by Tracey Ward
“I hate when you call me baby,” I reminded her. “I told you that.”
“But you like it when I do this.” She reached out and shoved her hand down the front of my pants. Her fingers wrapped around me like a vise before I could stop her, and my mind immediately slammed into the darkness to escape it. “Please, come on.”
“No, I told you a hundred times, Lane,” I replied irritably, feeling disoriented. “I’m eighteen and you’re underage.”
Her hand went slack inside my pants. “You’re serious? We’re not having sex for two years?”
“Unless you can turn eighteen sooner, no. We’re not.”
She threw her head back against the seat in frustration. “God, you are so lame! I’m begging you to have sex with me and you’re just going to say no? We’ve done it before a million times.”
“When I was seventeen, yeah.”
“Unbelievable.”
This was becoming a common argument. Ever since last month when I turned eighteen and dropped the bomb that we were done doing it, she brought it up at least once a day. I didn’t even understand how we were still together. Somewhere over the summer we had crossed some invisible line from casually fucking to grudgingly dating and I didn’t know when it had happened, but lately neither of us seemed overly excited about it.
I looked around the interior of the car again, feeling sick with myself for being in it with Laney lying underneath me. How did we always end up like this?
“I’m thinking about buying a motorcycle,” I heard myself say.
I had never in my life considered buying a motorcycle. It was a complete lie. One she absolutely loved.
“Seriously? What kind?” she asked eagerly.
“I don’t know. Something though. I’ve been talking to your dad about it.”
Another lie. They were coming easier now. And I had no idea why I was doing it.
“You should get a street bike. Ellie’s brother has one and it is sick! I love it.”
“You’ve been on it?”
“Once or twice,” she shrugged.
The movement of her shoulders reminded me that her hand was still in my pants. I reached down to pull it out so I could come to the surface again and pay attention, but she grinned and took firm hold of me again.
“Tell me more about the bike,” she whispered, stroking me.
I smirked down at her. “That does it for you, huh?”
“You do it for me.” She sat up on her elbow to put her face in front of mine. “Everything about you,” she whispered, kissing me softly as her hand slid up and down my dick, “makes me so hot I can barely stand it.” Her lips trailed down my chin and onto my neck. “I want you all the time.” She bit me lightly, sucking on my skin and rolling it between her teeth. “I don’t want to be with anyone else ever again,” she unzipped my jeans, pulling me free and teasing her fingers over my tip, “because no one in this world feels as good as you do.”
Laney was a liar too. I knew it. It was a line, one I was pretty sure I had fed to a girl before. That didn’t mean it didn’t work. My ego and dick swelled, responding to her words and touch. I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against hers as she stroked me gently.
She kept to feather light touches until I started to move. I thrust into her hand harder and faster and she responded by taking a stronger hold of me, flexing and releasing her grip over and over again. Moisture leaked from my tip and she used her thumb to roll it over my head, down on the underside where the pressure of her touch made me crazy, jolting like lightning through my nervous system. My breath caught in my throat and I groaned, low and deep as she repeated the motion. Even as my pace quickened, she kept her forehead pressed to mine. She breathed against me and when my breaths started coming harder, hers did too.
The car began to fog with our sweat as I pushed faster and faster into her hand. Her tongue darted out from her mouth to lick my lips but I kept our foreheads together. I kept that connection because it was the only one we had – physical. My mind was safely stowed away and my body had taken over.
“Do I make you feel good, Kel?” she whispered.
“Yes,” I panted, my balls tightening. I was going to come.
“I make you hot?”
“You make me so hot.”
“You don’t need anyone but me.”
“No.” I was getting close. The world was going dark around the edges. I was losing focus. “I don’t need anyone but you.”
She sat up and pushed her face close to mine, her lips brushing against my ear. She took the bottom of my lobe between her teeth and bit it gently in a move she knew would send me over the edge. “I love you,” she whispered roughly.
“Oh fuck,” I groaned, exploding in her hand and tensing from head to toe. “Fuck, fuck. I love you. Fuck.”
She fell back against the seat, smiling up at me happily.
It wasn’t until I was home that night staring blankly at my ceiling and listening to the neighbors have a screaming match that I realized what I’d said. That I’d lied again.
That I was screwed.
***
“Where have you been?” the Asshole demanded.
“Gym,” I lied calmly. I was getting good at it. It had been four days since I’d accidentally told Laney I loved her in the heat of a blurry moment that I could see all too clearly today. Four days and neither of us had mentioned it. She hadn’t said it again and I hadn’t had to either repeat my lie or tell her the truth. A truth that could not take us anywhere good.
“Oh yeah?” Asshole asked sarcastically. “You feel big and tough? Are you getting ripped so you can finally be a man?”
“I do it to stay in shape. You should try it.”
He chuckled dryly, his laugh threatening to turn into a cough. “I’m plenty fit.”
“It shows.”
“Don’t be a smart with me,” he growled.
I bit my tongue, hating the taste. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”
He turned back to the TV, but he wasn’t done with me. “You get a job yet? It’s been a month.”
It’d been three months since I finished school, but that wasn’t what he was talking about. He was reminding me that it’d been a month since I turned eighteen and the checks from the government had dried up. I wondered what he’d do if his mom’s Social Security checks ever stopped coming. Throw her out on the street, probably.
“No, not yet.” I thought about lying again, but instead of making it a habit, I told the truth. “I’m not going to get one.”
“Oh no? You gonna start working the street? I know Mrs. Bessman down the hall would love to see you take your clothes off for her.”
“No,” I said shakily, not recognizing my own voice. It sounded small. Afraid. “I’m going to college. I leave in two weeks.”
He rose slowly from his chair, his eyes on me sharp as daggers. “How am I just now hearing about this?”
“I don’t have to tell you anything. I’m eighteen. I’m my own man and I’m leaving.”
“Like hell you are.”
He took a step closer to me, and as his fists balled, mine did too. But I knew I couldn’t hit him. I couldn’t get into trouble again. I had worked all year to keep my nose clean and I was almost out. I was almost free. I had to keep it together. I had to keep my calm.
“I am,” I said as forcefully as I could. It still sounded weak. “I’ve been accepted. I’m going.”
“And how do you think you’ll pay for that fancy education?”
“I’m smart. They’re practically paying me.”
He laughed in my face. “Sure. Of course they are. Out of the goodness of their hearts they’re taking on some punk off the streets.”
“No.”
“You’re an idiot if you think you’ll trot off to this big fancy college acting all hot shit and blowing everybody away. You’ll fail just like you always do. You’ll fall flat on your face and come crawling back to me to take you in and I won’t do it, so you better
think twice about leaving this house ‘cause once you’re out, you are never coming back in.”
“I’m counting on that.”
“Oh you think you’re better than me now?”
“I know I am.”
My heart was in my throat. I nearly choked on it.
“Why? Because you’re sticking your dick in some rich girl? You think that makes you something? Let me tell you what’s happening there. She’s slumming. She’ll get bored with you when this college bullshit falls through and you’re working in that gym for minimum wage. No girl wants to stay with that, especially with no money.” He stepped closer until he was nose to nose with me. He wasn’t any taller than I was, but in my mind he was a giant. In my memory, the one concreted into my brain by the terrified twelve year old boy who had first moved into this hell, he was a mountain of a man. He was something you didn’t fight with. You didn’t argue. “Go ahead and go to your college with your rich girlfriend. It doesn’t matter. You are nothing but the bastard son of an Irish immigrant whore and that’s all you’re ever going to be.”
I wanted to hit him. I almost did. The animal growled and snarled inside me, but I locked the cage up tight. I kept reminding myself of the fact that I was almost free. I was days away from getting out. He couldn’t stop me. No matter how much he managed to terrify and anger me, he couldn’t stop me. Not unless I let him.
“Go on and hit me, boy,” he growled. “Do it. Take a swing and show me what a man you are.”
“No.”
“Do it! You’re always at that gym learning to fight, so do it. Show me what a champion you are. Show me what a fighter they’ve made you.”
“I’m not a fighter,” I muttered weakly. “I’m a boxer.”
And this wasn’t a ring. This was something else entirely. This was the woods and the bonfire. It was two against one and it was a mistake. One I wouldn’t make again.
I took a step back from him.
That’s when he hit me. He put his fist right in my eye and then he did it again. And again. He hit me until I fell to the ground and my vision was off. Blurred by blood and pain. And I knew for sure this time – he’d broken my nose again.
He left me there on the ground, muttering about punks and ungrateful idiots as he walked to his bedroom and slammed the door.
I got up immediately, wincing against the pain in my ribs and sides. I was an over tenderized piece of meat, a bleeding broken mess that should not be seen in public, but I couldn’t stay there. I didn’t trust myself not to burst into his room and beat him unconscious where he lay in his bed. I had to get out.
And there was only one place I could think to go.
Feeling the itch in my palms begin to burn, I pulled out my phone and quickly dialed a cab company. I took me three tries, my hands were shaking so badly. I told them to meet me on a nearby corner then I hurried in that direction as fast as I could. I stumbled a couple of times, my feet and brain not communicating properly.
When I reached the corner, I glanced around at the old, shitty buildings with the gang tags, the bars on all the windows, the sweaty gleam on the sidewalk that I could feel on my skin, and I felt it all closing in on me. I felt trapped. Like I would never leave this place, no matter what Dan or Karen or Jenna said. No matter what I did with Laney or whether or not she really loved me. I worried I’d never be better than what he said I was – a bastard.
The cab appeared and pulled to a stop in front of me. I jumped inside quickly, hoping he wouldn’t catch sight of my face in the interior light, but he did. He knew what he was transporting. When I gave him the address, he seemed to relax. Orange Country was made of money. We were bound to find enough to cover my fare just lying on the streets somewhere outside a Starbucks.
And we would have to. Not only was I broken, I was broke. I didn’t have a penny to my name.
When we pulled up into the driveway of the Monroe Mansion, I started to have regrets. I was tempted to tell him to take me somewhere else, but it was too late. It was three in the morning and I had nowhere else to go.
“Give me one second,” I grunted as I stepped out of the car. “I’ll get you your money.”
“You don’t have it?” he exclaimed after me. “I knew it! I knew the second you got in my car that you were—“
I shut the door on him. “I’ll get you your money,” I repeated. I doubt he heard me.
I shuffled to the door and stared at it for a long time. Finally, I knocked.
I heard him when he came hurrying down the stairs. I watched him through the glass on the side of the door, feeling like I was falling as he descended. As I stood there dripping blood from my busted nose on their pristine white concrete porch, I fell away. I hid deep inside the recesses of me where I went when I wasn’t able to feel. I hid in the dark in the corner of my mind, a shaking twelve year old. A heartbroken nine year old missing his mommy. An aching, confused ten year old pinned to the floor.
Dan opened the door.
That’s the last thing I remember about that night.
Chapter Ten
I spent the next two weeks living at Callum’s house. Dan offered to let me stay with them in their posh pool house, but I couldn’t. My pride wouldn’t let me. It was hard enough taking Callum up on the offer. I went to the apartment the next day while the Asshole was at work, collected what small amount of possessions I had, and never went back. I changed my mailing address to my dorm up at Cal, I got a new phone with a new number, and I started shopping around for motorcycles. I’d told Laney I wanted one as a strange lie in a weird moment, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. The freedom of being on the road alone with the wind whipping past. No music, no chatter from anyone else in the car. No back seat. Just me. Flying.
The new phone and the bike were going to be expensive. So was going to college. Even buying all of the toothpaste and toilet paper I’d need was going to cost me, and I was broke. Or a millionaire, depending on how you looked at it. Dan and I had long, exhausting conversations about the money Barkley Thorp had been giving me over the years. I asked him not to tell anyone else about it. Not Karen and definitely not the girls. I wasn’t sure what it meant or what I wanted to do with it yet, but eventually Dan did talk me into using at least some of it to go to school and live off of while I was getting my education. I declined the financial aid Cal was offering me in the hopes they would give it to someone else who needed it, I paid my tuition with the first check I’d ever written in my life, and I made an anonymous donation to the school to help other kids get the help they needed. I made a donation to UCLA as well.
My first day of college was surprisingly not that different from high school. In fairness, my high school experience had been in the Higher Focus program, a set of classes designed to challenge geniuses and get us accustomed to what a college environment would feel like. Thanks to my time at Weston, I didn’t have a single one hundred level class on my schedule. I’d earned college credit the entire time I was enrolled there and most of my classes were two to three hundred level. My core classwork required for just about any major was already started.
Day one and I was nearly a year ahead of the curve.
My phone vibrated in my pocket where I sat in a dark corner of the lecture hall. I groaned, contemplating ignoring it. Laney had been texting me all morning with selfies of herself getting ready for the first day of school, trying on different outfits, and hanging out around campus with her friends. I was getting sick of it.
Reluctantly, I pulled my phone out surreptitiously and glanced down at it under my fold away desk. I smiled when I saw the message was from Jenna.
Hey. How’s college? she asked.
It’s cool. How’s high school?
It’s cool. Big. Little scary. Hey, speaking of scary, what the hell did you do?
Uh oh.
Don’t know what you mean. I answered, thinking I had a pretty good idea what she meant.
Bullshit!
Language ;) I scol
ded, quoting her mom.
Sam says you cock blocked me. Is that true?
She’s using that term wrong.
Doesn’t mean it’s not true. How many, Kel? How many guys will be scared to come near me?
I stifled a laugh, covering my mouth and coughing to hide it. No one paid me any attention.
The entire football team. JV and Varsity.
Bastard, she swore.
Pisser. Hey, what are you wearing?
Excuse me?
I reread what I’d asked her, then cursed softly. That came out wrong. Laney sent me pics of her First Day Back outfit. Lots of them.
Is that seriously a thing?
She very seriously seems to think so. Where are yours?
I’m not sending you pictures of what I’m wearing.
At least send me a pic of your smiling face. I miss it.
She fell silent for a minute after that and I worried she was finished talking to me. I hadn’t spoken to her in a week, not since I’d left to come up to school, and I missed her more than I thought I would. This one quick exchange was more entertaining than hours of texting with Laney or Callum.
My phone vibrated again. She’d sent me a picture.
When I opened it, I laughed out loud. Literally. Heads turned and students glared at me, but the professor kept going without missing a beat. I painted a serious look on my face but my shoulders were shaking with silent laughter.
Jenna had sent me a picture of herself sitting in class. She was flipping me off.
When everyone was done scolding me silently with their eyes, I texted Jenna quickly.
lol I love you, Nonpareil.
And that was not an accident.
It was not a lie.
Chapter Eleven
Eight Months Later