Delinquents (Dusty #2)

by Mary Elizabeth Sarah Elizabeth

  With what little control I have, I unseal my heart and let love run.

  “Tell me a secret, Thomas.”

  “I love you.”

  With my arms useless at my sides, I close my eyes.

  You fucked her, my sickest sadness tells me. You fucked up.

  “You fucked up. You fucked up,” I whisper over and over.

  It was me.

  It was always me.

  There is no Her.

  There’s no She whispering in my ear, chewing on veins, kicking hearts.

  There’s only me.

  All along.

  I’m the tempter.

  I’m the sick sadness.

  I’m the cunt.

  It’s my deal.

  A dusty delinquent.

  Mini-foul to full on filthy.

  A monster.

  Unlocking the front door of her parents' house, Bliss steps inside furnace-heated, pumpkin spice scented shelter. She takes off her scarf and warms as she walks toward the kitchen where fresh bread cools on the table next to a note.

  Baby, it says. If you get this, I'm at Apple Fest.

  There's a heart around a smaller heart.

  All my love, Mom.

  Bliss breaks off a corner of bread, flushes it down the garbage disposal, locks the front door, and climbs the stairs at a steady, normal pace while I beat as best as I can around numbing hurt.

  My blood doesn't flow smoothly.

  It stops and starts around my breaking.

  Every opening and closing of my valves aches.

  Her pace isn't rushed, but Bliss has been waiting for this. When she gets to the bathroom and stands alone in front of the mirror, seeking me, I make it everything but easy for the girl who forced a grudge into my chambers.

  Breathing purposefully, she stretches her fingers all the way out. She forces air into lungs that surround me and glares into eyes that are red-rimmed but painfully dry. She hasn't cried since she pulled it together for love that was supposed to come back four days ago and didn't.

  Low on strength and weak with absence, I beat poorly, only because in doing so, I harbor hope that maybe, just maybe, she'll think of him.

  Bliss washes her face and closes her eyes. She hasn't eaten in days, and when she braces her hands against the counter and leans, she's noticeably undernourished.

  Cry, she pleads with me. Please.

  Give me something. Anything. Please.

  I fight beating.

  This is her fault.

  Closing her fingers into fists, Bliss screams as she slams them against the counter.

  He left you, she digs at me. He doesn't want you.

  Hate him.

  She scratches cuts into her palms when I don't listen, and I feel the sting, but it doesn't register anywhere else. Out of pure protection, her mind refuses Leighlee Bliss any more hurt.

  Fucking hate him, Bliss demands.

  I pulse his name through her veins, half out of fear of being buried deeper and half in hope that she'll give me something in return: a single thought of blue eyes, what his laugh used to sound like, anything.

  Swallowing hard, love's false witness fulfills my fear. She withholds air violently tightly in her throat, and once upon a time, I'd have protested such a punishment. I'd have beaten faster and fought her for the oxygen that our entire body is dependent on, but this fight is old and too common now. I know every step too well.

  They're numbered with as much awful simplicity as one, two, three.

  Try.

  Fail.

  Carry on.

  Be merciful, I plead. Say death.

  But Bliss is merciless.

  She swallows hard and locks me down, all the way deep where only Thomas has ever touched—where only he can reach—and leaves me to relinquish alone.

  IT'S BEEN a week and one day.

  Love made his choice and now, he and I both get nothing, because nothing is what hurts the very most.

  Drained and weary from surviving, Bliss sinks into a hot bath up to her ears. I can feel her listening, trying to hold on to my flawed rhythm, and I let her.

  I'm weak from living without too, and I know she's searching for him in me.

  The first memory that's clear enough to make my pulse skip is his voice.

  “Here.”

  It's feeble and pale in comparison to the real thing, but as the rest of Thomas comes into focus behind her closed eyes, my beats fill with love.

  She remembers him walking toward her with a gift bag while she sat up in his bed, grinning like crazy. I remember glowing.

  She remembers the smell of home and the feel of the softest cotton, “Is it dumb that I gave it to you?” and blue eyes looking at us for just a fraction of a moment longer before he turned around so she could take off her dress and put on his sweater. She remembers him offering his hand and how she held it until she fell asleep, and nothing hurts, because I remember him touching her fingers all through the night. She remembers waking up with his arm around us for the first time, and if I had wings I'd flip and flutter and fly.

  Pulling a deep breath, Bliss opens her eyes, taking me from memory.

  I despise her, but she gave to me.

  Fair isn't fair, but it's how we work.

  Trembling, I open up and let precious hurt out.

  Wincing in the water, she curls in on herself, suffering, and I give her another beat. A small, choked sob slips from her, and tears pour down her cheeks.

  MINUTES TAKE hours that last for days, and each morning finds Bliss the same as the one before it.

  Sore, chosen over, and left behind.

  Not strong enough, not good enough, never enough.

  Gutted and stuck and fucked in love.

  Sorrowful down to her sinew, she wills sluggish muscles and slender bones into submission without waiting for eyes or ears or lungs to adjust against the cold wall of waking. She washes over diminishing aches from the last time she held love and dresses in clean clothes that hang loose over his fading marks.

  I beat blood toward every one of his impressions, longing for all that's left of our boy to stay while she makes perseverance look effortless and youthful.

  School is difficult because it means seeing a girl she used to know get out of Petey's classic Caprice every morning. Blond again and smiling without a single care, Rebecka reminds us both so much of the one we love most, and it makes my work so much harder.

  Frail and alone and running on empty, I'm only a heart, and in truth, I'm half of that.

  DAYS STRETCH into nights that last for weeks and find Bliss crying at four in the morning. It's tapering off because it begins to take effort, and I'm as harrowed as she by what life has become.

  Perishing.

  Curled in the middle of her bed, she's near passing out when the pull overwhelms us. Sharp, more like a jerk, our soul's sudden presence is all-consuming.

  Sore fingers tremble and curl. Chapped and tender from crying lips tingle and part. Aching arms and knees shake, and cold toes bend against neglected blankets. Pupils swell and tiny ossicles strain to gather every sound from the air as Bliss jumps out of bed.

  My agony is nothing in this moment.

  Thomas is here, and I'm wild to get free.

  Desperate for his hands, I flutter toward her throat, and at the foot of the bed, her phone vibrates.

  He's here, I pound against our ribs, delirious with love's proximity. He's here. He's here. He's here.

  Her phone stops just to start again, but she moves toward the window instead of her bed so that she can see what I already know.

  One floor down and moonlight lit, shifty love waits at the door Bliss has kept locked every night since he left. Hood up, he has left hand in his pocket, covering his killer while his right holds his phone.

  The girl I keep alive turns from the window and sits at her desk. She watches as one voicemail becomes two, then three, then four, and checks them with her fingers barely wrapped around her phone, holding it out, inches fr
om her ear.

  “Open the door.” Dusty's voice is strong, but bitten back, controlled. “Leigh—”

  For a few seconds there's nothing but wind.

  “Leighlee, come open the door, baby.”

  One after another, his messages incense.

  “Let me in, Leigh. I swear to fucking God—”

  And degenerate.

  “Do you want me to die out here?”

  Pleas and demands echo between threats and ultimatums whispered violently with claims and counterclaims.

  “I'll set this house on fire, Bliss.”

  She closes her eyes.

  I beat like I'm dying.

  “Princess.” He sniffs. “Please …”

  I shake the curved bars of my cage.

  Let him in, I cry. Don't do this.

  Bliss sets the phone down after the fifth voicemail. It's ice-cold angry.

  “You're doing this.”

  She concentrates on a single, slow breath, and I clamor and pound like the beast she's turned me into. Flaring up, I pump too fast to get enough blood into each beat. It shortens her inhales and makes her vision gray around the edges, but Bliss contends. She pulls shaky legs up and rests her throbbing head on brittle knees, and when I still don't calm, she presses the heels of clammy hands over her sternum, into my septum.

  I strive and agonize and grind beats against her, but she doesn't let up. Thomas doesn't leave another message, and when he walks away, I split open cuts in my tissue that are shaped like back-scratches from another. I rip mostly-healed scars that he cut into me years ago, the very first time he made us cry. I burden her shoulders and break her resolve with “I wasn't with Clarissa.”

  “I've never been with Mixie or Katie.”

  “I wouldn't lie to you.”

  “Get the fuck out if you don't like it.”

  I don't have arms, but I bear them. I dig teeth and knuckle and raw hurt against this girl. I make her feel everything.

  Hate him if you need to, but call him back here.

  I flood her with savage, ruthless beats, and as she moves back to the window, I overrun her with first-time fast, backseat-crazy, and unlocking-the-front-door-in-a-thunderstorm beats. I work more forcibly than I ever have, praying at the top of our lungs for her to lift the glass separating me from love.

  Refusing another breath, Bliss curves her fingers into fists so tight her knuckles ignite.

  Dusty's turned away, but he hasn't left. He paces and shakes his head and smokes. His cigarette sticks between his lips when he faces us again and bends his right leg, kicking the door so hard the porch beams quake and the window we're looking out vibrates. The dogs next door bark, and down the hall, Thaddeus sits up in bed with Teri clinging to him, both of them waiting to hear something more before they move.

  Fear freezes through my veins, but Bliss is not about to look away now.

  Pulling up the hood that fell back, Thomas doesn't kick the door again. He doesn't run or hide or make any attempt to hurry away. He simply turns his back and walks right through her mother's yard, flicking his cigarette into the flowers as he goes.

  WEEKS WEAR on me.

  Bliss plays her part well, but she's a shadow of a ghost walking behind who everyone thinks she is, and Oliver doesn't make that any easier. He looks closer than anyone else, and all I feel under his consideration is tender, heavy, and spiteful.

  “Hey.” His pupils dilate as he looks at her, and her buried need to lean yearns toward him. His steps lighten and his fingers curve the slightest bit tighter around his backpack straps, but there's no change in this person's pulse. Even as her steps fall in line with his, Oliver's heart says nothing to me.

  “Hey.” Bliss smiles back. It doesn't go as deep as his, but it's not completely contrived. Some of the tension in her shoulders relaxes and some of the stiffness in her neck eases as she takes his offered arm. There's relief in his reliable kindness, but his heart simply lubs and dubs.

  While the rest of our girl finds a solace, I wane in disregard.

  But I'm what keeps us going.

  Even when I hate her for it.

  I REMAIN contentious as the end of November freezes into winter, but I'm wearing out. I keep our blood flowing, but it's too thin. It isn't only love that we're starving for anymore, but actual sustenance.

  While our wasteland of a girl sleeps without dreaming, she fills our lungs with air and each life-forcing beat takes all my strength. Wind muffles most sounds outside, but even between it and my enfolding debilitation, I recognize the low roll of the Lincoln from down the block.

  I wake up widely.

  The sound of his car door opening and steps that are steady with intent are music to me. I hammer against our sore chest, pummeling blood through our drowsy veins, but it's the sound of Bliss' phone vibrating that helps me wake her.

  She silences his call and doesn't know it, but one floor down, love turns the handle on the side door. It's locked as usual, and I endeavor frantically in the dark. Sitting up in bed, bending legs that burn to run to him beneath her too-light weight, she refuses his second call and listens to the first message.

  “Let me in, L.” His voice is thick in his throat like he hasn't used it in days. “You said I'd never be without you. You'd never take yourself from me, remember?”

  All ten of her fingers clench as she pulls the phone away, resisting the urge to throw it and scream until everything gives out.

  He calls again.

  And again.

  Forever, I remind this fool. You said forever.

  Throbbing life through our limbs, making our fingers and toes pound with my potential, I push pressure through rhythm until her vision blurs and her hearing clouds. I make her mind resound my cry, and it forces her to move.

  The second she's to her window, love looks up, and I weep beats.

  I recognize this person, but Bliss can't.

  He's all ours, but he's pale and sunken around eyes like dice that were always loaded.

  Dusty's lost.

  Turning her back, Bliss walks away and shuts off the light. She gives love the same darkness she gives me, and sits frozen on the edge of her bed while marrow boils and pops inside her bones. Her joints scream and her stomach twists to turn inside out. Every inch of skin cries for closeness and contact, and under all the throes of prodigal reprisal, I hear what I ache for more than anything else.

  Our boy's heart is faint, an echo of an echo almost lost to cruel wind, but I hear it seeking me.

  Love?

  It's cutting tears.

  Love?

  Calling home.

  Love?

  I fall, and as Bliss closes her eyes to keep control, I scrape and swear against her.

  I curse.

  I hate.

  I beg.

  Please.

  Don't do this.

  Tiny blood vessels around her eyes break under how tightly she fights.

  Let go, she pleads back at me. Please, let go.

  I drop beats like bombs while Bliss sheds red from our palms. I rise higher and she fights harder, and in the middle of all of it, glass smashes and breaks outside.

  The neighbor's dogs go insane, and more glass shatters.

  Rushing downstairs, we make it just in time to see Dusty through the lace curtains that hang in the bay window of the living room. Baseball bat in his left hand, he heads back to the Continental door he left open and gets in without a glance back. He doesn't peel out or speed off. He just starts the car and rounds the wheel with one hand, driving away half a second before Thaddeus rushes down the stairs.

  In a tee shirt and boxers, with his gray and black hair going every direction, the judge heads straight to the front door. His socks are pushed down from sleep, but his shoulders are squared and his heart rate is accelerated, but steady as he unbolts the front door. Prepared and willing to go to any extreme to protect what's behind him, he lifts his arms, and we see the gun in his hands.

  “Leighlee—”


  Grabbing her daughter from the window, Teri pulls her behind herself, and they hide around the corner of the room. Bliss holds on out of shock, and after a few minutes, her father returns.

  “It's okay,” he calls.

  The heavy sound of his gun being set on the table next to the door resounds louder than his voice as Teri goes to him. Bliss follows, pretending to be the kind of scared they expect her to be.

  “What happened?” her mother asks. Reaching back, she takes her miracle by the hand and brings her close, stroking strawberry-blond hair.

  “Somebody was driving off when I opened the door, but I couldn't make out the plates or the car,” Thad says, looking only at his wife. Reaching out, he gently disconnects her from Bliss.

  “Come out here,” he says, his tone assuring as he leads her toward the door and leaves his gun.

  Bliss refuses to be disregarded.

  “What?” she asks, stepping forward, trailing her parents. “What is it?”

  Her mother turns strict eyes in our direction and her father finally looks at us.

  “Alright,” he says. “Come on.”

  Outside, Teri gasps and covers her mouth.

  We heard the glass.

  We saw the bat.

  But the Rabbit's smashed out headlights are more than an unforgettable sight. They're a sign, a message, and I thrum love's name like a victory march, because I know.

  He'll be back.

  “IT'S LIKE, six miles away. Don't make me be the only senior that's riding with her parents.”

  Bliss will fake-cry if she has to.

  “Just to school and back,” she says, then softer, “It's not like I have anywhere else to go.”

  “Just for today, Bliss.”

  Starting the day negotiating simple freedom isn't easy.

  Seeing Petey visit Becka at lunch time is harder.

  Keeping her facade up becomes an undertaking for every step and breath, and when Tanner's best friend Bryan falls into step next to her, it only gets worse.

  “Hey, Leighlee,” he says with a too-sly smile and boy-slick intentions. “How goes it?”

  Pressing her fingers into skinny denim pockets, she's polite to him as fabric stings her wounded palms.

  “Hi,” she replies coolly.