by Chloe Walsh
“She’s fine,” he was quick to say. “Baby’s fine, too.” Rourke exhaled an impatient sigh, like giving me the news that my mother was fine pained him. “Some shit about cramping and spotting.”
“But she’s okay?”
Rourke nodded once. “All good now.”
“Okay,” I squeezed out, forcing myself to hold back the emotions bubbling up inside. “Good.”
I stood there on the street looking at my stepbrother for an abnormally long time before exhaling a huge sigh of relief.
Mom was okay.
This was good.
“What’s her problem?” the girl Rourke had been leaning against asked with a pout. “Why’s she looking at you like that?”
“I’m right here, precious,” I snapped, glaring at the blonde. “You talk about me then talk to me.”
“Fine,” the blonde hissed. “What’s your problem?”
“My problem?” I repeated, mulling over the word like I had to think about it. I didn’t. My problem was this fucked up family I had been roped into. My problem was the fact that my mother was pregnant and I was scared to death of what happened next. My problem was the fact that she had her fingers hooked in the loopholes of Rourke’s jeans. And my biggest fucking problem was the fact that I cared so damn much.
Refusing to embarrass myself further, I knew I would if I opened my mouth, I walked around them and continued down the sidewalk in the direction of Gabe’s house.
This sucked.
My life sucked.
Ocean Bay sucked.
I wanted to go home… if only I knew where that was.
I had passed my fourteenth street lamp and the last on the street when the sound of an engine revving behind me filled my ears. I didn’t have to look behind me to know who the owner was. Rourke.
I had no plans on stopping. Knowing Rourke, he would offer me a ride and then drive off the moment I accepted. And besides, I didn’t want to have to share a car with the blonde he’d been heavily petting.
“Where’s your car?” Rourke called out, lowering the car window.
I didn’t answer.
“Six?”
Nope. I wasn’t answering him.
“Do you need a ride?”
For some inconceivable reason, my chest had constricted and I could feel the burning sensation in my eyes. Why the hell was I about to cry? What the fuck was wrong with me? Rourke was offering me a ride home and I was two seconds away from crying?
“Get in, Six.”
I shook my head and concentrated on the long stretch of road ahead of me.
“Get the fuck in my truck, Six.”
“Why the hell are you offering me a ride?” I snarled, unsure of why I was so suddenly and furiously upset with him. “You don’t even like me.”
“Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean I want to see you get raped,” he shot back flatly. “Young, female, and walking all alone at night? Not fucking smart, Six.”
He was right. I reluctantly had to acknowledge the bastard was right. “Fine.”
I stopped in my tracks and turned to stare at him, expecting to see a smug looking blonde in the passenger seat, but that’s not what greeted me.
He was alone.
Rourke
SIX CLIMBED INTO THE passenger seat of my truck and fastened her seatbelt. I didn’t say a word to her. She looked about two seconds away from crying and I had a feeling that whatever came out of my mouth would set her off.
I’d seen the expression on her face when I told her about her mom. Her whole world crumbled in the two seconds it took me to give her the news and tell her everything was okay.
Why couldn’t they have sent her a damn message?
Why the fuck was I the one taking care of her now?
Why did I care?
And where the fuck was her car?
Goddammit.
Silent, I threw the truck into gear and tore off in the direction of the house.
“You’re sure my mom’s okay?” Six finally broke the silence by asking and I nodded.
“She’s fine, Six.”
“Was that your girlfriend?”
I turned and looked at her.
“The blonde,” she clarified. Clasping her hands in front of her, she exhaled heavily. “With the legs.”
I smirked and turned my attention back to the road ahead of us. Six was talking about Meredith Sanders. “No,” I replied after a pause. “She’s just a girl from school. Not my girlfriend.” Although, she apparently wanted to be.
I had just pulled up at the restaurant earlier when I got the message from my Dad, calling a rain check on dinner. The dinner they had obviously forgotten to mention was canceled to Six. Assholes.
I’d been reading the text from Dad when a very drunk Meredith had opened the passenger door of my truck and climbed in.
Having managed to sweet-talk her out of my truck, I’d been trying and failing to coax the girl to go home when Six arrived.
To be honest, I’d been sort of relieved to see her. Saved me a huge fucking swell of regret later.
“Huh,” Six muttered with a grimace. “Could’ve fooled me; the way she was all over you.”
“Mere is… friendly.” I frowned, wondering what kinder way there was to call a girl loose. “She uh, likes footballers.” That was putting it mildly.
In junior year alone, Mere had fucked Reebo, Mase, Bear, Clayton, Reeves, and Lewis. Daryl took her v-card in sophomore year so that was him scratched off the list.
“She wants me,” I explained with a frown. It sounded vain as hell when I said it like that, but it was the truth. Meredith wanted to add my name to the list of Ocean Bay Falcon’s she’d bagged.
“I find that hard to believe,” Six shot back.
“What? That she’d want to fuck me?”
Six blushed. “No.” She scrunched her nose up. “Yes… Ugh, I don’t know. It just sounds like something a guy a would do.”
“Wow. Sexist much?”
“I’m not being sexist,” she shot back.
“Yeah, you are.”
“How’d you figure that one?”
“Because you think only a guy would go out with the intention of banging?”
“Well, yeah.”
“That’s sexist.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yeah, it is,” I argued, amused. “What about girls? Do you think they don’t enjoy sex?”
“Well obviously girls enjoy sex, too, Rourke,” Six snapped.
“Then why’s it hard for you to believe Meredith wants to fuck as many guys from the team as possible?”
“Because it’s cheap!” she retorted angrily.
“Double standards, Six.” I laughed as I pulled into our driveway. “And here I was thinking you were a twenty-first century girl.”
“A girl wouldn’t think like that.”
“That one does,” I shot back.
“Whatever,” she huffed. “You shouldn’t have led her on anyway.”
“Did you see me kiss her?” Pulling up outside the house, I killed the engine. “Well. Did you?”
“Well…no,” she replied. “But you didn’t push her away.”
“Christ.” I unfastened my belt and turned in my seat to look at her. “What’s your problem? Are you jealous or something?”
“What?” she squeaked, face snapping towards me. “No. Of course I’m not jealous. Why would I be jealous?” Glaring up at my face, she added, “I don’t give a damn what you do or who you do it with, Rourke.”
I shrugged. “You’re asking an awful lot of question for someone who doesn’t give a damn.”
Her jaw fell open and I grinned.
“You know, sometimes I really hate you,” Six muttered as she shoved open the passenger door and shimmied out. “You’re a real jackass, Rourke Owens.”
Yeah, she was probably right about me being a jackass. For some reason, when I was around that girl, the asshole in me came out in full force.
Six slammed the
door in my face, and I watched with a shit eating grin on my face as she walked that fine ass of hers into my house.
Mercedes
“EAT BREAKFAST WITH ME,” were the first four words that came out of Rourke’s mouth when I entered the kitchen the following morning. I, of course, was instantly suspicious.
“Why?” I walked over to the breakfast bar and pulled out the stool opposite his before taking a seat, eyes locked on Rourke in suspicion. “Have you pissed in my cornflakes, Rourke?”
“Funny.” He smirked and shoved a plate towards me. “Actually, I made bacon.”
“Oh.” My brows rose in surprise. Actually, it was more than surprise. It was intense shock why was he being nice to me this morning? Rourke was never nice to me. “Why?”
“Do you want some or not?” he shot back, irritated, blue eyes narrowed on my face.
“Okay.” Never one to refuse free food, I snatched a piece of bacon off the plate and bit down. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
Rourke was quiet as he picked at a piece of bacon between his fingers. I was stumped. I didn’t get it. I had no freaking clue why he had just offered me breakfast. My confusion and suspicion slipped away the moment I trailed my gaze over Rourke’s bare chest.
Hot damn.
Rourke needed to cover that body of his up. He might be an asshole, but he had a body that could make even the most conservative of girls bend her morals.
“What time are you working today?” he surprised me by asking.
“Um…” I swallowed down a piece of greasy bacon before saying, “I start at ten this morning.”
Rourke nodded once and returned to his bacon.
I would like to say that we ate in comfortable silence after that, but it would be a huge lie. There was nothing comfortable about being in Rourke’s presence.
He made me feel uneasy and weirdly exposed. The silence between us was palpable, and when he finally stood up and brought his plate to the sink, I mentally sagged in relief.
It was exhausting being around him, never knowing when to have my guard up.
“Do you need a ride?” he surprised me further by asking.
“A ride?” I strangled out.
“To work,” he clarified with a small twitch of his lips. “I assume the reason you were walking last night is because your car’s out of commission?”
“My car?”
“Yeah, Six.” Rourke full on grinned at me, exposing those deep dimples in his cheeks. He needed to smile more; they were really beautiful. “You know, it’s the thing with four wheels and an engine. Gets you from a to b.”
“I know what a car is,” I shot back, flustered. “And no. It’s just a flat. I can change it before I leave.”
“Suit yourself,” Rourke said before walking out of the kitchen, leaving me staring after him.
What the hell was that?
Rourke
I know there will be days
when you feel like crying.
Days when you feel like giving up.
That’s life, baby boy.
Just try and remember;
the bad days will always
lead to better days.
Happier days.
And remember you are loved.
I love you more than
I thought humanly possible.
The day the nurses placed you
in my arms was the day I fell in love...
I WAS SLOWLY coming to the conclusion that I was a masochist. Sitting in my room, rereading my mother’s journal over and over and making myself feel sad so I wouldn’t forget her wasn’t normal.
Fuck, everything was so screwed up and blurry now. I wanted so bad to morph back to my early childhood. Things were so much easier when I was a kid and had my parents to make the hard decisions and do the worrying for me.
Having breakfast with Six this morning had screwed with my head. It was the reason I was sitting here torturing myself with my mother’s memory.
Something inside of me was drawn to her and it disgusted me.
In a sick way, I felt like I was betraying my mother by liking the daughter of Dad’s new wife.
It had been so easy to hate all the others.
I couldn’t understand why it was different now.
Why she was different.
But I knew she was, and that only made me more determined to force her out of my world.
Mercedes
I CALLED MOLLY after work on Tuesday and asked if she wanted to hang out. I hadn’t expected her to drop all her plans and invite me over there and then, but that’s exactly what she did.
Molly’s house was impressive. Like Rourke’s, it was huge and had that pungent smell of money, though it wasn’t nearly as impressive as his place.
I had picked up some junk food on my way over, to which she thanked me at least a dozen times. It wasn’t necessary. I was grateful for the friendship she was offering me. I wasn’t the easiest person in the world to be around.
Growing up, I tended to stick to myself anyway. There wasn’t much point in laying down roots and making deep connections with people when I could be moved on at any moment in time.
It wasn’t like I was completely antisocial; I had friends in my old schools, but I had just learned from an early age to depend on myself. But that didn’t mean I didn’t appreciate having Molly as my ally in this town.
I was also pretty certain she was a little nutty, but I liked her crazy. It complimented my crazy, and I had a feeling I would be sticking to this strange girl like glue.
We’d been sprawled out in her living room for the past couple of hours, talking shit and watching back to back episodes of Teen Wolf.
Turned out, Molly and I had a lot in common. We were both single, both seventeen, both social outcasts, and liked pretty much all the same movies and TV shows. We were also both brought up by single parents, although, Molly’s mother had passed away when she was a child, while my father was a John Doe.
“Do you want another coke?” Molly asked, eyeing the empty can on the floor next to the couch I was lazing on.
“Sure, thanks.” Lazily, I raised my thumb, eyes glued to the screen. “Hot damn, that boy is beyond beautiful?”
Molly giggled. “Who; Jackson or Scott?”
I scrunched my nose up in disapproval. Was she blind? “Stiles!”
She disappeared from the room, returning a few minutes later with two cans of Coke and a bag of potato chips.
When Molly handed me the can, my eyes landed on the marred skin covering her wrist, but this time I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t seen it. “What happened there?” I asked, eyes locked on her hand. If this girl was to be my friend, I couldn’t ignore the evidence that she might be cutting.
Molly smiled sadly. “I was wondering how long it would be before you asked.”
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” I added awkwardly. “But I’d be a shitty friend if I didn’t tell you that there are other ways to deal with stress. You don’t need to hurt yourself, Molly. And I know we barely know each other, but if you ever need someone to talk to…” I shrugged. “I’m here.”
“Thank you?” Molly offered with a rueful smile. “But I don’t self-harm. Those scars have been there since childhood,” she continued to say. “I was pulled from a house fire when I was nine.” Molly pulled up both sleeves of her long-sleeved shirt, revealing charred, crinkly, reddish, purple skin. “My legs look the same.” She pushed her sleeves back down again.
“Oh.” Mortified, I began to apologize profusely. “I’m such a dope. God. I’m sorry. I thought… I don’t know what I thought –”
“Mercy, it’s okay,” Molly replied with a gentle smile. “Actually, it’s really sweet of you to care.” Grinning she added, “I can assure you I have more than enough burns and scars on my body already. I have no plans on adding to them.”
Jesus. “I’m so embarrassed,” I muttered, red-faced.
“Want to change the su
bject?” she offered kindly.
I nodded in relief. “Please.”
“Great. Let’s talk boys,” Molly suggested happily before sinking down on the couch beside me.
“Boys?” Pulling myself up, I repositioned myself so that I was sitting cross-legged and facing her. “What boys?”
“Rourke,” Molly offered with a knowing smile, mirroring my actions. “You like him, don’t you?”
“What? Are you crazy? Of course not,” I quickly protested, cheeks burning.
That only caused Molly to laugh. “Oh, you so do. The second I mentioned his name, your eyes flashed with something.”
“Yeah,” I shot back. “They flashed with horror.”
“Maybe,” she teased. “But I think there was something else there, too. Attraction?”
I pulled a face at her, unsure of what to say in response. I couldn’t exactly say Rourke wasn’t attractive. It was damn obvious the guy was beautiful in every way. “He drives me crazy,” I finally settled on staying.
“Yeah?”
“And he’s an asshole,” I offered lamely, clutching at straws.
Molly nodded knowingly. “He can be.”
“All of the time,” I grumbled. “He can’t stand me, Molls. Like for reals can’t stand me. Rourke spends most of his days glaring at me.” I shook my head and exhaled a weary sigh. “It’s like he’s judged me based on every bad decision his father has ever made.”
“And that bothers you?” she offered in a gentle tone.
“Well, yeah,” I muttered. “Of course it bothers me.”
“Why?” Molly smiled. “What does it matter to you what Rourke Owens thinks?”
“Because I want him to like me ba –” I slapped my hand over my mouth before I finished the sentence. “Oh my god, you’re good,” I breathed, looking at Molly with reluctant admiration.
“I know,” she chuckled. “It’s a gift of mine; exposing other people’s true feelings.”
“I don’t want to like him, Molly,” I whispered, feeling a huge chunk of shame and resentment land on my shoulders. “He’s a real dick to me.”