Katie McGarry - Take Me On

I scrub my hands over my face. This is bad. Last night happened. It wasn’t a nightmare.

“Damn, I guessed wrong. You’re alive.” Near where my head had been, Abby falls back from her knees to her butt. “I can’t decide if that’s good or bad news.”

“Screw you.” My muscles are stiff. Sore. I hesitantly stretch to see if anything’s broken.

Abby presses a hand over her mouth and mock gasps. “Your mother would be appalled by your manners. Tsk. Tsk. I believe pleases and thank-yous are in order.” She loses the fake sweetness. “Even if you are slumming it, Rich Boy.”

She kicks my shin as she stands. “Get up. I’ve got work to do and babysitting is not on the list.”

Memories of last night crash into my mind. More importantly of the girl who possibly rescued me from dying of exposure on the street. “Is Haley okay?”

Being a damned loser last night, I couldn’t muster enough energy or self-respect to drive her home.

“She was the last time I saw her. Are you dating her?”

“No.”

“Fucking her?”

I glare at Abby, but I can’t throw too much anger into it. She also saved my ass. I pop my neck to the side, hoping to expel the annoying insecurity over Haley’s safety.

“Good. Rumor has it she’s decent. She deserves better.”

She probably does. Haley’s probably one of those dinner, a movie, roses type of girls who take a month to work up to the first kiss. Me—not my style. “What time is it?”

“Too early for my clients to be awake, but they will be soon.” Abby pulls a cell phone out of her back pocket. “Get your ass moving. This isn’t the Holiday Inn.”

I’m 30 percent curious over the word clients, then realize I don’t give a shit. “No continental breakfast?”

“How about you bite me?”

I actually chuckle; then I roll my neck and circle my arms. How the hell did my sister get involved with her? The nonmedical assessment says I’m bruised. Nothing more. “Where am I?”

“Isaiah’s foster parents’ house.”

Damn. I reassess the room, searching for the bastard.

“Don’t worry,” she says as she scrolls down the screen. “He stayed with Rachel at the hospital last night since he doesn’t have school today.”

That’s right. Today’s Saturday. “We.”

“What?”

“You said ‘he’ as if you don’t go to school, or did you lie about being a junior?”

“Meh, I consider school optional, but I am a junior.”

“So everything you told Rachel, besides what grade you’re in, was a lie?”

Abby’s lips form a smirk. “I don’t lie to Rachel. But yeah, you can assume anything that comes out of my mouth to anyone but her or Isaiah is a different rendition of the truth. Maybe also to Isaiah’s friend Logan. I like Logan. He reminds me of hot queso and I like queso.”

The veins beneath my scalp begin to pulse. “So you lied about my mother.”

“No, that was the truth. I do know why she goes to the bar once a month. Third Friday of the month to be exact. Comes around seven in the evening. Sound familiar?”

My shoulders slump forward. Shit, Abby does know. “Why does she go there?”

“They sell awesome snow cones. The red one won a blue ribbon in the state fair last year.”

The pounding intensifies. This girl is like one of those damned flies that swarm your head and your food. “Let me guess—you’re lying.”

She winks. “You’re catching on fast, and here I pegged you for stupid.”

A muscle in my jaw twitches. I can’t stand this girl, but she did give me a place to crash, so I watch my manners and change the subject. “Did he tell you to bring me here?”

Figures the asshole would want something to hold over me: help with a bad situation, then he’ll squeeze me for something. Money, drugs. It’s gotta be the type of angle he used to snare Rachel. Why else would she have been around a guy like him?

“Isaiah’s initial response was to let you bleed out in the street, but then he got sentimental and thought Rachel would be sad if you died, so he called and asked me to take care of you. I told him Rachel would’ve gotten over you and that we could make her happy if we bought her a bunny, but he was so damned insistent. See, Isaiah and I have this past. I’ve known him forever because we met each other in a Dumpster—”

“Why here?” I cut her off, not caring about their tragic backstory. Everyone has a tale to sob over. Rich or poor.

Abby looks at me with wide eyes. “Because if I took you to my house that would start rumors. Really, West. I’m a single girl. I’ve gotta protect my image. We wouldn’t want people to think we’ve been doing something indecent.”

Talking to her is like watching a cat chase its tail. “Another lie.”

“I can pretend that’s my answer. I like pretending. You can create anything you want out of the world.”

“You’re possibly the most fucked-up person I’ve met.”

“That’s not news.” Abby slides her phone back into her pocket. “Now, if we’re done ‘pretending’ to have a conversation, I’d like to go see my best friend. And, no, that’s not a lie.”

She turns on her heel and heads for the stairs.

“Abby,” I call out as I shove my feet into my sneakers. She hesitates at the landing and waits for me to reach her. “Tell me why my mom’s going to the bar.”

A wicked grin spreads across her face. “I could tell you, but there would be absolutely no fun in doing that.” And she walks up the stairs.

Haley

Every breath tastes of dust, spilled gasoline and oil. Layers of grime coat the cold concrete floor of the garage and my cheek has become numb against it. How long has it been since Matt abandoned me? Seconds, hours, days? At first I assumed he left to get help—to find sanity in the insane, but no...he left. He just left.

“Haley!” The voice is far away, yet a nagging inside me says it’s near.

Blood soaks my hands. It’s Matt’s blood—I think. Maybe mine. I don’t know. We argued. That’s all we do anymore...argue. It’s what we’re good at, but now it seems wrong. He hit me. I hit him back. And somehow neither of us stopped.

“She’s cold,” Jax says. “And look at her eyes. I think she’s in shock.”

It’s an effort to turn my head toward Jax. His whitish-blond hair is spiked into a Mohawk. His shirt goes up and over his head and he lays it on my arms and chest, but not my hands. No, he wouldn’t let it touch my hands. The blood would ruin his white T-shirt.

“Haley!” Jax poises his hands near me, not touching, just there...moving as if he doesn’t know what to fix first or worried that if he did make contact he’d become diseased, cursed like me. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” I don’t recognize my voice. I’m different now. Changed.

I’m up like I’ve done a sit-up and my older brother, Kaden, supports my weight with his chest. He lifts my wrists. “Are you bleeding?”

I shake my head. “No.” I don’t think so.

The room spins and so do I. Kaden drops my hands to grip my shoulders. “Easy, Haley. Is she hurt?”

I tilt my head and thoughtfully look at Jax. Am I? Matt slapped my face. It’s how the fight started. Is there a permanent bruise there? My own personal scarlet letter branding me as defeated?

Jax’s eyes dart everywhere. “She looks okay, but she ain’t acting right. Her knuckles are bruised. She’s definitely been in a fight.”

“There was blood.” That seems important to tell. “Matt and I have been together for a year.” Because that also feels important. One month after the end of my sophomore year, Matt and I began. Now, it’s the end of my junior year and Matt and I are over.

I nod. Yes, we’re over. There’s no coming back from this.

“Yes,” I repeat. “There was blood.”

“Who did you make bleed?” asks Jax. “Matt?”

Matt and I argued and he was mad, so mad. He slapped me, punched my stomach, then went for the head, and I intercepted him. I was a few hits in when he took advantage of my dropped guard and I absorbed the blow behind the ear. I collapsed to the floor and then he left. “I hit him.”

I stopped his initial attack and I made him bleed.

“Matt did this to you?” Kaden’s voice is pitched low yet hard, a promise of violence.

I shiver at the unsaid warning. They can’t go after Matt. They can’t. I’ve already created too much destruction.

“I saw her leave the party with him,” Kaden continues.

Jax launches off the floor. “He’s fucking dead.”

“You can’t.” Ignoring the pressure of Kaden’s hands, I press my feet hard against the concrete while swatting at my brother. He lets me go and Jax grabs my arm when I sway.

Jax leans into me as he holds me up. “What the fuck happened?”

My eyes flash open and Jax’s shouted words echo in my head.

I’ve never been so relieved to see the roofing nails sticking through my uncle’s roof. I suck in a breath to calm the rush of blood pounding my temples. I used to have this nightmare frequently after things ended between me and Matt this past summer and it figures I’d have it again after what happened last night. Especially since it was his younger brother who jumped me.

What sucks is it’s not just a nightmare. It’s the past reliving itself in my dreams.

I sit up and shiver against the cold air of the attic. No, it’s not the cold air flowing from the cracked window causing the chill. It’s the fact that life has become complicated. I gather my long hair at the base of my neck. Complicated. When is life going to be easy?

This past summer, I lied to Jax and Kaden. I told them that Matt and I got into a verbal argument and broke up and that after Matt left, someone I didn’t see attacked me from behind. My family hates me now because of what I’ve done, but I’m lying to protect them. I’ve walked away from everything to protect them.