Delinquents (Dusty #2)

by Mary Elizabeth Sarah Elizabeth

  So I say the only truth I know. “I’m scared.”

  “HOW LATE did you girls stay up?” Mom asks.

  What she’s really asking is, what were you doing that I need to know about? Why did you sleep until three in the afternoon?

  Prying bitch.

  “Late. We read a book, Teri,” Becka answers. Her voice is uppity-happy.

  I already know where this conversation is going, but I don’t have the energy to stop it. Emotionally shattered after last night’s phone call with Dusty, I feel like I’m looking through a fishbowl lens.

  “You did?” Mom asks, disassembling our fort. She stacks my pillows on top of my comforter.

  “I’ll show you which one.” Becka picks through our stacks of books on the coffee table. The one she’s looking for is at the bottom of the second stack, but like my inability to interfere, I also lack the willingness to speak.

  I fold the sheet I cried into all morning, while my best friend, who reminds me too much of my boy, taunts my mom.

  “This one.” Rebecka holds up the sex book. “Have you read it?”

  Mom’s face turns red. I toss the sheet I folded to the side with the rest and lie on the couch, heavy-lidded and weak.

  “It was mixed in with my books.” I curl up on my side and close my eyes.

  “Leigh, were you crying?” Mom asks. Her embarrassed, defensive tone transforms into legit concern. It hurts my stomach.

  I open up and both my mom and friend stare at me.

  “Your face looks puffy, baby.” Mom comes closer. She tries to touch me, but I sit up and run a hand through my hair.

  The erotic book is forgotten because her blissful wonder hurts, and she doesn’t know why. Brushing hair away from my forehead despite turning away from her, the woman who gave me life smothers me under her unwanted touch and intrusive eyes.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” I say, swatting her hand away.

  Becka’s eyebrows rise. She covers her mouth to keep from laughing.

  “Don’t treat me like that, Leighlee,” Mom scolds. I hurt her feelings.

  I scoot off the couch, step over blankets, and head up the stairs. “I’m taking a shower.”

  “I’m coming!” Becka shouts, following my lead.

  “HAVE YOU talked to your brother?” Tommy’s voice echoes through the speakerphone.

  Two days have passed since Thomas called, and he hasn’t reached out since.

  My best girl rolls her eyes. “No, I haven’t.”

  “Neither have we. We call him every day, but—”

  “I can’t deal with all of this. I have a life and problems, too. Why don’t you ever worry about me?” Becka falls back on my bed and blows overgrown bangs out of her eyes.

  “Because I know you’re safe,” her mother answers sharply.

  Becka hangs up the phone and turns the ringer off before shoving it under my pillow.

  “We should do something today,” she says. “Let’s get out of the house and get sunburned. I’ll call the boys.”

  Embarrassed with an unreasoning heart, I haven’t spoken to Oliver since we hooked up. I’m too wrapped up in myself to deal with the other side of this sad, true love story.

  I let him kiss my skin, and I dug into his. I wanted him so badly I begged. If Oliver hadn’t stopped us, I’d have given him something that was never his to begin with.

  But that’s not the worst part.

  I felt a flickering need for genuine kindness and care.

  “What do you have in mind?” I sit up and hold a hand over my chest to keep from falling apart.

  I look for my cell phone hidden in my sheets.

  Tell me you love me, I text to Thomas.

  “We should make a lemonade stand,” Becka suggests. She goes into my closet and finds a piece of poster board left over from our science project last year. “Do you have any lemons?”

  Don’t make me, his reply reads.

  “Umm …” I try to keep myself here with her.

  “Is it a dumb idea?” She lays the white poster board on my bed, scented markers in hand.

  I shake my head and smile, looking up. “No. It sounds fun. Mom probably has lemonade mix.”

  Tell me, I text him again.

  “Good, because I can’t stay inside anymore. It’s summertime.” Becka pulls her sleep shirt over her head, leaving herself topless. She goes through my closet, tossing a few tank tops to the carpet and searching deeper.

  I wait for my phone to beep.

  My best girl chooses a geo print tube dress her mom bought for me a few months ago. She lets her hair down from its messy ponytail and shakes it out.

  “Get dressed, baby,” she tosses a similar dress my way.

  I hate the way she says baby. It’s like he’s here. Their voices are alike, and I can almost feel the way he would whisper it against my skin, in my ear … on my lips.

  “Let’s be barefoot, like we used to when we were little.” She runs her fingers through washed-out pink strands and sprays beach waves on her ends. “Let’s get dirty.”

  Thomas doesn’t text me back, but reminiscing about unclean toes and playing outside until we smelled like puppies makes me smile. I open the top drawer of my nightstand, toss my phone in, and close it.

  While I change into my summer dress, Becka separates my braid and smears lip gloss on my lips. She applies too much, and it gets on my teeth.

  “Rebecka!” I look for something to wipe it off on.

  She holds my face in her hands and presses our lips together instead. She opens slightly, but only enough to soak up shimmery color. It’s sort of like him, too, but smaller and not nearly as deep.

  It’s over as soon as it started, and it’s not weird or awkward or unusual. We’re best friends.

  Simple.

  Maybe our time isn’t running out.

  In front of the mirror, Rebecka and I stand side by side. We’re a fucking mess. Her hair is much worse than mine. It’s higher on the left than the right, and she refuses to brush out the huge tangle at the back of her head. My hair is crimped at the ends from the braid, but the top is lifeless and flat. I have strawberry flyaways and too much static. But this is carefree and fun, and sort of who we really are.

  This is how we started.

  With the board and markers in hand, Becka opens my bedroom door and heads downstairs. I’m right behind her, until I hear my phone.

  Standing in the doorway, I consider not answering it. I know it’s him. Every part of me kick-starts and reaches outward for love.

  I should keep walking—I should go and be and not think about him while we sell lemonade—but I don’t. I turn and step toward my nightstand. I open the drawer and pull out my phone. I swallow my heart while I slide my thumb across the screen.

  I love you. It’s a rule.

  “WHERE DID you get a slingshot?” I place my feet in her empty chair and extend my toes, soaking up the sunlight.

  The air is noontime muggy and thick. We’ve had our lemonade stand up for a couple of hours, but the only people who’ve come by are my neighbors. We’ve made five dollars.

  “Smitty bought it for me for my birthday.” She rolls by on her skateboard, shoeless and sweaty. Her rumpled hair is in a bun, and she holds her dress up when she skates, showing too much thigh.

  “Speaking of Smitty,” she says with bad intentions in her tone, bringing her board to a halt behind me. She kicks it up into her hand. “He called me.”

  “Yeah.” I tilt my head back and watch her upside down through green-rimmed, star-shaped sunglasses.

  “He and Oliver are working at the beach all day. They want us to come by.” She shrugs like she doesn’t care.

  “We should go,” I say, not sure if I mean it or not, but knowing that I should.

  My girl drops her board but doesn’t jump back on. It rolls into my parents’ lawn. Behind it, the willow tree branches are already so long, brushing a foot or two above the grass. Becka sits on my lap and looks at me, settin
g all playfulness aside.

  “Do you think if we drive around … Maybe ask Kelly or Valarie—”

  “Becka,” I stop her, even though the idea accelerates my heart pump.

  She bites on her bottom lip and nods her head. “Let’s go to the beach.”

  I can tell she doesn’t really want to.

  So I say, “Maybe tomorrow.”

  AFTER FOURTEEN days of silence, Becka and I have finally left the house. But being out in the open makes me feel so much more … alone.

  “Hey.”

  Pulled away from my thoughts, I look up at Oliver. He’s a slight silhouette with the bright sun behind him. His rescue can is in his left hand, and he’s in the standard orange-red shorts all the lifeguards wear.

  I hold my palm over my brow and smile, grateful he can’t see my watery eyes under my sunglasses.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “I haven’t seen you in a while,” he says, shifting his footing.

  I drop my hand and look out to the ocean. Becka’s beside me, facedown, sun soaking. She turns her head at the sound of Oliver’s voice and asks, “Where’s your friend?”

  “Around.” He shrugs.

  She leans up on her elbows. “With that girl Margo or what?”

  He doesn’t say anything until he looks over at me. “Can we talk?”

  I snap the back of my girl’s bikini top playfully and ask, “Will you be okay by yourself?”

  She waves her hand, not bothering to look up. “Whatever.”

  We’re quiet. Girls look, and it makes me smile because I know even surrounded by sun and sand, this boy is probably thinking about art or religion or something as complex.

  Love.

  “Do you know what you want?” he asks, setting his rescue can on the table outside of the snack bar. He searches the menu, contemplating.

  “I’ll get whatever you’re getting,” I say.

  He waits for our food by the window instead of sitting with me while our fries cook. He says a few words to the girl who took our order. I try not to look at him. I stare at the graffiti engraved on the plastic table and at the people walking, riding, and running by the boardwalk. I definitely don’t look down at the dock. But after a few minutes, my eyes naturally fall back on my skater boy.

  There’s a future with this person if I want it. Nice and neat, tied with a bow. Drug-free, drama-free, honest.

  “I got you some ketchup.” Oliver sets my fries and soda in front of me with a handful of packets.

  “Thank you,” I tell him.

  He sits across from me eating his fries four and five at a time. He chews with his mouth closed and uses his napkin. He gets a drop of ketchup on his white tee shirt and curses.

  “So, you want to talk?” I eat a fry. “About the last time we were together?”

  He nods and takes a drink. “Yeah.”

  I eat another fry and wipe my hands on my thighs. “I was upset.”

  “I remember,” he says.

  “I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you,” I say, keeping my eyes down.

  Oliver coughs on his soda. He wipes his mouth with his napkin and says, “Don’t make me seem like I’m some victim,” he jokes.

  “I’m saving myself,” I blurt out. “For marriage.”

  He nods.

  That’s it.

  “I like you,” I say. “But I kind of need some time. Maybe.”

  The right corner of his mouth lifts. He opens another packet of ketchup and squirts it on his fries.

  “We’ve been going in circles since we were fourteen years old.” I drink my soda until it slurps at the bottom of the cup.

  “What now?” he sits back and crosses his arms over his chest.

  I change the subject. “Is Smitty really dating that Margo girl?”

  Clearing his throat, he drops his arms to the table. He rips the corner of a napkin. “She’s just a girl.”

  I roll my eyes and laugh. I shake the ice in my paper cup. “Jackie said she saw them at the mall.”

  “They hang out.” He piles all of our trash together and gets up to toss it out.

  I follow with his rescue can. “Where did she come from?”

  He rubs his face with the palms of his hands. “She’s here for the summer. Staying with some family in Toledo. It’s not a big deal.”

  We walk back to Becka in awkward silence. It’s stupid, but I feel like he owes me more. He should have told me about this before Rebecka had to hear it from someone else.

  When we get back to the beach, his best friend is with mine. She stands a few feet in front of him waving her arms around and wiping sadness away from under her sunglasses.

  “Who is she?” Becka cries. Tears fall down sun-pink cheeks from behind her dark lenses.

  Smitty shakes his head and crosses his arms, exhaling as his cheeks fill with air.

  “Hal,” she cries harder, pushing his shoulder. “Use your fucking words! Who the fuck is she?”

  A few passers-by watch the confrontation. Mothers move their kids along while others stop and whisper and point. I walk faster, but Oliver reaches them before I do.

  “You’re a punk, you know that?” She tries to hit Hal, but I catch her arm.

  “He’s with her, Leigh.” Her tone edges hysterical. “He’s been with that girl and he won’t even tell me.”

  “Becka,” Smitty tries, sounding wounded.

  “Get the fuck away from me!” she shouts.

  He walks and Oliver goes with him.

  July 14th.

  It’s Thomas’s nineteenth birthday.

  “We should go there, right, Bliss? I have to get more clothes anyway.” Becka turns on her side in my bed and faces me.

  With my blanket over her head like a nun, she’s snuggled up safe. Her toes find mine under the sheets, and I remember painting them last night: razzmatazz red-pink for me and pale-turquoise for my girl. We shaved our legs and plucked each other’s eyebrows. We recolored her hair, pink again, with dark violet tips and a little bit of green in her bangs. She even let me pin empty soda cans in her hair to see if it would curl.

  It did, and it was beautiful.

  “We should go,” I encourage, pulling the sunrise-colored sheet over my shoulder. “You should see your mom. You haven’t been there in four weeks.”

  “She’s probably drunk,” Becka says.

  “She’s sad,” I remind her.

  “Me, too.” She sighs.

  “Me, too,” I say.

  After we shower, she dresses in a pair of yellow shorts and a plain white tee shirt. I slip into a pair of black side-fringed denim cutoffs and a white button-up cami. I blow dry and curl my hair. She leaves her hair voluminous soda-can-curly.

  Mom comes in without knocking and picks up our towels from the floor in my bedroom.

  “Where are you guys going?” she gently pries.

  Eyeliner in hand, I stop applying it on Becka’s eyelid to say, “I can clean my own room.”

  She’s happy I spend so much time at home. It took her a couple of weeks to realize that Becka and I need to do our own thing and back off, but she still hovers.

  “It’s fine, baby. I like doing this for you.” She pats the top of my head. “So, where did you say you were going?”

  “I didn’t,” I state evenly, returning to Becka’s half-lined eyes.

  “It’s my brother’s birthday.” My girl speaks up. Her breath smells like Crest Fairies toothpaste.

  “He’s back from his road trip?” Mom’s tone is questioning. She brushes some sand out of my bedsheets.

  Becka turns her head to look at my mom. She has one eye lined and the other bare. “You look really pretty today, Mrs. McCloy.” She turns back to me with a blank face.

  Mom blushes. She smiles. She’s really too easy.

  “Okay, but not too late, Bliss.” Mom stands with an armful of dirty clothes.

  “Okay,” I say more than cheerfully.

  When we’re ready to go, Becka and I argue over who’
s going to drive. After an entire morning of keeping my feelings on the back burner, my best friend sets me on fire when she sounds just like him.

  “You’re acting like a child, strawberry-blonde.”

  All at once, so fast, too hard, his absence hits me like a brick wall.

  I would double over if she wasn’t standing here.

  Pain gnaws at my ribs from the inside. It burns through my veins, thick and rich, from head to toe. It laughs at my expense—stab, stab, stabbing—until I want to scream and stab back. At something. At everything. At him.

  I clear my throat and put my sunnies on, separating a few of my berry curls to keep my hands busy.

  “I’ll drive.” I leave my hair alone and search through my handbag for my keys.

  A few tears I can’t help settle on the frames on my sunglasses. I groan and drop my bag.

  “Shit, Leigh. I’ll drive. Calm down.” Becka picks up my bag and heads toward her Jeep.

  I chase after her. “I can drive.”

  My chin quivers, but I don’t let her see. I have my keys in my hand. I jiggle them in the air. “I’m already starting the car.”

  She looks over her shoulder at me.

  “I have the top down,” I say optimistically with a forced, fake smile. “You know you want to.”

  She finally gives in and jumps into the Rabbit. I accelerate a few miles over, the speed limit and shift into third gear. Sweet summertime-scented air sweeps through my hair fluttering it around my head, giving me clarity I crave. Becka’s sherbet-colored waves fly higher in the wind. We shake our heads and relish the sunlight. When I have to stop at a light, we take quick pictures with our phones.

  A small part of me hopes to see the Continental in front of their house. I know it won’t be, but I’m still disappointed when his space is empty save for an oil stain from a leak the Lincoln had a while back.

  Tommy’s Mercedes is in front of the garage. Lucas isn’t here.

  I park on the side of the house.

  “We shouldn’t stay long,” Becka says, leaping out of my car. “Let’s go get those corn on the cobs from that vendor at the beach. Extra butter. All the cheese. Super-hot chili.”

  I walk around the trunk of my car. I kick a rock, and my toes get dirty through my t-strap sandals. Becka takes my hand.