the table at the base of the stairs as I walk down.
When he stumbled… That has to be when he got my wallet, because then he was behind me. He had the whole thing planned out, knew exactly what to do.
Oh, God.
“Hi, Lulu. Hey, what’s wrong?” Dad asks.
Not without a struggle, I school my features. “Um, nothing. I didn’t cook. I had a lot of homework and just finished.”
I guess it’s time to change my name to Liar again.
“That’s okay, kiddo. Do you want to order pizza?” He ruffles my hair, and the urge to follow him to his office and climb into his lap hits me. I used to love sitting on my dad’s lap in his office. It’s so orderly. I always felt secure within those walls.
“Sure.”
“I’m going to go change. I’ll be right back down.”
While Dad goes upstairs, I order the pizza. He’s back a few minutes later. This is normally where I would go upstairs. My dad and I are close, but it’s not like we hang out while I’m home or anything. Unless I need order. That’s when I sit in his office with him. Only, it doesn’t feel right today. Right now, I just want someone to hug me.
Forty-five minutes. That’s how long I wander around downstairs—sit at the table, stand up, sit in the chair, turn on the TV, turn it back off, stand up again. Walk to Dad’s office, don’t go in, head to the kitchen, over and over and over.
Finally, the doorbell rings, giving me something to do.
We have a credit card that’s in both mine and Dad’s name for stuff like this. That’s what I use to pay for dinner. When I close the door behind the pizza man, Dad’s stepping up beside me and taking the double pepperoni, double cheese from my hand.
“You didn’t get one for you?” He winks at me.
“Ha ha.”
Dad sets the pizza on the dining room table. I fill two glasses of Diet Dr. Pepper while he grabs plates. A few minutes later, he’s finished his first piece and I’m poking around at mine. “Can I ask you something?” By the time the words finish coming out of my mouth, I’m still not sure what I’m going to say.
“Anything. All the time. You know that.” Dad sets his slice down and gives me all his attention.
Both my parents are like that, and for a second, I wonder if Ryder’s dad was. If he would listen to Ryder and care what he said. I wonder what kind of father takes his son out with him when he steals.
“What made you go into defense? You know, instead of prosecution or something. Why do you want to defend people who have done things wrong?” Dad is the best person I’ve ever known. He’s loyal and honest. He’s levelheaded and caring. Despite everything, Mom is still his best friend. He would never wrong or hurt anyone. It feels like he should want to put bad guys in jail, not keep them out.
“Why do you assume they’ve all done something wrong, Lulu? That’s not always the case.”
Which I know. I get it. Not everyone accused of a crime committed it.
I poke at my pizza. “What if they did, though? What if they did it and you know? Or what if you’re not sure. People lie all the time. What if you trust someone, believe in them, and you’re wrong?”
Dad gives me a sad smile, pushes his glasses higher on his nose, and says, “Then I’m human. We’re all wrong every once in a while, kiddo.”
“What I don’t understand is why someone would want to risk that. Risk putting their faith into someone if there’s a chance they could be wrong.”
“The thing is, Lulu, believing in people, trusting and putting ourselves out there, those are some of the most basic, human things you can do. They give you empathy. They help you understand people who are different from you. And the truth is, I don’t think everyone who makes a mistake is bad.”
I look up as he continues.
“There are so many extenuating circumstances you have to take into consideration. Like your mom…she’s hurt you, and she’s hurt me, but it wasn’t her fault. What she’s gone through…people live things every day that others know nothing about. It’s easy to stand on the outside and cast judgment.”
Which I’ve done. I know that.
“But how do you know? What if you believe in someone and you’re wrong?”
“You don’t know. You have to trust your gut and your heart. You have to look at as much of the picture as you can. I’ve defended peo
ple who had terrible childhoods, who felt like they had no way out, and who screwed up. And once I helped them, once I showed them someone cares, they turned their lives around. Sometimes that’s all it takes. Some of the people I’ve helped have gone on to do great things; they've gone on to help other people.
“And some of them have gone on to do bad things again. I have no way of knowing. I try to ask myself if I really think the client is a good person or not. I take into account their history, as well. And of course, the crime matters. Do I want to help free a man who attacked a woman, or someone who hurt a child? Of course not. There have been times I did the wrong thing, kiddo. But there have been others where I did the right one…and that is a wonderful feeling.”
I saw the shame in Ryder’s eyes when he handed me each of the objects from his pocket today. I hear the words he’s said to me in the past…about people not believing in him, assuming the worst of him, and just today, that stealing was the only thing he’d ever been good at.
He’s wrong about that. He’s a good friend to Drea, Shane, Tanner and Cody. He’s smart and funny, and maybe even a little noble.
And I believe in him. Just like how Dad always believed in Mom. That doesn’t mean we don’t have things to figure out. It doesn’t mean I will be with someone who steals. But I believe in him.
Pushing to my feet, I walk over to Dad and hug him. He squeezes me back, and doesn’t let go until I do. “Thank you.”
“Do you want to tell me where all this is coming from?”
I shake my head.
“Teenagers… I didn’t think so. Sit down, finish eating with me.”
So I do, for the first time in a long time, thankful for this dining room table and a talk we had at it.
I refuse to believe following in his dad’s footsteps is Ryder’s destiny.
That leaves me with one last question…what about my own destiny?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
~Ryder~
My phone died hours ago. I’d hardly had any juice left in it when I texted Virginia to meet. I’ve taken back roads, sort of wandering around all night. There’s a lot that can go through your mind when you’re alone at night. It’s like a fucking freight train or something that doesn’t want to stop as it circles my brain.
I think about the people Dad has stolen from. He used to tell me that in the grand scheme of things, they were people who would never miss the money, and their stuff was insured. Oh, it might piss them off that someone dared to mess with them, but they had so much stuff it didn’t matter.
Like Robin Hood, except the poor was us. We robbed from them for ourselves.
These were people who would never give a shit about us, so why should we care about them?
Tonight, I wonder if I ever really believed that, or if I just told myself I did to feel better.
Virginia is the type of person he would see as one of the “haves,” but I know her. It doesn’t matter that her parents have money; she cares. She’s the girl who bought me a hoodie because I didn’t have one.
The owner of the bar they robbed when I was the lookout…he was a small-business owner. As a kid, that didn’t mean anything to me, but I look at the owners of the diner Luke runs. After they pay everything each month, they hardly have more than we do.
Still we took from people like them, businesses like theirs. After Dad left, I did it on my own—more than the two times I was caught. I stole and wrecked someone’s car. Maybe it was their only way to get to work so they could feed their family.
My gut cramps up and I hold it. If there was anything in it, I have no doubt I would lose it all over the road. I was a thief. I was wrong.
And if it wasn’t for Virginia, I never would have seen this. Does that still make me blind? If I’m too screwed in the head to see past myself until someone else shows me there’s more?
I don’t know.
Pushing my hands back into my pockets, I turn down my driveway. The sun is just starting to come up. It shouldn’t have taken me all night to walk from Virginia’s, but I hadn’t been in a hurry—hadn’t taken the easiest route, either.
My eyelids feel like they’ve been replaced with sandpaper. My muscles with cement, and my bones with rubber. Luke’s going to kick my ass, because there’s no way I can go to school today. At least he’ll know up front, so it will be an excused absence.
My key turns in the lock but it’s already open so I just push. I didn’t even notice the lights in the windows until it shines in my eyes when I open the door. Luke stops mid-step in the living room. He’s fully dressed, looking tense as hell.
My heart does this swoop and accelerate thing. “What’s wrong—umpf.” I stumble backward when Luke throws his arms around me. He knocks me into the door, pushing it closed.
My pulse picks up even quicker—Oh, shit. They caught Dad. He’s in trouble…or worse.
“Luke, what happened?” I try to pull away from my brother but he’s still holding on to me.
It’s not until he whispers, “Don’t ever fucking do that to me again, Ry,” that I realize this isn’t about Dad. It’s about me. Luke was worried about me. And he’s hugging me. When’s the last time my brother hugged me?
It’s then that I go flying back. He shoves me into the wall. “What the hell were you thinking? You’ve been gone all night. Your phone goes straight to voicemail. Shane, Drea, Tanner and Cody didn’t know where you were. Virginia said you guys got into an argument.”
Wait. What? “You talked to Virginia?”
“That’s all you got out of this?” Luke shakes his head. He’s texting on his phone as he speaks. “We’ve been worried about you. Everyone has been looking for you all night. I was just pissed at first, thinking you were off pouting about something, but then Shane came looking for you. We realized no one knew where you were, so Drea had to go to Virginia’s.”
Oh shit. “Dre went to Virginia’s?” Now I’m the one pacing.
“We didn’t know what the hell else to do! No one had her number so Drea pretended to be a friend from school, knocking on her door at eleven thirty at night.”
It’s as though my thoughts are arguing with each other, trying to decide what’s more important here. The fact that all these people were worried about me? That Luke was, or that they dragged Virginia into it? She’d just asked for time, and now one of my best friends, who I happened to have kissed on too many occasions to count, goes to her house at eleven thirty on a school night?
Her dad is going to hate me…
Virginia probably already does.
“I can’t believe you pulled this shit.” Anger blazes in Luke’s eyes.
“I didn’t…I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t trying to be a dick. Virginia and I…I told her about Dad, and she said she needed some time, and I just… I screwed it up with her and I didn’t know what to do, so I walked. My phone was dead.”
That’s when the anger seeps from his expression. Luke frowns, looking at me…I don’t know, in a way he’s never looked at me before. “You told her about Dad?”
It’s not like it’s a big secret. Shane and Drea know. Cody and Tanner do as well, so I’m not sure why Luke is acting like it’s such a big deal.
Doors slam, one after another, outside. They echo through me. Is one of them Virginia? As though he can read my thoughts, Luke nods his head at the door. I jerk it open. My feet hardly hit the gravel at the foot of the stairs before Virginia’s running at me. She rams into me harder than Luke did, throwing her arms around my neck.
I hardly catch her, but manage to get my arms around her waist and hold her.
“I’m sorry. All I could think was that it was my fault. You told me something big and I just let you go, let you walk away. That was so irresponsible of me. No matter how shocked I was, I should have driven you home.”
Each of her words, seeds of hope, plants themselves inside my chest. She cares. Even if she can’t be with me anymore, she knows what I’ve done, and she cares.
“Hey. It’s ok
ay. I’m right here. Nothing happened to me. I was just being an idiot and walked from Cliffton. My phone died. That’s all. And it wasn’t your fault.”
Looking over her shoulder, I realize she’s not the only one here. Both her car and Shane’s are parked out front. Shane, Tanner and Cody are leaning against Shane’s ride. When my eyes land on the window, I realize someone’s sitting inside.
Drea.
Virginia’s hold on me loosens, and then it’s gone. “She was really worried about you… She kept trying to hide it, but she was crying.”
My eyes close. This is the second time I’ve made Drea cry. My chest feels like someone cracked it open. I love her. I’m not in love with her, but Dre is my friend. I feel like such an ass.
“You should go see her.” Virginia takes a step back. I’m tethered between the two of them—not wanting to hurt either of them, but in different ways. Virginia because I don’t want her to think there’s more between me and Drea, and Dre because I know she loves us all so much. Shane, me, Tanner and Cody are her family.
“She’s one of my best friends,” I tell Virginia. Even if she can’t be with me anymore, I want to make sure she doesn’t think there’s more to it.
“I know.” And then she walks over to the porch stairs and sits down. With a sigh, I turn to my friends.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
~Virginia~
There once was a girl named Fake. Her favorite holiday was Halloween. She loved it so much, she pretended it was Halloween every day. She’d dress in different costumes and give herself different names, because it was easier than trying to figure out who she really was. Was she Perfect or Lonely? Fear or Destiny?
She couldn’t decide so she smiled to cover the lie, and said, “Happy Halloween” when people asked her who she was. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t see a clear reflection. Was she the girl who told her boyfriend he should go to his friend, and then sat back wishing he hadn’t gone? Was she the girl who thought she was confident and strong, only to realize again that her name was Weak as she watched him hug the girl who wanted a house inside his heart?