by Cassie James
“What do you mean?” I ask him, frowning.
He shrugs his shoulders as he nervously starts tapping his hand on the steering wheel. “Smith and I used to be better friends than we are now, so I just—” He stops short. It takes him a second to seem to work up his courage again. “I guess I just thought at the beginning of last semester that there was maybe something between us. So, it’s just a little weird to see you with him.”
He’s jealous? That’s sure as hell what it sounds like.
“I don’t know what to say to that,” I admit. He’s not wrong. We had good chemistry when we first started hanging out. I thought maybe there was a spark, too. If Jax hadn’t blackmailed him into taking those pictures of me, things might have looked really different right about now. Or not. After I kissed him that night, and before I found out about the pictures, I did consider that I didn’t want to mess up my friendship with Ace by making things complicated. So maybe I wouldn’t have taken any risks with him after all. I don’t know, I’ll never know now.
“Sorry, I don’t even know why I told you that.” He shakes his head like he wants to shake off the whole thing. I understand the feeling. Now that he’s brought it up, it’s hard to forget about it. Because being split between two guys apparently just isn’t enough for me. Might as well add in a little confusion with a third. I barely manage to hold back a groan.
I don’t think either of us knows what else to say, and it makes things a little awkward. We’re silent for a few minutes before something else entirely is bothering me so much that I don’t think I can go any longer in the car with him without bringing it up. “Hey, can I ask you something personal?”
“Sure,” he answers easily. I forgot how nice it was to talk to someone who’s always ready to answer whatever questions I throw at him. That was what attracted me to him in the first place. In a platonic way, I mean. I’m definitely not having other kinds of feelings towards him. None. Zip. Zero.
I take a quick, deep breath to try to clear that thought from my head. It works a little bit, once I remind myself I’ve got enough boy drama without even thinking about adding in anymore. “What happened between you and Celia…” I nearly give up my question when I see his expression fall, but this feels too important to let fall to the wayside. “You know that was her fault, right? She was the adult, and she took advantage of you.”
He grimaces for a long time before he’s able to respond. “I guess when I think about it in general terms, as if it happened to someone else, I do get that. But it’s harder when it actually happens to you. I wasn’t a little kid, Juliet. I was sixteen. I should have been able to say no.”
“But you shouldn’t have had to.”
It breaks my heart to see him beating himself up over this. It also makes anger towards Celia burn white hot in my gut. There’s a part of me that’s started to hope she is the one that killed Kathryn. She might not be held responsible for what she did to Ace, but she could sure as hell be held responsible for something, anything.
“Maybe we could talk about something else?” Ace asks in a tight voice. I watch his face, emotions flitting over his expression faster than I can name them. It seems to me like he’s really considering what I said, which I guess is all I can ask for right now. He glances over at me, then down lower. At first I think he’s looking at my chest, but then he asks, “You had that necklace on the other day, too. What’s up with the key?”
I reach for the key around my neck, running my fingers over the cool metal. “I’m not sure, honestly.” I look down at it. It looks so ordinary; it’s hard to believe the kind of power this plain little thing has over me right now. Every time I look at it I feel desperate to figure out what it goes to. “I think… I think maybe it has something to do with Hollis’ treasure hunt,” I tell Ace tentatively. If I’m going to work on trusting him, then this feels like a decent place to start.
“Maybe don’t tell too many people that,” he warns immediately. I fight back a smile. If anyone else had said it, I might think they were telling me that to keep other people from getting closer to the treasure than them. With Ace, it’s abundantly clear he’s only telling me that because he’s worried about me. Just another reason it feels so easy to try to get past what happened between us. Ace is good at heart.
We don’t talk about anything else heavy for the rest of the drive. We stick to safer subjects, with me giving the occasional direction to make sure we’re headed the right way. I’m cheating of course, reading the directions off the map on my phone. The fun thing about never travelling out of my hometown until I left for Patience is that I have no idea how to get back there now. Physically or emotionally, as it turns out.
Because when we eventually do reach the dirty sign announcing Nikon Park, it doesn’t feel the way I expected it to. There’s no real heartache in my chest as I stare out the window at all the places I used to know so well. I thought it might feel good to come home, but this place doesn’t feel like home the way I thought it would. And this wasn’t what I meant by wanting to spend my Spring Break at home.
Chapter Seventeen
I can feel Ace staring at me, but I feel paralyzed. I don’t even know for sure that this is where she’ll be, it’s just the first place I thought to look. The house looks dead. I can tell even without stepping foot inside that the power is turned off. It’s like a sixth sense I developed from years of the bills being unpredictable. Sometimes things got paid, and sometimes they didn’t.
“This is where you grew up?” I search for the judgment in Ace’s tone, but it isn’t there. He’s genuinely asking.
“Yeah. I grew up real fast here.” Because I didn’t have any other choice. I forgot how much resentment I still have about that. What kind of people kidnap someone’s fucking baby just so they can be shitty parents themselves? The people I once thought were my parents really are just monsters.
I lose track of how long we sit there, neither of us making any move to get out. Ace is letting me do this at my own pace, which I’m thankful for. This confrontation isn’t something I want to rush. Well, this isn’t actually something I want to do at all—but if I have to do it than I want to do it at my own speed.
“God, let’s just get it over with,” I say finally, jerking the car door open and climbing to my feet unsteadily. It’s hard to get moving again after sitting still in the car for a few hours. The stress of the situation doesn’t help, either, since it makes me feel more stiff than usual. Ace hesitates for a second before following me.
He looks at me across the roof of the car. “Do you want me to come with you? Or I can wait here if you’d rather.” I’m glad that despite Pearl’s warning not to leave me along with anyone, he’s giving me the chance to make that decision for myself.
“I’d really like you to come with me,” I reassure him. If he’s going to be here for this, we might as well go all in on it. If he decides to use any of this against me later, then so be it. But I really don’t think he will.
Together, we walk carefully across the busted up concrete walkway leading to the side door. The last time I was here, the front door lock was jammed so badly no one could get it open. I’m assuming that’s still the case, considering it had already been like that for months without getting fixed before I left.
I bang my palm against the door a couple times, then hold my breath. Every part of me hopes she doesn’t actually answer. I know this felt like my only choice, but now that I’m back here I don’t actually want to step foot in this house ever again.
After about a minute of waiting, I start to tell Ace that she must not be here after all. Of course, that’s exactly when the door squeals on its hinges, and suddenly I’m face to face with Lynne Brown again. Her eyes light up with an excitement that I don’t share. In fact, I feel a little numb standing here as I look her over, seeing that she still looks like the same strung out woman I remember.
“My baby!” she coos, trying to throw her arms around me.
I take a step back and
put my hand out. “No.” She never hugged me when I thought she was actually my mom, so I’m sure as hell not gonna let her hug me now. “I’m here so you’ll stop blowing up my phone.”
She tsks me. “That’s no way to speak to your mother.”
“You are not my mother.” I can hear the disgust in my own voice, but she seems oblivious to it. Selective hearing. She’s always been good at that. There’s something I still don’t understand. “Why aren’t you still in jail?”
“I made bail. Ricky paid it for me.” For one heart stopping moment I panic—until I remember Lynne isn’t my problem anymore. Ricky is a real mean son of a bitch. I’m sure it’s a loan he’s expecting her to pay back with interest. That guy doesn’t do anybody any favors. He’s part of a local gang, and pretty high on the food chain, at that.
I don’t say anything to her, still waiting for her to get to the point. She stares blankly back at me; her initial excitement’s fading pretty fast. Her whole body convulses for a second before she lights up again.
“Hold on, let me grab something.” She disappears for a minute, leaving Ace and I to exchange a glance that says it all. We’re both uncomfortable, and we both want to get the hell out of here. When she reappears, she looks confused for a second. She’s looking at Ace. “Who are you?”
He’s freaking huge, and she somehow seems like she’s just noticing him. She’s definitely on something. Ace looks over at me, obviously unsure about whether or not to respond. I give a quick shake of my head. He’s better off engaging with her as little as possible.
Sure enough, within about thirty seconds she’s forgotten she asked at all. She proudly holds out a scrap of pink material to me. I take it reluctantly. The dirty fabric has definitely seen better days, but something about it is vaguely familiar. “What is this?”
“Your baby blanket! Aren’t you so glad I kept it?” She really looks proud of herself for something so minor. She managed to keep exactly one thing from my childhood, and it isn’t even something that special, like the pictures of me that she burned. “Look, there’s even a ‘J’ on it.” She reaches out and pulls the edge up so I can see the monogram in the corner.
“Could you just tell me whatever it is you want to tell me so that I can go?” She narrows her eyes at me, something she’s barely even capable of doing. After years of hard drugs, she doesn’t exactly have full control of her body anymore.
“Those people bought you this blanket. I thought you’d be happy I kept it, you ungrateful little snot.” She has some nerve calling me names after everything she’s done. Her words do give me pause.
“What people?”
She rolls her eyes and huffs. She sounds more like a little kid than a grown ass woman, and that infuriates me even more. “You know,” she widens her eyes and makes the shape of a gun with her hand. She points it at me, miming that she’s shooting. She’s talking about my parents. My real parents.
I look at the blanket with fresh eyes. It’s still gross, but it feels much more sentimental now knowing it’s connected to my real parents. My eyes trace over the monogrammed initial. I guess now I know how I ended up with a fake name with the same first initial as my real name. They just picked the first name they could think of with the right first letter. I really shouldn’t be surprised.
“Did Nick make bail, too?”
“Of course not.” She laughs like it’s the most ridiculous question she’s ever heard. “Ricky didn’t want to sleep with Nick.” Oh, so she pimped herself out to convince Ricky to loan her the bail money. Perfect. At least it’s not my problem anymore. I’m sure Ricky will be turning her into one of his regular girls now. That’s probably the only job she’s qualified for anyway with the news out there that she helped rob and kill two people. She frowns, seems to remember something. “Since when have you called your daddy by his first name?”
Since you turned out to not actually be my parents, you psycho. I hold those words in. They’re obviously not gonna get me anywhere with her. Instead, I ignore her question and try again with one of my own. “Why did you ask to talk to me?” I pronounce every word slowly, hoping that will help get the question through her drug-riddled brain.
She shifts from foot to foot. She’s getting antsy, and I’m not really sure if it’s from my question or if it’s because she’s gone too long without a hit of whatever she’s on.
“I heard you got a lot of money. That cute little boyfriend of yours says you got a real nice, big house now and everything.” My chest constricts painfully. She talked to Jake.
She eyes me hungrily, and I realize I should have known it was only about money. Nothing else would ever make her so desperate to talk to me. Damn me for falling for it. I should have let Pearl have Mr. Harrington handle it like she offered. I should have known better.
“Let’s go,” I tell Ace, turning on my heel without waiting to make sure he’s following. I don’t need to anyway, a few seconds later I can hear his footsteps trailing after me.
Lynne makes a noise of surprise and yells after me, “Where are you going? Aren’t you going to give me anything?” I turn, take one last good look at her, and toss the pink baby blanket in her direction.
“Yeah, I’ll give you this back.” I don’t want to keep it. It’ll only serve as a reminder of what she and Nick stole from me.
She stares at me in anger, her face starting to go purple as she starts screaming at the top of her lungs. Ace and I both slap our hands over our ears. She’s freaking insane. When she stops screaming, she pants as she still stares at me.
“You owe me! I never got paid. You owe me. You owe me.” She’s really losing it now, repeating the same words and rocking herself in the doorway. I have no idea what she’s talking about when she says she never got paid. She’d have to have a job to be owed a paycheck from anywhere, and I don’t even know when she last had an actual job.
“I don’t owe you anything,” I tell her in the coldest voice I can muster. Ace takes a step closer to me, his arm brushing mine. It’s comforting to have him here, even more so than I expected.
Lynne takes a few steps out of the house, but Ace takes one step towards her and she retreats again. He would make a seriously good bodyguard. She stomps her foot, still throwing a temper tantrum. “If that lady would have just died by herself I would have had all the money. Now it’s all yours! It’s not fair. You owe me. That man owes me.”
“What man?” And what does she means if that lady would have just died by herself? Is she talking about my parents? “Who are you talking about?”
“H-H-H-Hank. Henry.” She seems like she’s thinking hard, but she can’t seem to come up with the right name. “Ho-Ho-Hollister?” She looks confused, but a twinge of recognition crosses over me.
I swallow hard, before I give her, “Hollis?”
“Hollis! Tell him he owes me my money!” She’s getting progressively louder, but now I’m done listening. This woman has had plenty of hallucinations over the years, but this one, it’s too specific. The world around me starts to blur at the edges as I can feel my own panic threatening to consume me.
I try to ignore the ringing in my ears as I tug on Ace’s arm. “Let’s go, right now.” My breathing is shallow as I try to make it to the car without hyperventilating. Ace walks me to the passenger side door and helps me in. I can vaguely still hear Lynne yelling at me, but I don’t want to hear anything else she has to say.
I’m silent as Ace gets in the car and gets us the hell away from that house. I should never have come here. I can feel pain like I’ve never felt before blooming inside of my chest. I spend several minutes trying to catch my breath as Ace seems to drive aimlessly through the streets.
“Ace?” I feel him hit the brakes, and I expect him to maybe just glance over at me. Instead, he pulls the car off the road, into an abandoned parking lot, and gives me his full attention. I stare straight ahead, not sure I can get the words out if I look at him. “Do you think Hollis hired someone to kill my mom?”
> Chapter Eighteen
I feel like a zombie as I stare at The Patience School through my windshield. I don’t want to get out of the car. Technically, I’m in charge of myself now. Emancipation documents signed and sealed. I could just not go in, I try to reason with myself. Someone knocks on my window and I nearly jump out of my skin.
I crack the door for Ace, who pulls it open all the way and stands there staring at me with the same sympathy he showed me last week. “I just wanted to check on you.” He sounds hesitant, and I don’t blame him. I’ve been ignoring everyone’s texts and calls since we got back from Nikon Park. Even his, even though he’s the only other person that knows what happened.
“I just don’t understand it.” My voice cracks.
Ace leans in further, lowering his voice so that the people walking past us in the parking lot can’t hear him. “Maybe she was making it up. She didn’t exactly seem all there.” He looks apologetic, like he feels bad reminding me, but it’s not like I’ve forgotten.
“That’s exactly why I know she wasn’t making it up. She was barely functioning enough to put a whole thought together. There’s no way she could think up some elaborate plan just to hurt my feelings and guilt me into giving her money.”
“Shit.” His mouth slides down into a grim frown.
“Yep.” I nod.
There’s not much else to say about it. I can’t exactly ask Pearl for confirmation. She protects Hollis’ memory with a fierceness I’ve never seen before. Even if she knew Hollis had put a hit on my mother, I don’t think she would ever admit to it. It doesn’t really make sense to me, and the more I think about how unlikely it is I’ll ever get real answers, the more upset I get. I wish I could just stop thinking about it altogether.