I drape my arm over her shoulder and say, “Never.”
WE’RE PLAYING with fate, but I stop at a small diner on the way home and park the Lincoln in the back. I put my hood up since Bliss is wearing my hat again.
“Do you care if I smoke?” I ask. She knows I’m not talking about tobacco, and I know she wants me straight.
She shrugs. “I’ll go get us a table.”
I light up and in the far back of my mind, I know this doesn’t make me drug free. I can’t give it all up at once, so I’ll take it easy. I’ll deal with one habit at a time. Slowly.
Yeah, right, cocaine whispers.
After I smoke, I walk into the restaurant and a bell on the door rings, signaling my presence.
“I’ll be right with you,” the waitress behind the counter says, holding a coffee pot. She has a pen keeping her hair up.
I spot my girl in the far booth. Watching me with relaxed eyes and a small smile, Bliss sips on chocolate milk. I sit down across from love, placing my back against the window. Leigh gets up and slides in next to me, settling between my knees. She leans on my chest.
“I ordered marshmallow swirl and peppermint sprinkle cupcakes,” she says.
“You’re going to get a stomach ache,” I say, kissing the side of her head.
“I’ve had one for years.” She takes my hand and kisses my knuckles. “You smell like pot.”
“Like trouble?” I ask, turning the coffee mug on the table upright.
“Just like trouble,” love says softly, leaning her head back onto my shoulder.
The waitress delivers the cupcakes and pours me some coffee before walking away. I wipe frosting from baby’s chin, and she takes bites that are too big. She asks me if I think she’s fat, and I tell her to shut the fuck up. She points to her soft stomach and I put my hand over it.
“It’s mine,” I say. “And I love it.”
“Some of my jeans from last winter don’t fit.”
“I’ll buy you new ones.” I clean marshmallow fluff from the tip of her nose.
“Becka told me I have cellulite.”
I roll my eyes. “Becka’s a fucking liar.”
Leigh stops laughing, and her smile breaks. “She is, right? She’s lying to me.”
Allegiance to my boy seals my lips. He hasn’t told me, but I know—I’ve known. So does Bliss. Neither one of us wants to acknowledge it. But it’s not the same because we’ve lied longer and heavier.
“Yeah,” I answer, turning my back on my best friend and opening up even more to the only person who matters. “She’s lying.”
Leigh nods, crumbling some of her cupcake between her fingers. “Do you think they’ll tell us?”
“I don’t know.”
She picks at the rest of her sugar, and I take one more drink of my coffee before I give it up. Our server comes around checking my cup a couple of times. On her third time by, she drops the check on the table.
“Do you want to go?” I ask.
She has a birthday party today, so she told her parents she’d be home early. I wish I could pack her into my car and just drive. I’d put her in the fucking trunk until we were too far to turn around. I’d keep her.
But I can’t.
Sometimes love is doing what’s right.
You know what to do, dirty boy.
She’s too good for you anyway.
You’ve ruined her. Look.
Look at her.
Look.
Leighlee moves to the spot beside me, and I pull out my wallet and leave the cash on the table for the waitress. Leigh sits back and sighs.
“Be birthday happy, birthday princess,” I say, doing my best to keep my voice even.
“This time next year will be so different,” she says with peppermint twinkles on her curved lips.
I want a line. It’s so fucking bad right now.
Can you taste me? She taunts. Can you?
“Hey.” Baby pushes my shoulder back. “Hey, listen to me.”
My lips curl. They can’t help it. I love her weight on me.
“Knocked out,” Leigh whispers, referring to my smile. “Flying. Every time.”
Sunshine brightens her face and dances on her lashes. Her eyes are sugar lit, and her lips are stained light pink from frosting. Her touch is my cure, and everything else falls away but this cupcake girl.
“Be my boyfriend,” she says, laughing softly, catching me by total surprise.
With my hands on her sides, I push her back far enough to see her face. Baby’s cheeks are just-say-yes red, and her eyes are tale-telling again: love, love, love.
She holds my face in her hands, serious now. “Do you know what it does to me when you leave?”
I keep my eyes with hers.
“It kills me,” she says. “It feels like dying.”
“Sunny side—” I’m about to apologize, but she puts her marshmallow and peppermint scented hand over my mouth.
“Don’t say you’re sorry.” She smiles more. “Just, be my boyfriend.”
I smirk under her hand.
“Don’t make me wait any longer, heart-buster. Be my boyfriend already,” she says softly.
I move her palm away from my mouth and kiss her.
This time, she melts.
AFTER I drop my girlfriend off at home, I drive to my house. Mom doesn’t bother to ask me where I was, but she does ask about Becka.
“Haven’t seen her,” I say, dropping my keys to the table.
“She better not miss Leighlee’s birthday, Thomas.” My mom looks up at me after she ties a pink bow around the white wrapped box.
I take a few steps toward the stairs. “She wouldn’t,” I say with my hand on the rail.
“I never know anymore.” Mom sighs.
Once in my room, I fall on my bed face-first and slumber in a dreamless sleep for hours. When I do wake up, heavy-headed and more rested than I’ve been in a while, my mom’s sitting beside me.
“I love your face when you sleep, Dusty.” She runs her fingers though my hair.
I close my eyes and dissolve under the tender touch only a mother can offer.
Then she sees the marks on my neck.
“Who the fuck did you let do that to you?” she asks, completely taken back and obviously disapproving.
I cover my face with my pillow, frustrated. “I just woke up. Get out.”
The woman who gave me life stands up and walks over to my closet. “You need help, Thomas. How long is this going to continue?”
She tosses a pair of jeans and a red tee on my bed.
“I can get myself dressed, Mom,” I say from under the protection of my pillow.
“Did you even buy Leigh anything? Are you going to fuck this up too?”
I point to the box with baby’s sunnies on my computer desk.
“You didn’t wrap it? You saw me wrapping earlier, Thomas.” She takes the gift and leaves.
Now I’m back in front of Leigh’s house, and I’m nervous.
My girl is in there. My girlfriend. My life.
I can’t fuck this up.
I cannot fuck up today.
But here I am, looking at my phone again. It’s calling my name, I swear. I almost threw it out the window on the drive over.
I should have.
While I’m at war with my phone, my sister’s Jeep drives by. She pulls behind the judge’s sedan in the driveway, and I see my best friend in the passenger seat.
They’re going to do this.
On her best girl’s birthday.
I grab the sunglasses, lift my hood with no intention of lowering it, and get out of the Lincoln. I walk up by the willow tree, and my sister stands at the top of the driveway with her arms crossed and her eyes rolled.
Her navy blue shirt reads in white letters: You Mad, Bro?
And his says: I Ain’t Even Mad.
“I tried calling you,” Petey says. His clear eyes are guilty. My boy has his hands in his pockets and his head low.
I light a cigarette and blow smoke in the air.
“I wanted to tell you…” he starts.
I flick the cigarette butt into the street. “But what?”
“I feel bad,” he says.
I smirk. “So do I.”
My best friend is hooked up with my little sister. Lies and unfairness aside, it’s twisted on principal alone.
I walk past him, through the grass and around Rebecka.
“Don’t be a dick,” she says spitefully.
I knock on the McCloys’ door and wait for someone to answer, but Becka walks in first. Leigh’s in Thad’s recliner with her bare feet up. I hear my mom’s heels tapping around in the kitchen with Teri, and the judge walks down the stairs to my side. He offers me his hand before I can extend mine first.
“How’s it goin’, kid?” he asks, deep-toned and semi-threatening. He’s always been a huff and puffer.
Leighlee’s eyes lock on her best friend.
I don’t stand around and watch their pretend-innocence crumble. I set my girl’s present on the gift table and walk into the kitchen.
Leigh’s mom practically throws food at me. “Try this,” and “I made this,” and “I’ll give your mom the recipe for this.”
While Teri cooks, my mom helps, and Thaddeus picks and oversees. The conversation flows easily until my girl walks through the kitchen with my sister behind her. Leigh opens the back door and lets it slam into the wall on her way out. Everyone jumps, surprised by the birthday girl’s anger. I’m only stunned she isn’t doing a better job at keeping it under control.
“Girls,” my mom says with a wave of her hand. “Becka probably ate Leigh’s last Twinkie.”
My heart splits, but for love’s sake, I make myself laugh with mom. Teri and Thaddeus are in the dark and have no fucking idea that their daughter’s most treasured friendship is falling apart.
I excuse myself once conversation starts up again. Since the girls went out the back door, I head toward the front.
I sit down in a lawn chair with an unlit cigarette between my lips. I have my cell phone out again with my thumb on the power button when my oldest friend comes outside. Pete stands beside me and sympathy and regret linger between us.
“I haven’t told anyone,” he says. “But you could have told me, Dusty.”
I smile with spite and look up at my boy. I pull the cigarette from my mouth and hold it between my middle and pointer finger.
“So you can be there for me?” I say sarcastically, placing the smoke back between my parted lips. “You have no fucking idea, Pete.”
He walks to the end of the porch and cracks his knuckles before turning back and opening the front door.
“Go get her,” he says evenly. “I’ll find Becka.”
Then he’s gone.
I don’t get a second to process my thoughts before Leighlee runs out from the side of the house. Shoeless, baby’s hair is windblown, stuck to tear-sticky cheeks, and her makeup is smeared, running down her face.
My unsmoked cigarette falls from my lips and tap dances on the porch before it settles and rolls. I stand and put my phone in my back pocket, ready to go to my girl, but she runs up the steps first. Upset and hurting, she drops to her knees in front of me.
I do the only thing I can do.
I drop, too.
“It’s so unfair,” she cries out, holding onto my sweater.
Pulling her to her feet, I walk my girl around to the side where no one can see us. I push strawberry-blond away from her face and hold the back of her head with trembling hands as I kiss her forehead. “You need to calm down.”
Are you looking now? cocaine asks. Do you see her now?
“She gets him, and I have to wait for you. It’s not fair, Thomas,” she shouts through her tears. “After all this time, she just gets him!”
“Leigh, Leigh—baby … Listen to me, girl.” I hold her face up. Tears run over my thumbs. “You have to stop.”
“I don’t care anymore,” she says sadly, but so unwavering.
I smile through terror. “Yes, you do.”
My heart double-beats in anticipation for what we’ve spent so much time avoiding, and anxiety chews through me. If someone comes looking for the birthday girl, we’re fucked.
You’ve been fucked since that banana Popsicle.
“I should probably go, Bliss,” I say, struggling to keep my tone level. “We can’t walk into that house together.”
“No, don’t leave.” She stops to think. “Go to the store. My dad forgot the candles. I’ll tell them I asked you to get some.”
I unhook her fingers from my sweater. “Just—you have to calm down, Bliss.”
She holds on to my neck. She pulls me down. She bites my chin, my jaw, my earlobe. “You know what it does to me when you leave. Go get candles and be back.”
I press my forehead to hers and take a deep breath.
“Don’t leave me. Please, not now.”
“Okay,” I say.
I turn my phone on when I get into my car and it lights up just like I knew it would. I rub my nose, and without checking any of the messages Casper’s left, I delete everything but his number.
Baby calls on the way to the store.
“Hurry,” she says.
I walk up and down the aisles until I find the candles, and when I do, there’s pink and white candles, glitter candles, long candles, striped candles, polka-dot, sparklers, candles that look like numbers. I grab the one and the seven. I grab the glitter candles, and the pink and white ones.
I walk away but go back and take one of each.
While I flip through some bullshit fashion magazine in line, trouble finds me.
“Hey, Castor,” cocaine’s main man beckons.
My habit comes to life with a deceitful smile and greedy hands.
I toss the magazine with the candles and turn, but I don’t look and reach in my back pocket for my wallet. I will my posture steady.
“Hey,” I answer.
Casper sets a liter of Mountain Dew and a Slim Jim on the conveyer belt behind my items.
“I’ve been trying to call you.” He pats my back and squeezes my shoulder.
“My phone’s broken.” I pay what I owe, take the receipt, and collect my bags. I walk away, and he doesn’t call me back.
Casper follows me out to the Lincoln.
“I got some new shit,” he says quietly, just between us.
I finally turn and face him. “Not interested, Cas.”
I have one foot in the Continental and the other on the pavement. I’m losing my patience with this guy. Casper is no friend of mine. He’s dirt—he’s a fucking predator, and if he doesn’t back off, I’m going to lay him the fuck out.
“Come on, Dusty.” He leans in closer, untruth and waste personified. “Take a sample.”
I spit on the ground.
My very own bag boy looks around, checking his back before reaching into his pocket and palming Her.
My heart soars. I can feel my cheeks warm …
“Don’t just stand there.” Casper shoves the bag to my chest. His eyes are worried, like I might not accept it.
This is who we are. Casper and I are the youth of the nation. We lack credibility and significance. We run in circles, saying the same shit, fucking the same girls, using the same drugs. We’re a bunch of broken and bent motherfuckers, destroying our minds, overindulging, looking … seeking, but never finding.
We run, avoid, and dodge. We live off excuses. We live to die young.
I clear my burning throat.
I face facts.
It’s in me.
The fucked-up factor.
I’m insignificant and uncredited. I run in circles faster than any of them. I fucked all of those girls before anyone did. I invented bullshit excuses, and I use all the motherfucking drugs. I’m no better than Casper. I’m dirt. I’m waste.
I don’t live for Bliss. I live off her. I drain her. I take. I lean. I use.
I love.<
br />
I love her.
I do.
So fucking much.
Bliss is love to me.
But sometimes …
Love is not enough.
Baby has my heart, but this, Her—cocaine—She tied, sealed, and bolted freewill. She overtakes and overrides. She lives through me.
I look around and shake hands with Cas, taking what he has to give.
“Call me,” he says, walking away.
I sit in my car. My end burns a hole in my hand.
I don’t even wait.
I empty the grocery bags onto the floor and use the magazine I bought for Leigh to spread this cunt. I part Her into sloppy, uneven lines. I split Her wide open.
Choose your last words, cocaine whispers seductively.
I fuck her fast and hard. Lines blend and slide and fuse until I’m snorting a pile. My hands shake. My knees bounce. My heart—not me—my heart cries, no, no, no. It fights me. It makes me choke. It makes me cry.
When I’ve fucked all of her, I push the magazine to the floor and sit back.
I breathe through clenched teeth while tears falls from my so-open eyes, down my cheeks, off my chin. I punch the steering wheel until my knuckles crack and pour. I scream.
Fiends scream.
We do.
We yell.
I told you, cocaine sings. I told you you’d do it.
I run my hands down my face and wipe my tears away. I start the car. I back out of my parking space. My heart beat, beat, beats while black stretches my pupils, and I can feel it. I can feel Her filling the voids Her absence made. I sit taller. I feel better. It’s like fucking magic.
Something’s different, though.
I ache. I feel. I regret.
I know.
My surroundings are liquid. My vision is tilted. My motions are a second ahead of my focus, and my focus is fucked.
I shake my head. I swerve. I almost hit a sedan. They honk. I don’t know which way to go. I pull off the road.
I hold onto the wheel with blood dripping hands. I breathe too fast. I cry more. I yell more.
Nothing helps.
She’s staking claim. She’s marking me the only way one can be marked from the inside.
She’s living off me. She’s draining me.
Unable to move, my head falls back and hot tears pour from my eyes. I can feel myself solidifying into succumbing. It’s unstoppable and too fucking late.
Delinquents (Dusty #2) Page 28