‘Hey, Wynn.’
He clasped my hand and we leaned forward until our shoulders bumped – a ritual hello and a far cry from the day we’d beat the unholy shit out of each other – and then become friends. My cheek still bore a scar from the solid thud of his fist, and he carried its twin at the corner of his eye from mine.
‘We’re out, dude.’ He raised his can skywards, as if he was a running back with a pigskin, saluting God for a miracle touchdown. He lowered it and took a long swallow. ‘We’re free. Fuck that school. Fuck Ingram. Fuck that fish.’
Laughter rose from a few bystanders – younger guys with another year or two to go. One of them repeated, ‘Fuck that fish,’ and snickered. I tried not to imagine the possible graffiti.
Boyce glanced down the beach to the outer edge of the circle. ‘And fuck bitches, man,’ he added, more quietly. I knew the direction his gaze was aimed, and on who. He was one of a few people who knew the real story of Landon Maxfield and Melody Dover.
Time can be a selective dick about how fast it heals. Two years ago, I felt the sting of humiliation whenever I heard her name or looked at her. I hadn’t forgiven, and I damn sure hadn’t forgotten, but by the time Clark Richards dumped her for good – the night before he left town for college nine months ago – I no longer gave a shit.
‘Shit.’ Boyce echoed my last thought and cussed the sand beneath our feet, just loud enough for me to hear. ‘Pearl and Melody, headin’ this way.’ Pearl Frank was Boyce’s own personal demon, still.
I nodded once, thankful for the heads-up.
‘Hey, Landon.’ Melody’s spun-sugar drawl and the fingernail drawn down my bare arm made me flinch. How could those two things have ever felt like air in my lungs?
Glancing to the side, I downed half the beer before answering. ‘Miss Dover.’
She laughed and laid a small, soft hand on my forearm, as if my words were coy instead of contemptuous, as if she was encouraging me to continue. I wondered if she’d forgotten what continuing with me meant. I stared down into her pale green eyes, and she returned my gaze through thick lashes, sliding her hand away slowly.
Hugging herself even though it was warm out, her position invited closer inspection. She wore a black string bikini with a see-through cover-up posing as a sundress. Her blonde hair spilled with calculated imperfection from the salon-created twist she’d worn at graduation. The gold hoops in her ears and gold charm bracelet on her wrist flashed tiny diamond messages of how far out of my league she was.
Not that I needed those clues. She’d delivered that message in all its crystal clarity two years ago, and I’d learned it. Hard.
‘We’re throwing a spontaneous graduation party at Pearl’s pool in half an hour,’ Melody said, after a silent communication between the girls. ‘Her parents left for Italy right after graduation – so they won’t be around. If y’all wanna come over, that’d be cool. PK and Joey are bringing vodka. Bring whatever you want.’
Melody pressed close enough for me to feel the warmth of her perfectly toned skin and inhale her still-familiar scent, something spicy and floral, artificial. This time, her fingertips stroked down my bare chest, her thumb grazing my nipple ring.
‘A pool party?’ I gestured with the can. ‘We’ve got a beach, in case you girls didn’t notice. Bonfire lit, beer in hand. What would we want with a pool?’
‘It’s a private party. Just a few people.’ She wrinkled her nose at some younger guys nearby who were farting dangerously close to the fire, where there was an ongoing debate about whether gas was gas. The likelihood of some idiot catching his ass on fire was a genuine possibility. ‘Graduates only.’
Pearl watched the underclassmen, too, sipping from her cup and shaking her head, a shadow of a smile on her face. Boyce slid his eyes from Pearl to me and lifted a brow – letting me know he’d be more than happy to go along with this turn of events. I shrugged. Why not?
‘All right,’ Boyce said – to Pearl. ‘We’ll be over in a bit. Don’t start the party without us.’
Melody rolled her eyes, but Boyce didn’t notice and wouldn’t have cared if he did. He only had eyes for Pearl, poor bastard.
The trailer Boyce shared with his dad seemed to lean into the garage, as though the corroded single-wide was falling-down drunk and could no longer remain upright independently. Two of Boyce’s three bedroom windows opened inches from the exterior brick wall of the shop, so the notion that the trailer required the building’s support was plausible.
Once inside, we hung an immediate right in an effort to avoid Mr Wynn, who was installed in front of the flat screen taking up most of the ‘living room’ wall. Predictably, he hadn’t shown for his kid’s graduation. Boyce’s father: plastered in the evening, hung over in the morning, mean and cold sober all day long, repeat. He was nothing if not reliable.
‘What-er you two shits doin’ home during the game?’ he hollered, not moving from his ragged chair, which was where he ended up sleeping more often than not. Boyce once confessed to me that he’d fought the urge to light it on fire a dozen times.
Bud Wynn’s threats went mostly unheeded now. A year ago, Boyce had punched back during a beating, and since then his father had been all growl, no teeth. Now eighteen, Boyce could probably kill him, and both of them knew it. This made for an uneasy truce I would never understand.
After bagging enough shit for a misdemeanour but not enough for a felony, we were back in my best friend’s Trans Am and driving to the Frank mansion on the other side of town.
‘I’m going for it,’ Boyce announced, punching stereo buttons like he was programming a rocket.
‘Meaning?’
‘Tonight. Me. Pearl. Going. For. It. Wherein it equals her thighs spread and me between ’em.’ He flicked me a look when I didn’t reply. ‘What?’
I bit the ring in my lip, hating that I had to say what I had to say. Hating that I’d rather not say it – especially to my best friend. ‘Just – make sure it’s what she, you know –’
‘Landon, fuck, man.’ He pulled his baseball cap off, shook his head, and stuffed it back on backwards. Huffing a breath, his eyes never left the road. ‘Don’t you know me? Not that I have any real, ya’know, morals –’ he grinned – ‘but I mean, I hear you. I’ve heard you. I got it. I don’t know what your damage is and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to. But if and when I screw that superior, brainy little …’ He trailed off, unable to call Pearl something she wasn’t. ‘She’s gonna be beggin’ for it first or I won’t touch her. Okay?’
He slid a scowl my way and I nodded once, satisfied.
I wouldn’t have told him my damage if he’d asked. But he never had.
My mind shifted to Melody. If she begged for it now, would I?
The answer was a quiet, decisive whisper. No.
‘Hey, Wynn? Drop me back at the beach, man.’
He dialled the music down. ‘You don’t wanna go?’
I shook my head and he sighed. ‘Sure, man. Who needs a pool anyway when we’ve got the fuckin’ ocean?’
‘I’m not asking you to give up your final chance for a Pearl hook-up.’
The edge of his mouth curved into a sly smile and he arched a brow. ‘Oh, I’m not givin’ it up. If her parents left town today – they’ll be gone at least a week.’
‘Dude, we just graduated, and she’s going away to college in a couple months. You’ve had three years –’
‘Never say never, Maxfield. That’s the cool thing about being a pigheaded son of a bitch. I do not fuckin’ ever give up.’ We laughed as he U-turned at a wide-shouldered spot in the road and cranked the stereo back up, heading back to the beach.
LUCAS
Silence is never totally without sound. Something to do with the human ear, straining to hear. Even when there’s nothing, there’s a frequency, a hum. Like a satellite, searching for signs of life where there is none.
My father’s voice was gone. Take care of your mother. My mother’s voice was gone. Landon! My choked intakes of bre
ath, grating and loud, had subsided. I inhaled. Let go a ragged lungful of air. Swallowed. Took another breath. Heard each of these actions inside my own head.
Then I heard a meow. Francis jumped on the bed and stalked straight to me. He bumped my bicep with the top of his head, and I let my hands fall from where they gripped the sides of my face. My forearms rested on my knees, elbows digging into my thighs. He bumped me again, hard, like he was trying to herd me, and I sat up.
Barefoot. Old jeans. No shirt. Bed.
Jacqueline.
I turned, but she was gone. The bedcovers were a sea of sheets, blankets and pillows that had weathered a storm. A very good storm. And then she’d told me what she’d done. Pain drilled through the centre of my chest and I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my fingers against it. I would not go there again.
Do you want me to go?
My eyes flashed open. Oh, God. I’d said yes.
I stood, found my T-shirt inside out on the floor. Righting it and jerking it over my head, I reached for socks and my boots and shoved my feet into them. Grabbed my jacket from the back of a kitchen chair and my keys from the counter.
I could fix this. I would fix this.
I shrugged into the jacket and headed out the door and down the stairs. Getting into her dorm wouldn’t be as easy this time – there were so few people around. Almost everyone had vacated campus as soon as finals were over. I would call her when I got there. I’d have to talk her into letting me into the building. Apologize. Beg if I had to. On my knees.
I hoped to God she answered. I would camp in the back of her truck if she didn’t.
I was about to swing a leg over my bike when I heard footsteps, pounding up the driveway. Jacqueline, running to me – but she didn’t see me. She was staring at the bottom of the steps to my apartment. Her name in my mouth, I moved to intercept her – and then she went down, and I saw Buck, his fist round her hair. Oh, fuck no.
He landed on top of her, but she shoved on to her side, unbalancing him. As she scrambled away from him, he followed.
I grabbed him just as he reached for her, pitched him, and installed myself between them. I glanced at Jacqueline and saw blood coating her chest. A huge, dark circle of it, like a gunshot wound, blooming, fatal. Fuck no fuck no fuck no – but she was scuttling backwards on her hands, and her eyes were wide. If she’d been shot or stabbed there, she wouldn’t be moving.
When he stood, I saw that his face was bloody under his nose. She had made him bleed.
I would make him bleed more.
My eyes had almost adjusted to the dark, but the Hellers had motion-detecting floodlights, and our movements activated one of them. It popped on – a dim little spotlight for our fight scene.
Buck’s dark eyes were focused and unswerving, no alcohol marring his coordination. He tried to circle round, as if I was going to let him anywhere near her ever again. I moved with him, facing him, aware of Jacqueline and her exact location. I felt her behind me as if she was part of my body. Flesh of my flesh. Blood of my blood.
‘I’m gonna bust that lip wide open, emo boy,’ he said. ‘I’m not fucked up this time. I’m stone-cold sober, and I’m gonna kick your ass before I fuck your little whore nine ways from Sunday – again.’
Weak words from a weak man. He didn’t know he was already dead. ‘You’re mistaken, Buck.’
I removed my jacket and shoved my sleeves up, and he took the first swing. I blocked it. He repeated the movement – because this asshole didn’t learn – and I blocked it again. Rushing me, he tried one of his predictable wrestling moves.
Jab to the kidney. Open-handed slap to the ear.
He reeled, pointing at Jacqueline. ‘Bitch. Think you’re too good for me – but you’re nothing but a whore.’
I held my temper by a hair. He wanted it to snap, because people forget what they’re doing when they allow their temper free rein. They make the stupid, critical mistakes that I didn’t intend to make. My temper would remain caged until I had him down and disorientated.
When he tried to grab me again, I snatched and twisted his arm, aiming to dislocate his shoulder. He turned into it, so I didn’t quite wrench it out of joint, but I landed my first satisfying, face-crunching fist to his jaw. As soon as his head swivelled back round, he got another to the mouth. He blinked, staring, seeking an exposed spot. Wasn’t gonna happen.
Enraged, he roared loud enough to wake the whole neighbourhood and barrelled into me. As we fell, he got a couple of good punches in before I pivoted, took hold of him, and used his own forward motion to land him on his head. Amazing how many guys are too fucking ham-fisted to see that coming.
I didn’t waste time admiring my handiwork. While he shook his head, trying to see straight after landing on top of his skull, I tackled him – sadly, into the grass, not on the concrete – and hit him. I thought of the terror in Jacqueline’s eyes. Her hair caught in his fist. My name – Landon – the last word my mother spoke.
Snap.
I hit him again. One time after another. And I wasn’t going to stop.
Something pulled me up and off. No. NO. I fought to free myself and was one second from doing so when words broke through: ‘Stop. She’s safe. She’s safe, son.’
Charles. I stopped resisting, and he loosened the tight band of his arms but kept them round me, propping me up as I began to shake. Buck wasn’t moving.
I turned to find Jacqueline, but I knew right where she was. Charles let me go and I staggered towards her, fell to my knees beside her, my entire body shuddering. Her eyes were still wide, her beautiful face bruising, blood speckling her chin and cheeks.
I cupped a palm under her rapidly discolouring jaw. She flinched, and I jerked my hand away. She was afraid of me. Of what had just happened – again. I had failed to keep her safe.
Then she came up on her knees. ‘Please touch me. I need you to touch me.’
I reached out and gathered her carefully, sitting back and pulling her on to my lap, within the circle of my arms. Her shirt was stuck to her chest. ‘His blood?’ I verified. ‘From his nose?’
She leaned into my chest and nodded, looking down at herself in revulsion.
She was a warrior, covered in the blood of her enemy. I wanted to beat my chest in pride, and so should she. ‘Good girl. God, you’re so fucking amazing.’
She pulled at the shirt, panicked. ‘I want it off. I want it off.’
‘Yes. Soon,’ I promised, touching her face, avoiding the bruised spot.
I begged her forgiveness for sending her away, my heart still thrashing under her ear. I could barely hear myself speak. If she never absolved me, I couldn’t blame her.
‘I’m sorry for looking her up,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know –’
‘Shh, baby … not now. Just let me hold you.’ She shivered. My jacket lay nearby in the grass. I wrapped her in it and held her closer, letting my body settle.
The police had come, and an ambulance. They loaded Buck into the back on a stretcher, which meant he wasn’t dead. Charles called us to give a statement to the officer he’d been speaking with, and I rose slowly, drawing Jacqueline to her feet. We were both unsteady, holding on to each other.
Cindy, Carlie and Caleb huddled by the corner of the house in coats and blankets over pyjamas. Neighbours were standing in their yards or staring from windows containing lit Christmas trees. Cheerful holiday lights flashed along with squad car and ambulance lights.
Charles told the police about Jacqueline’s restraining order against Buck, and called me her boyfriend without a single hesitation. Backing up everything he’d said, including the boyfriend remark, Jacqueline leaned her back to my chest, held my arms in place round her midriff, and gave her account – how Buck had shoved her into the truck and shut the door behind them. How she used the moves she’d learned in the self-defence class to escape the truck.
My arms tightened round her, and I felt sick. I couldn’t listen to the details. I wanted to pull Buck off that stretc
her and finish the job.
When the police and EMTs left, we were surrounded by the Hellers. They offered first-aid supplies, cups of tea, food – but I assured them I had all those things, and I would take good care of her. Charles and Cindy hugged me unabashedly, enveloping Jacqueline as well, maybe because I wasn’t letting her get further than inches away from me.
When we opened the apartment door, Francis exited, pausing on the landing. ‘Thanks,’ I murmured, patting him once before he wandered down the steps and back to his nightly prowl.
In the bathroom, I inspected Jacqueline’s face, stared into her eyes, and asked if he’d hit her. I could hardly get the words out. She shook her head and said he’d just grabbed her really hard.
‘The spot where I head-butted him hurts more.’ Her fingers skimmed across her forehead.
‘I’m so proud of you. I want you to tell me about it, when you can … and when I can stand to hear it. I’m still too angry right now.’ I’d been right there when she’d given her account, but couldn’t handle listening to the details. His hands on her body. The pain he’d inflicted.
I undressed her carefully, gently, a different kind of slow than hours prior. Her shirt and bra and my shirt all went into the trash, and I lifted her into the warm shower. She was perfectly capable of doing these things herself, but she seemed to understand that I needed to do them for her. I soaped and kissed every bruise and abraded spot, hating that she’d been hurt. I braced my arms on the tiles and closed my eyes when she did the same for me.
The muscles of her arms were sore, so I wrapped her in a bath sheet and set her on the side of the tub. As I dried her hair, combing tangles away with my fingers and soaking the water from each strand with a towel, she told me the last time anyone dried her hair for her was when she’d broken her arm in sixth grade, falling out of a tree. She smiled and I laughed – two things wonderfully incongruent with this night.
‘I think there was a boy and a dare involved,’ she said.
Lucky boy.
But not as lucky as me.
I squatted in front of her and asked her to stay with me, at least for tonight. She touched my face, gazing into my eyes. Hers were worried, and full of compassion. She knew what had happened to my mother, but I needed to confess what she didn’t know. I couldn’t keep her under false pretences any longer. I needed her to know everything.