Author: Nyrae Dawn

The hostess gets off work, and Oscar tells her to sit with us. Her name’s Jamie and he tosses game at her that she gobbles up.

The whole time I’m watching Delaney, trying to ignore my question as it goes for the wall again. “I’ll be right back,” I tell them. She’s at the counter by herself. Only two other customers are in the place and the cook’s safely in the kitchen.

“You owe me a night out,” I tell her as I lean against the counter.

“How do you figure that?” She doesn’t look at me when she talks.

Because I want you out of my system. “You were going to say yes to the party. I could see it, but your brother came chomping at my ankles.”

At that she whips around. “How is it my fault you got scared away? And you’re not going to get me to go anywhere by insulting my brother.”

I shake my head. “Not scared. I was showing respect. That should earn me some points, right? As should honesty. I told you up front I came back for you. Come on. You’re obviously new to town. Let me show you a good time.”

Her shoulders slump, like my words sucked the air out of her. “Believe me, it’s not a good idea.”

I step closer, lean over the counter so my mouth is next to her ear. “It’s a very good idea. What time do you get off? I’ll come back for you.” I’m always up front with a girl. She’ll know exactly what this is about.

I feel the blast of ice shooting from her. See it in the set of her shoulders and the anger in her jaw. She’s fighting for composure before she talks—working through what she wants to say or maybe trying to fight the words back, swinging at them with a bat and hoping to hit a home run so they can’t get to her again.

“I’m not sure why I’m surprised that you’re like every other guy in the world. I thought…” She shakes her head. “I don’t know why I thought you might be different. If you’ll excuse me, I need to get to work.”

Shame takes root in my bones, breaking some as it travels through my body. I don’t know what I’m ashamed about either. Why it matters what this girl thinks. If it’s her that’s making me feel this way or because I know if Ash can look down on me, he wouldn’t think I have the power to hold the world up anymore. If anything, I’m crushing it. I have been for the past four years.

My feet carry me back to the table. The whole time I’m telling myself it doesn’t matter. None of it does. It’s not like I’ve never pissed off a girl before. It’s not like I haven’t pissed off a lot of people or they haven’t done the same to me.

“Let’s get out of here,” I tell Oscar. He looks surprised but follows Jamie out of the booth when she stands up.

“What are you guys doing tonight?” she asks.

“What do you want to do?” Oscar replies.

“My friends are having a party over by the campus, if you guys want to go.”

“You know it,” he says.

I don’t tell him I’m not going and wait while Jamie gives him the address. We don’t talk as he gets in the car, but then he starts going off about how lucky we got and though the waitress didn’t come through, it’s not like there won’t be girls at the party.

I pull up in front of the house and already hear the music pulsing and pumping on wind as it hits the car. I should go in there. Part of me wants to go in there, but it feels just like last night. And the night before and the night before.

Tonight, I can’t do it.

“I have something to do,” I tell Oscar.

He couldn’t care less. “More for me,” he says before laughing and nudging my arm. He’s out of the car and heads toward Jamie, who’s waiting for him.

The whole time I’m driving home I tell myself to go back to the party. What’s the point in going home? In trying to quiet the voices in my head when nothing ever really does that?

Reaching for my cell, I’m about to text Oscar. I try one pocket and then the other, but it’s not there.

I know I had it when I left home, so it has to be at the restaurant. I sigh and let my head fall back in frustration. The last thing I want is anyone going through my shit, so I head back to the diner.

I’m about to pull into the parking lot when I notice a car parked off slightly to the side. I scan it, then the restaurant. I see two guys at the register with Delaney and someone who I assume is the cook, both guys in masks with guns in their hands.

Fear spikes through me.

“Mother fucker.” I feel for my phone before remembering I don’t have it. I hit the brakes, throw the car in park right in the middle of the road, hoping it gets someone to stop. The guys have their backs to me. My heart’s rapping an angry beat because I don’t know what the fuck to do. I walk in there and they’ll shoot me, but there’s not a chance I’ll sit here and do nothing.

I jog around the side of the building. There’s a little alley back there and the door to the kitchen, which of course is locked. There’s a window and I look around for something to break it. No time, so I make a fist and slam it into the glass. It cracks but doesn’t go through, so I take my fist to it again, hoping it will at least set off an alarm or some shit. If not, maybe I can get in the back without them seeing.

One more time my fist hits the glass. Blood pours down my hand, coloring the broken pieces as they shatter a mixture of crystal blue and red glass.

The second the alarm vibrates through the night, I take off toward the front of the building. It doesn’t fucking matter if they have guns or not. What matters is that girl inside.

Blood colors my vision as I go in. Little flashes of Ash in all that fucking blood.

Save them, save them, save them is all I can think. I don’t know if I’m thinking of Delaney or Ash. All I know is I’m not watching someone else die.

As I make it around the building, the glass door slams into the window. The guys run out. One of them looks at me, knowledge staring at me through the holes in his mask. His hand raises, the gun pointed right at me, and for a brief second, two words play in my head: Thank you.

My feet pull me to a stop and I wonder if he’s about to do it when Delaney screams in the background, “Noooo!”

At the same time, the other guy says, “Come the fuck on!”

My eyes shift to her and they’re gone. Running across the parking lot and jumping into the car. They hit the street and peel away.

“Oh my God! Are you okay?” Delaney runs out to me, makeup running down her face. They look like little roads. A path leading her tears down her face and I think I might want to take the journey with them. Maybe they’ll have the power to wash me away.

“Call the cops,” I tell her. “I need to get out of here.”

I’m already trying to walk back to the car, but she’s right behind me. “Donna’s calling the cops. You can’t leave. You’re a witness.”

I shake my head. “A witness who doesn’t want to be involved with the cops. I have shit on me that will get my ass hauled in too.”

She sounds frantic. I hear her breathing and the shake in her voice when she says, “They won’t search you.”

I’m still walking and she’s still following. “They’ll take one look at me and search me.” I’ve seen it before, especially if they run my name and see I have a record.

She reaches me by then and grabs my arm. About the same time, I already hear the sirens going off in the background.

“Shit—what the fuck?” I say as she shoves her hands into the pocket of my baggy jeans.

Her hand latches on to my pipe and the baggie in my pocket. “They won’t search me.” She pulls it out and before I realize what she’s doing, she’s running to a car, popping open the truck, and throwing my weed inside.

My feet don’t move as I watch her. I feel the blood still running down my hand, but it doesn’t matter. Thank you. The words swim in the rapids of my mind but keep getting pulled under. Running into rocks and getting hung up on the river floor. “You shouldn’t have done that. What if—”

“I had no choice but to do that. I owe you.”

“You—”

“I do.” And then she’s wiping her face. The sirens are so close I know they’ll be here at any second.

“Shit,” I mumble. “If anything happens, I put it in there and you didn’t know.”

As the two cop cars screech into the parking lot, she’s grabbing my hand. “You’re bleeding,” she says.

It’s just another wound to go with all the rest. “I’ve been bleeding for four years.”

She crystalizes. Freezes. Her eyes, big gaping holes at the end of the roads on her face.

“Freeze! Put your hands in the air!” the cops yell.

I pull away, doing exactly what they say.

Chapter Six

~Delaney~

The police run at Adrian and me. I can’t think about the sound of their feet hitting the ground or even the guns that were pointed at my head. I just hear his words. See his lips as he says them: “I’ve been bleeding for four years.”

I want to tell him Me too but don’t know if I have the right.

Want to hold him, but I’m pretty sure I don’t have the right for that either.

And then there’s the selfish part of me who wants to say, Maybe we can bleed together. Because it’s different with Maddox. He’ll listen, but he doesn’t talk and I can’t talk to Mom. As horrible as it makes me sound, it feels good to not be alone in the pain.

“Get down on your knees,” one of the policemen says to Adrian.

“It wasn’t him. The guys, they took off.”

“Black Chevy Malibu.” Adrian’s kneeling as he speaks and then rattles off a license plate number. Still, he links his hands together behind his head. I can’t believe he thought to look at the plate. It didn’t even cross my mind.

To my surprise, the cops continue to search him. One of them goes back to their cruiser, putting an APB out on the car. It’s not two seconds later that more cop cars go speeding past.

“His hand. He’s bleeding.” The cop searching Adrian looks at his hand, but Adrian’s eyes are on me. I wonder what he’s thinking. Wishing I could crawl around inside his brain.

Donna comes out about then and they finally let Adrian off the ground.

“Hey, Bert. Can you call an ambulance?” a cop asks.

“I don’t need it. I’m fine,” he grits out.

I step toward him, wanting to help but not sure how to go about it. What to say or if he’ll turn me away, so I do nothing. I’ve always been a coward.

We spend the next couple of hours answering questions, giving descriptions. Someone gives Adrian a cloth to wrap his hand in. The police investigate and gather evidence, while Adrian, Donna, and I stay with another cop. The owners of the restaurant are called down. The police ask Adrian a million times about the window, why he stopped, why he didn’t call the cops and other questions that annoy me.

“I came back to see Delaney,” he says, but I know that’s not true. He came back for his phone. I found it and put it in my purse, hoping to find him to give it to him later. Or not. Maybe I’m a thief and I just wanted to hold on to a part of him. I don’t know, but I also don’t mention it since he didn’t.

I know he has to be in pain, but he doesn’t say anything. His car’s parked by mine now, someone having moved it a while ago.

Finally, what feels like an eternity later, they tell us we can go. They’ll be in touch if they have any more questions.

“Let me bring you to the hospital.” Maybe I should have asked instead, but I don’t. “You need to get your hand checked out.”

“Nah.” He shakes his head. “My medication is in your trunk.”