I’m hyperaware of my surroundings; the hiss of the fluorescent lights overhead; intermittent beeps and sizzles in the kitchen, food on, food off. The ding of the service bell that tells the waitresses when food is up and ready to be served. It’s so dark in here even with the overhead lights and the bar lamps that hang over every table. So dark compared to a white-washed prison cell. The seat is soft underneath me, so soft that my back starts to ache. I’m not used to being comfortable. I’m not used to being alone like this.
I like being alone and at the same time, it’s terrifying. Nobody telling me when to eat. When to shower. When to sleep. Just me, and the cup of black coffee in front of me, and now the nachos so sexy I almost come in my pants when I see them. They’re placed in front of me by a pale, slender arm, and I follow that arm to its owner as if in slow motion.
A pretty girl stands at the end of my booth. She can’t be more than seventeen, but she’s got the body of a woman. Tits that strain against her bright pink Dana’s Grill shirt; the buttons at her sternum struggling to contain them. Lips painted in a gloss with specks of glitter in it. Big brown doe-eyes that look amused when the path my gaze is making finally meets hers.
“More coffee?”
I laugh under my breath. “I know you.”
She smiles as she pours more coffee into my mug, her nose wrinkling up when she does. “You’re in Gun Creek. Pretty sure you know everyone, Leo Bentley. Welcome home.”
She’s Chase’s little sister. “Jenny. Christ, last time I saw you, you were, what — ten?”
Shit. I’ve been checking out the girl I used to babysit when she was in diapers. “Eight, I think,” she replies. “I just turned sixteen.”
“Really?” My dick is hard as granite under the table. It hasn’t been inside a woman in eight years. I should not be looking at a sixteen-year-old and getting a hard-on, but then I looked at the nachos on the menu and got a hard-on. So, I’m going to try and forgive myself. And then find someone age-appropriate to fuck as soon as possible. I already feel sorry for whoever that girl’s going to be because I’m either going to last ten seconds, or I’m going to fuck her so hard she sees stars.
Cassie and I used to sneak out to the fields and have sex, and then look for shooting stars after as we fumbled our clothes back on and caught our breath. Then I ruined everything.
Suddenly I’m not so turned on anymore.
I pick up a corn chip and bring it to my mouth as Jennifer looks around conspiratorially. She puts her coffee pot down on the edge of the table and slides into the booth across from me. “I’m surprised you’re here,” she says. “You know Cassie still works here, right?”
The hairs on my arms stand up on end, like someone’s tasered me, and I look around the diner as I try to shrink down in my seat without her noticing.
“Don’t worry, she works the morning shift,” Jennifer says, taking an upside-down mug from next to the sugar packets and pouring herself a cup of coffee.
“Aren’t you supposed to be working?” I ask her, watching as she dumps three sugars in her coffee and stirs.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at home?” she asks in response. I grimace, not knowing what to say, wishing she’d go away now so I can shove these fucking nachos in my face instead of politely nibble them like I am now.
“How’s your brother?” I ask between mouthfuls.
“Rich and annoying,” Jennifer says, waving her hand dismissively. “He married Shelly, you know. They’ve got three daughters and she’s pregnant again. They keep saying they want to keep it a surprise, but everyone knows they’re just going to keep going until they have a boy. Which means this next baby has to be a girl.”
Speaking to a teenage girl after eight years of male conversation, peppered with the occasional yard chat with a female prison guard, is jarring. I can practically see the cogs moving in her brain, but they’re whirring too fast for me to focus on. I’ve forgotten how much girls like to talk.
“They might have a boy,” I say, pushing my nachos away and sipping on my coffee. It’s strong and incredibly bitter.
Jennifer raises her perfectly manicured eyebrows. “If you want something that much, you’re never going to get it,” she says, sliding back out of the booth and grabbing her coffee pot, her mug forgotten. “It’s just the way the world works.” She tips her chin toward the rucksack on the seat next to me, all of my worldly possessions from prison and a hundred dollars from the gate. “How are you getting home?” she asks. “Pike picking you up?”
“Pike lives in Vegas now,” I reply. “Or maybe it’s Reno.”
“Huh,” Jennifer says. “He’s got that side bangs thing going on, right?” She grabs a section of her bangs and imitates the extreme hairstyle my brother has had since our senior year. He visited me in Lovelock like, three months ago, and he still had the fucking thing. Jennifer pretends to flick hair out of her eyes with an exaggerated head toss, and I laugh. “Yeah, that’s my brother.”
She nods. “He was here this afternoon, getting coffee to go. He’s got those extenders in his ears. His earlobes are like, basically touching his shoulders or whatever. He looks like a homeless Criss Angel.”
“He’s in town?” I didn’t tell him I was coming home. He must be visiting Mom. What a good son.
Jennifer shrugs. “Yeah. You need a lift home? I get off at ten.”
I look at the clock on the wall above her head. It’s nine-forty-five. “That’s nice, but—”
“Leo. I drive right past your house. I won’t even stop the car if it makes you feel better. I’ll just open the door and you can jump out while I’m rolling.”
I open my mouth to protest, but — it looks fucking cold outside.
“A ride would be nice,” I say, with difficulty. “Thank you.”
I catch sight of a trucker glaring at me from across the diner. I know him. Lou Potts. Owns all the transport rigs around these parts. I’ve fixed his trucks countless times. Well, I used to. Something about the way he’s trying to kill me with his eyes tells me that he won’t be hiring me again anytime soon.
Jennifer follows my gaze, looking over her shoulder at Lou. “What’s his problem?” she whispers, turning back to me.
“Me,” I say, draining my coffee and letting her fill it again. “His problem is me.”
“Why?” Jennifer asks. “What did you do?”
She’s too young to hate me for the accident and too pubescent to care about anything else except lip gloss and shopping at the mall with her friends. Or whatever the fuck it is sixteen-year-old girls do. As I recall, Cassie enjoyed outdoor sex and baking when she was sixteen, but she was always different than other girls. Kind of why I loved her so much.
Love her so much. Still. Even though I haven’t seen her in eight years.
At ten on the dot, Jennifer comes back to my table. “It’s on me. Keep your money,” she says, picking up the folded note I’ve left under the salt shaker. I grab her wrist as she’s stuffing the crumpled twenty into my pocket.
“Jennifer, you’re in high school. Keep your money. Save up for spring break or something.”
“I drive an eighty-thousand-dollar Range Rover, Leo,” she replies, sticking up her perfectly polished middle finger at me. “And my manicure cost more than your nachos.”
I thank her for the meal and for the three extra doggy bags full of cherry pie that she hands me on our way out. I doubt my mom would have stocked the fridge — she doesn’t even know I’m coming home — so I stop arguing and take the favor. I know she feels sorry for me. But at least she doesn’t want to rip my fucking throat out like Lou who stares at us as we leave the diner, as I slide into the Range Rover’s electronically-warmed passenger seat, and as we drive off down the highway.
I almost expect to feel something when we cross the bridge. I see the shiny section where they replaced the guardrail that I busted through on my way down. The creek below is flanked by shadows, far too dark to make it out, but I know it’ll be frozen over. It was
frozen over when I crashed.
I don’t remember getting in the car, or going off the bridge, but I do remember the freezing cold water as it seeped into my car. I remember the flames on my arm. I remember Teresa King’s face as she screamed. As she burned.
“Are you excited?” Jennifer asks, piercing my garish daydream.
“Excited?”
“About going home. About seeing your family.”
I laugh under my breath. “Sure. I guess.”
“Did you forget how to have a conversation in prison?” Jennifer asks pointedly. Shit. Guilt slams into me, shame. This girl who hasn’t seen me since she was in grade school gave me food, a ride home, and no judgment and I’m not even making polite conversation with her.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I am so fucking rude.”
“You’re not,” she says quickly.
“No, I am. You’re right. I kind of did forget how to have a conversation.”
She shrugs. “That’s okay. Makes sense, I guess.”
We drive in silence the rest of the way. Something about the way Jennifer has aged so rapidly in the past eight years has woken me the fuck up - in prison, time has no meaning. Nobody grows or is born. Nobody is ever a child. You go there and you live each day the same as the last, and sometimes you stay so long you die there.
Not me. I’m not ever going back. I’ll die before I go back.
Jennifer pulls on to the shoulder in front of our property, watching quietly as I grab my backpack and the bag of food.
“Thanks for the ride,” I say, opening my door.
“I guess I’ll see you at the house sometime,” Jennifer replies. “My brother’s home. You should come around and see us, Leo. He’d like that.”
I slide out of the car and turn around, smiling at her. “Yeah, me too. Drive home safe, okay?”
She nods, and it’s only as I’m closing the door that I realize how fucking ridiculous that sounds, coming from the mouth of a man who just served eight years in prison for driving the opposite of safe.
I stand on the side of the road and watch her taillights as she drives away.
CHAPTER EIGHT
LEO
As soon as I get home, I almost wish I were back in prison.
The moment I trudge down to my room, my makeshift shipping container, my feet sinking into the thick snow blanketing everything, I’m greeted by what sounds like two people fucking each other to death.
Animals. Of course, it makes sense that anyone of age in our house would use my room for some privacy instead of trying to fuck in the trailer, paper-thin walls stifling nothing. Of course. While I was away, they’ve turned my room into a goddamned brothel.
I just about rip the door off the hinges, I’m that furious, my brother’s name on my lips. I mean, it’s either Pike or my mom using this room, and I can’t even think about it being Mom.
So what I see breaks my fucking heart and makes me want to commit murder all at the same time.
“What the fuck is this!?” I yell, my voice filling the small room. It stinks like sweat and sex and pot in here. Everything is as I left it – the bed, the sink, clothes hanging on a piece of rope strung up in the corner. They don’t look like my clothes anymore.
My baby sister, naked and bouncing on top of some guy I vaguely recognize, is the thing I didn’t leave here. Hannah is fourteen, and as if that weren’t bad enough, she’s slow. Special, I call her. My mom drank too much when she was pregnant with her and she’s mentally the age of a pre-schooler. The last time I saw her, she was six years old, and in all the time I’ve been in prison, she’s never mentally progressed. At least, that’s what Pike told me.
And now she’s fourteen, she’s on top of some guy, and he’s making this noise with his hands on her big belly. Her big pregnant belly.
I see red. I’m pretty sure I’m about to set a record for how quickly someone can get arrested for brutal fucking murder after being let out on parole. I charge at them, Hannah’s face breaking into a smile as she sees me. “Leo!” she says, reaching for me. I dodge her, grabbing the stunned guy by the neck and literally dragging him out from underneath my sister. I throw him onto the ground, kicking him in the ribs as hard as I can, and the guy looks like he’s about to have a goddamn heart attack.
“Derek?!” I say. Derek Jackson is one of my mom’s sometime boyfriends and occasional business partners when they do a cook together. He was hanging around like a bad fucking smell when I was arrested. Time has not treated him well. He’s missing more teeth now, and he looks fucking terrible.
“Jesus Christ,” I seethe, putting my boot on Derek’s throat when he tries to get up. “Does my mother know about this?”
“Don’t hurt him!” Hannah interjects.
“Get dressed, Hannah. Get dressed now!” I find a pile of clothes on the floor and throw them at my baby sister; I don’t even know if they’re hers, but I don’t care.
“Man, just pass me my pants—” Derek says, choking when I step harder on his windpipe.
“Did I say you could talk, fucker?” I ask him. “Just give me a reason. Just give me a reason to break your fucking neck.”
“You dressed?” I say to Hannah, without taking my eyes off Derek. The dude looks completely fucked up — he’s missing half his teeth, no doubt thanks to all the ice he smokes, and his eyes are so bloodshot it looks like somebody burned them with a blowtorch.
“Yeah,” Hannah says. I glance at her, fighting the urge to roll my eyes. She’s wearing an oversized checked shirt that definitely isn’t hers, a pair of men’s boxer shorts, and slippers. Apart from the fact that she’ll freeze outside like that, none of the clothes are hers. I focus my attention back on Derek, who is staring at Hannah.
“Don’t look at my sister,” I snap, pulsing my foot against his throat so that he chokes painfully. “You aren’t ever going to see her again, you hear me?”
“Leo,” Hannah whines.
“You know she’s not right, don’t you?” My eyes fucking boring into his. “You know she’s slow. You’ve basically been screwing around with a kid from the first grade. You got a child pregnant, you fucking pedophile.”
Something changes in Derek’s eyes. “You got something to say?” I challenge him, lifting up my boot so he can talk.
“She’s a young woman!” Derek protests, holding his throat. “Look at her. Your mama gave us her blessing, so fuck you, Leo Bentley.”
“Fuck me?” I repeat. “Fuck you.” I smash my fist into his face, adrenaline surging through me as my blow finds purchase. I want to kill him. I hit him again and again, only stopping because Hannah is screaming out enough to alert the entire town. If the sheriff turns up, he’ll no doubt take great pleasure in hauling my ass back to Lovelock.
“Get out,” I spit, pointing at the door as I stare Derek down.
“My clothes—”
“Get new ones,” I interject. “Get out before I rip your dick off.”
“I didn’t knock nobody up,” Derek says defiantly, his face a bloody pulp. “Don’t you come asking for no money for that bastard, Leo Bentley. That there ain’t my kid. She was already like that when I started up with her.”
I pick up one of my football trophies and lug it at his head. I’m an excellent aim, and I flinch a little when it hits him square in the temple. Blood explodes from his face. Fuck. That really could have killed him.
“Get out!” I yell.
He runs outside, naked except for his boots, cupping his cock and balls in his hands as he runs through the snow to his pickup. He gets in and starts the car up, tearing off as I stare at my little sister.
“You’re mean,” Hannah says, pouting a little.
“Hannah,” I say quietly, scrubbing my hand across my chin as I try to figure this out. “How far along are you? How many weeks?”
She looks dumbfounded.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. “Have you been to the doctor? Has anyone taken you to check on the baby?”
She shakes
her head. “Mama says she will when her check comes in.”
I let out a noise that’s half-sigh, half-growl. I’ve been hearing that same excuse my whole life. “Where are your clothes, Hannah?”
“None of my clothes fit me,” she says, resting her hands on her belly. “I’m too fat. Pike gave me some of his stuff.”
I’m about to snap. Anger surges through me, and guilt. This happened because I wasn’t here.
“I told Pike to watch you,” I say to Hannah. She’s already distracted by something else, a game she’s playing with herself. It’s what she does when she feels threatened. Retreats inside her head and won’t look anyone in the eye.
“Hannah,” I implore her. “I’m sorry I yelled, honey. I thought he was hurting you.”
Her lower lip is trembling. Goddamn it. This is on me. This is all on me.
“Come on,” I say, putting a hand on her shoulder. I don’t want to touch her after she’s been with that guy, but she’s my sister. “Hannah, I’m sorry. Please talk to me.”
She looks up at me, her eyes filled with tears, and I’m relieved. At least she’s making eye contact. “You never came back,” she says. “You told me you’d be right back.”
“When?”
“When you went to the party,” she replies. “I’ve been waiting for you. You’ve been gone for so long, all the leaves fell off the trees and the snow came back. You’ve never been away that long, Leo.”
Oh my God, she’s talking about the night of the accident. Eight years ago.
“You’ve been waiting for me?” I ask, a hard lump forming in my throat. She nods.
“I was scared without you here,” she says. I can actually feel my heart breaking into pieces.
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