Delinquents (Dusty #2)

by Mary Elizabeth Sarah Elizabeth

  He closes his eyes, shaking his head with a small smirk. We’re still pressed near. I can feel his words on my skin. “I haven’t been with anyone.”

  My heart cracks, and I hate him for this.

  His eyes open, and I miss blue.

  Thomas’ grip on my hair loosens, but he gathers me completely to his chest. I’m held until everything I’ve heard and felt, wondered and worried, decided and become in his absence, dissipates. He holds me until there is nothing between us but my dress and his shirt.

  Love is fucked-up, but love is all there is.

  Thomas flattens his right hand against the small of my back, pressing and keeping me close. He drags his nose slowly up the side of mine and kisses my top lip.

  “Come with me,” he whispers.

  I breathe in his words, and when I exhale my reply, it’s easy.

  “Okay,” I say.

  And it doesn’t feel a thing like falling.

  THOMAS WAITS in the Lincoln while I run inside, grab my shit, and lie my lies like nothing ever changed.

  Only now I walk out to him in the daylight.

  Relaxed behind the wheel, long-gone-love has his arm stretched across the bench seat as I approach. He smirks when he sees me and makes me open my own door.

  “Where are we going?” I ask, getting in.

  Starting the car, “Portland,” is all he replies.

  SUFFERING IN silence that’s too close and only broken by coke-cold sniffles, I stare out the windshield while Thomas drives.

  It’s maddening.

  At least love has an excuse for being unbearable. He’s spun to the fucking sun, but at least he knows where we’re headed. I got into this car without any real idea. I may have just seen my parents for the last time. Adrenaline fueled by the thought that we maybe just left for real courses through me, anxious around a heart that beats for the boy across from me despite all his self-centered sins.

  Slow and steady, I focus on the pattern I taught myself the first time Thomas left me while he merges onto US-20. Regrets impend and homesickness for him yearns under my skin. Frustration and hesitance peck like an impatient vulture at my backbone and my reason, my nature, the point of all this won't even look at me.

  I roll my window down.

  Holding white eyelet cotton in place with my left hand as fresh air blows through, I force my nervous heart down into my chest with years of practice, hiding it from the person it’s flying high on. I have no idea what’s waiting for us almost three hours away, but I settle in.

  Because knowing hasn’t ever changed anything.

  WE’RE JUST past Corvallis when my phone vibrates in my purse.

  One new message from Oliver.

  Hey.

  In the corner of my eye, Thomas leans back slightly. Loosening his grip, he drives carelessly with just the heel of his right hand, and arrogance stifles the space between us. He rests his free hand over the bitch in his front pocket, and I fight back below the belt.

  Hey, I reply.

  JUST AFTER one o'clock, sunlight surrounds us on all sides.

  We’ve been on the road an hour and a half, and Dusty’s leaned back, brushing his fingers back and forth through his unwashed hair. It’s grown long since graduation, but I stop that train of thought in its tracks.

  I don’t look directly at him. I refuse to give him my eyes, but in the corner of my vision, the stretch of muscle and skin and bone from his elbow to his wrist is smooth and touch-tempting. His jaw is hard-set and so are his black eyes, and for a second, the thought that he knows what’s waiting wherever he’s taking me is a comfort. I consider turning and facing him, trying to talk, but it’s gone the second he sniffs.

  It’s a pathetically small sound, and I hate it with the deepest parts of myself, because that’s Her showing off her grip on my boy. That sound is deficiency and subjugation and weakness because she’s destroying love, and the parts of me that don’t hate him want to reach over and brush his dirty hair back. I want to ask where his hat is and kiss up-all-night-for-too-many-nights eyelids, and comfort this person with the cool softness I know he needs.

  But then he sniffs again.

  I cross my legs away from love and lock my eyes on moving trees.

  Because all Dusty does is misuse my heart.

  And there are still parts of me that want nothing more than to make it better.

  SUNLIGHT BURNS bright as we exit into busy downtown Portland.

  I’ve been here a few times, but never with Thomas. I recognize some streets and buildings as we pass them, but my stomach knots with that endless, terrible-anxious feeling that only comes when you’re lost.

  And my addiction still won’t acknowledge me.

  Blowing out a breath and measuring another one in, I comb my fingers through wind-blown curls while he switches lanes. My legs are tired and my feet are asleep from being in a car too long. My composure wears thinner with every mile, but I’m not giving in. When fight-or-flight kicked in under the willow, I picked fight and I meant it.

  I chose this battle and I can hold my own in it.

  Nerves are nothing I can’t handle. I’m fine.

  Until my phone rings, and the sound it makes for Becka fills the Continental.

  Fear of the unknown, and guilt from lies on top of lies fade, weak compared to the shame that crushes my shoulders. All I can think of are blanket forts and un-bought birthday cakes, a house that’s nothing like a home, and how much the boy I’m running away with hurt my best friend.

  “Answer it,” he says casually.

  He knows it’s her, and as I look from the pink sherbet and bright sunshine smiling through his absence on my phone over to abysmal-black eyes still locked on the road, my heart sinks for miles. My throat closes while my voice sticks in my windpipe, and love-born pain and anger throttle me.

  I can’t do this, I want to tell him. How can I do this?

  How do you this?

  Thomas turns right down a street I’ve never been on. His voice sounds hollow and irritably edged when he speaks again.

  “Answer your phone, L.”

  Weighed down with years of breaking, my heart plummets. My toes curl against wedges and my fingers clench up. My arms tense so tightly they ache, and I close my eyes, straining for every bit of calm I can piece together. I force the phone to my ear, because my girl is calling, and she was by my side every second love wasn’t.

  “What’s up?” I answer.

  City miles breeze across my face and then leave me smothered as I roll my window up, hoping to hide the sounds of traffic.

  “Hey,” Becka says. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting dinner,” I lie. “What are you doing?”

  “Watching a movie. I’m bored. Let’s go to the beach.”

  Behind my eyelids, I can picture her clearly in my mind, hanging off her mom’s sofa upside down, the purple ends of her hair brushing thick carpet. I wonder if she’s still drinking out of straw glasses.

  “I can’t.” Not a lie. “Dad has some alumni friends in town and we have to go to this banquet thing.”

  Thomas doesn’t make a sound. He doesn’t stretch or shift. He doesn’t even sniffle, but I feel his temper heat the small space around us. Bitterness fills the enclosed air and sticks to my lungs like the scent of hot asphalt.

  Breathing stings.

  “Oh.” His sister sighs on the other end of the phone, and I silently beg her not to ask any more questions. “Lame,” she continues.

  I’m deplorably thankful.

  “That sucks. Call me tomorrow?”

  “I will.”

  “I love you to the moon and back, Leighlee Bliss.” Best-friend-confident, the smile in her voice rings through wireless waves making a tear roll hot and fast down my cheek.

  Every day Dusty was gone, we were together, and now he’s sitting where she should be. I might not ever get her back, and he doesn’t even care.

  Two more tears fall, and I swipe them away.

  Love
is the ruthless opposite of everything fair.

  Choosing love will not be forgiven.

  “I love you, girl,” I tell her.

  I lower the phone to my lap after we hang up, and resentment chokes my lungs. Forcing my tears to stop, I bite my lip and breathe through wanting to strangle the stranger next to me. He’s close enough that I could touch him if I reached over, but in reality, I’m totally alone now.

  Even at my very lowest when he was gone, I never felt as alone as I do right here.

  With every cautious breath, my grip stumbles along a dangerous edge. Reality becomes a place more than a state of being, like sanity or insanity are steps I could take. Coming unhinged would be easier at this point than snapping my fingers.

  Inhaling as deeply as I can, I hold it until calm touches my heart again and composes impulsive hate.

  The car slows simultaneously, turning, and then stops. Opening my eyes, I squint through too-bright sunshine to find Portland sidewalks busy with late afternoon life. Black suits with briefcases stroll alongside hipsters in cardigans and cutoffs. Parents dole out ice cream cones and friends giggle over cell phones. Shops and restaurants line the block, and at the corner, The Hotel Andra stands nine stories tall.

  I know without a single word and countless new questions, it’s where we’re heading.

  Silent as he’s been for hours, Thomas gets out. His gait is indifferent, his posture careless, and his eyes avoidant as he walks around the front of the car. The wind blows, and I can see the shape of his body through his shirt. The top of his ribcage stands out under black cotton, and I want to cry.

  Pressing my lips closed, I hold it in with everything else as he comes to my side of the Lincoln and opens the door.

  Love doesn’t offer his hand.

  I don’t wait for him to.

  FOLLOWING THOMAS through the glass double doors, into the low-lit lobby, I feel the concierge’s eyes on me, but my boy doesn’t stop at the desk. I follow him straight to the elevators, and even though we’re not rushing, it feels like everything is happening really, really fast.

  Couples and small groups talk and laugh quietly as we pass. The whole place smells like cherry maple, mahogany and rosewood, gardenia candles and new money, and reality—the fact that I have no fucking idea what’s about to happen—grows exponentially heavier. The ride here was uncomfortable in the extreme, but this place is completely foreign.

  I enter an elevator behind Thomas, and when the doors close, he sticks his hands in his pockets and looks up. Clasping my own hands behind my back, I remain just as quiet as my monster while numbers chime with every floor we pass. My head spins with how we got here. I think about prom, and I remember drinking from a cup I knew was spiked without hesitation because it was from this person. I think about sitting on his lap while he smoked joints and following him into streetlamp light when I was thirteen years old.

  My choices with Dusty have always been risky, but okay because I was with him. I could trust him.

  And here I am, still following him, trusting him over my own judgment.

  But he’s a legal adult now.

  Love’s graduated from punk-hoodlum to actual criminal, and I’m more than a hundred miles from home. I’m a matter of steps from following my heart into some hotel room without a single clue who or what is inside. It occurs to me for the first time that maybe Thomas’ friends don’t know where he’s been, and the thought of strangers, lurid and dirty and grown with their habits spread out behind some locked door, sends terror crawling through my veins.

  The elevator stops on the top floor and the boy who usually can’t keep his eyes or hands or any part of who he is to himself around me steps off without missing a beat.

  I don’t fight the pull when my feet follow without order from my brain. I double my wedge-steps to keep up with crooked devotion.

  Softly glowing lights line both sides of the hallway, tinting walnu-colored carpet and ivory-hued walls dusty gold. Everything looks antique and extravagant at the same time, and it’s thickly quiet. The whole long corridor feels laden with secret-keeping.

  Ahead of me, Thomas’ steps are unrushed and impassive, but his black-on-black low-tops don’t drag. His stride is indolent, but aware and unswerving. I try to ignore my nerves as we pass door after door. I trade fear for imagining what it might cost to stay here a night.

  But I can’t.

  Wondering who or what waits for him, for us, eats at me. Fear spins pupil-black, coke-white dizzying scenarios through my head, filling my apprehension with blank stares, greedy hands, and powder. Everywhere.

  Finally at the end of the hall, I stop as trouble does, and he tugs his wallet from his back pocket. For the two seconds it takes him to pull a key-card out and unlock the door, I can’t breathe. My heart can’t even beat.

  Don't be afraid, I pray.

  My pulse doesn’t pick up again until Thomas pushes the door open and stands back waiting for me to enter what I know is an empty room.

  I step inside on tired legs to find no strangers or unwanted faces, just my boy’s Yankees hat on the floor. One of Ben’s hoodies is draped over a lounge chair and there’s a phone charger on the table mixed with half-crushed cigarette packs, headphones, a pen, and empty coffee cups. I breathe in, and the room smells like linen, recycled air, and hiding. There’s music coming from the iPod dock in the far corner, and a voice layered over foreboding notes supplicates and solicits through our silence.

  It’s Radiohead, but I don’t know the song.

  Dusty’s phone rings. I glance behind me as he answers it and closes the door, but he speaks too softly for me to hear. He walks to the opposite side of the room while dismal and disjointed minor chords creep louder through the air. Provocative and ominous lyrics echo dark foreshadows in my ears, and unease trickles from where my conscience exists. It seeps into my bloodstream in cold little drips as I lay eyes on the unmade bed across from me and my backbone slips a tremble.

  I keep it straight as I step forward.

  With gutting curiosity, I walk a straight line to the mess of heavy navy blankets, stark white sheets, and messy pillows. A spiral notebook that looks like it was tossed on the corner of the king-sized bed catches my attention and I look over my shoulder at Dusty. His back is to me and he’s still on his phone, and it all makes sense.

  He didn’t come home today.

  He might not have known if he’d return to this room with or without me, but he didn’t fucking check out of it. He didn’t take any of his things. He didn’t even stop the music.

  Turning back to disheveled covers that my secret’s probably disintegrated and diminished into more than slept in, I grab the notebook I’ve never seen and flip it open. While he speaks in disquiet tones, I scan the pages and let sick truth spread through me. His script varies, and there are scratched out phrases and places where his words stray from light blue lines. I stop when I see love and can't and baby, but I’m unable to make out too much before my eyes close, fighting tears so hot they burn.

  My heart hardens like stone behind iron ribs, and my blood courses like boiling mercury. Sadness sharpens into pure rage, and a relentless, insistent ache for the source of all this agony to hurt like I do.

  I turn again, and my presently-absent soul still has his back to me. He laughs and there is nothing warm about it.

  Gritty organ-key tones, too many drums, and incensing guitars cloud louder as I step forward over scattered pieces of sullen, selfish love. I step on his things, and every step feels like walking wrath, like I am patience lost.

  Intent to be heard and to hurt, I snatch the iPod from its dock and fling it as fast and hard as I can at Thomas.

  Time stops in the second before plastic technology hits the wall next to him and shatters on impact. It makes a tiny mark on the wall and split-apart shards hit my boy’s shoulder. He doesn’t duck, but a rush I’ve never experienced flows through me.

  Thomas doesn’t take the phone from his ear, but he’s stopped talk
ing, and when he turns around, the smug set of his lips enrages me. Vengeance burns the back of my tongue, filling my throat and mouth with wrath so strong I could spit fire.

  We’re finally here.

  There is no love in this room.

  Locking my eyes on nothing but black, I pull a breath, and when I speak, I don’t recognize my own voice.

  “Hang up the phone.”

  Thomas doesn’t move, and I burn into fury faster than I can blink.

  “Hang up the phone!” I shout, hurling his notebook at him. It doesn’t fly as fast or straight as the iPod. Thin pages flutter through the space between us and land in a pile near new Converse with a muffled and pathetic thump.

  Watching me with preying eyes, Dusty licks his lips.

  “I’ll call you later,” he says into the phone, disconnecting the call. He steps forward slowly and I steady my feet.

  “Why did you bring me here?” I ask, louder than I mean or need to while I search his eyes for anything to make sense of.

  The smirk I’ve always loved curves into a condescending grin.

  “You want to have this fight now, little girl?”

  My lungs smolder and my brimstone heart seethes hateful, jilted beats while this boy spits acid through a smile I used to dream about.

  “Come on, sunny side,” he taunts. “We just got here. You don’t want to have a little crybaby breakdown first?”

  The flames in my chest raze and burn deeper.

  “Didn’t you miss me, Bliss?" he asks, his voice depleted and mean as he steps closer. “Don’t you want me to hold you?”

  “Don’t fucking touch me,” I warn, shaking my head as I step back.

  “Don’t touch you?” His laugh is depraved. “Okay,” he says. “Did you bring your fucking crayons?”

  “Why did you bring me here?” I demand so loudly it fills the room.

  Dusty doesn’t raise his voice in the least. He smiles so sincerely my heart splits, and he fastens dope-open, honesty-filled eyes on mine.

  “Why’d you come with me, baby?”

  “You asked me to,” I remind him spitefully.

  He shakes his head. “No.”