The Dark Light of Day (10 page)

I’d have to hold onto him.

“Abby,” Jake said, softly this time. He moved himself in front of me and looked into my eyes. “Who did this?”

“It’s nothing. I’m fine,” I answered. I tried to sound casual.
“That’s about as much as I want to tell you, and if you don’t want to give me
a ride anymore, that’s okay.” I took the helmet off my head and
placed it back on his seat. “I’ll take my chances with the mosquitoes.” I started walking.

Things had been getting too close for me, anyway.

“Hey, wise-asser,” he called out. “Get that wise-ass on the bike, and let’s go.” It was kind of a joke and kind of a demand, but I got
the point. He wasn’t going to pry anymore, but that didn’t do
anything to solve my other situation.

I pulled my sleeves down to cover my wrists and stared at Jake where he sat on the bike. He seemed to sense my hesitation. “You ever been on a bike before?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Just get on behind me, one leg at a time, be careful not to have your legs touch the metal pipes at the bottom because they can burn.” Little did he know I’d prefer the burn from the pipes than the burn of his touch.

“Where do I put my arms and legs?” I asked.

“You wrap them around me,” he answered, like it was the
simplest thing in the world to do. I suppose for most people, it was.

But, I wasn’t most people, and it wasn’t simple for me at all.

“Is there an alternative?” I asked.

“To what?” I was hoping he wasn’t going to have to make me
explain it. I didn’t care if he thought I was odd. It was late. I was
tired. And if Jake thinking I was a whack-job sped up this process, I really didn’t give a shit.

“To putting my arms and legs around you,” I answered. Jake looked like he was contemplating my question. He didn’t ask me the reason for it. He didn’t make fun of me for asking. He just looked like he was thinking, and that was all.

“When you get on, scoot as far back to this chrome piece as
possible. He pointed to a chrome semi-circle attached to the back of the seat. Put your feet on the back of these stirrups here and hold your arms behind you, and grab on to the bottom of the seat. It may not be comfortable, but it’ll work.” Jake got off the bike. “If you get on first, it’ll be easier.” I did as he instructed, and I noticed that when he got
back on he was riding close to the handlebars. There were a solid
few inches of space separating us.

I sighed in relief.

“Thank you,” I said. He may have been judging me on the
inside,
but I was grateful he didn’t say anything to me about it. I didn’t need anything to piss me off further. The night was as over as I wanted it
to be.

One good thing did come out of the night after all. It turned out that riding on a motorcycle was my new favorite thing.

Like, ever.

The excitement of the roaring bike beneath me was a thrill I
wasn’t expecting. The wind ripped through my hoodie like it was no match
for its power. It had been so long since I’d found enjoyment in
anything that I was shocked when I heard my own voice shouting into the air. All my senses were still humming when the bike stopped just a few minutes later.

“That was amazing!” I shouted, ripping the helmet from my head, forgetting to be careful of the wound on my jaw. “Ouch.” I rubbed the spot with my hand and placed the helmet back on the
seat.

Jake laughed at my clumsiness, but was still looking at my jaw as though it had offended him in some way. “You’ve really never been on a bike before?”

I shook my head. It was then I noticed that he never asked me where I lived, and we certainly weren’t at Nan’s house.

We were at the beach.

“Okay, I know I said I would take you right home, but this is my favorite time of day, and I thought maybe you’d want to take a walk with me. Are you mad?” I was about to tell him that I was too tired for something like that when I realized that I actually was no longer
tired at all. The adrenaline from the ride had given me a second
wind. I looked out over the water. Sure enough, the sun had started to make its entrance. I’d seen the sunrise many times from Nan’s seawall, and it was always beautiful. But, I’d never seen it from the beach.

“No, I’m not mad,” I said hesitantly. “We can walk.” Jake look pleased with himself and shrugged off his leather jacket. He rested it
over the seat and led the way down to the beach. We walked in
silence, side by side. The dark light of day flirted with the horizon, peeking out a little at a time. When Jake sat down on the sand, I plopped down next to him, and we watched the sun change from a smear on
the horizon to a force to be reckoned with. Its early morning rays
were
already strong enough to burn the fragile skin of the unprepared tourists.

“I like this,” I said, unsure of what I was telling him I liked—the sunset or the company. I supposed I liked both.

He sighed. “Me, too. But, we don’t exactly make for the best
conversationalists, do we?” He picked up a handful of sand and let it
run
through his fingers. “I’ll sure take a comfortable silence over uncomfortable conversation any day.”

“That’s an understatement,” I said. “I’ve never been a fan of talking about me anyway.”

“Ditto,” Jake said. “So, what do two people who don’t want to
talk about themselves, who obviously have some secrets in their
closets, talk about?”

“I never said I had secrets.”

“But you do,” Jake said. “It’s kind of obvious.”

“Doesn’t everybody? Don’t you?”

“More than most.”

“Ditto,” I mimicked him. He laughed and laid down in the sand,
staring up into the newly blue sky. He folded his hands over his
chest.

“Maybe, someday you can tell me yours.”

“Not likely, “I told him. “You going to tell me yours?”

“Probably not.” He smiled up at me. “I still want to know why you were in the yard the other night, though.”

“It’s no big deal, I just needed somewhere to crash.”

“So, you picked a truck in a junkyard?”

“It’s my Nan’s truck. She never could afford to get it fixed. So, it’s just been sitting there.”

“You didn’t have anywhere else to go?”

I thought about not answering him. It would be easier not to. But he’d given me a ride, and I was tired of running from anyone who asked me anything about myself. “Not really. The foster care gestapo was after me. I was just hiding until she got bored and left.”

“Foster care?” Jake asked. “How old are you?”

“Seventeen,” I answered. He seemed a bit relieved. “She’s
probably
long gone now.” I hoped she was, anyway. I left out the part about the eviction and being homeless. “I live with my Nan... or, at least, I
lived
with my Nan. She died three weeks ago, and since I’m not eighteen
they want to throw me in foster care.” I volunteered all that. It
wasn’t even remotely the biggest secret I was keeping.

“And you’re running from them because you don’t want to go into foster care?”

“I
won’t
go into foster care.” It was the best answer I could come up with. It was more than me not wanting to. I wasn’t going, and that was it.

“What happens if they force you?” Jake asked.

“I won’t go, no matter what,” I said. “If they take me by force…”
I didn’t want to finish my sentence. I knew what I would do. I would either hurt someone and opt for prison over foster care or hurt myself, and simply opt out of life. I didn’t consider myself suicidal. Just tired.

“Can’t you just get emancipated or something?”

It was a question I actually didn’t have to look up the answer for. “No. You have to have parental permission, and you have to prove that you can support yourself. I can’t do either. And it takes a long time. I’d be eighteen and an adult before it was granted, anyway.”

“Sounds like you’ve looked into it.” I hadn’t needed to. I’d been in the foster care system. I didn’t look into it. I just knew it.

I changed the subject.

“So, you work at the junkyard?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Jake said. “I’m not here long-term or anything. Dad’s manager Reggie called me and said he needed some help
straightening
everything. Their secretary quit, their purchase orders are all wrong,
and their ancient computer system crashed and took all their
information with it. It’s a mess.”

“Why doesn’t your dad fix it?”

“He’s…sick,” Jake said. Everyone in town knew that Frank
Dunn was a hermit. He rarely came out of his house, and when he did, it was just to buy booze.

“Oh. I’m sorry.” I knew what it was like to have a “sick”
parent... or parents. Mine were the sickest of them all.

The comfortable silence returned and we sat side by side, watching the pelicans dive into the water for fish. It amazed me how
they could
see from that far up in the sky. They never seemed to miss and
always emerged chomping on their catch, fins flopping between their beaks.

The sun had been up in the sky for way longer than could be
called a sunrise, so we walked in silence back to the bike. I told him where Nan’s house was. He said he didn’t need directions. Of course, he didn’t.

I kept forgetting he was from here.

I thought once we got to Nan’s, if I didn’t acknowledge the giant blue tarp in the driveway then he wouldn’t either. “Thanks for the ride,” I said. I handed him his helmet.

“What’s all that?” he asked, gesturing to the very thing I’d
hoped he would ignore.

“Garage sale stuff.” He had to go, and go
now
. I needed to come up with a plan. So far, it only consisted of squatting around Nan’s
house until further notice. I’d forgotten about the boards on the windows.
Shit.
My situation was more obvious than I thought it
would be.

I walked up the old steps of the porch, waiting to hear Jake’s
bike take off. Instead, I heard nothing but the idling engine. I stood facing the door and pretended to rummage through my bag for my keys. Even if I’d had them, they wouldn’t have worked. There was a big gold padlock over the board on the door. I hoped he couldn’t see it from the road.

“You forget your key?” he called out.

“Yeah,” I lied. “I’m just going to go around back where the spare is.” I waved again and hoped that when I rounded the side of the house and reached the lanai he would take the hint and leave.

The screen door was locked. I bashed the flimsily latch with my wrist and it popped open instantly. I guess I wasn’t going to have to cut the screen after all.

The sliding glass door had another eviction notice taped to it, a duplicate of the one on the front door. I pulled it off and crumpled it in my hands. Then I sank down onto my ass, my back up against the door, and I rested my head in between my knees.

I was fucked.

I had nowhere else to go, and even if I did I had no money to get there. I would have to try to find some tools and break in, but that would only buy me a little bit of time. Nan’s house would probably
be sold soon and occupied by seasonal renters or blue haired
snowbirds in no time.

I pulled my hood over my head. It was ninety degrees out, but I didn’t give a shit. I just wanted to curl up and die.

“Abby?” a voice asked.

I knew exactly who it was without having to lift my head.

It was the foster care devil coming to drag me off to hell.

She was right on time, too. The pattern of my life seemed to be rolling right along on schedule. Something bad happens. Something
worse happens. Something really bad happens. The cards I was
being dealt were all the Fool.

“Dan,” I replied.

“Dan?” She questioned my use of her nickname, which only I knew the meaning of. I looked up at her. She looked down at me like
I had three heads, and all three of them saw the pity in her eyes.
“What are you doing back here on the lanai?”

“Just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“I came here looking for you and was alarmed when I saw the stuff in the driveway and that young man out front was holding this in his hands.” She handed me the wrinkled notice I had ripped off the front door.

“What young man?” I asked, sitting up and pulling my hood
from my face.

She crouched next to me, still sweating from her neck, still
holding
the same clipboard she’d had the other day. “Your cousin, Jake, of
course.” She said each word slowly like she was trying to tell me more than what she was really saying.

“My
cousin
? Jake? My
cousin
?” I must have sounded insane. I didn’t have any cousins, how would she get the impression that Jake was my…oh shit.

“What did you say to him?” I asked. Suddenly, I cared what he thought of me, though I didn’t know why it mattered.

“He just told me that you two stopped here to sort through some of your grandmother’s things and that you had come back here to make sure you didn’t miss anything,” Miss Thornton said.

“He said what?”

She huffed, like she shouldn’t be wasting her time on an idiot
like me, like there was something I wasn’t getting in all this.

I wasn’t getting
anything
in any of it.

“I asked him about your Aunt Priscilla, and I was very sorry to
hear that she had to leave town so suddenly.”

“Me too…” Maybe, I should just agree with everything she said.
In the end, it wouldn’t matter anyway. She was here to take me
away. I was about to tell her to save the paperwork, that I was going to opt-out the first chance I got. “Listen, you can take me if you have to, but
it’ll be pointless, because if you do I’m just going to…” She was
ignoring me. I was starting to get desperate. I was contemplating reaching for my knife in my boot and taking the next ten seconds to turn myself into a felon.