Skin (44 Chapters #1)

by B. B. Easton

  As they peeled away, it slowly dawned on me that I was not going to die. I blinked and looked around, realizing that everyone had come outside, including Trevor, who had been watching the spectacle from the safety of the front porch.

  He hadn’t tried to protect me.

  He left me out there to die.

  Trevor didn’t fucking care about me. He was just like everybody else—too chicken shit to stand up to Knight, but too voyeuristic to look away.

  Everybody except for August, who was nowhere to be seen.

  I picked my cup up off the driveway—I didn’t even remember dropping it—and pushed my way through the crowd over to the keg. Trevor reached for my arm as I passed him, but I snatched it away.

  “Are you okay?”

  I ignored him. I wasn’t giving those fuckers two shows in one night. I was going to get wasted, and I was going to bed.

  “BB, come here.” A hand pulled on my still-sore elbow from behind.

  “What?” I snapped over my shoulder.

  “Talk to me.”

  I huffed and threw my empty cup to the ground—that time on purpose—and let Trevor pull me into the house, down a hallway, and into a tiny bathroom. We didn’t do much talking, though. We mostly tore each other’s clothes off.

  I was pissed off—at him, at Angel, at Knight, at the whole fucking world—but when I was in Trevor’s arms I at least felt better than when I wasn’t. So I assumed that getting into his pants would make it all just go away.

  I unfastened Trevor’s belt and fly, desperate to lose myself in him, and discovered, much to my surprise, that he wasn’t even hard. Not even a tiny little bit.

  Trevor blew out a breath and tilted his head back in frustration. “Goddamn Lithium.”

  I looked up at him with my eyebrows pulled together. “You took Lithium tonight?” Even I knew that wasn’t a party drug.

  “No, I take Lithium,” he said, zipping his pants back up. “For depression. And cutting.”

  “Jesus. You cut yourself?”

  “Not since I started on the Lithium, but…it has side effects. Especially when I drink.”

  I should have felt bad for the guy, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I had come there looking for comfort and sweet fuck all, but instead all I found was a houseful of pussies who wouldn’t stand up for me, and one in particular who couldn’t even get it up for me.

  I was done. I waited until Trevor disappeared into the crowd of delinquents in his living room, then I grabbed my shit and walked to Juliet’s house. It was at least two miles away, but I let my utter, soul crushing disappointment in the human race fuel me.

  When I got to her house it was well after midnight, so I used the key under the planter to let myself in. I tiptoed to Juliet’s room, pulled off my boots, and crawled into bed with what felt like my last remaining friend.

  The next morning Juliet seemed happy to see me. While I got ready for work I told her everything that had happened the night before, and she told me that things hadn’t been going that great with Tony, either. The more she tried to talk to him about getting his shit together for the sake of the baby, the more he seemed to be hiding things from her. Just the night before Tony had left with Carlos Alvarez and, obviously, hadn’t come home yet.

  Man, I felt like an asshole. I thought I had problems. Juliet had just turned sixteen and she was about to have a fucking baby with a gang-affiliated drug dealer. How was that for perspective?

  Juliet drove me to work in Tony’s Corvette. Her belly barely fit behind the wheel. She drove like a paranoid grandma, but when Madonna’s “Holiday” came on the radio we cranked that shit up and sang at the top of our lungs, and—for one fleeting moment—allowed ourselves to act our age.

  I hugged Juliet and her big belly when she dropped me off in front of Pier 1 Imports and told her that I loved her. I don’t know why. I just felt like she needed to hear it. As she pulled away, I could have sworn I heard the sound of Knight’s engine roaring in the distance. I froze like a deer in headlights—listening, looking—but the sound got farther away instead of closer.

  Oh, thank God.

  I blew out a breath and headed into work, eager to focus on something meaningless for a change.

  After a few hours at work, I ducked outside for a smoke break and saw that I had six missed calls and three voicemails, all from Trevor. Jesus. I listened to the voicemails right away, expecting to hear, “Where did you go last night? I was worried sick. Blah, blah, blah,” but instead Trevor was asking about August. He wanted to know if I’d heard from him, if I knew where he was.

  In his last voicemail Trevor simply said, “Call me.”

  I call him back with a boulder in the pit of my stomach. Trevor answered on the first ring.

  “BB?”

  “Sorry I’m just now calling you back. I’m at w—”

  “Did you hear about August?” he interrupted.

  “Um, no. What about August?” I asked, the boulder in my stomach turning into bile.

  “Shit. BB…August is dead.”

  BB.

  August.

  Dead.

  “What?” I heard myself ask.

  “I’m so sorry. I know he was your friend. I guess at some point last night he left the party, and he…he killed himself.”

  “How?” I needed more information. Nothing was making any sense.

  “He jumped off the water tower. The cops found his body this morning.”

  The world was spinning out from under me. “Can I come over?”

  “I, um, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” Trevor’s voice sounded distant and shaky.

  Oh no. No, no, no.

  “Trevor, did Knight come back last night? After I left?”

  Trevor was quiet for a long time and then finally said, “I just…we just can’t, okay?”

  “What did he do to you? Trevor, tell me what happened!”

  Silence.

  “Trevor?!”

  “He didn’t do anything, okay? It’s just that…he will. He saw you at my house, BB. He knows where I live now. If we keep seeing each other...I mean, what do you want me to do? I can’t fight that guy.”

  I couldn’t believe my fucking ears. Every word out of Trevor’s mouth was like a fresh knife to the gut.

  “So let me get this straight,” I seethed. “You basically called to tell me that my childhood best friend is dead, and, oh by the way, you’re breaking up with me because you’re too chicken shit to stand up to my ex-boyfriend. Does that about sum it up? Anything else you want to throw on the pile?”

  “I’m sorry,” Trevor said. “For what it’s worth, I really am sorry. But, before you hang up on me, there is one more thing I have to tell you.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ. Just say it!”

  “August left you a note.”

  I offered to sign my entire paycheck over to my coworker if she’d let me borrow her car. She was a single mom with a pile of medical bills from a sick kid, so I knew she needed the money. I told her I’d bring it back in a few hours, but she said she didn’t need it until she got off work that night. I thanked her profusely as she handed me the keys to her piece of shit Pontiac Grand Prix.

  “Do you even have your license, honey?” Lisa asked, looking at me over the top of her crooked glasses.

  “Of course,” I lied. “Thank you so much, Lisa.”

  “Don’t thank me, thank God. I was just praying to Him this mornin’ to help me pay my light bill, and this money’s done answered my prayer. Lord, thank you, Jesus!”

  Lisa pulled me in for a hug. “You be careful, sugar.”

  I thanked her again and dashed out to her car. I went to look for the clutch, but realized that Lisa’s car was an automatic.

  Lord, thank you, Jesus.

  I drove straight to Trevor’s house, my last few moments with August playing over and over in slow motion in my head. Me not talking to him at the party. Me pushing him away at school. Me not asking why he’d lost so much weight. M
e not riding the bus home with him anymore.

  By the time I got to Trevor’s house I was racked with guilt and fighting to hold back my tears. I didn’t want to cry yet. I didn’t want to accept it.

  I pulled up to his mailbox and parked. Trevor told me he’d just leave the note in there. Motherfucker was too much of a pussy to even talk to me face to face.

  Inside the metal box I found a folded-up piece of paper taped to a folded-up piece of clothing. I pulled off the note and spread the soft black cotton out on Lisa’s passenger seat. It was Trevor’s Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me T-shirt.

  The lump in my throat swelled.

  I looked at the folded paper in my hand and noticed a note scrawled in not-August’s handwriting on the outside.

  Dear BB –

  I found this note in the kitchen this morning while I was cleaning up from the party. My mom called the cops and they found August’s body pretty quickly. I tried to save the original note for you, but the cops needed it for evidence. That’s why this one is in my handwriting.

  For what it’s worth, I really am sorry. About everything.

  Trevor

  PS - I won’t tell anybody what it says. I promise.

  I stared at the folded paper in my hands hoping that it would magically open by itself. I couldn’t make my hands work. They weren’t ready to show me what was inside. Reading it would make it real, and I didn’t want it to be real. It couldn’t be real.

  Instead my hands reached of their own accord, shifted the car into drive, and grasped the steering wheel.

  I drove straight to the water tower. I can’t remember if I stopped at a single stop sign or traffic light. I don’t even know how Lisa’s old Grand Prix even made it up the hill. All I know was that one minute I was in Trevor’s driveway and the next I was staring out a dirty windshield at a yellow strip of tape that was shouting POLICE LINE: DO NOT CROSS at me in all capital letters.

  The foggy mist of denial cleared away, revealing a simmering volcano of anger underneath. That tape enraged me. It told me what I didn’t want to know, and it did it by screaming it directly into my face. Why did they have to make the police tape so aggressive? Didn’t they realize that somebody’s baby boy just died? Somebody’s oldest friend? Why couldn’t the tape be a somber shade of gray and just say WE’RE SO SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS on it?

  And where the fuck were all the teddy bears?! There was a fucking protocol! A kid from your school dies, you go to the site of the event, bring some friends to cry on, maybe pass out some candles with those little paper wax-catching things on the bottom, sing “Kumbaya,” and LEAVE A FUCKING TEDDY BEAR ON THE GROUND. Where were all the weepy teens? Where was the Channel Five news team? Where were August’s teddy bears? August deserved fucking teddy bears!

  All there was on the top of that hill was a patina-green water tower, that bitchy fucking police tape blocking my path, and what I’m sure was probably a huge red stain on the brown Georgia clay behind it. Oh, and a folded-up piece of paper with not-August’s handwriting on it smashed between my hand and the steering wheel.

  I rolled the driver’s side window down before I read it. I don’t know why. Maybe to help me breathe.

  Dear BB,

  You’re the only person who ever really cared about me, so I had to at least tell you goodbye. I don’t want you to be sad, but I can’t do this anymore. Every morning when I wake up I wish that I hadn’t. Everything hurts, all the time, and I just want it to stop.

  I always thought that one day you and I would end up together. I loved you, BB. You were my best friend. But I realized a few months ago that I wasn’t in love with you. Because I’m gay. I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want it to be true. I fell for a boy who broke the parts of me that weren’t already broken. He used me up until there was nothing left. Nothing but the pain.

  I see you wasting away. You’re killing yourself over a guy too. You just don’t realize it yet. But you’re stronger than me. You’ll be happy again, like you were before. When I saw you laughing with Trevor tonight I knew that you were going to be ok. That’s all I wanted to see. I couldn’t leave without making sure that you were going to be ok.

  Thank you for seeing me when no one else did. If you ever feel like no one sees you, I’ll be there. I’ll see you, I promise. I just won’t be hurting anymore.

  Your friend forever,

  August

  I don’t even know if I read the last few lines correctly—they were so blurry through my tears. I clutched the paper and tried to process what I’d just read. August thought I was going to be okay? What the fuck about my life was okay? How was I supposed to be okay when he was gone? I read the note three, five, fifteen times, then I ripped it into little pieces and screamed into the humid afternoon stillness.

  I got out of the car and slammed the door, glaring at that fucking police tape. Grabbing a sturdy looking stick off the ground, I took the sharp end and stabbed and gouged and mutilated the hard Georgia clay right in front of that callous yellow strip of pain until my muscles ached and my anger gave way to sorrow.

  I sprinkled the scraps of August’s letter inside the hole, covered it back over with dirt, and used my stick to carve a heart with our initials in it on top of the mound. When I was done, I sat on the ground next to my friend’s buried confession—probably twenty feet away from where he left his body when he decided he couldn’t drag it around any longer—and said the only prayer I knew.

  Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name.

  Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.

  Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses

  As we forgive those who trespass against us.

  Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

  Amen.

  I sat in the Grand Prix and stared at my phone. I needed to tell somebody about August, but who? Lance and Colton were his friends, but I didn’t even have their numbers. I didn’t even really know where Lance was. Juliet was the only person I could think of who might care, so I took a deep breath and hit the Send button.

  Juliet answered, but before I could even tell her what happened she started flipping out about Tony. She said she went home and took a nap after she dropped me off and when she woke up his car was gone. He must have come home and left again without even telling her where he was going. And the sonofabitch still wasn’t answering her calls.

  I wanted to be there for her, but it was kind of hard to give a fuck about her loser boyfriend when I was staring at the place where my friend had just taken his own life.

  “Did he say where he and Carlos were going last night?” I asked, trying with all my might to care. To be a better friend to her than I had been lately.

  “All he said before he left the house was, ‘It’s payday, baby.’ Whatever the fuck that means.”

  Payday.

  Tony’s words rang out in my ears. From now on, the fifteenth’s gon’ be my payday…You forget about good ol’ Tony when you cash that check, and I’ma forget we had this conversation.

  “Juliet, what is today’s date?”

  “The sixteenth. Why? Are you even listening?”

  The sixteenth.

  “Um, I’m sorry. I just…August killed himself last night.”

  I don’t remember the rest of the conversation.

  I’d missed payday.

  I had to warn Knight.

  I hated that I still felt responsible for protecting him—for saving him from himself—even after everything he’d put me through. I hated that I wasn’t strong enough to walk away from him, the way he’d been able to walk away from me. I hated that no matter how long it had been since I’d seen him or how badly he’d hurt me, I still had to fight the urge to run into his arms and stroke his fuzzy head and try to make him smile that smile whenever I saw him.

  I called Knight’s number with trembling fingers—the number he had programmed into my phone the day he made Tony want to kill him in the fir
st place. It went straight to voicemail. I left a message letting him know that Tony and Carlos might be after him and to please let me know that he was safe.

  Maybe he’s not picking up because he thinks I’m going to scream at him about what happened last night.

  Or maybe he’s not picking up because he’s too busy fucking Angel doggie-style.

  Or maybe he’s at work.

  That had to be it. Knight always worked on Saturdays. I cranked up the Grand Prix and careened back down the hill and onto the highway and into the city.

  When I pulled into the parking lot behind Terminus City Tattoo I immediately noticed a complete and utter lack of monster trucks. I glanced at the clock in the dashboard. 4:42. Knight should have been there.

  I walked through the alleyway, past the dumpster that Knight had dented with a bloody baseball bat, past the fire escape where he told me he wanted to marry me, and around to the front of the building—where people who aren’t girlfriends of the artists should probably enter—passing half a dozen empty bowls along my way.

  Empty bowls.

  The place was slammed. There was a body in every tattoo chair, at least that I could see from the front reception area, and several folks were sitting in the waiting area flipping through flash art alums. I couldn’t see Knight’s station though. It was hidden from view by the wall that divided the reception area from the main studio.

  I thought my heart was going to pound its way out of my chest.

  What if he’s here?

  Oh God, what if he’s not here?

  I swallowed hard and ran my sweating palms over my jeans.

  “We don’t take fake IDs here, little girl.” The voice coming from behind the front counter sounded feminine, but it came out of a broad, masculine-looking human with tattoos all over his Bic-bald head.

  That must be Bobby.

  “Um, hi. I’m a friend of Knight’s—I mean, Ronald’s—is he…working today?”