Lincoln comes strolling out of the house, surveying the battlefield like a soldier at war. Finding it free of enemy fire, he climbs into the backseat, squishing Aspen between us.
“My dad home?” Aspen asks, touching a finger to her empty necklace.
Lincoln glances at her, then up at Gage and Lyra. “Yeah, he’s here. With Sahara. He sends his well-wishes.”
Aspen laughs and tells Gage to get us out of here.
He does.
Ten minutes later, we roll up to another party. “You Denver peeps enjoy the frosty beverages, no?” I tell Aspen.
She gives a small shrug but smiles. “We do it up. Don’t be J.”
I get out of the car, and everyone follows suit. “I’m not jealous of your whack job city with your whacked-out drivers trying to run me off the road.”
“Say what?” Aspen says with genuine surprise, and maybe a little concern, stretched over her face.
“Never mind,” I mumble, because I’m busy watching Gage whisper to Lyra about what I said. Freak shows.
Lincoln shivers and shoves us both toward the house. “Can we get inside, please? My man ornaments are going to shatter out here.”
I wrap Lincoln’s head under my arm and lead us inside. In response, he elbows me in the crotch, and we both crumble to the ground right inside the entrance.
“Idiots,” Aspen says, but I can tell she’s happy we’re getting along. As she glides into the room, people stop what they’re doing. They offer her a drink, they remove her mink coat, they orgasm as they note her green Jimmy Choo heels. I’m familiar with the way she allows herself to be consumed by them. It feels good, I remember. Like it doesn’t matter that Mom doesn’t give a crap or that Dad’s always gone.
I grab a beer from the kitchen and drain it in one long take. Then I flop down on a sketchy-looking, pastel-colored couch, which is about the nicest thing up in this joint, and snatch my phone from my pocket. My back stiffens when I see I have a text.
Let it be from Charlie.
Since I arrived in Denver, I’ve only gotten the one text from her, and even that one sounded off. I need something to remind me she’s still my girl, that we’re still us, but when I check to see who the text is from, my heart clenches like a fist. It’s Annabelle, and it’s only a single line:
Check out ur hottie!
My fingers tingle when I see there’s a pic attached to the message. Tapping the icon, and thinking I’ll scream if my phone moves any slower, I wait for the image to download.
And then I see sweet Charlie.
Except she doesn’t look so sweet.
She looks sexy. She looks dangerous. And maybe she is, because I’m about to have massive coronary failure eyeing the skirt she’s wearing. “What the hell?” I mutter.
“Damn. That your girl?” Lincoln’s leaning over my shoulder, ogling Charlie’s physique.
I lower my phone and make sure Lincoln meets my glare. “You got two seconds to divert your eyes before I remove them from your skull.”
He laughs, runs a hand through his greasy hair. “My bad. Just window shopping.”
“Well, don’t.” I get up from the chair and head outside and into the cold. I don’t care that Gage and Lyra are once again feeding Aspen enough booze to drown a life jacket. I don’t care that it’s my job to seal her soul for heaven. All I do care about is getting a better look at the picture of Charlie.
Standing in the snow, wrapped in a cloak of darkness, I study Charlie: her laughing face, her wide blue eyes. And that damn skirt. It looks like something she wore to a party a few weeks ago when she was proving a point, a night that ended with my carrying her out of a barn. But this time, it looks like she’s embracing her new figure. Like she’s finally figured out she’s got one, and she’s damn well going to flaunt it. I don’t blame her. If I’d spent seventeen years with an average body, I’d be eager to flash my goods. But this is Charlie. She’s better than that. Right?
I rub my thumb over her picture and jerk as my phone starts ringing.
It’s Charlie.
For some idiotic reason, I glance around like I’m searching for someone to tell me what to do. I feel like I’m back in high school when I was alive, like I’m one of those cheerleader chicks who used to be all, “Oh, my gawd. He’s calling! What do I do?! Should I pick up?”
I shake my head—what the hell am I doing?—and push accept. “’Sup?” I say, going for cool and calm and the exact opposite of how I feel.
For a long moment, Charlie doesn’t speak. The silence makes my chest tighten like I swallowed a freaking porcupine. “I miss you,” she says finally, her voice soft.
It doesn’t seem like it.
You’ve barely called.
Salem seems more important than I do.
“I miss you, too,” I say. “I wish I were there.” Charlie is quiet again. So quiet I start to think she’ll hang up. I don’t understand what’s happened between us. I don’t get why we were perfect two days ago, and now I feel like I’m going to explode if she doesn’t say something. “Is everything okay?” I say, surprising myself. “I mean, between us.”
“Of course,” she responds. “Why would you ask that?”
If she thinks everything’s fine, then I don’t want to dwell on it. Instead, I try to steer the conversation forward. “No reason,” I say. “How’s everything at home? You only got—what?—four more days until school’s out for winter break?”
“Three, actually. Last test is Thursday morning.” I hear a clipping noise on the other end of the line and imagine Charlie biting her nails. “But I’ve been having fun even with school in.”
My stomach plummets. “Yeah? That’s cool. What have you been doing?”
“Lots of stuff. Annabelle and I went to a swimming hole even though it was super cold. It was really fun. No one thought I’d jump off the cliff, but I did.”
“Jump off what?” I nearly shout. “Why are you jumping off things, Charlie? Don’t do that. Don’t jump off things.”
“It wasn’t a big deal. I’m just having fun.”
“Were you with him?” I ask. “Were Salem and his brother there?” Charlie is quiet, and even though I hate myself for asking, I hate it even more that she’s admitting what I already knew. “Let me guess, he’s the one who dared you to jump.”
“He doesn’t treat me like I’m breakable,” Charlie snaps.
I have no response for this, because I know that’s how I treat her. But it’s because I care about her. I care about her so much, it makes me sick. I should tell her this, but all I can picture is Salem encouraging Charlie to drink, or hold her breath underwater, or leap off the side of a cliff. And I picture the way he celebrates with her when she does these things. Like he’s this fun dude, and I’m some paranoid schizo who’s killing the party.
“How’s the assignment going?” Charlie asks. Her voice is back to being soft. It’s like she’s struggling between two sides of herself, and I want so bad to point this out, but I can’t, because the same thing is happening to me. I’m not doing crap about my assignment. I haven’t sealed Aspen’s soul a single time. In fact, all I’ve done is lose myself in her world, a world I’ve known much longer than the one Charlie’s shown me.
“I’m going to get this assignment done quickly,” I say, though the words sound like a lie leaving my mouth.
“I wish you were standing right next to me, Dante,” Charlie says suddenly.
“Then don’t hang up.”
Charlie’s laugh sounds like bells ringing. “Annabelle just got back.”
“So?” I say. “So make her wait. Make her leave. Whatever. Just stay on the phone.”
“We’ve got plans,” she says. I can tell she’s doing that thing again, fighting two sides of some internal argument.
“Cancel them.” I look over my shoulder at the house to ensure I’m still alone. “This isn’t like you, anyway. Going out every night when you have finals.”
“How would you know?” she demands.
“You’ve barely known me two months.”
Her words shoot holes through me, because she’s right. I haven’t known her long at all. Our relationship moved quickly, so quickly that I’ve often wondered whether the strong connection we felt or the couple of times we exchanged I love yous were triggered by the threat of the collectors, or maybe even the conflict I experienced over whether to defy Lucille.
Ever since I left, I haven’t stopped thinking about how neither one of us has said I love you since the day I woke up with a liberator cuff around my ankle. Each time we’re together, we can’t keep our hands off each other. But maybe that’s lust. Maybe it’s admiration. How do I know if we were ever really in love if I’ve never experienced these feelings before now? “I know you,” is all I whisper. “I know you, Charlie.”
She pulls in a long breath, and it feels like she steals it right from my lungs. “I miss you,” Charlie repeats. I think she’s coming back to me, that she’s going to tell me we can talk as long as I want. But then I hear Annabelle’s voice.
“Okay, got the juice,” Annabelle says in the background. “Let’s get on the road, girl! You talking to D? I sent him a picture of your naughty self. Hey, Dante, Valery and Max are going out with us tonight! We’ll be good. Your girl’s got to run.”
Charlie sounds like she’s battling Annabelle for the phone. Finally, I hear Charlie say into the receiver, “Call you later.”
“Be safe,” I say to dead air. Feeling like I just got kidney punched, I trek back inside, barely feeling my fingers from the cold. Snow crunches under my shoes, and when I land inside, I brush them off on a doormat that reads, “Wipe your paws” and has little animal prints on it.
When I glance up, my eyes meet Aspen’s. She must see something on my face that concerns her, because she rips away from Gage and Lyra and the rest of her leeches and comes to stand beside me.
She doesn’t ask what’s wrong. She just puts her drink in my hand and touches the bottom gently, nudging it toward my mouth. Her eyes never pull away from mine. It’s like she knows something big is wrong with me, but doesn’t know how to handle it. So she offers what she’d want in the same situation—a chance to forget.
I stare down into the amber liquid and think about Charlie. Think of how I need to make headway on this assignment and stop screwing around. But then Aspen says, “Drink some. It’ll make it better.”
She doesn’t know what’s wrong with me, doesn’t care. She’s got her own issues to wrestle. But she knows the booze I’m holding will make my worries fade into the distance. And she’s right. I don’t know how to handle feeling like the only girl I’ve ever cared about is vanishing, being replaced by someone I don’t recognize. But I do know this. I know how I’ll feel when I turn this cup upside down and feel the bite of liquor rushing down my throat.
So I do what I know. Just for tonight, I let go of my unease and find myself again. And never, not once, do I leave Aspen’s side. She makes room for me. In her eyes, I can see that she’s grateful. That she thinks maybe I’m going to stand by my word and stick around. And not for the wrong reasons, either. She doesn’t want anything from me except for me to stay. And I don’t want anything from her except to remember how I used to be—free, wild…
Alive.
As the sun appears from behind the mountains, Aspen throws her arm around my shoulders like we’ve been friends for as long as the sun has risen. “If you could have anything, Dante, anything at all, what would it be?” she slurs.
Even with my thoughts muddled by alcohol, my answer comes out clear and quick. “Her. I want Charlie.”
13
Field Trip
For the next two days, I stay in Aspen’s fog, trying hard not think about the girl I miss in Alabama. On a few occasions, I encourage Aspen to spend more time with Sahara, thinking maybe her baby sister will do my job for me.
It doesn’t work.
Instead, I spiral further away from the man Charlie had somehow pulled out of me and lose myself in my old lifestyle. Somewhere in the back of my head, I know I’m a liberator. That I only survive because of the dargon around my ankle. I wonder at times how much longer Big Guy will let me slip by. I’ve heard he’s a vengeful leader, so it can’t be long.
I wake up on my fourth day in Denver to someone pounding on my door. I imagine it must be Man Hands returning, and that maybe I was loud again last night. My throbbing head tells me that if I was, I wouldn’t remember it.
Pulling open the door, I find Aspen dressed all in black except for hot-pink fingerless gloves. She flashes by me, and as she does, she admires my tats—the dragon spread over my back and the tree growing up my arm and branching over my shoulder. Other than that, she gives my half-dressed torso the same attention she’d give a number-two pencil.
She studies the room and then caves into herself like maybe she’s just discovered where all forms of influenza come from. “Thought you said your dad had a condo.”
Did I say that? I can’t remember if I did. Thinking fast, I decide to play the sympathy card. I cast my eyes toward the floor and turn away. “Asshole’s been gone awhile.”
Aspen looks at the furniture around her, which I’ve put in some semblance of order again. “Parents can be pricks, huh?”
I nod, thinking the less I say, the better. Though I would like to ask how she knew where to find me.
“Get dressed.” Her mouth pulls into a smile. “We’re going on a field trip.”
“I’d rather stick my head in a meat grinder,” I respond. But in actuality, I’ll go wherever she goes.
Because she’s my assignment.
Because I fucking hate being alone.
“How’d you get here?” I ask.
“We have these magic yellow cars in Denver that take you places for cash.” Aspen starts throwing my things into an overnight bag, wrinkling her nose—and her nose ring—at some of my fashion choices, which I find highly insulting.
“That shirt you’re so disgusted by cost a hundred dollars,” I tell her.
“No wonder it looks like crap,” she says. My jaw drops, because I’m not used to this. I’m the rich one. I’m the one with nice crap everyone wants to have. But not around her, I guess. Aspen is like me if I drank a steroid-crack milkshake each morning. “Terrible clothes or not, we’re getting out of town. I need a break from this place.” She glances at me from the corner of her eye like she’s anticipating a rebuttal. “You’re the one who said you don’t have anywhere else to be.”
Ten minutes later, Aspen is driving my pimp car out of Denver like there’s an F5 tornado on our heels. And a half hour after that—so she says, I was crashed out—we pull into a town that belongs on a postcard. That is, if the postcard had yellowed thirty years. It’s like all the tightly lined shops and paved roads used to be a sight to behold, but now it’s a place people say “will come back around.”
Aspen turns onto a dirt road and slices a path between the fir trees. It’s only then do I think to ask where we’re headed. For the last few days, I’ve followed Aspen blindly. I used to be the one people followed. But like many others, I’ve been trapped by Aspen’s web, allowing myself to be drained by her needs.
“Where we headed?” I ask. “And why didn’t Lincoln come?”
“This is my family’s place.” Aspen all but spits the word family. “Lincoln said he’d stay behind with Sahara. Someone’s got to watch her while Dad’s off doing whatever.”
I glance at Aspen, watching as her knuckles tighten around the steering wheel. “Lincoln is good to you. Have you guys ever gotten dirty?”
Aspen laughs. “Lincoln? No. We’ve been friends since we were kids. Been through war together. Literally if you’re asking him.”
“He is pretty skittish,” I say. “Bet that military father of his loves Lincoln’s piercings.”
Aspen doesn’t say anything, just shakes her head.
I drop the subject and dig my cell out of my back pocket. It hasn’t vibrated since we left, so I k
now there won’t be anything from Charlie. Still, I’m dying to talk to her, even if our conversations have become increasingly strained. For the record, if Salem and Easton would stop talking her into doing stupid crap, we’d be fine.
My face warms when I see there are nine missed calls, and four voicemails, from her.
“What’s wrong?” Aspen asks.
“My girl has called, like, a million times.” I can’t help the grin splitting my mouth. She called. She called a lot. And my damn ringer was off. I tell myself everything is fine with our relationship, otherwise she wouldn’t have called that many times, even if it was at like two in the morning. Like always, I contemplate whether something bad happened, but realize if that were the case, someone other than her probably would’ve called. And I’m trying to trust her more.
As Aspen pulls up to a snow-laden cabin that must have been built for Zeus, I try retrieving my voicemails. The reception is crap, though, and her messages are too broken to understand. I reach into my back pocket to get the horn my father gave me and grip it in my palm. But I don’t get a good read on where Charlie is. It’s almost like I’m only feeling my own horn here in Colorado. Frustrated, I glance over at Aspen.
“Can you take me back into town?” I say. “I can’t get my voicemails.”
“Why don’t you calm down, D-Dub. I know you’re menstruating, but everything’s going to be fine. Once we get inside, I’ll explain all about maxi pads, personal hygiene, and the feel of a man’s penis.” Aspen grabs our bags from the trunk and heads toward double arched oak doors. The way she skitters up the stairs, it’s like she’s nervous about something, like she’s waiting for something big to happen.
I grit my teeth and crunch through the snow behind Aspen, knowing I’ll probably only make it another half hour before I forfeit the last of my manhood and go searching for a signal. Though I’m not sure why Aspen brought me here, I’m glad. Being away from Gage and Lyra and all the parties will help me focus on finishing this assignment. And if I’m being honest, this place is pretty kickass.