by Tara Lynn
“Will do,” I said to him. He finally nodded and left.
I took a deep breath, and took another try at the article. I couldn’t have Rett’s name setting me off. How could I handle the real thing?
True, he wasn't there much at all, for which I was grateful. But there were still plenty of times where it was unavoidable.
I might see him at the dinner table. Or hear him stirring next door late at night.
Or even just sniff his scent went I went in for a shower after him.
It was too much.
Breathe, Liza. Breathe.
“You ok?” Maria asked.
Her dark hair swayed, as she looked over from her monitor, her full fingers still typing furiously.
“I'm ok. Just a bit overwhelmed.”
“About school?”
“No, home stuff. It'll be ok. I just have to get used to it.”
“That's usually how it goes.” She turned back to the screen's glow.
That's what I loved about Maria. She cared, but not to be nosy. Whenever the world felt like it was spinning too fast, one look at her would keep me steady.
Plus, she'd also grown up way too early, though not for the same reasons. Her dad had been arrested on a drug charge when she was ten and her mom had diabetes that limited her work. Maria had been working to help raise her brother and sister since she was twelve. And still, somehow, she was next in line after me with her grades. Just seeing her made me want to push myself. It made me want to believe my problems were all petty.
Though it was far easier to think that than to get myself to believe. A couple minutes later and my stomach was back to roiling over how to slink back into my room unseen. Maybe I should buy a ladder.
“You finish editing sports?” Maria asked. “I've got the entertainment section done.”
“Entertainment?” I said numbly.
“The movie review. Jeez, you really are out of it. Is the move really that bad?”
I sighed. “You know how Rett is.”
“I don't actually.” She whirled her chair around and looked me over, slowly chewing gum. “He's good at football. That's about all I know about him.”
“Oh come on – you're telling me you never noticed him prowling the hallways, pinning girls to locker doors and acting like he's hot shit because he’s got that MC jacket? He's a freaking criminal. Throwing a ball well shouldn’t hide that.”
She chewed dully. “I don't get involved with gang stuff. I just want to put in my time and get out of here in one piece.”
“I don’t care about the MC stuff either. It's who it’s turned him into that matters.”
“Just stop paying attention then.”
I rubbed my head. “That's really hard to do when he's living in your house.”
“Living in your house or living in your head?” Maria tapped her temple. “I mean you used to date him right?”
I turned away from her. “That was freshman year. You and I weren't even hanging out then.”
“Yeah, but I heard about it.” She rolled back to her screen. “See, I notice things.”
“Well, ok, what should I do about it then?” I asked.
“I already told you. Don't give him the time of day.”
“It's not like I'm doing it on purpose. He's just distracting.”
Maria chuckled. “Really? This coming from the girl who read the chemistry textbook cover to cover in four days flat? You know people call you Laser Clark right? You don't lose focus unless you want to.”
I knew the nickname. Heck, I liked that name. Maybe people thought I was a robot, but that was so much better than seeing how crazy my gears spun on the inside. It was nice to see teachers smile when my hand went up. It wasn’t like that when I was in elementary school.
Then in sixth grade, my dad ditched us. In eighth, my mom remarried. In ninth, I went to high school and met a sweet, gangly kid named Everett Tull.
And by the time ninth grade was over, the only thing I wanted in the world was to hightail it out of town and never look back. So I got on an exercise bike and started pedaling my butt off. Come next spring, I'd unhitch it from the stand and zoom out of here.
Away from this place. Away from Everett and everything he stood for.
That's where my focus should be. Doing well at my clubs, finishing my college applications on time.
Maria was right. All I had to do was ignore him. Other guys were easy enough to ignore, even when they tried to pierce my shell. That’s all Rett was now anyway – another guy. He might have been there at the start, but one of us had grown up. The other had grown twisted. I didn’t need him or any guy in my life, now. Maybe ever.
Maria and I finished fixing and assembling the pieces of the paper. It helped that I didn't care all that much about what our reporters wrote. As long as it looked good, teachers would say I did a good job.
“You want to go get burgers?” I asked Maria after I'd sent the order to the print room. I'd take any excuse not to go home.
“I was actually thinking about going to the stadium, getting a hot dog and watching Everett lead the Rattlesnakes against the Coyotes.”
I blinked at her. She started to laugh.
“I'm kidding! Come on Laser, let's get that burger. You can help me with my UT-Austin essay.”
I grabbed my bag and we headed for the door.
“How about this,” I said. “I'm Maria Cruz, a Hispanic girl who is the salutatorian at my high school. My mother can't work and I've had to raise my two siblings and ok, you can stop drooling on my admissions letter now.”
Maria laughed high and full. “That could be me and a thousand other Latinas. Try again.”
“A thousand other salutatorians? Are there that many schools in Texas even?”
“Hmm, fair point.”
A blanket of dirty cotton covered the skies outside. Thunder cracked somewhere far away, and we rushed to my car. It started after a couple grinding revs, and we went out to CC's Diner and schemed and laughed our way through burgers and a plate of chipotle fries.
Maria had to go to her late shift at the motel. I thought about hanging around with her, but her boss didn’t like that much and I didn’t want her in trouble.
No, it was time to go home. Besides, Rett had that game tonight, and even if he didn’t, what would I do for six months? Hide?
The house was dark when I got home, all except for Mom's room. Ronald's car was parked in the driveway. I shuddered and braced myself as I opened the door.
The inside was quiet. I let out my breath. Thank god. I'd heard my mom and him go at it a couple times before and no amount of music could etch that memory from my brain.
I should just be happy that my mom was happy. She hadn’t been there when I needed her the most, but she wasn't bad or anything – just too weak. And besides, if they were going at it, then maybe this marriage wouldn't be as messed up as the last.
A cold seeped down my spine. I'd blanked my last stepfather out as hard as humanly possible, but the memories were there if I let myself wander. I hurried upstairs, popped on my earphones and blasted music until my brain wound down.
I didn't have anything urgent due. I'd already sent in my UT-Austin app, but I glanced at the confirmation email in my inbox. That logo held promise. It meant escape. It meant shedding this life and becoming someone else, somewhere new and unspoiled.
The others weren't quite due yet. If I could be honest, just looking at the Harvard or Stanford logos sent spiders crawling down my arm. Yeah, I had good grades, and I did other stuff than stick my nose in books all day, but, god, that was nothing compared to most of the kids who wound up in those schools. I wanted out of Loving, that was for sure, but I couldn’t go so far and so high and still get to hide behind the girl I was here. They’d see just how fake I was.
So much for Eliza the Laser. Anyway, Austin wasn't exactly a safety school.
I pulled out my sketch pad and looked over how far I'd gotten. It'd been weeks since I touched the thing
, mostly because I didn’t have the time. Each page held a full color sketch of a fantasy world: Little snapshots of a robed woman moving furtively through a forest. Another of a full castle ballroom with shadows in the hallway.
The darkness had to be there. Without the darkness you didn’t have a story, and I only drew to tell a story. Even when my shapes were balloony and cheerful, you still got the sense that the pieces hadn't stopped moving – that they could become something else. At least, that’s what I hoped a critic would say one day.
I'd been doing this since I was a kid. It had no real use – I mean, I still drew the cartoons for the paper, but that wouldn’t go anywhere. I’d skipped art classes cause they didn’t jive with my schedule. It wasn’t like I could major in this in college. The people that did that were rich kids, not people who needed a way to survive. I’d thought about being an animator once, but the road to that was long and unpaid, and I’d had enough of rough riding. I just wanted smooth from here on out.
I pulled out my stencil set and started on a new scene. Rolling green hills filled my mind, something completely unlike the very flat, very dry land that we lived on. I added a country road rising up and down over each on its way off the page. I could fill in the hills later, but I needed a cloud on the horizon first.
Rain pattered my windows. A literal cloud seemed too obvious.
But a dust cloud on the road, something hidden approaching. That felt right.
A bout of thunder started up, but this one just rolled closer to my house. I leaned over to my window and spotted a solitary beam headed up my road.
Right, that's why I had dust clouds on my mind.
The chopper turned up the drive. Rett's wide, leather-clad form stood, removed his curved helmet, revealing hair as black as night.
I shivered and turned away from the window. On his chopper, he looked every bit a knight. A fallen knight, yes, but that just meant he had once been shining.
My last stepfather had fallen the same way Rett had. He was never a great man, but he seemed decent. He was Loving’s sheriff, for god’s sake. Then the MC got their hooks in him. He turned into one of them, and my mother and I paid the price.
We had almost shattered. But one day, he packed a few bags and simply left. He’d said he was off to meet a friend outside of town, that we might not see him again, and that we should get by as well as we could. Then, he rolled out. The only thing that had bothered me about that was the chance we might see him again. It’d been years though, and my mom had even gotten the marriage annulled – her one act of strength. He’d have no place here if he came back.
Now I had another wannabe biker in my life. Another guy I thought I knew, seduced and transformed into garbage.
Rett grabbed his saddlebag and came up to the front. But he didn't come in. A moment later, he was swearing outside. He knocked the door.
Oh crap. He didn't have the keys.
I waited, waited for Mom or Ronald to stir out of their love nest, but he knocked three times and no one moved. The rain came down ever harder.
Breathe, Liza, breathe.
I couldn't avoid him for the next half year. Even volatile mixtures reached equilibrium. That’s just what I would make happen.
I peeled opened the door, tiptoed down. Rett pounded the door. I waited, then opened it.
He stood in the moonlight like a silhouette of himself. His frame rose almost the height of the door, and nearly filled the width. Was it my imagination or had he actually grown? We hadn’t stood this close in years.
Even he looked shocked a moment, but he recovered.
“Evening, sis,” he said, a faint grin glistening against the night.
“Don't call me that.”
“Practicing will make it easier when it's official.”
“That's still months away. You might just get shot before then.”
The smile flattened. This wasn’t helping us reach balance, but watching him react felt pretty satisfying.
I stepped aside silently, and he moved in. A thick musky aroma drifted in after him, flooding over me like a wave. I inhaled it like sweet poison, flashes of a forgotten past returning as my brain ticked off.
Desert nights with a blanket. Moving softly together within my bed. Skin moving sticky on skin.
“I want to be inside you forever, baby. I’m not ever going to leave.”
Rett shut the door and snapped me to reality. He seemed ready to drift right on to his room.
For some reason, that made me tense.
“Any dinner waiting for me?” he said, peeking at the darkened kitchen. “Guess not.”
“Sorry,” I said, then remembered myself. “Aren’t you already full enough on yourself?”
But Rett just clicked his tongue.
“No, darling, that’d be you,” he said. “Should have known better than to ask Laser Clark for a whiff of human consideration.”
Human consideration? From the guy who had left me alone at my lowest.
The words came to me like fire rushing towards air. “You should have. In fact, you better not forget your keys next time or you’ll be sleeping in the dirt outside your criminal’s den.”
“Oh I imagine this problem won’t come up again. I’ll get a couple backup keys soon enough – seeing as this is my home now.”
I just shrugged. “Yeah I guess it is. After all you’ll be here a lot longer than I’m going to be.”
His eyes narrowed. “Well, look at that. A few seconds around you, and I’ve forgotten all about my appetite.”
I glared back. “Don’t give me all the credit. You’ve always been good at forgetting.”
His mouth hung open, his hatchet of a jaw clenched in the darkness. A little scruff of beard dotted his face, gave it strength. His eyes scoured me, but the longer we stayed still, the more the air seemed to warm under his gaze.
Something rose deep in my chest. I backed away.
“Hey.” His hand gripped mine. My heartbeat shot crimson. The hair rose along my arms.
“Don’t touch me.” I said only managing a harsh whisper.
“I’m not going to take half a year of being disrespected under my own roof,” he said. “You think this was my daydream, girl?”
“It’s my nightmare,” I wriggled but somehow sank only deeper in his grip. “Just when I thought I’d figured out how to leave this town, the darkness comes crawling back into my life.”
“Don’t think you know me,” he said. “Life isn’t as clean as the books you’re so good at reading.”
Had he truly forgotten who I was – what I’d been through? I reared up, but then saw the glower on his face. No, it was no use. “Whatever,” I said. “Let me go and I’ll stay out of your way.”
“And when that ain’t enough? You don't have to be sunshine and rainbows, but you can at least be air.” He shrugged. “For example, you could wish me a good night.”
I barked out a laugh. “You want me to say good night?”
His lips tightened. “They're just words. I don’t need your help making em come true.”
My stomach turned to stone. What did that mean, was he bringing a girl up? Would I have to hear that too?
No, there was no one else standing in the rain. It didn't matter.
“Fine,” I said. “Good night.”
His grip had loosened. I tore out and hurried up to shut myself in my room. I huddled on my bed, looking at the crappy little image I'd sketched. He was the dust cloud alright. The best thing to do was not get caught.
So why did I care less about how bad it felt to get caught, and more about the measured strength of his grip – of how it’d feel to release my whole body to him, to have me pinned open, bared to whatever he chose to do.
I shivered, rubbed my shoulders.
Six months of this darkness. If I wasn’t careful, I’d imagine I saw warmth and just wind up burned all over.
CHAPTER FOUR
Everett
The roar filled the stadium. Eight thousand peop
le here and they were all yelling my name. Some as a prayer, some as a curse.
A literal ton of muscle was pumping my way, the offensive linemen battering their way through my defense. I had seconds before it hit and Marlo wasn't fucking open. If we didn't make the down, the Coyotes would just run out the clock and my unbroken record would be done.
God, did I love these moments. The pure ones where right and wrong were an arm's throw away.