Drix kisses me as he rolls so that I’m tucked tight close to him. I’m sleepy, he’s warm and the air blowing on us is cold, but I should move. I should go. That’s what a good girl should do—run home. But instead I settle my head on his chest and listen to his strong and steady beat—I listen to his heart.
“Stay, Elle,” he mumbles. “Stay with me.”
I nod against the bare skin of his chest and let my thoughts drift from one to another, a dream, but not a dream. “I love you, Drix.”
I love him.
Hendrix
A voice pulls me out of the deepest sleep of my life. So deep of a sleep that I lie still and listen to the music playing over and over again. Some lyric from start to finish going on its third round. My phone. Someone’s calling me on my phone. I jerk, forcing my limbs to come to attention, and Elle lifts her head and blinks at me with a groggy expression. “What’s wrong?”
“My cell.” I reach over and accept without looking at the caller ID. A total of ten people have this number, and every one of them is someone who expects me to answer. “Yeah?”
“Is this Hendrix Pierce?” comes a woman’s voice.
Elle shifts off of me, slipping her arm away from my chest and her leg from being twisted with mine. The cold air bites at my skin, and I hate any physical distance between us. She and I are close now, closer than before, and having her near feels right and helps make me feel whole.
I rub my face and glance at my clock. 9:30 a.m. It’s a Friday and because we finished the roofing job last night, I’m taking today off before we start again on Saturday. Axle will already be gone, though, out giving quotes to potential customers.
In the attic, the Christmas lights still glow, but the colors are muted by the sunlight streaming in from around the window unit. “This is him.”
“Mr. Pierce, this is Kathleen Jansen with Henderson High School’s Youth Performing Arts Program. How are you this morning?”
“I’m good. What can I do for you?”
Elle raises her eyebrows and mouths, “The campaign?”
I shake my head and mouth back, “Youth Performing Arts.”
She smiles, and I take her hand in mine.
“Mr. Pierce, I’m the head of admissions with the program, and I was wondering if you received your letter?”
“Yes, and I intended on returning my acceptance letter today.”
“Is it possible for you and your guardian to meet with me today? You can tell me what time works best for you, and I’ll fit it in around my schedule.”
Warping of my intestines. “My guardian is at work today, and I doubt he’ll be able to meet. Do you mind telling me what this is about?”
A pause on her side and Elle wraps her fingers around mine.
“I’d prefer for us to talk about this in person.”
And I want to talk about this now. “Ms. Jansen, I’d appreciate it if you’d please tell me what’s going on.”
“Mr. Pierce, first off, let me tell you what an amazing talent you are. I was at your audition, and you are one of the most phenomenal musicians I’ve had the honoring of hearing.”
It’s pretty words, but it feels like she’s pushing me toward a mean side of a sharp blade.
“But unfortunately, the list of students accepted has been leaked from the board of trustees to some of the parents, and we have a situation on our hands. Parents are concerned about letting someone with your record into the program. They feel that their children will be in danger if they attend school with someone with a violent past.”
Violent past. “But I’ve paid for my crimes.”
“I know.” There’s a plea in her voice. “But with you being such a high profile person at the moment, the parents are more focused on your past and not who you’re becoming. Please know there are those of us who do believe you have changed and that you have a wonderful future in front of you.”
I stand, releasing Elle. I wait for the anger, but there’s no anger, just pain. A ripping of claws at my insides, and I look down expecting to find blood.
“I hope you understand, but we are a private school, and we rely heavily on donor support. We have had many people promise to pull their financial support of our institution if we allow your entrance into the school. Due to the outpouring of parental concern, our board held a special meeting last night, and they have decided to withdraw their offer of admission to you.”
I spin, hoping somehow doing so will rewind time back to five minutes ago, but it doesn’t. “But I got the letter yesterday.”
“I know, but the list was leaked after the acceptance was sent. We knew we’d have a couple of upset parents, but we were not prepared for the onslaught of concern. We honestly thought that parents would be proud to have someone from the governor’s program at this school, but, unfortunately, they’re more focused on your past crimes. As I said, Hendrix, you’re extremely talented, but we cannot allow you admittance.”
She continues to talk. Words of apology, hopes that I’ll continue my music career at my local high school, and when she runs out of words, she goes silent, waiting for me to tell her I understand, but I don’t. I hang up and drop to the bed, head in my hands.
Baggage. I guess there is some baggage I can never escape.
Ellison
I blinked and the entire world tilted on its axis, and the continents have disappeared. Hemispheres have shifted. Summer has become winter. Day has become night.
We’re downstairs again and Drix is someone else. He’s closed off, he’s pacing, and when my cell vibrated with a text from my parents to video chat with them soon, he told me I needed to leave so I could talk to them. In a matter of mere minutes, I’ve changed my clothes, and I’m back out in the hallway. Holiday is there, waiting for me, wide-eyed. “What happened?”
“The youth performing arts school withdrew their offer.”
Holiday spits out a few unintelligible words, then tries again. “Why?”
“Because of his past. Where is he?”
“Out back. He went out back.”
I’m down the hallway, out the door, and the sunlight that hurts my eyes feels wrong. It shouldn’t be a blue and happy day. Not when Drix is in pain. He closes the trunk of my car that’s parked next to the garage and glances up at me. “I put your bag in.”
My stomach sinks. He really does want me to leave, and that crushes my heart. Last night we were so close, and now it feels as if there are oceans between us. “You want me to go?”
He rolls his neck. “Are you going to video chat with your parents at my house?”
I can’t. He knows I can’t, and somehow that makes me feel ashamed. As if I’m not proud to have him by my side, but I am proud. “I can tell them we’re together.”
“And then what?”
I stay silent because I don’t know what would happen next.
“You think they’re going to let us date? You think they’re going to let you walk into the next fund-raiser with me on your arm instead of Andrew? You think I’ll ever be able to hold your hand, twirl you on the dance floor, kiss you in front of anyone?”
Tears fill my eyes because I know the answer, and each of his questions is like falling through a mirror into broken glass.
“For the rest of my life, I will always be the guy who robbed a convenience store. I will always be my past. I will always be my mistakes. I will never be anything more.”
“That’s not true!” I exclaim. “You’re more than that. You’re so much more!”
“And only five other people see that. I’m changed because of your dad, but I’m also damned because of your dad. I will always be the mistake.”
“You are not a mistake!”
Drix swears and my lower lip trembles. He strides around the car, and I expect him to keep walking, past me and into the house, but he doesn’t. Instead
, he gathers me into his arms. One hand pressed against my back, the other guides my head into his chest. I collapse into him, holding on as tight as I can because he needs me and I need him. We need each other.
“I don’t know how to fix this,” I whisper, “but we’re stronger together, Drix. I promise we are. Please don’t give up on us. Please don’t give up on yourself.”
“I don’t know,” he says into my hair. “I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t know how to be the man you deserve when we can’t even be seen together in public. I don’t know who I am, especially when I’m never going to be anything more than who I was.”
My cell vibrates again and I know it’s my parents. It’s their insistence to see me, to know I’m okay, to know that I’m following orders like the good little daughter they want me to be.
Drix kisses the side of my head, steps back, and it feels to dismissive. “You need to go.”
“I’ll stay,” I say.
“I don’t need your parents breathing down my neck because they figure out we’re together. I’ve got enough problems, and I don’t need you adding to them.”
His words punch me in the stomach, and I wait for the apology, but one doesn’t come. There won’t be one, because he means what he says. Our relationship is a problem. He has said it time and time again—I’m dangerous.
“I gotta go,” Drix says. “I just...got to go.”
He tosses my car keys to me, and he leaves. Across the yard, jumping the fence and disappearing into Dominic’s garage. My knees go weak as that felt very much like a goodbye.
A hand on my shoulder and Dominic’s standing beside me. “Go. He needs some time.”
“I want to help him.”
“Trust me to take care of him.” He squeezes my shoulder.
From the house, Thor barks and whines from the back door. Drix. He wants Drix, and he doesn’t understand why he’s being left behind.
I use the remote of my car to unlock the doors, and Dominic heads after Drix. Hopelessness floods through me, but I take a deep breath to try to ward it off. The world has to be better than this. There has to be an answer.
I ease into the front seat, turn on my car, drive out of the backyard and onto the street. Music plays on the radio. It’s Drix’s favorite station playing a song I never knew before I met him. Drix had a future in music, and just as quickly as it was given to him, it was taken away. It’s not fair. None of this is fair.
I pause at the stop sign at the corner and as I’m about to take a left...
“Elle.”
I jump. My heart races to my throat, and with shaking fingers, I turn to find blond pigtails, a Spider-Man beanie and an Avenger’s T-shirt. It’s Kellen, and I sigh with relief that I’m not being kidnapped. “What are you doing here?”
“I snuck in when you unlocked your car. I overheard what Drix said. I overheard what happened, and I don’t want Drix to lose anything more. I don’t want him to lose you. I don’t want you to leave him because he didn’t get in.”
He’s not, but as I go to open my mouth to calm her fears, Kellen says, “Drix didn’t do it. He didn’t rob the convenience store. Drix isn’t guilty. He’s innocent and I need you to believe me.”
Hendrix
Dominic holds the punching bag, and I hit it again and again and again. Blood drips from my knuckles, the skin on my hand peeled back, battered and raw. Throbs, but doesn’t hurt nearly as much as losing my spot at the performing arts school. Doesn’t ache nearly as badly as seeing the disappointment consuming Elle.
Less than twenty-four hours ago, I felt like I could offer her the world. Now I got nothing, and I’m always going to be nothing.
A shadow lurking in the doorway and I ram two jabs and then a left hook into the bag. Dominic steps back with the force, but then pushes the bag back toward me. I wipe at the sweat pouring from my brow and ignore the blood dropping onto the concrete.
“Drix,” Kellen says, and her voice has a shake to it.
I love Kellen—heart and soul, but I can’t do this right now. I glance over at Dominic, begging for help. I don’t know how to make her feel better when my world is in flames.
“We’ll talk later,” Dominic says. “Drix needs a few more rounds.”
“I’m sorry, Drix,” she continues. “I’m sorry they took the spot away from you. I’m sorry you and Elle are fighting, and I’m sorry you took the fall for me.”
Buzzing in my head as I turn to look at her. I never thought she’d admit it. After talking with Dominic, I buried that notion and laid it to rest. She walks toward me, that limp more pronounced today. Maybe because I’m searching for it.
I’ll never forget the sight of her bleeding in my arms. Dominic had come to our house seeking refuge, and he had handed her to me so he could wrap a towel around the wound. Embedded in my memory was how pale she looked, how the bone stuck out of her skin, the blood pouring from her body and how I watched her chest to make sure she was still breathing. We were kids, babies even, and none of us should have had to deal with that type of carnage.
“I know Dominic told you,” she says. “It’s what you two do. You share. You two are close, and it’s okay he told you and I’m sorry.”
I wipe my blood and sweat against my jeans and go to wrap her in a hug because that’s what we both need. Life has been too cruel to us both. “It’s okay. It’s done. I’ll learn to live with the rest.”
She sticks out a hand, stopping me from coming forward. “It’s not okay. You were happy. Despite all that has happened, you were happy, and I heard what you said to Elle. I heard you say no matter what you do, you’ll never be allowed to be with her, and that’s not okay, so I told her.”
The world comes to a grinding halt as I tilt my head. “You told who what?”
“I told Elle you didn’t rob the convenience store.”
Dominic steps beside me in complete bewilderment. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her we need help, and that I haven’t told you everything.” She hesitates and twists her fingers together. “I’m being blackmailed, and I can’t live like this anymore.”
Ellison
I pull into the semicircle at the front of our house. It’s a combination of pure joy and seasickness when I spot the old red Mustang parked to the side and a hulking figure on the front steps. Beside him is a brown bag I’m betting is full of doughnuts.
It’s Henry, and if Henry’s here he knows Mom and Dad are gone. Odds are he also knows I should have been home and I wasn’t. Placing the car in Park, I read his calculating stare. I’m so busted.
I’m out the door and he’s off the steps. “Where the hell have you been?”
“At a friend’s house.” It’s not a lie.
“I’ve been here since eight in the morning, so try again. I texted your dad, waving the white flag, asking if I could visit you at home since, according to news reports, you were home. He told me yes. He told me to stay with you as long as I wanted because you were alone, and he mentioned you were freaked out by being alone because of some media breach. He said you were heading straight home from the airport last night. Guess what happened when I got here? You weren’t the one who was surprised.”
“You could have called.”
“Didn’t think I’d have to since your parents thought you were home. So spill, Elle, and tell me the truth because I don’t do lies. Not even from you.”
I dig my suitcase out of the trunk, find my house key, walk past Henry and unlock the door. “I spent the night with my boyfriend.”
My back heats as I walk in and turn off the alarm. Henry’s rage is red-hot and could possibly melt skin off bones. He slams the door behind him. “What did you say?”
“I stayed the night with my boyfriend.” I leave my suitcase at the bottom of the stairs and head for Dad’s office. I’m not sure if I have the cou
rage to stand still, nor do I believe I’ll have the bravery to do what needs to be done if I wait.
Henry’s footsteps are so heavy behind me I can’t help but wonder how exactly he goes into enemy territory without announcing his arrival from a mile away. I reach Dad’s office, and enter knowing that I’m about to commit an act of treason so great that if my father ever found out, he’d probably strangle me.
“That wasn’t funny, and what are you doing in here? Isn’t walking in here without permission breaking a seal in hell?”
“I wasn’t joking, and I go in here all the time.” Not for snooping, but I do.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you correctly. I think you said you have a boyfriend and you stayed the night with him.”
I drop into Dad’s chair, and like it was a few weeks ago, there’s Drix’s binder. I pick it up, place it on the desk and begin flipping through it. “Do you need your hearing checked?”
Henry’s talking, yelling actually, and I’m not listening. I’m scanning one page, then the next, searching for something, anything that can help. Drix didn’t do it. He didn’t rob the convenience store, but Drix took the plea deal, according to Kellen, because he didn’t see any other option.
Lying—Drix said sometimes it happens because it was the only way to survive two bad choices. I glance up at Henry and interrupt the string of words falling out of his mouth. “Do innocent people get railroaded into plea deals?”
He balks as if he was in the midst of being run over by a Zamboni. “What?”
“You worked internships in law offices and for the district attorney. Do innocent people get railroaded into accepting plea deals?”
Henry curses under his breath and drops into the chair on the other side of Dad’s desk. “You think you’re in love with the boy from your dad’s program, don’t you?”
“Not think.” This incredible feeling in my chest that flows to the tip of my toes has to be love.