by Bailey B
Monica sits up again, her lips purse together making her hollow cheeks even more skeletal. “You’re an ungrateful little bitch.”
“What do I have to be grateful for?” I scoff. The piss yellow walls from all the cigarette smoke? Piles of dirty dishes in the sink that I refuse to wash because I don’t live here. The cockroaches that scurry from one leftover fast food container to another because her so-called friends don't know how to throw shit away? Or how about your pimp who broke into my room and tried to rape me?
Monica’s up and in my face before I can finish my thoughts. Bone chillingly thin hands on her scrawny hips. For a half dead thing, she moves fast. “I keep a roof over your head. If not for me, you’d be out on the streets.”
Mommy dearest is delusional. She still thinks I hide in my room at night, pretending monsters aren’t real. Newsflash. They are. She let them into our house and now they claw their way into my dreams. “Keep telling yourself that, Mom.”
SMACK.
My fists ball at my sides. I clench my teeth and look back up at Monica’s smug expression, ignoring my throbbing cheek. She crosses her arms, proud of herself. Like she just caught me sneaking out in the middle of the night. Mother of the year right here. I roll my tongue across my teeth and nod. I’m done. Done talking to her. Done being here. Just done.
She arches a drawn on brow. “You got something to say?”
11
Piper
“You’re fucking stupid.” The notion that someone knows I’m here should be terrifying, but I’d recognize the voice anywhere; raspy from too many years of smoking with a subtle hint of his mother’s Italian accent.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I say shutting the door behind me. I rub my cheek. Monica hit the same spot Tad did a couple weeks ago. I’ll be lucky if it doesn’t bruise again.
Bane, my tattoo artist and best friend on this side of town, holds his hand out. I shake it, our usual greeting, and step in for a hug— an unusual part of our greeting. My small arms wrap around his hard frame, clad in dark blue jeans and a heavy metal T-shirt.
I ignore the pressure in my chest building with each millisecond we touch because, like Cooper, he needs to know I’m okay. He wraps one arm around me, dozens of needles spread down my spine.
“Woah, Piper.” He takes a step back. Like Cooper, he knows my issues with touch, which means he realizes how special this moment is. “What was that for?”
I blink back tears and smile, then shrug. I owe Bane everything. He kept me safe when I ran to his house covered in blood. He took me to the shower, stripped me down, and cleaned me off. No questions asked. He covered for me when the goons came knocking. Kept me hidden for a few days until it was safe to move me. Without him, I’d probably be dead. No… I’d definitely be dead. “How are you?”
“Not too bad, actually.” I lean against the wall and prop one foot up. Even though I just saw him when he did my tattoo, I miss the way things used to be. I miss the way we’d hang out every night. How he’d walk me home to make sure I arrived safely, practically tucked me in while threatening any John who looked my way. I guess I just miss him.
“I see this. You’re practically glowing.”
I roll my eyes so hard I’m surprised they don’t fall out of my head. “Bite me.”
“Tell me when.” He grins but that smile falls as quickly as it came. “Bad news, Love.”
Bane’s a grizzly bear and about as scary as they get around here. At five-foot-eleven, the guy is stout. All muscle and covered with more tattoos than Travis Barker. But it’s not his appearance that people fear. His dad is Gerald, the dealer Monica sold my virginity to, the most dangerous, heartless man in the tri-county area.
Bane lived with his mom until she overdosed five years ago. Since then, he’s been under the protection of his dad’s crew, living in one of the man’s apartments, but not affiliated with the business. However, if Bane says to leave the area, anyone related to the crew scatters or they die. I don’t think he would actually kill anyone, but with his dad’s reputation lingering people don’t stick around to find out.
We take the stairs, one step at a time, enjoying each other’s company even if our conversation is weighted. “There’s a bounty on your head. Fifty-thousand to the person that brings you to Gerald alive when he gets out.”
I stop dead in my tracks, two steps from the bottom, my heart fluttering faster than a cheetah on crack. Fuck. I assumed Gerald was making some effort to find me but hearing Bane’s words validates my fears. I look around again. There are no eyes that I can see, but that doesn’t mean someone we don’t know isn’t watching. “Is that why you’re at my mom’s apartment, to collect me?”
I already know the answer. Bane wouldn’t betray me like that. Our history goes back to before I got picked up by CPS. We lived in the same apartment building back in the day. His mamma used to feed me when mine was too busy to remember I existed. Flash forward to when I moved back across the tracks almost four years ago. Monica moved to a new building, much to my disappointment, but somehow Bane knew I’d returned. He came to my door and pulled me into a hug the moment I opened it. Before I had a chance to speak. Before I could ask who he was, not that I needed to. He found me and has been my guardian on this side of the tracks ever since.
“Never, Pipes,” Bane takes a step closer and smiles down at me. His shoulders round, fingers clenching and unclenching at his sides. He wants to touch me, and assure me that he’s got my back, but he won’t. “I knew you’d come for the check. I wanted to warn you.”
I relax, but only a little. My life’s still on the line. Even under the protection of Bane, every second I waste in this shitty neighborhood brings me that much closer to my demise. “I’m a dead girl walking. Got it.”
He sits on the bottom step, his broad frame filling most of the space. “May tenth.”
I feel the color drain from my face. No.
“No,” I whine, falling to the ground beside him, my dreams and plans crumbling all at once. It can’t be the tenth. If I don’t walk, any hope I had at a semi-decent paying job after high school goes out the window.
Once again, Life’s fucked me.
“Graduation?”
“Yeah, it’s May fifteenth.”
Bane pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He slips one slender stick between his lips and holds the pack out for me. I shake my head. I don’t smoke, hardly ever drink, and damn sure don’t do drugs. Covering the end with his hand, he flicks the spinner on his lighter and sucks in a breath. “Fuck,” he says on an exhale. “Can you still get your diploma if you skip it?”
I shake my head. My heart’s about to burst out of my chest and run across town to find out without me. I take Bane’s lighter and play with the spinner. “Don’t know, but I can find out.”
“Do it. I’ve got a guy on the inside, I’ve heard what Gerald’s got planned for you,” Bane pauses. He rests his hand on mine. My gaze drifts upward, meeting his. Green eyes brimmed with worry stare into mine. “He can’t have you, Piper.”
“I’ve waited a long time for this,” his deep voice purrs.
My eyes flutter open to the sound of a door clicking shut. The room’s spinning like an amusement park ride, only it’s far from enjoyable, and everything’s blurry. I shouldn’t have drunk so much, but a girl only turns eighteen once. I start to sit up until a hand pushes me back down.
“Shhhh,” he says.
The bed dips as someone sits on top of me. Adrenaline kicks in and my brain begins to work again. My vision clears, the room stops spinning and what’s left of my drunken-hangover is gone. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get off me!” I scream. My fists beat against a mass of blubber, sticking to a sweat stained shirt.
Gerald, my mom’s dealer, laughs and unbuckles his duck-taped belt. “I paid a pretty penny to have you, Piper. You’re finally a woman tonight.”
I suck in a breath, frozen underneath his weight. Monica couldn’t have sold my virgi
nity. She wouldn’t. But deep down, I know that's a lie. Monica doesn’t have a motherly bone in her body. If not for the government benefits—food stamps, housing assistance, and a monthly stipend—I would have been out on the street the week Child Services moved me back in.
“Two hundred dollars for one night with Monica’s pretty little girl.” Gerald runs a cold, fat finger down my cheek. “Mommy dearest wouldn’t budge at first, but when I cut off her supply she caved. Desperate for it like a cat in heat.”
I won’t let this happen. I refuse to lose my virginity to an obese drug dealer with a god complex. Adrenaline pumps through my veins, freeing my body from its statue like state. I beat my fists against Gerald’s chest. Try to wiggle and push him off me. He shifts his body, maybe because of me or maybe by his own doing, either way the change in his weight distribution is killing my legs. “I’ll pay whatever you want, just get off me, Gerald!”
“Quit your fussing.”
I lift my knees a fraction of an inch, wiggle my hips, press my hands against the mattress to pull myself from underneath him, but Gerald’s too heavy. So, I try something else. I scream, “Heeelll—”
A fist the size of a softball hits my cheek, silencing me. The world turns black for a moment then comes into focus again in spotty circles. I stretch my jaw. Pain radiates up my cheek and down my neck but I can still move it. I don’t think isn’t broken. I wipe the blood from my lip. Gerald takes hold of that hand first, then the other, holding them above my head. He wraps something around my wrists, tying me to the bed frame. I wiggle. Tug. Pull. Nothing.
Shit just took a turn for the worst and I’m officially scared. Tears flow from me like a faucet that’s wide open. “Please don’t do this. Think about Bane. He’ll hate us both.”
Gerald laughs, apparently uninterested in what his son thinks of him. He fists the neck of my tank top and in one swift motion my shirt’s ripped open. A calloused hand cups my breast, squeezing so hard it feels like he’s about to rip it off. His other hand slips beneath the band of my shorts, his fingers touching me where no man has been before. Nails scrape at my insides.
“You’re so fucking tight.”
I whimper, too scared to move lest it makes the pain worse. Tampons suck, but this feels like a million razor blades making tiny cuts between my legs.
Another finger.
Mascara from earlier in the night stains my cheek. I turn my head, biting my lip to keep from screaming. I can’t imagine what sex feels like. I don’t want to find out.
I have to do something to make it stop. I open my eyes and scan my bedside table, a glimmer of blue and silver catching my attention.
Gerald takes my chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing me to look at him. “You will watch. You will scream. And you will remember that I own you.”
I wake up trembling, drenched in sweat, my shirt sticking to whatever I’m lying on. My breaths come in shaky bursts as I look around. Dim lights. Blue benches. Black windows. I’m still on the bus. I crashed on the bus.
When I sat down after my shift at the Red Onion it was only ten-thirty but now… I pull my phone out of my shoulder bag and look at the screen, ignoring the two dozen text messages from Cooper and his three voicemails. One AM. I passed out for almost four hours. What the hell is up with me not setting my alarms? I grab my bag, stuff my phone inside, and walk down the narrow aisle to the front bench.
Sheila, the driver, smiles at me through the large mirror above the windshield. “Morning, Pumpkin.”
Before moving back in with the Harris’ this year I spent many nights on this bus. Sheila would be ready with a pillow and blanket, picking me up at the start of her shift at nine and dropping me off at school at six whenever I needed her. No questions asked. She was a godsend.
I slide into the bench nearest her. The bus is empty except for Homeless Fred who’s passed out in the middle row. “Where are we?”
“A1A. Fixing to be at my Casa Linda stop. It’s not on my route, but I can circle down to Delaware then take you home if you want. Unless you’re back at the one house again. I can take you there too, Sugar.”
Rex lives in the Venetian Village off Casa Linda. I don’t want to go home and answer Coopers questions. He means well, but right now I need a friend, not a dad. And I damn sure don’t want to go back to sleep. I think Rex said he was having a party. Then again, it would be my shit luck that everyone’s already left. Whatever, I’ll give it a shot. I shake my head. “Nah, I’ll get off at the next stop.”
We arrive at Casa Linda’s community gate a few minutes later. Sheila parks the bus but doesn’t immediately open the door. Her gaze rakes over me, a concerned look on her face. “You sure you’re alright, Pumpkin?”
I sling my bag over my shoulder and stand. “Yup, just a bad dream.”
A cloudless night smiles down on me as I walk the deserted road. Thousands of bright stars twinkle in a moonless sky. A lifetime ago I would have laid on the hood of Bane’s late nineties model Lincoln, listening to him talk about the constellations. He loved astronomy. Now, they’re just one more reminder of the life I’ve had to give up.
Dozens of overpriced imports linger along the street like a beacon to Rex’s house. Mercedes. Lexus. Ferrari. BMW. It’s a carjacker’s heaven. Just for the hell of it, I touch the handle of the one nearest me. A sleek black BMW that probably belongs to some rich bitch at school who can’t stand me. The handle lifts, the door opens. No alarm.
Idiot.
I slip inside, leaving the door ajar. The tan leather is smooth, flawless. I run my hands over the steering wheel, imagining what it would be like to have a car of my own. Not this one. I don’t need something this fancy. Just something. The only thing that’s mine is my clothes, and I don’t have much at that.
The memory of my nightmare hangs over me like a shadow. This is why I try not to sleep. Everytime I close my eyes bits and pieces of that night come back to haunt me. Most of the time I wake before anything real happens. Sometimes it’ll be flashbacks of the party, or me stumbling into my room, or the sound of the door creaking open, waking me. But tonight…I shake my head. My hands tremble. Each breath is a task of its own. I need to forget.
I sigh and let my head fall against the back of the plush seat. The silver cap of a bottle hiding in the passenger door catches my eye. Vanilla Rum. I grab it, twist the top off the half empty bottle, and bring the rim to my lips. It’s sweet. Sickeningly sweet, but for a moment Gerald’s face is gone. My trembling hands steady and I take the easiest breath I’ve taken all night. I take another swallow and get out, slamming the door shut.
I’ve avoided alcohol because of that night. I can't help but think that if I hadn’t been so fucked up, I could have woken sooner, stopped it before things went as far as they did. But if drinking makes the memories go away then fuck it. I take another sip. The overly-sweet flavor becoming more tolerable with each step, each swallow.
For the first time in a long time, I feel alright.
12
Rex
“Rex!” Piper squeals when I step onto the back patio. I went inside to piss and like a birthday wish come true, she’s here. I missed her this past week. As much as I wanted to call, I couldn’t. I promised Gretchen a distraction free week for her birthday. Too many days I spent on my phone, paying attention to people who didn’t matter, instead of giving her the time of day. I took Gretchen for granted and this past week was my happy-birthday-I'm-sorry-I-appreciate-you present. Which meant from the moment she picked me up from the airport, my phone was off.
Piper’s practically glowing under the moonless sky, free of all the troubles she normally carries around. Her head tilts, a sexy smile gracing her deep red lips. A mostly empty bottle of what looks like Rum slips from her hands and falls to the floor, forgotten. She runs over to me, throwing her arms around my neck.
I pull Piper tight against my chest, lifting her off her feet, relishing this moment. I know it might be awhile before I get to have her like this agai
n. From everything I’ve gathered, Piper hates all human contact, but for some reason she likes me. I drink her in, her soft curves molding against my hard edges. After not near enough time, I set her back on her feet. I know I’m pushing my luck, but my hands settle on her hips.
Glossy grey eyes look up to me. So light. So happy. They crush my soul because as much as I love seeing Piper so free, it’s fake. She’s drunk and from everything I’ve figured out, this is unusual.
Piper chews on her bottom lip. She rises onto her toes, pressing her mouth against mine. Her lips are softer than the petals of a rose. She tastes like vanilla mixed with pure desire. I thread my fingers through her hair, ruining her ponytail, deepening the kiss. Our tongues dance together, discovering more of each other with each passing second. She groans into my mouth, pulling me further down the rabbit hole that is Piper. I know I shouldn’t let myself fall into her lips, nothing good can come of it. But she kissed me first.
Piper pulls back, her lips swollen from pressing against mine. Heavy lids hide most of her eyes. “Mmm,” she grins. “You’re good at that.”
Piper drifts to the center of the room and dances to a Top-40 song by herself. Her hips sway, dipping low then coming back up again. It’s a beautiful sight to see, even if she is clumsy and drunk. I step forward, ready to claim her as mine again when someone claps their hand on my shoulder, “My man!”
I look behind me and am met with brown hair and bloodshot eyes. Irritated at his timing, I force a grin. Every second I spend talking to this jackass is that much longer I’m away from Piper. I’ve already spent nine painstaking days wondering what it would be like to have her in my arms. Now that I know, I want her back in them as soon as possible. “Hey, Logan.”