Still, she was surprised when Devin hauled himself to his feet. He had blood on his lip and the beginnings of a swollen eye. Micah must’ve gotten in some jabs while they were rolling around. Good for him, she thought.
Devin looked from Micah to Violet, then back again. “I’m never coming back here again,” he said. “This place is cursed.” He waved his arm in the space between Micah’s house and Violet’s. “Bad people live here.” He narrowed his eyes at Violet, and for a moment, she feared he knew her part in what had happened to his sister. She wondered if he could see the guilt on her face. “Buncha whores and murderers are all that lives here,” he said. And then he walked away.
Violet almost ran after him. She almost did the same thing he’d done to Micah and tackled him from behind, used her body as a missile intent on taking him down. But what would she have done with him once she had him down? And what would he have done in retaliation? Better to let him go than to continue the cycle of attack and defend, attack and defend. At some point, someone had to be the one to let it go. She decided it might as well be her. Let him speak ill of her, of her mother. It didn’t make him much different from anyone else. Hell, even her supposed best friend had. She hadn’t punished Nicole for her words, so she might as well let a drunk guy twice her size off the hook, too.
When he was gone, neither she nor Micah moved, both frozen in stunned silence as his footsteps faded into the darkness. Violet wondered vaguely how he’d gotten there. He must’ve walked. She wondered where the Ames family lived. She’d never thought about it before. She’d never considered where the girl who died had lived. All she’d cared about was that Olivia Ames had been Micah’s girlfriend, had held a position she could only dream of.
“Thanks,” he said. From behind her she heard the rustle of grass that told her he was getting to his feet. Still dazed and breathless, it took him a while. She waited silently as he stood, took a deep breath, and moved toward her. She tried not to think about what she was wearing, or how she hadn’t brushed her teeth, or that they were alone together in the dark.
She turned to look at him. “I didn’t really do anything,” she said, because it was true. She’d screamed at them to stop. She’d lied about her grandmother waiting to call the police if needed.
“If you hadn’t come along,” he said. “I’m not sure what would’ve happened. He was out for . . . I don’t know. Blood or something. It’s like it wasn’t even him. I know—knew—the guy, and I’d never seen him like that before.”
“I guess he’s a mean drunk,” she said.
He chuckled. “You speaking from experience?”
He was standing close enough to touch, close enough that she could smell the adrenaline still clinging to him though the fight was over. “What if I was?” She tried to make herself look tough, experienced, like maybe he didn’t know all there was to know about her. She tried to look like an accused madam’s daughter would look, thinking of Devin’s parting words and feeling shame stir in her belly and begin crawling up to her heart. She had no idea what the daughter of a madam should look like. She had no idea what a madam herself looked like, unless it was her mother.
Like he was reading her thoughts, he said, “I’m sorry for what he said about you. About your mom.”
She nodded, then shrugged. “Doesn’t matter,” she said, ignoring the stupid tears that pricked behind her eyes as a response to his kindness. No one had said “I’m sorry” to her about her mother since Jim Sheridan on that first day.
“You didn’t deserve to get lumped in with me,” he said. He pointed across the street at her house, and she marveled at the fact that neither her grandmother, nor his parents, had woken up through this whole thing. “You should probably keep your distance,” he said, “so that doesn’t keep happening.”
She spun around and gave him a smirk. “You think that’s because of you?” she asked, and laughed. “I guess you haven’t heard what they’ve been saying about me at school.”
He shook his head. “I mostly keep my earbuds in all the time now. Had to drown out their voices.”
“Well, you can probably take them out, because most of the talk is about me now. How I must be like my mom. How I probably work for her after school. It’s . . .” She thought of what some guy—someone who’d never spoken to her before—had said just that day. He’d thrown a dollar at her and said, “Is that the going rate?” as his friends laughed loudly, pushing and shoving each other as they moved en masse down the hall, pleased with themselves. She’d left the dollar on the ground for someone else to find. “It’s pretty bad,” she said.
“Want me to be your bodyguard?” he asked, and pretended to flex his muscles. He held his hands up. “I mean, I would, but I’m honestly just trying to steer clear of everyone, keep my nose clean so I don’t get in any more trouble than I’m already in.”
She nodded. “It’s fine,” she said. “I’m fine.”
He gave her a look. “Now that’s not really true, is it?”
She rolled her eyes, feeling the tears threatening again and doing everything she could to keep them at bay. “What difference does it make?” she said, and her voice was thick in her throat. “There’s not a damn thing I can do about it.”
She felt his arm go around her shoulder and tighten as he gave her a side hug, the kind you’d give a friend. The kind she’d seen him give countless girls through the years. The kind she herself had never imagined being the recipient of. She let him pull her closer, until her head was touching his shoulder. For a second—just one—she let her head rest on his shoulder, then pulled away and gave him her bravest smile.
He looked at her, held her gaze, and for a long moment it was just the two of them breathing. “Why is it that people have the power to make decisions that fuck up other people’s lives?” he asked.
She thought about it, about Olivia and Norah, how their decisions had brought them here, to this yard in the middle of a school night. “I don’t know,” she answered.
“It doesn’t seem fair,” he said.
There were so many things she wanted to say. But something told her not now, not here. So she just said, “It’s not.” She smiled at him, and he smiled back. “What’s not gonna be fair,” she continued, “is when that alarm goes off in the morning.”
His smile widened. “True,” he said. “See you at school?” he asked.
She saw him at school all the time, but he never seemed to see her. She cocked her head, raised her eyebrows. “If you’ll take your earbuds out, I’ll even speak to you.”
He grinned. “Deal.” She started to walk away, knowing enough to take her leave at the right moment, surprised at the instinct kicking in. But his voice stopped her feet from moving. “Hey, Violet?” he called.
She turned and looked back at him. “Yeah?”
He crossed the yard to close the distance between them, coming to stand in front of her. For a moment he didn’t speak, and she wondered what he was up to. His face was impassive as he looked into her eyes. For a panicky moment she feared he was going to kiss her. She thought of her sleep breath. This was not what she wanted for her first kiss. She took a step back to make sure he got the message. Not now, bucko.
“I need your help,” he said. Her face must’ve registered her shock, because he quickly added, “I mean, you don’t have to or anything. I just . . . thought . . .” Then whatever courage he’d mustered up evaporated.
“No, it’s fine. What is it?” She couldn’t stand to see him looking deflated any more than she could stand to see Devin Ames knock him to the ground. She wondered why he hadn’t fought back harder, then remembered what he’d said about staying out of trouble. He’d been willing to let Devin beat the crap out of him if it meant no more cops at his house, no more drama associated with him. That, she realized, is why he’d thanked her. By coming over at all, she’d come to his rescue.
“I, um, wanted to, um . . .”
She guessed at what he was getting at. The nerves, the words
that were hard to get out. Was he going to ask her out? It seemed impossible, yet what else could it be? It was just like on TV when a guy is nervous to ask a girl out. She asked a demure “Yes?” She couldn’t believe this was happening, here, now, with Micah Berg, in his front yard, while she was wearing her pajamas, or at least what passed for them. This, she told herself, would be a moment she would always remember. How special that it was so out of the ordinary. It would be so much more memorable. She smiled at him to encourage him to keep talking, to ask his important question.
“I w-wanted to ask about your m-mom.” He finally stammered out the words, but they were so different from what she’d thought she’d hear that she just blinked a few times, trying to figure out how to process what he’d said. What was he asking? At once she felt both offended and very, very foolish. Of course Micah Berg wasn’t asking her out. Of course he was just like every other guy, turning the news about her mom into something perverted. Because she didn’t know what else to do, she just turned and started walking away fast.
She heard his footsteps behind her and picked up her pace until she was nearly running. She heard his speed pick up, too, his feet hitting the grass, and then the pavement, as he crossed the street, catching up to her with ease as they both reached her front yard at the same time. The grass tickled her bare feet, the dew leaving drops of wetness like rain on her skin as she slowed her pace, admitting defeat. Though the air had taken on the chill of fall, her cheeks were flushed hot with anger. She hoped her grandmother really would, by some miracle, call the cops this time. Micah Berg deserved whatever he got. She hated him for this. Hated herself for running outside in the middle of the night to help him, to save him.
He grabbed her arm, but she twisted away. “Violet, please,” he said, and the desperation in his voice was unmistakable. She couldn’t help it; she turned back to look at him. He was huffing, and his face was red and swollen where Devin had hit him. He would be bruised in the morning.
“What?” she asked, the indignation in her voice as unmistakable as the desperation in his. She set her jaw, willed herself not to cry. She’d been so stupid, thinking he could be interested in her. He was just a stupid jock, riddled with teenage-boy hormones, thinking he could cash in on his proximity to the so-called prostitute’s daughter. “What do you want with my mother?” she asked through gritted teeth.
He glanced at the front of her house, as if he was worried about her grandmother coming outside. “Can we go back to my house? Please? It’s really important.” He hitched his jaw in the direction of his house. “We can go inside and talk there, where it’s private.”
She crossed her arms and glared at him. “You can ask me whatever it is right here. I don’t exactly want your parents to wake up and find me in your house in the middle of the night,” she said.
He shook his head. “They’re out of town,” he said. “Gone to help my sister move into a new apartment. Hers flooded or something.”
“They left you here alone?” she asked, astounded. After everything that had happened, it was hard to believe they’d do that again.
He rolled his eyes at this. “It’s not like I’m gonna do anything again,” he grumbled.
She widened her eyes at him. “You were just brawling with a guy in the middle of the night, on a school night, in your front yard. That’s doing something, Micah.”
He put his hands up and gave her a wounded look. “Hey, I didn’t start that. He texted me, asked to speak to me. Stupid me, I thought maybe he’d had a change of heart, was gonna say he believed me or something. I didn’t know he was gonna start a fight.”
“Whatever,” she said. “I’m not going inside your empty house with you at this time of night.”
He squared his shoulders and glared at her. “What is it you think I’m gonna do? Kill you?” His shoulders dropped and he sighed deeply. “Man, I thought maybe you were different from everyone else. Just forget it,” he said, and began to walk away. He took a few steps.
“Wait,” she said.
He froze and turned back to look at her. She saw the hope there, and she couldn’t bear to dash it. It was a funny thing, she thought, to hold someone else’s hope when lately so many other people had been holding hers in their hard, calloused hands.
“No monkey business,” she said, then instantly regretted her choice of words. She intended to sound tough but came out sounding like a grandma.
He just laughed in response. “You’re a funny girl, Violet,” he said.
He started to walk and motioned for her to follow him. So she did, catching up to him so that they walked side by side. They crossed the street, then his yard, and, this time, went inside the house. Chipper, asleep on the couch, thumped his tail as they walked in but didn’t bother to rise.
“Some guard dog you are,” Micah said to him. “I’m out there getting my ass kicked, and you don’t even bother to bark.” He gestured to the kitchen table for her to sit and opened the fridge. He looked over at her, the light from the fridge illuminating scratches on his face. He was going to look bad tomorrow. “Water?” he asked, holding up a bottle.
She accepted the bottle and twisted the top off, taking a long, grateful gulp and thinking as she did how funny life was; she was inside Micah Berg’s house at 1:12 a.m., drinking water with him at his kitchen table, the two of them completely alone. If she still had a best friend, this would be quite a story to tell her. Nicole probably wouldn’t believe it. Violet herself hardly did. She had a fleeting, panicky thought: It was the middle of the night; maybe she was dreaming. She waited till Micah looked away, reached down, and pinched herself on the arm. It hurt. Nope. This was real.
She took another sip of the water and held up the bottle. “The water was a good idea,” she said. The water was a good idea? Just add that to the monkey business comment, why don’t you? She wished she could reach into the air and retrieve her stupid words. He’d already said she was funny, and she was pretty sure he didn’t mean funny ha ha, but funny odd. Way to reinforce it, she thought. “What was it you wanted to ask me?” Maybe he’d forget she’d said it if she turned his thoughts back to why he’d invited her in.
He looked dubious, or maybe embarrassed. He took a sip of water. “OK, I’m just gonna say it.”
She looked at him, trying to make her face impassive while at the same time desperate to know what it was that he was so nervous to ask her. She nodded once, as if to say it was OK, whatever it was. Inside she wanted to scream, Just say it already!
“Well, you know about your mom, right?”
She refrained from saying duh and just nodded her head.
He shook his head and closed his eyes. “Of course you know about your mom. What I meant is do you know that part of the reason they won’t let her out of jail is because they want her client list and she won’t tell them where it is?”
Though the adults in her life had told her nothing, she’d read whatever she could online. She nodded once, feeling the shame of being Norah Ramsey’s daughter like a scarf around her neck. Sometimes the scarf tightened, and this was one of those times. She could barely breathe as she waited for him to speak.
He took another long pull of the water, a different kind of liquid courage from whatever Devin Ames had been drinking. “I think my dad’s name might be on that list,” he blurted out.
She looked at him, waited for him to meet her eyes. As he did, the scarf loosened and she could breathe again. Shame, it seemed, was best when shared. It didn’t even have to be the same kind of shame.
“Why?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper. She took another sip of water. “I mean why would you think that?”
“I overheard him on the phone. He was talking about it. It sounded like he might . . . know something.” He shook his head. “I could be wrong. I might be. But”—he put the water bottle on the table and studied it—“this family can’t go through one more thing,” he said. “If he were exposed . . .” He looked back at her. “It’ll be the end of us.�
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She felt the prickle of awareness dawning. He was getting at something. Something that involved her. “I don’t—”
He held up his hand before she could say, “Know anything.”
“I don’t expect you to have any magic answers. But I just wanted to say that if you know anything, if you have the faintest clue where she could’ve hidden that client list, well . . .” He shrugged, looked down at the table, inhaled and exhaled loudly before looking up again. “You owe me nothing. I know that. But just, please, tell me. If he is on it, then I want to destroy it.”
“But—”
“I know what you’re going to say: He deserves it. If he did that, he’s a bad guy, my mom should know. Believe me, I’ve thought about all of that. But the truth is, I don’t care about that. If he made a mistake, he made a mistake.” He pressed his palms on the table. “So have I.”
She nodded once, an acknowledgment. She wanted to tell him what she knew about his mistake. She almost did, right then, but decided now was not the time. Later. She would tell him; she would offer to tell others. She would help him fix that if she couldn’t help him fix this. The police had searched their house and found nothing. Violet hadn’t even known what her mother was up to. She’d believed she owned a marketing company. She’d just never known exactly what her mother was marketing.
“My dad stood by me,” Micah continued. “He never doubted my story. He’s a good man, and his name on some list from the past doesn’t change that.”
She nodded again, thinking as she did. Spinning back through times with her mother, wondering if there could be something she had missed, something that seemed innocuous at the time.
“He’s my best friend,” Micah said. “Really, my only friend anymore. I just thought if I could help him out, however possible, I should at least try. After everything he’s done for me.” He drank the last of the water and crushed the bottle, twisting it as the loud crackling noise reverberated through the room, waking Chipper, who sat up and glared in their direction. “Besides, I honestly don’t think my mother could handle it. I think it would be the end of her. Or at the very least, the end of them.”
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