Pitching the shovel into the wheelbarrow, I wiped my arm across my sweaty forehead. “Great. That’s exactly what my goal was.” I probably stunk to high heaven, and I’d made a fool of myself in front of two people. At least—
“What are you doing here?”
The wall was too far away to bang my head against. “Colton. I was just leaving.” Of course he and Thorn would be joined at the fucking hip. Of course.
“I need some help,” Oliver said, his voice a little confused. He watched the other two guys with narrowed eyes and held out his hand.
Pulling my gloves off, I stomped by my arch-nemeses. I was going to head right past Oliver, too, but he stopped me with a hand on my arm. One long look was all it took for some of my anger to drain out of me. “At least I got the hay out with the shit,” I said and shrugged.
He gave me a slight smile before glancing over my shoulder toward Colton and Thorn. “Come see the horses.”
Immediately, I forgot all about the sweat and the smell. “Are they better?” I asked.
“I’ll find you later, Lace,” Thorn called after me, but I didn’t answer. And he didn’t follow.
“Come see,” Oliver replied a little cagily.
We headed off into the night toward one of the other barns. Oliver was silent, seeming comfortable in the darkness. I, however, was not comfortable. All I could think about was the drama of that scene and what it looked like to a stranger. Ugh. Why did I care what he thought?
Except—with Oliver and Aaron, I had a clean slate, and I didn’t want to fuck it up. “Sorry,” I said. “I should have paid closer attention to what you told me.”
He stopped me with a hand on my arm. “How would you know?” he asked. “I said clear out the stall. You did. You just cleared more than I meant.” He took a step before stopping and whirling toward me. “You know Colton and Thorn?”
One used to be my best friend, I wanted to say. But that comment would bring with it too many other questions, and I thought I was physically unable to keep my bitterness out of any answers I made. Considering all my responses, I finally settled on, “Yes. We went to school together.”
“They’re pretty good guys,” he replied, starting toward the distant barn again.
Come again? I choked on my spit as I trailed after him. My entire head was hot, like I might explode. Somehow, though, I kept my sarcastic comments to myself. “You must have only just met them. I’m not… I mean, you might want to be careful how quickly you decide someone is good or bad around here. They’re not slow to form their own opinions, and they’re not always right.”
We stopped next to a pen where a horse nibbled on the fence, tearing off long strips of wood. Oliver ran a hand through the horse’s mane. “I’m pretty good at judging people. Always have been. Plus, the horses like them, and they’re even better at reading a person than me. Or my brother. Aaron is usually right on, and he’s been wanting to meet you since the first time he saw you.”
Rather than answer, I reached out to touch the horse. It didn’t balk at me as I ran my hand down its neck to its flank. Oliver had been smart to bring me out here. This animal was soothing.
“You know, this guy doesn’t like people. They call him Bandit. But I don’t think he likes his name.” Oliver’s brown eyes shone in the lights like they were as bright as the stars. I blinked. I needed to put away that thinking. That thinking had landed me with a reputation that I’d done nothing to deserve.
I tilted my head. “He needs something like King. Something regal.”
“Ah, I see why he likes you.” Oliver grinned. “Lacey…”
“Hey,” Colton called my attention again. “Lacey, we need to talk.”
I stepped away from the horse. “Not tonight. Maybe never. I can’t imagine what we could possibly say to one another. Oliver, can we go?”
He looked between all of us. “Sure you don’t want to talk to him?”
“I’m positive.”
He nodded. “Then let’s go. I’ll get someone to put Bandit back up. Give me a second.”
“I’ll meet you at the truck.”
He handed me the keys, and I forced myself to keep my gaze off of Colton and Thorn. I walked fast to Oliver’s truck, determined to get inside and lock the door. I should have known Thorn wasn’t going to leave it. Now he had his best friend, his right-hand-man, helping him. Right before I closed the door, Colton was there.
“Don’t make me seem like some kind of stalker. I have apologies to make. So does Thorn. We miss you, and we want to make things right. Please, Lacey. I get that you’re mad. You’ve got every right to be. But it isn’t going to get better if you don’t let us try to make things that way.”
Why would he have anything to do with making things right? I swallowed, holding back the year’s worth of tears that I’d managed to swallow. I would not cry. “Colton. This place is a hellhole, and I am stuck here until I turn eighteen. I’ve been ridiculed and abused thanks to both of your families. I’m sorry if you feel inconvenienced by the fact that I’m not interested in speaking with either of you tonight. Or tomorrow. Or any time in the future.”
Colton looked at Thorn. “We’ll wait until you’re ready. But we’re going to keep seeing you, and maybe sometime soon you can see us without other… friends around.”
Oliver rushed up to the car. “Sorry, that took longer than I expected.”
“That’s okay,” I answered. Colton and Thorn moved away from the vehicle, giving him the space to get into the driver’s seat. He revved the engine and pulled away. His headlights lit up the ranch before landing on Colton and Thorn, and then leaving them in the darkness.
Four
Oliver dropped me at home. The lights were off, which was to be expected. It was bingo night, and Gran and my cousin, Christopher, were regulars.
Gran and Christopher had a sort of dual-parasitic relationship. Bingo was at church, and the Legion was right across the street. Christopher drove, dropped Gran at church, and then went to the bar. Gran would walk over between calls to have as many two-dollar beers as she could manage, before high-tailing it back to church. In the end, Gran got a ride home, and Christopher was able to dip into whatever winnings she got without her being any wiser.
I pushed open the car door. “I’ll walk you in,” Oliver said.
“That’s okay.” I didn’t want to explain the dolls to another person, and I needed some time to process Colton and Thorn’s reappearance.
They were so certain they could explain away their behavior. Did they really think I’d forgive them once I heard their reasons?
My head and heart were a mess, and I’d only take it out on Oliver. Better to just call it a night.
“All right,” he replied, “but Aaron told me about the dolls, and I want to see them myself someday.”
“It’s your nightmare,” I said, because it would be. Those clown babies weren’t something you could unsee.
Oliver chuckled. I waved, watching him back his truck out of the driveway and drive the few yards down the road to his house. Just as he parked his truck, my cousin careened down the street. Tires squealing, the car rocked to a stop a few feet from me. The muffler rattled, and noxious fumes poured out of the undercarriage before he shut it off. In silence, Gran, my cousin, and his girlfriend stumbled out of the car. The smell of exhaust barely dissipated when I was hit with the skunky odor of weed.
“Hey, Lace.” Christopher’s girlfriend, Maura, was a year ahead of me in school, and was a semi-permanent fixture in our house.
Maura wasn’t a bad person. She was way too good for my deadbeat cousin, but like a lot of people in this town, she sort of gave up on wanting more. Rather than strive toward a goal, she seemed content to work at the Vista Mart convenience store and pay for my cousin’s gas.
“Hi, Maura. Hi, Gran. How’d you do?” I asked, trailing behind them as they went inside.
“Not so bad.” Gran’s words slurred together. She was definitely three sheets to the wind, and from the half-smil
e on Christopher’s face, whatever ‘not bad’ meant was probably burning a hole in his pocket.
“Water is due the fifteenth.” I couldn’t help myself.
Christopher rolled his eyes. “Gran gets her disability and social security the first. We’re fine.”
I hated that I had to rely on my grandmother to support me. I’d tried to get a job, really, I had. But when everyone hated you, suffice it to say, I couldn’t get a job cleaning port-a-potties in this town.
And I’d tried.
“I’m just saying,” I continued as the door shut behind us, and Maura slapped on a light, “we could use whatever Gran got tonight toward some bills. Electricity is overdue.”
“Stop being such a Debbie Downer,” Christopher whined before he took Maura’s hand and brought her into his old bedroom. I was a slut for having kissed Thorn. Maura got to have sex regularly with my cousin, and that was somehow fine. I would never understand life.
I looked over my shoulder at Oliver. He leaned against his truck, light from his porch spilling across the road. Our gazes met, but then I looked away and shut the door. He had an unusual life, and I was already pretty interested in getting to know him and his brother better. As odd as their circumstances were, I’d have done anything to have a clean smelling home, two parents who loved me, and siblings who were invested in my life.
After such an unusual day, I was filled with adrenaline. I expected to be unable to sleep, but I went under fast without any trouble. Dreams haunted me, and I woke up in a cold sweat, my heart beating so fast I could hear it in my ears.
I dreamed of Robbie, the missing boy. He ran through the desert, and I chased after him, looking over my shoulder. I couldn’t see what was coming, and that was part of the problem. We were both going to be dead if they caught us. Robbie skidded to a stop, and I almost ran into him. “I’m already dead. There’s no use in chasing me anymore.”
I gasped awake. It was still dark outside. The moans from my cousin’s room told me he was still going hot and heavy, probably spurred on by the cash from my grandmother.
I covered my head with my pillow to drown out the noise and tried to mentally count to ten. What a strange, awful day this had been. Too many things had happened. I thrived with routine, and that didn’t include dinners with the neighbors, running into people who had once claimed to be friends but weren’t, and mucking out stalls. I kicked cans. I fretted and ignored the world, and all of that worked for me.
Too much change. Today I was hit with a rock and cracked wide open. I didn’t need that, not at all. I had to be strong. One day, I would get out of this town, away from these people, and there wouldn’t be any monsters to chase me, not in dreams or anywhere else.
Five
I’d managed to kick my can all the way to school and hide it behind the dilapidated picnic tables where not even the kids who snuck out to smoke weed in between classes visited. There was something creepy about this part of the campus. It gave me goosebumps, and not in the same way that Aaron and Oliver did. I shook my head. I had to stop thinking about them. Nothing good would come from that.
Every day, someone, or something, reminded me I was bad. But there was really nothing like high school to drive that point home. Each morning, I put a stupid, dented can in a spot where no one would find it, and I tried to pump myself up to go to class. That can, the way I used it to keep myself calm and focused and ignore everything else in the world, was my ridiculous little treasure. It pulled me out of this reality, so I only focused on one step, then the next, and the next.
Hands on my hips, I took a deep breath and tilted my head back. The heat was already scorching, and the sky was such a bright blue, it hurt my eyes.
The bell rang, the tinny sound bouncing off cinder block walls so it could be heard outside. With one last longing glance at my can, I shuffled through no-man’s land toward the beige building.
Inside, I got sidelong glances and glares. I was used to it. People hated me. They hated my family. We’d been in this town since it had been founded, and probably even before that. I passed a dusty trophy case on my way to class. If I were to stop, I’d find team photos that included my family. My great-grandfather had been a track and field star, the one person in our family who’d been moderately accepted by this town. He’d worn out that acceptance fast, though. According to Gran, he’d been a bastard—snake-eyed and cruel. At least my father had been kind enough to abandon me. I had a feeling Gran would have traded her childhood with mine in an instant.
I didn’t understand why everyone in my family didn’t get out of here as soon as they could. It was impossible to be judged fairly in this town. Even if I hadn’t been caught with Thorn and labeled the reason he ran out of town with Colton, from the moment I drew my first breath, it seemed my future had been decided.
The closer I got to class, the more my feet dragged on the tiles. My stomach churned with more than the usual dread I felt when I had to come here. Everything in me wanted to turn around and race out of the school, but I couldn’t. I fought through the feeling and went inside.
I made it to class before the final bell rang, but I was the only one to be frowned at by the teacher. Two other students—perfect Miranda Corner and Megan Ray—came in after the bell, but the teacher didn’t even notice.
I could wear beige from head-to-toe, blend completely into the wall, and the teachers in this school would still single me out.
Mr. Roberts, the world literature teacher, happened to glance at me as this thought occurred to me, and he narrowed his eyes. “Lacey.”
It was all he needed to say. It hadn’t mattered that my expression was neutral—I’d perfected the look hoping not to draw attention to myself—whatever I did was regarded as disrespectful. Dropping my gaze to my desk, I ignored the giggles and put-upon sighs of my classmates.
“Right.” Mr. Roberts was apparently ready to move on with class—score one for me. “Last week we talked about the hero’s journey and began to explore various texts that used this template. Which stories did we identify? Anyone?”
The class was silent, and my teacher sighed, but he didn’t give us the answer. He was one of those teachers who believed that students needed a full minute to think before he stepped in. This meant there were lots of long, uncomfortable pauses in my education.
The time ticked on. I swore I could hear the second-hand on the clock keeping time.
“Anyone?” The pudgy man walked in front of the blackboard. No one used them to teach anymore as far as I could tell, but in the old sitcoms on late at night people used them. Now it was all tech. If the teacher didn’t dictate, he had us on tablets that hardly worked because so many kids had tried to mess with them over the years. We did one uninteresting app after another.
It was ridiculous he wanted us to talk about books, considering we only got to read the free snippets of books online.
“Identify a hero’s journey.” He eyed me. “Lacey, maybe you have something interesting to say?” Sarcasm dripped from the question, and the class tittered.
My cheeks heated, not with embarrassment, but with anger. Any time I opened my mouth, I was either ridiculed by my classmates or condescended to by my teachers.
Well, hell. If I did nothing else, I read all the time. I was smart. He wanted to talk about what stories could represent a hero’s journey? Fine. Fuck that. I’d give it to him.
“Well, here’s the thing about a hero’s journey. In its simplest term, you have a person who goes on a journey—like a trip—wins some kind of triumph and comes home changed. A simple example of that would be The Odyssey. Of course, that’s kind of a problem since he’s prideful, mean, and he cheats on his faithful wife, who waits and waits for him back at home. But then, we like a flawed hero, right? We like the people we read about to be sort of bad, so that we relate to them, because when it comes down to it, we’re all bad people.” I tapped my pen on the desk. Tap. Tap. Tap. “If bad people can still have victories, then maybe we can all have them.
That’s the idea, right? Some other examples? How about Meg in A Wrinkle in Time? Bastian in a Neverending Story? Harry Potter? Percy Jackson? Frodo Baggins? Alice from The Wonderland stories? Want me to keep going?”
He opened and closed his mouth. Then said, “No. I think you’ve said quite a mouthful there. And I think I remembered why I don’t call on you.”
The class broke out in laughter, and I slumped down in my seat. I hadn’t been wrong. Meg had a hard time feeling anything. Bastian was draped in misery. I could go on and on. Truth was, I loved the flawed hero. Perfection was boring.
I glared at my teacher. Maybe he’d fall on his fat ass and break something. Oh, not permanently injure himself. I never wished that on anyone. But maybe he would fall and break his ankle. Then he’d have to come to school on crutches and have trouble even doing the most basic things all day. It wouldn’t be too much of a karmic imprint to wish that amount of crap on someone, could it?
I’d rather not risk it. I had my own shitty amount of luck.
“You want the answer or not?” The familiar voice came from the doorway, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
What was he doing here?
Thorn.
Part of me wanted to make a comment about how once people left high school, they should stay out of high school, but I kept my mouth shut.
Now he decided to take up the mantle of protection for me? After leaving me to these wolves? I leaned back in my chair and stared at the desk, refusing to meet his eyes. Around me, people whispered under their breath, and I wanted to disappear. His boots thumped across the linoleum, the sound growing louder the closer he got to me. Shifting uneasily in my seat, I tapped my pen.
The desk next to me squeaked as he sat in it. “You asked for examples of the hero’s journey, and not only did Lacey give you the classic example, but more recent ones. I, for one, am fucking interested in what she has to say.”
Now—most girls would probably swoon to have the popular boy at school take up their cause. But I didn’t need this motherfucker helping me. He and Colton had dug a hole and then pushed me in. But I wasn’t bringing more attention to myself. I’d learned my lesson.
Eyes in the Darkness (The Coveted) Page 3