by Tracy Deebs
Whatever it is, I know Issa is right. Our own safety has to take priority right now. But as soon as we’re all back at Ezra’s, I’m going to figure out a way to make this right—or at least as right as I can make it.
We split off when we get to the end of the lot, each pair going in a different direction. It’s ridiculous, but walking away is harder than it should be. Especially considering I’ve only known these guys a few days.
Something’s probably there—something anthropological about human bonding during times of extreme emotion. But right now I don’t care about anthropology or sociology or anything else. All I care about is that my friends might be walking into a dangerous situation and I won’t be there to have their backs.
“So,” Alika says as we round the corner and start walking up a really big freaking hill, “we should probably ditch these clothes first. Change into something they aren’t looking for.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” I pull out my phone. “Let’s see if there’s a mall or something around here.”
Turns out there isn’t, but there is a cluster of vintage shops about three blocks east of us. “Want to try there?” I ask.
“Sure,” Alika says, but she looks doubtful.
Not that it exactly surprises me. In the last couple of days I haven’t seen the girl in anything that isn’t designer—even her pajamas are Gucci or something like that. I’m pretty sure the idea of putting on old clothes that were once worn by somebody else gives her the heebie-jeebies. But it’s not like we’ve got so many other choices right now.
We walk the three blocks in silence, but I think that’s because we’re both shell-shocked. I know I am. Now that we’re out of immediate danger and the adrenaline is wearing off, I feel a little bit like I’ve been run over by a BART train instead of just having jumped off one.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out, expecting to find a warning text or something from one of the others. Instead, it’s my brother checking in—turns out Dad had a really bad morning, so bad that Damon had to take my mom and get the hell out of Dodge. Which meant leaving Dad alone in the house to do God only knows what to himself.
How’s Mom?
Shook but OK
When are you coming home?
This is exactly what I was hoping to avoid. Damon’s no good with Dad when he gets like this—he just totally shuts off. Which is probably the best thing for him, but it leaves Dad and Mom out in the cold.
I don’t know. Couple more days
That OK?
I don’t know
You’re better with him than I am
He started throwing stuff this morning, almost destroyed the kitchen because he wanted pancakes and Mom had made French toast
You should probably come home
I can’t take this, man
It’s too hard
I’m probably going to head back to school early
And isn’t that just like my jerk brother? He runs halfway across the country to college to escape from our family’s problems, and now when he’s supposed to be back for just four weeks, he wants to run away as soon as things get difficult.
Fix it, Owen.
I can’t take this, Owen.
Maybe we should just let him kill himself, Owen. It’ll be better for everybody.
One week. I asked him to take care of them for one week, and he can’t even do that without crying to me three times a day about how much he hates it. About how he can’t stand to be around Dad when he’s like this. About how it’s too freaking hard.
Yeah, it’s hard. For everybody.
For Mom, who doesn’t recognize the man she married but still loves him because she knows he’s acting that way because he’s sick, not because it’s who he is.
For Dad, who in moments of clarity realizes just how far gone he is and hates himself for it.
And for Damon and me, who lost a really good dad somewhere in the madness of this damn disease.
Damn right it’s hard. But what are we going to do? Just lock him away somewhere? Just leave him? The whole reason Damon can go to school and have his swanky apartment and his perfect car is because of the sacrifices Dad made. The whole reason none of us will ever have to worry about money is because Dad gave everything—even his mental health—to a game, and a team, that doesn’t care about him now.
And I’m just supposed to forget about all that? Forget about who he was when he took me camping and taught me how to play football and sat around the kitchen table helping me learn the multiplication table? All that just goes away because he’s sick?
I can’t do that, and neither can Mom. What I can’t figure out—what I’ll never be able to figure out—is how Damon can.
I want to tell him to man up, to stop being such a wimp and deal with it. But if I do that, he really will take off, and that can’t happen. I have to be here, have to see this thing through, which means Damon has to stay put. We can’t leave Mom alone with Dad for days on end. Maybe he’ll be fine, or maybe he’ll lose his freaking mind because she put mayonnaise on his sandwich.
Just give me a few more days
Please
You can leave as soon as I get home
But I can’t get away now
What kind of scholarship are you going for again?
And why does it matter?
We have the money
Just come home
I can’t
Please don’t leave. Please
Fine
I’ll stay a couple more days as long as he doesn’t lose it again
If he does, you’re on your own
Like that’s a shock? That’s a freaking given. I’m always on my own, and have been since Dad started getting sick. Once the signs of CTE started to show, he went downhill fast. So fast that it feels like Mom and I have just been along for the ride these last three years.
Fine
Just give me some warning, okay?
Whatever
I want to reach through the phone and shake him, but I can’t. It wouldn’t work anyway. Damon’s never going to change, so screw it. Just screw it.
“Hey, Owen! Look at me!”
I glance up at Alika. She’s staring at me with a worried look on her face. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
“What’s wrong?” She’s totally incredulous. “I’ve been talking to you for the past five minutes, and it’s like I wasn’t even here. Is everything okay? Who were you texting? Have they found the others? What’s going on?”
Suddenly, it registers that she’s frightened. That she thinks something’s gone wrong. “It’s fine. I’m sorry. It was my brother, being a jerk. But it’s fine.” Very deliberately, I shove my phone back in my pocket. “Nothing to worry about right now.”
“You sure?” She moves a little closer then, so close that I can smell the vanilla-and-cinnamon scent of her that seems to drown out everything else, even the stench of sweat and fear that I know must be rolling off me in waves right about now. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
The fact that she means it, that her dark brown eyes are wide with sincerity and worry, gets to me in a way I don’t expect. I’m the one who usually does the worrying, the one who helps and tries to figure things out. The fact that she’s offering—and really seems to mean it—grabs me in the gut. Makes me feel all unbalanced.
For a second, all I can do is stand here looking at her, breathing her in, wanting to touch her more than I’ve wanted anything in a long time—except, maybe, to get off that damn BART train alive.
But what I want and what I can have are two different things, especially now when my whole life is so screwed up. It’s not like I can tell her about it, not like I can expect her to understand when she’s so completely, absolutely freaking perfect.
When I think about it like that, there’s nothing to do but lie. So I do, and try not to feel like a total jerk. “Nah, I’m good. Just family stuff. It’ll be there when I get back to Boston.”
She nods, a little j
erkily, but her smile seems real enough when she says, “Of course. I know how family things go.”
Most people don’t have a clue how family things like mine go, and I start to shrug the sympathy off. But then I remember her face when I tried to get her to cross the street to the BART station, remember what she said about how her sister died. For the first time it registers just how imperfect Little Miss Perfect’s life has actually been. No wonder she’s such a badass under the prissy designer clothes.
The silence between us is getting awkward now, though, so I glance around. I realize with some surprise that we’re standing in front of one of the vintage shops. No wonder she was so insistent on getting my attention—and so freaked out when she couldn’t.
“Ready to go in?” I ask, forcing a grin I’m far from feeling.
“Yeah, sure.” But she keeps casting dubious looks at the front window—and the nineties grunge look displayed there.
“I promise you don’t have to wear flannel,” I tell her as I hold the door open.
“Good, because I’m pretty sure I’d rather go naked.”
She says the words flippantly, as a joke, but suddenly I can’t help thinking about her naked. With another girl, I might say something, might make an innuendo or two, but it feels off to do that with Alika. More, it just feels wrong. Not because I don’t like her, but because I do. I really do. And that’s probably why I can’t flirt with her.
Still, the tension ratchets up between us anyway, like she can see inside my brain to what I’m thinking. Which only makes me think all kinds of other things, like what she’d look like in the tiny little crop top right in front of me.
Damn. I’m so totally screwed here.
In desperation, I grab the first thing I come to that will cover all her good parts and hold it up. “How about this?”
She looks from the shirt to me and back again. “I don’t think it will fit you.”
“I meant for you.”
“For me?” Now she just looks confused. “It’s an old football jersey. For the state of Montana?”
“The state of…” Now it’s my turn to look from her to the shirt. “This is a Joe Montana jersey.”
She looks at me like I’m speaking Greek.
“You know, Joe Montana? Arguably the greatest quarterback of all time? Definitely the greatest quarterback the 49ers ever had. Joe Montana?”
She still looks blank.
Well, that took care of at least half the inappropriate thoughts I was having about her.… Shaking my head, I shove the jersey back on the rack. I’d buy it myself, even though it’s too small, but I already have three at home. Maybe four.
“What about this?” she asks. She’s holding up some kind of seventies hot pants jumper thing in bright red, and not even her lack of knowledge about the greatest quarterback in the history of the game can stop me from picturing her in it.
“Maybe something a little less conspicuous?” I suggest.
“I know,” she sighs. “But it’s Balmain.”
“And I’m supposed to know what that means?”
This time she’s the one rolling her eyes. “Just think of him as the Joe Montana of seventies fashion.”
“Oh, got it. Well, maybe you can buy it but just not wear it now. Find something else to put on for the next few hours.”
“You think?” She holds it up, looks at it front and back, then moves to the closest mirror and holds it against her body. And that’s about the time I grab the nearest sundress I can find and shove it at her. “Why don’t you go try this on while I look for some clothes for me?”
“Because it’s about four sizes too big.” She slides it back on the rack, then slips past me to get to one of the other racks. As she does, her body brushes softly against mine, and it takes a lot of self-control for me not to reach for her. Not to pull her against me and kiss her right here in the middle of this crowded little shop.
Especially since she gasps a little at the contact, her body swaying gently against mine for one second, two. And then she’s picking up a green KISS ME, I’M IRISH shirt and thrusting it at me. “This might work for you.”
“It’s December. And I’m not Irish.”
“But you could be. Besides, everyone will be so busy looking at the shirt that they won’t bother to look at your face. Isn’t that what you want?”
“Or they’ll see a black guy with dreads walking in an Irish shirt and take an extra long look, just to see what the joke is.”
“Maybe you’re right.” But she’s pouting a little as she takes the shirt back and puts it on the shelf where she found it.
I’m tempted to suggest that she can kiss me even though I’m not Irish, but again, I don’t want to go there with Alika. She’s a badass about so many things, but she’s got these good-girl vibes that make me worry about scaring her away by being too blatant. Plus the whole I-can’t-flirt-with-girls-I-actually-like thing.
Then again, I don’t even know what I’m thinking—scare her away? We’re in this for one thing only—to stop Jacento from doing whatever the hell it wants to do with our data and the data of every other person on the planet. Trying to pretend this is more than that? Just can’t do it. Especially not with my life the way it is.
Alika is the daughter of the secretary of state, for God’s sake. Not to mention the way she rocks the “perfect” vibe like it’s a religion. No way in hell she’s going to be interested in getting involved with someone whose life is pretty much the definition of imperfect—especially if you throw in messy and crazy and totally screwed up.
Still, I can’t stop myself from watching her as she weaves her way through the cramped store. Everything about her is just so beautiful. Her smooth skin, her full lips, the wicked intelligence that gleams in her eyes when she’s thinking about challenging me on some idea or another.
“Hey, what about this?” she asks, holding up a black pinstriped button-down. It’s not my usual style—I’m more patterns than stripes when it comes to dress shirts—but maybe that’s a good thing. Switching up the disguise instead of taking it off completely.
“Sure. Let me try it on.” I head back to the dressing rooms, which are little more than one large cloth cubicle turned into two by a piece of fabric draped down the center and tied to a pole on both sides.
Which is fine, until I see a blue-and-white sundress in her hands and realize she’s coming back with me. Suddenly, that thin piece of opaque fabric separating the rooms doesn’t seem like much. Especially once we’re both inside and I can hear the rustle of her clothes as she gets undressed less than a foot from me.
I try to concentrate on something else—like how much it would suck to get captured by a gun-wielding Shane because I’m an idiot—but that doesn’t seem to matter when I can smell her and hear her and practically taste her mouth beneath mine.
I am so screwed.
It’s my new mantra, and the only thing keeping me from banging my head against the wall right now is the fact that there is no wall. Lucky, lucky me.
“Hey, are you done?” Alika asks, her voice soft and husky.
“Almost,” I answer as I fumble with the last couple of buttons before tucking the shirt into my jeans.
“Me too.”
Thank God.
I buckle my belt, then practically yank the curtain off the door as I go to step outside—and plow straight into Alika.
She gasps and I reach out to steady her, wrapping my hands around her upper arms. Which only makes her gasp again.
And then we’re standing there, eyes locked, breaths mingling, bodies scant inches from each other. I want to kiss her so badly that I can taste it, and for a moment I’m sure that that’s what she wants too.
But then my phone vibrates with yet another text, and the moment is gone. Alika pulls away, turns away, leaves me standing here wishing that once, just once, things could be different. That I could be different.
Maybe then I could be like Damon and not care about anything but myself.
<
br /> But I’m not different, and neither is my life. So I do what Alika knew I was going to do all along. I pull out the phone and text my brother back. Again.
24
Issa
(Pr1m4 D0nn4)
“You doing okay?” Ezra asks me as we make our way down a street lined with brightly painted houses.
“I’m fine.” There’s something in the way he asks the question that gets my back up and makes me ask, “Why? Are you okay?”
He holds his hands up in the universal gesture of surrender. “I’m not being a jerk, I swear. I just wanted to check on you, see how you’re feeling. It’s not every day a girl points a gun at someone.”
“Really? It’s not every day that a girl does it?” I repeat, brows raised and eyes narrowed.
“Don’t get your panties in a wad. When I said ‘girl,’ I was specifically referring to you, and you happen to be a girl. I wasn’t being sexist. If I had to point a gun at someone, I’m not sure I’d be okay either.”
“Yeah, well, maybe not. But I’m perfectly fine. And so are my panties, thank you for asking. In my neighborhood, it’s not a Monday if you’re not carrying a gun, so…” It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but he doesn’t need to know that.
“Is that right? So you’re a tough girl, huh?”
“Tough enough not to get hassled by you,” I answer, bumping my shoulder into his in a way that says I’m not going to take any of his crap.
But then I lose the thread of the conversation because we’re walking by a purple house. And I don’t mean lavender, I mean purple—deep, dark, unapologetic purple that the streetlights show off to great advantage. It’s got cheerful white-scalloped trim and boxes blooming with brightly colored flowers beneath every window. It reminds me so much of a poem by my favorite author, Sandra Cisneros, about her house in San Antonio that I can do nothing but stare at it for several long seconds.
“This one?” Ezra asks. “Of all the houses on this street, this is the one you fall for? Really?”
“It’s beautiful,” I say, and for one second I imagine what it would be like to sit on the swing on that small, sweet front porch with Chloe on my lap. It’s so different from the life we have now in our cramped little apartment that I can barely picture it. But I want it, so much more than I should.