Текст книги "Dare You To"
Автор книги: Katie McGarry
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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 25 страниц)
Beth
EVERY NOW AND THEN, FATE SMILES in my
favor. Yes, I know, hard to believe, but today is one of those rare days. Last week, Lacy told me Ryan drove into Louisville for coaching lessons on Wednesdays, and yesterday she told me that the facility is located in the south side of Louisville, sweetly tucked away a half mile from my home.
Outside of a large metal warehouse, Ryan
plucks a bag full of his baseball crap out of the back of his Jeep and I do my best to keep from fidgeting. My nerves make it difficult to stay still. I’m so close to my mom that I can almost taste the cigarette. Be cool, Beth. This is a hand you have to play carefully. “How long is practice?”
“An hour. Maybe a little longer.” Ryan
slings his bag over his shoulder. I swear, this HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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guy has the broadest shoulders of any high school kid I have ever met. He wears a tight Tshirt and my stomach performs tiny flips when his shirt rides up, exposing his abs.
I sigh and push the thoughts away. The
characteristics of gorgeous and decent don’t mix with wanting me. And while Ryan can be a jerk, he is…decent. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that what I’m doing to him is wrong.
Wrong but necessary.
Besides, whatever is going on between us is a game of some sort. I just haven’t guessed his angle yet. Not that it matters. By the end of the night, Ryan will hate me and so will Scott. I won’t feel bad about Scott though. He’s the one that dragged me into this mess and he’ll be much happier without me. In an hour I will have reached Mom, contacted Isaiah, and we’ll be out of town. The schedule is tight, but doable.
“Where do you want to go to dinner?
There’s an Applebee’s close by and a T.G.I.
Friday’s. Hopefully our dinner conversation will be a lot better than the silence on the way in.” He pauses. “We can do fast food if you HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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prefer. I know how you love tacos.”
The first cool breeze of fall blows across the parking lot and goose bumps rise on my arms.
In an hour, I’ll be heading to the beach.
“I said tacos, Beth. Where’s the ‘eff you’
that typically follows?”
I stare up at him and blink. I’m doing this.
I’m actually going to run away.
Ryan’s eyebrows furrow together and he
comes closer to me, blocking the breeze, or maybe it’s the heat radiating from his body warming me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He’s taller than me.
Gigantically. I’m not going to see him again so I let myself notice Ryan as he really is. He’s sexily hot with his broad shoulders, curved muscles, cute mess of sandy-blond hair kicking out behind his baseball cap and adorable warm brown eyes. I pretend for a second that the sincerity in them is real—and for me.
The wind blows again, harder this time, and several strands of my hair move across my face. Ryan focuses on them. His fingers
whisper against my cheek, then down the
sensitive skin on my neck as he brushes the strands over my shoulder. His touch tickles and HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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burns at the same time.
Heat races to my face and my hands
immediately cover my cheeks. What the hell?
I’m blushing. Guys don’t make me blush. Guys don’t want to make me blush. Confused by my reaction, I step away and reach into my back pocket to pull out a cigarette I bummed from stoner boy at school. “Give me a few, okay?”
“If you get bored in the waiting area and you want to watch, I’ll ask Coach if you can…”
I shake my head. “No.”
Ryan presses his lips together and heads
toward the entrance. I sneak a peek at his retreating form and my heart drops. Whatever messed-up moment we just experienced
doesn’t change anything. Ryan goes for girls like Gwen and screws over girls like me. You can’t change destinies already written. That only happens in fairy tales.
I do feel sorry for him. Scott’s going to kill him by the end of the night. “Ryan?”
He glances over his shoulder. What do I say?
You’ve been fun to mess with, but I have to save my mom. I’m sorry that when you return to Groveton tonight without me, my uncle will rip off your balls and my aunt will serve them HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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for dinner with a side of seaweed?
“Thanks.” The word tastes weird in my
mouth.
He removes his baseball cap, runs his hand through his hair, and smashes it back into place. I look away to keep the guilt from killing me.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I blink, unsure what he’s apologizing for, but I don’t ask for an explanation. I said my piece.
He said his. We’re even.
A teenage boy leaves the building and holds the door open for Ryan. He goes in while the other boy jingles his car keys. Thank you, fate, for lending me a hand. I tuck the cigarette into my back pocket and smile in a way that makes the boy assume he has a chance. “Can I bum a ride?”
NERVES VIBRATE IN MY STOMACH and I keep
taking deep breaths. No matter how many
times I inhale, I still have a hard time filling my lungs with air. Please, God, this one time, please let the asshole be gone. And please, please, please let Isaiah agree to my crazy plan once I show up with my mom in tow.
I thought about telling him about my plan HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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beforehand, but, in the end, I knew he
wouldn’t agree to Mom tagging along. He
blames her for the problems in my life, but I know Isaiah. When I show up with her,
begging to leave, he won’t let me down. He’ll take us—both.
The Last Stop is empty, but give it another hour or two and the bar will be filled. Even in daylight, the place is as dark as a dungeon. In his typical jeans and flannel shirt, Denny sits at his bar and hovers over a laptop, giving his face a bluish glow. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots me. “Heard your mom lost custody.”
“Yeah.”
He sips a longneck. “Sorry, kid.”
“How has she been?” My mouth dries out
and it takes everything I have to act like his answer doesn’t matter to me.
“Do you really want to know?”
No. I don’t. “What do I owe you?”
He closes the laptop. “Nothing. Go back to where you came from. Anywhere has to be
better than here.”
I go out the back. It’s the fastest way to Mom’s apartment. At night, the place is creepy in the shadows. During the day, the run-down HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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apartment complex just looks sad and
pathetic. Management spray-painted parts of the 1970s orange brick white to hide the
graffiti. It’s a useless effort. The elementary kids paint their swear words back on the next night.
Since most of the windows are broken, the residents use cardboard and gray tape to cover the glass, except for the windows with the roaring air-conditioning units that leak water like faucets. Mom and I never had one of
those. We were never that rich or lucky.
Asshole Trent lives in the complex across the parking lot from Mom. The only thing
sitting in his parking spot is the large pool of black oil that seeps from his car when it’s parked. Good. I inhale again to still my internal shaking. Good.
After Dad left, Mom moved us to Louisville and we officially became gypsies, moving into a new apartment every six to eight months.
Some were so bad we left voluntarily. Others kicked us out after Mom missed rent. The
trailer in Groveton and my aunt Shirley’s basement are the only stable homes I’ve ever known. The apartment near Shirley’s is the HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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longest Mom has ever stayed in one place
and it sucks that Trent is the reason why. I knock softly.
The door rattles as Mom unlocks the
multiple dead bolts and, like I taught her to, she leaves the chain on when she opens the door an inch. Mom squints as if her eyes have never seen the sun. She’s whiter than normal, and the blond hair on the back of her head stands upright as if she hasn’t brushed it in days.
“What is it?” she barks.
“It’s me, Mom.”
She rubs her eyes. “Elisabeth?”
“Let me in.” And let’s get you out.
Mom closes the door, the chain jiggles as she unlocks it, and the door flies open. In seconds, she wraps her arms around me. Her fingernails dig into my scalp. “Baby? Oh, God, baby. I thought I’d never see you again.”
Her body shakes and I hear the familiar
sniffling that accompanies her crying. I rest my head on her shoulder. She smells like a strange combination of vinegar, pot, and alcohol. Only the vinegar seems out of place. Part of me is thrilled to see her alive. The other part beyond HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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annoyed. I hate that she’s high. “What did you take?”
Mom pulls back and runs her fingers
through my hair in very fast successive
motions. “Nothing.”
I note her red eyes and dilated pupils and tilt my head.
“Okay, just some pot.” She smiles while a tear runs down her face. “Do you want a bowl?
We have new neighbors and they’re into
sharing. Let’s go.”
Snatching Mom’s hand, I push past her and into the apartment. “You need to pack.”
“Elisabeth! Don’t!”
“What the hell?” The place is trashed. Not like normal trashed. This is beyond dirty dishes, mud-caked floors, and fast-food
wrappers on the furniture. The cushions of the couch lie on the threadbare carpet, both ripped open. The coffee table could now be used as kindling. The insides of Mom’s small
television lie exposed near the three-foot kitchen.
“Someone broke in.” Mom shuts the door
behind her, locking one of the dead bolts.
“Bullshit.” I turn and face her. “People who HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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break in steal shit and you don’t have shit to steal. And what the hell is that stench?”
I dyed Easter eggs with Scott once and our trailer smelled like vinegar for days.
“I’m cleaning,” Mom says. “The bathroom. I got sick in there earlier.”
Her words hit me hard. Puking can mean an OD. My worst nightmare for my mother.
“What did you take?”
She shakes her head and nervously laughs.
“I told you, pot. A little beer. I’m barely buzzing.”
Ah, hell. “Are you pregnant?”
I hate it when she has to think for an answer.
“No. No. I’m taking those pills. It’s good you found a way to have them sent to me in the mail.”
Kneading my eyes with my palms, I gather
my wits. None of this matters. “Get your stuff together. We’re leaving.”
“Why? I haven’t received an eviction
notice.”
“We’re gypsies, remember?” I say, trying to lighten the mood. “We never stay still.”
“No, Elisabeth. You have the gypsy soul, not me.”
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Her statement stops me short and I wait
for her to explain. Mom sways from side to side. Whatever. She’s high and I don’t have time for this. I step over the shredded coffee table. “Isaiah offered to take me to the beach and you’re coming with us. We’ll lay low until I turn eighteen next summer and then we’ll be home free.”
“What about Trent?”
“He beats you. You don’t need that asshole!”
I spot a couple of plastic shopping bags in the corner. Those will do. Mom owns few items worth packing.
“Elisabeth!” Mom kicks the remains of the coffee table as she bolts after me. She grabs my arm. “Stop!”
“Stop? Mom, we have to go. You know if
Trent comes back and finds me here…”
She cuts me off and runs her fingers through my hair again. “He’ll kill you.” Her eyes pool with tears and she sniffles again. “He’ll kill you,” she repeats. “I can’t go.”
My entire body bottoms out like a fast
sobering from a high. “You have to.”
“No, baby. I can’t go now. Give me a few
weeks. I got some business to take care of and HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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then we’ll leave together. I promise.”
Business? “We’re leaving. Now.”
Her fingers curl in my hair and tighten,
yanking to the point of pain. She leans down and places her forehead to mine. The stench of beer rolls off her breath. “I promise. I promise I’ll go with you. Listen to me. I have to clean some stuff up. Give me a couple of weeks, then we’ll go.”
The doorknob wiggles and my heart kicks
into high gear. He’s back.
Mom grips my hand painfully. “My
bedroom.” She drags me through the apartment and loses her balance as she trips over the pieces of broken furniture. “Go out the
window.”
Bile rises in my throat and I begin to shake.
“No. Not without you.”
Leaving Mom here is like watching sand run out of an hourglass while I’m chained to the wall, unable to flip it back over. Someday, Trent will go too far and it won’t just be a bruise or a broken bone. He’ll take the life out of her body. Time with Trent is an enemy.
“Sky!” Trent shouts when he enters the
apartment. “I told you to keep the door
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unlocked.”
Mom hugs me tightly. “Go, baby,” she
whispers. “Come and get me in a few weeks.”
She rips the cardboard off the glass and I jump back when a hand shoots through the
already open window. “Give her to me.”
Isaiah pokes his head in and both of his
hands latch onto my body. I stop breathing and realize one way or another, one of these guys is going to kill me.
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Ryan
I SNAP MY ARM FORWARD. With a thump, the
ball hits outside the orange box taped onto the black tarp bag that serves as a target. My mind’s not in it today and I need it to be.
Placing my pitches is the priority. If Logan calls inside—I need to hit inside. If Logan calls outside—I need to hit outside. If he calls straight down the plate—I need to smack that mother too.
I keep thinking about Beth. She looked so damn small and lost that I wanted to gather her in my arms and shield her from the world.
Definitely not a reaction I ever thought I’d have with Skater Girl. I slap my glove against my leg. I’ll find out what’s going on with her at dinner. Silence will no longer be accepted.
I roll my shoulder in an effort to find some life in it, but I come up empty. I’ve pitched for HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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the past hour and the muscles in my arm are as useful as jelly.
The training facility isn’t much, just a
warehouse with green turf carpeting and an air conditioner welded to the ceiling. The unit buzzes overhead and every few seconds a bat cracks.
My coach, John, pushes off the metal wall.
“Good, but you’re still throwing with your arm. Your power and consistency are going to come from your legs. How’s the arm?”
Tired. Beth must hate this place. A
warehouse full of guys hitting balls into nets and pitching into bags. Part of me is
disappointed. She hasn’t stood once to watch.
“I can throw a couple more if you want.”
“Have you been resting your arm like we’ve discussed?”
“Yes, sir.” Not as much as I should. I can pinpoint the exact location of my rotator cuff: approximately two inches down from the top of my shoulder and, right now, it aches.
“Let’s call it a night.”
I roll the ball over my fingers. Beth isn’t the only issue that’s plagued me this practice and no matter how I try to ignore the thoughts, they HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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keep returning. “Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“If you had to choose between playing
college ball and playing pro out of high school, what would you choose?”
John scratches his cheek as he stares at me with a mix of wonder and confusion. “Do you want to go to college?”
I don’t know. “If you had the choice, what would you have done?”
“I didn’t have that choice. College ball was my only option.”
“But if you did?”
“I would have gone pro.”
I slam the ball into my glove. Exactly.
Everyone with their college talk and writing competitions is screwing me up. “Thanks.”
“The question isn’t what I would have done.
The question is what do you want to do?”
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Beth
ISAIAH WRAPS HIS ARM TIGHTLY around my
waist and heaves me out the window. Mom’s hollow blue eyes have a haunting hurt as she stares at me one last time before slamming the glass pane shut and placing the cardboard back over the window.
“No!” I’ve left her behind. Again.
His grip becomes steel and the more I try to scramble back to the window, back to Mom’s apartment, the more he pulls me away. My
heart—it’s literally breaking. It has to be, because the pain in my chest slices as if glass is ripping through it.
My legs tangle with Isaiah’s. He keeps a
firm hold on my hip bones and forces
weightlessness by lifting me and moving me in the opposite direction of my mom. I struggle back to earth, kicking his shins, knocking my HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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knees against his. “Isaiah, Trent’s in there.
He’s going to kill her.”
“Let’s go.” His growl rumbles against my
ear.
“Did you hear me?” He couldn’t have. Isaiah would never leave me to die, so he could never leave my mom. The one person I need.
“Yes.” He presses against me and my
smaller body yields to his. No. My elbows bend back and with open palms I shove at his chest. My heart convulses with the smack of my hands against his body. I hit him—my best friend.
I’ll do it again if he doesn’t let me go. “I hate you!”
“Good,” he says. His nostrils flare as he lightly shakes my hips. “Because I won’t feel bad when I toss you over my shoulder and
throw you in the damned car.”
My palms, still stinging from hitting him, rest on his chest. His heart beats wildly, matching the crazy glare in his eyes. Isaiah means what he says.
So do I. “I’m not leaving without her.”
“Get in the car before I force you into it.”
His hands tighten. A warning. A threat. My HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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chest constricts, making it impossible to breathe. Impossible to think. “He hits her.”
I say it like it’s a secret. Because it is. My secret. The secret I hide from everyone. The secret that leads to my worst secret: he hits me.
Isaiah knows this already, but it’s different. I’m saying it out loud. I’m making it real. And I’m asking him to save me. I’m asking him to save her.
Isaiah presses his face unimaginably close to mine. “He will never touch you again.”
My throat swells and my voice comes out
small. “I’ll let him if it saves her.”
A visible shiver runs through his body and his hands release my waist. Becoming a brick wall, Isaiah plants his feet on the ground and crosses his arms over his chest, practically daring me to move past him.
I step to the left. Isaiah steps with me. I step to the right. He mirrors the movement. “The car, Beth. Now.”
“Get out of my way!” He doesn’t and I feel like a cat trapped in a box. I claw at his chest.
Push. Hit. Scream. Yell. Curse. Until my hands pound against him again and again and again.
Frustrated. Angry. Betrayed.
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His arms weave through my attack,
placing warm palms against my face. He
strokes away the wetness on my cheeks. A
wetness I don’t understand. I smack his arms off me. “If you were my friend…if you cared, you’d help me!”
“Goddamn it, Beth, I’m doing this because I love you!”
My heart beats once and stalls as the world becomes horrifyingly still. I see it, in his eyes—the sincerity. I shake my head. “As a friend,” I whisper. “You love me as a friend.”
We stare at each other. Our chests rising and falling rapidly. “Say it, Isaiah. Tell me you love me as a friend.” He’s silent and my mind feels like it’s on the verge of fracturing. “Say it!”
I don’t want to deal with this. I don’t have time for this. I step around him. “I’m getting her.”
“Fuck this,” he hisses as he bends. His
shoulder makes contact with my waist and in seconds my head dangles over his back, my feet kicking him. I scream and watch through blurred vision as he creates more distance between me and Mom.
A car door clicks open. Isaiah slides my
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body from over his shoulder, covers my
head, and uses his strength and size to push me into the backseat while keeping me from
bolting out of it. The door slams shut and Isaiah has a death grip on my wrist. My head snaps to the left. The other door. It’s locked. I pull at my wrist to gain freedom, to open the other door, but Isaiah retains his hold.
The car whips into reverse and the engine whines when it accelerates.
“What the fuck were you thinking, Beth?”
My eyes widen. Noah leans against the
passenger door, one hand on the wheel. He doesn’t even wait for an answer. “Isaiah said you’d come back for your mom, but I thought maybe you’d have enough sense to stay away.
Jesus, at least you’re predictable. Did you think we wouldn’t remember that you’d check the damn bar before you checked out the
apartment? Isaiah, remind me to pay Denny extra for calling us so damned fast.”
Denny. Traitorous asshole. He told Noah and Isaiah I came for Mom.
“How did you get to Louisville?” Isaiah asks in an eerily calm voice.
“Fuck you.” He told me he loved me. A cold HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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sweat breaks out on my skin and my body
begins to tremble. My best friend told me he loved me. And my mom. He forced me to leave my mom.
“Did you convince that Ryan bastard who’s been messing with you to bring you?”
I glance at Isaiah and he swears. I yank at his hold on my wrist. “Get off of me.”
Anger blazes from Isaiah’s dark eyes and if the anger wasn’t coming from him, it would frighten me. He has the calm anger. The
controlled anger. The type that breaks if pressed too hard for too long. “Not until I know you’re done thinking like an idiot and doing stupid things. You could have gotten yourself killed. Trent’s been bragging at the bar for weeks on how he’ll tear you limb from limb if he sees you again. He blames you for the cops coming to his apartment the week after you went to Groveton. He forgets,
though, that he has enemies everywhere.”
I hear the snap inside my head and my entire body flinches. I’ve talked to Isaiah every night and he never mentioned this piece of local gossip. Gossip that would have led me to act faster. If Trent blames me, then he’ll blame HC TITLE-AUTHOR
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Mom, and he already loves hitting her for no reason. Isaiah took me away from Mom and left her there with that asshole.
Isaiah’s hand still holds my wrist and I don’t want a backstabbing Judas touching me.
Pulling my foot off the floorboard, I kick at him, again and again. “Let. Go. Of. Me!”
He releases my arm to shove my foot off
him. “What is wrong with you?”
“You left her there to die!”
Isaiah punches the back of Noah’s chair and collapses into the seat. His head falls back and he places his thumb and forefinger over his closed eyes.
The flat and bitter notes of a Nine Inch Nails song play on the radio and I sink into my corner of the car, pulling my legs into my chest. My heart aches with the lyrics. It’s a phrase embedded in my soul, a lyric that talks about people you love and how in the
end…they go away.
Isaiah took me away from Mom; he won’t
help me save her….he told me that he loves me. What used to be my best, strongest
relationship has become a leaf withering and dying on a decaying vine.
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I guess everything in life really does
end.
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