Facade (7 page)

That’s all I give myself. That one little touch before I’m out of bed, grabbing clothes and heading to the shower. It stings when the hot water hits all the openings in my skin. I close my eyes, imagining the water somehow makes them spread and get deeper until they swallow me whole and all the pain is gone.

But no. I’d never take the easy way out like that.

I turn the water off, wrap my hand, and get dressed. There’s not much time until people probably start showing up at my house, wondering why they can’t get a hold of me and itching to party. The water did nothing to make me feel better. I wish it could absolve me, cleanse me and make it so I never brought Ash in the front yard that day. So that maybe it was me instead of him.

I head over to the little house only a few streets from me. My good hand comes down on the door three separate times before it finally opens to show a little Italian lady named Lettie who’s probably not even five feet tall.

“You’re late,” she says. “Screwing around with some girl when you’re supposed to be workin’?” The old woman winks at me. She has to be at least eighty, but you’d never know it. Her mouth is worse than Colt’s and I’m not sure she isn’t up to something shady, but we help each other out, so it works. She owns my house and about ten other ones in our neighborhood. She has to have money. It’s obvious yet she lives in a house almost as shitty as mine and she pays me more than I deserve for helping her take care of them.

“Nope. That was last night.” I return her wink and she thumps me on the head.

“Asshole,” Lettie grumbles.

“How are you?” I ask her, noticing her limp. She’s tough as hell, but I see her body betraying her. That’s how I ended up helping her. Came over to pay my rent and heard her cursing inside. She’d fallen and fought me like hell when I offered to help her. I did it anyway and since she wouldn’t let me take her to the hospital, I sat with her for three hours and she offered me a job.

“My hip hurts like hell. I’m old. How do you think I am?” She almost trips and I reach out to grab her. She tries to shake me off, but I don’t let go and walk her back to her favorite chair. “What are you doing here? If you’re not going to be on time, what’s the point in coming?”

“Checking on you before I go take care of some shit.”

“I’m good. Don’t need your help today.”

At the same time her little yappy dog comes out barking at me. “Want me to walk him?”

“No.”

“Okay,” I tell her, but I grab the leash anyway. She grumbles the whole time I hook the dog up, but I know she wants me to do it. I still hear her cursing at me when I go out the door. It doesn’t take me long to take care of the dog and then I’m bringing him back and he stalks off the same way Lettie did. She has her arms crossed and won’t look at me.

“Thanks,” she mumbles. I nod, even though she won’t see, and leave.

* * *

Sitting in my car outside of Lettie’s house, I tell myself not to go. I should head home and wait for people to come over and keep living the life I have been, but I can’t.

Instead I turn the key in the ignition and head in the opposite direction. It’s not like I have a choice. The girl tried to stop my bleeding last night. The least I can do for her is make it so she’s not driving around with my shit in her trunk all day. Or doesn’t have my phone going off and driving her crazy.

Luckily, I have my notebook and
The Count
just in case Colt and his girl aren’t home. It would probably be better if they weren’t; that way I wouldn’t have to try and explain why I’m waiting around to try and find which apartment Delaney lives in.

It doesn’t take me too long to get there. Casper’s car’s parked out front and I wonder if she wakes up with the ghosts still in her eyes. If they always live there or if a new day gives her any reprieve.

My fist slams down on Colt and Cheyenne’s door. “Open up!” It’s crazy how easy it is to be someone else. How easily that mask slips into place without even trying.

Grumbling comes from inside before Colt jerks the door open. His hair’s all messed up and Cheyenne’s lying in the bed, dressed but looking just as worn out as Colt.

Guilt burrows around inside me, finding another place in my insides to make a home. I feel like shit for interrupting them, for slicing through their limited time together and pulling them apart.

I tap the side of my forehead. “What’s the point in knowing shit if you can’t have a little fun with it?”

Cheyenne laughs and sits up. Colt doesn’t look quite as amused but steps aside and lets me in.

“What’s up, man?” I ask.

“Really want me to answer that?” Colt scratches his neck and sits next to Cheyenne on the bed.

“Oh my God. Guys are so gross.”

“No. We’re honest.” I smile before walking to the window. It’s got a bench seat in it and faces toward the parking lot where Casper’s car is.

Cheyenne’s eyes get big when she sees the wrap on my hand. “What happened?”

Colt looks at it, too, before his eyes find me. It’s different than the look his girl gives me. She’s all concern and with Colt I see the worry, rimmed with a dull, sad blue. It’s crazy the things people see if they take the time to look. If they don’t only go skin-deep and try to find their way below the surface. In a lot of ways, Colt’s a prick. People will look at him and that’s all they see.

They don’t know the guy who has more balls than I ever will. The one who didn’t run when his mom was dying. Who stayed and would have burned the whole fucking world to the ground if it would have saved her because she meant more to him than himself or anything else. I never could have stayed and now I just keep running. Maybe not physically anymore, but my mind and heart are backpacking through the darkest corners of the world trying to get farther and farther away.

What would have happened if one, just one fucking teacher or neighbor or anyone would have opened their eyes? Would have looked deep into that quiet kid I used to be to find the war that raged around inside me?

Maybe… just maybe things would have been different.

So that’s what I see when I look at him. That dull, sad blue because I take the time to look below the surface.

“Well?” Cheyenne asks, pulling me out of those thoughts I lose myself in so much.

“Hello, window, meet hand.” I smile before sitting down.

* * *

We hang out for a while before Cheyenne goes into the bathroom to start getting ready to meet her friend Andy. Andy’s her roommate at school, even though Chey really stays with Colt. It works for both of them because it gives Andy time with her girl and Chey time with Colt.

I know they’re both wondering what I’m doing here, but they don’t ask and I don’t offer. Colt has to go to work in a while. Still feels crazy to think those words but he’s got a part-time job and is taking a few classes. His schedule isn’t as intense as it was before because he doesn’t know what he wants to do, which to me means he really does know what he wants—to be happy and not to settle.

Just as Cheyenne’s coming out of the bathroom, I see Casper’s dark hair as she walks toward her car. I push to my feet. Her brother’s motorcycle is here, too, and the last thing I feel like is a run-in with him. “Catch you guys later,” I say as I move to the door.

“Great. Now that Chey’s leaving, you go,” Colt calls from behind me. I know he won’t give it another thought, but I can pretty much promise Cheyenne’s going to wonder what’s up with me running out, so I close the door before she gets a chance to say anything.

I take the stairs two at a time. Casper is walking away from her car. I cross my arms as I walk up to her, smirk, and then keep going so I can lean against her car.

I hear her say, “Oh-kay,” before she turns around and takes the few steps back to me. “You’re here for your stuff, I’m assuming?” She crosses her arms like I do, but her body is stiff, her voice slightly off, and I think she’s trying to sound more indifferent than she really is.

“Maybe.” I shrug. “And maybe finishing what we started this morning?”

She’s wearing makeup, her eyes painted dark and her lips red, but the lips are natural.

“Adrian… that was a mistake. I… there’s so much going on. I just can’t.”

The urge to ask her what’s going on rapidly boils inside me, threatening to spill over, but I clamp the lid down. “Are you sure? It would be fun. Nothing more than that, but a whole lot of fun.”

She shakes her head, looks behind her and then at me again. “Why are you pursuing me? I’m sure there are a hundred other girls out there looking for the kind of fun you want to have.”

I want to tell her it’s because secrets don’t reflect in the eyes of other girls. Pain doesn’t show, but I’ve already showed her other little pieces of me, which I want back. I’m not like Colt. I have no intention to stop running.

Anger replaces the urge to talk. Like a magic trick I didn’t know I could perform, one is replaced by the other and I don’t know how it got there. Or why I’m so pissed. Because she called me out? Because she doesn’t want me? Because my body is really jonesing for her? Or maybe because I really want to know about that look in her eyes.

“You make a good point. If you’ll give me my stuff, I’ll be on my way.”

She glances behind her again before going to her trunk and opening it.

“You’re acting sketchy and people will wonder what’s up,” I say. “Not that anyone in this neighborhood would care.”

“Sorry if I’m not used to passing drugs to people,” she hisses as she digs in her trunk, closes her fist around my stuff, and hands it to me.

I push it into my pocket. “My phone?”

“It’s in my house. I’ll have to go get it, but my brother’s home. Do you mind waiting here?” She’s back to that sweet voice. The girl next door that so contrasts the ghosts.

“Really?” I wonder about the hold her brother has on her. Why she would feel like she needs to hide the fact that she accidentally has my phone. “Afraid he’ll think you’re being a bad girl?”

At that she slams her trunk and I wonder if it’s the first time in her life she’s ever been mad. The tight lips and narrowed eyes look so foreign on her face.

“No. I just don’t want him to know about what happened last night. He already doesn’t like the idea that I work nights and that would make it worse. Not that it’s any of your business or anything.”

She tries to walk around me, but I step in front of her. “Wait. You’re going back to work there?”

She sighs and drops her head back. “Oh God, not you too. Do I have ‘please take care of me’ written across my forehead?”

“No, but maybe you should if you’re going back to work there alone. Are they hiring security or anything?”

Not my business. Not my business. Not my business
.

“My boss is a tightwad, so I doubt it. It’s not as though they’re going to rob the same place twice, Adrian.”

It’s like a little shock to hear my name roll off her tongue. I don’t know why. I think she feels it, too, as I see her swallow.

“I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t shown up?” What would have happened if I had been a few seconds later, like I had been with Ash. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. There’s only a thin chalk line separating the two—nothing and everything. All it takes is a hand to wipe it away.

“Big strong man saves helpless woman?” she huffs, and tries to walk away again. For some reason, it makes me want to smile. I don’t know where it comes from, but maybe she reminds me of Casper in more ways than one. It’s funny watching the friendly ghost trying to be mad. “If you’ll move out of my way, I’ll go get your phone.”

I don’t know what makes me do it, but I step aside. I lean against the trunk of her car. The longer she’s gone, the more I wonder why I care. It’s her fault if she wants to go work there again. I don’t have it in me to watch over anyone. If I couldn’t take care of a two-year-old, I don’t know what in the hell makes me think I can do it with anyone else.

Or why I would want to try.

I flex my fingers, remembering the care she took on my hand. How her fingers felt. What it would have been like to let myself feel it.

“Here’s your phone.” She thrusts it into my palm. I didn’t even hear her come back.

She opens her mouth to say something, but it’s cut off when another female voice pops in with a “Hi.”

I groan, wishing like hell I had gotten out of here before this happened. Meetings come with questions and questions have no place in my life.

Delaney turns and standing there is Cheyenne and Colt.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“Nothing.” Cheyenne looks at me. Delaney. Back at me.

Damn it. It’s different with her. Or a lot of people maybe. There’s a difference between trying to look below the surface and trying to see something that isn’t there. Cheyenne’s going to want the make-believe. She’ll want to see something here that’s not.

When it’s obvious I’m not going to say anything, she holds out her hand. “Hey. We’re Adrian’s friends. I’m Cheyenne. This is my boyfriend, Colt.”

Delaney holds out her hand. “Um… hi. I’m Delaney. Nice to meet you.” The girls shake; then she grabs Colt’s hand and does the same. My eyes don’t leave him and I see the strange look he gives her, the way his eyes study her, and I’m about to ask him what’s so fucking interesting when I realize it doesn’t matter. I have no say over how anyone looks at her.

“She’s my doctor,” I tease, but when Delaney whips around to me, I hold up my hand to pretend that’s what I was talking about.

Colt’s and Cheyenne’s stares are all becoming too much. They feel like pressure bearing down on me, making me want to take my backpacking trip even farther.

My phone beeps and I wonder who it is. Want any excuse I can find to get out of here. To stop their stares and cut off the urge to tell her not to go back to work.

“I’m out of here.” As I make a move to turn, Casper’s hand reaches out and latches on to my arm.

“Wait. I need to talk to you.” She studies her hand on my arm like it’s a big deal that it’s there, and curiosity spikes inside me again, but then she’s pulling it away.

“Come on, Tiny Dancer,” Colt whispers in Cheyenne’s ear. She shivers and I imagine making Delaney do the same thing. There’s nothing sexier than making a girl shiver.