The door is open.
I look in and see Shelly on top of Ryan fucking Anderson. He’s sitting on her bed, his back against the headboard, as she fucking rides him with her shirt still on.
Ryan fucking Anderson who killed Gwen.
Ryan fucking Anderson who is killing Remi in an entirely different way.
Ryan fucking Anderson, who killed my hope, and when hope barged back into my life in the form of his sister, he made that go away, too.
Instead of thinking this through—which is admittedly what I should be doing—I act. I kick the door wide open and bolt in, fire in my eyes. My whole body is heaving with rage. I can finish this jerk in two minutes, I’m so furious right now.
“Shelly!” I scream, grabbing the stereo on the dresser by her closet and hurling it against the wall. The music stops. Shelly whips her head around and stares at me, her mouth agape, from pleasure, shock, surprise, or all three—I’m not sure. I don’t even care. I point at Ryan, panting hard, watching as his glazed-over eyes are trying to refocus and understand what’s going on. He’s wasted. She’s drugged up. Unbelievable.
“Get up right now,” I grit out, “and leave Anderson and me alone.”
“Whoa, whoa.” Anderson snaps out of whatever it is he’s on, pushes Shelly away so she rolls on the mattress, and gets up on wobbly feet. He tucks his dick back into his jeans, which he didn’t bother to take off when he started screwing my dead sister and his ex-girlfriend’s roommate. Class act. I cock an eyebrow, because more than it is infuriating, it is also pathetic. “What the fuck are you doing here? Are you following me, Teach? Get the fuck outta here.”
“Shelly, out.” I ignore him.
“Shelly, stay,” he counters.
Shelly looks between us and decides to unglue her ass from the mattress and leave after all. I’m much more commanding than this idiot, and if she fears someone out of the two of us, it’s me. That leaves me alone with Ryan. My head is a mess. I want to kill him—I can kill him, God knows I’m capable of it—but at the same time I really need to think this shit through for Remi’s sake.
“She chose me,” Ryan says nonchalantly, lighting a cigarette and puffing the smoke upwards. “Rem. She chose to come back to me. Like I know she would. She is my destiny, Teach. I’m hers. You can’t undo this. God wants us to be together.”
“Don’t talk on God’s behalf. You can barely form a goddamn sentence.”
“Tsk, tsk.” Ryan laughs, shaking his head. “I see that you’re still not over my future wife.”
“I’ve literally just walked in on you having sex with another woman,” I grit out. Ryan shrugs. My whole body is shaking. Fuck, I want to kill him.
“Remi knows the drill. But I’ll always go back to her.”
“You killed my sister,” I tell Ryan. “You fucking killed Gwen. You gave her those drugs.”
“No,” Ryan drawls out slowly, and suddenly, he looks a lot more sober. He takes another drag of his cigarette, and even though I’m dying for one, I will never, ever ask this bastard for anything. I hear Shelly setting everything in the kitchen.
“Gwen did it to herself. I gave her drugs to sample, but she overdosed. She took three times what she usually did. I know because I measured every single fraction of a gram before I gave it to her. And she used everything. Gwen wanted to die. Her usual fix wouldn’t have killed her. Put her in the hospital? Maybe. I’m not a killer. I didn’t know this would happen.”
“You’re a fucking liar,” I spit out. But Ryan’s face contorts in pain, and he shakes his head some more.
“I’m not a killer, man. I cared about Gwen.”
“You gave her drugs!”
“We all take drugs, motherfucker!” Ryan throws his arms in the air, exasperated. “What the fuck? I got her drugs like you’d get Remi dinner. This is our food. This is our lives. This is what we need to make it to the next fucking day.”
“No.” It’s my turn to shake my head. Just…no.
“Yes,” Ryan says. “Yes, I liked Gwen. But she was sad, man. She was sad all the fucking time. I was sad when she died. But I wasn’t surprised. And I knew it wasn’t an accident.”
I shake my head, feeling the tears stabbing at my eyeballs. I want to get out of here. I want to stay and hear more. I want to fucking kill him. I want to ask him more about my sister. A sister I didn’t know as well as I thought, but am starting to realize I have harbored resentment in quantities I’m not equipped to deal with.
“You’ll drag Remington down the same path if you don’t let her go, you know,” I say instead of screaming and fighting and taunting him like I desperately want to. “You want her to stay so you can bask in her light. But she’s going to end up a Shelly or even a Gwen if she doesn’t get out of this town, and we both know it.”
“No.” Ryan stubs the cigarette into a wall to put it out. It’s disgusting, but then again, this whole room is full of cigarette butts and smells of piss. “No, I’ll get better.”
“You won’t, and we both know it.”
“I will.”
“You can’t.”
“She’s mine.”
“She’s no one’s,” I admit. “But if she’ll ever be anyone’s, if you truly love her, you better hope like hell it’s not you she’ll belong to.”
“Shut up!” he screams, tugging at his hair.
“You know it’s true.”
Ryan falls to his knees and cries. I want to do the same but stop myself. Instead, I take a step back. I watch him. I feel sorry for him. Life failed him the way it failed my sister. Or maybe they both just failed at life and didn’t have the guts or strength to take another stab at the test.
“I don’t want Rem to turn into Gwen,” Ryan admits, sniffing. He looks like a boy like this. Sitting on the floor, messing his blond hair with his fist.
“Then you know what to do about it,” I say.
“Maybe,” he answers.
Maybe is better than no.
The cafeteria looks smaller.
The hallways seem narrower.
Everything is closing in on me. I want to get away, but at the same time, I’m desperate to stay and see him. To feel him. To be around him.
Christian is trying to keep a low profile, something I’m not sure he is capable of doing. He is waiting for me by the door after each class, and we walk together—arms linked—to grab lunch or to our next period. I can almost smell his insecurity. Ever since he and Benton fought in the hallway, he’s been trying not to draw attention to himself. But even in school uniform, everything about him is colorful. If he were a character in a book, he would jump out of the page. Like right now, we’re walking toward the entrance, about to get out of school and hit the nearest mall, and he is telling me about his upcoming trip to New York—he is trying to get into NYU and is looking at the dorms—he flings his arms in the air and gets caught up in describing the big city to me before he takes it down a notch and lowers his voice.
“So, anyway, I need a new suitcase. And maybe a new tie. I want to look the part, you know? I really feel like I can reinvent myself there.” We’re both breezing through the doors, and my heart feels a little lighter to put West Point behind me. Leaving Pierce behind is another story.
Ryan has been okay in recent days. Mostly absent and very quiet, but not in the way he was when he was using. I don’t know why, and I don’t dare to ask. He’s slowly turning into the old Ryan, and that’s what’s important.
“You don’t need to reinvent yourself,” I say absentmindedly. “I like you just fine the way you are.”
“Other people here don’t.”
“Other people here are stupid,” I drawl.
“Because you’re such a genius, aren’t you?” I hear a familiar voice behind me and twist my head with a frown. Christian spins around, his whole body tilting to the voice. He reacts to it like I react to Pierce.
Addiction. Obsession. Attraction. Reaction.
“What do you want, Herring?” I feel my nostrils
flare. I grab Christian’s hand and squeeze it for assurance. “If you get anywhere near him, you’ll get expelled.” Benton should be expelled already, but Christian didn’t want to press charges, and with both Mikaela’s senator father and his own father, he never faced any real trouble. And he knows it.
“I just want to talk to him.” Benton stares at Christian. Not at me. I can’t read his expression, but surely it can’t be good. Not after their last encounter together.
“Dream on,” I snort out.
“Let’s talk.” Benton ignores me, taking a step toward Christian. “Alone,” he says.
“No.” I shake my head.
“Yes.” I hear Christian say. I want to pull him toward me, but he is already walking over to Benton in the deserted hallway. I hear the echo of his steps. I watch his back. This is love, I think bitterly. It pulls you in; it freaks you out. It outweighs whatever logical ideas and rational plans you make.
“Be careful.” My voice shakes. Benton says something into his ear. They’re not too close, but they’re close enough to look intimate. And even though no one is here but us, I know that something has changed in the jock. That this time, I don’t need to be worried for Christian’s physical safety. I need to be worried for his heart. “Hey, I can wait here for you? Maybe downstairs?” I try one last time. Christian turns around and shakes his head.
“You go. I’ll call you after. Thanks, babe.”
Reluctantly, I choke the straps of my backpack and hop down the stairs outside, taking them by the two’s. I walk over to the bus station, feeling the sun on my skin. I try to think about any of the things that should occupy my thoughts: college applications, patching things up with Dad and Ryan, schoolwork. But nothing sticks. All I can think about is him.
I slouch on the plastic bench at the bus station and stare at the nothingness across the road. Buildings. Trees. People. My bare thighs are burning on the hot plastic, but I don’t care enough to stand.
A vehicle I recognize stops in front of me, and the passenger door flies open.
“Get in,” Pierce tells me, leaning on his steering wheel.
“No,” I say quietly.
“We need to talk.”
I think about Benton and Christian. How Christian pretty much forgave Benton after he beat the shit out of him, or looked about willing to forgive him, and I shake my head. I can’t afford to be blinded by love. Not after love kicked me in the ass and tried to take the only family that I have left.
“Not interested, Mr. James.”
“Stop with the Mr. James. We’re past that.”
“A few weeks ago, you would have scolded me for calling you anything but,” I say, and not softly, shifting on the bench. “Go away. Someone can see you. Don’t want to tarnish that precious reputation of yours.”
“Get in.”
“No.”
“Fine. I’ll get out,” he says, unbuckling his seatbelt and bolting out of his car in an instant. He is double-parked in the middle of the road, and I’m pretty sure he is breaking five hundred different rules at once.
I watch as he circles the car with something in his hand. It’s a box. A big one. He drops it into my hands, and I can feel that it’s heavy. It’s wrapped in red, but it looks like a toddler wrapped it…before a car ran over it.
“This is for your birthday.” He looks at me seriously. “I wrapped it myself.” And it dawns on me that Pierce doesn’t care much about anything. He could get caught, and he doesn’t even give a rat’s ass. He is standing here with his student, giving her a present. His stubble and bloodshot eyes also tell me that he is not feeling any better than I do.
“No gifts.” I shake my head, shoving it back to his chest, still seated.
“Take it,” he says. “You have to. I’ll feel better if you do.”
“Because I’m so concerned with your feelings right now.”
“Listen.” he sighs. “This is a mistake. All of this. It can’t end like this.”
“Who are you to say?” I laugh bitterly. “You were the one to fuck it up.”
“I tried to protect you,” he says, for the one-millionth time. “Get your head out of your ass, Remington. Your brother is dangerous. Your brother is dealing with very sketchy people, and I’m worried about your safety.”
This time I can’t help it. I stand up and toss the wrapped gift into the open passenger window of his car. “No, Mr. James. You wanted revenge. Forget about what we were. Forget about what we could have been. Remember how you used to say that you were worried you’d ruin me? That you’d break my heart? Well, congratulations. You did. Yours doesn’t look to be in better shape than mine, though. So please, make it stop. Just stop. Let me lick my wounds in peace. I don’t need you.”
“It’s a Polaroid camera.” Pierce shoots me a pained look. A look I’ve never seen on his face. His throat bobs on a swallow. He looks down. “The gift for your birthday. To capture all the sad and beautiful things,” he repeats my words from the second day of school, and my heart breaks a little more.
I start walking toward the next bus station, not looking back.
This is not a love story.
This is not even a hate story.
This is a cautionary tale.
I drive after her.
I stop when I realize she’s gone to another bus station.
I curse. A lot.
I make a U-turn.
I want to call her, my finger hovering over her name on my phone.
I don’t.
I do.
I hang up.
Headmaster Charles is calling me. I don’t answer.
Shelly is calling me. I hit ignore.
My mother is calling me. I pick up.
“You need to come for your father’s birthday.” Her voice throws me off-kilter. No hello. No how are you? No nothing.
“You need to delete my number and forget I ever existed,” I retort.
“Maybe. Let’s talk about it in person.” This is so like my mother it’s not even funny. I sigh. It’s not like I have anything better to do.
“When?”
She gives me the time and the place. Says she’ll text me her full Orange County address. I haven’t visited since Gwen died.
“Is something wrong?” she asks after we’re done. I’m driving in circles. I’m thinking in circles. I shake my head, even though she can’t see it.
“No. Not something.” I laugh bitterly. “Everything. Everything is wrong.”
“I’m going out. Bus money is on the counter,” Ryan shouts from the kitchen as I trying to mentally talk myself into getting out of bed. For the past couple of weeks, he’s been leaving me money for lunch and the bus whenever Christian doesn’t stay over and take me. “Figured you wouldn’t want me or my bike anywhere near your school.”
Not only has he been taking care of lunch and bus money, but he’s even working on fixing the old Firebird up so I can have it. I don’t think Ryan is doing better financially. In fact, he claims to have given up slanging drugs and guns—and pissed more than a few people off in the process—so he’s probably hurting for cash. I think he gives up his own stuff to make sure I have everything I need. And it makes me feel even worse.
“Thanks, Ry,” I call out, burying my face deeper into my pillow.
“Love you, Rem.”
“Love you, too.” And I do. Even though a big part of my heart is broken from Pierce, the other half that belongs to Ryan is starting to flicker back to life and fill with hope for the first time in a long time. Seeing him like this reminds me of one of my favorite memories of him.
“You ready, Rem?” Ry asks, grabbing his board out of the back of his Firebird. I grab mine, too, a hand-me-down from Ryan, and we walk toward the skate park.
“Why do you always gotta bring her? I thought we were going to pick up some skate park sluts,” Ryan’s friend, Ethan, complains from inside the chain-link fence. I roll my eyes and flip him off.
“Because I fucking want to. I’m teaching he
r how to ollie today. Ain’t that right, Rem?” Ryan says with a wink in my direction, his blond hair shining in the sun.
“Yeah.” I shrug, trying to play it cool, like I don’t care either way. But I’m excited. I’ve been working on my ollie for weeks. And I love when Ryan lets me come to the skate park with him.
Ry grabs my hand and pulls me into the concrete park, past the half-pipe and the handrail, and leads me to a flat area to practice. I see a group of freshmen girls who went to my school last year sitting on the bleachers, snickering to each other when we pass, and a few boys from my school giving us curious glances. But, I don’t care. No one will try anything with Ryan here.
“All right, Rem. Show me your stance.”
I do.
“Lead with your right. You’re goofy-footed, remember? That can get tricky, but we’re just doing stationary ollies for now.”
I shift my feet.
“Like this?” I ask, tucking my long hair behind my ear.
“Good. Okay, now pop the tail back, then slide your front foot up the board and push forward.”
I try, but I barely make it off the ground.
“Close. Try again. This time scoot your front foot away from the bolts a little so you have more room to slide. Pop, slide, push.”
I try again, but this time I almost fall on my butt.
“Ugh!” I groan, frustrated.
“Here. Hold on to me. You’re scared of falling, and that’s half the problem,” Ry says, grabbing both of my hands. “I won’t let you fall, Rem. Try again.”
I take a deep breath. Ryan’s right, because this time, when I don’t have to worry about falling, I land it. I don’t get much, if any, air, but I freaking land it.
“Good job.” Ryan smiles, and I squeal, throwing my arms around his neck.
“I wanna do it again. This time on my own.”
“Let’s see it.” He smirks, his arms crossed over his chest.
I land it again.
“Fuck yeah, Rem!” He laughs proudly.
“Yo! Ryan!” Ethan yells from his place next to the freshmen girls, waving him over.
“Be right back. Keep practicing,” he says, pointing a finger at me as he walks away.
Misbehaved Page 21